![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rmWhen I worked as a dominatrix, clients were only memorable for any of three possible reasons: particularly specific or unusual fetishes (i.e., the guy who insisted I wear a back-button blouse and gave me scripts to read about "red sunsets and red asses"); the financially and socially troublesome (i.e., men who tried to bargain for more time or less expense and/or were rude to me to achieve it); and people I genuinely liked.
While the other stories are, inevitably, a lot more amusing, today I want to talk about the people I liked, because when you're friendly and cordial and even social with someone who pays you a great deal of money for a service, that is an interesting thing, isn't it? It's certainly a tricky thing.
Relationships of this ilk used to be quite common and their frequency of existence well-acknowledged. And, while today they don't particularly pervade our world any less, we're so much more hesitant to call them as they are and so largely ill-informed about how to navigate them deftly.
Interactions of this nature litter my life in various ways. My former profession quite aside, it's worth noting that I also live on the other side of the equation. I spend a great deal of money with my tailor and, as you know from the photos, when she's about in town, we're also social. Is that socializing and fondness genuine? Of course. But is it also somewhat dictated by the mutual benefits of mutual enthusiasm because of the financial transaction that is central between us? Oh yes.
These transactional friendships and acquaintanceships exist in other parts of my life as well: the chocolate store owner who gives Patty and I free chocolates because she talks with him about the chocolate shop she worked at and I about my childhood in New York. He enjoys us and our love of what he does. He also enjoys our money, and we, the free samples.
Relationships of this type exist in all of our lives to varying degrees, and in the modern world where we know so little of patronage we often mistake them, to problematic end, for interactions without boundaries or for moments wherein we are the exception some sort of rule.
One of the places where I see it the most keenly -- and with the most personal discomfort -- is, of course, fandom. For those of you who don't necessarily play in the sandboxes in which I play, I will note that there was a con in the Torchwood fandom this past weekend that was a for-profit meet-the-celebrities con, which, for the purposes of this discussion, is something I need to make a point of differentiating from fan-run cons, that, in addition to celebrity guests, also have fan and/or academic programming.
Cons of the ilk that took place this weekend often cost a good deal of money to attend (usually much moreso than fan-run cons) and have levels of membership (uncommon at fan-run cons), wherein the more you pay, the more access you get to the celebrities in question.
I do not, for the record, find this gauche (which is what I think some people think I think). But I do find it personally something I can't quite bring myself to engage in (however occasionally tempting) because of where I exist on the fan-pro continuum and the degree to which I'm a little too hyper-aware of the politics of these things, but that is no one's problem or concern but my own.
I do, however, find myself in a frequent state of surprise over how much people just don't get things about the transactional friendships and acquaintances they have with the celebrity guests at these types of events.
Historically, patronage of the arts was used (and as we'll see, continues to be used) to convey and experience many things, which you can break down, more or less, into the three P's: pleasure, prestige and piety. And whether we're talking about Renaissance religious art or going to a media con like Torchwood, the three P's are consistent.
Pleasure speaks for itself simply ("it is fun to be here") and also not so simply ("I am enjoying participating in this fantasy").
Prestige works on a few levels ("I can afford to go to this event," "I can afford this status at this event," "This guest told me xyz," "That guest and I had drinks," "So-and-so complimented my dress").
Piety, of course, becomes about being a true believer ("I'm a real fan," "I go to everything so-and-so appears at," "I always defend this guest's actions").
Yet, even as historical patronage is enacted in these situations, the modern world is not equipped to acknowledge it for what it is, which is a transactional relationship. When you pay for that ticket to that event with the smart party with the celebrity guests or what have you, you are not paying for that celebrity to be your friend or to give you special access -- whether to themselves, their private sphere, or information about their work.
But you are, most certainly, paying for their company, their cordiality in a certain setting. And as happy as you are to experience this, that you will gladly fork over your money for their time (and their time is worth money, as much as the status, piety and pleasure you consciously or subconsciously are buying via participation is worth the fee you choose to pay), they are happy that you want to. It validates their art; it helps pay their bills; it elevates their own status. It is a symbiotic transactional relationship, that is not in any way based on lies, unless we start telling ourselves them.
