A few weeks back CAKE received the following application for a CAKE.CARD from an enthusiastic CAKE.Girl:

"Female sexual liberty has long been a passion of mine. As a woman growing up in a western society I have watched the perils of body image, and the 'feminine ideal' inflict themselves on those around me. I have witnessed my mother, my sister, and also my friends battle unnatural ideals. And furthermore I have once beaten anorexia myself. I am now determined never to fall prey to this again. I have breasts and an ass, and I'm keeping 'em!

I have also more recently been dealing with the conflicting sexual expectations placed on me as a young woman. The men I meet are enthralled by my openness about my sexuality, and my prowess in going after what I want, but then either expect me to be a virgin or a whore (depending on their own fantasies). They assume that anything I have done before, and anything I do with them, was all in their honor. I may be young and experimental, but it is for my own pleasure."

Like many other CAKE members, this CAKE.Girl speaks of a connection between her struggles with objectification and her goals of sexual liberation. This connection, though complicated, is key to CAKE's mission to create sexual entertainment for women and achieve sexual equality.

An example, if we may:

While perusing the newsstands, another CAKE.Girl overhears a group of men checking out the male glossies – "Yo check out her ass. She has a fine package. I'd like to get me a piece of that." All his buddies nod in agreement and take the rags to their respective bathroom stalls for some "private" perusing...

On the other side of the world a successful business woman on a business trip lands in a unknown city, an Instyle Magazine under her arm. While relaxing before her morning meeting she wonders – what it would be like if the world was set up so that her every sexual need was prioritized and catered to? Would men wear lipstick?

Why don't men wear lipstick? In a world of increasing equality - why are the physical pressures of creating and maintaining physical perfection still widely relegated as a feminine role?

There is much evidence of this one sided sexual objectification: Women wear makeup (billion dollar business) men don't; women have eating disorders, men don't; women put silicon and plastic in their bodies and suck out the fat, men don't; women shave their legs and wax their pubic hair, men don't; women wear heels, men don't; women take the birth control pill, men don't; women do their nails, men don't - And finally women still make less than men, and we can't get a happy ending anywhere.

Given the negative effects of massive mainstream objectification of a women's bodies and sexuality - does sexual equality mean that both men and women would want to wear lipstick or rather that no one would wear it?

We explore...

For those of you lucky enough to have caught a glimpse of Greg Gorman's photo exhibit "Just Between Us," you saw a fine (art) example of the intensely sexy and erotic male body.  Explicit images mixed with sincerely good photography (and a subject with the face of an angel...) makes for quite a combination - and for once this combination is not limited to the female form.   Gorman's portraits make no excuses - the life size photographs feature life size erections - and there is no doubt about it - these photos are meant to turn you on. We can't argue with that...

Furthermore we receive daily applications from women requesting a chance to try out for the role of a CAKE.Dancer - stating the desire to experience being a sex object in support of a woman's right to make her own decisions about her sexuality. And we certainly can't argue with that!

CAKE believes that sexual equality is rooted in objectification by choice and by personal definition - for men and women. Objectification is only a bad thing when it is one-sided – signifying a power imbalance. We do not know for sure what sexual culture would look like if women were truly equal. Given the social and economic opportunity, would women PAY to be adored by a room filled with men? Or PAY for sex. Or pay for silky smooth indulgence – say a happy ending? We certainly PAY for pleasure but it usually comes in the form of the contrived, manipulated worlds of fashion, cosmetics and other trickeries concocted to make us feel inadequate all under the guise of making us feel good.

CAKE is trying to find out by creating spaces where women are in control, on a specific night, in a specific place with specific people. And when given the opportunity and the choice – we see women GO FOR IT!

CAKE.Dancer Erin Lee Mock breaks it down:

"Women are in a bind. In following a feminist sense of sexuality, we must demand to be subjects and shirk identification as a sexual object. Fine. However, we are brought up as women with our sexuality tied deeply to our experience as objects. Our ability to feel sexy in many ways is rooted in our ability to be desirable, i.e. to play the object role. As feminists, it is important not to condemn women for enjoying this role because it stands in the way of women's sexual fulfillment.

What CAKE does basically is combine both women's sexual needs: to be subjects and objects at once with neither role privileged by the environment. Women are able to dress as objects but are also given the choice to view others (women and men both!) as objects. They are also (for once) given the CHOICE not to dress as objects – CLUB.CAKE says wear whatever makes YOU feel good."

The role of sexual object is a necessary part of sexuality. In the search for sexual equality - CAKE.Girls define our own roles as objects and demand that men fill the role of object along with us.

Many feminists will tell you that sexual equality has nothing to do with feminism.

CAKE is here to say that without the struggle for sexual equality, feminism is dead.

*And CAKE.Boys - if you are dying to meet a CAKE.Girl who will bring you to Members Only, maybe a little lipstick would help.

Love,
CAKE