Socialism Also Means Free Sex - How The Democratic Socialist Mayor Of New York Gave A Boost To Prostitution

Blaise O'Glory had worked hard to get where she was atop the pyramid - a premier dancer at one of New Orleans's hottest clubs.  She had paid her dues and put in her time in small Miami clubs, Las Vegas runways, and New York 'bistros' and finally was now a star.  The oversized billboards in the Quarter showed her in full finery, glorious, glamorous, and infinitely beautiful. 

Many critics assume that club dancers like Blaise O'Glory (aka Margaret Byrne) made their money not on stage but with high-rolling clients who would pay thousands for a night with the underground's most desirable women; and they would be right.  However, the pay was not what one would think.  

These women were cheap prostitutes after all - not streetwalkers or part-time hookers, but goods for sale in a bargain basement market.  Glitz and glamour might be all well and good, but Blaise was not making the money that high-end Washington call girls demanded. 

Mrs. Carpenter's establishment in the Nation's Capital, for example, catered to members of Congress and their aides and the girls there easily earned seven figures.  Mrs. Carpenter was known for her absolute secrecy - her books were as tightly closed as the doors to Fort Knox.  'I am a fortress', she said, and that was the key to her success. 

Of course the girls were remarkable pieces of merchandise, collected, purchased, and trained from the bazaars, harems, and palaces of Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.  Mrs. Carpenter prided herself on her eclecticism, good taste, and superior quality. No one ever asked for their money back. 

This is what Margaret - the name Blaise preferred to be called outside the office - aspired to.  A position of class and dignity. If she were going to sell her wares, then it should be what the market would bear and she knew she was a prize whose light had shone for too long under a barrel. 

Yet, how?  The road from the tackiest quarter in America to the high-rolling power corridors of the East  Coast was not an easy one and she knew no one who could guide her.  Until she met Bertram Landry, state legislator, wealthy attorney, and lover of the trade. 

Not only was Landry a frequent patron of Margaret's club but a prominent Democratic Socialist, one of the very few in Louisiana, ordinarily a rock-solid conservative state; but his good ol' boy, Will Rogers charm, sex appeal, and marvelously-written speeches which were down home, Cajun and bayou, shrimp boat and po'boy friendly were engaging and seductive.  

There was none of the radicalism of his northern colleagues, politicians who scared the Right with their talks of social revolution.  No, Landry spoke just as openly about opening the public treasury for the people and assuring them that they would want for nothing, but he danced carefully around issues of taxes, redistributive legislation, and other political red flags. 

Now, prostitution had always been a heady business in New Orleans, a real going concern, but the working conditions left much to be desired.  Commercial sex workers barely earned a living wage which did not include health care or retirement accounts; and patrons were forced - even in as open and tolerant city as this, to slink around and cover their tracks. 

If commercial sex work were to be considered a profession, as progressives had always demanded, then it should join the mainstream.  Clients should be offered quality goods at reasonable prices, and government should pay the difference.  In other words, in a Democrat Socialist vision, prostitution should be free. 

When Landry was finally noticed as a likely Congressional winner - a Democratic safe seat was coming up for election and Landry was the front-runner - he caught the attention of Zorhan Mamdani, recently elected Mayor of New York.

Mamdani had long been an advocate for professionalizing prostitution and came at it from many different angles. First and foremost, out of respect for women who have engaged in the world's oldest profession with dignity and honor but forced to live under a cloud of social opprobrium.  

Secondly, out of a desire to incorporate all enterprise within the socialist ethos - prostitution is goods and services no different from any other, in demand, necessary in a socially diverse and sexually varied world, and able to fill an economic place in the socialist hierarchy. 

The old socialists - Soviet Communists in particular - were prudes who felt that prostitution was a foreign, capitalist excess which if left unchecked could be a rotting factor to the socialist commonweal.  The new socialists - Mamdani and newly elected Mayor of Washington, DC Janeese George - were different.  