Now, sometimes real and genuine friendships do come out of these transactional social moments: just as my tailor and I have drinks, just as an old client and I called to check in on each other after 9/11, just as the man who owns the chocolate store likes to discuss walnut buttercreams with Patty.
But my point in this isn't that the interactions of patronage can become "real," like some eventual Pinocchio of affection. Rather, my point is that they are real and sincere and pleasant and a perfectly reasonable investment for many people for a variety of different reasons.
But in lacking a good word for them in the modern world, we must not, I feel, use other words for them in intentionally misleading ways (as I feel many in fandom, and other situations in which these types of relationships exist, do), because it diminishes the loveliness of the tradition the patrons (and in the point of this post, fans) are paying into, as surely as it diminishes the high-wire art of the access and -- dare I say it (with a wink and a nod considering my own former profession) -- services, the creator provides.
Because people are social animals, it is in our nature to enact social ritual, and ritual, in particular, is a high-value thing. In transactional friendships and acquaintances the ritual is central, and to ignore it in favor of a story of organic interaction, not only gives lie to the nature of an event still personal for all its financial component, but also makes the very things paid for and so gently delivered -- pleasure, piety and position -- less intricate, less lovely, and less valuable for our insistence on turning our heads away from this ever so peculiar balancing act of mutual benefit and symbiotic need.
While the other stories are, inevitably, a lot more amusing, today I want to talk about the people I liked, because when you're friendly and cordial and even social with someone who pays you a great deal of money for a service, that is an interesting thing, isn't it? It's certainly a tricky thing.
Relationships of this ilk used to be quite common and their frequency of existence well-acknowledged. And, while today they don't particularly pervade our world any less, we're so much more hesitant to call them as they are and so largely ill-informed about how to navigate them deftly.
Interactions of this nature litter my life in various ways. My former profession quite aside, it's worth noting that I also live on the other side of the equation. I spend a great deal of money with my tailor and, as you know from the photos, when she's about in town, we're also social. Is that socializing and fondness genuine? Of course. But is it also somewhat dictated by the mutual benefits of mutual enthusiasm because of the financial transaction that is central between us? Oh yes.
These transactional friendships and acquaintanceships exist in other parts of my life as well: the chocolate store owner who gives Patty and I free chocolates because she talks with him about the chocolate shop she worked at and I about my childhood in New York. He enjoys us and our love of what he does. He also enjoys our money, and we, the free samples.
Relationships of this type exist in all of our lives to varying degrees, and in the modern world where we know so little of patronage we often mistake them, to problematic end, for interactions without boundaries or for moments wherein we are the exception some sort of rule.
One of the places where I see it the most keenly -- and with the most personal discomfort -- is, of course, fandom. For those of you who don't necessarily play in the sandboxes in which I play, I will note that there was a con in the Torchwood fandom this past weekend that was a for-profit meet-the-celebrities con, which, for the purposes of this discussion, is something I need to make a point of differentiating from fan-run cons, that, in addition to celebrity guests, also have fan and/or academic programming.
Cons of the ilk that took place this weekend often cost a good deal of money to attend (usually much moreso than fan-run cons) and have levels of membership (uncommon at fan-run cons), wherein the more you pay, the more access you get to the celebrities in question.
I do not, for the record, find this gauche (which is what I think some people think I think). But I do find it personally something I can't quite bring myself to engage in (however occasionally tempting) because of where I exist on the fan-pro continuum and the degree to which I'm a little too hyper-aware of the politics of these things, but that is no one's problem or concern but my own.
I do, however, find myself in a frequent state of surprise over how much people just don't get things about the transactional friendships and acquaintances they have with the celebrity guests at these types of events.
Historically, patronage of the arts was used (and as we'll see, continues to be used) to convey and experience many things, which you can break down, more or less, into the three P's: pleasure, prestige and piety. And whether we're talking about Renaissance religious art or going to a media con like Torchwood, the three P's are consistent.
Pleasure speaks for itself simply ("it is fun to be here") and also not so simply ("I am enjoying participating in this fantasy").
Prestige works on a few levels ("I can afford to go to this event," "I can afford this status at this event," "This guest told me xyz," "That guest and I had drinks," "So-and-so complimented my dress").
