I'll let her speak for herself, but Renegade Evolution, a "pornstitution" worker, makes it clear just how much mainstream "patriarchal" society and/or other women (feminists, too, yes) support her with a long list of some charming, typical things that get said to her. Some highlights:
That you're pro-porn suggests to me that your mind revels in society's distracting, blinding, mind-fucks...well, yes. Idiot.”
On top of feminist reasons for opposing pornography, there is a greater humanitarian reason that stands for the sexuality of humans being treated as in-depth and whole, not just objectified jerk-off material. As for female pornographers, I would go as far as to say that they are more to blame and be held accountable, since they are traitors to their own sex and gender when they capitalize off of the objectification of feminine sexuality, homosexual or heterosexual.
“You make me ill. Everything about you is just wrong. You have this great mind & skill at writing and you choose to be a slut? Why? Do you have antisocial personality disorder or something? It sounds like it. You have an education, could work wherever you want, make good money, but you would rather take off your clothes for a bunch of idiots or let people fuck and objectify you on film? Not normal. Even your friends on your blogs are shocked and somewhat disgusted by you. They may not say it outright, but you can tell. They may be pro-sex or okay with sexually eager women, but you are beyond that. You’re a whore. You’re not strung out on drugs or short on money, you have things other people wish they had, except a soul and ANY sense of decency.”
“I would guess that pretty-much all women in porn have psychological issues of one sort or another that need to be worked on.”
“By the way, this may be common knowledge, but I suspect that you're a man hiding behind a woman's given name...
You might as well be an animal, since the basis of sex work is an animalistic behavior.”
***
I can't imagine why more self-identified sex workers don't "come out" and participate in the endless porn, etc. wars. Can you?
Oh, that's right: it's got nothing to do with being treated supremely shittily, including by many of the people who're supposedly fighting on their behalf. No; it must be because they're deep-down ashamed of doing what they know in their patriarchy/sin-corrupted little hearts is wrong.
And if they aren't ashamed, in the words of yet another personality contest winner, they should be: shamed and hated.
At best, is the implication, pitied. If that.
They "deserve it."
Probably this is all a bunch of lies made up by the pornographers (tm Catherine MacKinnon), anyway. Or some guy. Or the decadent degenerate perverts who're determined to bring down the nuclear family. Or all of the above.
Nobody who REALLY cared about a woman's welfare would talk like that. Everybody knows that.
And hey. You can buy Playboy anywhere you like! Pole dancing classes! Porn everywhere! "We" "won."
but y'all who are carrying on the righteous, doomed fight against this scourge can feel consoled in this, at least: mirror mirror on the wall, you are The Most Oppressedest Of All.
What a fucking prize, eh?
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Having recently moved back from Europe, I had forgotten the particular internet vitroel around the topic of sex workers. Not that I wasn't thrown out of a British meeting of the Old Feminists Network for expressing astonishment at the "requirement" of burning down a porn store to prove one was a feminist.
The fact is that being a sex worker IS, whether it is liked or not, part of the collective female experience. That might range from "starring" in the soft porn industry of the UK, or choosing it as a career of Holland, where it is an acceptable career choice to the thousands of women driven to it in desperation and poverty in other countries (particularly those flown back to African countries after long stays as asylum seekers from the EU).
It seems to me that treating these woman as if they shouldn't have a voice, or an experience or a point of view besides the one assigned to them by middle class america IS a form of oppressing, whether it comes from feminists or the Bush administration (whose policy of "If we don't acknowledge AIDS exists in prostitutes then it won't exist" is odd when the major companies are conducting human trials with those exact same non-existing prostitutes.)
See, this is why I find it so goddamn ridiculous when the radfems say stuff like "our society legitimizes porn" or talks about how their voices are silenced because everyone wants to hear the voices of sex workers who enjoy their work.