They understood that commercial sex workers from the ho's of the 'hood to the beauties of Mrs. Carpenter's establishment all belonged in the public domain where they could be included in the benefits of redistributed wealth and be recognized as productive members of society. 

So, Landry and Mamdani began what was to be a good relationship.  The two men in addition to shared values had a similar interest in women, both as delightful sex objects and commercially viable.  Mamdani, of course, a practicing Muslim could not be as free in satisfying his sexual desire as his new friend but he was with him in principle. 

In fact, Mamdani secretly wished - like any good Muslim man - to have many wives and a harem to boot, to live like a Turkish pasha or Arabian sheik.  This proposal of Landry might be just the thing for the people of New York and for the Mayor.  He of course would be given les droits du seigneur and have his pick of any of the tempting beauties who would flock to the city under its new openness. 

Mamdani was partial to Fulani women - those elegant, beautiful Semitic women originally from Egypt but now angels of the Sahel - but he was getting ahead of himself. First things first.  Not everyone in the city would jump on board quickly.  Marketing, preparation, and social evangelism would be necessary. 

Yet the groundwork had already been laid.  The Mayor had promised free pre-schools, free groceries, free public transport, and free housing, to this socially adventurous proposition should have no serious objection. 

Landry met with Margaret - took her to lunch at Les Trois Anges, one of New Orleans' finest restaurants and told her to pack her bags.  New York would be her next stop.  He and the mayor had a few things to work out, politics being the tricky business it always had been, but the wait would be not long.  She would finally earn what she deserved and would be respected by the most influential men of the city. 

A number of months went by, the election for Landry's Congressional seat was coming up, and he had heard nothing from Mamdani except for terse text - 'Takes time, mon ami'. 

In fact all the stars in the mayor's democratic socialist agenda had fallen to earth.  His free groceries went bust, empty shelves, de jure looting, and bankruptcy.  High fares were still being charged on the subway - the Transit Authority told him that the system would fall apart without additional financing - and the pre-school buildings were as empty as those Learing Centers in Minneapolis.  Free prostitution would have to wait. 

When Mamdani finally called Landry it was for money.  Couldn't the soon-to-be freshman Congressman find some spare money in his campaign war chest to help an old friend? 

The friendship went south after that, and Landry, true to his word, took care of Blaise/Margaret, introduced her to Mrs. Carpenter via Senator Kennedy, and secured her a place in the most famous place for beautiful women for sale on the East Coast. 

Give Them What They Want - Snake Oil, Shell Games, And The Clown Show Of American Democracy

Bobby Benson loved dressing up as a clown on Halloween - all the face paint, the red ball nose, the oversized red lips, the freaky hair, the polka data white suit, and oversized shoes.  'Why, my little boy looks just like Clarabelle', said his mother referring to the Howdy Doody television clown of her youth; and so the two of them went out trick-or-treating and he came back with a bag full of candy. 

He was always the class clown, making funny faces, walking like a duck, and looking goofy; and when it was later time to get serious, he still couldn't help playing practical jokes, whoopee fart cushions, fly-in-ice cubes, and realistic-looking cockroaches. 

Life was a joke, Bobby thought, and it was painful to sit through the droning lectures, the preposterous ideas, and the unfathomable received wisdom of his professors.  Ikey Schwartz was the worst - or to Bobby worthy of Barnum & Bailey - a posturing fool who punctuated his lectures with 'not unlike', 'in the main', and 'prelapsarian'.  

Or Bugsy Wertheimer, one of the new DEI hires  featured on the Alumni Magazine, keynote speaker at major assemblies, and Dean of Intercultural Studies, a catch-all department for slow learners. 

Or President Phillips himself, known for his dog's jaw, attached by a field surgeon with Charlie Company in the battle for Khe Sanh - an apocryphal story, but no student could look at him without thinking German Shepherd, that muzzle, sharp chin, and sharp incisors. 

