Each prostitution post is a beautiful and unique snowflake
Published by punkass marc August 21st, 2006 in Feminism, SexThis is so misunderstood in my previous prostitution thread it must be blared from the rooftops and not buried in the comments.
I don’t wish to question your passionate helping feelings, or prevent you from proselytizing your views on feminism. I may even agree with them, as far as they go, who knows. I don’t, however, accept that they should be codified in criminal law.
I don’t believe it is the proper role of the State to start putting people in jail and censoring media to help create hegemony for any ideological or religious paradigm – feminism, socialism, christianity, or whatever.
Could someone please point me to where I argued that, if something isn’t feminist, it should be “codified in criminal law” or where I asked “the State to start putting people in jail and censoring media?” Because I don’t see it.
I believe my post included a defense of pursuing legalization (I used the qualifier “properly” b/c I wouldn’t be inclined to institutionalize pimps, I would want the possibility of unionization, etc.). I certainly didn’t argue that we should criminalize prostitution and I definitely never even remotely implied that the State should round up or shut up anyone who disagrees.
because truthfully, i don’t see why any of this matters in terms of 1) what is to be done in realpolitik terms wrt helping people who actually need/want help or 2) whether or not it’s particularly useful for an outsider to scold a prostitute for being unfeminist/participating in an unfeminist yadda (not in my book). and those are ultimately the only questions that matter to me.
There are 4 very critical points that come out of all of these accusations:
1) It’s okay to have a discussion about what one ought to do without implying there is a role for the state to play in enforcing it.
The questions I am pursuing are simply about whether a woman who believes in ending sexism and gender discrimination and chooses to work in prostitution is making a career choice that conflicts with her value set.
Right now, I don’t believe most women “choose” this work against a backdrop of other legitimate options, as I noted in my assumptions. But there are some who do, including some commenters. Thus, I feel that this is a discussion worth having.
Also, let’s say we rebuilt the sex trade to be much more fair and safe. This would be a very good thing. It would still leave open the question of whether working in it reinforces harmful attitudes.
This has nothing to do with state enforcement. At all. It’s a discussion about personal choices and what the implications of those choices are assuming you’re free to make them.
2) Discussions of the implications of a personal choice have merit.
Belledame222 doesn’t see why this matters because it doesn’t impact “realpolitik.” And that’s fine. We probably agree on what should be done in terms of policy and legislation, which I tried to make clear in my post.
That doesn’t mean there’s nothing to be gained from evaluating a choice. If we agree that the industry in the abstract (meaning in any form, no matter how fair) reinforces sexism and gender discrimination, then that’s meaningful information, don’t you think? We shouldn’t block the discussion because it doesn’t immediately advance our legal interests.
Maybe questions on this topic outside the realm of what laws we should pass right now don’t matter to you. Maybe they are secondary to legislative concerns. But their answers have value.
3) You can question something without shaming.
Belledame also referenced the “scolding” of prostitutes and implied it in a few other comments, too. KH was clear that she’s suspicious of it, which I understand.
But to ask whether the industry in the abstract (meaning in any form, no matter how fair) reinforces sexism and gender discrimination doesn’t mean “shame on you, you dirty girl” — especially if there is merit behind the concern (which even KH seemed to agree there is). It’s a fair, intellectually honest question. I don’t believe any choice is above being examined for sexism and gender discrimination.
I understand there’s a massive amount of shaming going on in the world at large, and we must be vigilant against it. But it’s important that, amongst other progressives (to which this site caters exclusively), we are able to ask the toughest questions on even the most sensitive of topics, yes?
4) Don’t read more than what’s written in the post.
Iamcuriousblue lumped me in with “radfems.” He and KH seemed to think my post left open the prospect of criminalization, despite my obvious endorsement of the opposite. Belledame’s shaming accusations seem like a built-in reflex. Honestly, though, based on what I wrote, I don’t understand where those claims came from.
Topics like prostitution are loaded, to say the least, but we should all do our best to try and stick to what a specific person has said and not assume they are toting around the baggage of other people with whom you disagree. That’s why I tried to break it down at my most basic assumptions, so there would be no misunderstanding. But it didn’t take too long for people to start glomming on other random assumptions and, on occasion, argue that I claimed the opposite of what was stated in my post.
Here’s to another round of it below.
I think they got confused because you appeared to be setting your arguments up in opposition to theirs Marc, when as far as I can see you are on the same side.
What do you think differentiates your arguments to those of KH’s or Belledame’s?
delphyne,
as far as immediate legal action? nothing. as far as whether prostitution promotes sexism and gender discrimination in this world? i dunno. if they agree that it reinforces those ideas, then we don’t disagree.
Most prostitution advocates will go as far as to acknowledge that there are problems with prostitution “in this world”, like you they don’t agree that those problems exist because of the nature of prostitution itself.
5) I’d add that pointing out that men frequent prostitutes most of the time because they enjoy the thrill of purchasing a woman’s body/getting away with rape (like the johns in the forum you linked) is not “scolding prostitutes”. It’s particularly not scolding the majority of prostitutes who are being raped on a daily or at least weekly basis but are being held as slaves.
Like I said, I’ll probably write something in a blog post but in the meantime, I read IACB and KH as simply addressing the question of _their_ assumptions and what _they_ think should happen, and not implying that you want anything codified into law.
) Discussions of the implications of a personal choice have merit.
what merit do they have?
3) You can question something without shaming.
if that were so, life would be pretty dreadful. in fact, we’d all pretty much be dead without shaming — coz it’s fundamentally a part of human life.
what merit do they have?
Wow. Seriously?
Okay, I’ll bite. There are lots of personal decisions on which there should be no legislation but are worthy of deep discussion.
Let’s take religion. I would never ever legislate against it, but I think there’s value in discussing its potential harms, especially when it comes in a fundamentalist package. The personal choice to be a fundamentalist Christian doesn’t do wonders for fighting sexism, for example, and it helps to point that out and spread the word so that people have more information about the implications of the choice.
Let’s take art. I can argue that a movie is sexist or racist or what have you without arguing that it should be banned. I am arguing against the choice to make movies that advances those values, that people should choose not to do it. There’s merit in those discussions, right?
There are lots of examples like this.
Obviously, the choice to be a prostitute isn’t identical to the above. But if it were made in a fair and safe way willingly by a woman with other legitimate options, I think there’s value in pointing out to her that it doesn’t do much in the fight against sexism/discrimination. She is welcome to dismiss it, of course, but if you care about sexism/discrimination, then you should still value pointing it out.
You really don’t see value in these kinds of discussions, B|L?
Marc:
“I think there’s value in pointing out to her that it doesn’t do much in the fight against sexism/discrimination.”
