Just Another Rock in the Road or ... ?

A rock protrudes from our dirt driveway. We’ve driven around it—avoiding it—for many months. It threatens our tires and the undercarriage of our vehicles. It reminds us of an exceedingly large nose. And, as I discovered over Memorial Day weekend, it’s large, very large. It’s also hard … very, very hard.

Last weekend I confronted the large proboscis. First, I dug and I dug and I dug. Then I hammered, and hammered, and hammered. Yesterday Frances bought a new blacksmith hammer and a mason chisel at the local Ace Hardware. After the first 15 to 20 smacks, she broke the handle off the hammer. Next she tried hammering with the back end of the ax, with some success. Let’s just say the rock doesn’t look much like a nose anymore.

Still, we’re debating a further course of action. Should we continue to chip-chip-chip away at the point of the “nose” until it becomes rounder, less invasive? Should we dig deeper and wider, reach to the rock’s base, upend it, and roll it out of the sand and clay and down the driveway into the ditch? Could we handle such tremendous weight?

Should we use a hose or power washer to flood the surrounding hole with water in hopes that sand will be displaced and the rock will sink deeper into the earth … deep enough to re-cover and forget about? Or should we construct a homemade bomb, position it beneath the stone, and blow it out of its resting place?

Perhaps we could reroute the driveway—build up the ditch—so that the nose can remain, a well-anchored monument to stability. Or maybe we could refill the hole and order truckloads of additional dirt and gravel to ensure its proper burial.

I’ve realized—thanks to a friend—that this rock is an apt metaphor for our struggles with the bar across the road. Earlier this month Frances and I tried to halt exotic dancing performances at the bar. We quickly discovered that we have a very large, very heavy, very immoveable obstacle in our path. It seems intractable because it is rooted in the culture, in the local politics, and in the relative disinterest of a community struggling to survive by whatever means possible.

I’m dumbfounded. My research on exotic dancing exposed a tremendous lack of information, misinformation, and widespread misconceptions about the adult entertainment industry. Several weeks ago (see May 18th blog, “Springing into Dangerous Territory”) I wrote on the topic expressing my anger and dismay.

We live in a world where woman-hating is buried so completely that we ourselves don’t recognize it when it surfaces. Though people laugh and joke about exotic dancing, it is not humorous. It’s a seriously offensive and extremely destructive influence on the lives of the women who work in this business and, quite likely, the women who live with men who frequent such a place.

Since writing that blog I’ve read testimony by a 14-year veteran manager of strip clubs who testified before the Michigan House Committee on Ethics and Constitutional Law in 2000. He described the strategies used by managers to convince young women to strip relying on peer pressure, “programming,” and praise to build self image. Later, he acknowledged, self esteem is gradually destroyed and these same women often realize that the only way they can stand to perform is if they are drunk, drugged, or often, both.

Kelly Holsopple, co-founder of the Metropolitan Coalition Against Prostitution in Minneapolis, Minn. conducted research on women’s experiences in strip clubs in 1998. Having worked as a stripper for 13 years, she was uniquely qualified to examine stripper-customer interactions, to explore women’s thoughts on stripping, and to survey the extent of sexual violence that occurs in strip clubs. Reading her research and her detailed descriptions of private “dances” that strippers are expected to perform was—for me as a woman—physically, psychically, and spiritually offensive.

I admit, the more information I uncover—no pun intended—the angrier I become. But I also know that my body cannot tolerate extreme anger over an extended period. I do NOT want a bar that offers exotic dancing directly across the road from me. Nor do I want to move. But if the local community does not object to this business, how likely is it that Frances and I can succeed in banishing it ourselves?

It seems that we’re back to the same questions that Frances and I confront with our rock in the driveway: Dig it out? Cover it over? Drive around it? Blow it up? Reroute the road?

When Frances hammered on the rock several days ago, she realized that the small chips she broke off looked like black granite. Then she came up with a new solution for the rock in our driveway: make it into floor tiles for our living room floor. Now if we could only come up with a unique solution for the bar across the road …

Creative options anyone?