Clara

I always wondered why Clara Zolanoffski’s family didn’t change their name. Today it’s fashionable to preserve your ethnicity, but Clara's about seventy-five, and when her grandparents came to this country people rushed to assimilate.

I have known Clara for about 25 years. She’s a crusty old broad, a doctor on the East Coast, but she has always been a good friend with kindness towards our family. She never married, and lives alone with two cats. She’s a bright lady, a fine internist, a rather tall, staunch woman with stringy, dark blond hair. In her youth she was probably attractive, but now she cuts an imposing figure accented by her very definite views.

Several years ago Clara purchased a house in a southeastern city where coincidentally we have some friends. This seemed a bewildering move because it wasn’t beach or lakefront property or a fishing cottage or vacation home. She explained vaguely that her only relatives lived there, and she was helping them out and would be visiting quite a bit.

Then a couple of years ago she said her relatives were doing pretty well, and she rented the house. We had introduced her to our friends, and when I talked with them recently I mentioned my surprise that she kept the place, and they said confidentially, “Well, you know, the relative she has here is her daughter.”

Shock and awe.

Apparently she had a child when she was in school and had given her up for adoption. That child is now a divorced mother of a son and two daughters. So, old-maid, curmudgeonly Clara is a mother and a grandmother and has kept that secret for all these years.

I was happy for her, a reaction she probably never expected anyone to have. But I am saddened because I can never say anything. She is still unable to publicly discuss her "terrible secret."

An unwed mother was unacceptable in her generation. It brought shame to one’s family and ruined one’s reputation. Especially if you were trying to assimilate. You were a pariah. It was possibly the worst thing that could happen to you. Abortions were illegal and dangerous. You had few options. Having a child would have interfered with, possibly prevented, Clara's career plans. What excruciating, unbelievable, choices she had to make.

How lucky contemporary young women are. Whatever congress or courts do with the abortion question, women still have socially acceptable choices. In my own life I have one cousin and several close friends who are unmarried and have children. I just recently attended a wedding where the bride was seven months pregnant. That's no longer so unusual. It's even okay to be an unwed teen mother in “momma grizzly” country. Or to be single, pregnant and nominated for an academy award. How much pain this saves, on women, their offspring and their families. Choices are still difficult, but at least they can be discussed.

Clara’s decision to reconnect with a lost child and perhaps provide her family with a home seems to speak to a certain longing.

What would Clara have done today?


Museum of Sex

Yes, Virginia, there is a Museum of Sex. Of course, if your name is Virginia this may not be your kind of exhibition. For exhibitionist it is, with a scholarly twist. It probably needs that for folks to wander unselfconsciously through the viewing I saw of “Sexploitation Films in the Modern Age.”

Image courtesy of New York Style and a Little CanoliIn case you want to rush right out, the museum is located on 5th Avenue and 27th street, in the old Tenderloin district of New York City, one of the initial riper bastions in the Big Apple. It’s a fitting location for an institution devoted to the study of such delights. Wikipedia refers to the museum as “MoSex.”

But why, you may ask, is this institution necessary in our permissive society with porn all over the web? The museum claims to put sex in context, historically and evolutionally. It’s nice to use big words when dealing with such a basic human subject. Gets one over the smarmy feeling.

And that’s sort of how I felt when entering the museum’s first floor exhibit of sexploitation films. Should a proper woman be here? I marched in, brandishing my notebook like a badge so no one would, God forbid, think I was there to enjoy myself. And who were the rest of these people? Some were young couples holding hands (foreplay, I wondered); others on their own, one or two middle aged couples.

The sexploitation films started with very early naughty “ nudies” to the nudist films of the ‘50’s , then “cheesecake,” where breasts and backsides were okay, but the really hard stuff started in the ‘70’s. Here were clips from “Deep Throat,” and the emergence of porno stars like Marilyn Chambers. On large video screen blocks on the floor were excerpts from classics like “Debbie Does Dallas” or Peter O’Toole and Malcolm McDowell in sadistic scenes from the 1979 film “Caligula”. That still haunts me.

There was a section on the “medicalization” of sex featuring The Sinclair Institute, founded in 1991, to help couples improve their love lives, and they produced a series of graphic “how to” films also shown on large screens. I thought these “legit” educational films were some of the most salacious in the exhibit. And who could get into those positions?

Image courtesy of Museum of SexA featured exhibit, “Rubbers,” was a rigorous romp through condoms of the ages. Ever wonder while reading gothic romance novels how the women prevented pregnancy? They tried, with prophylactics made of linen, animal intestines, fish bladders (how did they get them?), oiled paper and tortoise shells. Did they work? No info.

But then along came Charles Goodyear and the vulcanization of rubber in 1837 to revolutionize the devices, then latex in the 30’s and now polyurethane and even some experimental stuff.

The old packaging displays were comic: “King Kondom” with Kong holding a banana and wearing a tee shirt that said, “The great protector.” Or there was “The Shadow, “thin as a shadow, strong as an ox.” Current contenders: “Use with good judgment—Obama condom,” “McCain condom--old, but not expired.” Or, “When abortion is not an option, Palin condoms”—probably best in cold weather.

This exhibit takes us to a serious place, noting the use of condoms for disease prevention in the ‘30’s, to the present-day control of STD’s and HIV and the use and controversy surrounding such devices. The New York Times called this exhibit “fascinating.”