On the surface, you are totally correct. When one pictures a prostitute, whether they be a “typical john” or a “typical observer” or even a “typical concerned advocate” they have a very specific image of a prostitute in mind, that of a victim, and that very image itself helps enforce stereotypes that are sexist and discriminatory…i.e., women, especially prostitutes, are weak, broken, subhuman creatures who can be used and expolited by men, and they just have to take it. However, with “willing prostitutes”, those their by choice, who have he luxury of defining their own terms on what they will and will not do, who they will and will not see, who earn good money, who are perhaps very economically savvy and educated and articulate…well, these are strong, smart business women, and generally the only thing that keeps them from being seen as such is the moral objection to what they do, or those against prostitution/sex work (all of it) for abolitionist reasons. If they were in ANY other line of work, they would be seen as the very model of the savvy business woman…but because people object to the product she is selling? Well, obviously not a good example of and for women anywhere… it almost seems that on the subject of a woman taking charge of her sexuality (up and to her decision to sell it) is a case of damned if you do, damned if you don’t. You can be a street prostitute victim or a financially cut-throat hard assed business whore, but because you are dealing in sex, you most certainly cannot be feminist, or anti-sexism, or anyone who might, oh, due the the way you do business, change the way people view it…
and that, I am not so sure I agree with. The more “in it by choice” prostitutes who lay down some rules and do not come across as victims (and are not immediately painted as such), well, perhaps the more johns and people in general will have to stop seeing them as such, and start seeing them as professionals in a business, and not so different from other professionals in different fields.
Sigh. A whore can dream, right?
“Iamcuriousblue lumped me in with “radfems.” He and KH seemed to think my post left open the prospect of criminalization, despite my obvious endorsement of the opposite. Belledame’s shaming accusations seem like a built-in reflex. Honestly, though, based on what I wrote, I don’t understand where those claims came from”
Well, then since I misunderstood and therefore misrepresented your position, I apologize for that up front. I conflated your position with that of other radfems who were posting here, but I didn’t know that you took a different view on the role of criminal law in all of this.
My argument here is specifically against the “Swedish Model” (busting purchasers of sex) broadly applied to the entire sex industry, as well as the “Dworkin-MacKinnon Ordinance”; these very explicitly involve civil and criminal penalties. As far as I know, most anti-porn radfems endorse these approaches; Samantha Berg does so quite explicitly. If you’re going to justify the “Swedish Model” based on direct harm to prostitutes and other sex workers, that’s one thing – I’d debate the idea that the purchase of sex always represents a kind of harm, but at least this has some basis in the idea that the purpose of law is to prevent victimization.
However, justifying such laws on the basis of points 5-9 (see previous prostitution thread) is quite explicitly all about jailing people for a crime against feminism. I call that authoritarianism, plain and simple. The Dworkin-MacKinnon Model Ordinance is even more a blatantly a piece of ideological policing (albeit, based on civil law), since rather than focusing on the conditions of production, it effectively bans an entire form of expression (”pornography”) based on the way “women are presented”. (I’ve been told that since the ordinance is civil law, it doesn’t explicitly ban anything, which strikes me as a bit of hair-splitting. Any law which leaves an entire medium open to all manner or lawsuits by “any woman” (as the ordinance states) is effectively banning something with the blessing of the State.)
In answer to the points raised in this most recent post, of course its possible to be opposed to prostitution and pornography without endorsing the above laws and without endorsing state enforcement of radical feminist ideology. Marc excepted, that’s a position I see precious little evidence of among anti-porn feminists and leftists.
questioning choices: well yes, but that goes across the board. and my point about the deep-rooted red-plague stigma of “doing it for money” still stands. as does my suggestion that that, too, is something to perhaps examine. as does my interpretation of RM calling KH a “bloated parasite,” and my opinion as to the relative usefulness of such approaches.
so, to be really bald about it, PM: no, you’re not RM’s keeper; but it read to me like that whole last post was at least in part a tacit defense of the way she’s been talking to KH (”want a cookie” and so forth). or, well, you know: harsh, yes, but it’s all useful “criticism,” right. “discussion.”
except, what I’m saying is: actually? not really.
and that that -did- seem shaming to me. gratuitously so. yes.
which is, you know, I get it; she’s a friend; we’ve all got our stuff.
but i rather think it was pretty obvious “where all this is coming from,” you know; lack of acknowledgment of such notwithstanding.
>i dunno. if they agree that it reinforces those ideas, then we don’t disagree.>
Is this really that important, though, is my question. Interesting, yes; but worth the level of vitriol that’s been tossed around?
like I said: i think you could make that argument for pretty much everything in the goddam world; what I don’t see is why singling out prostitution per se in that regard is terribly useful. personally i’d rather put my focus on shit that’s -not- already marginalized–you know, traditional marriage, everyday misogyny of the sort i run into in the street–but, that’s just me; your mileage may certainly vary.
i have suggested that i have seen -expressions- of sex work for money that do not in fact reinforce traditional gender stereotypes (i.e. butch pro-domme; male Tantra workers who see men and women alike); so, my argument is simply that no, “prostitution” is not -inherently- sexist (patriarchal, whatever), no.
unless you are saying that the mere fact that money changes hands is somehow “patriarchal,” but in that case that’s a way broader definition of “patriarchy” than I really take to.
Let’s take religion. I would never ever legislate against it, but I think there’s value in discussing its potential harms, especially when it comes in a fundamentalist package.
[…]
You really don’t see value in these kinds of discussions, B|L?
(Not attempting to answer on anyone’s behalf but my own here, but…)
I don’t see value in these kinds of discussions if they’re framed in the way you present them above. I’m not sure if this was just meant to be an example or an accurate reflection of your views, but when you say that there is value in discussion the potential harms of religion, I think that’s only true if it comes in the context of a conversation that also addresses potential benefits.
Perhaps religion is a bad example here, because there is already a great deal of discourse addressing the benefits, but if we’re talking about something like sex work, I think a more nuanced and balanced debate is absolutely necessary. Even if you’re approaching the argument against sex work from a pro-feminist perspective, it’s very easy for that perspective to get lost amidst the other anti-prostitution conservative perspectives, and it leaves out reasons why women - even activist feminist women - might choose to work in the sex industry.
Not saying you’re doing anything wrong by advocating your POV, but I think the value can be diminished when a once-sided debate is presented. In certain cases, yes, understandable, but if we’re acknowledging feminisms and all the sense of multiplicity that entails it’s hard to not try and include as broad a perspective as possible and avoid deemphaziing any already-marginalized voices.
“Yeah, what he said.”
I see what you are saying, Bryan, but I don’t feel I marignalized sex workers in my post. I feel as though I made it clear I was very invested in fighting for their rights and protections and I definitely never leveled any moral judgment at them. I simply pointed out that, as long as there’s a strong sense of sexism in this world, the industry will reinforce it (and that this is due to the johns’ attitudes).
It’s important to be fair and reasonable when suggesting a criticism, and to be sure to avoid marginalization if you’re even talking _near_ an oppressed group of people, and I think I did that. Just my .02.
There’s a lot of conflation about is all. Happens.
Then again, I only know what I think because I argue about it, so I don’t get why everything I say has to be useful. Not to mention, prostitutes are big people, they can handle the fact that one guy on the internet thinks prostitution helps go along with sexist stereotypes.
PM, I didn’t mean that you had marginalized sex workers, but rather the voices of women who support sex work and all that entails. I think it’s really hard to present a balanced viewpoint - especially in regards to something you believe strongly in - and, on the flip side, it’s really easy to give readers the impression that there aren’t valid, vocal, feminist supporters of prostitution and the sex industry.
I was more trying to explain a general problem when addressing these issues than picking at any point specifically in your post. My comments were entirely re: your comment above and not the original post.
Without getting too much into my own views, I believe in the basic ideas behind what you say and I think we might just disagree on a few nuances. My only arguments come in the way the arguments are framed (all of them in general, not just yours). Often it seems to boil down to either anti-prostitution/anti-porn or pro-prostitution/pro-porn. I know most people in these conversations don’t fit into either of these ideological camps but sometimes that nuance gets lost and though I’m not trying to be the conversation police - far from it - I’m just trying to say that I understand where the vehement opposition to some of the recent posts here might come from. (And, OTOH, I also understand where you might run into problems with commenters. It’s really hard to have a conversation about this without it turning into a clusterfuck of sorts. Too emotionally charged, perhaps?)
