On Monday, I posted the first part of an exchange with Meghan Murphy, a blogger and radio host with the Canadian F Word Feminist Media Collective. I answered five questions she had asked of me, and we each posted the same piece at our respective sites. Predictably, we both attracted critics; some of Meghan’s radical allies were incensed that she would legitimize me by engaging, while some of my liberal/sex-positive friends were equally exasperated with my decision to take part in this dialogue.
In any event, what follows below the cut is the second part of our exchange, in which Meghan responds to five of my questions about male feminists, sex work and SlutWalk. Intercourse and puppy dogs also come up for discussion, though not in the same context.
Hugo: How do you feel about men teaching feminism or taking on other leadership roles in the fight for gender justice? More bluntly, how do you feel about the role I’ve carved out for myself within the movement, as best you understand it? Would another model (Katz, Kimmel, Jensen) be better? Should I quit my job, as some radfems have asked, so that a woman can be hired?
Meghan: You know, I have mixed feelings about this. I wouldn’t argue that a man can’t teach gender studies, but to have a man teaching feminism to women? I don’t know. Certainly a man can have expertise in gender theory, that I would not dispute. But I have to admit it feels a little strange to have a man in the position of Women’s Studies teacher, though I’m not so sure I would go so far as to tell you to quit your job. I find it a little strange that a college wouldn’t hire a woman to teach Women’s Studies. Perhaps they’re in the wrong here (if there is someone in the ‘wrong’) – why haven’t they hired a woman to teach Women’s Studies? What’s behind that decision? Why wouldn’t they choose to hire a woman to teach the one Women’s Studies class offered in a college that doesn’t even have a Women’s Studies department? I wonder how you feel about this?
So in terms of you, as an individual, teaching feminism, or taking on leadership roles in the fight for gender justice, well, there are a couple of issues here. I agree with Stephen Heath’s argument in his piece Male Feminism, wherein he points out “that this is a matter for women, that it is their voices and actions that must determine the change and redefinition. Their voices and actions, not ours.” So while I do think it is ok for men to take leadership roles in the fight for gender justice and certainly I know many feminist men who have done this and do this in a way that is respectful and has challenged male domination, rather than reinforcing it I do think it depends on the approach. It is imperitive that the voices of women are not stepped on or silenced in this process and, of course, the problem is that many men already feel a sense of entitlement around their voices and their opinions so for men to speak as experts on a subject is nothing new. While men can be strong allies and even take the lead in certain areas of the feminist movement, I’m not sure they can be ‘experts’ in feminism nor do I wish to be explained, for example, by a man, how feminism works.
Jensen, of course, speaks from a radical feminist perspective and, as you know teaches feminism within his discipline of Journalism, not as a professor of Women’s Studies. A man who approaches feminism from a foundation of radical feminism is simply more legit, as far as I’m concerned. Liberal feminism does too many favours for men, it allows too much in terms of maintaining the status quo and the systems already in place. It’s hard to hear a man defend pornography or ‘sex work’ as you call it. Or to argue that women are simply making an autonomous choice and that it is no one’s business what ‘consenting adults’ do.
Just to be clear, I don’t believe that prostitution is work, I believe it is exploitative and abusive and I believe it is a legitimized form of rape. It’s not the same as providing a service like physiotherapy, nor is it the same as cleaning a toilet, as certain decriminalization advocates have implied. What other ‘job’ is so gendered? What other ‘work’ involves being called abusive words, rape or depictions of rape, the giving over of your body to another for them to do with it what they wish? This ‘work’ is very much dependant on race, class, and gender and reinforces a perception of women (not just some women, all women) as objects, not humans. Men don’t watch pornography and see full human beings, they see things, they see something which exists to provide them with pleasure, it’s all for their eyes. Prostituted women are viewed by most in our society as less than human. It is something you do when you have no other choice. What about this is autonomous or consensual? Who is able to provide consent when they have no other choice? While there are women who do ‘choose’ this work in some sense of the word, I don’t think this is representative of most women and within a culture that teaches women that their value lies in the bodies and their sexualities and their ability to please men, well, arguing this is simply an autonomous choice or a job like any other feels insulting to me.
Calling it ‘work’ makes everyone, but especially men, especially pimps and johns, feel at ease about what they are doing. Because pornography, prostitution and strip clubs are things that exist to benefit men, at the expense of women, I find it difficult take seriously a man who claims to be feminist but does not actively fight to end these clearly sexist and oppressive industries. I mean, OF COURSE, men support strip clubs. That’s nothing new. It’s obviously not radical. For a man to actually tell the truth about male power, lose the privilege, reject the status quo – THAT’S radical. So I tend not to entirely trust men who aren’t willing to lose the privilege, to stand with women to end sexist exploitation, and to actually challenge that which is accepted in patriarchal society (i.e. the objectification of female bodies). It doesn’t mean hating on women in the industry, it means hating on the industry. Critiquing the innate sexism in the porn industry doesn’t mean attacking the women in it. I mean, in the end, it is men who profit the most.
What would you say to my friend Alana Evans (SFW), a porn star and self-described feminist who does claim to enjoy her work? If you were debating her, what would you say about her experience? Would you negate it entirely, or simply claim that she’s a strange exception to a general rule? How do you respond to self-described sex-positive feminist sex workers when they talk about their experiences?
I would say, great. I am happy that she’s had such a positive experience. Unfortunately for many women this is not the case. The exception is not the rule. It does not mean that we should not acknowledge those exceptional experiences, but it also does not mean that we privilege them above all others and erase all those who have been degraded and humiliated and abused and raped either as prostituted women or simply because they are women. Simply because a woman is enjoying herself it doesn’t mean that the men watching don’t see her, and as a result, all women, as things.
