The Daily Show takes on uber anti-porn type LMAO
A Question About Marriage & Feminism
QUESTION:
It seems to me that so many “feminists” are obsessed with linking prostitution to female oppression and have given up being strongly critical of marriage. Does it seem like sex-positive feminists are just about the only feminists strongly criticizing monogamous, institutionalized marriage and it’s possible link to female oppression anymore? Please leave a comment and let me know what you think.
Geeking Out Because Staceyann Chin Tweeted To Me :P
I just have to geek out on this for a second because I’m such a big fan. I follow Staceyann Chin; a radical feminist poet, on twitter and admire so much of her work. I will admit I have felt a little guilty about this because so many radical feminists have been so vile to me concerning sex workers’ rights. I had always been curious about her position on sex workers’ rights so when I saw her send out this tweet:
…I decided to to take the leap and ask her.
This was her response:
You Adult? Sane?Have room to make the choice? Absolutely! RT @Divinity33372: @staceyannchin Does your declaration go for #sexwork as well?
— staceyannchin (@staceyannchin) April 30, 2012
Yes, I know it’s not everything. There are some sex workers who are not in a position to make the choice and they still deserve rights just like people who work in an auto plant and hate it still deserve labor rights. But HEY! It’s not a radical feminist whom I greatly admire accusing me of being a traitor to women and going all slut-shamey on me and that is an epic win in my book. My response back:
Not only did she retweet this but added a bit to it as well:
❤ RT @Divinity33372: @staceyannchin OMG I ❤ YOU! Every #radicalfeminists have shamed me for being a #sexworker rights advocate. #fan4life
— staceyannchin (@staceyannchin) April 30, 2012
I can’t tell you how relieved I am to hear her openly proclaim support for sex workers’ rights. I know I’m supper start struck geeked out over this. I WILL NOT BE GEEK SHAMED! lmao
“Loose woman; some people cannot handle a woman on the loose.”
~Staceyann Chin
“I think one of the most radical things a girl can do is to own her body and we learn so young not to own these bodies of ours.”
~Staceyann Chin
On My Personal Sex-Positive Theory & Sex Work
I can’t tell you how irritating it is hearing people reduce sex-positive feminism to so much silliness and lipstick over and over again. I have found this to be pretty much the main road block to the work I and the sex-positive feminists I associate closely with do. This simplistic reduction of what we are has generally come from anti-porn feminists who want to dis-empower us within the greater feminist movement and keep the positions we hold that may contradict their own from being seriously considered. This is one of the reasons why Audacia Ray’s piece Why the Sex Positive Movement is Bad for Sex Workers’ Rights came as such a shocking disappointment to me.
“Once upon a time, not so long ago, I was a fierce defender of sex positive feminism. When I was working in the sex industry, sex positivity was an important value of mine, one that in some ways gave me the skills to cope with a physically and emotionally demanding job. However, the more I step back from that time in my life, and the more I am willing to look critically at things I have held dear, the more obvious it is to me that my experience of sex positivity and the sex industry are not anywhere near universal, they are just the most visible to me, because I fit the mold as described above. The audience for this essay is very much my peers, people who have had experiences and privileges similar to mine. Beyond our circles, most of what I’ll write here is glaringly obvious, and in communities of color, for people with disabilities, as well as among trans women and men, and other groups we aspire to but do not actively include, this is not news.”
Once upon a time she was a fierce defender of sex-positive feminism. Ok…and? Ms. Ray does nothing really to clarify what sex-positive feminism meant to her. How did she defend it? From what? From who? Unlike the more accepted academic feminism there is no formal sex-positive feminist theory to my knowledge. This allows for a certain intellectual latitude that formal feminist theory doesn’t seem to. I like having the freedom to form my own theories concerning human sexuality and how it is treated by various societies with the works of others in these fields to serve as a guide and/or pieces to the puzzle of my personal sex-positive feminist theory…and no it is definitely NOT “fun” feminism although there is some fun to be had along the way.
~~~On my personal Sex-Positive Feminist Theory~~~
My personal Sex-Positive Feminist theory not only involves gaining a truer understanding of human sexuality but also involves searching for the roots of sexual shame and how that works as a tool for female oppression in various cultures particularly western culture. This is by no means dawning the personal blinders of my western privilege and not giving the proper respect to other cultures. I believe this is of particular importance because as I have found~through my work as a sex workers’ rights advocate~that the U.S. is taking great pains in using it’s power and privilege to strong arm the rest of the world into accepting it’s own brand of acceptable sexuality.(see video below)
Of course when doing work on female oppression one; if they hold themselves to the same standard of objectivity I try to, cannot help but see ways in which it is also used as a tool to oppress not only men but also the LGBTQ community, the disabled, racial minorities, the indigenous etc. In fact human sexuality and the drive to control it seems to be a pretty universal go to tool for social control. Why? So far the most prominent answer I have been able to find has to do with the relationship between shame and vulnerability.