Not to mention, prostitutes are big people, they can handle the fact that one guy on the internet thinks prostitution helps go along with sexist stereotypes.
This is a difficult comment to respond to because I don’t want to imply that prostitutes or women are helpless and too delicate or what have you. What I say isn’t going to make or break a soul. But I think it’s important that if you oppose the oppression of a group that you not engage in language that marginalizes it. All I mean to say is that if I am in fact giving sex workers short shrift, then that’s something to criticize me about. I don’t think I am, but if I am, then that’s not in line with my ideas or intent, so it would be a valid criticism.
I think you would be marganalizing prostitutes if you called them disease ridden whores, or refered to them as those hordes of anti feminists harpies who love to shore up the patriarchy with every dick sucked, but if you merely say what you’ve been saying, whatever. Then again, I don’t think of them as an independantly oppressed group. Many are oppressed by the class system, many are oppressed because of their race, and most are oppressed because they are women(include the intersections of all these). There are also some oppressed because they are transgendered or gay. These oppressions often lead to their profession, although not in all cases.
Then again, I don’t think of them as an independantly oppressed group.
How did you come to this conclusion? Yes, prostitutes are oppressed for all the various intersecting reasons you enumerated, but there is an undeniable profession-based oppression that exists. If you’ve ever heard anyone call anyone else a “whore,” there’s just a little bit of common evidence right there.
You note there are male prostitutes, but men are rarely called whores. I think that’s an example of gender oppression. Another problem is that they are supposedly oppressed by people thinking they don’t need to be raped or slapped around. Usually with oppressed groups, it’s the other way around. Note that men usually don’t kill male prostitutes, or why women tend to make up the majority.
Yes, there is gender oppression; there is -also- specific profession-based oppression.
Same as, you know, women get called “dykes,” and that is both gender-specific and specific to homophobia.
and are you sure that men don’t kill male prostitutes? classic misogyny doesn’t play there, but homophobia’s pretty fucking big.
I’m still not seeing it. Let’s make a mind map. I’m seeing it like this: let’s say, dude is sucking a guy’s dick for $30 and the guy punches him, steals his cash and calls him a fag- I say this is caused by the guy being a homophobic dick, and you say it’s a combonation of him being a homophobe who hates prostitutes. Right? So like, what are the underpinnings of this oppression? Like, for race, like hundreds of years of oppurtunities that weren’t avaliable building into a lack of wealth which causes social problems which people of color are blamed for.
I’m willing to buy the premise that most of the discrimination toward (female) prostitutes is based in sexism, but that doesn’t change the fact that prostitutes are still discriminated against for being prostitutes.
My point regarding the use of the word “whore” wasn’t about actual prostitutes, but rather at women who are percieved as “sluts” (aspects of slut shaming tie in here too) who are then labelled with the stigma of being a “whore” - a prostitute. The profession itself has become a slur.
Not to mention the fact that it’s illegal. It’s not illegal to be a woman, but it is illegal to be a prostitute.
Like I said, there is a lot that’s wrapped up in misogyny too, but prostitutes as a class are discriminated against. I don’t really know how else to describe it.
I’ve been reading along for quite a while now, I hope you don’t mind a rather inane observation (at least it seems inane). I have found the discussion useful, if besides the point.
It strikes me that this discussion would be comparable to a group of abolitionists discussing the merits of agriculture, and debating whether or not it is inherently unjust, rather than talking about the horrors of slavery.
Prostitution is not slavery (probably), but there are far too many women (and some men) who are slaves used for prostitution. This discussion has only cemented the notion in my head that those who would debate the rights of a woman to engage in sex work, rather than protect them (well, have the law protect them) from abuse should they choose to do it, and protect anyone from having to do this work, as the ones whose feminist creds need to be looked at closely.
Should the question we ponder be about women’s choices, or should it be about insuring womens rights to make choices, safely, even if we don’t approve?
I strongly suspect that the question of whether or not a sex worker can be feminist only makes it easier for the Patriarchs to prey on her.
Of course I actually know, and practice tai chi, with two prostitutes (here in Chicago), and the personal “testimony” they give does not match common assumptions. Common assumptions are of course, common, and dubious.
I apologize if that seems rude.
Indeed, prostitutes are discriminated against merely for being prostitutes.
Yes, there are problems with the industry overall.
“If we agree that the industry in the abstract (meaning in any form, no matter how fair) reinforces sexism and gender discrimination, then that’s meaningful information, don’t you think”
Yes, a topic worthy of discussion…especially if one assumes every act of sex for money, every lap dance, and every frame of a porn film is solely degrading to women and enforces negative stereotypes, but I do not really believe that to be true. YES, there are plenty of examples of women in any of these fields, real women involved in them, media dramatized characters in television and movies, and countless other examples of sex workers who are demeaned and subject to sexism and gender discrimination…usually those who make up the much touted 90% (generally street prostitutes) and the porn stars and strippers who hate their jobs or have bad histories (of which there are many)…in short, the victims. Why? Because they make better tragic stories, and sadly, those are the ones the average person wants to hear. Everyone loves a good train wreck. I personally think the more women in positions of power, who are clean, sober, business minded professionals, the more the image (and treatment) of sex workers overall might change. Sex work is not going anywhere, so perhaps the changes DO need to come from within…
>Everyone loves a good train wreck.
Yes, there is that as well.
there are a myriad ways to be prurient, I have found; some subtler than others.
BD:
gah, now that the posts are working again and I feel like an idiot for saying stuff more than once…
brief tirade (and first round is still on me next time I get to NY)…
Soceity and media, especially in America, is terribly vulturistic…you can watch the war in gory living color on TV, see blooded-up autopsies on CSI, count internet predators on dateline, and yes, see news stories, documentaries and lifetime movies about street prostitutes, unwilling call girls, and killer pimps. Its ALL very one sided. The only place you can find anything about any sex worker, from the erotic massage therapist to the life long burlesque dancer, to the prostitute to the porn star is on the internet, late night cable pay channels, in porn itself, or the RARE documentary. And half the sex workers interviewed for the news end up claiming everything but the bad was edited out of their spots. Why? Because it is not tragic, exploitive, or fear-inducing enough. Train wrecks sell and pull in ratings. People want happy stories about dogs saved from burning buildings or medical break throughs or heroic cops… not happy whores, of any kind.
edit…The only place you can find anything about any sex worker, from the erotic massage therapist to the life long burlesque dancer…
gah, damn it… happy willing sex worker…
“It strikes me that this discussion would be comparable to a group of abolitionists discussing the merits of agriculture, and debating whether or not it is inherently unjust, rather than talking about the horrors of slavery.”
If you think prostitution is analagous to agriculture I suggest you spend one day riding a tractor at your local farm and another day advertising yourself as an escort and seeing a few clients (they’ll mostly be men as about 95% of male prostitutes’ clients are).
Do come back and tell us how you got on.
