the wisdom of whores

it's not what you think.

i have been consistent, if not insistent, in my advice to not put much stock in what is societally accepted as “beauty”. now that we’re on the same page, i’d like us to turn our attention to women who understand that fantasy, more than beauty, is where the real money is made.

an economist walks into a brothel

the past sixteen months or so, i’ve busied myself with constructing a signature silhouette based off an amalgamation of the references most moving to me. notably, southern gothic à la toni morrison. the philosophies of film noir and neo-noir. dita von teese (who herself is an amalgamation). 18th-century parisian courtesans (who were much more successful than their english counterparts and had more freedom of movement than their predecessors in han china). the visual aesthetics of late 2000s black film stars and early 2010s victoria secret’s angels. there’s a bunch more, but it’s proprietary.

this is my personal archive. pulling from this catalogue, i present myself in the most appropriate ways based of the situation i find myself in, the mission i have for that situation, and the feeling i’m seeking to embody whilst executing my mission. that’s what fashion should do for you: be the physical manifestation of your inner confidence. the resounding echo of your essence. remember, your attitude matters more than any designer label.

although the situation may differ, be it at work, a date, or a cozy night in, the narrative thread remains the same: fantasy, fantasy, fantasy.

i’ve written on the importance of being our own fantasy before we’re anyone else’s. being the metaphorical cam girl of our dreams, so to speak. tonight, i am writing about a different cam girl. in fact, she’s hardly a cam girl. for starter’s, you can’t find her on social media.¹ better yet, she’s hard to pin down in real life as it is. as elton said, “some things look better, baby, just passing through.”

now, i’m not asking you to become an international woman of mystery. indeed, some of us will execute our goals faster, and with far less friction, cosplaying² as the girl next door than we ever will playing at veronica lodge. i know the ‘just be yourself’ advice seems trite, but in the game of life, it’s the best advice you can follow to succeed in your goals. no one else can be you. i know you’re expecting me to advocate for you to become a ‘better you’ at this point in the paragraph. sure. but you already knew that. and that’s not the snake oil i’m peddling.

the bridge i’m trying to sell you was built by junigan psychoanalysts whose crowning achievement was advancing the study of archetypes. better put, i’d like to sell you on the wisdom of whores.

i’ll admit. i did try to be provocative with that last sentence. but the way i, and countless women before me, see it. it's less about being provocative. as it is about being pragmatic. in a world determined to crush your spirit and feed it to an algorithm for greater profit and even more market share, fantasy is your best tool if you want a fighting chance in this brave new world.

instead of falling victim to a curated fantasy that is being sold to you by others (e.g., influencers, technology firms, political action committees, etc). for the sole purpose of extracting your energy (the same thing you need in order to improve your life) for greater profit and even more market share. create your own fantasy that others can fall in love with.

we live in a capitalistic society that runs on an economy of favors. if people can’t call you and get something they need from you in exchange for something you want from them, good luck. this reality can be crushing to some and is the cause of many an illness in others.

however, there’s an alternative society. one where you’re not required to be useful. but don’t exhale your breathe just yet. in this world, it’s true that you’re not required to be useful. but being wanted is a barrier to entry.

if capitalistic society runs on an economy of favors, this one runs on an economy of love. capitalistic society creates gods³ among men. this one creates goddesses among robber barons.

the demi-monde: from paris with love

napoleon bonaparte, a man much misunderstood by both history and his fellow countrymen, said that luck, for him, is a woman.⁴

if you ask an art historian, they’ll tell you than a fetish is an object that is seen as having certain, embedded magical properties. in our times, we think of fetish in a sexual sense. but the origin of the word, at least its usage, had little to do with sex and everything to do with art. as all things should. perhaps i’m just too much of a romantic.

historians will tell you that all roads lead to rome. romantics will tell you that after the fall of the holy roman empire, paris replaced rome as the stage of choice for all those seeking to make their mark as men of culture and clout. at least in the early 20th century. case in point, art dealer paul guilluame. the frenchmen who took art nègre from being considered un art primitif to quelque chose avant-garde:

