Aileen Ghettman
"There is a whole landscape of belief around inaccessibility.”
There is a large segment of our society outside of the dream of America whose struggles are against their biggest demon: rejection. Out of fear whoredom has centered men and women into a manipulative paradigm, and a type of hostility that cannot sustain itself, or submit to resolution. Women are defining themselves vainly and profanely, and men are proud of their mis-education, their vileness, and brutality.
I have met and engaged the spirits and minds of hundreds and hundreds of women in my life. Drawn by the myriad of things within a soul I have learned and discovered things that have expanded my consciousness and/or sadden and puzzled me deeply. My ability to attract women to my safe place, where they may speak their truth in story, has always fascinated me, even as a teenager when I began to initiate conversations while learning how to speak.
A few years ago a black woman on the subway train, here in Washington DC, told me her mother, or was it an aunt’s advise about money was, “Baby, ‘long as you gotta a wet pussy you got money; a wet pussy and an empty pocket book don’t go together!”
More recently sitting across from a 75-year-old black woman at a dinner table in telling her story said, “I retired at 50 years old, and bought me new car, and a house. My daughter asked me, “How you gonna pay for that? You ain’t got no job! You ain’t got no money!”
“I got pussy.” And she broke out into a belly laugh.
She talked about it. Laughed about it, and made me laugh at her stories. That toothless old woman was proud of her hustles. She said hustling was the oldest profession in the world. “I’m hustling. Got me a new gig. Massage therapist.” She got up and showed me a yoga magazine, and some of her history books from her library.
“You gotta library?” I asked.
“Sho’ do. Gotta read. Can’t be a dumb muthafucka. Gotta know sumpin’!”
I named this piece I am writing after a woman who named herself, Aileen Ghettman. It isn’t her birth name. It is her skeezer name; her whore name. As she described it her ‘fuck name’. Where does a woman seize being precious to sale herself for ‘strange dick’ as Aileen and other women have spelled it out to me over the years?
See fame and survival has become, in their minds, the ultimate goal, and their pussy, in their world is the ultimate commodity. For it they will demean themselves and classify it with terms of endearment they believe legitimizes it. Americans cannot get enough of the most profitable expression of this type of whoredom. It is so powerful it has unemployed gifted screenwriters in Hollywood, and New York city. I am talking about reality shows. One reality show that has gained popularity in ghetto bathrooms and neighborhoods is the
Glory Hole.
Large holes are made in public bathroom stalls and duck taped for safety so men can stick their penis’ into the hole so a woman, on the other side, can give them a blowjob, or bone them silly. Often without condoms the men accept assurances by either the women, or their handler (pimp) and they go to town getting down just for the fun it. It is business. It is how they make their paper. They don’t care a twit about anything (the both of them) as long as they get what they want: money, fame, and a nut.
“Ain’t that some shit?” said the cat who first told me about this cultural tradition.
Men, on the other hand, govern themselves in this culture from a perspective of lordship. Value is placed upon the dominance of a woman’s sense of self to control ‘her pussy’ with their minds, and their angry pretense of caring for them. These cats claim they are pimps in control, and claim prostitution is the oldest profession. They believe this is how you handle your business, and their business is their women.
Now I ask, “Ain’t that some shit?”
~ Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories
