Cinderotica

Ok, I know we have hammered the 50 Shades of Grey theme to death, but I have just a few more things to say on the subject.

We should take note of this chapter in history; we are going to look back on the mainstream erotica period as something that shows up in a Freakanomics book in 2020.  Much like the passing of Roe v. Wade and the link between reduced crime rates 20 years later, or the baby boom after World War II, 50 Shades will create a mysterious social phenomena.   In addition to the obvious bump in sales of sex toys in 2012, there may well be another baby boom, or perhaps even a drop in births because women are so happy pleasuring themselves, they realize that having a man around is rather… superfluous.   It is conceivable that the sexual freedom unleashed by the seemingly harmless lusty novel had something to do with the government embracing same-sex marriage.  The long-term peripheral effects of this publication are infinite.

There are a plethora of romance/erotic novelists out there trying to capitalize on the Fifty Shades anomaly.  Lately I’ve heard radio advertisements that go something like this “Long before Fifty Shades of Grey, so in so was writing erotic books for women.”   Maybe there are a few women who really get off on reading about sex with no plot.  However, I believe that the unique fascination with the Fifty Shades novel stems from the fact that it is simply a theme borrowed from the grand master of permanent child scarring, Walt Disney.  Fifty Shades is the kinky Cinderotica story that the middle aged woman has been craving.  As much as we don’t want our daughters to subscribe to the Prince Charming philosophy, its appeal to society throughout the years has no bounds.  We always fall for it.  We loved it when Mr. Darcy was smitten with homely, dowry-less Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice (“I believe I must date it [her love for Darcy] from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley).  We rushed to the theatres to see a prostitute clad Julia Roberts lure Richard Gere into her web in Pretty Woman; we were taken in again in The Proposal when Sandra Bullock was a lonely, repressed publisher and Ryan Reynolds – her dashing younger Canadian Prince Charming.  We even went crazy for vampire Cinderella stories with Edward and Bella in the Twilight series.  The list goes on and on…. And now we have Cinderella with sex toys.   EL James even shamelessly borrowed one of the stepsisters’ names by using Anastasia!   Elena could be the wicked step-mother/dominatrix.   Yikes, it is embarrassing to have fallen so desperately into this trap again in my 40’s.   Am I really that shallow?  I’m afraid to answer that question.

With an increase in the wealth gap, and the subsequent rise in potential Cinderella’s representing the 99%, and overly wealthy men that are part of the dreaded 1%, the Cinderella story has regained its allure with the general population.   What happened to the role models I had later in life, the powerful women of Sex in the City, who dressed in slinky outfits, blatantly talked about sex in the diner, and were consistently out on the town having fun with a variety of men?  Let me see, I think Carrie fell victim to the Cinderella ending with Big.  The other two got married and became mommies.  In the end, Samantha is our lone shining example of the powerful woman who isn’t defined by  (nor supported by) a man.  I guess our odds aren’t that great.  Best to stick with the Cinderella plan.  

While we are on the Cinderella theme, I wrote this a while back.  Some of you have seen it already….

Overqualified Cinderella

1.      Vacuum

2.            Mop Floor

3.            Fold Laundry

4.            Call appliance repair

5.      Prepare noose

Never in all my time in college or grad school or marketing management did I ever dream that such an auspicious to-do list would appear on my calendar.  Me?  Mopping?  What happened to that young, aggressive, skilled employee of yore?

She met prince charming, had kids and moved to Utah where the nearest high tech marketing job is two states away.  Disney doesn’t spend much time enlightening us about what happened to Cinderella after she gave birth to two beautiful children and the real estate market crashed, leaving Prince Charming without his impressive castle and sparkling smile. 

In fairy tales, you don’t step back 15 years in pay, or bend over every time someone makes a low ball offer on a condo.  No, these are horror stories, topics for Stephen King – who always seemed to be more my style anyway.  However, my macabre imagination did not prepare me for such a change in momentum.

 Most fairy tales go from rags to riches for this is what people want to read about – not the reverse.  Riches to rags goes against the Great American Dream, it’s like reading from right to left, it is awkward and uncomfortable and makes you think too hard. 

 So what did happen when the real estate market tanked and along with it 80% of Prince Charming’s net worth?  Charming is quite tenacious and very loyal to his business endeavors.  His gallant upbringing and years of jousting wouldn’t allow him to admit defeat or give up easily.  However, his sad face and angry voice were growing intolerable.  Cinderella staged an intervention with the help of Charming’s father – who always had a soft spot for Cinderella. 

