…in this splendid novel…Mr. Burroughs has…given you as remarkable a heroine as you might expect. For the Girl was a member of “the oldest profession in the world,” and the hero was foreman of the grand jury. – Editorial foreword to The Girl from Farris’s
Near the end of June, regular reader Americanus sent me an email containing the following passage:
…the French military had a group called “Mobile Field Brothels”…The women were all volunteers from French Algeria and part of a tribe known as the Ouled Nail…[who] teach their young women the arts of dancing and prostitution. The young women then go out and…[work] to gain a large enough dowry…once they do, they return to the tribe and marry without any resentment on the part of the men.
I found this exciting not merely as a great column topic, but also because I had encountered the term “Ouled Nail” before. I’m sure regular readers have noticed that I have an exceptional memory, and can often recall unusual words encountered years before. And I remembered exactly where I had seen this one; in The Return of Tarzan, the ape-man escapes his enemies with the assistance of an Ouled Nail. In the book, the term is used synonymously with “dancing girl”, and I was thrilled to discover the extra dimension which linked this character to my own profession. But Tarzan’s friend is not the only harlot to appear in his creator’s oeuvre, and so I’d like to follow yesterday’s column on the Ouled Nail with one on whores in the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Each of the works cited contains a link to a free online copy, so if you intend to read them please be warned that this column contains spoilers. Also note that The Return of Tarzan and The Gods of Mars are sequels to Tarzan of the Apes and A Princess of Mars, respectively.
As I’ve said before, when my beloved cousin Jeff taught me to read he preferred to use his own favorites rather than “baby books”, and the authors to whom he introduced me over the next few years are still among my favorites. One of these was Burroughs, who is most famous as the creator of Tarzan but also wrote several other series and many stand-alone works in a career which stretched from 1912 to his death in 1950. Burroughs is generally considered a “men’s author”, and that is a shame because his books are full of romance and strong, interesting female characters; I honestly believe that one of the reasons I found traditional romance novels boring was that in Burroughs’ stories I found love intertwined with adventure in settings which excited my young imagination. And though he was in many ways a product of the Victorian Era (born 1875), he had some very liberal views about nudity and sex which, though restrained in his earlier works by commercial necessity, are much more obvious in his writings of the ‘30s and ‘40s.
While researching yesterday’s column I revisited The Return of Tarzan and discovered that, though Burroughs’ understanding of the Ouled Nail is clearly faulty, he does hint at their prostitution in a passage from chapter 7: “The frightened Ouled-Nails were crouching at the tops of the stairs which led to their respective rooms, the only light in the courtyard coming from the sickly candles which each girl had stuck with its own grease to the woodwork of her door-frame, the better to display her charms to those who might happen to traverse the dark enclosure.” The story takes place in 1910, after the French authorities had restricted the Nailiyat to working for licensed cafes, and the girl who tips Tarzan off to the planned attack and helps him to escape his pursuers is depicted as a slave, abducted by marauders and sold to the café owner. She senses Tarzan’s nobility by the way he speaks to her and the respectful manner in which he tips her after her dance, and so alerts him to his danger at great risk to herself. Of course Tarzan rescues her from the café and returns her to her father, and in chapter 10 she again risks her life to rescue him from another band of nomads hired by the villainous Nikolas Rokoff to accomplish what two previous groups of hirelings had failed to do. Not all of the whores Tarzan encounters are so principled; in chapter 3 of the same book, Rokoff hires a Parisian streetwalker to lure Tarzan into an ambush by calling for help, and after he defeats his assailants she lies to the police, telling them that the ruffians had tried to save her from an attempted rape by Tarzan.
Burroughs also tried his hand at contemporary drama; the heroine of The Efficiency Expert (1921) is a prostitute called “Little Eva” who befriends the hero when he works for a while as a waiter at a cabaret she frequents. Her belief in him inspires him to apply for the titular position, and her unflagging support keeps him going when he is later accused of murder; he is acquitted due largely to evidence she collects herself, and only her death in an influenza epidemic keeps him from marrying her. I’ve never quite forgiven Burroughs for the poor girl’s fate, though I’m sure he could not have used the ending I wanted in an Argosy title of that time. June Lathrop, the heroine of The Girl from Farris’s (1920) dodges the censors in a different way; though in the first scene she escapes from a brothel and we assume throughout the novella that she is a (reformed) prostitute, it is revealed at the end that she was actually the victim of a bigamist who had merely housed her in a room rented from the brothel owner. Thus, she is free to marry the hero without provoking outrage in the readership.
