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This has been am amazing year of travel; LA, Seattle, Victoria BC, Cuernavaca Mexico, Copenhagen Denmark, Phoenix Arizona and finally Cuba on December first via Cancun for ten days. My dear friend Morgan Alexander, a photographer who lives in Ojai California, has made six trips to Cuba so far.

She's hooked on that beautiful island and invited Carlin and me to join her group of academic women in the fine arts. There were ten of us for the first half until two left early. Our ages ranged in the fifties and sixties with two younger women in their thirties. Two of us were in our seventies and I was the oldest. I liked them all, of course some better than others, but mostly we were an eclectic group of free-thinking artisans.

This has been am amazing year of travel; LA, Seattle, Victoria BC, Cuernavaca Mexico, Copenhagen Denmark, Phoenix Arizona and finally Cuba on December first via Cancun for ten days. My dear friend Morgan Alexander, a photographer who lives in Ojai California, has made six trips to Cuba so far. She's hooked on that beautiful island and invited Carlin and me to join her group of academic women in the fine arts. There were ten of us for the first half until two left early. Our ages ranged in the fifties and sixties with two younger women in their thirties. Two of us were in our seventies and I was the oldest. I liked them all, of course some better than others, but mostly we were an eclectic group of free-thinking artisans.

Ours was a humanitarian mission through a non-profit outfit called Caribbean Medical Transport that organizes trips to Cuba. We each donated five hundred dollars for containers carrying medical supplies that would be shipped out of Amsterdam. There were several documents to fill out and numerous licenses to carry with us to get into and out of the country. All together, there was an air of mystery with a touch of danger. We were told not to wear jewelry or fancy clothes. There was conflicting information about what to say going through customs: tourism, or the film festival or our humanitarian mission. I was told a sexologist would be welcomed in Cuba but it might wave a red flag coming back to the US. I defiantly put "sexologist" on my form anyway. When my very smart partner/lawyer Carlin saw our passports weren't stamped in Cuba, we simply by-passed all the rigmarole and went through customs as tourists from Cancun.

There is a lot of poverty and frustration in Cuba. What our government is doing to these people with the embargo is shameful. When asked where we were from, Carlin and I never said America, we said New York. Thankfully, most folks understand the problems in the world come from politicians, not from "we the people." The United States is a big bully who doesn't give a damn about ruining people's lives and destroying their countries, all in the name of promoting our faux democracy which is really corporatism. In the meantime, we are nearly as totalitarian a country with Homeland Security as Cuba is a communist country. We fear there's a terrorist around every corner while they're scared of capitalists sneaking around their corners. It's ridiculous!

We were housed by twos in private homes called "Casa Paticular." Our Cuban hostess Alexandra was a very upbeat woman in her early sixties. She was retired and her husband a doctor. We did very well communicating with her few words of English and our few words in Spanish plus lots of pantomime. They lived in rooms behind the kitchen while we had separate bedroom, the living room and a glassed-in terrace on the ninth floor of an apartment building with a great view. Everything in the place dated back to the fifties including an old creepy elevator. It often felt like I was in a time warp including barking dogs that ran free at night like when I was a kid in Kansas. Our beds were basically box springs without a mattress, but the breakfasts were spectacular. Starting with a large glass of freshly squeezed guava juice followed by two perfectly fried fresh eggs, unpasteurized butter and cheese with fluffy fresh baked bread and strong Cuban coffee.

Alexandra kept the bathroom filled with fresh towels and clean sheets. Two days before we were to leave, she came into my room where Carlin and I were resting. She went to my side table and picked up the Magic Wand that I kept plugged-in next to my bed. "How much?" she asked as she ran it around the back of her neck and shoulders, smiling with satisfaction. I said the vibrator was a gift for her. I had intended to leave it because this is my pattern- wherever I go I leave my Magic Wand electric vibrator as a house gift. Usually I never say anything about all the good orgasms it will provide. Whoever has it will just naturally let it wander down between her legs or simply enjoy the massage.

Every day was full of activities with a bus that picked us up at nine AM. Needless to say, Carlin and I missed several days to sleep in, have a leisurely breakfast, an unhurried bowel movement, and a chance to go off on our own. Only once did we feel any hostile vibes when we walked up a flight of stairs into a local dive bar overlooking the ocean. Four very dark, very angry-looking young Cuban men devoured Carlin visually, so we split. Instead of getting a sexual vibe, she felt like they wanted to hurt her. Marilyn Monroe once said, "Beauty only invites abuse."