 “You must leave this business behind, go back and pursue the Medical Device Industry – this is where you will find your fortune again” – we told him.  And so it was that Grandpa and Cinderella managed the flailing real estate business totally dictated by demanding buyers.  After a lengthy search and many lunch meetings with Charming’s other royal friends, he was able to find employment in California, where he now spends 70% of his time.

 Meanwhile, back at the castle.  Who has money for help?  It is a good thing that Cinderella has prior experience in domestic chores and her upbringing was less than regal.  This makes her a suitable candidate for wielding a mop, thrusting a vacuum, and manipulating mounds of laundry.    It is hard to remember a time when I was master of the spreadsheet, creator of awesome presentations, writer of product specifications, and my nickname at work was “rain woman” because I could remember so many numbers. But alas, I find solace in the following:  I am still fairly astute when it comes to Algebra homework, I can have a basic conversation in Spanish, and I come up with catchy sentences for vocabulary studies.  I console my daughter with greatest of empathy, and listen to my son’s teenage angst in its newest forms.  Maybe I’m not using my multiple degrees in the way I envisioned, but at least Prince Charming will be able to present his well-adapted children proudly at the next ball – whenever that may be.

The Roller Coaster of Motherhood

It is amazing how life can go from an idyllic mother’s day setting to the devil’s garden in a matter of hours.  The highlight of my mother’s day actually took place on the Thursday before.   Without any prompting from me, my kids rode their bikes to Main Street (with their own money no less) and each picked out their own present for me!  This is a first and that act alone made me sure that I had produced thoughtful, loving, children.  I am such a good mother! 

On Sunday, I awoke without my kids – which makes me sad because it is the one day of the year when they make a point of being sweet, refrain from squabbling, bring me breakfast in bed, make cards, all of that gooey Hallmark mother’s day glam that we live for.  They stayed with their grandparents the previous night– which was good in that it allowed me to sleep in, journey to Home Depot for some fertilizer, and go for a bike ride with my husband (hmm, sounds a little like father’s day to me).   Anyway, when I did see my kids later that day, my reception was less than I imagined it to be– but tolerable given they had lost their stamina for demonstrating devotion by mid-afternoon.  I made dinner for the family and my in-laws (still sounds like father’s day) and the kids produced their gifts. My daughter chose a beautiful necklace that says “mom” – which she had her eye on for some time she informed me.  And my son got me a… small beaded bird.   “What is this?” I inquire with the utmost of sweetness in my voice.  “Well, I don’t know,” he replies.  At this moment he reminds me so much of his father.  “But the lady told me that some woman in Guatemala made it and it enabled her to start a business and make some money, so I thought it was a good thing.”  And indeed he is right.  I don’t quite know what to do with the bird, but I love the thought he had while choosing it.  I’m not quite so enamored with the rose scented incense that he settled on, but you can’t be picky on these occasions.  I love my kids.

Less than 48 hours later, I am sitting in my office in tears.  I rue the day I ever decided to have children and am contemplating booking a one-way flight to Italy.   I am a terrible mother!  I’m having one of those days.  It started innocently enough, but rapidly disintegrated.   My son is like a sulking snail in the morning; he moves so slowly he makes me want to scream, and he is so tired he can’t even mutter a few syllables.   He even leaves slime from his breakfast on the counter.  I prod him along continually like an agitated cow herder until we finally exit the house 10 minutes late, resulting in traffic and further delays.  When I return to get my daughter, (and prepare for her departure) we are also running behind and so the dominoes fall.  I plead with her to take her allergy medicine because she has been lethargic, and complains of itchy eyes and a sore throat.  She refuses, debating the validity of taking a pill to help her symptoms.  “Fine, suffer then” I say, exasperated.  I switch over to another health related topic - sunscreen.   “It is going to be warm today, please wear the 55 sunscreen on your face.”  “Make Me” she replies.  Really?  Make me?  It is so unimaginative, but it works.  The ultimate trigger in the tween’s vocabulary.  I envision myself tying her up, putting masking tape over her mouth, and smothering her skin in zinc oxide.  Instead, I offer my most disapproving glare and walk to the car.  She invoked the same phrase last week about wearing her helmet.  I told her she could walk to school, or wear her helmet and ride her bike, and I left the room.  About 5 minutes later I saw her leave on her bike, helmet protecting that stubborn little noggin of hers.  I’m flexible about some rules, but brain safety and skin cancer are not among them.   These are hard limits for me. (wink-wink - my goal is to use some quote from Fifty Shades in every blog until the end of the year)

