All the showgirls at the Lily knew Dr. Kellogg. They rotated visits to him, depending on who was least hungover on a Saturday morning, or who was “down to buttons” and needed a bit of pocket money for the week.
When the girls told me the financial details of this arrangement, I said in shock, “Do you mean to tell me that Dr. Kellogg pays you for sex?”
Gladys looked at me with disbelief: “Well, what’d you think, Vivvie? That we pay him?”
Now, Angela, listen: I understand that there is a word for women who offer sexual favors to gentlemen in exchange for money. In fact, there are many words for this. But none of the showgirls with whom I associated in New York City in 1940 described themselves in that manner—not even as they were actively taking money from gentlemen in exchange for sexual favors. They couldn’t possibly be prostitutes; they were showgirls. They had quite a lot of pride in that designation, having worked hard to achieve it, and it’s the only title they would answer to. But the situation was simply this: showgirls did not earn a great deal of money, you see, and everyone has to get by in this world somehow (shoes are expensive!), and so these girls had developed a system of alternative arrangements for earning a bit of extra cash on the side. The Dr. Kelloggs of the world were part of that system.
Now that I think about it, I’m not even sure that Dr. Kellogg himself regarded these young women as prostitutes. He more likely called them his “girlfriends”—an aspirational, if somewhat delusional, designation which surely would have made him feel better about himself, too.
In other words, despite all evidence that sex was being exchanged for money (and sex was being exchanged for money, make no mistake about it) nobody here was engaging in prostitution. This was merely an alternative arrangement that suited everyone involved. You know: from each according to their abilities; to each according to their needs.
I’m so glad we were able to clear that up, Angela.
I certainly wouldn’t want there to be any misunderstandings.
“Now, Vivvie, what you have to understand is that he’s boring,” said Jennie. “If you get bored, don’t go thinking this is always how it feels to fool around.”
“But he’s a doctor,” said Celia. “He’ll do right for our Vivvie. That’s what matters this time.”
(Our Vivvie! Were there ever more heartwarming words? I was their Vivvie!)
It was now Saturday morning, and the four of us were sitting at a cheap diner on Third Avenue and Eighteenth Street, beneath the shadow of the el, waiting for it to be ten o’clock. The girls had already showed me Dr. Kellogg’s town house and the back entrance I was to use, which was just around the corner. Now we were drinking coffee and eating pancakes while the girls gave me excited last-minute instructions. It was awfully early in the day—on a weekend, no less—for three showgirls to be wide awake and lively, but none of them had wanted to miss this.
“He’s going to use a safety, Vivvie,” Gladys said. “He always does, so you don’t need to worry.”
“It doesn’t feel as good with a safety,” Jennie said, “but you’ll need it.”
I’d never heard the term “safety” before, but I guessed from context that it was probably a sheath, or a rubber—a device I’d learned about in my Hygiene seminar at Vassar. (I’d even handled one, which had been passed from girl to girl like a limp, dissected toad.) If it meant something else, I supposed I would find out soon enough, but I wasn’t about to ask.
“We’ll get you a pessary later,” said Gladys. “All us girls have pessaries.”
(I didn’t know what that was, either, till I figured out later it’s what my Hygiene professor called a “diaphragm.”)
“I don’t have a pessary anymore!” said Jennie. “My grandmother found mine! When she asked me what it was, I told her it was for cleaning fine jewelry. She took it.”
“For cleaning fine jewelry?” Gladys shrieked.
“Well, I had to say something, Gladys!”
“But I don’t understand how you could even use a pessary for cleaning fine jewelry,” Gladys pushed.
“I dunno! Ask my grandma, that’s what she’s using it for now!”
“Well, then what are you using now?” said Gladys. “For precaution?”
“Well, gee, nothing right now . . . because my grandmother has my pessary in her jewelry box.”
“Jennie!” cried Celia and Gladys at the same time.