I still don’t get it. Drug users go to jail, and being called a crackhead is an insult, and there are a lot of news stories about how meth labs blew up, and not as many about people who had a really good weekend due to pot, but we’re still allowed to talk about how drug dealers and idiots who use crack hurt the black community. (analogy explication: pimps are drug dealers, prostitutes are drug users, happy hookers are the ones who smoked pot and had a good weekend)
How about picking lettuce? How about working at a sewing machine all day? And how about doing either for a low wage? There are some pretty unattractive kinds of work that have nothing to do with sex. I might add, work that produces products that I don’t see anybody calling for a total boycott of.
I think the problem is that you just can’t see how anybody would make different choices than yourself. You, and many other people, if your only option for making a living was to either turn a few tricks a day (even under the best of circumstances) or picking lettuce from dawn to dusk would probably choose picking lettuce. What you don’t seem to understand is that some people, probably with a different psychological makeup than you and probably with fewer issues around sex, might very well choose sex work. And I don’t even need to go to this extreme example. There are plenty of examples of women who have chosen sex work over waiting tables or office work.
ICB:
“There are plenty of examples of women who have chosen sex work over waiting tables or office work.”
::Raises hand::
Yes indeed.
Put your money where you mouth is. Or rather let someone else use their money so they can put their penis in your mouth IACB. If you think that prosittution is just another job, try it yourself for a couple of days. There’s a market for every type of person now, so I’m sure there will be some john out there who will be happy to buy you.
Some women do choose sex work over waiting tables or office work, yes, but on the other hand, it’s not like if we say that paying people 5 cents an hour to pick lettuce is bad, nobody says we are oppressing lettuce pickers or talks about the lettuce picker who choose it over becoming a ditch digger. Not to mention, one does not have to have issues around sex to not choose sex work,btw.
“see news stories, documentaries and lifetime movies about street prostitutes, unwilling call girls, and killer pimps. Its ALL very one sided.”
This does not reflect the Western culture I’ve been living in and looking at the past ten years. You’re think the popularizing of the Happy Hooker, Pretty Woman, Belle du Jour, Washintonienne, and New York Times bestselling author Jenna Jameson is the minority view presented in United States culture?
You point out a few news stories, documentaries and Lifetime Channel movies but forget that the USA is the world’s #1 producer of pornography, a multi-billion dollar a year media. There are dozens of pornography channels available and the Internet is famously saturated with and making bigger profits from pornography than just about anything else.
To say this much-noted onslaught of pornography via Internet, cable, magazines as well as the pornification of popular culture (Barbie is now Bratz, Miss America is out and Miss Hooters is in) is utterly overshadowed by anti-prostitution news stories, documentaries and some cheaply-made movies on Lifetime just seems completely at odds with what my American urban dweller eyes have seen. Shirts saying “Sluts unite!” sell better than, “I’ve been raped more times than I can count, ask me how” shirts
I’ve been seeing a lot of pro-prostitution folks slam my motives as dubious and insinuate my interests in helping prostituted women are motivated by some latent hatred of women and prostitutes gleaned from a culture fucked up about sex, women, and women who have sex. I am, the story goes, simply too anti-sex by osmosis to NYC and Portland, Oregon’s extreme sex negatives cultures to ever accept Hooters, strip clubs, and prostitution as potentially good for women and this is why the appearance of hawt nekkid chix every-fucking-where I turn in public spaces concerns me. The vaunted “right” for women to be or simply act like cum-hungry bi-sexee hoes is affirmed all over these two liberal cities I have lived in the past few years.
Sexism being a many-headed beast, there is another social form of it going on in the USA that I think is stronger and more widespread than the social impulse towards not wanting women to be treated as sex objects because sex is considered dirty: silence about men’s sexual violence. Ever wonder why you never, ever hear about incest on the nightly news? Why rape victims don’t report to the police? Why people refuse to believe snuff films have ever been made? Why rape only became an official war crime in 1999?
Worldwide pervasive silence about the extent of men’s sexual violence.
I think the negative cultural equation sex=women=dirty has not been my problem nearly so much as the cultural silence about men’s sexual violence I upheld for many years.
There’s not much space in this blog format to discuss my upbringing but if you’ll trust me I’ll just say my parents were VERY liberal about sex and nudity and I was never banned from watching anything as a child, including pornography; my dad’s first job at 15 was as a projectionist in a Bronx porno theater. As a fallible human being, I have recognized in myself instances when I have displayed unfair judgments about sexuality instilled by the toxic culture around me and other instances when I did not believe men could really have done what girls were telling me they did to them.
I used to brag about getting money, drugs, and gifts from men for sex acts thinking I was a postmodern lusty, busty diva, but I stayed obediently silent about the humiliating details of what those men made me do because only the parts that made me sexier in the eyes of others mattered, not how used and belittled I felt in private when the drugs wore off.
I won’t deny living in the United States has influenced my views about sexuality such that I have had to spend a lot of time and done a lot of hands-on trial and error to get to where I am right now as a radical feminist, and I still wouldn’t call myself 100% sexism free. However, I do deny this”sex negative” personal smear on me and my intentions for trying to break the silence about the sexual abuses men, tricks and pimps really do to prostituted women. With so many more men tricking than women prostituting (10:1 to 20:1 in average US cities) , the curious lack of men who openly admit they pay for sex and speak about it is glaring, and pointing that out is very much not what the cultural environment around me encourages.
are we back to put your money where your mouth is again? Sheesh. ICB, if you want to start a career in sex work, let me know…my agency really could use some new male strippers, and I hear those gals who hire them get pretty crazy and are willing to pay for some interesting “acts”.
In the mean time, you know, I think it would be really degrading and economically stressful to be a door to door encylopedia salesperson…walking around in all sorts of weather, knocking on strangers doors, usually getting rudely snubbed half way through your sales pitch, or merely getting the door slammed in your face, working for shit commissions on something you are rarely able to sell, and having people mock you for what a lame career you have, getting barked at and possibly attacked by neighborhood dogs… I mean, who in the hell becomes a door to door encylopedia salesperson? But I suppose people have a choice to work in that job…as degrading and hard as it might be…and it’s even legal!
Sam:
yes, there is porn all over the internet, and there are Hooters Girls, and strip clubs, and movies like Pretty Woman. And yes, Jenna Jameson is a best selling author, who also talks about her negative past and her negative times in the porn industry.
However, there are also top rated shows like Law & Order Special Victims Unit (or any of the Law & Order genre) which do not celebrate the sex industry and fictionalize the dark side quite well…showing that it is not all life at the playboy mansion…and I never denied there was a big ugly side to sex work, and that ugly side can be found on television any night of the week.
So maybe it is a balance, one side acting the other reacting. Maybe our different viewpoints cause us each to see and remember what we want too…you see the Hooter’s Girl competition and Pretty Woman and porn channels on cable and I see Belladonna’s 20/20 interview butchered, against her wishes, Nina Hartley utterly overlooked, and an entire generation of young women being raised to think that it is, truly, only a matter of time before they are raped and they are nothing but victims. Thing is, all of those messages, images and things are out there, on both sides, but we all seem to notice what applies to us personally more than what does not.
And yes, I have seen stories about incest on my nightly news.
I also do not think I personally ever called you anti-sex.
“I think it would be really degrading and economically stressful to be a door to door encylopedia salesperson”
Not to mention that big Canadian study that found encyclopedia salesmen have 40 times the mortality rate of other men, that wacko in BC who killed 50 or so encyclopedia salesmen and fed their ground-up corpses to pigs, and the millions of encyclopedia salesmen (40% children) trafficked around the world on the black market every year.