Bobby was a good student, sailed through the most challenging math and organic chemistry offerings - disciplines without the cant of the softer liberal arts - and graduated with honors

Yet he couldn't see himself either adding or compounding, and his science degree was worth little more than the parchment on which it was printed.

He had always been fascinated by advertising.  If there was ever a profession which captured, embodied, embraced America, this was it. Each ad was a masterpiece of intellectual engineering - the whooping and hollering for Chipotle or the handholding and meaningful looks of Stage 4 cancer patients on Mesopriazolan ('Life's best journey is ahead'). They were marvelously airy forget-me-nots, bouquets of hope, pleasure, and delight.  What genius, Bobby thought.  What inspiration. 

It so happened that during the year of Bobby's graduation, a contentious, no-holds-barred election was taking place in his home state.  The ads were masterpieces of cleverly crafted lies, innuendoes, fabrications and false promises; and yet standing tall like the Colossus of Rhodes was the candidate, chisel-jawed, Hollywood ready, and soldierly - clearly a man for the people. 

With luck and an appeal by Uncle Alton, a retired Madison Avenue guru and responsible for the groundbreaking Volkswagen ad - 'Did you ever wonder how the snowplow driver gets to the snowplow?', the sound of the rear, air-cooled engine starting.  Brilliant, unmatched for subtlety, humor, and marketing insight - Bobby got a job in the creative department of Hollings, Appleby, and Lane, the agency responsible for the political ads he was so impressed by. 

It was a dream job.  Of course as a young intern, he was not directly involved in creative design, but he learned the trade - just how the candidate, branded 'a vaporous fool' by the opposition, was made to look so good. Bobby learned about lighting, color, background, music, polished editing.  Given his interest, his quick study, and obvious intelligence, he was invited to sit in on key creative department deliberations, and his careful, well-timed, respectful comments were listened to with interest.  Before long he was accepted as a valued junior partner in the business. 

The polls were encouraging - more and more people were buying what the candidate was selling although it was nothing more than snake oil.  P.T. Barnum was right when he said, 'A sucker is born every minute', and made millions off of two-headed babies, bearded women, dwarves, giants, and ape-men. 

Bobby quickly learned it takes two to tango. A con can't work without those willing-to-be conned, and the electoral public bought the snake oil sold by the candidate like it was going out of business.  They swallowed the bait hook, line, and sinker and clambered for more.  Selling this empty-headed, intellectually vacant political shyster was as easy as stealing candy from a baby. 

The die was cast.  Bobby had found his life's work; and so it was after a few canny moves and a number of years of experience, he was able to form his own political advisory group, Benson & Associates which had attracted a number of bright men and women like himself - with no particular political anchor to hold them back, and with no particular moral commitment.  They were perfect for the job, and by and by became one of Washington's go-to agencies.  There was always an election somewhere, and B&A were always the first off the block. 

So this was democracy, Bobby reflected one bright, cool May morning as he sat reading the Washington Post in his Spring Valley garden - a jamboree of nonsense bought in bales by a credulous electorate. Gender fluidity? How in God's name and on his good, green earth did that idea ever get traction?

'I did that', said Allie Markus who worked for a competitor firm and who went on to explain exactly how he took a completely nonsensical notion and gave it credibility, currency, and traction.  P.T. Barnum was proved right yet again as the record showed.  The idea went viral, was being taught in schools, forced revisions of university standards and curricula, and changed the English lexicon. 

'I'm impressed', said Bobby. 'Who is responsible for climate change?', and the two men spent another hour over martinis and oysters at the Old Ebbitt Grill. 

The climate change hoax was one of the most brilliant advertising campaigns ever.  It combined faux science, fears of Biblical Armageddon and the end of days, cooked books, earnestness, and bald-faced lies, and the public bought it all - so much so that trillions of taxpayer dollars went into the fantasy world of saving the planet.  

'I want to meet the guy', said Bobby. 

'Guys, plural', said his colleague.  Finch & Stanley had a whole army of creatives and market researchers testing the waters.  It takes a village, Bobby'. 