Later that day, I have an appointment with my son’s guidance counselor, which we have both known about for at least two weeks.  The goal of the meeting is for us to discuss his overly complicated schedule for 9^th grade and make sure he is taking all the right classes for credit.   The overly complicated part comes from the need to work around his commitment to the alpine race team.  After 30 minutes, we emerge with what I foolishly believe to be a tough but manageable schedule.  We get into the car and he yells, “I can’t believe how badly you messed up my whole schedule; other kids are doing XYZ.” 

“We just talked for 30 minutes about your schedule and you didn’t utter one word of dissent.” I explode back.

“I know, I was trying to catch your eye, didn't you see me?” he asks. 

Needless to say this escalates into a shouting match of me vs. him laced with expletives that I swore I would never use in front of my children, let alone at them.  I am fumigating by the time I get home and tell him to call his friends and his coaches to figure this out because after all, this is HIS schedule, and HIS skiing that we are talking about. 

I try to calm down and decide to walk the dog.  The only constant in my life, she always wants to walk – but on this day when nothing can go as planned or without a fight, she stops on the trail and won’t budge any further after only 10 minutes of walking.  My best friend, my calming influence, has also decided to pick a silent fight with me today.

I get home and my husband calls.  As I attempt to relay the events of the day, he says, “Stop talking so loudly, you are getting all worked up and I can’t understand you.”  Jesus Christ.  I hang-up, I simply can’t face another altercation.  Somewhere in the back of my mind I acknowledge that I am the common denominator in all of these equations.  I must be giving off some sort of antagonistic smell or signal (note – complete absence of PMS on this day).  I cease all interaction with my family other than the basics.

As I put my daughter to bed, she apologizes for her bad behavior earlier in the day. 

As I say goodnight to my son, he admits that his coach thinks his schedule is perfect – which is the closest thing to an apology I’m going to get.  He proceeds to tell me about a movie he watched in science about ecosystems.  Something about a cane toad being transported to an island where the ecosystems were supposed to match, but failed miserably resulting in massive numbers of cane toads all over the place.  In some cases, they are squished by the dozen on the roadway (and make an entertaining popping sound in the process).  Apparently these toads have quite an appetite for reproduction, despite their over-population.  He can barely contain his laughter as he tells me about one cane toad trying to hump another cane toad, which had perished on the side of the road (I point out that perhaps the cane toad has necrophilic tendencies).  And I am reminded once again, that he is just a teenager.  His brain is on emotional overload right now, and his body is a mass of hormonal fluctuations (we have more in common than he knows) -- the fact that he even chooses to have a conversation with me is a victory.    

I love my kids, I am a good mom.

From Style Consultant to Social Pariah in 30 Days

Direct selling.  There I said it, that terrible dirty word.  I was approached a couple of years ago by some friends to get involved in a direct selling company (also known as referral marketing) and it made my skin crawl.  I was not about to engage in actively pushing products on my friends.  And worse yet, recruit others to do the same.  I did not want people to start avoiding me for fear that I would try to sell them something. Part of the problem at that time was that the product they were trying to sell did not provide me with any of the benefits that they were marketing.  It didn’t work for me and I didn’t really believe in it.  The thought of selling in general makes me queasy, but selling something I did not use myself?  Impossible.

When my friend back east started making overtures about the company that I am now working for (J.Hilburn), I had a similar reaction.  Ugh.  No way.  I nearly spit out the word “direct selling”.   After a fair amount of badgering, I ordered a shirt for my husband to see for myself what this was all about; I figured the worst-case scenario is that he had a new shirt.  I was skeptical and had low expectations.  Much to my surprise, I was genuinely impressed when the shirt arrived 3 weeks later.  It is made from a high quality, beautiful Italian fabric.  The craftsmanship is amazing and it fits him better than any other shirt he owns.  And the price was similar to what he paid for a shirt in a department store that wasn’t made to fit him.  Next, I ordered a pair of wool trousers.  I am fortunate that my husband enjoys and wears nice attire and doesn’t mind spending a little more money for quality.   The reality is that he wears his nice clothes for 5-10 years.  Men’s style doesn’t change quite as much as women’s.  They can wear the same slacks or sport coat many times over – they don’t worry about wearing the same outfit to a party where the same group saw their outfit two weekends ago.  The male brain does not work like this.  Anyway, I was dubious.  So I ventured upstairs to our closet and fetched a pair of his Italian wool trousers that he paid $400 for at Nordstrom.  I laid down the pants from Hilburn and compared them to his pants piece by piece.  The fabric quality was the same.  The stitching, reinforced construction around the waist, pockets, the lining - - all the same.  And these pants were only $180.  Hmmm.  They could be on to something here. 

