The quoted article is "When the Dominatrix Moved In Next Door/A 'kink collective' in a residential area of Brooklyn has upset longtime residents and resulted in a culture clash and gentrification struggle all wrapped up into one fight" (NYT).
But the battle on Quincy Street is about more than just sex. For [longtime resident Laurie] Miller, it’s about trust and safety; for Ms. Taillor, it’s about respect and kink-shaming. As both women fought to protect their communities, what resulted was a culture clash and gentrification struggle all wrapped up into one fight.Miller is black, and her reaction to Taillor's "nice community of woke people" was, "Oh, 'woke'! Bye, Felicia!" Miller also said, "I don’t like the transient nature of the guys that come there, that have no vested interest in our community. We don’t know what their backgrounds are or what they’re capable of. It’s just a scary thing."
Taillor says she's going to move out and: "It’s her block... I respect her. I want her to be the Beyoncé of her block. I want her to be the queen of the block. I have no qualms with it.... It’s definitely her block... I’m a feminist, I’m all about her rights.... I want to be cherished.... We deserve to be recognized in the community that we are in."
Imagine plopping your sex business into the black neighborhood and not just expecting the residents to be "woke" about it but expressing that expectation out loud and to their face!
And here's the Wikipedia page for "Bye, Felicia":
The phrase "Bye, Felicia" (actually spelled "Felisha" in the cast listing) came from a scene in the American stoner buddy crime comedy film Friday (1995). According to Ice Cube, who starred in the film and co-wrote its script, "Bye, Felicia" is "the phrase 'to get anyone out of your face'," and, as it was used in the Friday scene, is generally intended as a dismissive kiss-off.
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The presumptuousness of some people!
There are neighborhoods in New York where a "kink collective" would fit in just fine. But a residential neighborhood is not one of them. College kids are woke. Families are not woke. If Taillor can't do site selection better than this, then she need sot hire someone who can.
Bedford-Stuyvesant, that's where black teenagers like to attack Jews.
Imagine plopping your sex business into the black neighborhood and not just expecting the residents to be "woke" about it but expressing that expectation out loud and to their face!
I can't read the article behind the paywall, but I'm sure, knowing the NYT, there will be two things left unsaid:
1) Ms Taillor, the white dominatrix, is putting her sex shop in that neighborhood because she can afford the rent, unlike in most areas in Brooklyn or Manhattan where she'd probably rather be.
2) Black folks, yes even in NYC, tend to be, well, Christian. Even when surrounded by hordes & hordes of secular whiteys, they remain, for now, believers. While black Christians tend to be tolerant of sexual misbehavior among their own, they really aren't fond of what they see as white perversions making inroads into their community. BDSM would definitely be seen as among that strange shit that white people do to each other.
Please correct me if I'm wrong and that these points are covered in the article.
Over the last several decades I think the bulk of our society has shifted from people having a hope for tolerance, to an expectation of acceptance. I can't imagine the BDSMers of the nineties expecting people to be happy and accepting of them moving into those people's neighborhoods. The best they probably hoped for was a cool indifference and a mutual agreement to ignore each others' business.
At least the Baker was willing to sell them a pre-made cake. He didn't demand they live somewhere else.
"Wokeness" - Noun - The state of being awake and of having your eyes open, likely in response to or sight of something absolutely horrifying and disgusting masquerading as fake-tolerance which serves as a catch-all to permit what people who claim it to do anything they feel like, possibility within sight of your children. Also known as "coerced tolerance", "faux marginalization" and "disgust fatigue".
Use in a sentence: "Jeremy criticized Jane's wokeness as she pleaded for him to stop thrusting his crotchless rainbow wrapped penis in her child's face, saying she wasn't tolerant enough to let him him take it to the next level."
People don't seem to understand the point of spoils systems.
White people don't get any of the spoils. They manage the system. The spoils are handed out to minorities to keep them voting for democrats.
If you are not one of the white managers you only get to experience the joy of being woke.
This goof ball doesn't know their place.
It's foolish to assume that all black people are woke, as that term is used today.
Woke brand hit hardest.