~~~Understanding Shame~~~
Brené Brown has done extensive work on understanding the connections between shame, vulnerability, courage and worthiness. I have just begun to explore her work but it has played a major role in my personal Sex-Positive Feminist theory. Why? It is simple. In order to take up the fight for social justice one must have courage. In order to have that courage one must have a sense of worthiness. Her research has show that vulnerability is not only the root of shame and fear but it is also the source of creativity, joy, love, belonging, innovation etc. There are few things people; pretty much across the board, in western society (and in many others) feel shame about more then their own sexuality and sexuality is something sex workers are neck deep in.
As a Sex-Positive Feminist and sex workers’ rights advocate this to me seems to be the very root of the stigma sex workers fight against every day. I don’t see how sex workers will conquer stigma until society does a better job of dealing with it’s collective feelings of sexual shame. I believe that people in society shame the “whore” because she represents or seems to be an archetype for the vulnerability and shame they feel concerning their OWN selves as sexual beings. In short; society will only ever be able to treat the “whore” as well as it treats itself concerning sexuality.
Dr. Brown has done two TedTalks videos on this subject. I am going to forgo embedding the first; but I do highly suggest any who read this go watch it, and go straight to the second because she touches more on how these concepts effect men and women differently.
~~~Credit Where Credit Is Due~~~
For a long time I believed that religion was pretty much the only source of this sexual shame. I saw this long before I realized that I was an atheist and it is one of the things that drove me away from the Catholic church. FeministWhore’s reading from the introduction to the book The Woman Who Never Evolved by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy exposes some of the flaws in Darwin’s theories on female sexual selection. As he put it,
“As he put it, the female is ‘less eager to mate then the male.’ She ‘requires to be courted; she is coy, and may often be seen endeavoring for a long time to escape,’ until, impressed by his superiority, she chooses the ‘best’ male, endowing her offspring with such superior traits as he offers. Sexual selection was the theory Darwin himself found most relevant to human evolution, and this is why he titled his 1879 book The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex.”
And that according to Bateman’s paradigm sexually adventurous females should not exist. But by the 1970’s new evidence was emerging from other primates undermining this belief. Please take some time to watch the video below for more information.
Why does this matter? There seems to be a belief in society; whether they base it on religion, science, or anti-porn feminism, that it is unnatural for women to not want only one man and that any state other then monogamy is deeply damaging to the female psyche. This seems to be at the root of the paternalism that those who oppose sex workers’ rights display and why many “antis” believe that sex work is unnatural and thus exploitative in and of itself. But Hrdy’s findings expose a shocking possible truths.
- That there is nothing unnatural about females desiring multiple mating partners.
- That the commodification of sex may not only be natural and healthy but may be natures buffer for the sexual dimorphism of the human species.
IF this is true then I believe that it only goes to show that the monogamy Western religions, politicians and anti-porn feminists are trying to impose on the women of the world is in and of ITSELF unnatural and thus exploitative. Her work seems to show that polyandry and the way we as women have been isolated from that option plays an integral role in female oppression and that sex work may actually be a more natural expression of FEMALE sexual selection.
If this is true then I hypothesize that; as many sex workers’ rights advocates have been asserting for some time, it is not the sex work in and of itself that is the source of any psychological damage sex workers may experience in connection with that work but is in fact the social construct of sexual shame built around us that offers monogamy as the only socially acceptable option for sexual relationships and the stigmatization of commodified sex.
~~~”Fun Feminism” It Ain’t~~~
Sex-Positive Feminists are plagued with a stigma of their own and it’s one that; no matter how complex the arguments we make are, we never seem to shake. It’s a stigma that says all we care about is the fun of sex afforded to us by the cushy Western culture we seem lucky enough to live in. This is a common silencing and smear point utilized by the anti-sex worker’s rights brand of feminists. It is also a point that Audacia Ray has just conceded to the antis-sex worker crew doing a huge disservice to the sex workers’ rights movement by helping to isolate it from it’s fiercest, most consistent, most outspoken feminist supporters.
I understand that Ms. Ray believes that she is only trying to help. She states in her piece;
“the promotion of pleasure and sex positivity within the sex industry and as an element of sex worker rights activism, is proprietary to a small but very vocal group of people, namely: white, cisgender women who are conventionally attractive, able-bodied, and have some degree of class and educational privilege.”