Regardless of the individual experiences that some women have as ‘sex workers’ that may be construed as positive or non-violent, there are many, many women who are hurt in pornography or because of pornography. And no, I don’t believe that pornography invented misogyny or rape, but rather it is the manifestation of a sexist society, but I do believe that the perpetuation of these images plays into rape culture. How many times can a person jack off to a woman being humiliated and degraded without actually believing that women being humiliated and degraded is not only ‘ok’, but is sexy? And not only that, but that women like to be humiliated and degraded, they are turned on by violence and humiliation and degradation? Tell me that isn’t dangerous. Tell me that doesn’t hurt women.
All this focus on individual choice and empowerment that has infiltrated the feminist movement is dangerous, in my opinion. Simply because one individual feels good about their personal choice does not mean that women, collectively or globally, are any more free, any less in danger, any less oppressed. Often those women who do feel individually empowered by their own personal choice are also women who hold a certain level of privilege. The (horrible) truth is that many women around the world do not get to choose. This kind of discourse ignores all of those women, and it ignores the larger context of pornography, how it impacts women at large, how it impacts men even.
So I could care less, to be blunt, whether or not one person enjoys their work in the porn industry. I’m sure there are many men out there who ‘enjoy’ their work as heads of companies that destroy the planet or that (essentially) enslave the poor in developing countries just so they can get rich making Nikes or drilling for oil (and I am not comparing professions here, I am comparing arguments) – does this negate the larger impact of these actions? Does the fact that this makes them feel empowered on a personal level mean that we cannot critique? Or demand change? This isn’t an argument that makes sense in other contexts, particularly when it comes to social justice. The personal empowerment of a few does not equal political or social change.
So whether or not she enjoys her work is, in my opinion, irrelevant in the context of the feminist movement. I ‘choose’ to wear lipstick some days. Do I define this as a feminist act because it makes me feel good on a superficial level? No. In fact I think it’s kind of lame. But hey, I’m an imperfect being. I would never tell Alana that she cannot or does not or should not enjoy her work. But that experience does not represent all experiences, nor does it make sex work, as a whole, something that is empowering to women. In the end, sex work is about male pleasure. It has always been primarily about male pleasure. Women are, for the most part, the objects in pornography and that is dangerous. It is sexist. No bones about it.
Individual empowerment does not necessarily equal feminism. It certainly doesn’t radically challenge the roots of oppression. That’s neo-liberalism. It’s pretending that there’s no such thing as systematic oppression and injustice. It’s pretending that we can change our situations by reading self-help books, by thinking positive, by working harder, whatever. It’s the American Dream. And it’s a lie. What we need to pay attention to is context and the larger implications of the sex industry. The big picture. I just don’t think it’s relevant to say ‘I like my job’. Good for you. So what.
What do you like best about SlutWalks? What do you like least?
I like that this many people are talking about feminism. For me the positives pretty much end there. This so-called ‘movement’ is embarrassing. There is no cohesive message, no collective demands, and there is an unwillingness to name the problem, to address the root of violence against women. What will we gain from Slutwalk? The freedom to call ourselves sluts? The freedom to have sex with whomever we want, whenever we want? Well, we already have that. The fact that a movement which I had originally assumed to be, in the end, a protest against sexual assault and violence against women has somehow been conflated with sexual liberation is, well, confusing. Rape is not sex, it has nothing to do with sex. Rape is about power and domination, control and humiliation. The idea that we need a word to describe ‘a person who enjoys consensual sex’ is ridiculous. I don’t need to invent a word (or, in this case, redefine a misogynist word) to describe the fact that, as a woman, I deserve to be respected, that I deserve to be heard. I deserve that because I am a human being. Sex is consensual, like, by definition (unless, of course you are watching pornography, in which case there is no talk of consent because women are represented as constantly accessible and available, sexually, to men), so this should just be a given. If sex is not consensual then it’s not sex. It’s rape. Plain and simple. Ergo, if you are a person who likes sex that is consensual (which is how ‘slut’ has been redefined by several satellites) you are a human being who respects other human beings. Not a ‘slut’.If you like sex that is not consensual, then you like rape. End of story.
What legal remedies would you like to see to combat pornography? How do you propose (if you propose it) to empower the state to pursue pornographers without also empowering the state to crack down on feminist literature? How will a judicial system not famous for its sympathy to feminism use the powers that anti-pornography legislation might give it?
I’m undecided about this. On one hand, I worry, as I imagine you also do, that censorship of pornography will leak into censoring positive or subversive images or writing that actually depict real, non-sexist, non-heteronormative, non-abusive female sexuality. On the other hand, pornography is abuse. And abuse is illegal.
I feel like there is a lot of confusion coming from this supposedly ‘sex-positive’ faction of ‘feminism’. Pornography has very little to do with sex. Rather, it exists to debase, degrade, and humiliate women. We can all acknowledge, as feminists, that rape is about power, not sex. Why can’t we acknowledge this to also be true of pornography? Would anyone in their right mind argue that rape should not be illegal because it limits individual freedom or an individual’s sexuality? Of course not. Censoring pornography is not about constraining a person’s sexuality but rather is about ending misogyny, ending rape culture, and allowing space for real liberation and real, human sexuality that is not based on domination and objectification. Being ‘anti-porn’ is not about being against sex. Rather, it is the opposite. An anti-porn stance is ‘pro-sex’, if you want to call it that. Why shouldn’t we limit the commodification of women and women’s bodies?