I heard a rumour that the torturers of Abu Graib thought about making Iraqi men pose as encyclopedia salesmen but opted for stripping them naked and making them sexually act “as women do” for the cameras. When Iraqi men began protesting, “I would rather be killed than be treated like a
womanencyclopedia salesman” they changed their minds.Sam:
I was merely pointing out a career I would find to be degrading and would not want to do. I already once mentioned that anyone who thinks I do not ponder the potential danger of my own career, and the dangers faced by those less fortunate that myself, is, well, blind. I do think about it every time I work…yet I still choose to do the work. Once again, I never implied that there were not a lot of horrible things that happen to people involved in sex work, so I would appreciate it if people ceased implying that I am saying it is all cash and roses. I do however know there are a lot of ugly and abusive things happening in other industries, and I have mentioned that a few times, but because sex is not the basis of those industries, well, it is somehow hugely different. I do not think it is. Sex workers are often abused, so are migrant workers, sweatshop workers, people who manifacture componants for a variety of technological devices, miners…all people who face horrible conditions, danger, and are often treated as slaves and are children. Yet no one is trying to outlaw these fields. True, no one NEEDS sex to survive, but no one needs diamonds, an I-Pod or knock off Gucci bags to survive either.
Except with prostitutes, they’re not being hurt by industrial accidents, or poor regulations, but because men who use prostitutes think that they can abuse and kill them just because they’re prostitutes.
It’s notably different, and hte difference is that the mentality of most johns is repugnant and misogynsistic, and violently so.
RM:
You’re saying people working in sweat shops or as migrant workers are never grossly mistreated? You’re saying people who are subject to mining conflict diamonds are never sexually assaulted, tortured, beaten, killed in accidents or flat out murdered? You’re saying that people in any of these industries are not subject to the threat and the reality of physical, sexual, or emotional harm and conditions akin to slavery? Well, you would be wrong.
http://www.professionaljeweler.com/archives/news/2004/042704story.html
http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/sweatshops.html
http://cesr.org/node/89
There are a great many people who view other people as expendable resources, and a great many industries that feed that view. Let’s not even PRETEND that the sex industry is the only one. The john/pimp beating the hooker is akin to the soldier cutting the arm off the miner is akin to the farmer ignoring the serious medical issues of the share cropper is akin to the executive doctoring the earnings of his company and driving people into economic ruin…ALL lead to the abuse, tragedy, and yes even death of other people.
Humans have a great capacity for attrocity and cruelty towards one another, and that propensity is not limited to sex work.
“I think the problem is that you just can’t see how anybody would make different choices than yourself”
Could you be any more patronizing? In case you hadn’t noticed, at least a couple of the people you’re trying to “educate” with your “vast knowledge” here seem to have been sex workers or done some form of sex work. I’m in favor of legalization, but honestly, if you’re talking about respecting and listening to sex workers, does that mean only those who say what you want to hear? I’ve been reading these threads and on one of them you told a former sex worker that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about when it comes to sex work. Huh?
Somebody call Anthony so he can start calling people “hon,” explaining that anyone who doesn’t agree with him is a frigid, anti sex prude and explaining how good it feels for a woman to have a penis inserted in her vagina. That last part was really educational for most het women, whatever would we do without having these things expalined to us by smarter, more rational beings.
Caromboard:
“if you’re talking about respecting and listening to sex workers, does that mean only those who say what you want to hear? I’ve been reading these threads and on one of them you told a former sex worker that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about when it comes to sex work. Huh?”
People are good and hearing/reading what they want to…
Well, a big problem in these discussions are who is the voice of the authentic prostitute? Is it a third world woman hoping to eke out a few days of food supply? Is it a woman who has a pimp and uses the remainder of her earnings to feed her drug addict? Is it the hooker taking assignations on the internet? Is it a brothel worker? Is it the woman who sucks the occasional dick when the lights are in danger of going off? Is it the teenager taking paid dates for gucci bags? Is it a young transwoman doing survival sex? Uh..I have no idea of the answer to this.
Someone was talking about the merit in discussing prostitution. Examining social issues is indeed crucial. But when, in the course of the discussion, feminists seem to paint all sex workers with one negative brush and refuse to acknowldege a broad spectrum of experience, they alienate the ones like me whose time, money, and energy they might otherwise get to use to further the overall goals of feminism. I’m a willing and happy sex worker, and like many willing and happy sex workers, I’m a smart, politically-aware person with somewhat more free time than the average 40-hour-a-week-worker. But while I write checks to Planned Parenthood and the ACLU, I don’t donate my time to community-based feminist groups because I don’t want to deal with the usual feminist attitude towards my chosen job. Organizational tasks that I could do may go undone, because I think too much of myself to give my labor to people who disrespect me. That seems like a net loss to feminism, if you think of feminism as a social movement designed to make women’s lives better, rather than an elite group of philosophers whose goal is to keep themselves pure of any unclean influence.
Animeg:
You have a very valid point as there are a huge amount of differences between various levels of sex work and various conditions it happens in and a variety of women who do it, all for different reasons, with different levels of need and motivation. However, when a conversation is started about prostitution as a whole, when one is not selecting which sub stratification of the industry that they wish to speak about, anyone and everyone who ever was (or is) a prostitute may have something to add to it or take away from it. Do guidelines need to be established as to “what sort of prostitute we want to speak about/hear from?” Can ANY person who has worked in prostitution be counted? In short, which whores do matter in these little chats? Consider me curious as well.
Actually, many of the yay prostitution people here are feminists. I can vouch for belledame personally.
Geneva:
Uh oh, two happy hookers on one thread…watch out! And I feel you on the “not being gung ho to work with people who treat me like crap” theory.
First, I was responding to Delphyne’s “riding in a tractor” analogy – agricultural work isn’t necessarily that easy.
Second, there are some pretty important differences with the way activists would treat said exploitation of lettuce workers. There would not be a call for a complete ban on lettuce picking. There would be a call for unionization of workers (though there might be some effort to provide education to lettuce pickers and their children so that they don’t have to stay lettuce pickers forever). There might be a call for a consumer boycott of non-union lettuce, but I don’t think there would be a moral crusade to get people to permanently stop eating lettuce.
If agricultural organizers were anything like “anti-pornstitution” feminists, their “solution” would be a complete ban on agricultural work, restaurants, food magazines, etc and a police crackdown on those who purchased such products. Unionization of lettuce pickers would be actively opposed because, lettuce pickers, after all, are severely damaged individuals in need or rescue and therapy, not unionization.
In other words, the solutions that anti-pornstitution folks offer to the problems of the sex industry would come across as patently ridiculous if they were offered up as solutions to the problems of any other industry.
But of course, sex work is “different” and the idea that anybody would do it voluntarily is simply inadmissible. Oh wait, I have to go out and turn tricks on a street corner before I’m even allowed to make that argument – I forgot.
To clarify – everybody has “issues” around sex, but some people have more issues that others, sometimes a great deal more – and sometimes a great deal less. People who choose to do sex work are generally people who have fewer issues about sex than most people – they’re less likely to get skeeved out about having sex with someone they’ve never met, about strangers seeing them with their clothes off, etc. One thing I really don’t think anti-porn folks get is that its entirely possible to be that uninhibited sexually without being damaged in some way.
