memerology

When you romanticize someone, what you’re basically doing is ignoring their cons, or even building them up to be pros. And when you love someone, that can be true. Things you wouldn’t like about someone else can become something you love about them. But that’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about making someone something they’re not. 

It’s not fair to them and it’s not fair to you. When you ignore or feticize these people’s bad parts, you make them into something they aren’t. You make them into something you may love, but also something they can’t live up to, and so it will inevitably lead to unhappiness on both sides. They can’t be anyone but who they are (and they are perfect in and of themselves), and you can’t love them the way they are. Not unless you accept their goods and bad parts as they are, without altering how you see them.

 Zorita was a 1940s burlesque dancer known for performing spectacular acts with her two pet boa constrictors, Elmer and Oscar. 

 She married at age 15 to escape an abusive stepfather, but that relationship fell apart. Desperate for income, she began working at a nudist colony at age 17. There, she met a snake charmer who gifted her the boas and she began performing in nightclubs with them.

 Her act was called ‘The Consummation of the Wedding of the Snake.‘ She described the storyline as such:  “A gorgeous young maiden is going to be sold into slavery to an ugly old man. Instead, she dances with a snake, gets bitten, and dies.”  

 After performances, she would visit restaurants and diners with her snakes; sitting them down next to her and feeding them crumbs of food.

 She was arrested several times for indecent exposure, and got in trouble with police for leading a 10-ft long bull snake through the streets with a leash. Zorita didn’t mind, calling it “good publicity.” 

 Spectators in clubs were often afraid of her snakes. One frightened man even pulled a gun on Zorita during her act. Sometimes, she would bring the children of other performers on the floor, and then threaten to throw her snakes at spectators unless they paid the child.

 Zorita was a bisexual who was often accompanied on tours by her girlfriends. She claimed that although she stripped for men, she loved women more.