In this story by Jill McCorkle, a woman hosting a dinner party for a group of her husband’s old friends is disgusted by the way the men joke about the bodies of women they had encountered at a strip club earlier in the day. She muses about modern man’s obsession with breasts, and the contrast between the privileged life of the wives present and the circumstances that might lead other women to take up such work. She confronts the men, along the way cynically threatening to open her own club called “Peckers”. Themes include machismo, sexualization, misogyny, beauty and womanhood.
Tension among the wives at the party is eased when, alone with them in the kitchen, the hostess relates the story of her young son’s reaction to a model of the deformed hominid Lucy during a museum visit. They see his innocent comment, “I bet she was real pretty for her time,” as indicative of a more refreshing approach to the appreciation of women, based on inner and not just bodily beauty. As the other woman relax, she withdraws into herself and imagines a connection between Lucy as she limped her way to the water’s edge seeking rest, and the downtrodden women the men had just demeaned.
Original Text / PDF (3,100 words)