| 171 |
9. The Marketplace BarSome public drinking places derive their special from their use as centers of exchange for various goods and services, as well as clearing houses for certain kinds of information. Other than liquor, perhaps the commodity most frequently handled in the public drinking place is sex, on either a commercial or a noncommercial basis. But there are also bars that deal in narcotics, stimulant drugs, gambling, stolen merchandise, and a variety of other illicit goods.Like the general category of marketplaces, the bar itself is in most instances merely the physical setting where the transactions are carried out. Except in the case where heterosexual encounters are to be sold for cash rather than drinks alone, the sellers generally have no official position as such within the bar; they are simply present with their wares. In this sense, then, the bartender who makes book does so outside of his official position in the bar, and from the standpoint of the activity of making book, his official position within the bar is irrelevant; the same activity could be carried on as wen by a patron, and often is. Where the exchange of heterosexual conversation is ultimately to be translated into monetary terms, the seller must establish some contractual agreement with the establishment to convert the drinks bought for her during the evening into cash at the end of the evening. Thus the B-girl is usually a |
|
| 172 | salesman paid on a commission in the marketplace bar, rather than an
independent entrepreneur.
Some marketplace bars require buyers and sellers to be accredited or vouched for by someone before they can enter into the activities of the bar, since, like the home territory bar, the characteristic features of the marketplace bar can be disrupted by outsiders. According to one informant, a person desiring narcotics or information about where narcotics can be obtained in one area in the city must first become a familiar face, not only by having been seen around the area for six or seven months but also by displaying the proper language, the proper taste in music, and the proper knowledge of th( in general; he must be able to cite having been in the right places at the right time, both in the city and outside the city. A similar accreditation procedure is necessary where one desires a contractual selling relation within the establishment. As one B-girl is quoted as saying, A girl just can't walk off the street and tell a bartender she wants to be a B-girl. . . . She wouldn't get anything but a cold shoulder. There might be a half dozen girls sitting at the bar waiting for a sucker to walk in, but the bartender would tell her he didn't know what she was talking about.... Once you get to know the joints, and get known in them, or know another B-girl, then it's easy.[115] The same type of validation also must take place when one desires intangible goods that can be used as tangible evidence by the police. Thus, even in bars in which it may be "common knowledge" that information about prostitutes can be obtained, patrons walking into the bar cannot always receive such information, since it can be used by the police as evidence of pimping, even though the one giving the information may be getting no fee from any transaction that may take |
|
| 173 | place. The following examples come from the notes of a male field worker
in two areas of the city generally known as places where such contact can
be made:
The two men on either side of me were busy talking. In the middle of my second drink I asked the bartender, "Johnny, where could I get a girl for tonight?" He was leaning with both hands on the back bar counter looking at me and then said, as if trying to find out if he heard me correctly, "Where could you get a g-i-r-l?" |
|
| 174 |
leave your money with her" (indicating the woman I had been sitting with). Sexual MarketplacesWhether bartered or bought, straight or gay, the number of establishments that can be counted as sexual marketplaces[116] is probably second only to the number of establishments that can be counted as home territory bars.One important differentiation among sexual marketplace bars is whether the transactions that take place within them involve any form of financial consideration--whether there is an actual "buyer" and "seller" or whether the exchange is to take place in the form of bartering, where each party is both buyer and seller. The former type of establishment is found where B-girls, prostitutes, and male hustlers utilize the facilities of the public drinking place as their work setting; the latter type, probably more numerous, is found where the sexually unaffiliated congregate in search of temporary, or perhaps even permanent, companionship. This section focuses primarily on the establishment of noncommercial sexually |
|
| 175 | oriented encounters between strangers, or as they are More commonly
called, "pickups." In the next section some features are given of the
commercial, sexually oriented encounters in public drinking places.