…so now I suppose I am expected to qualify my oppression to her. Ok, I am a cisgendered, heterosexual, Mexica/American woman. And I do mean “Mexica” as I have also embarked on a journey of self de-colonization and reject terms like “Hispanic” (meaning “of Spain”) for myself. I am an atheist; and yes Christian privilege does exist, former sex worker (stripper), addict in sobriety, formerly homeless and one major illness away from homelessness again as I am too poor to afford health care and live pretty much week to week. I do have a lap top. I was lucky enough to come into a HUGE sum of money for me ($800) and decided to invest in one because at almost 40 with little money I knew educating myself on the internet would probably be the closest I would ever come to getting an education beyond the GED that I have now. So I”m not the most privileged in the world but I am also not the most underprivileged and I know that.
I trust I’ve groveled enough to prove to Ms. Ray that I am qualified to speak on issues concerning my own oppression. If my irritation at Ms. Ray’s piece is a bit transparent I will tell you why. I have been fighting to get my voice and arguments heard not only as a sex workers’ rights advocate and sex-positive feminist but as a woman of color contending with classist and racist anti-porn feminists who say they feel sorry for me and my “lack of options” and then turn around and call me “uneducated” when I don’t agree with them about what’s best for me for a couple of years now. The slut-shaming and harassment they have exacted on me has shocked and disappointed me because I never expected it coming from so-called “feminists.” I have fought very hard to prove that I am not just some privileged, sex obsessed “slut” to the audience they have tried so hard at every turn to disconnect me from. I don’t appreciate Ms. Ray telling them that they are basically right about me. I wonder if it ever occurred to Ms. Ray that in saying sex-positive feminists are mostly highly-educated, white women blinded by their own privilege that she was actually helping to further silence women like me who don’t fit that mold within the movement. As if it’s not hard enough to get my foot in the door as an un-formally-educated, Godless, ex-stripper of colour who is staying sober one day at a time!
Her piece has been used as politely worded well-poisoning material against people like Greta Christina who have shown sex-workers the respect of allowing them to tell their OWN stories. An invitation I gladly accepted.
~~~Addressing The Arguments~~~
Feministe:
Is up at Greta Christina’s place. The thread is for sex workers only to share their experiences, so if you’ve done sex work, head over there. The comment section is an interesting and enlightening read, and showcases a variety of experiences. It’s also worth reading with the perspective that, while the internet is a large and diverse place, there are certain privileges inherent in having internet access, being literate, writing in English, being a part of online “free thought” communities, etc etc. So while the experiences documented are indeed diverse, there are certainly lots of voices that aren’t in that conversation (and I’ll refer everyone back to Audacia Ray for further consideration).
Before I address the “P” word let me say now that I AM NOT DENYING THE EXISTENCE OF PRIVILEGE. I know there’s gonna be some idiot that thinks my criticism of the excessive use of the “P” word as a well-poisoning tactic equals a denial of it’s existence. If this is you…you’re a moron. (Disclaimer over.)
Yes, privilege exists. Any of us who have access to clean drinking water, internet, electricity, reading and writing skills etc. have it ,but, the claim that ones view is a product of their own privilege and therefore has lesser validity to the discussion does not in and of itself constitute an argument. Any attempt to do so is nothing more then a good old fashioned ad hominem fallacy by where one is attacking the person making the argument on a personal level and NOT their argument.
Ms. Ray also commits this fallacy and a few others. She claims that sex-positive feminists’ views on sex work are a product of their privilege but does little to concretely prove this. She really only offers two solid examples of her assertion.
First, she quotesCarol Queen in the essay Sex Radical Politics, Sex-Positive Feminist Thought, and Whore Stigma,
“No one should ever, by economic constraint or any kind of interpersonal force, have to do sex work who does not like sex, who is not cut out for a life of sexual generosity (however attractively high the fee charged for it). (p. 134)”
She claims that,
Emphasizing sex and pleasure harms the sex workers who aren’t firmly in the self-defined population of being sex positive and sexually educated, by unintentionally shaming them for not being enthusiastic participants in the sex they have at work.
This seems to be a clever strawman to me. And there’s enough straw to go around. It seems to me that in making this statement that Queen was,
- Cautioning those who are not called to the sex industry and do have other means.
- Denouncing the other strawman sex workers’ rights advocates regularly have to slay that says we are all “pro-exploitation” and such.