When I read that nonsense, I want to ask, "Do you and Reality need to get together for coffee and catching up?"
o but we (well most of us) don't hate the sinner um sex worker. just the horrible, horrible men who exploit them. and the women who enable those men. who might include some of the more privileged sex workers, okay. but, no, dammit, we -don't- hate them, we PITY them. mostly. no matter how tempted we get.
i am against sex work because it objectifies women.
now excuse me while i talk right over this woman who's trying to explain why she -does- find sex work just dandy. wet holes! human fleshlight! hey, don't shoot the messenger; it's not me who thinks those things; it's those MEN. i'm just telling it like it is.
--oh, that woman who's been trying to get a word in edgewise for the last hour? probably a man. ignore.
>the "requirement" of burning down a porn store to prove one was a feminist.
sheesh. d'you get a labrys tattoo under the eye when you succeed? get initiated with a ritual of pouring herbal tea on the ground? wear a flannel bandanna?
Hey, look what else "we" are!
And 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.
Gee, I feel so awash in sisterly love right now... I just might burst out singing Kumbaya...
Selfish. Selfish, selfish, selfish. o yeah and the colonizer thing, well.
coming from someone who thinks anal sex is a sinister plot of the patriarchy, i bear that particular yoke of disapproval lightly.
You know, the "selfish" thing kind of only works when you can explain exactly what it is that the "selfish" person isn't giving you.
100% agreement with you, even though you felel REALLY REALLY STRONGLY about whatever it is, doesn't cut it.
i'm sure there are plenty of nice pro-life activists who would readily call everyone posting both here and over there "selfish" for wanting the right to choose whether to have an abortion. Hey, it's a child, not a choice!
and i am equally sure that there are any number of such fine folks who might say to someone who supported the right to choose, something along the lines of,
"I like you as a person, and I would march alongside you in an antiwar demonstration. But you're not a Christian." Even if Christianity is a core part of the pro-choice person's identity; just, you know, not THAT Christianity.
I don't see this as any different.
and personally, i loathe tea.
which i guess proves i'm not a feminist *or* a lesbian if nothing else does.
Heh, first off, thanks for the back up, nice NOT to be yelled at or condemned for a change!
Granted, I can only draw upon my personal experience, and while I *know* there are a great many women (and men) involved in the sex industry who would rather be doing other things and have no other choice, that is not my experience. I strip, I've done some porn, I've accepted cash for sex, but never because I felt forced to. The company I work for? Run and owned by women. Most of the companies who do similar work in this area? Run and owned by women. They have male performers working for them, too...and NONE of us have complaints with the way we are treated.
No, I do not have to stand on a corner and flip tricks, and I feel for the women (and men) who do. But those are the only sex workers that the rad fems seem to want to talk about, the ones who are victimized and abused. The rest of us? Well, we're apparently the enemy.
You know, girls who work in this business, the ones who are there by choice? We generally have to be pretty tough, and it's not due to the clients and the customers, it's due to the people who constantly judge and insult us because of what we have chosen to do, and that? That is the sad part.
Hell, the rad fem types long ago threw me out of the 'woman tribe', but frankly, I just as soon NOT be a member. I think so much of this all goes back to the (ahem, male propogated) theory that a woman cannot enjoy sex the way a man can, should NOT enjoy sex the way a man can, and does not have the right or strength to use her body (for whatever purpose) as a man can...and for all that as holy, there is something TERRIBLY wrong with her if she enjoys taking up a 'submissive or demeaned' role in sex or enjoys some 'deviant' activities...
So you see, women like me, who like our jobs and stay in them even though we have other options, we are not good poster children for the cause, so we must be the enemy, and thus, there is no need to acknowledge our stories, our voices, or our choices.
And the only dick(s) I have? Well, they are rubber and came from the local adult store :)
Well said. Thank you.