“guillaume’s goal…was less to explain the virtues of art nègre to the masses than to create an aura of glamorous exclusivity around it—to make it known as a promontory to be reached ‘on wings of snobbery.’

snobbery as a whole, he wrote in 1923, was a quality ‘of which no ill must be spoken,’ and guillaume’s shrewd understanding of its nuances contributed a great deal to his success. as a dealer, his distinctive gift was to wed the snobbery of the avant-garde, which tended to hold financial success in contempt, to the snobbery of the wealthy social elite. in his sales of paintings, he accomplished this marriage by placing daring canvases in ornate eighteenth-century frames, which made them easier to assimilate into well-appointed bourgeois interiors; in his promotion of art nègre, he accomplished it by bringing what had previously been an arcane modernist aesthetic predilection—the concern of a tiny number of ‘real artists’—into the world of fashion. his efforts were brilliantly effective.

as jody blake has shown in her incisive work on black american music in paris, by the early 1920s art nègre had become a blanket term for all aesthetic products of africa and the african diaspora, from sculpture to jazz. after the west indian author rené maran’s batouala: véritable roman nègre won the 1922 prix goncourt, press accounts described the prize committee’s decision as a manifestation of the same primitivist enthusiasm that attracted parisian aesthetes to african masks and figures. when the black american dancer josephine baker made her celebrated debut in the revue nègre of 1925—also staged at the théâtre des champs-elysées—it was conventional wisdom among critics to see her as a ‘sinuous idol,’ and her erotic movements as endowed with ‘the compelling potency of the finest examples of nègre sculpture.’”⁵

when napoleon bonaparte declared himself emperor of the republic on december 2, 1804, he did so out of ambition. when he crowned his wife, joséphine, as empress of the republic that same day, he did so out of love. fealty even.

in all the military campaigns that napoleon fought, as he consolidated power in his bid to be emperor, he would write his wife these unhinged, love-sick, historians would later say “sex-obsessed,” letters declaring his undying love for her. excerpts from his letters reveals a man madly in love:

“‘not a day has passed without my loving you, without holding you in my arms. every time i drink a cup of tea, i curse the glory and ambition that keeps me from the soul of my existence. in the middle of business, at the head of my troops, reviewing the camps, my wonderful joséphine is the single object in my heart, occupation of my soul, [and] absorbs my thoughts.’

‘by what art have you learned to entrance all my faculties, to concentrate in yourself my spiritual existence—it is witchcraft, dear love…to live for joséphine, that is the story of my life.’

he complained that in ‘countries with any morals,’ women were home at ten and ‘write to their husbands, think of them, live for them.’ he could have easily found such a biddable woman. he chose joséphine—independent, difficult, and cool—because he adored a challenge. and he was her sexual slave: ‘a kiss to the heart, then lower, much, much lower.’”

napoleon’s letters to joséphine, as revealed in her biography.

that imperialist man took joséphine out of her less than kosher existence in the 19th century parisian demi-monde and elevated her to empress of the first french republic; when france was at its zenith, imperially and politically speaking.

joséphine would later make the mistake of not taking her husband seriously⁶, but that’s an essay for another time. when days were happier between the two of them, napoleon lavished joséphine with his spoils of war:

“she [joséphine] pretended that she had no desire for power. feigning meekness, she would say she was ‘not born for such grandeur.’ but really, she wished for ascendancy over all those who once snubbed her.

joséphine’s proofs of her victories were her incredible possessions: her extravagant wardrobe, her artworks, and her jewelry box spilling more diamonds than marie antoinette’s once had. her home, malmaison, was a work of art. complete with a swiss alpine chalet and greenhouse, her gardens had hundreds of varieties of flowers never grown in france. the house was furnished with priceless paintings and statues napoleon had stolen for her from all over the world. joséphine was one of the most powerful and energetic art collectors in history. she was a second catherine the great, using art to shore up her rule and confer upon herself the trappings of power.

