The underlying premise of this series is that real power and real independence for women lies outside most of the conventional routes. The choice I am going to advocate in this series is to re-examine the role of the Courtesan. If you seek to have real power that belongs to you and that you can keep all your life - read on.
The choice is not to become more like a man nor is it to become more feminine. As I learn more, I see that their common accomplishment was to become the complete and integrated woman with a strong anima and a strong animus. They chose neither to over compensate on the masculine side not the feminine. They found the middle road.
In their mind - they have a particular facility with how men think and see the world. In their body, their great appeal is that they are warm and compassionate.
To Conquer a man, first conquer his mind.
To keep a man, make yourself a necessity to his life. (Diana)
Let's dig deeply into Diana's dictum. Let's start with what conquering "His Mind" may mean. By the end of this post you will see that this process is not as simple as you may think at first glance. We will end with a hint at what becoming a "Necessity" may mean. In the following chapter we will enter the bedroom and get the full meaning of what Diana is saying.
What is the mind of a courtesan and how is it formed?
They begin their education not conventionally at school but by being schooled.
Pamela is "adopted" by Winston Churchill during the war and becomes his hostess as he entertains the leaders of the war effort. This is where she met and loved Averell Harriman, General Fred Anderson, Bill Paley and Ed Murrow. They were some of her early teachers. Germaine de Stael was schooled by her real father, Jacques Necker, Louis XVI's finance minister. It was because of her father's that she first met the love of her life, Talleyrand. Pamela was 19 when she began her role as Winston's hostess. Imagine you are her and that Ed Murrow takes you under his wing! Imagine that you are Ed Murrow! What would you be talking about? Don't snigger men like Murrow need to talk more than the other thing.
Courtesans have an affinity for older men even when they are very young and they seek out "Teachers". Their schooling begins not in the bedroom but at the dinner table.
Here is Diana on her 16th birthday. Our father is hosting a party for her at Annabel's and we are just leaving the house. Like Pamela (By her adopted Father Winston) and Madame de Stael (by her real father), Diana's first teacher was our father. She became exposed to the masculine mind through thousands of meals with our father who held court with an endless stream of powerful men. Diana, like Pamela, became his formal hostess at around 16 as our mother had already begun to withdraw from active life. She, like Pamela, was drawn to these men. My friends of my age were much dismayed by this!
Not one Courtesan has been described as the most beautiful woman of her time. All have been described as very interesting and well educated. More educated than other women of their time. Having a degree in something does not an educated person make. A well educated woman, has a very broad education, as if she had 10 degrees. She has an innate understanding of men and their interests.
What were the gifts of each woman. Languages, art, architecture, poetry, writing, maths, physics, wine , antique furniture, literature. How was it possible that such young women in a time when many women knew next to nothing would make these women so special so intelligent so driven, that there is not a woman even now who could really compete with them.
They spoke Latin, Greek, French, Italian and English. They collected thousands of books, when to have a library was something so extraordinary at the time and so expensive.
Today I go into lawyer's houses and I can't find a single book. Most people in Canada have never studied Greek or Latin. Queen Elizabeth the 1st spoke 6 languages fluently by 18. She was well versed in many other subjects too.
Has education reached such a low in our age? Why is education not valued like it was in the past. When Americans do exams they are multiple choice, not essays about the subject.
Where are the Salons of the 18th, 19th centuries where very clever people swapped ideas and gathered for the sheer pleasure of spending time with the most incredible people of their time.
Somewhere, we have lost the interest in being truly educated. We have sunk to the lowest form of education in the 20th century. We have systematically dropped the finer side of the subject and become so much less than we were. I think of Emilie, (Emilie de Chatelet, mistress of Voltaire and translator of Newton's Principia) plunging her hands in cold water so that she could finish her work. Working night and day to produce a translation that has not been bettered over time. No one has come up with anything superior to her translation, of which she made a couple of different ones, so that more people could understand it.
We have become ordinary over time. Who stands out today. Who writes today and changes the world. Who goes to prison in the west for ideas that challenge the system.
"How awful" you may say. These women, and Diana, surrendered themselves to older men. But Diana and Pamela never gave up themselves. What they learned was that if the created a Trusted Space, the men would feel safe with them and not only come into that Space but need to go there for themselves.
Let me explain. I opened this post with the classic cover picture from My Fair Lady. On the surface, Higgins has all the power. But as he "Grows accustomed to her face" the power balances out.
On the surface the courtesan is classically well educated. She left school at 16 at the time of the picture. But by listening and by becoming engaged with those that she cared about she became educated in the way that she describes it. Diana speaks 4 languages. She has a deep knowledge and love of music and literature. She is a student of history. She knows even more about warfare than I do. She is a very successful business woman in her own right and understands how credit and banking work and how to run a good business.
These are all accomplishments that most women who have 3 degrees do not share. But this is still her surface education.
What she learned at a deep level is how to listen.
What happens to you when someone really listens to you?
You feel wonderful. You grow. Your ideas grow.
What is true listening?
It is when a person hears you without judgment. That does not mean they merely nod and agree with you but that the rigorous debate that you have with them is bathed in acceptance of you the other person. This is of course Trusted Space. What then is the product of a conversation where one truly listens to the other? It is of course that this trust is reciprocated. What happens then? Mateship.
What then is the effect on the listener who offers this opportunity of both the rigor of an informed debate and the safety of true acceptance. She herself grows and is offered the love that she gives in return.
That is why Madame de Pompadour is able to end her physical relationship with Louis XV after 5 years and continue to rule France for another 15 years until her death. No one else made the King feel so loved and so he gave her all that he could in return. He was faithful to her in transcendent way that endured beyond the grave. She lived on too in his heart until his own dying day.
So the bottom line for education for the Courtesan route of life is to love to listen. By listening, we learn. By listening we help others learn. By listening, both grow. What greater gift than to be heard for ourself. Then we truly become Mates.
This leads us to sex. In the next chapter, we will discover that the Courtesan's great talent in the bedroom is that she listens there as well.
As in her mind, body of the courtesan is a well honed instrument that she uses with exquisite skill. But her greatest talent is to offer her body to her man in complete safety and acceptance. She knows how vulnerable men really are. In particular she knows how vulnerable men of accomplishment in public life can be in the bedroom. She completes the Trusted Space of her Mind with the Trusted Space of her body.
In so doing she sets in motion the complete gift. She gives her all. She gives her complete self - her body and her mind. In giving all, as we know in the rules of the Gift Economy, she creates the conditions for having the gift returned.
That is where her power lies.
Join Diana and I soon in the Trusted Space of the Courtesan's body
What did we mean by the term "Mate"? Diana and I are "Mates" not just siblings. She knows all my failings and still loves me. She loves me because of some of my failings. So I am completely myself when I am with her. We do not have a goal or a plan. Our final knowledge is that one day one of us will be alone again but we will have still the other within us. This is the reason why living with dogs can teach us so much about being Mates. Their inevitable loss prepares us to lose all and everyone else who is close and to help us know that in our hearts we are still together.
The gaol of Mates is Mateship! The result of Mateship is connection with another and to yourself.
How does Mateship happen? I suspect that it is also the product of a Trusted Space.
A Trusted Space is a "Place" where it is safe for people to take off their masks and so show their full selves. When we sat every evening for hundreds of thousands of years in a circle around the fire and told our stories - we were in a trusted space. When we lived our lives in public, there could be no masks. In a world that was based on reputation, your name was your most important asset. We showed our full selves to another and we were accepted for being whom we were.
What a wise blog!
Posted by: Alice | October 25, 2008 at 03:04 PM