No one does sensual quite like Marvin Gaye. With hits like I Want You, Sexual Healing and the most romantically sexually manipulative song ever, Let's Get It On. Seriously, if you haven't heard it in a while, reaquaint yourself with the lyrics. I mean, his intentions are pretty clear. And he was writing songs back in a time when lyrics weren't overt. Think Afternoon Delight. Which is one of the most subtly unromantic sexually repulsive songs ever. If you haven't heard it in a while, reaquaint yourself with the lyrics.
Do you wonder where I'm going with this? So do I.
I guess what I'm saying is, Morocco takes a more Afternoon Delight approach to anything sexual. You will not find a sex shop here. However, you can score a prostitute, it is the world's oldest profession you know. But you do have to know where to find them. Unlike Turkey, which is the equivalent of Let's Get It On. With their sex shops boldly displayed with big flashing lights. And prostitutes? I bet they actually find you.
Not that I am in the market for these things. It's just that I'm curious.
Which brings me to my belly dance class, which is attended by some very proper and properly rigid, I might add, older Moroccan women. Women who just like to shake their groove thing in the company of other women on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. So the other week the teacher put on a song. A song I had never learned before. I hadn't even heard it before. So I copy and pasted they instuctors movements. Until we got to a part where I almost spit out my gum in absolute shock at what we were doing. It was an undulation that I always thought was the international gesture for *ahem* gettin' in on. If you know what I mean. So I'm looking around and no one else is laughing, accept for me of course. Conversely, no one is offended. So, I'm guessing this particular genuflection has a different socio-cultural context than it does for me. Or something.
So of course I made a video of me doing the dance. I think you'll recognize the part I'm talking about when you see it...
(And imagine if you will, 7 or so Moroccan women over 50 doing this dance. You might want to spit out your gum now.)
Scandalously daring wouldn't you say?
But maybe in Morocco this pelvic thrust means, "Hey can you pick up that heavy laundry basket for me and bring it downstairs honey? Which really when you think about it, is way sexy.
Oh, and I forgot to mention I wearing my $15 Marjane jeans I bought earlier this week without trying them on. Because when I went to the women's dressing room I discovered that there's no lock on the door. No lock. And there were two stock boys lingering in front of it. I kid you not.
Maybe Morocco isn't as conservative as I thought. Who needs sex shops when you have laundry baskets and dressing rooms without locks? People do have a way of getting their needs met one way or another. I think it was Plato who called necessity the mother of invention. I just didn't know he had lived in Morocco...