I think what we need, and what Dworkin and MacKinnon did, was to have a definition of pornography that allows for the judicial system to impose anti-pornography legislation that does not impede, for example, feminist erotica. Interestingly, some of Catherine Breillat’s work has been censored or banned in the past, though it would certainly fit under the banner of feminist erotica rather than pornography. When so much work that simply challenges the status quo is censored, what is the big fear around censoring sexist pornography?
Professor of media studies at New York University, Chyng Sun’s analysis of mainstream porn found that “physical and verbal aggression is present in 90 percent of mainstream porn scenes”. And mainstream hetero porn is growing, not shrinking, it’s becoming ever more violent and degrading, and ever more normalized and we’re derailing the conversation into one about ‘choice’ and freedom of speech? Give me a break. Hate speech isn’t freedom of speech and misogyny isn’t a ‘choice’. It’s something that happens to women, to paraphrase Andrea Dworkin. It happens to women and to hear men argue that anti-pornography legislation impedes their freedom is just insulting. What are we protecting? Pornography isn’t about variety or choice, it’s about limiting variety and choice, it’s about limiting sexuality and freedom. Not only that but porn reinforces the idea that women are perpetually available to men, perpetually available to be penetrated in any and every orifice, that they exist purely for male pleasure. Tell me this doesn’t play into rape culture? So, while I don’t feel that I am equipped to provide an answer for you in terms of specific legal remedies at this time (precisely because of these concerns about what censorship entails) I do think that this is the context within which we should be having these conversation. Not from some kind of fake ‘this impedes my individual freedom to objectify and abuse women’. It disingenuous right from the get go. Never mind insulting and hurtful. This is the opposite of liberation. If one person’s ‘freedom’ means the oppression of others it is not real freedom.
Some radical feminists reject all penis-in-vagina intercourse as fundamentally oppressive (factcheckme, etc). Others like Dworkin were more nuanced. Can there be a genuinely feminist heterosexual relationship that involves PIV? That involves reproductivity?
Oh I like to think so. I’ve only recently learned about those arguments, so I can’t speak to them with any kind of expertise. What I can get behind is the critique of this assumption that PIV equals sex. It’s heteronormative crap. Many women don’t experience pleasure from penetrative sex, and to actually define ‘sex’ in those terms is, of course, oppressive and sexist. It is a male-centered definition of sex.
So I respect those arguments, for sure, but hey, I enjoy penetrative sex with men so I have no particular interest in arguing against PIV in it’s entirety. I think that Dworkin’s argument around heterosexual, penetrative sex is pretty right on. The fact that we do, as a culture, view men as the ‘actors’ and the penetrators and women as the passive receivers of penetration does speak to the way in which male power and domination plays out in the bedroom. And the fact that we have defined sex on that basis speaks to the way in which the world around us has been largely defined by men and patriarchal ideals.
I would like to think that it does not need to be this way and really like what one of my F Word co-hosts, Nicole Deagan, had to say about this matter in our sex show; that is: switch it up! Changing the roles of who is the penetrator and who is the penetratee (if you are, indeed, interested in including penetration as part of your sex life) can really change the dynamics of a relationship, same goes for, as she suggests, putting men in lingerie instead of women. Personally I am not interested in dressing up for sex and, of course, women do this because they are taught that they are pretty things to be looked at, that they are supposed to be on display and because, often, their male partners will ask them to. But what happens if a man puts on a sexy little dress and is penetrated by a woman instead? I think there are ways of disrupting these binaries in hetero relationships in order to create a more egalitarian, feminist one. Men taking on vulnerable roles could be a way of doing this. Or you could just lose the penetration entirely. Particularly if it’s not something that a woman enjoys.
There is much to be overcome and there are no simple solutions but I think that yes, the fact that ‘real sex’ is assumed to be tied to a man penetrating a woman is very much a part of oppressive patriarchal culture. The fact that we even assume that a ‘real’ relationship must involve sex is oppressive and sexist. What about the radical act of loving? What about friendship? What about real trust? Does love not ‘count’ unless there is ‘sex’ or penetration? Just as the legitimacy of my relationship is marginalized because I don’t believe in marriage, the legitimacy of any relationship that does not involve penetrative sex is marginalized. My relationship, my version of ‘family’ (which, yes, does include my puppy dog) is marginalized also because I don’t want children. I mean, when we are realistic and honest about all these things, our society starts to look pretty conservative no? Love + penetrative sex + marriage + children. Yeesh. Let’s challenge this. That’s not to say that there are not feminists who have sex with men, reproduce, and even marry, but I think we need to work harder at challenging these norms and saying, yes! Your love/relationship/family/life is just as meaningful and legitimate as anyone’s, regardless of whether or not you and your partner have sex (in whatever form that manisfests itself), regardless of whether or not you marry (and yes, I do think that, as feminists we should be challenging the institution of marriage), regardless of whether or not you are monogamous, and regardless of whether or not you reproduce.
A very interesting and worthwhile dialogue, Hugo. Thanks for posting this. (It was also nice to hear about Heloise the other day. She seems to be progressing very rapidly.)
Comparing a porn star to sweatshop owner is the height of idiocy. The rest of it had the same twang of shrill hogwash and poorly thought out ideas.