So, yes, being sexually uninhibited does not mean one would necessarily choose to do sex work, but being sexually inhibited would certainly prevent one from choosing to do so. And if you have major issues around sex (and some of the threads I’ve read concerning BDSM, oral sex, etc, suggest to me that radfems have a tad more issues than most people), you might not even be able to imagine how someone could choose sex work voluntarily.
Oh, and to think that this thread was actually going somewhere.
Ahhh, Carmonboard….can you please explain anywhere in my posts where I really said what you thought I said in this paragraph:
“Somebody call Anthony so he can start calling people “hon,” explaining that anyone who doesn’t agree with him is a frigid, anti sex prude and explaining how good it feels for a woman to have a penis inserted in her vagina. That last part was really educational for most het women, whatever would we do without having these things expalined to us by smarter, more rational beings.”
First off, where did I ever call anyone “hon”?? You must have me confused with some other board, because I simply don’t do that; and didn’t do that here, either.
Secondly…I never said that anyone who opposed sex work was a “frigid, anti-sex prude”; only that quite a few of antiporn activists do have major problems accepting the sexual choices of others. Not quite the same, I think.
And third….I said that most women do in fact enjoy having a penis inside them….that says NOTHING about those who don’t…or those who have had penises forced on them against their will.
Unless you are implying that most het woman who say outright that they really do like het sex with consenting men are simply either lying or posturing, I fail to see the relevance.
Oh….and let me get this: a present day sex worker who says she has no problem with her profession and who wishes to find ways to improve it from within should not be trusted and accepted; but a former sex worker who adopts antiporn/antiprostitution rhetoric should be??? And you accuse me of not listening to others, or of only listening to whatever fits my ideology???
What we have here is simply a chasm in philosophy that just cannot be bridged. I happen to believe that women should be trusted to make their own decisions on their sexuality; you happen to disagree in favor of imposing a restrictive “feminist” sexuality on them. Fine…we’ll just have to acknowledge our differences and move on. But please…if you are going to patronize me about my positions, at least have the decency not to distort or trivialize my views.
Since I’ve established my views plainly enough, I will take the hint and exit from this thread. To each his or her own, as the saying goes.
Anthony
OK….my apologies, Caromboard…sorry for the typo.
I posted something about that on my blog last week. (And, yes, the list I have is very “First World”, but that’s the sex industry I know the most about.)
In any event, acknowledging the diversity of sex work and the sex industry is the first step toward any kind of intelligent dialog about these issues. Flattening everything out as “pornstitution” does exactly the opposite of that.
“can you please explain anywhere in my posts where I really said what you thought I said in this paragraph”
I’ll give it a shot.
“First off, where did I ever call anyone “hon”?? You must have me confused with some other board, because I simply don’t do that; and didn’t do that here, either.”
Ah, sorry Anthony, it wasn’t “hon,” it was “dear.” My bad, I should have been more accurate. There’s a tremendous difference between the two.
Secondly…I never said that anyone who opposed sex work was a “frigid, anti-sex prude”;
Uh, okay. “RM may not be as anti-sex as, say, Jerry Falwell or the Feminists Against Sex crowd….but in my view her absolute personal disgust with those women whose sexual practices and beliefs differ from her own comes pretty damn close to being anti-sex” ” “All that does is to make you look more and more like a crank antisex bigot in feminist drag” Nope, clearly you didn’t use the works “frigid” or “prude” so I’m wrong again. Doh!
“And third….I said that most women do in fact enjoy having a penis inside them….that says NOTHING about those who don’t…or those who have had penises forced on them against their will.”
OMG, really? Then lucky for me that I never suggested that that statement said ANYTHING about those who don’t or those who have had penises forced on them against their will. Whew! I dodged a bullet on that one. My point, which I think was already clear but I’ll reiterate again just for your benefit, is that unlike you, DEAR, women tend to actually have vaginas, and most of us who are heterosexual already know that most of us who are heterosexual tend to enjoy having a penis inside said vagina. We don’t need you to tell us that, Anthony, really, we actually *can* figure it out on our own (even, shockingly enough, many of the anti sex prudes, whoops, sorry, excuse me, the crank anti sex bigots in feminist drag, I would imagine). Therefore, when you may these statements : “I really, really hate to break this to ‘ya, Delphyne (not really), but for most women, consensual sex with a man (or group of men) really does feel pretty damn good, and penises aren’t the evil that you and your colleagues make it out to be.” “There is a reason why a woman just might allow a man’s penis (or a dildo, or a vibrator, or her fingers, or whatever object may subsitute) inside her vagina: IT FUCKING FEELS GOOD” it doesn’t actually come as much of a revelation. Thanks, anyway. I don’t have any idea what percentage of sex workers are happy with sex work, but I’d imagine that the percentage of women who don’t enjoy seeing other women or men patronized with typically sexist bullshit by assholes is pretty high.
“Oh….and let me get this: a present day sex worker who says she has no problem with her profession and who wishes to find ways to improve it from within should not be trusted and accepted; but a former sex worker who adopts antiporn/antiprostitution rhetoric should be???”
YES! That is *exactly* what I said. I thought I was being so clever about leaving that part about not trusting or listening to any sex worker who has no problem with her profession in invisible ink, but I should have known you’d find the secret 18 minute gap. You’re far too clever for the likes of the Feminist Vice Squad, no matter how deep undercover we go, you’ll find us. I believe I said I was in favor of legalization, I’m pretty sure I did, but that in no way makes this paragraph nonsensical, really.
“And you accuse me of not listening to others, or of only listening to whatever fits my ideology???”
This part of my comment wasn’t actually directed at you, but regardless, I was commenting on the phenomenon of the other guy in the prostitution threads who is, apparently, not actually a sex worker telling sex workers who disagreed with his positions that they don’t know a damn thing about sex work, as well as exasperated comments from others in those threads about respecting sex workers and listening to sex workers which also happened to be directed at sex workers.
“What we have here is simply a chasm in philosophy that just cannot be bridged. I happen to believe that women should be trusted to make their own decisions on their sexuality; you happen to disagree in favor of imposing a restrictive “feminist” sexuality on them.”
Um, yes. That’s absolutely clear from my post. We have a chasm in philosphy that cannot be bridged. I’m not sure what it is…I’m guessing that because I didn’t offer to suck your dick, then I must be a frigid anti sex prude? Sigh. Is there anything else I can do to escape my cruel fate? If I’m really, really nice and throw some condescending strawfeminist bs at other women, will you come over and explain to me about how my body works? Have pity on me Anthony, it’s hard for all of us out here who don’t have you to explain how we think and how we feel and why we’re radfems even if we’re not and what we’re saying and what it feels like when the wind touches our skin.
“Fine…we’ll just have to acknowledge our differences and move on. But please…if you are going to patronize me about my positions, at least have the decency not to distort or trivialize my views.”
Uh…yes, I shouldn’t have done that. Patronizing people is wrong. Distorting or trivializing their views is wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Anthony Kennerson said–I happen to believe that women should be trusted to make their own decisions on their sexuality; you happen to disagree in favor of imposing a restrictive “feminist” sexuality on them.
Is there some logic I’m missing here, because I can’t see where he/she said anything like that. Maybe defending yourself from accusations that you accuse anyone who disagrees with you on anything of being anti-sex by accusing someone who disagrees with you on something of wanting to impose a restrictive “feminist” sexuality on everyone is completely logical, no evidence needed. I don’t get it, though.