Burroughs pushed the envelope a little farther in The Girl from Hollywood (1922), whose titular character, Shannon Burke, is an actress who becomes the kept woman of a director who “auditions” her on the “casting couch” and then gets her addicted to morphine in order to control her. While shooting on location at the Rancho del Ganado (a fictionalized version of Burroughs’ own Tarzana ranch, on which the town of Tarzana, California was later built) she befriends the Pennington family (based on the Burroughs family), who help her to break her addiction and even forgive her for her sordid past. The standards of the day did not allow Burroughs to allow an unrepentant whore a happy ending, and indeed the one heroine who is specifically described as a prostitute (and not excused via enslavement or downplayed as a kept woman) has to be killed off at the end as in Camille. However, I think it’s clear that in all of these cases he does his best to show that the mere fact of a “sinful” life does not make a woman “bad”, and indeed his fictional analog even bestows his blessings on a relationship between such a woman and his own fictional son!
My final example (and certainly the most coy treatment of the subject) is Thuvia, Princess of Ptarth on the planet Mars. Burroughs’ Martians believe in a physical paradise at the South Pole of their planet, presided over by a race of living gods called the Therns; those who are very old (their natural lifespan is over a thousand years) or tired of life can make a Pilgrimage to this paradise and never return to the outer world. But as the hero John Carter discovers in The Gods of Mars (1913), the whole thing is a gigantic hoax perpetrated by the evil and cannibalistic Therns, and those who make the Pilgrimage are captured and either eaten or enslaved. Some years before Carter’s arrival, the beautiful but moody young Thuvia makes the Pilgrimage (for reasons never disclosed) and becomes the plaything of a Thern leader. After her rescue by John Carter (who exposes the whole horrible scam to the world) she returns home and is treated like a virgin despite the fact that after years as the slave of a degenerate cult she absolutely could not be in any literal sense. The only thing I can guess is that, though Martian standards of female chastity are Victorian in their rigidity, an exception is made for rape; and though most Martian noblewomen would rather commit suicide than submit to violation, Thuvia instead chose to live. This is but one of the enigmas surrounding Thuvia, who is certainly one of the most interesting characters in the series; I believe her to be, like the Ouled Nail of Sidi Aissa, one of the earliest examples in the development of Burroughs’ recognition that there was something not quite right in the conventional ideas of female sexual morality prevalent in his time.
One Year Ago Today
“Greek God”, a short story I wrote in 1985, is the earliest example of my writing which has ever appeared on this blog.
Dammit, you’re like a scholar of whoredom. And I mean scholar in the antique, meaningful sense.
I want to translate your entire opus magnus into Korean and make it available to people.
My ex has just been married. ex-whore marries foreigner and starts business. Unrepentant and now unembarrassed – she couldn’t give a damn what people think. She has a decent husband and money and he has vast respect for her.
There are more stories like this – more variety – than I ever knew. The Ouled Nail tale was beyond compare; I read it 4 times, just to make sure I remembered enough to tell it again in Korea, and then called up my ex to tell her the story. She was captivated and then went online to read it when I forwarded it to her, maybe she got her husband to translate it again.
You know I always thought there was no difference between whores and everyone else – a lesson learned in bed and with one – but you’ve utterly buried it.
Your articles are both humble and brilliant. I don’t want people to compliment them too much – it can go to people’s heads and then the writing suffers, as well as the inspiration and attitude – but the savage clarity and earnest honesty you bring to every subject makes me say this:
Among commenters and writers, your pieces on prostitution are among some of the most lucid, and shockingly interesting, I’ve ever come across. I find fault with some – but nothing you write is not consistent, and all of it is carefully argued and lovingly addressed.
I rarely spoon out praise for anyone, it’s not my style. I’m a bit of a bastard about it, actually. But Maggie, no matter how many sycophants admire you, keep this sharp, level-headed and almost documentary approach to this subject.
And the profound humanity shown in both anger at neofeminist and conservative hypocrisy and delusions and the charity to all concerned, including whores and men and humans no matter their inclinations, is a testament to the human soul in what you do.
Call me a pussy for being so verbose, but my SO feels the same way. She’s gone from thinking it’s disgusting to thinking that prostitutes perform a very valuable and even critical service, and that it’s more than reasonable. *You* changed her opinion – no-one else.