Yeah, and though I was a bit reluctant to make the analogy, i am irrestistably pulled toward making a connection with the lovely experience of
"I think you're a good person, but I just can't agree with that lifestyle. You can't expect me to approve of your -lifestyle.- But here, I'll let you be my friend/style my hair while I prattle on about my upcoming wedding/tell me about the awful tragic aspects of your life so i can look meltingly sympathetic and finally understand why you're -that way,- poor dear."
feh.
slip't, was responding to piny there; but hey no prob re. thanks for speaking up.
well, the lifestyle comparision works here too...
"gee, you're a great person, but I don't understand why blah blah blah..."
"were you never breast fed? did you walk in on the Primal Scene? there must be SOME explanation for your inexplicable behavior."
"...it's the drugs, isn't it. 'tis a slippery slope, to be sure..."
hahaha, okay, thank you for making me laugh hard enough to shoot OJ out my nose...
but if you will excuse me, I have to go snort a ton of coke and do some meth now so I can live with myself and my tragic life for a few more agonizing moments...
(rolling of eyes and all...)
So you see, women like me, who like our jobs and stay in them even though we have other options, we are not good poster children for the cause, so we must be the enemy, and thus, there is no need to acknowledge our stories, our voices, or our choices.
Exactly. Worse, there is a (feminist?) need 'not' to hear your voices. You are an impossibilty in fact. The patriarchy speaks through you. You have no voice of your own. Wherever did you get the idea that you do?
Anyway, hello Renegade Evolution, it's great to hear from you.
piny - see, I knew I felt weird about that for a reason.
good thing I had some more time to think about it.
sorry I nearly mistook a kick to your shins for a pat on my head.
and \m/ \m/ to all-a-y'all.
Floored.
That is all.
""So you see, women like me, who like our jobs and stay in them even though we have other options, we are not good poster children for the cause, so we must be the enemy, and thus, there is no need to acknowledge our stories, our voices, or our choices."""
yep. this has what has kept me kicking and screaming through so much of this.
the constant, constant presentation of this as about a complete lack of choices. Look, even in the philipines and places everyone thinks is must be about completely force. nuh huh. i wn't waste everyone's time with the stories, but there it is.
not denying that it's not there. but the women who lived in the old hood and me who would like to be a phone ho to make some good cash with flex hours? i have choices. they had choices. i'm not drugged up and drinkin' -- lord knows i'd croak b/c bad for my heart. they weren't drugged up 'n' drinkin' either. ordinary women with ordinary lives, partners, children, etc.
and i laugh -- my son works as a bouncer for a place my friend works. patriarchy works both ways there: patriarchy in the guys ogling and patriarchy in the guys kickin' their asses out the door when they step out of line, too!
it's exactly renegade's experience that keeps us from working together.
i think the people who should be heard in this conversation are the sex workers themselves, not a bunch of people who've never done it. but no one's gonna bother if all they get is shat on.
and that's also what peeves me. i thought this was about the autonomy to tell our own lives. that's what people fought hard for: women tell their lives, not men. women.
but when you have a theory where the enemy is lurking in women themselves, then no one wants to listen.
saviour feminism.
well and the other line is that there "choice" doesn't matter, not *really.*
reading somewhere just now someone who was arguing that the "only" difference between an abused (voiceless) child or pet and an abused woman working in the sex industry is that she "consented" by signing on a dotted line. big deal, she signed on a dotted line. that means nothing.
which, auugggghh.
i mean.
yes to the extent that there is such a thing as exploitation; yes to the fact that people sign pieces of paper and end up experiencing things they never signed up for, and the exploiters hold up the piece of paper as proof that they "consented."
This is no doubt as true in the sex industry as it is in any other, "legit" or otherwise.
no doubt more true in "not legit" areas simply by dint of ooops there's no OSHA or union or legal recourse if you *do* get screwed over. much less social support.
But all that aside, putting it in as general, sweeping terms as the original poster did: jesus christ, woman. You're serious. You would really rather say that women (which i guess includes you? odd position to be in if yes; patronizing one if not) ultimately have no more voice, no more power, than a dog or a child, than admit that *anyone* might choose the thing you're protesting so strenuously against.