Making pornography illegal isn’t just dumb and puritanical, but it’s also IMPOSSIBLE. Prostitution is already illegal and has that made it any less prevalent? Not at all. If anything prohibition has made prostitution a whole lot worse and a whole lot more patriarchal. By forcing it into the margins you empower those of brute strength and sociopathic demeanor, like pimps and sadistic johns. Legalized that wouldn’t be the case. The same thing would happen if porn production were made illegal. You’d push it to the margins and empower those in the business who were the LEAST ethical.
Furthermore, it would be impossible to stamp out. Universally hated child pornography is still around despite all our efforts to kill it. How do you expect to eliminate something as popular and non taboo as porn? Drug, alcohol and sex work prohibition have all failed and those are all physical goods and services. Porn would be the easiest contraband of all because it’s only bits and bytes. With basic encryption and proxy server magic, you could distribute porn effortlessly. Even if you used physical disks and drives, it would still be easy to traffic.
The ease with which porn is distributed would push the Pigs into a war of atrition with porn. Just as the case is with the war on drugs, it would serve as an excuse to take away rights and build police power and the prison industrial complex. It would also provide a new revenue stream for criminals, boosting the balance sheet of gangs, crime families and cartels, allowing them to buy more weapons and bribe more politicians.
Fact is, even if you think porn is “bad” you could never ban it.
Of course there’s not much evidence to show that porn is “bad.” Rape has gone DOWN during the porn explosion, not up. If porn contributed to rape wouldn’t there be at least a marked increase? Porn went from something limited to total ubiquity in 5 years. If porn were connected wouldn’t that kind of demographic shift, change things? But wait, Meghan tells us that “rape isn’t about sex.” So clearly if rape isn’t about sex, depictions of sex (porn) wouldn’t contirbute to rape,right? Right.
Moral of the story? Radfems need to think out their silly ideas before they word vomit all over our screens.
I’m hoping as I write this response that I’ll understand why these are the topics that sprang to mind.
A couple years ago, I was invited to participate in a Body Electric workshop. I looked into it, talked with folks who attended and led the workshop. Ultimately, I ended up not going. Here’s the thing – Body Electric workshops are intended to function essentially as a weekend of gay male separatism. All gay men and nothing but gay men all weekend? Kill me now. I used to attend the gay men’s health summits and would find myself running as fast as possible to church afterwards to be with straight people. I was talking with a gay man about my age who had lived at a Radical Faery retreat center in New Mexico or Arizona – somewhere desert southwest. His descriptions were incredibly positive but I thought it sounded stultifying and counterproductive.
There’s pretty convincing evidence that the best way to combat anti-gay prejudice is for gay persons to simply be openly themselves – self-segregating into a “safe” gay community does nothing to combat anti-gay prejudice. As a temporary measure I see it’s worth. But, you can’t fix a social problem if you don’t involve a broad social base – i.e. gay people won’t achieve legal equality until straight people are on board with it.
In framing the radical feminist argument, I see Meghan Murphy essentially claiming little or no role for men in feminism and yet also arguing that the problem is men. I don’t see how that can be a solution. If the argument were sometimes you need women only spaces then you go back into society at large and build broad coalitions and work for general improvement, I’d get it, but that doesn’t seem to be the argument.
When she wrote she’s not sure a man can teach feminism to women, isn’t that tantamount to saying it’s not an academic subject with defined body of knowledge and literature? If you have to be female to teach feminism, doesn’t that imply it does not belong in the university setting?
A common refrain from radical feminists says that women are being silenced or made invisible, so when Meghan Murphy dismissed women who have positive experiences as sex workers (“whether or not she enjoys her work is, in my opinion, irrelevant in the context of the feminist movement”), isn’t she doing exactly what feminists accuse men of doing?
Women who have positive experiences as sex workers aren’t going to tell a radical feminist who dismisses them about their experiences. So the women who do talk with radical feminists about sex work are going to be the women who had bad experiences. It’s a basic sampling error.
I would also suggest that her description of how men see and respond to porn is disconnected from how actual men see and respond to porn. Her description strikes me another sort of sampling error or confirmation bias. Of course, the men who talk to her will tell her what she wants to hear and she will hear what she expects to hear from men on the topic of sex and porn. It’s noteworthy to me that at least among the straight men I know, it’s always the married men not the single ones who want to go to the titty bar.
We project a lot of ourselves and our biases onto what we see and read. If you believe men want to inherently oppress women, especially using sex to do so, then almost any depiction of sex will communicate that to you. When I read a line such as “Men don’t watch pornography and see full human beings, they see things, they see something which exists to provide them with pleasure, it’s all for their eyes” I don’t see an accurate reporting of what men actually think, believe or feel in response to porn. Do let’s be honest, if a man were to make such a blanket and inaccurate statement about women, I’d bet you dollars to doughnuts that Meghan Murphy would be among the first to object loudly (and rightfully).
Which maybe brings me full circle. The Radical Faeries see being gay as a broad, all-encompassing identity. Being gay is so much a part of their worldview they don’t see straight people as people and when I read many of Meghan Murphy’s answers to Hugo’s questions, I see if someone who doesn’t see men as fully human. Most of the radical feminist writing I read seems obsessed with men, yet sees them through a glass darkly, seeing not actual men or listening to them or even caring what they have to say unless it fits with the pre-defined radical feminist narrative.
I’m sure there’s more to say, especially about sex and relationships, but I’m out of time for now.
Banning pornography drives it underground, where the situation for the workers become even more questionable and risky.
My view of feminism is that we start from the foundation and work upwards, meaning we first fight for the most vulnerable women first. One thing that I find painful is that a lot of solutions regarding prostitution and pornography that feminist women put forth- actually endanger the women that work in the industry. Driving pornography underground will, for example, very much hurt the women in it because what little oversight they have of their industry will get worse.