We visited churches, schools, a grand new art museum and many local artists. Again, similar to here at home, a couple of artists did well and had nice studios, but the poverty of most was heartbreaking. With the average wage somewhere between five to ten dollars a month, the pressure to buy art hung heavy in the air. At first I was overly generous until it dawned on me that we would soon run out of cash. Carlin bought a nice titty print and I got ceramic plates plus a pussy sculpture plaque with hooks to hang things on it.

Early on, we visited a young man's sculpture studio. Our group was invited to sculpt a design on a ten inch square tile, so immediately I began to form a divine vulva. I figured the Cubans would be cool, but what would my tour mates think. Toward the end, I added a penis off to one side to be inclusive. A great conversation followed. I was told the informal Spanish word for vulva is "Tota" and the penis is "Pito" so I carved both words on my tile which was a big success. Everyone loved it.

Each day our tour bus rumbled through the streets and along the Malecon, a long wall and sidewalk at the water's edge. Miles of ocean front property had glorious old buildings crumbling from the salty sea air. Every so often, an exquisite old house would have scaffolding up in the slow process of repair waiting for supplies to be shipped in. The architecture in old Havana is spectacular but much of it is in disrepair. The sidewalks are all broken up with a big hole every now and then. Two blocks away from where we were staying there were two large resort hotels. One, the Rivera, was rundown and nearly deserted, but the other, the Melia Cohiba, was in top shape. That's where Carlin and I went for an internet connection and to change our dollars to CUC's, the new Cuban money that recently replaced pesos.

The Melia Cohiba had several nice restaurants and cocktail lounges, a spa with a big fabulous pool where they did water shows several nights a week with precision swimming by a group of gorgeous women and handsome men. Talking with our waiters, we discovered that thirty percent of the hotel is owned by Spain so there was a lively turnover of European visitors. To recover from car fumes, we spent an entire day at the hotel with each of us getting a massage, swimming in the pool and enjoying a good meal pool side like the pampered Americans we are. The weather was nearly perfect, the sky exquisitely blue and the beaches are still pristine although the day they picked for us to go to one was windy, so we went back to the pool.

Carlin and I made an interesting looking couple walking around arm-in-arm. I figured some might think this attractive young woman was accompanying her mother or grandmother on vacation, or maybe I was a successful business woman traveling with my young assistant. As an older woman with a very short haircut, I could also be one of those marimacho women with a young sexy girlfriend. The role of an independent dyke is one of my favorites from the eighties. Men fell over themselves staring at Carlin while I was ignored or got looks of disdain. Lesbians, gay men, and transsexuals are not acceptable in Cuban society that is still controlled by insecure macho men similar to our Christian fundamentalists here in the U.S.A.

Walking around with a beautiful young woman with a slender waist wearing a mini skirt with shapely legs and a firm abundant ass was open season on unabashed male lust. Since she was not with a man, guys openly stared at her Without any subtlety or reservation which created an intense energy. Carlin simply looked straight ahead ignoring it all while I was on full-alert scanning our perimeter with periphery vision, an old habit from martial arts days. Thinking back to when I had a hot body, I avoided looking sexy unless I was on a date or with a group of friends. By the time I was in my forties, the sexual revolution of the seventies had us dressing alike in unisex jeans. There was far less sexual hunger back then.

One afternoon, as we walked arm in arm through one of the cocktail lounges, a short round Mexican came running toward us. When I saw him, I whispered to Carlin, "We got a live one coming in on the right." He stopped in front of me and asked, "How much?" nodding toward Carlin. I was actually shocked. The one role I hadn't considered was that of a female pimp. As I pulled myself up short, I said, "I'm her grandmother!" He turned red, dropped his head in shame and apologized profusely. I patted his shoulder and told him all was forgiven. As we walked off, I told Carlin that if we ran out of money, when the next guy asked "How much?" I was going to say, "$2K, USA."