Geneva–I think there are a lot of different kinds/schools of feminism and feminists. And a lot of different opinions/approaches to all kinds of topics, including prostitution. I won’t say how I feel, because Anthony Kennerson will probably let me know anyway–if it turns out I’m imposing some kind of restrictive sexuality on you, I apologize in advance.
I’m not sure what the typical feminist response would be. We hear a lot about radfem radfem radfem on the internet, but I can’t say I’ve ever met anyone who particularly holds the views that radfems are supposed to in community organizing. Maybe some do, but it doesn’t come up when I’m around.
Not that I’m an expert in community organizing or anything, it’s just that it seems stuff gets blown way out of proportion online and its influence is exaggerated in a way that’s not always reflected IRL. There’s not as much theorhetical discussion, that’s more of an internet obsession in my experience at least. JMO
I’ve picked lettuces in a field IACB, so you’re not fooling me that that type of work is awful. Not being rewarded properly for your work is bad but that’s not what is being discussed here.
Seriously, set yourself up to be a male prostitute for a couple of days, you too Anthony. Both of you are such strong advocates of prostitution, it could only help your case to have direct experience. Most of your customers will be male but that shouldn’t bother you if prostitution is just like any other job.
And there’s not that many radfems on the internet either. I think community organizing deals with practical problems, so if I think that prositution should be legalized, but that it’s not feminist, but someone else thinks it should be legalized but it’s the epitome of feminism, it doesn’t matter, we’re just handing out condoms.
“And there’s not that many radfems on the internet either.”
Set yerself down and take the links tour:
http://bitingbeaver.blogspot.com/
I meant in proportion to other types. I’ve already seen that, but it’s still not like radfems are as dominant as they are protrayed. I go around talking about all sorts of stuff, but the radfem sex police never get around to ruining my life and tossing me out of feminism as some people think they do
animeg;
then consider yourself lucky, I suppose. Plenty of radfems here in bloglandia have been more than happy to imply, if not say outright, who is feminist, who is not, what qualifications and creds make a person feminist and how many other non radical feminists are not only not feminists at all, but may actually be bad for feminism.
animeg3282 said–and there’s not that many radfems on the internet either.
I know, but from the amount of attention radical feminism attracts from some anti-anti-anti-radfems left and right you’d think they not only control the blogosphere but actually have some kind of unbreakable stranglelock on public policy or something.
Personally I think political conservatives are the ones who are most grossly overrepresented all over the blogosphere, they seem to have a lot of time to pop up everywhere.
animeg3282 said–it doesn’t matter, we’re just handing out condoms.
Yep.
“Plenty of radfems here in bloglandia have been more than happy to imply, if not say outright, who is feminist, who is not, what qualifications and creds make a person feminist and how many other non radical feminists are not only not feminists at all, but may actually be bad for feminism.”
I can only think of about two. The majority of radical feminists are perfectly clear that it’s possible to hold certain anti-feminist views or act in an anti-woman way and still be a feminist.
RE, in no way, shape, or form do I think it’s okay for radfems to go around defining who/what is or is not feminist. But from what I’ve seen, it goes both ways. There’s plenty of anti-anti-anti radfems who try to define everybody who disagrees with them as a radfem, even when nothing that could be defined as radfem was said. It’s like, well, if you challenge me on the smallest point, then you’re the faux feminist spinster who wants to respress society and I’m the real woman and real feminist.
Well, Renegade, plenty of supposedly sex-pos folks–including the people in this thread and the threads at Pandagon–have brought up the spectre of right-wing anti-sex prudes, or uptight women with “issues” around sex response to anyone who so much as raises an eyebrow at the status quo.
Yea, if someone says something I do isn’t feminist, I don’t think they have defined me out of feminism, because nobody is a pure anything. It may not be feminist to work at BigCorp which pushes formula to third world mothers, but no one makes a big fuss if I say that, even if they do work at BigCorp. In the real world, we’re not always going to perfectly align with our ideology.
You’re saying people working in sweat shops or as migrant workers are never grossly mistreated?
Did I actually say that? Prostitutes get it worse, and they are exclusively injured by nothing more or less than the sheer hatred of women of johns like Antony Kennersen.
And part of the reason why johns think they can do such things to prostitutes is that they are already wandering around with the assumption that they deserve to masturbate with a woman’s body (or even a man, irregardless of who is getting screwed, men are the primary consumer of the sex industry after all, and as the male gay community is rife with patriarchy, as was mentioned during the avarosis thing, that patriarchy may be at work there too shouldn’t be too surprising) whenever they like, irregardless of whether the women they do this with likes it or likes them even. This is male privelage.
And yes, I know, I said “masturbate with a woman’s body”, but I consider sex to be a mutuality thing, and a sexual act that involves one person pleasuring themselves while the other person waits for it to be over with, is something I class as masturbation, not sex. Chalk it up to a person terminological thing, or whatever, if you will.
Yes this means I am dismissive and hate Antony’s sexuality, I really don’t like johns, especially johns who consider sex to be a method through whic men enforce their power over women (which is not the same thing as what happens in S&M sex, where the illusion of the dom/sub power dynamic is arousing) those ones I hate as much as Ant implies that I hate prostitutes (who I don’t consider subhuman just because they are dehumanised by their profession btw). In theory I accept that there are probably some johns who aren’t total sleaze bag rapists, but they are about as numerous as gigolo customers, which is to say, not at all numerous. Most johns are guys with huge amounts of male privelage sloshing about their pants, and a deep seated hatred of women, and like with rape, the dynamic involved in prostitution from the john’s “end” is often one revolving around power rather than actual sexual satisfaction.
Which is why I started this bloody fight, the idea that women being Prostitutes and performing in porn is primarily about women being free with their sexuality is bullshit, anti-fem bullshit at that. Which is one of the many reason why calling prostitution “empowering” is bullshit, and so and so forth…and now we’re here.
And don’t start using “pornstitution” again people, you don’t know my opinions on porn, which are really complex, but when it comes right down to it, I’m not for the illegalisation for porn for the same reasons I’m not for the legalisation of prostitution - all that would happen is how women are abused in the industry would change, rather than the net amount of abuse really lessening to any degree.
And I’m damned if I’m gonna let government decide what sort of porn is bad and what isn’t.
anyhoo, here’s a study. It makes a conservative estimate of the rate of homicide among prostitutes, and still reckons that prostitutes are murdered at 6 times the rate of other jobs with ridiculously high rates of homicide.
It’s an interesting study.
And ONE MORE THING, I’m a fucking MARXIST feminist you nitwits, Jesus, it’s not like I went straight for the socio-economic dynamics involved in the oppression of women in the sex industry or anything, stop comparing Dworkin to me, she did some good work for women.
It occured that my last post might be insulting to radical feminists. I’m not trying to imply that radical feminists are spinsters who want to repress society, if it came off that way I apologize. I’m just saying that radfem, like PC, is often used loosely as an epithet to define who is and is not in the group of real women and real feminists.
Delphyne:
“I can only think of about two. The majority of radical feminists are perfectly clear that it’s possible to hold certain anti-feminist views or act in an anti-woman way and still be a feminist”….
Um, these are a few examples of outright or implied from recent times… more than two, anyway.
“I think pro-pornstitution feminism is a commodity. Feminisim as commodity. Those who hold this idea of feminism haven’t had that “click”, that moment when it all falls into place. When you know, you are your sister, black, Asian, injun, white, poor, wealthy. When you get it, that eureka moment we called “click”, you’ll be a feminist.” - Pony
Personally, I have no problem with a healthy woman who wants to make her living through pornstitution - there must be…ooooh fifty of them alive in the world today (*joke*).