Bars that are used by the patrons as sexual marketplaces vary in the extent to which this definition forms a part of their "reputation" or, in other words, in the extent to which the activity is a matter of public knowledge. Some establishments may be known as such only after they are patronized and others may be imputed to be sexual marketplaces only because they are located in areas where such activity could be expected to take place. The following examples come from bars in three different areas of the city; the first four come from bars in two different more-or-less middle-class, residential neighborhoods, and the last comes from a bar in the downtown area. Although the field worker asked the question of the bartender, such information is available from other patrons as well (as the last example indicates). B. J.: "Where do you go for fun around here?" Bartender: "To eat?" |
|
| 176 |
"You know any place else I might go?"At the same time, there are some bars that are known as sexual marketplaces to at least a limited clientele: B. J.: "Where do I go to find the action in this town?" |
|
| 177 |
He then left to talk to some of the other customers and I went to the. restroom. On returning I couldn't remember the names of the bars he had given me, so I asked him again. He told me, and then somebody down the bar said I should try the J_____ as well. "No," said the bartender. "He's just looking for a good time; he doesn't want to be taken."Other bars are so established with respect to their use that their reputation transcends city, state, and in at least one establishment, national boundaries. One of the male, patrons told P. C. that he was in San Francisco on business, that he lived in New York. He went on to say that friends in New York had given him a long list of bars to see in San Francisco, bars which he said are "places that swing." He then mentioned seven or eight such places, all of which have a general reputation within the city as sexual marketplaces.In the same sense, some homosexual bars are known as "Cruisy gay bars" and others are not, which is to say, some are known as sexual marketplaces and others as home territories. |
|
| 178 |
PickupsThe characteristic feature of the pickup is that, unlike encounters between heterosexual persons of the same sex, or even casual cross-sex encounters, the pickup always carries the implication that something more, something of a sexual nature, could, without surprise or indignation, come of it. If the participants in a pickup were to find themselves intimate with one another at some later time, this new state of affairs would not be incomprehensible to them in the light of the inception of their relationship. And such intimacy often is, if not expected, at least hoped-for. But at the same time, this is not to say that the pick-up implies that such an intimate relationship is necessarily forthcoming-only that it exists as a foreseeable possibility.[117] Many pickups go no further than merely flirtatious sociability, toying with seducing and being seduced without seriously expecting that seduction will occur.Because the pickup is defined as a dalliance between strangers and because of the norms that surround private places (where mutual acquaintance with a third party usually implies that unacquainted participants are not really strangers),[118] pickups as such can occur only in public places, although sexually oriented encounters can occur anywhere. And while almost any public place-beaches, parks, streets, movie houses, buses, and trains-can be the setting for a |
|
| 179 | pickup, the general expectations associated with public drinking places
as well as many of their structural arrangements facilitate the establishment
of such encounters.
Although the marketplace bar specializes in sexually oriented encounters, pickups as such may take place in almost any bar. In the first place, the long historical association of the public drinking place and licentiousness facilitates the identification of possible participants in such encounters. Anyone present in a bar suggests to those who see him there that his virtue may not be unquestionable and that his moral character may not be above reproach-and this is particularly true of women.[119] At the same time, it is typically only by becoming overly involved in one's drink, by placing it before him, within the confines of his elbows and forearms with his head bent slightly forward and down, that one can declare to others present that he is not open to interaction. But this same posture also signifies that one is engaged in "serious drinking," and hence within the bar one is either open or away.[120] Even being engaged in a current encounter does not necessarily provide complete assurance that no overtures will be made. Any encounter with the bartender may at any time be defined as an encounter open to all, and encounters with other patrons are equally accessible, whether the participants are of the same or opposite sex: A woman with bright red hair came in. The man |
|
| 180 |
with the dog went over, sat down next to her, and began talking with her. About half an hour later the bartender came over to the two, pointed out a man sitting four seats down and introduced him to the woman as "someone who has been admiring your hair." The woman turned toward him and smiled. A few minutes later he came down and said, "Do you mind if I sit next to you?" The new man asked her to dance on two or three occasions, and the other man became very interested in his drink and his dog during these times. He finally drifted away, leaving we woman with the new man,In a sense, then, the unescorted female in a public drinking place is typically in a position where her virtue and character are indefensible. She is either open to all or a solitary, serious drinker, neither role having much moral status. This is not to say that any unescorted woman in a bar is necessarily Of little moral repute, but rather that if she is not, it is incum- |
|
| 181 | bent upon her to constantly prove this in a setting that offers her
no protective support.
Besides facilitating the easy identification of possible participants in (at a minimum) flirtatious sociability, the setting of the public drinking place further facilitates the initiation of such encounters and provides an activity around which they can be maintained. Once a possible partner has been found, the bar pickup fundamentally resolves itself into a kind of social game with somewhat standardized opening gambits, mid games, and resolutions. While there are variations in the way in which the game can be played, some more or less elegant, some more or less efficient, there is a general form of what could be called a "proficient bar pickup" in contradistinction to those forms that are more difficult to play and hence less viable and those that are less sporting and hence more likely to terminate in unpleasant scenes. Opening MovesThe female need not take a passive part in the inception of the game; there are tactics--equivalent to dropping her handkerchief or standing against a lamp post--in which she can engage to signify her interest in future proceedings, to make her more open to an encounter. In the first place, there are positions along the bar as well as within the establishment that can facilitate or retard the perception of her preparedness to play, as well as indicate her professional or amateur standing. By sitting at a booth or table outside the main current of bar activity, a woman can indicate that she is, at least for the time being, on the sidelines of the game and at the moment unavailable for play. The middle section of the bar itself is conventionally neutral territory, and her mere presence there conveys little beyond what her presence in the bar itself conveys. However, the far ends of the bar are, in effect, the |
|
| 182 | expected stations for prospective players in the game of flirtatious
sociability, and which of the two ends is used in itself provides information
as to the status of the player.[121] B-girls and prostitutes customarily sit
at the far end of the bar, where the door and the entire premises are easily
and obviously visible to them and they are easily and obviously visible
to all who are there or about to be there. Those for whom the pickup is
to be a mere dalliance for an afternoon or evening, without necessarily
implying any financial remuneration or future state of affairs, will typically
sit at the door end of the bar, where visibility is stiff high, but reserved
for those who have already committed themselves to being present in the
setting.
