Off-list Re: Hoarse, four, mourning etc. (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Wilson Gray]

Not exactly a personal question, since I mentioned the subject in public.

I didn't exactly become a pimp, sensu stricto. It was an idea that, at
the time, seemed to make sense. However, once I had seen what a pimp
really is, I realized that I was not cut out for the job. A pimp is
essentially man who lives off the money made by his prostitute(s).
It's easy to live in rather princely fashion on the earnings of a
single woman.

However, pimping doesn't just happen. At the beginning, it requires
specialized training of one woman or more, such that, at a point in
the near future, the woman or women is a money-making machine that the
pimp sets and forgets. sometimes, a woman labors under the
mispreapprehension that whoring is simply being an easy lay and
getting paid for it. Sometimes, a woman thinks that a pimp is some
well-heeled playboy of the Western world who lives only to see to her
needs. There are too many possibilities to list, there being a sucker
born every minute, as has long since been noted. All that's needed is
the will, in the pimp, *suddenly8 to apply a mind-bending amount of
pain, until just as Winston Smith, after torture, literally comes to
see whatever number of fingers he is told to see.

IAC, it's trivial for a pimp to turn either of the women out. He
merely metes out seemingly unremitting, nearly unbearable pain,
interspersed with "love," a process called "turning a bitch out,"
until the woman comes to see that the only thing that she has ever
really wanted out of life is to do anything that will please her
"daddy." If it pleases him that she go out and sell her sexuality to
random strangers in order to return to him his money, it goes without
saying that she is pleased to have the honor of pleasing him.
At this point, the woman is ready to be "put on the block" and, even
though she has been released, this bird will return to her pimp.

This sort has been common for centuries, at least since "military
discipline," which need not involve any kind of pain to speak of,
merely the knowledge by the recruit that there is no such thing as an
opportunity to leave or any kind of threat. There are only promises: p
--> q, and the chance to be fortunate enough to give his life,
fighting for his country. And, of course, soldiers on leave return to
the battlefront without having to be forced.

It was the act of meting out the pain that made what was, at the time,
still called "the life" and not "the game," beyond my reach. There
were no phony slogans like, "Hate the game, not the player!" or any of
that pswaydo shit and no one who was hip thought for an instant that
pimps, in some yet-to-be-discovered manner benefit whores. Whores
benefit pimps and, perhaps, those men looking for a taste of strange.

Heard "a taste of strange" spoken on some TV show, not long ago. First
time I heard it since 1956 in Saint Louis. There was a movie, A Taste
of Honey, aout around that year. Can't remember whether it was before
or after '56. The time of the phrase I remember because I also
remember who said it, where, when, etc., etc. I remember the the movie
only because, when it was new, it was big. But I can't remember when
that was because I didn't see it until after it had trickled down to a
colored movie theater and I have no reason to remember when it was
released to the white public.

And I'm sorry that your wife feels that way. As implied, I think that
"pathological shyness" far more straightforward, since it's nearly a
phobia. I'm forced to trash chances to interact socially with other
people, when I dearly would love to do so, even when such women, uh,
"people." have approached me *first.* I can't even write my own name,
if someone is watching me do it. Someone says, "Initial here," and I
blank on my own initials. God bless Prozac!

-Wilson

On Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 10:49 AM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC
<Bill.Mullins at us.army.mil> wrote:
>
> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE
>
> Wilson -- please forgive a personal question, but I've got to ask . .
> ..
>
> Am I reading your post below correctly to mean that you once spent some
> time as a pimp?
>
>
> Also, on another topic, I was telling my wife about your "social
> avoidance disorder" post, and she believes that it's not a disorder,
> it's just a heightened awareness of the fact that most people aren't
> worth the time and effort it takes to be in their presence (can women be
> curmudgeons?).  I told her that you and she sound like kindred spirits,
> and asked her if she'd like to meet you.  She said with a grin (I should
> have seen it coming . . . ), "not particularly".
>
> Regards,
> Bill Mullins
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
> Of Wilson Gray
> Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 2010 12:47 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: Hoarse, four, mourning etc.
>
>
> Of course, the exception is my tirades against the melioration of
> _pimp_. Having been there and attempted to do that - "It's hard to be
> a pimp!" - I can assure you that the OED "definition" is incorrect
> verging on being an outright lie. Some things have to be experienced.
> What someone may have noted in the works of e.g. "Iceberg Slim" or
> even in Black Players, gives an *extremely* distorted and *generous*
> view of what a pimp is.
>
> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE
>
>


Wilson

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