My suspicious brain kept nagging at me.  How can this be?  And so I thought about what “direct selling” means.  Instead of spending millions of dollars to create a brand through advertising and maintaining a huge store front in a mall or Main Street – this company relies on me to spread the word for them and to bring products to the customer.  And if my clients are happy – they will tell their friends and the “brand” finds its own following – at a fraction of the cost that Ralph Lauren or Giorgio Armani spends.  In this particular business, most of the clothes are made to order – so there is no inventory carrying costs.  They don’t use headhunters to hire people.  They don’t provide benefits or car allowance or computers or even sales tools to their sales force.  All of this converts into huge savings that are passed on to the customer.  In our current economic state, this translates into smart business (in the last four years, the company has become the number one seller of dress shirts in the US – not bad considering this is the worst economy in 50 years).  In business, this is described as a win-win.  But for me, this has resulted in my worst nightmares coming true.

People who are my friends or maybe used to be my friends see me at a party and begin preparing for the worst.  “Oh no, she is going to try and sell me a shirt.” Trust me - I would rather be selling to strangers – surely the group of people I don’t know in Utah is much greater than the group I do know, but the reality is that I have to start somewhere to build an audience and brand awareness.  And so I am starting with people who trust me and know me  (or used to anyway).   However, I am not going to think less of you if you don’t buy clothes from me.  It will not change our relationship.  If you want to support Giorgio Armani or go bargain hunting at TJ Maxx, I could care less. 

DO NOT FEAR THE HABERDASHER (Many thanks to Nick who aptly dubbed me his personal haberdasher). If you ask me how my business is going, I will tell you, I might even say how impressed I am with the quality of the products.  Just as you might tell me that pharmaceutical sales are down or up this quarter.  But I’m not going to pull out my measuring tape and start throwing fabrics at you.  If you or your significant other are in need of apparel and you appreciate fine quality and first-class fit for a fair price – then I’m happy to meet with you outside of the social occasion to see if I can complement your current wardrobe.  I love fashion, and honestly it has been fun for me to help a guy (and sometimes his wife) choose unique fabrics and create pieces that work with clothes that he already owns.  When he emerges wearing the shirt and pants that fit him perfectly (that we designed together) and that he is able to wear with his other suits or existing clothing, I have a huge smile on my face.  I am a pleaser by nature; I do not tolerate discord well in any part of my life.  When I help someone, it makes me genuinely happy.  Some guys need a lot of help and others know exactly what they want – either way, I am delivering something that they need, and by the way, I am bringing all of this to them.  They don’t have to drive to SLC to one of two men’s clothing stores and navigate racks of garb to find something that may or may not fit.  And if for some reason it doesn’t work out?  I dispatch the item to the tailor and pay to have it fixed or I handle the return for them, and they get their money back.   The risk reward ratio is definitely in the customer’s favor.

So far in my marketing efforts I have emphasized the high quality, personalized service, amazing fit, at an affordable price value proposition.  What I realized is that I’m going about this all-wrong. The world is a different place.  Erotica has gone mainstream, Saturday Night Live is doing skits about moms with vibrators.  I need to engage customers at an emotional level to create desire.  I also must simplify my message.  And so, here is my new advertising campaign.  I welcome feedback.

Ladies – do you like it when your husband/boyfriend puts on a suit?  Does he look more powerful?  Do you enjoy looking at his booty when his pants highlight his tight glutes?  How about a shirt that reveals the contours of his chest and flat abs, while enhancing the color of his eyes?  Does it make you proud to be with him and more attracted to him when he dresses nicely?  (By the way, we do sell linen shirts and faded jeans too)

Guys – do you want to get laid more often?  Dress up.