PORTRAIT OF A SOILED DOVEEarlier today I posted a few of my RANTORIUM EMPORIUM images up over at The Brat in the Hat, one of them was the one below called "Retro Ho - there's no floozy like an old floozy!" For some reason this one tickled quite a few of my readers - the mail I got indicated the word "floozy" had touched a cord in my readership, especially those of us categorized as "boomers". One of the comments was from a dear friend and my fellow Boomer Babe, Joyce Mason who commented, "Ho-ly cow! Tim and I love the word "floozy. . . ."
I am very fond of the word "floozy", it has a certain caché all it's own, lol. In fact, I have a little story about that word and how it started one of the silliest and biggest belly-laughing conversations I've ever had which you "floozy" fans might enjoy. After you read it you'll understand my tag line on the image above "there's no floozy like an old floozy.
CONFESSIONS OF A PAST LIFE MADAM
(previously posted on The Road to Diva - slight rewrites were applied here)
A friend and I were enjoying some Cherry Martinis some time back and we got off on the subject of "women of ill repute". Don't ask me how the conversation got around to that subject, we were, after all, well into our third martini at the time.
We were attempting to come up with all the vintage words for "shady ladies" and ended up with this list:
Tramp, Trollop, Strumpet, Floozy, Tart, Jezebel, Hussy, Harlot, Wench, Chippie, Working Girl, Vamp, and Concubine as well as the terms of "soiled dove", "woman of ill repute", "fallen woman" and "shady ladies".
We were laughing and pointing at each other as we called them out. It was totally goofy and totally fun and we were laughing like a couple of mad women at the archaic terms. I suppose we would not place ourselves in any of those categories and, therefore, it was hilarious to fling them at each other.
Afterwards I got to thinking (yes, I know, thinking always gets me into trouble), but I thought, I like those words. They carry a kind of romance that is absent in our present day vernacular, they have a touch of understanding and humor - maybe because of the eras they come from.
In times past there were only so many jobs a woman could take if she had no husband, family or community to support her. Her choices were pretty much limited to being a teacher, a cook, a seamstress, running a boarding house, taking in laundry or become a "fallen woman". If you had no education or money most of those jobs were out of your reach. If you didn't want to starve there was often only one choice. (Read "Soiled Dove Plea"). In today's world we are not so limited, but it is only recent history where that change has occurred.
Had I been born 100 or so years earlier my life would have been a whole different story! If I had the kind of temperament I have in this century I doubt, very sincerely, if I would have become a farmer's wife, a seamstress or a teacher. I cannot see myself plowing a field, I hate to sew and a school room full of kids is not my idea of a great job. Plus, my personality does not lend itself to being good wife material!
I am convinced I would have eventually become a Madam in some Honky-Tonk in one of the "big cities". I like business, I'm pretty sociable, I like to have a drink now and then, I like flashy clothes, I like to paint my face and I like gambling towns. That pretty much points to career in a past life as the proprietor of a house of ill repute. Of course, being the control freak that I am I would have to be the Madam. I am not one to "work in the field", I'm better at giving orders and letting others do the menial tasks!
Picture me in a lavender satin dress, petticoats so large I knock the whiskey glasses off the tables, lots of ostrich feathers, a good amount of rouge (that's blush to you young 'uns out thar!), my hair dyed an electric shade of pinkish red, big bosoms proudly heaving in my decolletage, enjoying a "snort" while my "girls" earn their keep upstairs adding more silver dollars to my coffers!
Madam Diva welcomes you to her establishment, The Fabulous Fallen Females of Fable Falls are here to entertain you! Put yer pistols behind the bar, grab yer girl and commence to pokin . . . . . .and remember, you'll have to put your dollar on the dresser, Dearie, before we drop our drawers!
--------------------
Friend me on Facebook