a mistress, a courtesan, a revolutionary heroine, a collector, a patron, and an empress…”

before she was handed over to napoleon,⁷ joséphine was a woman living in the 19th century parisian demi-monde with the rest of the courtesans, mistresses, and women whom honoré de balzac said “had roots in legitimate society, and whose fall has love as its excuse, as its sole excuse.”⁸

joséphine was napoleon’s fetish because he believed women to be the personification of luck.⁹ joséphine did not help napoleon draft military strategies. he had advisors for that. nor did she help napoleon financially support their lifestyle. he had access to the french treasury for that. joséphine was napoleon’s good luck charm. she was not useful to him. but she was desired by him. he married her. adopted her children as his own. and when he became emperor of france, he made her not just his empress, but empress of the entire republic.

while napoleon’s imperial world was built on an economy of favors, where he was principally concerned with winning wars. joséphine’s world was ruled by an economy of love. where her greatest asset, both to herself and her husband, was her charm. he admired this asset of hers greatly and always used it to his advantage:

“‘to me, luck is a woman,’ [napoleon] said, and that woman was joséphine. he became accustomed to associate the idea of her influence with every piece of good fortune which befell him…as he saw it, he had gained majesty with her, and in order for his success to continue, he would have to keep her by his side. ‘i win battles,’ he declared, ‘but joséphine wins hearts.’”¹⁰

i know i wrote at the beginning of this essay that this world, as alluded to by the 19th century parisian demi-monde, is one where you won’t have to be useful. i lied.

usefulness is necessary, but subjective.

being charming is useful. being pleasant to be around is useful. being someone who can anticipate the needs of those around is extremely useful. so, even if you decide to run your life off an economy of love, instead of an economy of favors, you still have to be “useful.” but fret not. when you’re charming, people let you get away with murder. societal beauty standards be damned. so, decide for yourself what it is about you that will be of most use to those closest to you and perfect that. make it your calling card.

joséphine charmed while napoleon ruled. people feared him, but loved her. this dynamic served them well.

decide what will serve you best and see what happens.

the town tramp grows up and the house bunny moves out

i identify as a hardworking, intelligent, beautiful woman.

in my teenage years, i thought little of beautifying myself for others (although i did have a healthy skincare addiction) and focused principally on my studies. this focus paid dividends when i received my letter of acceptance from harvard. with my greatest childhood dream achieved, i was able to turn my attention on more serious matters: perfecting my makeup, learning how to curl my hair, and enduring a horrific freshman year that i now regard as a racially-fueled humiliation ritual.

what taking the time, 10 years by my estimation, to achieve a goal that would make it very hard for people to dismiss out of any room i wanted to be in allowed me to do, is focus on anything else i wanted. if you’re not principally concerned with people taking you seriously, you can focus on having fun. it’s a privilege to be taken seriously at face value. i won’t claim that i understood at 8 years old that that’s the game i was hunting, but i did know at that age that was a game to be played. and if i wanted to play it at the level i desired, i needed not just an ivy league degree. but one from harvard. so i off to the library i went.

studies aside, i’ve always been a venusian. i have always placed a high premium on my physical looks. i’ve always been drawn to women who themselves are also venusians. i get along best with them. and capricorns.

my constituency will always be hardworking, intelligent, beautiful women.

so, of course, i’m a dolly parton fan.

i love dolly because she understands the importance of three things: big hair, high heels, and a well tailored dress.

her and tina turner share that in common. and what dolly and tina also share in common is the undeniability of their work ethic. i mean, dolly wrote jolene and i will always love you in the same day. her pen is undeniable. her impact on the music industry will live on long, long after her. and even outside the industry, dolly’s impact is even more widespread. for example, her imagination library nonprofit sends an age-appropriate book every month to every child enrolled in the program from birth until the age of five, regardless of family income. in 2018, the program celebrated the delivery of the 100 millionth book since its inception.

not only is she a cultural icon, but she’s a philanthropic powerhouse as well.

both of these things factor into my love of dolly, but even more so, is the fact that she chose to create her own fantasy and embody it in all matters of her appearance. dolly is the cam girl of her dreams. her look today is the manifestation of the look she fell in look with as a little girl:

“she has said before [that she] modeled [her look off] the ‘town tramp’, a local woman who wore high heels and tight skirts, who parton would look out for on trips into town.

