Codeswitching and the Hobby
wallanon
So I'm in sensitivity training (it doesn't matter why lol) and ran across this notion of codeswitching. Regular folk would say it's acting or sounding different depending on who's around and the situation. For those heavy into clubbing and whatnot, how much if any codeswitching do you see among the monger crowd?
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/…
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/…
24 comments
The most obvious example in a strip club is how pretty young strippers treat you in the club versus how they treat you in the real world. In the real world, they would just ignore an old guy like me. I never went to clubs when I was the same age as these girls so I wasn't able to see if their interactions with me would have been different back then and, if so, how. Judging from how the girls act around younger customers,they seem to have more to talk about with them and like hanging out and socializing with them more. If they do spend time with me, it's usually because they think I might have more money to spend.
Beside in the club versus outside the club, I also think strippers try to read a customer to see what he wants. They can go from sexy girl to friendly girl. I've even seen strippers try to mother guys. One time a regular offered to sew up some holes in my coat pockets. You can
In fact, I was just thinking that it's time to hit up my kid's religious ed teacher up for some OTC. After all, that's what we're supposed to do with hotties, right?
If one of us gets (or has had) a lousy dance with a stripper and she comes over to ask my buddy if he also wants a dance, I need to tell him it's a bad idea without sounding like an asshole by saying something like "Dude, she's awful! Stay away!" I don't want to hurt or insult a dancer just because I didn't like her dancing. She's entitled to do or not do whatever she wants in a dance. But I have to look out for my buddy, too.
So our code is to say she was great but use a term about space in the process. Ex: "She put me in orbit," or "It was out of this world," or "She's the brightest star in the sky." Then my buddy can "decide" that he's not ready for another dance right now and can politely decline.
No harm, no hurt feelings, no drama.
I definitely see what you did there. You showed that thinking is not your strong suit. 😉
Being very bored and bemused listening to these videos while reading TUSCL, all the discussions here about who knows what about the hobby (and how each of us goes about our business) came to mind. Does that moment of empathy count as a breakthrough?
A lot of people in the workforce do this as a survival technique if they have certain colloquial accents. It is not weakness, it is smart.
@Longball, the same exact thing happened to me when I was traveling semi-regularly up to Toronto and Montreal. It was either talking like a Canuck or having a barely noticeable Quebec French dialect. After two years of flying up, it just happened without me thinking about it.
Dancers do it a lot. And the way certain types of customers talk is sometimes joked about. Although the girls making the jokes usually sound......