Piety, of course, becomes about being a true believer ("I'm a real fan," "I go to everything so-and-so appears at," "I always defend this guest's actions").
Yet, even as historical patronage is enacted in these situations, the modern world is not equipped to acknowledge it for what it is, which is a transactional relationship. When you pay for that ticket to that event with the smart party with the celebrity guests or what have you, you are not paying for that celebrity to be your friend or to give you special access -- whether to themselves, their private sphere, or information about their work.
But you are, most certainly, paying for their company, their cordiality in a certain setting. And as happy as you are to experience this, that you will gladly fork over your money for their time (and their time is worth money, as much as the status, piety and pleasure you consciously or subconsciously are buying via participation is worth the fee you choose to pay), they are happy that you want to. It validates their art; it helps pay their bills; it elevates their own status. It is a symbiotic transactional relationship, that is not in any way based on lies, unless we start telling ourselves them.
Now, sometimes real and genuine friendships do come out of these transactional social moments: just as my tailor and I have drinks, just as an old client and I called to check in on each other after 9/11, just as the man who owns the chocolate store likes to discuss walnut buttercreams with Patty.
But my point in this isn't that the interactions of patronage can become "real," like some eventual Pinocchio of affection. Rather, my point is that they are real and sincere and pleasant and a perfectly reasonable investment for many people for a variety of different reasons.
But in lacking a good word for them in the modern world, we must not, I feel, use other words for them in intentionally misleading ways (as I feel many in fandom, and other situations in which these types of relationships exist, do), because it diminishes the loveliness of the tradition the patrons (and in the point of this post, fans) are paying into, as surely as it diminishes the high-wire art of the access and -- dare I say it (with a wink and a nod considering my own former profession) -- services, the creator provides.
Because people are social animals, it is in our nature to enact social ritual, and ritual, in particular, is a high-value thing. In transactional friendships and acquaintances the ritual is central, and to ignore it in favor of a story of organic interaction, not only gives lie to the nature of an event still personal for all its financial component, but also makes the very things paid for and so gently delivered -- pleasure, piety and position -- less intricate, less lovely, and less valuable for our insistence on turning our heads away from this ever so peculiar balancing act of mutual benefit and symbiotic need.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 02:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 02:31 pm (UTC)Thank you for making a frame on which to build some understanding.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 03:03 pm (UTC)I think some of the problem is that the whole language of patronage has been diverted into the pejorative - we speak of being "patronized" negatively, never positively. Where patronage persists, it's all in coded covert language. Maybe?
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 02:36 pm (UTC)There were aspects of this weekend's Fangoria I liked better than the celebrity event in Feb. because I could escape those around me that had disquieting views of their relationship with the celebrity.
If you haven't already read it, I highly recommend Sharyn McCrumb's "Once Around the Track." It has a very interesting, drawn out, multi-faceted discussion of celebrity and fandom that had me pausing and thinking throughout the read. Don't let the fact that the celebrity is a NASCAR driver put you off, it's well written enough that all you need to know about NASCAR is either in the book.
There's more here I want to contemplate as I navigate my own way and motives behind following the celebrity I do but as I'm at work, it'll have to wait.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 08:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 02:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 05:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 02:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 02:55 pm (UTC)Here's my question, in this equation what is the king/celeb/the arts' role? Given the events of the weekend, I wonder. See a lot of of this is based on a transactional relationship, yes? Which should therefore be a professional relationship for it to be a fair trade. In your capacity as dominatrix, for example, you surely had a duty to perform as the role required within certain boundaries. But if you transgressed that professional boundary, does that then change the boundaries that your patrons have too? If you went above what was expected of you, or were below what was expected of you.. does that change the nature of the transaction.
I guess when I apply the patronage of celebs to this weekends issues I wonder whether it still applies. If a certain celeb transgresses the boundaries, then... what happens to the three p's. For a transaction to be fair shouldn't both sides play to the rules...
... Which is mostly me musing as I type, so forgive me if the questions i've ended up with make little sense *g*
no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 02:58 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 02:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 10:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 03:00 pm (UTC)For the patrons, mingling with authors, actors, royalty, or politicians at $500-a-plate dinners is a way to get close to people who carry a certain level of magic -- to touch their mana, so to speak. (No Bill Clinton jokes, please.)