Murphy’s entire answer to the final question about sex is precious. It’s actually a little funny to me. “Ooo . . . we’ll enjoy some good old-fashioned pegging and that will show the patriarchy what’s what.” Seriously? That’s what you got?
Ask any enthusiastic bottom and he’ll tell you a penis entering an orifice doesn’t make you vulnerable. At the risk of sharing too much, I can honestly say that some of the times in my life that I’ve been most in charge during sex occurred while bottoming; among S&M enthusiasts, it’s called “topping from below” and done right, it’s a hella good time for one and all.
Most of Murphy’s answer buys into the very paradigm she claims to dislike – that being the receptive partner is the passive role during sex and that if you change who is being penetrated then you’ve changed the power dynamic. That construct views relationships as entirely physical, which is obviously untrue.
Watch heterosexual couples and you can the emotional dynamics of the relationships and very often you will see that the woman is emotional caretaker in the relationship. But, even if the man is the emotional caretaker, that doesn’t automatically translate into the woman’sdesires being ignored. Being the emotional caretaker is not the same thing as being in control and doesn’t translate into the other partner being oppressed or harmed. How do I know?
Same sex couples obviously fall into the same set of roles – one partner plays the role of emotional caretaker, the other of physical caretaker. Our society tends to socialize women to be the emotional caretakers but that’s far from absolute (i.e. my grandfather was the emotional caretaker, my grandmother the physical caretaker). But, in any relationship the same work has to be done.
Going back to Murphy’s answer you also see built into it the assumption of woman as sex traffic cop (“Or you could just lose the penetration entirely. Particularly if it’s not something that a woman enjoys”). I think she means well, but this is a very 1950s construct about sexual relationships. Again, we can turn to same sex relationships for models of solutions – not every gay man likes bottoming during anal sex – sometimes two tops fall in love. They figure it out because they aren’t married to the idea of anal intercourse. OTOH, they are pretty much engaged with the idea of mutual physical pleasure, of negotiating what works and what doesn’t for them. They don’t get hung up on the idea of penetration and rather focus on pleasure – ironically enough once you get past the notion that you’re obliged to do something, it’s can get pretty fun and lots of same sex couples have very inventive and fulfilling sex lives as a result.
“Just as the legitimacy of my relationship is marginalized because I don’t believe in marriage, the legitimacy of any relationship that does not involve penetrative sex is marginalized. What about the radical act of loving? What about friendship? What about real trust? Does love not ‘count’ unless there is ‘sex’ or penetration? My relationship, my version of ‘family’ (which, yes, does include my puppy dog) is marginalized also because I don’t want children. I mean, when we are realistic and honest about all these things, our society starts to look pretty conservative no? Love + penetrative sex + marriage + children.”
This passage is a good example of the way in which the radical feminist critique feels trapped in the past – this is a critique of the social scene circa 1973 not 2011. Even in the US which is by many measures more socially conservative than other Western nations, every day life is marked by great variety in relationship statuses and arrangements which pass largely unremarked by most people. She bewails that her (apparently) heterosexual relationship is marginalized because she doesn’t believe in marriage. If that marginalization bothers her, she can get a marriage license. No one cares how she and her spouse arrange how they relate to one another – they can be as unconventional (pegging and all) as they want; if all that’s marginalizing them is the lack of a marriage certificate there’s an obvious solution. Radical feminist not getting married doesn’t have any effect on the Duggars and their quiverfull of offspring.
“Your love/relationship/family/life is just as meaningful and legitimate as anyone’s, regardless of whether or not you and your partner have sex (in whatever form that manisfests itself), regardless of whether or not you marry (and yes, I do think that, as feminists we should be challenging the institution of marriage), regardless of whether or not you are monogamous, and regardless of whether or not you reproduce.”
That’s a beautiful notion and one I agree with. But it’s a red herring in Murphy’s argument. If a heterosexual acts as if they’re married, the actual legal status of their relationship largely doesn’t matter (people will assume their married), people won’t ask about the nature of the sex they have, whether they’re strictly monogamous and are likely to interpret the lack of children as a medical problem (i.e. unable to conceive) and respond with compassion, not judgment. Unless said heterosexual couple tub thumps on about their unconventional sex life and political reasons for not having kids, they can pretty easily get all the heterosexual privilege they want regardless of the nature or legal status of their relationship. So the price to not be marginalized is the occassional tactical refusal to confirm or deny something. If you opt to be marginalized because of what you believe, you don’t get to complain about being marginalzed.
@glendenb Let me reiterate. I’m no expert. Switching roles is just a friendly suggestion for those interested. There is no way that I would have delved into this subject matter had Hugo not asked me. I think I was pretty clear that I hadn’t even really thought it through much before and, therefore, shared a suggestion offered by a friend who HAD felt that this changed dynamics in her relationship. I don’t actually care what people do within their own relationships in order to create an egalitarian one. I’ve never written about it before and have never argued for or against PIV. To be honest, I’m not quite sure why Hugo asked me this question, other than curiosity as to what my answer would be, maybe? Seemed a bit out of the blue. So I did my best, qualifying my answer with ‘I’ve only recently learned about those arguments, so I can’t speak to them with any kind of expertise.’ And hey, I’m not complaining about being marginalized, I’m just pointing out that married heteros’ relationships are given more legitimacy than non-married / non-heteros. Marriages wouldn’t happen otherwise. What exactly is the point in this day and age? You put a lot of time and effort in here just to put words into my mouth and thoughts into my head. I imagine those efforts would be better spent engaging someone who actually had an opinion, and/or expertise on the subject, though I find that commenters like you rarely care what was said and , more often than not, are just looking for a place to spout off.
