Muriel Schwenck
Beloved Curmudgeon
Reading this is pathetic and creepy.
Much more at the linkMy friend Eva, who has accompanied me to a buffet of odd events, is giving me her feedback on the people we’ve encountered there. “I don’t know what it is, but I’ve noticed that if there’s an event with nakedness, the majority of people who turn up will be older guys.”
As a journalist writing about weird workshops and unusual classes I’ve covered cuddle parties, rope-binding, naked yoga, and tantra, to name but a few.[...] And with each event I cover, I become more suspicious that these “alternative” workshops are simply a way for apparently progressive men to gawp at women—lap dancing clubs for the woke.
On the surface, these workshops are all above-board. After all, what could be creepy about a fully-clothed cuddle? Don’t we all need some affection? What could be impure about practising yoga as nature intended? Surely we could all benefit from taking part in such innocuous activities? But in reality, these workshops predominantly appeal to men who attend in the hope of touching women, staring at naked women, and—best case scenario—touching naked women.
These men are often older, usually single, left-leaning middle-class guys who sometimes sport a man-bun and a big, bushy beard—lubricated with artisan beard-oil—along with loose cotton trousers. They’re the kind of guys who performatively check their privilege, and who take it upon themselves to supervise the privilege-checking of others. They think of themselves as progressive or woke—most certainly nice. But these men are not that different to the guys who go to a strip club and pay £20 for women to grind their butts in their faces. It might seem like a stretch, but having carried out an undercover investigation into the lap dancing industry, I think the biggest difference is that paying for a lap dance is a more honest transaction.