And so it was with illegal aliens, redistribution of wealth, and the rest of the progressive canon.  The Occupy Wall Street caper was one of Madison Avenue's best.  The campaign was a cross between a Monopoly caricature, old Soviet anti-capitalist billboards, and WWII posters of buck-toothed kamikaze pilots. 

Never has the world seen such a circus, such magnificent balderdash, such brilliant pandering.  

Alexander Hamilton was wary of them, noted Bobby, but we are making millions off of them. 

Putin and Xi look on with hilarity at the American jamboree, all fostered and encouraged by democracy.  'They don't have to resort to such antics.  No work for us in Moscow', said Bobby. 

Winston Churchill once famously said, 'Democracy is the worst political system ever...except for all the rest', a belief that is at the heart of the American zeitgeist but the likes of Putin, Xi, and Erdogan are waiting in the wings, biding their time which will certainly come. 

'I've Come To Fix Your Pipes' - The Afternoon Assignations Of Small Town America

The Fifties were an idyllic time.  America had just won the war against Japan and Germany, GIs were returning home to build families and restore the faith in God and country so tested by Hirohito and Hitler.

Everything was perfect in New Brighton, the small New England town setting for the story of Bettina Alston, a housewife and mother who represented the best American values - fidelity, caring, love and affection, and civic pride.  

Every Thursday afternoon while the children were still in school, Bettina volunteered at the local hospital, greeting new patients, comforting those who brought them, and instilling a sense of confidence and trust.  The hospital was one of Connecticut's best. 

On Tuesday mornings she chaired the Ladies' Auxiliary of the hospital, a group who had been responsible for the fresh flowers on the surgical wards, hot chocolate and donuts on the pediatric floor, and cute little blue and pink stuffed animals for new mothers. 

On Friday morning she played bridge with 'the girls', wives of doctors at New Brighton General.  Anita Lacava brought the sweet rolls, Marfa Potter the almond cookies, and Elena Fitch an urn of coffee.  In the Spring if the weather was good, they played cards outside on the terrace overlooking the rose garden; and in the winter in the living room which Bettina had appointed with a Carrera marble fireplace, Venetian sconces, and Florentine lamps.  

 

'Too Italian' advised her husband, but there was nothing appealing about old English chairs, highboys, and settees. Bettina could never understand the appeal of Revere, Townsend, and Copley. 

Her house was one of the finest on Lincoln Street, classically Georgian with impressive Ionic columns, a cute breezeway, New Hampshire shrubbery and a garden that had been featured in New England Home. 

Then one fine May morning while she was sitting on the patio, taking a break from making the canapes for her dinner guests on Saturday, something did not seem right.  The bluebirds were at the bird feeder, the robins were fluttering in the birdbath, the squirrels were chasing each other in the trees, and the sound of distant traffic hummed in a low vibrato; but today it all looked and sounded different. 

Everything suddenly stopped in place.  A squirrel sat up and didn't move.  The birdbath was calm and the chirping of the bluebirds pecking at the feeder quieted.  It was like a freeze frame of a movie, an abrupt halt to the action which brought the viewer almost breathtakingly close to scene.  You could almost smell Marilyn's perfume.  

Yet there was nothing intimate or settling about the scene that Bettina witnessed.  In fact it was disconcerting.  Not exactly the panic attack that Irma Carlson had told her about, the day that she got into her Plymouth and everything seemed strange and unfamiliar.  She sat dumbly with her hands on the wheel, confused and unsure not only what to do but why she was there in the first place.  The garage itself seemed to be closing in on her on all sides, the tools, pitchforks, old tires, and sleds placed there by someone else, an intruder, a stranger. 

No, this vision of Bettina was nothing like that, and just as quickly as the frame had frozen, life resumed.  Yet she was troubled by the vision, worried that some untoward and insidious thing was brewing inside her head. 