Imagine plopping your sex business into the black neighborhood and not just expecting the residents to be "woke" about it but expressing that expectation out loud and to their face!
It's easy to imagine, well, someone else doing it, because inside the White liberal "bubble," there are people who try to underplay the extent to which non-White members of the Democratic coalition are culturally quite conservative. When Black voters in California overwhelmingly supported Proposition 8 (banning gay marriage) in 2008, there were an awful lot of pieces trying to minimize Black opposition to gay marriage, by emphasising that Black voters are perfectly willing to support Leftist politicians who support gay marriage, just, you know, not when their support is specifically about LGBT issues. Even the headline on the USNews poll linked above is pitched to minimize Black conservatism: "Poll: Black Voters Not Responsible for Passage of Same-Sex Marriage Ban in California." But it admits that Black voters were 70% in favour of banning gay marriage, vs. 52% of the voting population overall.
Anyhow, in that kind of media bubble, it's easy for White progressives to delude themselves that because Black voters go 90-95% for Democrats in national elections, they do so for the same cultural reasons White progressives do.
All that said, I kind of wonder how this would have turned out if, instead of Taillor running some kind of no-sex sex dungeon out of the house, it was a fraternity or a sorority just being kind of slovenly and loud. Although Taillor is framing this as centering around the issue of sexuality ("kink-shaming"), and the journalist has bought into that, and I've responded in the same vein above, I don't think this is really about sex play or kinks at all. If it were a bunch of fraternity brothers being noisy and inviting strangers over to their house at all hours, I expect we'd have seen pretty much the same neighbourhood tensions. Making it about sex rather than strangers is a kind of cynical "hook" to justify and excuse Taillor's decision to run a sex dungeon in a residential neighbourhood as an expression of progressive goodthink.
This is black privilege that supposedly doesn't exist.
If some white lady was yelling at this woman to take her whore self somewhere else, she would just laugh at her and give her the middle finger. Probably even taunt her, "Your husband wants to be dominated by me."
"I don’t like the transient nature of the guys that come there, that have no vested interest in our community. We don’t know what their backgrounds are or what they’re capable of. It’s just a scary thing."
Which begs the question how does she feel about illegal immigration?
Help me out here - is 'kink' another 'born this way'.
That short except is bursting full at the seams with identity politics. Some people seem to see a world where that is all consuming with every interaction and judgement. I cannot relate to that, and I'm happy I don't have that crap clogging up my mind. It must really limit your experience and what you can learn from others.
Kinky woke privilege. Taillor has objectified black people and thinks they are in bondage to her wokeness. It's so simple to be woke, costs nothing, and suddenly the poor downtrodden are all in your debt.
I'm sure that any hurt feelings among the local community can be assuaged by handing out free ball gags & butt plugs to the first 100 customers.
I have been making this point for over 20 years. Those who chant “my body my choice” and call others “homophobes” are generally very much against BDSM, and ignore their own pronouncements. I have seen that on this blog every time we get close to the issue. I think AA's disapproval is plain enough, even if she won’t confess to it explicitly, and she is not the only one.
I realize I'm not saying anything too original, but every time I read an article like this, I can't help but think about future political realignment.
I know the left is counting on USA's majority minority future, but it would not take huge leaps for the right to bring blacks and latinos into their fold, no?. For instance, being more vocal against police overreach and the drug war? What else? I know I am missing something else the right needs to do to win with minorities.
A future with a social justice left and a evangelical white/black/latino right would not be completely unimaginable, yes?
Now, where that leaves me (pro-free market, anti-empire centrist) is the question. But though I remain a registered Republican, I started to be left out by Bush with the Iraq War, before Trump really left me out.
But don't cry for me, I will be fine.
May I offer Ms. Tailor a very Nelson Muntz-like "HA HA!"?
"I want her do be the Beyonce of her block". That sounds painfully condescending. Might as well say she's articulate and dances well.
"You don’t have to kink-shame or say that people are creepy because of what they enjoy doing..."