The ends of the bar have the advantage of being not only highly visible but also of limiting the area of accessibility, so that some control can be exerted over with whom one will or will not be engaged. If a woman is seated in the middle of the bar, unless she is right next to the service station, she is open to approach from either side. Even if the approach is not to result in an encounter with any future, it must still be handled, leaving her unavailable for a time to any more desirable partner. Thus, by sitting at either end of the bar she can have greater control over the situation by reducing the positions from which she can be approached.[122] |
|
| 183 | In addition to spatial location, there are also activities that she
can readily engage in to declare her greater openness. Juke boxes and pinball
machines provide legitimate destinations and activities for her movement
within the bar, as well as legitimate focuses of attention for other interested
persons, and, unlike the cigarette machine, they can be utilized for extended
periods of time. Similarly, while seated at the bar she may engage the
bartender in brief but audible conversation, slowly move her empty glass
around before her, idly glance down the line of patrons seated at the bar,
or ask for a light for her cigarette or change for the juke box or cigarette
machine.
While all these activities provide her with devices to declare her availability for an encounter, none of them commit her in any way to maintaining an encounter with anyone who responds to them.[123] At no time has she made an explicit overture toward anyone in the bar; at no time has she explicitly put herself out to another as someone specifically seeking such an encounter. She is always free to move back to her seat from the juke box or pinball machine, proffer a curt thanks for the light or the change, ignore the entrance of anyone into her conversation with the bartender, and refuse the drink that may have been sent to her in response to her toying with her empty glass. |
|
| 184 | At the same time, her tactics provide protective camouflage for anyone
who has attempted to capitalize upon them for 'initial overtures. The juke
box, pinball machine, and bartender are all legitimate focuses of interest
for anyone in the bar; the offering of a match to a lady need not be anything
more than a small courtesy, and the sending of a drink that is refused
need not convey the identity of the sender to anyone but the bartender.
If we consider now only pickups in the strict sense of the word, if we omit from consideration those instances where one party has a commercial interest in the proceedings (e.g., B-girls, prostitutes, hustlers), there is a distinct opening gambit available to the man that categorically puts him in a position of seeking a sexually oriented encounter. Specifically, a man may use the bartender as an intermediary between himself and the woman, and in this way convey to the woman not only that he desires to engage her in an encounter, but that he desires to engage her in an encounter of a particular kind. There are two typical ways to use the bartender for this purpose. A man may ask the bartender to ask a woman if there is anything she wishes to hear on the juke box. The bartender's return with a particular request establishes that, once the selection has been started on the machine, if he (the patron) then decides to make an overture to the woman, it win not be rebuffed. This also provides him with a fairly easy path to the woman, for he can take his drink to the jukebox, insert a coin, and then return to where she is sitting. More commonly, the bartender is used to convey a drink to the woman with an indication of whose compliment it is, The passage of the drink, like the passage of the request for music, merely signifies that the sender may be interested in starting an encounter. Whether or not such an encounter will begin rests with the woman, who can acknowledge the drink in a way that informs the sender that she does or does not wish to enter into interaction with him. If she a ts the |
|
| 185 | drink and proffers her thanks directly to the man by a smile and a
nod, it is assumed that she is now open to a more direct overture. If she
refuses it, or accepts it and returns her thanks indirectly through the
bartender, it is understood to mean that she is not available at present.
Although the use of the bartender to convey a gift drink to a woman defines the sender as one who is interested in beginning an encounter of a particular kind, if the receiver does not initiate the first gesture of sociability, the sender is under no obligation to continue "paying court" and in most instances he will not do so. While the use of the bartender as an intermediary in bar pickups defines the nature of the encounter sought, it is by no means the only procedure. Inasmuch as anyone in the bar is defined as open for interaction, a man, or for that matter a woman, can always initiate a conversation with another with little cost.[124] It often happens, particularly in crowded bars, that a man and a woman will be seated within talking distance. In such circumstances, overtures can easily be made as brief remarks that carry with them an indication that a more extended encounter is desired, although not necessarily indicating what the character of that encounter is to be. Whether these spontaneous conversations between males and females in the bar setting are now to be other than casual bar encounters, undifferentiated from casual encounters where the participants are of the same sex, depends on the ensuing form that the interaction takes. If it remains an idle exchange of inconsequential information, if no hint of some future state |
|
| 186 | of affairs is given, then, for all practical purposes the conversation
remains nothing more than a conversation. But, of course, there is always
the possibility that such spontaneous cross-sex interaction can evolve
into a pickup, just as the possibility always exists that what began as
a pickup can dissolve into merely a conversation.
