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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.
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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
Date: 2009-06-09 05:18 pm (UTC)I would argue moreso. There are so many distortions inherent both in creating stuff and in fame and performing the self.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 05:41 pm (UTC)In Barrowman's case, in particular, my partner also remidned me that a lot if the behavior that he does that is considered outrageous is pretty normal ... for the gay club circut. Showing a bit of ass, or cock when you are performing for an audience is common. It's also common for gay man to keep club behavior private and not discuss it too publicly since, until recently, being a gay man was so riksy that the culture had strong barriers between us and them. THose barriers are lowering but the cultural behaviors are changing at different rates. So there's also another layer of cultural differences there (in Barrowman's case, at least).
no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 12:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 10:22 pm (UTC)There's a reason why it's called 'friendly fire."