I have found msyelf agreeing and disagreeing with Hugo as I’ve read his blog over the last two years, but one basic truth that he has reiterated frequently that really resonates with me is the simple, foundational feminist idea: “trust women.”
I started to read radical feminist blogs about a year ago, and I’m seeing a pattern: I see radical feminists selectively trusting women. factcheckme does not trust women who report that they enjoy PIV intercourse; she sees it as “trauma bonding,” an unconscious psychological reaction to an act of oppression that legitimizes PIV in the mind of the oppressed woman. She has also asserted that pornopgraphy contracts equal rape, even when she was explicitly told by multiple readers on her blog that they were NOT raped on set and never felt coerced on set. Again, she does not trust these women to define their own experiences. She’d rather tell them that they were coerced, that they were raped.
As for Ms. Murphy, she states: “So I tend not to entirely trust men who aren’t willing to lose the privilege, to stand with women to end sexist exploitation, and to actually challenge that which is accepted in patriarchal society (i.e. the objectification of female bodies).”
If she doesn’t trust men, that’s her right. But here’s how I read this. Earlier up, she stated that all sex work is exploitative, that pornography and prostitution are rape. To say, even obliquely, to sex workers that their experience is rape gives them short shrift. When sex workers under the Nordic model have actively protested against that model because it endangers them, and are then ignored by feminists (many radical, some not-so-radical) these feminists are effectively arguing AGAINST female harm-prevention. They are distrusting the lived experiences of women who want to work without the fear and real, immediate danger that comes with sex work being forced underground. Who should I trust in an argument about the legality of sex work? The sex workers, duh! This argument for ending sex work MIGHT have some legitimacy if it could be proved that sex work such as prostitution, stripping, and pornography were causes of violence against women, but, as Dobb points out, statistics show that’s not the case. Why would I, as a man, want to stand with radical feminists who want to “end sexist exploitation” if the so-called “sexist exploitation” known to most of us as sex work hasn’t even been proven to perpetuate these things in society? Why stand with a movement that brushes aside women who insist they are not victims?
Ignoring and distrusting the words and lived experiences of women who don’t agree with what you have to say, whether it’s because you see them as patriarchal dupes or just mentally ill (trauma bonding), can hardly be called feminism at all.
Couple of comments:
The view of radical feminism as a more complete, “deeper” critique than liberal feminism may hold true; I claim no expertise on liberal feminism. But the difference between radical feminism and socialist feminism comes down not to depth of commitment but to analysis: radical feminism asserts that the radix, or root, of womens’ problems and social problems generally begins and to a significant degree ends with patriarchy. By contrasts, socialist feminists like Cela Sandoval have identified multiple intersecting social forces and norms that produce oppression. While this vision of socialist feminism works better as a model to for my own experience of life and of activism, I only insist that it does not do to evaluate other forms of feminism and feminist analysis as incomplete or compromised versions of radical feminism.
The “slutwalk movement” seems to me to have a simple message, one which I cannot understand any objections to: no woman, whatever she wears, thinks, or does, deserves rape. If women on “slutwalk” make comments about sexual freedom you find inappropriate, say so: but the “slutwalks” do not, in and of themselves have anything to say about sex, or dressing, or even about sex work. As far as I can see, they address sexual violence and nothing else.
@Catty: I agree completely.
I posted some comments on “sex work” as well as an article in part 1.
@John, as a socialist feminist myself, I can tell you that you simply haven’t done your homework on SW. There are implicit as well as some explicit messages about sexual liberation that is only to be found in the capitalist patriarchy. Moreover, there has been little discussion of the material conditions that foster violence.
Silly ideas? Word vomit?
“If you opt to be marginalized because of what you believe, you don’t get to complain about being marginalzed.”
???
Are the Good Men Project recruits, Hugo?
Murphy is right on target. And I think she argues very well that men really have no business teaching women’s studies to women, and that this takes jobs away from women who created the discipline from the get go. I’m glad she’s reading FCM and others on the critique of PIV, and how women have a perfect right to say this doesn’t come close to equally “sex” as men define it. I think as feminists we have to question everything men claim is sexual, we have to look at who benefits from these “ideas” of what is and what is not sex. And we have to drop the heteronormative “crap” as Murphy so plainly puts it.
