my body... the new currency?

"one man's trash is another man's treasure."
or so the saying goes.

last thursday, i was privileged to spend an enjoyable, memorable, and i dare say legendary weekend in las vegas with some good friends. despite the inconvenient truth that my financial situation can only be described as dismal, i went anyway, hoping that i'd be able to afford everything if i'm extra-conscious of my spending habits and expenses. i then thanked God that i own a credit card to get me by until my next few paychecks come in and the bills slow down a bit. ironically, i lost said credit card in a nightclub while i was dancing, and was told that i would get another one in about 10 business days. whoopsy-daisy. to my credit, despite my stupidity, i did have the presence of mind to cancel it even though i could barely remember where i lived at the time. i suppose identity theft and impending credit doom has an uncanny ability to sober a person up. and because of all my experiences with credit cards and disappearing personal effects in london, i am now a pro at this damage control thing.

to my pleasant surprise, however, and despite the unfortunate loss of my hallowed platinum card, i left vegas having spent less than $150 on my entire weekend, including food, hotel, gasoline, and entertainment.

in truth, this seems almost impossible, since i was there two nights and visited approximately four nightclubs. i realized that this is because i didn't have to pay to get into any of the clubs, much less for any alcohol i drank once i got there. upon discussing this with my fellow travelers, i understood that this is because we are all physically appealing, so nightclubs are eager to let us in for free. the general concept is that, if they let us in, or girls like us in, men who pay for entrance will spend money on us. ergo, even though we're not paying a cover charge, the casino is still making money because men are spending it on us. and i realized, for the first time in a while, that, essentially, i was trading my looks for free alcohol and entertainment.

on its most basic level, isn't this what post-feminist culture has been fighting for the whole time? the right to look and feel great and have it confirmed? to be fair, in the nightclub, everyone wins: the club makes money, we get free entertainment, and the guys who may or may not have anything to offer get a chance to meet pretty girls. as a feminist, despite the liberation that comes with understanding my feminine appeal, and of course the basic human instinct that free shit is inherently good, it bothers me somewhere in the recesses of my mind that i traded my looks for my vacation. as feminists, we chant the common mantra that we're equal to men. we're independent. we don't need them any more than they need us. and we admit that there is something empowering about being able to command a guy's attention.

i suppose my qualms lie with my realization that my looks can be so easily converted into a currency. that it's like a variation of prostitution that i'm employing to get what i want. it is this aspect of feminism that often confuses me. we fight so hard for men to view us as equals, as strong people, as individuals and not sex objects. yet we have no trouble being "traded" and "sold" for a vacation. the lines become so blurry sometimes that it's difficult to find where the boundaries lie, where our principles stand. we would all agree that sexual harrassment is wrong in a professional environment, or in any environment where it's not invited. but the invitations become so ambiguous. there's a rather large gap between completely ignoring the opposite sex and actually forcing intercourse upon them. we want to take a chance, to test the boundaries, but the discrepancy in our actions is striking.

does the environment make everything completely different? does it all depend on what our agenda is, because if equality is what we want, shouldn't a man's agenda be just as relevant to the boundaries as ours? why does our word trump his -- isn't that unequal? are we making up for the years and years of patriarchy? our own form of affirmative action?

furthermore, if we are to claim that we, as women, ought to be honored and respected, shouldn't appearance be irrelevant? shouldn't we be fighting for women everywhere, claiming that beauty is about so much more than the surface? or is that something we do on a daily basis - just not in a place like vegas?

we constantly blame men for breaking the rules, but it's pretty clear that we set them, and that we're capable of many completely different sets of rules, sometimes even in the same day. perhaps it is all just situational. some things have to be, after all. but what we want seems to fluctuate so much that it seems unreasonable, if not completely irrational to come down so hard on guys, labeling them a certain way because they don't always understand what's going on. some do, and they are wrong in the way they look at us. but what is it, exactly, that drives a person like me who wants so desperately to be viewed as independent, strong, professional, and intelligent, to outright exploitation of my looks and sexuality for what i want.