The reality of pervading institutionalized sexism notwithstanding, i submit that this sort of attitude is a real problem, for a whole bunch of reasons.
...i mean, there is a continuum, certainly, from this sort of feminism to say i-feminism, or a conservative libertarian position. "do what thou wilt, survival of the fittest, free market, all (wo)men are islands, no free lunch, blahblah."
i am certainly not at that end, either.
quoting yet again from BTVS:
"You have a choice. You might not have any *good* choices, but you still have a choice."
If you can't allow for that *at all*--and BL i think you and others have made a pretty convincing case that Twisty, with her Matrix (!) theory of the Patriarchy, among others, in fact do not--well, shit, may as well play an hour of recorded music and go home. Why be an activist? Why do anything?
finally: consciousness-raising is a journey, not a destination.
way too many people out there who seem to think they've reached the end of the tunnel, and now the only thing to do is stand there and encourage/wait for everyone else to catch up to the point where they, too, can see the light...and stand there gazing at it.
...and if the argument/arguer is willing to admit that okay, yes it's true that prostitution is only one of a number of bad choices for some women, but it's still the worst one they can pick and they mustn't do it, then maybe it's time to refocus the lens and take a good hard look at what those *other* choices are, the supposedly better ones.
way too many people out there who seem to think they've reached the end of the tunnel, and now the only thing to do is stand there and encourage/wait for everyone else to catch up to the point where they, too, can see the light...and stand there gazing at it.
I'm more and more convinced that Feminist Cred is like Zen and Cool - if you think you have enough of it to mention, you've already lost it.
belledame222 said...
...and if the argument/arguer is willing to admit that okay, yes it's true that prostitution is only one of a number of bad choices for some women, but it's still the worst one they can pick and they mustn't do it, then maybe it's time to refocus the lens and take a good hard look at what those *other* choices are, the supposedly better ones.
Good idea, belledame. If it weren't for the stigma attached to prostitution via the age-old good woman/bad woman dichotomy - set up to control all women's sexuality while allowing male access to the 'worst' and criminalised women (whose autonomous or uncontrolled sexuality would be the ruin of respectable society!!!) more women might even choose prostitution than do currently... Work in a factory all day long for years on end making the same physical movements over and over again, chained to the spot or the machine for a pittance; be someone elses domestic servant for 8-16 hour days, then go home and deal with your own unpaid domestic work; break your back over years in rice paddies and live most of your life in pain, yeah, I'd love to see a list of the 'better' options for those many women and have it explained to me exactly why they're better. Point by point.
What I'd really love to see is a resurgent movement that tackles that shit head-on. *without* throwing anyone overboard in the process.
I wanna know how, if Patriarchy is truly The Matrix as the radicals claim, how any woman can afford to pass judgment on another. That's a rhetorical statement; I'm just sitting here musing, that's all.
The "sex wars" seem so pointless. What are we fighting about anyway? Again, a rhetorical question, not looking for answers. Given the hostile world women live in, one would think we'd turn to each other for support and companionship instead.
Anyhoo, Mercury is turning direct again soon; maybe things will settle down. In the mean time, I'm going to Cute Overload to OD on baby animal pictures.
Given the etymology of "matrix" (WOMB, mother, hello), it is particularly ironic to use it as a metaphor for the "Patriarchy."
or was that acknowleged/deliberate by TF (who coined it?)
in any case: if we're talking about the movie:
1) the end sucked because the authors couldn't really imagine a way out of it, either; that is the authors' problem, however. and not unrelated to being so steeped in the Christian narrative that they weren't quite able to "break free" in that regard themselves
2) Zion was a shithole. Sorry.
So with all due respect, I think I'll be looking elsewhere for visions of How The World Works And What To Do About It.
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