‘she was flamboyant. she had bright red lipstick, long red fingernails. she had high-heeled shoes, little floating plastic goldfish in the heels of them, short skirts, low-cut tops, and i just thought she was beautiful. when people would say, ‘she ain’t nothing but trash,’ i would always say, ‘well, that’s what I’m gonna be when I grow up.’

her grandfather, a preacher, and father, a sharecropper, both hated the way she dressed; her grandfather would even physically punish her.

‘i was willing to pay for it,’ she says. ‘i’m very sensitive, i didn’t like being disciplined—it hurt my feelings so bad to be scolded or whipped or whatever. but sometimes there’s just that part of you that’s willing, if you want something bad enough, to go for it.’

she wrote a song years later, she says—the sacrifice, on her 2011 album better day—and it kind of sums it up. it says, ‘i was gonna be rich no matter how much it cost / and i was going to win no matter how much i lost / down through the years i’ve kept my eye on the prize / and you ask if it’s worth the sacrifice.’ i think it is, for me.”¹¹

dolly was not about to let her grandfather, her father, the patriarchy, hell, the music industry stop her from embodying her fantasy. this resilience is a testament to her character, and her complete devotion to the venusian arts.

some women place an incredibly high premium on their looks. in the spirit of queen esther, they are renewed with each beautification and self care ritual.

in my opinion, our own beauty should not be measured against societal beauty standards. especially if you live in a country where the dominant beauty standard has nothing to do with women who come from your heritage or racial background. pardon my french, but that’s a fucking fool’s errand. instead, your beauty should be cultivated as a tool to create the fantasy you seek to embody and ultimately, escape the drudgery of reality.

some women do not focus on beauty, nor beautification, because they believe it’s for women who exist principally in the demi-monde. vedic astrological researcher, claire nakti had interesting words to say about this:

“due to the influence of christianity on our customs, many women only beautify and ornament themselves in order to please random strangers…and upon marrying, they shut off and neglect their appearance totally, subconsciously believing it to be the art of immature women or prostitutes.”¹²

i’ve always been a woman who appreciates scholarship. i continue to be in love with the idea of mastering one’s craft. when it comes to beauty, i continue to perfect this craft with the inspiration i find in other women. i remember watching the girls next door as a tween and falling in love with holly madison’s curls. it’s because her, and 2010s victoria secrets angels, that i came to understand the importance of a one inch barrel curl.

the barrel size makes all the difference!

what also makes all the difference is financial independence. which holly never had while living with hugh hefner in the playboy mansion. she had to sing for her supper, among other things, because she had no leverage. being over-levered is actually what forced her into the playboy mansion to begin with. and hugh exploited that vulnerability. her entire stint in the playboy mansion was not ruled by an economy of love, it was strictly an economy of favors. so she had to be of use to hugh.

we’ve toggled back and forth in this essay about usefulness and its discontents. i’ve argued that an economy of love is one where women do not have to concern themselves with being useful, as is the default expectation with an economy of favors. which is bankrolled by capitalistic society where the system requires everyone to be of use in order to perpetuate the society.

ultimately, there’s aspects of both economies that are of use to women. in order to insulate yourself from the shocks that could come from technological innovations, inflation, rebel attacks in the red sea, you need skills that are of use to more than just yourself. an entire company is a start. that said, you shouldn’t have to kill yourself to live. you’re a diouana woman after all, and your life ought to be built off of rest, beauty, love, and luxury.