The form of approach used to instigate a pickup is related to the kind of public drinking place within which the activity takes place. While the bartender as an intermediary may be used to instigate a pickup in any type of bar, in bars that are known as sexual marketplaces, the establishment of the initial contact, as a general rule, is typically more attenuated and most such encounters simply begin from a conversation. Mid games and ResolutionsOnce an encounter has been initiated between a man and a woman, once the initial overture and acceptance have been completed, the pickup resolves itself into an interaction with a dual focus. It is characterized by the immediate pay-off of the flirtatious sociability itself as well as by the determination of the ultimate outcome--for the pickup always carries with it the implication that some more intimate state of affairs is foreseeable. This is to say that, for the participants, the pickup is viewed as both an encounter localized in time and space and as a possible prelude to some other type of interaction at a future time and in another place. Thus for either or both parties, the present interaction is constantly undergoing a process of evaluation in terms of a possible future state of affairs.One of the first items of information to be exchanged between the two parties is whether they might be available at a future time or place. Often statements of availability will be made even before names are exchanged, for if it turns out that neither party is available, there may be no reason for self- |
|
| 187 | introductions. It is not uncommon for the first statements of such
encounters to be something like, "This is a hard city for a single person
to meet people," or even, "Are you alone, too?" If the rejoinder to these
statements is, "Oh, I wouldn't know--I'm married," or "No, I'm waiting for a
friend," the interaction may very well terminate there and then, or at
best continue as intermittent casual chatter.
Information about availability is strategic information, as it conveys to the participants, in part at least, what the possible outcome may be. What may start out to be a pickup may dissolve into a casual encounter if it happens that one of the participants is unavailable: I was talking with a woman seated one stool away. A male friend of hers came in, sat down between us and began talking with her. Eventually the woman introduced herself to me as Alice and her friend as Don. Don then ordered a drink for himself, for Alice, for the bartender, and for me.While information concerning availability is strategic in determining how the possible character of the encounter is to be construed, it does not determine the final outcome. Even if both parties were to be available to each other, being unmarried, unhappily married, or merely licentious, one or both may ultimately be uninterested in the other party. Once information regarding availability has been exchanged, the ensuing |
|
| 188 | character of the encounter revolves around the problem of interest
in some future state of affairs and its counterpart, willingness, As the
conversation is extended over time, its sensible character begins to focus
on whether the relationship is to end there and then or whether a further
pay-off outside the confines of the bar is to take place.
By the very nature of the bar setting, neither participant is committed to any future state of affairs, but either or both may find such a state of affairs desirable and hence this must be communicated inside the encounter.[125] It may be that the bar pickup is now to be treated as though it were a more properly initiated encounter, and the man will ask the woman if he can call upon her for a date at some future time, to embark upon an evening as though they had met under more respectable circumstances. I had been talking with one of the patrons for about half an hour, during which time he said that he was in San Francisco on business and I said that I came to the bar because I had nothing else to do. Eventually he asked, "Could I take you out to dinner tomorrow night?"More usually, however, interest and willingness will be translated into spatial changes, typically as suggestions to alter the setting within which the present encounter is to continue. One participant may ask whether the other wishes to go from the present bar to some other bar or to go from the present setting to some other type of setting. Two men who had come into the bar together had been talking with two girls who had also come to the bar together. Finally one of the men said, "Say, shall we move on to some other place?" |
|
| 189 |
I had been talking with one of the patrons for about fifteen or twenty minutes, during which time we both made statements of availability. Eventually he said, "I'd like to have dinner if I could find somebody to dine with me. It's too depressing eating alone. How about it?"Whether the bar pickup is used as an opening to request a more formal date at some future time or whether it is used as the inception of an encounter that will transcend the particular locale in which it began, the request that is made is read as a statement of interest in something more than the mere flirtatious sociability of the moment and the response to this request is read as a statement about willingness in whatever else may come of it. Since one party can show interest in something beyond the present encounter while the other is unwilling to carry the relationship any further, the flirtatious sociability of the present may, if it extends beyond the other's admission of unwillingness, be only a second-best kind of encounter for the former. He may be willing to accept it for what it is, a casual flirtation that no longer holds a promise of anything else; he may maintain it with the hope that, given more time, the other party may change her mind; or he may terminate it to free himself for some new encounter. Thus, it is said of one pick-up bar in San Francisco that the time allowed by the men for any particular pickup to "ripen" is two drinks; once the girl has consumed two drinks purchased for her by her impromptu male escort, if she is disinclined to alter the character of the present encounter--which in this Particular |
|
| 190 | bar, is almost always a request to move on to some other bar
--it is read that there is no further hope for anything more than mere flirtatious
sociability. He who desires something more may excuse himself, relocate
in the bar, and try again.