No one should have to do sex work that does not enjoy it and the fact that many do is not an attempt at shaming them but an acknowledgement and denouncement of their oppression.
In her second example she asserts,
In the media trainings I do, I ask the participants to come up with a main message that, if they had two minutes, they want their audience to receive. They then need to back up this message with two or three talking points, one sentence statements that can be evidence-based, use logic or other rhetorical devices to give the audience a different perspective. Every time I have done the training, someone is eager to express the message that sex workers are average people with many dimensions: we are mothers, brothers, taxpayers, neighbors, pet enthusiasts, gourmet cooks, etc. Inevitably, one of the supporting talking points they come up with is, “You wouldn’t be able to distinguish me from anyone else you walk by; I’m not a street worker or a junkie.” But some sex workers – maybe not sex workers in your immediate circle – are street workers and junkies, and we cannot throw them under the bus as we have been doing.
…but this is anecdotal evidence and she gives no concrete evidence that this is common thinking among sex-positive feminists specifically. She also does little by way of providing context. Where is the proof that the people making these distinctions are sex-positive feminists? In what context are they making these distinctions? It is no secret that antis attempt to paint all sex work and all sex workers with one broad brush. It seems like we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t. I hope Ms. Ray is not purposely setting anyone up to have to play that game. That would be…disappointing.
Yes, sex-positive feminism is what you make it. Apparently Ms. Ray did not invest very much serious thought into hers and that is fine. I do not shame her for this. I do not; however, appreciate using her influence as a more predominant sex workers’ rights advocate to help reduce the work other more serious sex-positive feminists do to exactly what the antis would have the world believe we are and thus undermining the arguments we make in support of sex worker’s rights as well. As comment #6 of this thread states,
“And Audacia Ray is also correct that the sex-positive movement does tend to seriously downplay the role of coercion and trafficking in the sex industry.”
But questioning the methodologies used to garner what is taken for-granted as “common knowledge” about trafficking in persons and thus the knowledge itself is NOT a sex-positive feminist argument. It is a sex workers’ rights advocates argument! I fear where this will go.
~~~~~UPDATE 5/7/2012~~~~~
One of my best friends and sex workers’ rights mentor FeministWhore did a video on Ms. Ray’s piece as well. Please take the time to watch it.
A Response to Greta Christina
Greta Christina of the freethoughtblogs has graciously invited sex workers to tell their stories in her latest post Sex Workers – An Invitation to Tell Your Stories.
As regular readers of this blog know, my fellow blogger in the Freethought Blogs, Taslima Nasreen, wrote a post a few weeks ago positing that all prostitution is always patriarchal oppression, always sexual exploitation, always sexual violence, that women are always forced into it, that it is never a vocation choice, that it is always human rights abuse, that all of it harms women.. I wrote a post in response, saying that I understood that there were often terrible abuses in the sex industry and that many prostitutes are forced into the work, and that of course I fervently opposed this — but also saying that there are many sex workers who freely choose the work, and like it, and do not find it abusive or exploitative.
Nasreen and I had a private email conversation about this. I’m not at liberty to disclose her side of that conversation. But I will tell you that I asked her, repeatedly, to put up a post on her blog asking sex workers what their actual experience was working in the sex industry — so she could hear for herself the tremendous variety of experiences that prostitutes and other sex workers have, and so she could take those experiences into account when she considers the questions of how abuses in the industry should be handled.
As of this writing, she has yet to do this.
So I’m going to do it myself.
And I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you are. So many who not only oppose sex work of all kinds and in all cases (antis) seem to have come to the conclusion that all sex workers were/are brutally abused and exploited and if a sex worker dares to state that this was not their experience they dismiss them as suffering from some form of Stockholm syndrome. What drives me insane about this is that they can’t see how this is dehumanizing and oppressive in and of itself. They perpetuate a stigma that the words of sex workers cannot be trusted but refuse to see that this is no different from the police officer that dismisses a sex worker when she reports that she has been raped. Well, this is my little contribution to the conversation. I hope what I say will help free up some thought concerning sex work.
Q: Why did you get into the sex industry?
I got into the sex industry out of curiosity and as an act of rebellion. I was raised by very controlling, Catholic parents with a strong constant message of “SEX BAD!” I had very little relationship with them outside of the constant expectations they had that I never seemed able to live up to…oh yea, and “SEX BAD!” I think this lead to a need to be seen but in a very specific way; as a sexual being, a powerful, and powerfully sexual, unashamed sexual being. One of my best friends at the time seemed to have this really cool secret that seemed to give her an air of confidence and the independence that came with having and managing her own money. When I asked her what it was she told me she had been stripping and invited me to go with her. I did. I danced off and on for the next ten years.