This part of the quote is also very funny. "Kink-shame." Heh. And "creepy because of what they enjoy doing," isn't that always what makes someone creepy? I think child molesters and serial killers probably enjoy what they do very much. Even if you were doing something that didn't hurt other people, say tanning the hides of roadkill to fashion dolls that look like your mother, it's still mostly what you enjoy that can make you creepy.
When Black voters in California overwhelmingly supported Proposition 8
The activists celebrated and held a parade in Salt Lake City, Utah, to punish politically incongruent Democrat and Catholic voters in California.
call others “homophobes” are generally very much against BDSM
Political Congruence ("=") is a many selective thing.
Those who chant “my body my choice”
In Stork They Trust.
When did hobbies and fetishes become identities on the same level as race?
The fundamental flaw in her expectations is that "woke" equates to actual tolerance or open mindedness towards differences.
"When did hobbies and fetishes become identities on the same level as race?"
Gays were the gateway drug.
Having a fetish like this could be argued as genetic or immutable just as being gay is. Where is the line, and why should it matter why I like what I like. I just do, and if you don't like it, and approve, you are a bigot. Religion is a choice isn't it? How much more will become protected classes now that victim-hood is so desired, cherished, and empowered?
@California Snow
You want the answer to your question? The gay rights movement.
I've said it in other posts. They were the first to equate sexual attraction to 'innateness of being'. They were the first to jump through the Overton Window and a lot, a whole lot, of 'kinkies' jumped right after them.
It transformed from who cares what 2 adults do behind closed doors to how dare you not care about what we do behind closed doors!
Blogger Not to be Named per the new rules said...
"Kink-shame." Heh. And "creepy because of what they enjoy doing," isn't that always what makes someone creepy?
Exactly, creepy just like namby-pamby Christians.
Over the last several decades I think the bulk of our society has shifted from people having a hope for tolerance, to an expectation of acceptance. I can't imagine the BDSMers of the nineties expecting people to be happy and accepting of them moving into those people's neighborhoods. The best they probably hoped for was a cool indifference and a mutual agreement to ignore each others' business.
A lot of us on the right have been arguing that this was the whole point of these movements. It was never about tolerance or "getting the government out of the bedroom". It was about demanding that the rest of the public applaud every aspect of your lifestyle. These people want to drag their bedroom out onto the front lawn.
Perhaps Chelsea Clinton's "nice woke community" in the Flatiron would be more welcoming...although one suspects it's a tad more pricey than Bed-Sty and Grannie's security detail might put a kink in Taillor's business.
Creepy is as creepy does.
How did any of the neighbors even know it was a "BDSM collective"? And who even talks to their neighbors, these days? I've lived on the same block for 18 years and I know about six of them by sight and talk with one semi-regularly. While having porch beers (will summer ever get here?), I wave at a bunch of familiar people walking their dogs, but none of them live on my block and we don't interact otherwise.
What a stupid article about a stupid subset of stupid people.
The Left has done their best to wreck sex, just as they have done their best to wreck many cultural and sociological practices and institutions.
You don't need some skanky emotionally-damaged dominatrix in Brooklyn.
You need: a pretty girl, with nice long hair, a nice warm smile, a nice figure, who wants to laugh, wants to be treated nicely, wants to drink wine and go dancing, wants to have Saturday picnics in the sunshine, likes to cook romantic dinners, with music and candles, likes to flirt, can get serious when the situation requires, all that jazz.
People will deliberately overlook a lot if you don't get in their face with your creepoid behavior, but that's not the creepoid way. They have to shock the bourgeoisie, and then act all hurt when they are rejected or questioned about their abnormal behavior.
They hunger for the acceptance and normality that they will never have.
Wait for it... wait for it... Sad!
Ann Althouse said...Imagine plopping your sex business into the black neighborhood and not just expecting the residents to be "woke" about it but expressing that expectation out loud and to their face!
I'm not sure I fully understand what you mean here, Professor. What about it being a black neighborhood is relevant? Tailor's assumption was that the black neighborhood in a liberal part of a liberal city would accept her lifestyle (and the intrusion of her associates). What about the neighborhood being black makes that more offensive, or notable?