of course, it’s not the only way to live. it’s just my choice. what’s yours?

sweet dreams,

a diouana woman

p.s. truth or dare

this section is a curated list of ideas and items i’ve engaged with recently that i’ve loved. the truths were 10/10, so i must recommend. and the dares were not so great, so it’s me saying don’t do it. but only if you dare. get it? great. let’s begin:

truth: if you want an example of what happens when you’re a woman stuck in the demi-monde, i recommend watching une fille facile. when i first watched the film at age 21, i thought it was about sex. in my second watching at age 23, i realized it’s a film about class. it even begins with the quote, “the most important thing in life is choosing a profession. chance holds the key.” fate might have its favorites, but we always have a choice. choose well.

dare: there’s no need to place your future in the hands of others. so don’t.

if you haven’t already, watch the video essay about this piece: you might also enjoy the video essay i did for this essay, you can watch it on youtube here:

disclaimer: the views expressed in this essay are those of the author and do not reflect the views of any employer, past or current.

1. there’s an essay to be written about how the biggest threat to the techno-feudalist, voyeuristic / exhibitionist (hence the “cam girl” moniker) social media-fueled culturescape we find ourselves in in “modern” society is a woman who is totally and utterly private. elusive, even. is this of interest to you as a reader? kindly let me know.

2. i use cosplaying here to suggest that we’re all just playing whichever role fits best for the situation at hand. our “real”, natural selves are just mosaics of our memories and interests. shifting these tiles as we see fit is what allows us to create the best “character” for the circumstance, or conversation, we find ourselves in. now, i’m not asking you to exaggerate or mislead. remember, never beg, borrow, or barter. but i am acknowledging that there are different social masks we must place on for varying social occasions. our foremothers called this “social graces.”

3. during the zhou dynasty in ancient china, the mandate of heaven was the justification for imperial rule. it was a central political and philosophical concept used to justify the rule of the emperor, stating that the divine heavens granted the emperor the right to rule based on their virtue and ability to maintain harmony and order. i argue, that in our present times, we have made tech-bro ceos our new emperors and have given them the mandate of heaven. just look at california’s governor vetoing a state bill to regulate artificial intelligence, what would have been the first in the united states. better to leave that to those with a vested interest in it anyways. who needs the mandated input of experienced experts and policy makers, when you’re a 20 year-old whiz kid who dropped out of stanford to launch your startup at y combinator who calls elon a “friend”?

4. this comes from the biography of his wife, joséphine bonaparte. a book, and a woman, i strongly recommend everyone read and study.

5. monroe, john warne. metropolitan fetish: african sculpture and the imperial french invention of primitive art. cornell university press, 2018.

6. religious viewers of the real housewives of new york know that sonja morgan made the same mistake with her ex husband.

7. i highly recommend her biography. the full story is even crazier.

8. rounding, virginia. grandes horizontales: the legends and lives of nineteenth-century courtesans. bloomsbury publishing, 2003.

9. for the historians and cultural theorists among us, it should be noted that joséphine originated from martinique. making her, what those of us in the francophone world would term, une femme métisse. however, when joséphine came to france, she went to great lengths to distance herself from her antillean origin. for all intents and purposes, joséphine lived her life as a white woman. not a mixed one. however, napoleon was not unaware of joséphine’s origins, so there is an analysis to be done on how her racial identity was laced in napoleon’s fetishization of her an exotic object qui a venu de départements et régions d'outre-mer.

10. williams, kate. ambition and desire: the dangerous life of josephine bonaparte. harpercollins, 2014.

11. keeping her eye on the prize has made dolly an astute businesswoman. she has this quote where she says, “i look like a woman but i think like a man. i’ve done business with men who think i’m as silly as i look. by the time they realise i’m not, i’ve done got the money and gone.”

12. one of my favorite quotes from a favorite film of mine has sanaa lathan’s character saying, in response to why her house is so beige, “my mother thinks bright colors are for children and whores.”