The doorbell rang, and it was Mr. Swensen, the plumber. 'I've come to fix your pipes', he said, and no one could have been more welcome - someone who brought her back to earth freed from the worrisome panic of the back yard. 'Won't you have a cup of tea, Mr. Swensen, before you start work?' to which he readily agreed, and the two of them sat comfortably in the den talking about children, the park, and the town. 

Now in modern metropolitan America, no one sits and has tea with the help - it simply is not done - but in the settled, civic, and congenial Fifties it was not unusual.

Bettina looked at the young man and smiled.  He reminded her of a Viking pictured in her favorite childhood book, Tales of the North - blond, blue-eyed, strong and direct, the kind of man she hoped one day to marry. 

 

Instead she had married Harold Alston, a good man, a good father, and a good provider - all a woman could ask for, really - but she could never stop thinking of Rolf the Viking, especially when her husband was pounding away at her, grunting and groaning like a wounded bear, finally finishing with a, 'Wow, that was nice' when for her it was nothing but stress, patience, and disgust. 

'Well, I really must be getting to your pipes, Mrs. Alston', he said, but Bettina wondered if there was some way she could hold him, freeze frame him, keep him in her den, immobilize him. 

'I'm being silly', she said to herself after he had finished for the day, but any chagrin or embarrassment disappeared when he said he would have to come back the next day to address her risers.  

New Brighton was typical of many small towns in New England - there was the upper class, the former industrialists who built the factories that supplied the American war machine during the European wars and the Union Army in the Civil War; the professional class, the doctors and lawyers who saw to the medical and legal needs of the community; the skilled craftsmen, carpenters, electricians and public school teachers; and factory worker at the broad base of the pyramid. 

The classes didn't mix, so Bettina's attention to Henk Swensen was unusual, frowned upon, and simply not done; but she was in a fragile, needy state.  She had felt crushed and ignored by the sweating, lumbering slab of meat banging away at her the night before, was increasingly bored with the chatty, gossipy ladies of the Auxiliary, and of course there was the freeze frame which could not be ignored.  Something was bound to happen.

'Please stop calling me Mrs. Alston, Henk', she said, feeling like Miss Julie in Strindberg's play where social class defines behavior and where sexual desire is mitigated by status; but felt lucky to have such a young, considerate, thoughtful lover by her side. 

They met everywhere.  She avoided her marital bed for months until she figured that a little more deceit, deception, and defilement couldn't hurt, and so it became part of her weekly routine, penciled in her calendar with obfuscated references.  

They did it in the cornfields of Brierly's Farm, in Bray's orchard, and in the tool-cluttered basement workroom of Henk's saltbox on Arch Street. 

After a time she began to feel like Connie Chatterley who, for all the epiphanic sex she and Mellors had, they found they could never have a life together. Their mutual orgasms, Lawrence's metaphor for pure Tantric love notwithstanding, there lives were to be separate. 

No rancor, no tears, no recriminations or regrets, just parting with a hug and a handshake, as it should be, especially for a proper, civic minded town like New Brighton. 

Her freeze-frame pre-panic attack moments which she thought had been extirpated by the long affair with Henk Swensen returned along with the old anomie.  Her husband's routine thumping and whaling away on top of her every Saturday night became intolerable, the cheery greetings at the reception desk of New Brighton General intolerable, but there was no place to go. 

This was the Fifties after all, and she had no money - unlike Strindberg's Captain in The Father where his wife Laura drives him mad with uncertainty about the paternity of their daughter, commits him, and takes control of all his money.  So Bettina's future was uncertain and the present miserable. 

Only string of day-trip lovers kept her sane until she was worn out with the sex, the double life, and the hammering, thudding boredom of it all. By that time she had no energy for defiance, revolt, or sedition, and so resigned herself to a long future of bone-chilling sameness. 

Which is the story of small town American women of the Fifties.  Like Wilder's Grover's Corners, New Brighton looked all well and good from the outside, but was nothing of the sort inside.