Chapter 3: Unusual Parenting

We were in Mom’s study, relaxing, nibbling on snacks, and getting more focused where we had been talking casually. “Wow, Mom. You seem to do things like makeup and special clothes very easily. You look great most of the time. We have a really nice house, with areas where you work and have other people come in to work with you. You said money is not a worry for us.

“Simple answer? Yes. What we need to discuss, at length, is where it comes from.

She looked very seriously. “Annamarie, remember when I told you that it was great to masturbate, but not appropriate for all places? At various times, I told you to be selective in discussing sex.”

“Yes, I remember. It seems to have been good advice.”

“Now, I will tell you things that you need to know, but you must keep utterly secret unless I tell you to talk, or you have to make a decision to do so.”

“Sure, Mom.”

“Our society changed after the backlash against the politicized evangelicals and became a lot more tolerant. There was a lot of decriminalization of sex. One compromise started with public health support of sex workers, with generally privileged communications. Rather quickly, though, it spun off the honorable profession of Registered Courtesan, with endorsements for performers both public and web.

She pulled out her wallet, to show me several credentials. “To start, here’s my RC certificate. Here’s my license as an arbitrator for RC issues. For that matter, here’s my national paramedic certificate and state license, and a license for the new category of emergency mental health worker. This is my health certificate.

Here’s a card for the sex worker and performer union, and, while it took them a while to accept us, the Directors’ Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA for movies and TV. Getting us into the latter two took some of our leverage, which is going to get into the sensitive area. Porn, and sex-friendly mainstream, can be good business that cross-subsidizes some of our other activities. We work with some connected strip clubs.

Crime, an abstraction

“For this discussion, Annamarie, I think you should call me Ada. We’re going to be talking about things that are definitely adult, not always just for the biological family, and for which we respect one another’s judgment.” That puzzled me, but I trusted her.

“Crime, in philosophy, is an interesting thing. Two things get called crime: malum prohibitorum and malum in se. Malum in se, according to one important court decision, is “naturally evil as adjudged by the sense of a civilized community,” Malum prohibitorum is a crime because it violates a statute.

“There’s wiggle room between the two. Is gambling naturally evil, or do some people gamble irresponsibly? Consensual prostitution violates statutes, and perhaps religious doctrine. Human trafficking, of course, is evil.

“Crimes can be individual, or involve groups, eventually organized groups. You’ve heard of organized crime? The Italian Mafia? Perhaps the Irish Mob, or the Japanese Yakuza, or the Russian or Georgian Mafiya? Not precisely the same, but a lot of worldwide human trafficking and other crime comes from the former Soviet Union. People in the former Soviet Republics band together for protection, and we affiliate with some of them.

“Did you note, Annamarie, that women’s organized crime tends to fall into the wiggle room.”

“Yes, I did. Does this have something to do with us? Maybe my father was in it and left you money?”

“Not quite. I need to review some history. After some wild initial days, American organized crime was the province of Sicilian-Italian-Americans. To be in the leadership, you had to be a man of Sicilian ancestry, or, rarely, a non-Sicilian Italian or a Jewish man.

“To enter the Sicilian mafia, there was a very formal initiation. It starts with a formal dinner, at which you will answer questions, and then have blood drawn from a finger and applied to a saint’s card. The card is set alight, as you swear an oath to ‘burn like the saint’ if you inform. The other attendees pass the burning card from man to man, but recognize they are not burned due to mutual support, trust, and speed.

Those properties of common support stayed, but governance changed. In 1931, there was a change from having a single overall “Boss of all Bosses”, to top-level governance coming from a Commission. It reorganized going into the 1980s, but the Second Commission dropped from public view. It may have been confused with a Chicago-based one that ran the western United States. Las Vegas was a neutral meeting spot.

Eventually, the sons and grandsons of the Second Commission were coming into power. Several threads were important. First, they often had advanced education in business, law, and other disciplines, and wanted to continue the trend of making many mob enterprises “legitimate”, There might be investments, but there was a bright line between legitimate and illegal activities.

Second, they had been educated with women and participated in activities that made the realize that a woman could be as smart and competent as a man. If the Mob stayed male-only, it was depriving itself of talent.

I giggled. “Maybe my weapons training qualifies me as a future assassin?”

“Maybe, Annamarie. Or maybe you can learn to hack and kill computers, an even more feared skill. Or you can be a professional at manipulation. In fact, there’s a whole discussion about the roles of women in the operation of organized crime.

“Those roles tended to be in things where trust was needed, such as information gathering, carrying messages, and surveillance, but not the force of men. In some cases, outside the Mob, especially in Harlem and other black areas, those could become self-sustaining, as in gambling.

“The third insight is that there were some crime targets that would focus on women - think gambling and loansharking aimed at housewives. Perhaps some sex business providing men, women, or both to bored, affluent housewives.

“I should observe, Annamarie, that I don’t operate by some theoretical code of doing good. It’s enlightened self-interest, and, to be able to do things, the accumulation of power.

“Last, and while I don’t want to go into detail right now, the Mob was more accepting of the idea of other than complete masculinity in its male ranks. It was a reality that there was a lot of gay sex and male prostitution in street gangs, to say nothing of in prison. There were even assassins that worked in drag, and various mobsters that identified as female and even had sexual reassignment. Interest there, from some soldiers and bosses of some power, was not in model-grade women for sex, but to guide them in being womanly. I know a couple that en femme fit in nicely, and some that are black widows. Honey, things in that area get so complex that I’d rather have you avoid for now.

[Annamarie: I am OK with being a criminal under the technical violations of malum prohibitorum I won’t do malum in se, much less hostis humani generis.]

Affiliates and friendly kinks

Stepping away from Mafiya specifics, even in male-dominated societies, there have been heroines, who may be outside the law -- malum prohibitorum. Japan has lots of superheroines in contemporary roleplay but can trace back to the 12th century woman warrior, Tomoe Gozen. The representative to us from the Yakuza women took that name.

I mentioned female gambling chieftains in Harlem. These tied in with West Indian groups. We certainly can get working girls and collaborate on money matters.

Elizabeth operates cross-culturally with Indian groups. She is both the ultimate high-level escort, who would function perfectly at the most exclusive social functions, but also my nomination if we need an assassin. Incidentally, she is our Tantric guru, a tradition you should learn from her. From a personality and physicality standpoint, one could regard her as the ultimate GILF or MILF -- she’s actually a mother but has no grandchildren.

Criminals may take on a name of tradition. The Irish Mob delegate is known as Deirdre of the Sorrows. As I mentioned, Japan uses some traditional names. Groups can reuse or modify names. There was a shoplifting ring called The Elephants in London, and then a female ring called the Forty Elephants. There’s a new Forty Elephants gang.

“There is a Tantric women’s group in South Asia, with which Elizabeth has excellent contacts. They, in turn, connect to the cult of Kali, or Thuggees, who practice assassination.

“There’s also the sex magick, requiring women as well as men, of occultists like Aleister Crowley, who founded the occult religion of Thelema. One of his concepts, which turns me on madly, is that he thought “elixir” -- the mixture of male and female secretions -- has much magickal power. Outside ceremonial magick, Annamarie, I find it a really good test of a man if he will or will not taste his own semen, and, even more significantly, that of other men who are participating in the same scene with women. For the first part, it’s difficult for me to think much of someone who won’t experience what he expects you to experience. For the second, homophobia doesn’t become people. Anyway, if men want to see women with women, it seems only fair that I can see men with men. It’s fine if they do that only when women are involved.