Homosexual PickupsBar pickups among homosexuals may be differentiated from pickups among heterosexuals by the fact that in their basic form they typically appear to be more rapid and succinct. In the first place, by virtue of the character of homosexual life (specifically, the infrequency of long-term sexual alliances and the absence of strong moral sanctions attached to promiscuity), any male in a gay bar is automatically defined as "available." Thus, the only concern during the course of the encounter is interest and willingness. Even in cases in which an elaborate overture is made (and they appear to be rare), no questions of availability may be raised, as the following literary example indicates:I ordered a bourbon with beer chaser and took my usual spot near the door.... At the opposite end of the bar was a boy with a crew cut.... From time to time he would stare up from his bottle beer at me. The stare was direct and cold. . . . The bartender ambles down to me and sets up a bottle of beer. He has a bright, wise look on his owlish face. |
|
| 191 |
"What was the Met's score?" he asked.in the homosexual marketplace bar, the elaborate ritual of the heterosexual pickup may be abridged to merely a sustained mutual eye contact between the two participants, in which, at its termination, both of them will know that a partner has been found.[127] Such is not the case in the heterosexual pickup bar, where the immediate assumption that someone is available for a sexual overture because of a mere glance or gesture is sufficient to provide grounds for moral indignation. What is immediately apparent to all present in the gay bar is properly to be found out only during the course of an encounter in the straight bar. Thus, in the bar that had a reputation as a "body exchange" as far away as Australia, a young man who approached a female patron walking by him with a brusque, "HOW about it, sweetie," received in return a disdainful look and a quick termination of the encounter. |
|
| 192 | But if availability is not immediately apparent in the heterosexual
pickup bar, the distribution of activities is more specific. Thus, while
a woman in the heterosexual bar can proclaim by a series of activities
that she is open to interaction of a specifiable type and can expect a
response from a male, such a distribution of understandings does not exist
as clearly in the homosexual pickup bar, where seeker and sought may both
be engaging in the same behavioral repertory. In situations where interest
does exist, it is not always agreed beforehand who is to make the initial
overture which will start the encounter.[128] In the homosexual pickup bar,
insofar as the male gallantry of making the first approach is absent, it
may happen that encounters are never begun because each party is waiting
for the other to offer the first words of greeting; hence the evening may
terminate in nothing more than unfulfilled expectations. Cory and LeRoy
thus describe the homosexual bar:
They look at each other in gay bars with stares of desire or of evaluation. Each newcomer is assessed from head to foot; what a myriad of mental seduction and rape is constantly taking place. A covert hide-and-seek is observed; two strangers look, turn away, glance again, turn away, smile; each waiting for an approach. It is bad taste to stare without respite; it is in fact rude, so that one mask replaces another--a pretense of little interest. The hide-and--seek continues for hours, and yet they may not approach, despite growing tension over the possible outcome.[129] |
|
| 193 |
B-GirlsThe pickup is one form of sexually oriented exchange which may be transacted within the public drinking place, a form in which, at least ideally, neither participant expects any financial remuneration from the exchange. Sexually oriented exchanges can also be on a commercial basis, so that at some point in time one participant can expect, either directly or indirectly, a monetary payoff from the encounter. As one B-girl is quoted, "You really don't have to ask a guy to buy you a drink ... just sit there and he'll send one over. I figured since guys were always making passes, why not collect on it?"[130]Like the casual bar pickup, B-girls enter into sexually oriented encounters with strangers in the public drinking place. But unlike the casual pickup, for the B-girl the bar is a work setting and the flirtatious sociability in which she engages with the patrons is a source of financial remuneration. Although she sits at the bar like those who are present as patrons, the B-girl, unlike the female patron, is not unconditionally open for interaction. Rather, she is available only to those who are willing to pay for the encounter. Ginny (the B-girl) had one drink when she came on, around noon, and after that, Connie, the bartender, fixed her coffee. When a new man came into |
|
| 194 |
the bar, she would push the coffee cup away and sit twirling her empty glass, saying nothing unless the male offered to buy her a drink. Once a drink was bought for her, she would smile, laugh, and chat with the buyer until he either left or ceased buying her drinks. |
|
| 195 |
