Boots

Edited with the help of Max Syzmczak.

For the record, yes; I used to strip. Say what you will about it, but after you’ve written the essays, applied for the scholarships, and gotten a part time job, the student loan debt is still whittling away at you. That’s when you’ll realize that the only way you’ll be able to afford that Principles of Public Policy class is to climb on a pole and let the creeps throw money at you. So, I bought myself a pair of sky high black leather boots, and every weekend I spent forty minutes driving to the least sleazy place I could find.

If you’re going to strip, then the first thing you have to learn is how to walk in heels. The trick is to pull your abdominal muscles and walk with the balls of your feet first, otherwise you’ll trip all over yourself.  It’s tricky, but once you’re capable of looking sexy in a pair of glorified stilts, looking out to see all the droolers gawking at you, you’ll understand how to command an audience.

The next thing you’ll have to learn is how to hide your identity. Search for a club far away from campus, wear a wig, create a fake name, tell your friends a story about a sick grandpa who you visit every weekend in order to excuse your absence. Then, realize that no matter how careful you are, even though you’re wearing a platinum blonde wig and nobody there knows you as anything other than Candy Johnson, some fucker can still ruin your life simply by snapping a photo.

Nowadays, I’m sitting at a desk, on the phone, begging for campaign donations rather than shaking my ass for dollar bills. I traded my Pleasers in for a pair of dress shoes. All that time spent studying, canvassing, and stripping so that I could afford to study and canvas paid off. But none of that matters anymore; now, my fate is in the hands of the general public.

Appearances matter. The Nixon – Kennedy debates were the first presidential debates to appear on television. There are plenty of people that swear that Nixon’s refusal to wear makeup cost him the election. The sweat that visibly dripped down Nixon’s face made him look like an absolute fool compared to the calm and composed Kennedy. People pretend to be rational creatures but we are still influenced by the most frivolous things. Height also matters. Most people think we’ve moved past that kind of animalistic thinking; we haven’t. It’s a known fact that during an election the tallest guy usually wins. It doesn’t matter that I’ve  given most of my adult life to this institution. Next to all these men, I look like nothing more than an inexperienced child.

If you’re a woman running for office, the biggest hurdle you’re going to have to jump through is optics. No matter how much of a feminist most men pretend to be, they still have trouble looking at us as anything other than a sex object or an old maid. I have people meticulously pouring over my clothes in an attempt to make me look like anything but a woman. Tailors sew me suits with the express purpose of hiding the curves that helped pay my way into this profession. But no matter how your suit is tailored, or how “tasteful” your make-up is, there’s no changing your height. All these stylists and tailors poking and prodding can only ever make you look like a caricature of a man, and nobody wants to stand behind an inferior product. 

Still even the professionals fuck up from time to time. God forbid you’re button up is slightly too tight while discussing farm subsidies on the morning news, lest you get a bunch of weasel brained internet boys leering over your tits. At that point, I figured I may as well drop the act. 

I spent the next day rummaging through my closet, only to pull out that old shoe box; I swore I would never come back to. Inside lie the same black high heeled boots that paid my way through college. Inside the box, they lack the power that they possessed so many years ago. They look like nothing but a few patches of scuffed up leather attached to a worn out wooden heel. 

So you send them to a shoe worker to repair the heel and get them shined back to their former glory. After you’re done, you’ll remember why you decided to restore them in the first place. They scream for attention. 

I tried the boots back on, this time sporting a suit instead of a lingerie set.  A pair of strikingly high heels will change more about a person’s appearance than simply height.  They open up your shoulders and force you to arch your back more, as well as elongate your legs.  Wearing those matte black platform boots, I looked like an empress elevated above everyone.

Right before I was set to go on the debate stage, I popped those puppies on my feet. They had the effect I wanted. No longer did I disappear into my competitors. All it took was a change of footwear, and I was no longer seen as a caricature of my male counterparts. 

It did invite controversy though. Apparently there aren’t enough problems in need of addressing, and reporters are forced to turn their attention to my shoe choices. Getting attention from the pearl clutchers is not necessarily a bad thing. You are, however, taking a gamble. It is impossible to determine whether or not the general public is going to take your side or the peanut galleries’. Luckily, it was easy to spin this.

What happened was some sex work liberation movement latched on to my stripper boots as a symbol of solidarity. I ran with it. After all, half the country spends a great deal of time looking at porn stars; this wasn’t stretching it too far. Me going on talk radio, stating that prostitution should be legalized caused an uproar, but it didn’t matter whether or not the media liked or hated me. What mattered was that I got their attention. 

One thing they won’t teach you in your media studies class is that you always have to  keep the pundits talking. It doesn’t matter if they’re declaring you a saint, or calling for you to be burned on the cross. The attention’s good. You see, as strong as a hate mob can seem, it’s not sustainable. Outrage burns out quickly, people will find the next thing to get their panties in a twist over, and who’s  gonna be left are those that thought you had a point. The media will be screaming bloody murder at you, but your poll numbers will continue to rise.