I mean...if Tailor had chosen a non-liberal part of town and a white neighborhood the story would probably be about how regressive, bigoted white people failed to embrace their vibrant new neighbors, etc. We all know that, sure. But what is it that makes this particular story fit better into the "colonizer" mold than the "unenlightened hicks failing to embrace change" mold?
I admit I haven't yet read the article but if the word "intersectional" isn't used a few times then I'm not sure what's becoming of the Times!
Older black people wanting to keep their neighborhood (its mores, values, demographics, etc) the same and resisting invasion by an allegedly-progressive element = noble, brave, beautiful.
Older white people wanting to keep their neighborhood (its mores, values, demographics, etc) the same and resisting invasion by an allegedly-vibrant/dynamic foreign immigrant element = shameful, regressive, racist, ugly.
Same as it ever was, I guess--the rules are different for some people.
I saw an amusing flow chart once that described the various official reactions to different actions of white people--something like "move in to an urban neighborhood --> gentrification," and "move out of an urban neighborhood-->white flight." Eh, whatareyougonnado?
Have you made any progress in the search for a place to move to for your remaining time in retirement, Professor?
Phidippus said...People will deliberately overlook a lot if you don't get in their face with your creepoid behavior, but that's not the creepoid way.
It's not just creepoid, though--if it was just creeps it'd be a small matter. As commenters above point out the calls for "tolerance" were rarely made in good faith--what most groups demand now isn't tolerance or acceptance but celebration and normalization, even when their particular group is in fact very small and outside of the mainstream. Most people are nice and want to be polite, but groups weaponize that niceness and empathy and combine it with their minority group's fervor to impose their will on the majority in ways no one would otherwise tolerate.
That's why I try to give the nice people, like Professor Althouse, a hard time about those sorts of things. She's certainly not a bad person but her niceness is too easily made into a weapon and it just so happens that weapon is used against ideas and causes I care about (little things like individual liberty, a free society, etc). The nice people can be dangerous!
There's a semi-related Herbert quote from one of the Dune books: "When I am weaker than you I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles."
The people appealing to your empathy are quite often the same people who can't wait to exercise power over you and laugh in your crying, scrunched up face. The people insisting you indulge them and their odd ways are often the same ones who will tolerate no opposing views!
Bay and Tank want the same girl.
How did any of the neighbors even know it was a "BDSM collective"?
As Phidippus pointed out, the creeps have to shock the bourgeoisie.
A couple years ago, on a bit of a morbidly curious whim, I went to a series of lectures on BDSM held at a local dungeon. What struck me about most of the people there was how desperate they seemed to be unique and weird. Getting spanked/whipped/humiliated was something they seemed to be doing so that they could say that they were doing it, if that makes sense.
"Imagine plopping your sex business into the black neighborhood and not just expecting the residents to be "woke" about it but expressing that expectation out loud and to their face!"
Well, OK. Or, imagine plopping your no-Daddy Section 8 petty criminal household into the white neighborhood and not just expecting the residents to accept the vehicles coming and going at all hours but actually tagging their houses and cars. Or is that racist?
actual items said...I realize I'm not saying anything too original, but every time I read an article like this, I can't help but think about future political realignment.
I know the left is counting on USA's majority minority future, but it would not take huge leaps for the right to bring blacks and latinos into their fold, no?.
It's a nice thought and it was certainly a motivating factor behind GWBush-style big government conservatism pushing for amnesty and continued large scale Latin immigration--"those people are natural conservatives, good Catholics, family people" and so on. Unfortunately the evidence just doesn't bear that out, at least not with respect to small government/libertarian/non-Left political beliefs (on cultural issues like religiosity there is a better case).
Cato's most pro-open borders guy, Alex Nowrasteh, points to his research showing that noncitizen immigrants have political opinions close to "mainstream" native's and naturalized citizen immigrants have political opinions even closer to "mainstream" native political opinions. Great, right--bring 'em in! What he isn't keen to point out is that the same research shows that immigrant families are, to a statistically significant degree, much more Left than the median American for 3-4 generations. Nowrasteh's big point is that after about 4 generations you can't tell the immigrant family member from the native family member. Hooray! My point, and the "lived experience" of the areas that have seen a lot of Latin immigration in the last few decades, is that having 2-3 GENERATIONS of large numbers of people (since those immigrants typically have more kids/larger families!) who are markedly more Left leaning will most definitely push the nation as a whole to the Left in ways that may fundamentally change the nation.
