Geisha

“Adversity is like a strong wind…it doesn’t just hold us back from places we might otherwise go. It also tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that afterward, we see ourselves as we really are, and not merely as we might like to be.”
Memoirs of a Geisha

There is a great deal of backlash about the movie “Memoirs of a Geisha”. Some centered wholly on the lack of Japanese actresses, or the incorrect hue of makeup, but more interestingly on the misrepresentation of the subject. I find this curious as a period piece. Of course things have changed, and of course it is fiction… it is a love story.

As the geisha world has evolved, I also look at my own. The North American exotic entertainment industry has changed a great deal over the past decades.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/career-geisha-outgrow-the-stereotype/2005/12/10/1134086848297.html


“That is not to say that the atmosphere inside the tatami-mat rooms is not sexually charged. Defusing the tension, while allowing male guests to leave with their egos unharmed, is a skill Umechika is trying hard to acquire.”



The women are entertainers. They provide an escape and a service. Sexual in nature, but not in practice, I wonder if geisha and strippers are cultural equivalents.




Perhaps I dance because I am meant to dance. Perhaps there is something in me that is genuinely a fantasy, perhaps I offer a parallel dimension just outside the confines and routine of reality. There are many things I have learned as an exotic entertainer, yet there is an unspoken element. I enjoy offering an escape. It gives me pleasure to watch a man relax and confide. I strive to create an individualized environment of sensual acceptance for whom I choose.


I am an entertainer, a fantasy, a creation to fulfill a desire. Not sex. Sex is easy to obtain.

“Geisha are not courtesans. And we are not wives. We sell our skills, not our bodies. We create another secret world, a place only of beauty. The very word ‘geisha’ means artist... a moving work of art.”



In stolen moments I weave a secret world of beauty and surreal intrigue. There is sacrifice. Love is a dangerous phenomenon, one that I am not willing to risk even for those I have affection for. Ambition and purpose require choices. I do not want a secondary income, or a less valued career. I am not willing to be bought or kept. I am not willing to forgo my financial, professional, or educational independence in a quest for love and forever.


Perhaps in different times the path that led women into a profession of sexual insinuations and entertaining was more arduous. Perhaps more women are now entering into those same professions from a feminist perspective. But there are still tears, hopes, secrets, hidden identities, and unexpressed sacrifice.