patron and rang up the drink. There was no change (although the patron's drinks cost only fifty cents) and he put a penny in. a glass by the cash register to tally the drink. Before I left, the patron had bought the blond three drinks, each time at her request.While the B-girl is present in the bar in the guise of a patron, in some marketplace bars flirtatious sociability may be purchased by the drink from women who are explicitly employed in the establishment, such as cocktail waitresses, bar-maids, and entertainers. While such bar functionaries are, in fact, expected to carry out the tasks that are associated with their occupational role, in the marketplace bar they are also present to provide cross-sex sociability for patrons who are willing to pay for it by the purchase of a drink. I answered an ad for a cocktail waitress, no experience necessary. The ad and the address had been in the paper about every two to three months for over a year.A similar example comes from the notes of one of the male field workers: I had been buying drinks and talking with one of the strippers for about twenty minutes or so. When she said she had to leave to do her act, the bartender suggested to Lolly (one of the other strippers sitting next to the first girl) that she move down and sit with me, which she did. |
|
| 196 |
I bought Lolly a couple of drinks and we talked for a while. At first she allowed me to suggest buying her a drink, but after a while she became increasingly aggressive about suggesting that I buy her a drink, finally asking me outright. At one point she offered me a cigarette. It was her last one and she said that I would "have to" buy her more. I did so at the cost of fifty cents.Whether the B-girl is in the bar in the guise of a patron or whether she is available for cross-sex encounters in addition to other duties, her problem of working efficiently (by maximizing the number of drinks purchased for her) is aggravated by the fact that all present, whether they are there as patrons or employees, are defined as open for interaction to anyone, regardless of whether a drink has been bought for them or not. Defined by the patrons as unconditionally open and by her employer as conditionally open, her solution usually rests upon making overtures with promises. She uses her open character either to instigate a conversation or to permit a conversation to be instigated with her, but once she has shown her interest in an encounter, she makes herself unavailable, either physically or socially, to continue the encounter without the purchase of a drink. The following examples come from the notes of two male field workers: I had been at the bar for twenty minutes or so when one of the girls sat down two stools from me. I watched her for a few minutes and then introduced myself. I did. not offer to buy her a drink. |
|
| 197 |
"Oh." She turned her head away.Similarly, ongoing encounters with the B-girl are characteristically viable only so long as drinks are forthcoming from the male. Thus one of the male field workers writes, |
|
| 198 |
I had bought Nancy two drinks. When the bartender came around for the third drink I told him that I wanted no more. Nancy cut off the conversation and became very restless. I could no longer keep a conversation going. Finally she said that she had to get ready for her act, and she prepared to leave. At this point I asked her if she would like another drink. She accepted and talked for another ten minutes or so.Similarly, while I was working as a barmaid, as long as the patron was buying drinks for me there would be no other duties that I had to attend to. However, once my drink was finished and no other offer was made to me by the patron, the bartender would typically find an assortment of minor tasks that needed my attention, tasks which could be immediately dropped if the patron offered me another drink. Many who buy the services of B-girls do so with full realization that they are, in fact, buying the cross-sex encounter as a commodity,[131] and that they are getting no more than they are paying for, although they may well demand that they get at least as much as they pay for. Marv said that last night he went to the T. (a bar just a few doors away from this one) and "dropped!" five dollars with May, one of the B-girls. "It was sort of a waste," he said, "because she drank it so fast that I couldn't even talk to her." |
|
| 199 |
entitled to it. Lunt said, "If I just wanted to look at her I could do it for free."[132]
After Marv, Lunt, and Kenny were finished with their evaluations of the B-girls along the street, there was some general conversation about the men who patronize them as well. Everyone had some story to contribute, mainly about how much various people had dropped with the girls on one occasion or the other.in addition to those for whom transactions with the B-girls are a matter of course, there are also customers who may treat the interaction as something different or something more than what it is expected to be from the standpoint of the B-girl. Thus, there are those who may enter into an encounter with |
|
| 200 | a B-girl believing it to be a noncommercial bar pickup, and those who
may enter into an encounter believing it to be a commercial encounter,
but one which offers more than mere sociability. In either situation,
such patrons may make trouble for the B-girl and the bartender as well,
the former because the patron must be made to pay for what he believes
he is getting free and the latter because he feels he is not getting as
much as he believes he is paying for. The complaints that are made to the
official agencies about B-girls' activity may come from either source.