If we can quantify that 80-90% of pornography involves aggression, violence and degredation… I think we need to take a hard look at what men are doing watching this stuff. And men do need to lose the privilege and take a back seat in the movement. They have no business instructing women on anything, and need to focus 100% of their time on other men, educating men, so that women can concentrate on growing the movement of talking to women. The most radical thing about radical feminism is reaching critical mass, so that all women can know that PIV might be very oppressive, that it doesn’t define a female centered view of sex, and that PIV is about male pleasure. Most women have never heard a critique of PIV, a lot of women won’t have the chance to take a women’s studies class from a woman, and that is a huge shame. It cheats women out of a dynamic education, a voice uncensored by men in the classroom, and this is huge. That any man would want a position of power in that context is completely and utterly about undermining the very feminism they purport to support. What is radical is the message of liberation for women, and for as many women as possible to hear this message uncensored, unfiltered and unedited by male conflict of interest. Just because one woman or two might say they “enjoy” prostitution, doesn’t make the norm palatable. The content of pornography and its growing influence around the world should be shocking and disturbing to all men raising girls. A strong refusal to ever engage in PIV is every woman’s right, and men have such a censoring role in the critique of this male “entitlement” that just about anything men write on the subject is highly suspect. Radical feminism is about questioning the root of the problem. Liberal feminism says the choice is a true one, when we know full well that just about all women on the planet given a real choice would choose jobs that are well paid, that don’t involve servicing violent Johns, and don’t involve having their body used up and disgarded or murdered by johns. But men don’t want a world where women have access to all the top jobs at Fortune 500 companies, or all the seats on the Supreme Court or all the professorships of women’s studies classes. Men don’t want women to have real economic power or the right globally to say no to marriage, children or PIV. Men want to maintain their power to define the human race, and to control access to knowledge. It can be as simple as taking a job teaching women’s studies to young women or as evil as raping prostitutes and then thinking that paying for this “service” makes it ok. Thanks to Murphy’s article, it is the most powerful feminism I have read here. A woman’s voice when she is exposed to radical arguments against PIV or radical arguments getting at the truth of porn or prostitution is what revolution is all about. Men have a role in educating other men, in putting a stop to rape, in talking out loud about ending PIV as the definition of sex. That’s what men can do, and I don’t see them doing it loudly or in large numbers. I see them very entitled very smug and very secure in their position and power, and I read through every line their idea that there is nothing wrong with teaching women’s studies to women. She sheer nerve of that kind of privilege and entitlement is the very opposite of women’s liberation… and it is sheer delusion on the part of men that this is ok.
It’s noteworthy to me that at least among the straight men I know, it’s always the married men not the single ones who want to go to the titty bar.
I don’t understand what you mean by it. What are the courses of this in your opinion and what does it show?
I think Meghan’s answers were brilliant.
Many of the comments here spoke in ways that failed to engage with what Meaghan actually said but just reiterated a defense of slutwalk or “sex work” in their own terms. Some hit on kernels of truth–the person who focused on the PIV point– I’m a radical feminist who also thinks that’s a red herring. Penetration isn’t the point, and it did trap you a bit, Meghan, into focusing on interpersonal behavior (of which sure perhaps in subcultures at least there is a great variety of positions taken in the bedroom-or maybe not..) when the real issue is what you call “power” and I call sexualization in general-the organization of society around male dominance which includes the sexualization (starting in infancy) of girls and women to be “for men”–i.e. feminine-ized at the root. Liberalism is genius in its intersection with (hetero)sexualization–since today women’s subordination/sexualization expresses itself as choice, autonomy etc: My choice to express myself as a “slut” which for some strange reason doesn’t deviate a jot from mainstream banalized and pornographic versions of the same. Very rebellious -NOT. Individual changes in the bedroom have no impact on the social structure as a whole.
So i’m agreeing with Megan on the important point of looking at liberalism’s role, but disagreeing with your–Meghan’s– idea that rape is power not sex. That’s only true if there is a “real” sex vs. how sex is actually enacted today (see MacKinnon on this). Sex is in what it means in the real world, and in the real world, sex is hetero-sex and defined by male interests and desire. Rape is part of this.
re: the teeny minority of self defined “sex workers” who enjoy it. Since when is enjoyment or pleasure or *feelings* of empowerment–*feelings* in and of themselves- the same as truth or reality? What sort of argument is being made here? Feelings are also socially constructed in a capitalist/patriarchal society: think of mania for commodities; see the mobs going crazy after sports events (like in Vancouver now?). Lots of feeling there: does it mean consumerism and mob-violence is ok? Men feel empowered by raping: so, do we validate rape? Abolitionists of slavery didn’t care what made a few slaves content–slavery is wrong. Selling people is wrong, no matter how content someone is to sell themselves. These ideas about individual empowerment and pleasure are all part of the way we are bamboozled in neoliberalism. Since when has being content with one’s lot stood as an argument that one’s lot is therefore just and right? We don’t have to tell an individual woman “porn star” about what her “experience” is in order to critique the prostitution of women as a societal institution–to critique the demand by men that women’s bodies are for sale.
about a man teaching women’s studies: Yes, women’s studies is an intellectual discipline but it is far more than that. It can be taught as a set of ideas and information, sure. But when you get deep as a teacher as I do, it’s a form of consciousness-raising where a certain kind of community is built between professor and students that allows for all of us to make crucial connections between our experiences and systems of domination. Since the professor has authority in this situation and there are grades, etc. it’s not real consciousness-raising but it is life changing for many women. I don’t think that men should be authorized in this way to educate women. I do teach young men–usually they add value to the class (sometimes sink it by monopolizing and obstructing, luckily this has been rare in my own experience), but there’s something unique about an all women’s class that usually, not always, brings about the most transformative types of learning experiences when studying feminism.
On a more banal scale, there is gender inequality in educational institutions and thus it does seem inexcusable for a women’s studies dept to hire a man.
A man’s role as a *leader* in feminist work is very problematic and I stand with Stephen Heath on this one. and it’s not about an identity politics. it has do to with the way men are authorized and valorized as “mansplainers”–feminists get caught up in this, how can we not, we’re women, and men’s authority as men is integral to our subordination. This doesn’t mean i think men should stay out of debate and deliberation or from organizing other men to combat pornography, prostitution, etc.
There’s a lot more to say- but that’s it for now.
This has been a great set of posts. In response to Dobb and Catty, there’s been some empirical work on approaches to prostitution and trafficking in Europe; according to Catharine MacKinnon, this shows that legalization and regulation can make things worse for many women in the sex industry. I can try to find citations for this if anyone’s interested.