At any rate the demographics indicate we're less likely to deal with a "black-brown" coalition and more likely to deal with an expanding brown population taking political prominence away from the black population.
It has occurred to me that some of the recent calls for reparations and discussions of reparations might be due more to people/leaders realizing they may not have much longer to get something like that passed than it is to just increasing political power on the part of black groups. We've already got ~20M undocumented immigrants, most of them Latin, and that number is growing every day. Once you amnesty/legalize/make citizens of those and push for greater numbers of new immigrants you're weakening your own call for shared sacrifice in paying reparations for slavery/to the descendants of slavery. What do you think some newly-naturalized family from Central America will say about being required to pay tax money to the federal government to atone for the legacy of American slavery? Multiply that by several million...
I'm apparently not very imaginative because what I'm stuck on is the question they don't really investigate in the article: Does anyone really believe that this was a no-sex sex dungeon?
I don't, and I'm guessing that the long-time residents would agree with my assessment.
I think BDSM might be an upscale perversion. Who can afford all those black leather outfits and accoutrements and all that incidental equipment looks expensive. Still, as perversions go, BDSM is not as silly as dressing up in furry mascot outfits. Those furry outfits also look costly. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if engaging in furry business is a gateway perversion to bestiality. Further studies need to be done........I have learned a great deal about sex since the advent of internet porn. While it's true that none of it is worth knowing, it's interesting to note in how many weird convolutions the libido can be twisted. How many things in your childhood have to go wrong in order to eroticize octopus tentacles. Doesn't anyone sublimate their sex drive anymore?
You need: a pretty girl, with nice long hair, a nice warm smile...
A reconciliation of the sexes, where a boy chases a girl chases a boy, raise children together, grow old together, until the end of love.
I am not sure it is possible to have nice relationships with "woke" people. From experience, "woke" people are intolerant, often extremely so, and have a victim mentality that results in denouncing everyone who does not give them 100% of what they want. I would call them the equivalent of barbarians at the gate, but barbarians were typically much more reasonable and self-aware.
"Oh, 'woke'! Bye, Felicia!"
You get a better sense of this if you imagine there was a black woman neck roll included.
The article was much gentler to Ms. Miller than I imageine it would be in a Bizarro-world version of this story. I'm imagining a scenario where Miller is white, the dominatrix is black and they're in a white neighborhood. Bonus condescension points if it is set in a flyover state.
YoungHegelian said...
I can't read the article behind the paywall, but I'm sure, knowing the NYT, there will be two things left unsaid:
1) Ms Taillor, the white dominatrix, is putting her sex shop in that neighborhood because she can afford the rent, unlike in most areas in Brooklyn or Manhattan where she'd probably rather be.
2) Black folks, yes even in NYC, tend to be, well, Christian. Even when surrounded by hordes & hordes of secular whiteys, they remain, for now, believers. While black Christians tend to be tolerant of sexual misbehavior among their own, they really aren't fond of what they see as white perversions making inroads into their community. BDSM would definitely be seen as among that strange shit that white people do to each other.
Please correct me if I'm wrong and that these points are covered in the article.
1. Sort of, it does acknowledge that the rents in the neighborhood are lower that other areas of NYC.
2. Nope, not a word.
It also ignores the 9,000,000lb gorilla in the room; the heart of BDSM is the Master/Slave relationship. While non-kinky whites might say; "Um. Yeah. Whatever, as long as you don't wake the kids or annoy the neighbors...", your average non-kinky* black person is most likely going to say; "Whips and chains?! Aw, Hell no!".
This bit gets me though [Emphasis mine]:
The business relied on a group of submissive men for the women to practice with. But Ms. Taillor disputed Ms. Miller’s description of them. Because of the nature of The Taillor Group, she said, the clients tended to be respectful and docile.
