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ad girl. Reclaiming the bad girl, that’s Lilith, makes a woman<br />
whole. It’s healing finding and healing menstrual wounds, realizing<br />
that it’s not a wound, it’s sacred drops, the wonderful<br />
elixir of life. It took the healing process to realize that, and that<br />
I could dance and be so strong on my period.<br />
I’m firmly convinced that what we have here is women healing<br />
men of the wounds that patriarchy has dealt men in relation<br />
to their own sexuality, and the general burden of sexual<br />
repression on all of us. The blocked orgone ener gy, the<br />
crossed neural pathways. The circuits where we should have<br />
pleasure and love and free sexual flow have been imprinted<br />
with violence, hatred, and freak-outs. There is a major chance<br />
here to uncross, reprogram. This can occur on a very unconscious<br />
level. A man can jack off and receive a healing experience,<br />
as well as an erotic one. In spite of the semi-sleazy environment,<br />
genuine, warm, human interchange occurs with<br />
compassion and a basic level of caring. For a<br />
lot of the men downtown, it’s the only place in<br />
the city where they get to relate, at all. We are<br />
dealing with the most severely alienated society<br />
in the world.<br />
some, “Spread it, girl!” and some normal, conversational. All<br />
looking for something.<br />
Probably a lot of them are suffering from birth trauma. I think<br />
birth trauma is a big thing here—it’s what draws people to<br />
vaginas. Something that went wrong on the way out, hopes<br />
to be cured by re-entry. [Laughs.] I’ve had friendly, warm, human,<br />
loving, erotic exchanges with people, plus some downright<br />
nasty, yucky, aggressive, horrible exchanges.<br />
Women who dance in the theater come in to see a girlfriend’s<br />
show or their favorite dancer. That’s somewhat regular. There<br />
are women who are coupled. Some hover shyly behind their<br />
boyfriends, and he’s urging them to look and maybe follow<br />
our example. Others are there to get off on the situation and<br />
make love with their boyfriends or indulge in foreplay. There<br />
are definitely women who come in to feel superior.<br />
In spite of the semi-sleazy<br />
environment, genuine, warm, human<br />
interchange occurs with compassion<br />
and a basic level of caring.<br />
In ancient Sumeria, Lilith went out into the streets and brought<br />
men into the temple, where priestesses of the Goddess<br />
made love with them and showed them how to love women<br />
and showed them the power of love. San Francisco is a long<br />
way in place and time from that culture, but certain elements<br />
of that experience continue to carry over. It has been a repressed<br />
part of the female psyche, and some of the women<br />
are living it out now. And even if they aren’t conscious of it,<br />
healing is occurring. It’s a general releasing of the blocks. You<br />
can see it with a guilty customer. How the dancer handles the<br />
guilty type of customer has a major impact on them slowly<br />
coming to terms with their guilt and how they received it. A<br />
lot of them may go out just as furtively as they come in, but<br />
there is a great potential for healing.<br />
One of the big wounds to the collective psyche is Christian<br />
sexual guilt. There are a lot of energies interchanged through<br />
the window. If you have a good orgasm with someone who<br />
remains human with you to the end of it, it cannot help but<br />
be good.<br />
Describe the customers. ~ All the men in downtown San<br />
Francisco. From fourteen-year-old Chinese boys (they just<br />
look fourteen) to ninety-year-old Chinese men to rude, white<br />
college students, incredibly rude, crude under-twenty WASP<br />
men. Lunchtime businessmen and sad, lonely men. Men in<br />
for fun and games or a party. Men who want to get rid of their<br />
work-related tension by jerking off. Some friendly, some aggressive,<br />
some gentle and shy and furtive and worried about<br />
their sexuality. Some adoring and admiring, “Wow,” and<br />
There’s a small number of lesbian women who come in. One<br />
memorable night, I had a really good exchange with four lesbian<br />
women in a corner booth. They were all loud and raunchy<br />
and really in to “see,” very into explicit dis play, like show me<br />
cunt and masturbate for me. They were very appreciative and<br />
getting really turned on, starting to do stuff with each other,<br />
not at all putting any attitude over about “you girls shouldn’t<br />
be here.”<br />
A lot of women point and don’t engage in eye contact with<br />
the girls. They’re sort of embar rassed, sometimes a mutual<br />
embarrassment scene goes on woman to woman. There’s<br />
mutual condescension sometimes, too.<br />
Phoenix<br />
Describe how you dance, display, and touch your body<br />
during your perfor mance. ~ I show and touch parts of my<br />
body that I really like. My ass is really gorgeous. [Laughs.] I<br />
can start out very seductive and sultry, letting someone in<br />
by my enjoyment of my body. I gradually open up by showing<br />
and touching and coming closer to him/her. Establishing<br />
eye contact is really everything. That’s where something really<br />
electric can be communicated. That’s not a cliché—that’s<br />
what I experience. With eye contact, we’re exchanging certain<br />
kinds of understandings or power. Sometimes I give<br />
shows where I’m not doing that, and that can also work, but<br />
it’s a completely different kind of experience—it’s more twodimensional.<br />
I am being this visu al, sensual machine for the<br />
SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS ARE NAKED 199
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