I wore those boots everywhere, and although they killed my ankles, it was worth it to not have to play the ridiculous posterity game anymore. The shorter my skirt and tighter my top was, the better I did in the polls. As they say, sex sells, so why not give the people what they want? Hell, even most of the people that hated me were secretly jacking off to me.

This was all timed out perfectly. When I started this brigade, I had a full six months before the election. Enough time for the angry mob to burn themselves out while I slowly gained supporters. The only problem came when some jizz bag with a cell phone camera decided he wanted his day in the sun.

In the end my trusty heels ended up being my downfall. It started as nothing but an internet rumor. Some scumbag that used to frequent the strip club I worked for managed to sneak a photo past the bouncers. He posted it to Reddit. Keeping himself anonymous while opening up my past; typical creep. The photo was a grainy mess plus I was fifteen years younger in a platinum blond wig. But the shoes managed to be crystal clear, and it was hard to deny that they had a striking resemblance to the ones I wore on the campaign trail. The media began to pick up the story and slowly the picture became common knowledge.

That’s how I lost control of the narrative. People no longer saw me as a politician playing stripper but as a stripper playing politician. Suddenly, a bunch of those men that thought voting for me was progressive lost interest. It doesn’t matter how open minded you claim to be, you still aren’t going to put your vote towards a dumb slut. 

I was angry. I knew the chances of me getting elected was pretty much ruined at this point, but I still had to keep up appearances. There was no way in hell that I was going to give those puritan dirtbags the satisfaction of forcing me to drop out. Still, I was hemorrhaging cash.  Every scumbag donor was pulling their campaign donations and I needed a way to keep the lights on. 

 I accepted a television interview specifically for the purpose of finally addressing the scandal. At this point I was burning the candle at both ends. Barely sleeping, and worse, barely lying. I wasn’t able to keep my wits about me and smooze the trust fund babies quite as well as I used to. Especially now that most of these men had more to say about my ass than my policies. Part of me knew that this would do nothing but further tank my campaign, but I was desperate and hoping that I would be able to find some way to spin this. Boy, was I wrong.

Most reporters don’t phase me. Most don’t want to phase me. This is not to say that the majority of reporters are idiots; in fact, a lot of them are more intelligent than me. It’s just that they are bound to the same polyethylene politeness that I am. An ever expanding chart of ratings, public opinions, and chances of getting any follow up interviews; that keeps a constant monitor on their tongue. Only ever allowing themselves to dance around the issues that make the politician or public uncomfortable. But the chances of anyone ever wanting an interview with me after the election were slim, and the public wanted my head on a spike. I was easy prey.

For the first couple of questions, I held my own. It’s customary for the reporter to throw you a couple of softballs before going in for the kill. But all things considered, I thought that I was handling things pretty well. I even managed to keep my composure through the first round of the firing squad.

The reporter softened her voice and face in the same manner that they always tend to do when they are about to invoke children;  “What kind of message do you think that these tapes send to young girls?”. It took me a second to come up with the politically correct response. As soon as I found it I matched her tone “ I think that this shows little girls that no matter how they choose to make money, so long as it’s legal, and doesn’t hurt anyone, they still deserve to pursue their dreams and aspirations”. I had survived the dreaded “think of the children” question. I breathed a sigh of relief and made the fatal mistake of letting my guard down.

After wearing me down she went straight for the jugular. She dropped the demeaning tone, going back to the phony aggressive tone of a typical reporter; “How can you claim to hold any integrity when you have openly sold your body to strangers?”. And that’s how she broke me  “Integrity?”  I laughed, “ Who in this goddamn profession has any integrity? This entire system is set up to see how many people will buy what you are selling. Every word out of every politician’s mouth is tailored and calculated in order to be the best thing possible to say in order to attract the most amount of voters while not pissing off any of our donors. If I’ve sold myself to anyone it’s the people that spend money on my campaign and that’s true of any politician you have ever spoken to!”. At that point, I was basically throwing money away. I drew my attention to the reporter “ And even you are under constant pressure to keep those ratings up, but god forbid you piss off those advertisers, right?”. The reporter didn’t interrupt me. Despite insulting her, there was no way she could deny that this was television gold. I kept talking. “ My god, you shouldn’t be questioning my integrity because I used to strip in college, you should be questioning my integrity because of my current profession”. That was the point when I realized I was fucked. “Well congratulations” I said “ You’ve successfully gotten me to hang myself”. The interview concluded quickly after that. 

The majority of my donors had pulled their campaign contributions pretty quickly after that. I had fully suspected my spot in the polls to take a nosedive. Turns out I was wrong, and actually went up about four points after that interview.

I withdrew my campaign. Even with the public’s support, my funding had been slashed in half. I was forced to admit that there was no way I was going to win. Some other bozo in a necktie claimed the spot that year. 

 Americans aren’t as dumb as we assume thay are. They know the system’s rigged, that every politician is basically reading off a series of cheap talking points. They know that the country has been bought and sold. That there is nothing they can do about it. At least I was being honest when I told them that I was a giant grifter. An honest liar, that’s what the people want. The donors were not as forgiving.