Q: Did you freely choose this work? Were you in any way forced or coerced into it? Were you pressured into it by economic or other pressure?
I chose it freely. I was not forced. I was not coerced and the only pressure I felt was the pressure brewing inside of my developing body. I wanted sex and sexual contact but at the same time I feared it~again “SEX BAD!”
Q: Why did you go into the particular line(s) of sex work that you did?
Stripping gave me a way to explore my sexual self in a way I had total control of. I also knew I could only go so far sexually in stripping (lap dancing). For me it was almost like a kid who wants to swim but is afraid of the water so they cling to the side and go around and around the pool. I did that too btw 😛
Q: What, if anything, did/do you like about the work?
I loved so many things about stripping. I almost can’t even begin to tell you. I loved feeling beautiful dancing in front of my mostly very nice customers and seeing how memorized they were with me. I loved that I could do this and fully expect not to be touched by them. This wasn’t only because I felt safe but there was also a bit of a dominatrix in me that enjoyed this teasing game. I loved that I could pick up and go to almost any city I wanted to explore on a whim and get a job dancing in a club making good money at the drop of a hat. I loved the control over my scheduled I had. I loved the money. I loved to dance on stage and perform. I loved how raw and funny the girls could be. I loved the lights, the music, the clothes etc….hated the shoes though. If I could have I would have danced the whole time barefooted.
Q: What, if anything, did/do you not like about the work?
Of course there was the occasional jerk or a dancer that had too much to drink and wanted to fight but it is what it is. There were some managers that let managing a strip bar go to their heads. I usually kept mine down though and tried not to cause problems. The thing I absolutely hated and still do is the Scarlet Letter of sex worker shame some of us never seem to shake. Turns out I wasn’t the only one raised with the message “SEX BAD!”
Q: On the whole, did/do you like the work, dislike it, or feel neutral about it?
I mostly liked it. I had a go round with addiction about 2 years after I started dancing but I got sober and danced for some years after that. 4/23/12 was my 17 year sobriety birthday. WOOT!
Q: What are your feelings about your customers?
My feelings about my customers are the same as my feelings about people in general because at the end of the day that’s all they are really; people. Some people are great. Some people are jerks. Most people don’t leave a lasting impression. They share space with you and fade away. At the end of the night all that remains of their presence is the twenty in your pocket…hmmm, time for IHOP! (strippers tend to be great tippers in those after hours grubbing places.)
Q: Have your feelings about the work changed with time? If you no longer work in the sex industry, did your feelings about the work change after you left it?
I still work in a strip bar in a supervisory capacity. My views on sex work have changed a bit but this is mostly due to finding and getting involved in the sex workers rights movement.
Q: If you still work in the sex industry, do you feel free to leave it? If you no longer work in the sex industry, did you feel free to leave it? If not, what restraints did/do you have?
I feel absolutely free to leave. The only problem is that ol’ stigma again. People tend not to take you seriously when you put former stripper as an occupation on a job application ijs.
Q: Is there anything else you want people to know about your experience of sex work?
YES! Sex work was mostly good, a small dose of bad and a bunch of ok in between; but I have NEVER been treated so consistently badly by a group of people like I have been by antis. Gail Dines goes on and on about how men who seek the services of sex workers treat them like “cumdumpsters.” The only people who have ever called me a “cumdumpster” have been anti-porn feminists.
They even made a sock account impersonating me on youtube called cumdumpsterdiv (My youtube screen name is Divinity33372). I have been persistently harassed, slut shamed, trolled and even had an anti drop some of my docs on youtube. I document all this in this blog post and here where I document their racism (I am Mexican American). Anyone who claims to care about you and your oppression that exacts this kind of abuse on you is full of shit and THAT is what I want people to know.
Thank you Greta for doing your part to humanize us in this conversation where we are painted as either “untrustworthy whores” or “helpless victims.” Yes, there are victims out there it’s true and there are only so many resources to go around. Finding a victim of exploitation can be like finding a needle in a haystack. All the conflations of consent and non-consent serves to do is put more hay on top of the stack making the needle harder to find.
I WANT THAT NEEDLE TO BE FOUND!
…and Greta, I know you do too.
Last Rescue in Siam สาวน้อยผจญภัย
An เอ็มพาวเวอร์ Empower film “สาวน้อยผจญภัย – Last Rescue in Siam” This is the first film ever made by sex workers in Thailand. It is a short black and white movie inspired by the tradition of the old silent movies. The film accompanies the Empower research report “Hit & Run” also available on facebook and soon to be on our website. The film premiered on the 21 Feb 2012 at the Bangkok Art & Culture Centre followed by an after party in Patpong.