That's why people stand in line to have books or photos autographed. It's piety, as you say -- like relics of a saint. There is also a hope that the gifted one will validate the patron with attention, friendship, love.
It can be disconcerting to suddenly *acquire* that mana and be treated as the source of something magical. Probably harder for writers than for actors, because actors are generally so damned beautiful they're already treated as magic-bearers. Unless a writer also has a great deal of social charm and/or good looks, zie is generally unused to people wanting to line up to be friends.
I didn't realize you'd been a pro Domme. My scene LJ is
no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 03:05 pm (UTC)And it is very weird for writers, I think -- they are less trained to deal with it. It can be very hard for actors too though. Some of us are introverts and feel very weird without a script or the shield of camera or costume.
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 03:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 03:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 03:24 pm (UTC)I was mostly wondering how someone (like myself) would apply. I don't attend cons (mostly due to monetary issues and location of the cons), however I do consider myself a fan in that I follow several different communities on livejournal, I read updates on websites, and I follow various people's livejournals who are established in the fandom (i.e. yourself) and might occasionally through in my two cents on a given topic (like now).
I wasn't sure if you had given this aspect of being a fan some thought or if you were going to address it later when you had an opportunity. I look forward to reading your thoughts.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 05:37 pm (UTC)I don't want to be "oh, I'll write about that too" because often when I write about this stuff, it's a bit of a whim. But I might!
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 03:45 pm (UTC)Singer-songwriter Ellis Paul
has been one of the most prominent performers to do this. To date, he claims that he has raised $100K to fund the making of the new album. Some of that money has been in the form of pre-orders for the new album, but a lot of the funding has gone far beyond that, in which Ellis Paul is trading other services and items to his fan for larger support (free admission to shows, free house concerts, custom songwriting, autographed instruments, in-studio visits, maybe even his next-born child.)
I guess that this model is more explicitly calling out the patronage/services rendered (flash required).
CBS Sunday Morning is going to air a segment on this next week (recheduled June 14th) featuring Amy Correia and Jill Sobule.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 05:15 pm (UTC)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Momus_(artist)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stars_Forever
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 03:53 pm (UTC)And of course I do shows where we hang out with the audience and then ask them for tips for our performances, then hang out again.
One of my great grievances about the death of small business is this loss of friendly transaction. Sure, I can get anything on the internet now, but the sharp decline of face-to-face interaction is not a good trade.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 04:05 pm (UTC)Am also intrigued by your comment above re: services to the flesh, because these certainly have a special role in constructions of self-knowledge and identity, and their links to the economic and social. Will look forward to further writing on the subject.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 04:14 pm (UTC)Semi-related: noblesse oblige is almost dead, and the world is poorer for it.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 04:23 pm (UTC)walnut buttercreams. mmmmmmmm.
also, this presupposes that the transactional relationship is the point of initial contact. Things change when one chooses to patronize a friend-- the neighbor who cuts your hair, the aunt who paints your house, the friend who is your child's teacher....
no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 04:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 04:29 pm (UTC)There is a current cultural desire to ‘be real’ and ‘be genuine’ and from this grows a whole host of issues from complicated artifice designed to make you look like ‘the real you’, make-up, plastic surgery, steroids all aimed at making you look natural to the common American fascination with reality TV. This desire is explicitly and implicitly antithetical to the concepts behind the patronage system (money creates a relationship and that relationship has limits) and it’s dominant now in our culture (and I’d argue that it has been strongly present all through those times when the patronage system was also more overtly acknowledged).
The patronage system has always had both the positives you’ve mentioned but also an accompanying sense that it is, in fact, less desirable because it’s based on financial transactions of one sort or another; johns who treat their prostitutes particularly badly with the imagination that they are ‘owed’ something because of the money they spend, the concept of ‘buying friendships’ as negative, the idea that the tailors and masseurs and cooks who you pay are a different (lesser) social class, and the general distaste for being overt about the exchange of money for things we enjoy (money doesn’t buy love, the best things in life are free etc).