ProstitutesJust as the public drinking place may be used as a setting where flirtatious sociability can be purchased, so, too, may such places be used as settings where arrangements for commercial sexual relations outside the bar can be transacted. In this way, the public drinking place may be, and frequently is, used as a locale within which professional and part-time prostitutes can be found.In Worktown, a town in which strangers are not common and whose transient population is small, prostitution does not flourish; the full-time prostitute is a rarity. The small band of them that exists is to be found in a few town centre pubs. They circulate within this limited orbit of a few hundred yards. One of these pubs in particular is regarded as their headquarters.[133] |
|
| 201 |
manager where the potential client is not very adventurous and asks aid. The more adventurous clients will approach the girt themselves, in which case the encounter frequently takes on the appearance of an ordinary barroom conversation. It is then important for the call girl to display her skill in negotiation so that she can obtain the promise of a fee without being too crudely commercial in her negotiations, as many men find such an attitude dampening to their ardor.[134]In some establishments, the relationship between prostitution and the public drinking place is one in which prospective "tricks" are merely channeled through the establishment, to make contact with the prostitute at some other location. Thus, some bars may be known as places where information about prostitution may be obtained, even though the women themselves may not be found on the premises. In other estab-lishments, either with or without the knowledge of the man-agement, women may work as cocktail waitresses primarily for the purpose of making arrangements with patrons for after-hours employment. But in most situations, the prostitutes have no contractual agreement with the establishment of any kind; they are simply there and available.[134] A young man came in with two rather flicely dressed young women. He motioned them toward the bench across from the bar and then went up to the bar. When he returned, he had a drink for himself and for one of the women, but nothing for the second one. The three of them sat for a few minutes talking, and then the woman with the drink wandered off. |
|
| 202 |
a few feet away from them, for all practical purposes simply eyeing the women who were present. The young man looked over at him, said something indistinguishable to the remaiming woman he was with and then went up to the older man, saying to him, "Are you busy?"One of the male field workers writes of another establishment: A middle-aged woman (Rita) was sitting a few stools away from me. Her "escort" was amorously rubbing her buttocks every now and then, but not appearing to make too much headway otherwise; Rita kent saying, "No!" |
|
| 203 |
A second woman (Daphne) came in, sat down at the far end of the bar for about twenty minutes, and finally walked down to where I was sitting, saying, "Don't you remember me? Don't you still love me?" I said yes and we hugged. Then one of the other male patrons asked her to dance, and the two of them stood in the middle of the floor, moving a little to the music but mainly hugging one another. All this time Daphne had an overnight case in her band and her coat on and buttoned up. When the "dance" was finished, she came back to where I was sitting, saying to me, "Nobody's at home. They're out probably having a ball and I'm here in San Francisco, broke and no place to stay."Not infrequently, professional and part-time prostitutes can be found in the same public drinking places that are used, and known to be used, for noncommercial heterosexual pickups. The presence of what the professionals call "those who give it away" has little effect on their own opportunities, since |
|
| 204 | it appears that the market for the noncommercial pickup and the market
for the professional prostitute have little overlap. As one patron in such
an establishment said,
A guy comes in here and he picks up with one of the prostitutes and he knows in the end that he's going to get what he wants. It might cost him the same [as a noncommercial pick-up] and probably it will cost him less to go with the prostitutes. And in the end they won't say no. You take one of these office dollies out of here and take her to dinner, thaf s thirty bucks; and then some place else to drink and that's another twenty bucks; and then you take her home and she says, "Good night.". . . They know they can get a nice night out of any guy here and never have to put out.insofar as the dalliances between strangers in the bar are absolved of the consequences which they can be anticipated to engender in more serious settings, the bar provides a locale where such activity can routinely and, so to speak, "inexpensively" take place. With the expectation that the participants will not find themselves committed to a later course of action of a particular kind or find themselves later accorded a reputation of a particular kind, bar pickups take on the character of open possibilities. But at the same time, if the bar generates an indeterminate outcome for the sexual encounters of some, this indeterminate outcome may also permit those who offer guarantees to work the setting profitably, since there may be others who are interested in guarantees. |
|
|
[115] San Francisco Chronicle, April 27, 1963. [116] Evelyn Hooker defines the term "sexual market" as "a place where agreements are made for the potential exchange of sexual services, for sex without obligation or commitment--the 'one night Stand'"("The Homosexual Community," paper read at the XlVth International Congress of Applied Psychology, Copenhagen, Denmark, August 14, 1961). I should prefer to use only the first part of her definition-that is, "a place where agreements are made for the potential exchange of sexual services"--and to define "sexual services" --in a very broad way to include everything from flirtatious sociability to sexual intercourse. To define the sexual marketplace only in terms of sex without commit-ment, or as one-night stands, ignores the fact that a long-term relationship can ensue out of an initial encounter, and while the marketplace may be populated with those in search of temporary encounters, it may also contain others in search of more durable goods. [117] The term "pickup" has two referents. The first is reputational, defining a type of individual, almost always a female, who is dated or whose acquaintance is made solely for the purpose of sexual inter-course. The second referent is an activity in which the male makes the acquaintance of a female without the proper intermediary, irrespective of whether or not the two ever have intercourse (Cf. W. Ehrmann, Premarital Dating Behavior [New York: Henry Holt and Co., 19591, 197). Thus, a girl may have a reputation of being a "pickup" even though she may never have been picked up in the second sense, and even proper ladies may upon occasion be picked up in the second sense without the imputation that they are pickups in the first sense. [118] Mildred Fenwick, Vogue's Book of Etiquette (New York: Simon and Schuster. 