St. Steinem Takes On India
It’s funny to me how some people can seem to support sex worker rights as long as certain feminists and their contributions to the oppression of sex workers are not criticized. You can clearly see this in my comment exchanges with BrianX & Daniel Schealler under my youtube name Divinity33372. These two men seem very open to a more balanced view of sex work then displayed by Taslima Nasreen until someone had the irreverence to criticize St. Gloria Steinem.
Well, I’ll have them and any other so called “supporter of feminism” know that as a free thinking feminist I find NO ONE beyond criticism and Ms. Steinem has a lot to answer for concerning sex worker rights nowadays.
She recently went to India with the son of billionaire Warren Buffett to tell India how to solve it’s problems…OH GOODIE! But wait, isn’t Warren Buffett one of the “good guys?” Isn’t he Mr. Please Raise Taxes On Me & The Rich? You’ll forgive me if that’s not enough to convince me of his sincerity. He’s also Mr. Send The Defective Fema Trailers Made By A Company I Own To Earthquake Devastated Haitian Children.
So how do St. Steinem plan on fixing India’s sex trade problems? Well, for one she proposes to make it a tourist destination. They are going to cater to uber privileged Westerners by taking them on tours of the areas in India where most of the sex business does business like British on Safari in Africa. But don’t feed the animals because whether they say so or not ALL these sex worker’s experiences are all the same and they’re ALL bad. In fact, let’s just call them all “trafficked.” Why not? It’s the latest thing donchyaknow.
Second, they’re going to work to take reproductive services away from sex workers.
“There’s something lopsided about the AIDS lobby around the world that tries to protect male buyers from disease rather than protecting the women from them. We need to bring attention to this, that this kind of funding has to stop and investing in funds that give these women more choices other than prostitution has to start,” explained Ruchira.
Ok, all sarcasm aside, I can’t begin to tell you how infuriated I am by this rich, white, western woman who fought for western women’s reproductive rights in the 60’s going to India NOW and supporting people and organizations that would take those very same services away from the most oppressed among women…SEX WORKERS! How sanctimoniously “do as I say and not as I do” can a privileged woman be ffs?!? Gloria Steinem is a HYPOCRITE and just another cog in the wheel of oppression that runs over the marginalized every fucking day! She is also proof that just cause a feminist says it that don’t make it good for women. I mean what will she and Mr. Buffett do next~chain these “rescued” women to sewing machines inside a donated toxic formaldehyde trailer and call it helping?
Speaking of sewing machines; how much you wanna bet herding women into low paying “jobs” with sweat shop like conditions will be the final phase in this super original plan? This is a great idea considering U.S. companies NEVER go to third world (or close to it) countries to exploit the labor there because they can’t get away with that shit in the U.S.
Here’s my suggestion to St. Steinem: use the privilege you’ve got oozing out of every pour on your body and get a bill introduced in Congress that would require U.S. corporations that open factories over seas to pay those employees no less then the U.S. minimum wage. Go ahead! I’ll hold my breath.
Taslima Nasreen, are you a skeptic or not?
Taslima Nasree continues her crusade to turn the freethoughtblogs into an anti-porn propaganda rag with her latest installment on the sex industry “Let’s Eroticize Equality.” This piece is complete with all the usual assertions about pornography and it’s alleged “effects” on society with none of the empty calories that come from PROOF!
She misleadingly opens her piece with the line,
I am against pornography because it has many harmful effects, encouragement of sex trafficking, desensitization, pedophilia, dehumanization, sexual exploitation, sexual dysfunction, inability to maintain healthy sexual relationships.
I say misleading because you would think after a statement like this she would proceed to prove her assertions with solid evidence. The freethoughtblogs is supposed to be a blogging site for freethinkers and SKEPTICS…isn’t it? Maybe Ms. Nasree is simply confused. Allow me to point out the definition of the word “skeptic” for her:
Skeptic
1.a person who questions the validity or authenticity of something purporting to be factual.2.a person who maintains a doubting attitude, as toward values, plans, statements, or the character of others.3.a person who doubts the truth of a religion, especially Christianity, or of important elements of it.
She continues,
Pornography is exclusively for men’s pleasure. Women are used as sex objects. I know some women will say, ‘we love to be sex objects’. Millions of misogynists are out there to support the idea of the objectification of women. I do not have to support this.