Although we were told that prostitution carries a big fine and imprisonment, we could see it was alive and well. At the Melia Cohiba Hotel, young women in sexy outfits traveled in pairs and sat at tables waiting to make a contact. We watched several deals go down. There were paunchy older men dining with young girls who obviously had been hired for the evening. Prostitution or what Cubans call "jineterismo" surfaced in the early nineties. Since tourism was and still is a main source of money, the government turns a blind eye toward prostitution so they can use the dollars earned to help the economic crises caused by it's own mismanagement, the loss of Russia as an ally, and the U.S. blockade. While a secretary can earn about eight or nine dollars a month, a prostitute can bring home up to fifty dollars in one night. She can also buy a few nice clothes, be entertained going to night clubs and enjoy sumptuous dinners. Some marry a client and leave Cuba.

I'm in accord with Margo St. James who's organization worked to decriminalize prostitution. She said all women are prostitutes. Some of us rent our bodies by the hour while others sell them permanently in marriage. I continue to see myself as a sex worker teaching women about their bodies and orgasms. Instead of being shocked or moralistic about selling sex, and I might add, uptight about sexual pleasure in general, feminists need to consider sex work as one of women's best means of survival. We need to honor the women who provide sexual entertainment as society once did the courtesans, independent women who were sexually skilled and held in high esteem.

Whether Christian, Catholic or Muslim, as long as a society prizes virginity and insists upon monogamous marriage and motherhood as the only choice for all women, our chances of achieving economic, political, social and sexual equality will remain slim. My feminist platform would legalize cannabis, decriminalize prostitution and demolish the sexual double standard; the age-old system that allows men sexual independence with an abundance of choices while they punish and stigmatize women who provide them with their highly prized sexual entertainment in both America and Cuba.

My mother often talked about what a wonderful man Fidel Castro was to help his people out of poverty. She should see the Cuba we have helped to create with the embargo. Mother knew a lot about being poor until she finally achieved her dream; clinging to the edge of middle-class respectability that barely hovered above working class. While she leaned toward communism, she always voted Democrat. Me? I'm a feminist without a formal political party. We obviously need a third party in America that would liberate women from organized religions that are man-made. Until then, half of the world's population will continue to be bound by the invisible chains of an outdated religious morality while men live by their own set of rules.

We had two tour guides. Thelma was a fifty-something very knowledgeable woman and Jesus a forty-something man who was an artist himself. Both were fluent in English. Our efforts to get through to Mariela Castro Espin, Cuba's leading sexologist didn't cut through all the red tape in time. When I made it to Cinesex, Cuba's prestigious sex education center, Mariela was out of town. However I dropped off my books and DVD's and spoke to several women there through Thelma, our interpreter. They were obviously extremely grateful to receive my information. Carlin filmed our exchange along with taking lots of photos. We got some good stuff for our upcoming television internet show as soon as the new website is built.

One evening at the cocktail lounge in the hotel, we had a conversation with two American students studying in Havana. He was Eastern Indian decent and she was an African American with an impressive set of dreds, a doo rag, and overalls covering her large body. She was studying percussion instruments and he was a business major from Wharton. We talked about the mixture of races. Cubans come in many shades of color after the indigenous people intermixed with Spaniards and African slaves. Again, similar to here, women with lighter skin and straight hair are preferred. The students told us that the one thing young Cubans want most is internet access. They only have email. Of course, they also want to own cars, computers, and other electronic gadgets that we take for granted.

On this trip everything that could go wrong did. Our luggage was lost and our entire group was stuck an extra day in Cancun due to the Mexicana Air strike. We decided to buy new tickets from Cuban Airlines. On our return trip, we were down to our last dollars, but in Mexico I could use my credit card. When we missed our flight out of Cancun back to the states, we had to stay in a Marriott hotel near the airport. Then the following day I lost my damn credit card and the weather in New York looked bad with a snow storm on it's way. Oh yes, we just missed a hurricane flying out of Havana.

Safe in the knowledge that the goddess of sexual love and abundance was with us all the way, we learned a lot, enjoyed ourselves, laughed continuously, and entertained our group. Grandma Slut and Baby Slut kept up a stream of bawdy comic relief with our outrageous intergenerational humor. When our next president lifts the mean-spirited embargo on Cuba, we'll see you on the Malicon next winter. If you run short of cash and get propositioned by a rich foreigner looking for a good time, remember our story about $2K, U.S.A.