But by supporting the pornstitution industry you are not only confirming the ‘less than human’ status of women everywhere but you are colluding with the enslavement of the majority of women within that industry. By quoting the experiences and volition of a teeny tiny minority - you ok with that?
How is that feminist? – Witchy Woo
I personally would not tell anybody that they were not feminist because they were not completely anti pornstitution, yet if somebody said to me ‘the whole pornstitution thing rocks!’ (something to that effect) and then proclaimed themselves to be feminist, I would have to wonder if they’d really thought the whole thing through. –Z
“no, I don’t think you’re a femninist anti-princess, although I think you’re a person I’d like to sit and share a cup of tea with, which is more than I can say for most of those with whom you ally, who I think are nothing more than colonizers as I’ve said, crass opportunists and selfish me’ists who have yet to grow up” – Pony
“I don’t see how quoting the whole thing makes it look any less sexist, AP. And I don’t think it’s the elephant in the room that sometimes women drive one another crazy. Is that *really* news to you? Although you seemed to be being driven crazy about women talking about misogyny - kind of weird for a feminist but there you go. Noting your the composition of your own chromosomes didn’t make it less sexist either - here’s another bit of news - women can be sexist too!” – Delphyne
(all from http://witchy-woo.blogspot.com/2006/07/to-all-pro-pornstitution-feminists-out.html)
And no, I have not forgotten that a few of you over at BB’s had a great time mocking/ speculating that I was a man because oh, I happen to like and defend porn…
And let’s not forget this: http://feh-muh-nist.blogspot.com/2006/07/feminism-defined.html
“If you’re pro-pornography or pro-prostitution you are NOT a feminist.” –WitchyWoo
And, well, plenty of snark and venom about ‘real feminists’ to be found here http://amananta.wordpress.com/
And Twisty needs no introduction…
Sheelzebub:
Fantastic name by the way, love it!
Yes, the pos side can be mean too. I’ve said as much repeatedly, and I personally do not run around accusing the anti side of being anti-sex or prudes. However, on one occasion not so long ago I tried to get the anti-side to admit that they did not always play fair and hurled their fair share of mud as well, and you know, no one was rushing to admit that yes, the radfems are quick to not play nice as well…all people will take the occasional cheap shot, but when you cannot admit to doing it? Hum.
RM:
What you said was “Except with prostitutes, they’re not being hurt by industrial accidents, or poor regulations, but because men who use prostitutes think that they can abuse and kill them just because they’re prostitutes.”
And I would say those diamond miners I referenced are being hurt by more than industrial accidents and poor regulations too, well, because people of both sexes feel the need to wear jewelry and finance wars and armies.
Also, I still do not think Anthony ever mentioned that he frequents prostitutes either.
I never mentioned your politics, so I assume that bit is for others.
And yes, prostitution can be very dangerous. I am very aware of that, and it was an interesting study.
Listen sheezlewho, you are just reapeating the patriarchal cant that only women who are ugly or old don’t make their way through life by their cunts. We all do without giving permission for it to some extent, just by virtue of being members of the sex class.
I am a rad fem. I am old. I have seen Ren Evs pictures on her websites. Standing next to me, even at my age, she’d be barking.
You’ve got to get some Feminisim 101 because you are speaking from a position of ignorance.
Or whoever made that comment. I can’t believe how this thread has regressed from the original posted by R. Mildred. We’re now into trying to educate people who have no bloody idea of feminsit theory, neither do they have any practical idea of their place as a member of the sex-class. On this or another one of these snowflake threads I actually read Ren Ev telling us we aren’t fucking for life because we aren’t good looking enough.
I do think she’s using these threads to advertise her sorry services, and any engagement with her enbables that.
Pony:
Gee, that was nice. Right bloody civil of you. When in doubt, crack on a woman’s looks. Very supportive of your sisters as a whole. Well done.
And I never said any women who is good looking enough should be fucking for money nor am I advertising ANYTHING. I have said that no one likes being picked on for they way they look, skinny, short, tall, full figured, shaved or non shaved…NO ONE likes it. But I guess you disagree, for you find it perfectly okay to crack on my appearance.
KoalaZ: You know, intellectually, I hear you about people on threads like these not necessarily being truly representative of feminists as a whole. But when I read people like pony and see how viciously she’s attacking RenEv, it just cements my feeling that I should stay far away from feminist groups. There’s enough involuntary stress in the world, without my signing up for any more of it.
Koolaz
that’s pretty bizarre, though. You just ended up endorsing the view of radfems as spinsters or whatever you said. Why? When someone like Anthony, who does sometimes fall into the trap of seeing it as either radfem or not, names someone a radfem, the answer isn’t to say, “Don’t call me that because it’s like calling me a spinster sexless prude,” but to argue with him about his claim that you’re a radfem!
if no one’s seen it, I just posted a link to radfem radio with archived interviews with MacKinnon, Bob Jensen, and others. interesting stuff.
I mean, why reproduce an unfair stereotype? Doesn’t make much sense.
And as for Shannon’s claims about it not mattering what other feminst call me or anyone else, I get to differ. Recently, I got treated to a threatened outting over a difference of theoretical position. If people think they have power, they use it over the silliest ass shit.
I’m not at all inclined to think that it’s all innocuous.
Additionally, the point is: they *think* they can try to take away your feminist card. They think they can try to sway blogsophere opinion. They think they can have some kind of power over this domain.
iThat’s the insult from the get go. Even *thinking* that it’s OK to call someone not feminist over a difference of opinion or intellectual opinion — given the range and diversity of feminist theories and practices — it’s a basic violation of enlightenment liberal discourse is all about.
And worse, when it comes to women who’ve thought long and hard about their feminist politics, it’s a bigger insult because it denies to those so labeled the dignity of coming to their own well-formed position on a topic and, instead, paints them as, well, as pony said people in need of feminism 101. When what it really boils down to is this:
not everyone agrees, from a theoretical position, that there is such a thing as a sex class!
that pony or anyone else in this discussion chooses to ignore that and pretend that it doesn’t exist is what I find exceedingly irritating. Right off the bat, feminism is a monolith defined by the speaker.
absurd.
and then whine that you’re a minority. even more absurd.
Pony: Huh??? Where did I say that? And the name’s Sheelzebub.
And Geneva, I read Anthony’s misogynist bile, and IACB’s bile, and the sex-phobic and prude rhetoric lobbed at anyone who questions the status quo (see: the threads here and at Pandagon) and really want nothing to do with so-called “sex pos” folks. Sorry, but if questioning the status quo means that I have issues with sex, that I have an “irrational fear of sex,” that I’m a right-wing anti-sex fanatic, then I’ll opt out of that revoloution.
Ann Bartow is a but that doesn’t mean that now we have to get upset whenever someone disagrees with us. If they don’t have power, they don’t have power. No big dealio- it’s a big internet, and no one can control it. What if I don’t believe in enlightenment liberal discourse, what would you do then?
I mean she is a edited for offensiveness, sorry all.
And it goes for both sides, BL. Certainly, there have been rad fem blogs and message boards that were hacked and vandalized by pro-porn folks. Agree with their views or disagree with them, but hacking and vandalizing is another way to silence views one doesn’t like.
Sheelzebub: yes,