“It’s great to have them around,” she said. “Because they’re — they’ll do anything from hanging your picture to defending you in your front yard.”
Interesting selling point. Wonder why that popped into her head?
*Yes there are kinky black people.
She isn't much of a dominatrix if she lets another woman push her out of town.
It sounds like a dreadful back and forth to me.
Why isn’t LGBTQ actually LGBTQK?
"What do you think some newly-naturalized family from Central America will say about being required to pay tax money to the federal government to atone for the legacy of American slavery? Multiply that by several million."
I'm fairly certain some newly-naturalized family from Central America will nestle comfortably into the 49% of Americans who pay no taxes. Multiply that by several million.
Oral contraceptives were the gateway drug.
I am going to steal that descriptor, Static Ping. "Un-self aware barbarians at the gate". Excellent.
I had a few more sentences about how local zoning matters in the 21st century really brings out the best in people (sarc), and how being the closest residence to a strip club or refinery is not for everyone. But inevitably someone has to be, so there's futility trying to "solve" these types of matters on the grander scale. But then I thought: really, who likes to spur local zoning debates?
I then thought I'd rather point out that the use of "kink-shame" made me think of the old song "Freeze Frame" which, wiki suggests, crested at #4 on the charts sometime in March/April of 1982, 37 years ago.
"Why isn’t LGBTQ actually LGBTQK?"
Some might argue LGBTQ actuall is K.
"Now I'm liberal, but to a degree
I want ev'rybody to be free
But if you think that I'll let Charolette Taillor
Move in next door and tie up my daughter
You must think I'm crazy!
I wouldn't let her do it for all the farms in Cuba."
Umm... Because slavery?
“I'm not sure I fully understand what you mean here, Professor. What about it being a black neighborhood is relevant? ”
It’s openly stereotyping black people and it’s using what seems to be their slang term and enlarging it to include issues very different from those that concern black people. It doesn’t seem to acknowledge that black people care about their residential neighborhoods.
The problem is a lack of good fishing and overpriced golf courses.
When men start to get bored with the vanilla sex offered by their equally bored wives, they generally did something productive like went golfing or fishing. The women generally grabbed a few bottles of wine, a Harlequin novel, a shower massager and bitched at their girlfriends.
So the fact that NYC doesn't have good fishing and affordable golfing is the major problem and men are forced to weirdness.
That and too many college education.
College educated people are weird and propagandized. After metaphorically writing 'God is Dead' on their mental blackboards every day, they seem to feel that they are morally obligated to stick a middle finger at an entity they deny exists by advocating if not actively participating in activities that would make an old French Satanist from Louis IVX court blush with shame.
The Liberal Black Mass. No wonder those black church ladies are so upset.
Ann Althouse said...It’s openly stereotyping black people and it’s using what seems to be their slang term and enlarging it to include issues very different from those that concern black people. It doesn’t seem to acknowledge that black people care about their residential neighborhoods.
I hear "woke" non-ironically more often now from young white women than I do from black people, although thinking about it I guess I first heard it form black women--I don't think it's a term men use and I hear it now much more in an ironic sense than authentic (although that's probably just my bubble). At any rate I don't think woke-ness was restricted to black/minority concerns from the start--someone who uses "woke" is almost guaranteed to be deeply interested in intersectionality.
I don't follow your assertion that it shows a belief on her part that black people don't care about their neighborhoods. I think it's more accurate to say she believed that the black residents, by virtue of being black, would share her Progressive politics and would therefore not see her lifestyle/habits as "bad" and so wouldn't object to her moving on in.
Her belief that black neighborhoods would be filled with "woke" people relies on a stereotype, sure (a positive one from her POV, but still a stereotype). But given that belief and the woke/Progressive view of "alternate sexuality"/sex positivity, etc, I am not sure why you'd think she'd believe those residents wouldn't care about their neighborhood. She expected them, like all "woke" people, to embrace and celebrate her lifestyle and her community! She didn't think think they'd not care--she expected them to see her coming there as a positive thing.
"Woke" whites are the worst.
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