And other women I know in my life have had this clarified. And my ex was shocked that someone could write so openly about her former profession (I presume former – we haven’t had that talk, though who knows what their arrangement is – really none of my business; I understand her role is assisting him in making them both rich, and they’re well on their way). I should say “professions” – because the its variety and form is as diverse as human social life.
I’m actually interested in getting your column translated. I know people and I could do it (badly, of course – it needs some lyrical quality I won’t have at all), and it’s worth it, given that the sex industry is about 10% of this country’s economy (15% in China, 17% in Japan, 24% in Thailand).
I read as soon as you send them out.
I’m interested in knowing how former whores (or current ones) make out as wives. I think there’s a study there.
I know just one. Two, you. I’d be curious to know the truth.
Thanks very much for this, Gorb; it’s this kind of sincere comment that makes the work worthwhile. I don’t think I have to worry too much about the praise going to my head; after all, I was praised pretty highly as an escort and still stayed pretty level-headed. Plus if there’s anything the nuns taught me it’s the value of humility, and I’ve really internalized it; my reaction to praise which I consider excessive isn’t to get swell-headed, it’s to deny it and try to figure out what the complimenter wants from me. I promise you this, though; if I do win financial success and some minor fame from my work, I am going to buy a framed print of the Fall of Icarus to hang above my desk to remind me that hubris leads inevitably to a long, painful drop into the sea.
Believe me when I tell you that though my writing has been praised before, it was never to the degree that it has been in the past year. It’s the subject; I really feel it, and so writing on it comes naturally. I have now written more on this subject than on everything else put together, and though before this blog I had only ever written (as an adult) maybe a dozen short stories, I have now written 14 with hooker heroines. The Romantic poets represented the poet as an Aeolian harp, an instrument which made music when the wind blew past its strings; the poet was the harp and Nature or the Muse provided the wind. Laugh if you want, but I honestly feel as though Aphrodite has chosen me (for whatever reason) to speak on this subject, and everything I write is only coming through me, not from me. It’s a great honor, and very, very humbling.
Just amazing.
You compile and argue and bury your opponents without rancor or dismissal. No shameful attacks; no silencing. Catherine Mackinnons of the world have nothing on you.
You make Mackinnon look like a Victorian intellectual hussy and puritanical fascist.
Well, it’s easy when one has the truth on one’s side. Facts speak for themselves; it’s only dogma and lies which need attacks to back them up.
I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist bringing Burroughs into this eventually!
I like to think that Little Eva was reincarnated and had a hit song.
Old Edgar got away with a LOT on Mars that he’d never get away with on Earth. The red men are a racist’s worst nightmare, the corkscrew morality of his day considered a raped woman to be unworthy of the hero’s love and yet there Thuvia is, happily ever after with Carthoris, and while John Carter destroys Martian religion, he does not replace it with Christianity. Presumably, Martians are now atheists with some superstitious remnants of ancestor worship lingering on.
I remember the dancing girl. The first time I went to a strip club, I remembered Tarzan’s example and determined that whatever anybody else did, I was going to treat the dancers with respect. Nothing overblown, just nothing to indicate disrespect, and I’ll make eye contact and smile. None have ever said anything to me about it, but occasionally one will give me a touch more attention than other guys who are tossing out more dollar bills.
You may feel free to post the link anywhere you think it might be appreciated. 😉
I read some of Burrough’s Martian books in the late 1980’s. Unfortunately, as someone who was used to the science fiction of my time, it was grossly simplistic and underdeveloped in comparison. Sort’ve like a Western in space, and meant for young boys to read.
However, if they find an old manuscript of one of Burrough’s stories that could never get past censorship at that time, I’ll read it.
One of my several unfinished fanfics was exactly that in its premise: something John Carter gave Mr. Burroughs which he never gave the public because, as much as he loved his uncle, he just didn’t think that the world was ready for this one.
Then Den Valdron wrote Torakar Thor of Mars and made my little story unnecessary. For which I’d like to thank him, since mine was never going to get written.
Interesting read:
http://takimag.com/article/the_holy_healing_horny_homely_harlots_of_phoenix/print#axzz1XfygnCrR
This coming Friday’s column features my take on that story.