Image courtesy of Museum of SexI was fascinated by a group of middle-aged women doing a guided tour. I encountered them on the museum’s second floor, which is devoted to all sorts of sexual artifacts: Life-sized dolls, a film on “The Sex Life of Robots” and “estranged sex” where women used rubber gloves. A photographic exhibit chronicled homemade sex machines. One man made a particularly vigorous device in hopes of saving his marriage. One look at the machine and you can see why she divorced him anyway. There was section on various kinks and a touchy-feely exhibit (you need to be 18 to enter the museum). The women were trying hard to be cool, but there was just something a little disconcerting about seeing a person who could be your mother perusing sexual exhibits. One of my grown daughters still prefers to think the stork brought her.

I thought most of the exhibits were short on social context and chronological perspective. But hey, you don’t come here for a history lesson.

The museum was unprecedented when it opened in 2002. It was started by Daniel Gluck, a graduate of the Wharton School of Business and by some accounts a marketing whiz. True, sex sells, but putting it in a museum context makes it a legitimate vehicle to voyeuristically explore this whole subject for people who would never otherwise go near a tawdry sex shop. It draws 140,000 people annually.

But here’s an interesting twist: although the museum is for-profit, it’s backed by the non-profit Muse Foundation of New York, of which Mr. Gluck is a director. This has produced some juicy conflict.

Image courtesy of Museum of SexAccording to the New York Times, a dominatrix, Mary Ann Coughlin, donated her bondage machine to the museum’s foundation, and she took a tax deduction. But this created an IRS controversy. Can you make a deductible donation to a non-profit who then turns it over to a for-profit entity where it’s displayed? The museum did not answer my query on whether this has been resolved. So if you want a deduction for your leather and handcuffs, better hold off.

A cynic might ask if all this is just a come-on to justify a commercial sex show. Well, the museum says its mission is “To preserve and present the history, evolution and cultural significance of human sexuality” and to discuss such issues and their contemporary relevance. Of course, it’s all in the thigh of the beholder.

And yes, Virginia, the ground floor store is a real sex shop. There were more people in it than in the museum. It seems there’s more interest in peckeoni and titaroni shaped pasta or various erotic toys than learning about sexual mores of the times. In a society with an a double standard toward sex this attempt at studying the subject has been a long-time coming (sorry), but based on the store’s popularity, people seem to be more interested in practice than pedantry no matter how titillating. And maybe that speaks to a generational view of a real sexual revolution. Or perhaps it’s just the museum admission price of $16.75 for something you can get at home.

Old Woman With White Hair

I saw her as I was returning from some routine grocery shopping on a busy street. I was in the left-hand lane waiting for the turn signal. She was sitting on the sidewalk in a white plastic chair. The first thing I noticed about her was her striking, long white hair. It fanned out, fluffed and looking cared for, framing a gaunt, dark face. The contrast between her hair and face was enough to draw attention. She looked like she was American Indian with perhaps some Asian characteristics thrown in. Her nose and cheekbones were prominent, her skin creviced. She was small in stature and her bones almost delicate.

What was most compelling was the look on her face. It was intense--just shy of fierce. Not angry, but rather in some determined rumination. In the two minutes I observed her that expression did not change once, but she seemed very aware of her surroundings. She kept looking around, and when she noticed me staring at her through my tinted car window, she stared back at me. Not wanting to seem impolite, I looked away, inventing new pretenses to look back, and whenever I did, her gaze, which wandered from side to side, came right back to mine. It was a little eerie that she could tell she was being watched from a car. And it was discomforting because though I found her face compelling, I couldn't watch her tactfully. For the first time in my life, I was thankful for a long stoplight.

There was something about this old woman's unsmiling concentration that drew me in, gave me a sensation of being sucked into her aura which seemed deep, powerful. I fervently wished I could paint so that I could capture her. It's a much harder task in word pictures. Perhaps I could have taken a photo with my phone, but how rude that would be and how possibly embarrassing for her.

It was clear that she was taken care of. Her clothes were neat, if inappropriate for a hot day. She was wearing dark colors: a shirt with a heavy sweater over it, long pants and heavy-looking ankle boots. But the elderly often dress warmly on hot days, either because they are cold or because they are indifferent to temperature due to dementia or because this is what they are used to and making new decisions doesn't seem relevant anymore.

Though I've traveled this street for years, I have never seen this woman before. She sat outside a couple of tiny, old bungalows rather out of place in the upscale neighborhood.   I believe the idea that we can tell about people just by looking at them is usually false. The only thing that I could tell about this woman was that she was cared for. But who had put her in the chair? Had she sat down by herself? Were her faculties intact? She must be somewhat aware to be sitting alone. An Alzheimer's victim might take to straying away or getting up and walking blithely into traffic. (Or, on the dark side, maybe there were relatives who were hoping she would?) And why would she sit by the street and watch traffic pass? Was that interesting to her? Why not sit closer to the house and watch the birds and flowers.

With that intriguing attitude what had her life been like? Who knows if she was kindly or mean? Or if she even spoke English. It would have been fascinating to interview her. Why was I drawn to her inner mood like a spell cast over me? What kind of life etched those lines in that ethnic face? She was almost reminiscent of Georgia O'Keefe. Yes, that was it.  That was my fantasy I attached to her. The look of a passionate artist still proud in the face of age's decrepitude.

I have thought of knocking on one of the bungalow doors some day and asking about her, but I never have. Perhaps if I solved the mystery of the old lady it would lose some of its power?

I have looked for her ever since, but never seen her again. Was she even there?

That corner will never be the same for me.

A two-minute encounter. A presence that stays with me. A reminder that each life can have an effect on us, can have a story, but what that story is we may never know.