I am living proof of the flaw in her claim that, “Pornography is exclusively for men’s pleasure.” I am a woman and I enjoy some porn.
Notice how she poisons the well against any woman in porn who may disagree with her in statement, “I know some women will say, ‘we love to be sex objects’.” REALLY Tas? (I would say Ms. Nasreen but with her blatant disrespect of the women in the sex industry she is making it clear that she neither gives respect to nor expects respect from the sex workers she claims she wants to help.) My guess is that women in the sex industry would have a number of issues with your assertions but to you all it comes down to is that they “love to be sex objects” right? No sex worker could possibly be SKEPTICAL of your claims. NOOOOOOO….! Skepticism is for smart people ISN’T , right TAZ?
“Millions of misogynists are out there to support the idea of the objectification of women.” Oh, I get it. ANY woman who disagrees with your assertion that porn is exclusively for men simply HATES women. As if this isn’t the most tired and over used tactic employed by “antis” such as you. You make and unsupported blanket statement and anyone who doesn’t agree with you is a “misogynist.” People like you use this bullshit tactic so much that the word “misogynist” seems to lose it’s meaning as if that is helpful to women.
And how does she wrap this up into a nice neat bow? “I do not have to support this.” You hear that out there in skeptic land? Taz is better then you and she does not HAVE TO support her claims. Who do any of you think you are to actually expect her to support what she is claiming. You just shut up and nod your head when Mz. Taz tell u what to think, k.
She continues to go on to argue some false dichotomy between pornography and erotica as if there is no grey area in between. All in all, it’s simply her saying “this is what I don’t find offensive and acceptable and if you don’t agree with me you like being an object or you just hate women blah blah blah…”
She also throws around statements like, “Gloria Steinem says…” as if just because St. Steinem says it it must be true. And, “researchers say” without linking to the research. She does link to some opinion pieces complete with the anecdotal evidence that may fool a non-skeptic but by this point she’s just not even trying.
I don’t know if she’s trying to be cute at the end of her piece where she links to…well Anthony’s comment said it best so I’ll let is speak for it’s self:
Of course she fails to even mention the porn sites that cater to the more romantic (yet equally explicit 🙂 ) like New Sensations Romance or The Porn for Women. She closes it out with “Leave it. Let’s listen to a song “ where she links to some kumbaya song undoubtedly to make appeals to the emotions of the masses complete.
So here we go again. Some anti takes a perfectly sound site and turns it into a well poisoning, sex worker rights advocate silencing, smear forum insulting and silencing the very women they claim they want to help. Ah the privilegey goodness. Eat it up now Taz because you’re on a site with the likes of Gretta Christina, Natalie Reed, Richard Carrier and others who take their skepticism seriously. I hope your place on the site is questioned and reevaluated.
Oh but IS prostitution “sex slavery”?
Lately on the Freethoughtblogs there has been in engaging back and forth between Taslima Nasreen and some of the other blogger. Nasreen made the typical blanket statement assertions and conflations between sex trafficking and prostitution in her post Sex Slavery must be abolished.
Some examples:
Lie2. Prostitution is sexual freedom. /Prostitution is sex.
Truth2. Prostitution is sexual exploitation./ Prostitution is not sex, it is sexual violence.
Lie5. Women choose to enter prostitution.
Truth5. Prostitution is not an acceptable job for women. They are forced to enter prostitution. Prostitution is an abusive institution and women stay poor in prostitution. It is not a vocation choice, it is human rights abuse.
Lie9. Legalization of prostitution is an entirely separate issue from human trafficking.
Truth9. Prostitution is the destination point for trafficking etc…
Thankfully, Gretta Christina responded to this propaganda piece with a substantive counter post called Prostitution Is Not Sex Slavery. I wish I could say, “and that was that” but IS prostitution “sex slavery”? Let’s look at the U.S. CODE to find out.
Trafficking in persons definitions:
(8) Severe forms of trafficking in persons
The term “severe forms of trafficking in persons” means-
(A) sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age; or
(B) the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.
(9) Sex traffickingThe term “sex trafficking” means the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act.
As you can see, the form of trafficking in persons that involves force, fraud, coercion or anything involving a minor is officially defined as “SEVERE sex trafficking”. “Sex trafficking” as defined by the OFFICIAL definitions in the U.S. CODE does not involved any force, fraud or coercion AT ALL!
This OFFICIAL definition for “sex trafficking” may seem like a small issue to some. Many may say “oh, but we know what it actually means.” I can not stress this enough to those of you out there wanting to be knowledgeable about this issue.
This official conflation between forced and not forced IS the issue!
