Burlesque

The theatrical entertainment of burlesque is not without its humor, grotesque exaggerations in the form of parody with striptease its chief attraction. Here, in America "the art of the dance" became associated with prostitution.

Burlesque did become walking a runway to a bump-and-grind beat but only in its declining years.

My name is Khayla and I want to be a burlesque dancer after I finish school.

Experience has taught me to be open-minded, and I am as comfortable with my body as required to strip for people; however, my mother is not.

She knows the nature of my aspirations and she has said on many occasions that she has little respect for people who do anything of the sort.

When I was 10 years old I found a mysterious lump in my breast. When I asked her to take a look, she flatly refused – choosing instead to ring her own mother on the other side of the country to ask what to do. It was nothing serious, but now I openly joke that I will die of breast cancer because of her.

I’ve become known for singing at the local pub; and this being a small town, many people my mother and I know pass through.

One night, while chatting with my mother and her friend, we got onto the subject of prostitution.

My mother said she didn’t have enough money to go visit her boyfriend who lives a nine-hour drive from where we are. Her friend said teasingly, “You could always sell your body.”

I cringed dramatically saying, “Oh dear goooooood!”

Her friend turned to me and said, “You want to be a prostitute when you’re older, don’t you?”

“No!” I replied, offended. “I want to be a burlesque dancer!”

To which the friend replied dismissively, “It’s the same thing!”

I was about to start on a heated debate that I have had countless times...with countless people...when my mother, patron saint of modesty (Yeah, right.) spoke up for me:

 

“No, it’s completely different. It’s all about stripping but not taking EVERYTHING off and you DO NOT touch the dancers.”

I turned to look at her with bush-baby eyes of surprise, but she had already turned away to talk to somebody else.

It looks as if my bickering with her father, my grandfather whom we live with, had paid off.

lyonesse
La Reine du Bal masqué
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