The fact that conventions and singing autographs and book tours (and tailoring, and personal services like sex work or massage) are someone’s business is frequently downplayed while ‘I can relax with you because you’re my friend’ is often emphasized. There was an interesting article in the NY Times just a couple of days ago about a yoga instructor who was losing clients due to the recession and it touched on some of the other side of the equation; not only was she dealing with financial issues, but feelings of rejection as clients she’d felt friendly with stopped patronizing her. The core of her relationship with them was financial but when that financial relationship ended the patronage, she also felt emotionally abandoned.
We’re all attracted to the idea that our relationship with (a business person whose business is personal connections) is better/realer/more significant because they smiled in such a way, or remembered your name from one time to another and this desire for personal connection is both natural, made intentionally fuzzy, and results in boundary issues for both professionals and their clients. Marsters, GDL, Barrowman, the J2s and all the rest of the performers in things like the convention circuit make their money on creating a faux personal relationship with their fans. All those fans who shelled out 500+$ to be at Torchsong didn’t want to be reminded that their relationship with Barrowman was professional and financial, they wanted to be told they were his special friends, that they were close to him in ways others weren’t, that they got ‘real’ access. It’s why, I think, the idea that the video feed was *two-way* was so critical; the managers of the con made sure everyone knew that ‘Barrowman could see you’.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 05:17 pm (UTC)Whilst the inner fangirl in me **squeed** with delight, the inner realist bitch-slapped her back into reality. ;-p The relationship I have with him in no way resembles any of my friendships; I do not pay my friends to chat about literature nor to get photos taken with them.
I think for some celebrities the relationship with fans can be as frought. They are only humans afterall and are subject to the same interpersonal foibles as the rest of us.
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 04:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 05:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 05:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 05:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 10:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 06:58 pm (UTC)Thank you for your rational explanation of this phenomena.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 05:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 07:37 pm (UTC)Another wrinkle: how does this get even more tangled with the different perceived hierarchies between patron and patronized (not in the modern sense of 'patronized').
For instance, when D. & I lived in Ithaca, we went to a restaurant that is still possibly our favorite in the world - there was a waitress there who we were both rather smitten with, and who (possibly because of the ridiculously large tips we used to leave) became fond of us as well. Our relationship, restricted to only this restaurant setting, became professionally-personal in the precise way you describe. But this makes relatively uncomplicated sense, no? Because we, the payers were perceived as having a higher ranking than the payee, as customers at a restaurant do with their waiters (in that setting.) This becomes slightly more complicated when, as you mention, the relationship is between patron and artist/artisan (like you and your tailor), rather than patron and server -- because the artist/artisan has the cachet of talent/expertise, which layers a different shading on the power dynamic. ('Layers' being key here, as the previous one doesn't go away!) Then there's the fact that a celebrity is always seen to have more power than the fan in any interaction -- which paints a third layer over the other two.
Which one wins? It's the conversation between all these layers that I find so provocative. And makes it uncomfortable too. Am I your servant? Am I your overlord. Or both? (Interesting sidenote of comparison between this and the relationship between the different sides of kink and s&m can be taken as read here. Going back to your dominatrix point.)
But you know what I mean, as always.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 05:32 am (UTC)I think the general truth is that in these situations, which create many illusions of power, EVERYONE has less power than they think. In this case, the fans are not as included in an intimate circle as they would have themselves believe, but so too the celebrities are not receiving the unquestioned loyalty or the power over content sharing that they think is so easily obtained with a smile and a bit of flattery.
It occurs to me, and I say this with no rancor, only a vague amusement, that JB's as lousy a con artist as Captain Jack.
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 08:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 08:55 pm (UTC)The values of my social group as I was growing up were strongly oriented in the politics of no-money and anti-elitism (and thus a particular brand of "authenticity"), and my family so rarely hired people to do things within my view that I never learned to do it properly.
The net result is a sincere lack of sophistication where overtly transactional interactions are involved. I tend to feel guilty or awkward paying people to do things for me, or expecting them to do things for me that they would not ordinarily do for free. Even if the transaction is entered into gladly I can sometimes feel like I'm imposing.
The intersection between that faulty core belief and fannishness is really frustrating for me. I assume -- rightly -- that convention guests are working, but then fail to process that working might possibly involve interacting with me. Seeing this in terms of patronage is very helpful, I think.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 12:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 10:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 10:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-12 04:56 pm (UTC)But yes. Add me to that peeve list.