This IS their victory! It’s one thing for such conflations to happen in the media and in propaganda but it is quite another for them to become law. This seems to validate the conflations and blanket statements prohibitionists like Nasreen make in many people’s eyes. Unfortunately, many Americans tend not to decide what is right by what is true but rather by what the law says. I explain how this official conflations came to be in the video below.
Sources for this vid:
Copy of letter from some feminists to Senator Wellstone asking him to disregard the consent of women.
Tom Delay & the Northern Marianas
THIS! This is what must ultimately be undone and it is reaffirmed every time the TVPA is readopted every year. And the voices of sex workers were clearly ignored and replaced by those of politicians on the religious right. It was an alliance of convenience between anti-sex worker feminists and the RR that got sex workers thrown under the bus in many ways but one sticks out like a sore thumb. The TVPA does not provide any abortion services for these so called “rescued trafficking victims.” Surely some of these women and girls are pregnant when they are “rescued” right? What happens to them? What happens to their fetuses, to their children? I can’t say for sure but I do know this; many of the NGOs going to third world countries to “rescue” sex trafficking victims and sex workers alike (whether the sex worker likes it or not) are faith based organizations. There is more then a small amount of pressure on these women and girls to convert to Christianity as proven by the video below. I think it’s more then a little obscene that Linda Smith saw fit to go to India and put these girls to work in a leather factory being that cows are sacred to many Hindus.
This video was put together from clips from this 4 part series. The first in the series can be found here.
I know;
~NGOs bent on converting “rescued” sex trafficking victims and consensual sex workers alike from not only the sins of others but their own as well.
~Feminists in bed with the religious rights in an alliance of convenience that undermines the reproductive rights of said rescued victims.
~The hyper-focusing on the sexual aspect of human trafficking in order to distract from the systematic undermining of the rights of labor in this country and in others.
It’s a lot to take in but I will leave you with this quote from Nasreen’s follow up piece. It’s the quote she opened her piece with:
‘We say that slavery has vanished from European civilization, but this is not true. Slavery still exists, but now it applies only to women and its name is prostitution.’
—VICTOR HUGO, Les Misérables
Well if that isn’t a denial of the existence of Labor trafficking right there I don’t know what is. I confronted her about it in a comment I left to her but it was never approved. I documented my comment and you can see it for yourself in the video below:
My comment:
NOTE: I noticed that you removed a perfectly reasonable and respectful comment from someone that did not totally agree with you so let me say now that I am screencaping my comment and putting it on my youtube channel.
NOTE 2: Anyone reading these posts should be aware of the actual definitions of trafficking in persons as stated in the U.S. CODE
(8) Severe forms of trafficking in persons
The term “severe forms of trafficking in persons” means—
(A) sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age; or
(B) the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.(9) Sex trafficking
The term “sex trafficking” means the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act.(Notice the official conflation between force and freedom. This is something feminists who oppose prostitution in all cases forced or not are responsible for along with the religious right they teamed up with when this legislation was being written.)
Sources:
U.S. CODE http://bit.ly/A5flBG
See the low bar of this video
http://bit.ly/HAlLNnOh boy have I got a TON to say about this post. Where do I start?
1. Your first quote: “‘We say that slavery has vanished from European civilization, but this is not true. Slavery still exists, but now it applies only to women and its name is prostitution.’—VICTOR HUGO, Les Misérables”
~way to completely deny the existence of LABOR trafficking. This is one of the biggest problems sex worker’s rights advocates have with the “all prostitution is ‘sex trafficking'” crowd. The over emphasis on the sexual aspect of trafficking to the detriment of those whose labor is being exploited.~
2. “I was wondering how many people who claim that women choose to be prostitutes encourage their beloved daughters to be prostitutes. Even prostitutes do not want their daughters become prostitutes.”
~What a mother would do… = appeal to emotion.~
3. “They are desperate to send their daughters to schools, so that daughters can get an education and a decent job.”
~This is a blanket assumption that all sex workers are uneducated. Plus “decent” = subjective.
4. “I just want to know whether women and girls would choose this ”job”. Please read the ad.”
~And your “ad” is some made up BS by an anti-sex work propaganda rag?!?!? For REALZ?! OMG, how can anyone take this mess seriously?
I would like to thank Gretta Christina, Natalie Reed and Crommunist at Freethoughtblogs for holding people accountable for what is being said about sex work on the site. I hope someone reads this and makes the things I have said here part of the conversation. Honestly, just seeing the lies confronted by those with voices much stronger then mine is such a relief. Please keep up the great work!
AGodlessStrumpet 