Man, I didn’t like the entire tone of that. It was like, “Look at me! I call all the women ugly, suggest the men are uglier, and joke about the guy’s big nose! I insult everybody! Ain’t I just SO COOL!! Oh wait, let me throw in the obligatory Star Trek insult. OK, now I’m REALLY, REALLY COOL!!!!!”
I don’t know what this dude looks like, but the body of Adonis couldn’t make him an attractive person.
IIRC, Heinlein referenced Burrough;s work in “The Number of the Beast.” as part of his idea of the Author as Creator. And Burroughs was among the earliest scifi (after Jules Verne and Heinlein’s juveniles) that I remember reading.
On the topic of “Camille;” one of my favorite operas was “La Traviata,” based on the book by Alexandre Dumas (fils). I was reading a parallel translation of the lyrics; Italian on one side, English on the other, where Violetta offers to pray for Alfredo and the chaste virgin that he will marry.
“Se una pudica vergine”
Of course, being male, I didn’t miss the root of the third word. I wondered exactly how they squared female chastity with what was obviously related to a slang term (at least in the US) for male genitalia.
Researching this led me to
“ (noun) – “Venus pudica” is a term used to describe a classic figural pose in Western art. In this, an unclothed female (either standing or reclining) keeps one hand covering her private parts. (She is a modest lass, this Venus.) The resultant pose – which is not, incidentally, applicable to the male nude – is somewhat asymmetrical and often serves to draw one’s eye to the very spot being hidden.
The word “pudica” comes to us by way of the Latin “pudendus”, which can mean either external genitalia or shame, or both simultaneously.”
I hadn’t realized that “impudent” had its roots in sexual display. I’d always figured it was just mocking whatever authority figure was confronting you. So no wonder you drive the authoritarians crazy.
On the topic of sexual redemption, you might find this book interesting.
Opera: Desire, Disease and Death I listened to an interview with the authors where they noted that the Love and Death songs from the teen idols of the 50’s and early 60’s were a continuation of the literary and operatic theme that sexual freedom leads to death, although somewhat Bowdlerized for the culture they were presented, and were actually rather subversive in an understated manner. IIRC, Camille Paglia also makes this point – I think in “Sex, Art, and American Culture.”
And, of course, horror films. The sexually experienced girl always gets it.
And if I were a Jungian, I’d argue that there was some psychological connection between such sex & death archetypes and the fact that when Sex entered the natural world, it brought Death in its train. (Asexual reproducers are essentially immortal, or, at least, don’t die of old age.)
I’ve been thinking, but I can’t seem to come up with any slang term for male genitalia related to the word ‘pudica’ or ‘pudendus’. Is it a regional term?
I’ve long known ‘pudenda’ for female genitalia, which was my first thought when I read your ‘Se una pudica vergine’ sentence. It never occured to me that it might be related to ‘impudent’, though.
Ornithorhynchus
The term “pud” was a synonym for “dick” both as penis and for a male person exhibiting less than desirable social graces. I know that it was used in at least three Western states during my adolescence and the urban dictionary – although not authoritative 😎 – indicates it is fairly widespread.
As far as the connection between impudent and pudenda, see here.
On a personal note: Because my surname was rather intimidating to my peers, my nickname ended up being the common name equivalent of your moniker. It was the most flattering of the options presented.
It’s too bad you couldn’t be an andrewsarchus. They were pretty badass.
Certainly a lot more badass than an egg laying aquatic mammal!
So nice to see someone else acknowledging Edgar Rice Burroughs. Either he or EE Smith have to be the most ignored sci-fi titan.
There’s doing a movie of John Carter next year. The trailer does not leave me optimistic, but if it gets people reading the books, I’m all for it.
The first part of this post reminded me of a line from a Phil Ochs song, “White Boots Marching in a Yellow Land” which goes “Like old whores following tired armies.”
That got me thinking I should prompt you to listen to Ochs’ song “Pleasures of the Harbor,” a song sung to sailors from the point of view of prostitutes. Very depressing but effective. While I’m on the subject of mentioning older, non-mainstream prostitute songs, here are some more, most of which you can hear on YouTube:
The Small Faces, “Rene”
Humble Pie, “Red Light Mama, Red Hot”
Nick Garrie, “Stephanie City”
Badfinger, “Midnight Caller” (their friend Richard DiLello named his TV show after the song)
David Bromberg, “Sammy’s Song”
The Box Tops, “Sweet Cream Ladies, Forward March”
Ramones, “53rd and 3rd” (a first-person account of hustling, but still…)