1948). vi). 59-60. [119] In an excellent study of prostitution in England, one investigator noted that it was not uncommon for men seated in pubs to take any lone woman there to be something less than a lady, and for the woman, in turn, to accept the fact that a man would make this assumption in such a situation as a matter of course. C. H. Rolph (ed.). Women of the Streets (London: Secker and Warburg, 1955), p. 58. [120] The entire syndrome of "serious drinking" in the public setting of the bar-the posture, the expression, and the determination of the activity-has the appearance of a world set apart from even the loose world of the bar, a world populated only by the serious drinker. Cf. Erving Goffman, Behavior in Public Places (New York: The Free Press, 1963), pp. 84, 95. [121] A similar phenomenon associating spatial location with expected activity occurs with respect to streetwalkers: "A tradition of place and behaviour has grown up whereby a man, seeing a woman loitering in a certain street, may assume that she is a prostitute. The position is so well defined in some places that the girl feels that merely by standing she is doing enough. . . . [On the carriage roads in Hyde Park] the deserted appearance of the foot paths and the apparent purposefulness of any woman who did walk along them were not only sufficient to announce my purpose to the public, they also forced upon me the realization that this area was reserved for prostitutes--it was a place set aside for them and would lend its colouring to anyone who chose to enter it." Rolph, op. cit., pp. 56, 57; see also Goffman, op. cit., p. 134, footnote 16. [122] Two studies on the relation between seating position and interaction conclude that leaders, or those who wish to have some control over the course which the interaction is to take, are more likely to choose the ends of the table over the sides. Cf. R. Sommers, "Leadership and Group Geography," Sociometry, 24 (1961), pp. 99-110, and A. P. Hare and R. F. Bales, "Seating Position and Small Group Interaction", sociometry 26 (1963), pp. 480-486. Sommers also notes that people in general choose corner chairs for conversing more frequently than neigh-boring chairs ("Studies in Personal Space," Sociometry, 22 [1959], pp. 247-261). [123] The sense in which the term "commitment!" is being used here concerns the degree to which any act is open to one and only one interpretation and hence unambiguously implies what the final outcome will be. Thus, the greater the number of interpretations a given act can have, the less information it carries with respect to the final outcome and the less one is committed to any specific final response. Cf. T. B. Roby, "Commitment," Behavioral Science, 5 (1960), pp. 254-255. [124] In the more consequential world governed by middle-class propriety outside the bar, men are not expected to open conversations with women in public places unless there is some "sound reason" for doing so, such as offering assistance5 and it is expected that no lady would even entertain the thought of making verbal overtures to a strange man. Cf. Amy Vanderbilt, New Complete Book of Etiquette (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1960)r pp.172-173 et passim, where, in citing examples, Mrs. Vanderbilt never considers the possibility that a woman might approach a man with whom she was not acquainted. [125] Cf. T. Burns, "Friends, Enemies and the Polite Fiction," American Sociological Review, 18 (1953), p. 661. [126] Charles Wright The Messenger (New York: Farrar, Strauss & Co., 1963L PP- 123-127. [127] Cf. Hooker, op. cit., p. 8. [128] A similar problem exists for homosexuals with respect to dancing: who is to lead? The problem here again is not merely a question of who is to act feminine and who is to act masculine, but rather, how is the distribution of activity for a joint endeavor to be allocated without a predetermined answer such as in terms of biological sex characteristics. Cf. D, W. Cory and J. P. LeRoy, The Homosexual and His Society (New York; The Citadel Press, 1963), p. 115. [129] Ibid., pp. 112-113. [130] San Francisco Chronicle, April 27, 1953. There is, in many respects, a good deal of similarity between the B-girl and the taxi dancer. Of the taxi-dance halls, Cressy writes, "Young women and girls are paid to dance with all comers, usually on a fifty-fifty commission basis. Half of the money spent by the patrons goes to the proprietors . . . while the other half is paid to the young women themselves. The girl employed in these halls is expected to dance with any man who may chose her and to remain with him on the dance floor for as long a time as he is willing to pay the charges. Hence the significance of the apt name 'taxi-dancer' . . . like the taxi-driver with his cab, she is for public hire and is paid in proportion to the time spent and the services rendered" (Paul G. Cressy, The Taxi-Dance Hall (Chicago: University of Chicago press, 1932], p. 3). [131] Analogous situations exist for the patrons of the taxi-dance hall as well. See Cressy, op. cit., pp. 109 ff. [132] It might be noted that one of the typical items Of "evidenoe" that ABC agents and the police put forth in support of a charge that a woman is engaged in B-girl activities is the speed at which she con-sumes her drinks. For example, one agent is quoted as testifying that a girl "drank eight champagne cocktails at $1.50 each in 33 minutes." (San Francisco chronicle, June 6. 1953.) [133] Mass Observation, op. cit., p, 266. [134] Harold Greenwald, The Call Girl (New York: Rallantime Books, 1960), p. 22. [135] Although to my knowledge there is nothing comparable to the B-girl in the homosexual market place bar, there are gay bars which are known as places for finding inale prostitutes. Cf. Gordon Westwood, A Minority (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1960). p. 73, as well as examples in Wright, OP. cit., and John Rechy, City of Night (New York: Grove Press, 1963). |