A few comments directed at Meghan Murphy:
- You seem to be working with a false exclusion when you argue that men can’t be feminist leaders because women should be feminist leaders. Both women and men — and transfolks and intersex folks — can be feminist leaders. In his paper `Ally Identity’, sociologist Dan Myers makes the point that allies can speak against their interests (men against the oppression of women; whites against the exploitation of blacks; straights against the marginalization of LGBTQs) in a very rhetorically powerful way. Robert Jensen’s critiques of pornography are much more damning than Gail Dines’, in the minds of a lot of readers, precisely because of their respective genders.
This isn’t to say that safe spaces — not even allies allowed — aren’t important, or that allies run a special risk of hijacking a movement. The feminist movement is large enough to have multiple leaders working on multiple fronts — and some of these leaders can (and, I think, should) be men.
- By denying that prostitution (and, presumably, performing in pornography and so on) is work, you foreclose the possibility of an economic analysis of the sex industry. Many women enter the sex industry for economic reasons, and they end up trapped in it for further economic reasons; pimps and johns have the power because they have the money. Trafficking is also, first and foremost, the commodification of women’s bodies: an adolescent girl (or younger) is sold to put food on her family’s table.
Critiques of the sex industry that rely on the effects of pornography on our erotic psychology and `rape culture’ are hard to support with empirical data and tend to make the sex industry seem sui generis (in its own special category). Economic critiques, by contrast, are generally straightforward to support, and provide a point on which feminists can make common cause with anti-poverty, labor, and human development activists. Sex work is work, and like many other forms of work in our society it’s exploitative and oppressive.
- You’re entirely right that rape is about power, domination, control, and humiliation. It’s also sex. Rape is the exercise of power and the humiliation of the victim through sex. Trying to separate rape and sex just leads to the confusions and convolutions of your answer to Hugo’s question. It’s far simpler and clearer to just say that rape is sex, but one kind of sex, and not the way sex should be.
Meghan – my last comment started off with snark, that was disrespectful and I apologize.
I think it’s fair to assume you agreed with the advice you were passing on. It’s fair to point out that advice seems to reduce the question of power in relationship solely to the physical question of whose being physically penetrated during intercourse and ignoring the emotional side of relationships.
It’s valid to point out that being the receptive partner during sexual activity is not the same thing as being vulnerable or out of control – as revealed by the experiences of gay men who enjoy being the receptive partner. The radical feminist analysis of sexuality seems to imply that being the receptive partner is inherently a passive act but that analysis is undermined, imo, by the experiences of same sex couples whose sexual behaviors include penetration between equals (in both female and male couples) and who don’t experience it as inherently passive, vulnerable or degrading.
Also, your construct of how society functions and the reasons you experience marginalization seem flawed and based on an understanding of how society regards relationships that is outdated.
I believe the ways in which you describe the male experience of sexuality, porn, etc., is not accurate, but rather reflects an understanding which is fed by sampling and confirmation bias – you hear what you expect to hear and people who disagree with you don’t share their views and experiences while people who agree with you do. To put it another way, you’re accurately reporting what you hear, but what you’re hearing is biased.
Glendenb: you are fetishizing one point out of an entire discussion- the point about penetration. This makes you appear to dodge the major context of her ideas. it was not an issue that she has reflected much on, and she gave it some thought, but it was in the context of much larger points about male power in society and rape and sexuality.
what aspect of “male experience of sexuality and porn” do you believe is inaccurate? Where does Meghan even refer to men’s “experience” of porn? In addition to ejaculating over the degradation of women in MAINSTREAM porn–and degradation is putting it incredibly mildly– what aspect of the experience is important to address that you think is left out?
Banning pornography drives it underground, where the situation for the workers become even more questionable and risky.
Other than rape, what violent crimes gain the perpetrators a significant profit if they videorecord and distribute copies? What other violent crimes are commonly recorded by the perpetrators at all?
Not all porn is coerced exploitation, but I believe most is, and I think any person familiar with the issue can readily believe that enough porn is made in damaging, criminal ways to warrant better solutions than the current free market is allowing.
I am not sure what was really expected from this “dialogue.”
Having looked over the arguments made here by self-identified radical feminists, one thing is more clear to me than ever: radical feminism is based on a completely tautological argument.
You are required to accept a set of untestable assumptions (indeed, according to Millet’s writings, any attempt to test them would just be more patriarchy-control-mechanism, a circular argument if ever heard), and then “conclusions” are drawn from these assumptions.
But the conclusions are just the assumptions re-stated, without any real additional insight (everything men do is designed to oppress, pornography is something men do, ergo pornography is oppressive, then act like this is somehow an insight and not the assumption restated). In the truest hallmark of pseudoscience, any obervation that contradicts the underlying assumption, in this case the specific positive experiences of women employed in sex work, is completely ignored or argued to be irrelevant.
When one side is employing argument-by-assumption, and the other argument-by-observation, where is common ground going to come from?
kathy – in my first comment in this thread I quoted Murphy’s statement about men and how they experience porn. Her exact words, again, were: “Men don’t watch pornography and see full human beings, they see things, they see something which exists to provide them with pleasure, it’s all for their eyes.”
That statement reflects what radical feminism has been preaching since Andrea Dworking first wrote about it. It reminds of Ted Bundy’s claim that porn made him murder women; lots of people jumped on that claim and treated it as gospel truth and used it to argue against porn. Given Bundy’s sociopathy and his near constant manipulation of people and institutions, his claim has little credibility.
As someone else has pointed out (either in this thread or other one on the dialogue between Hugo and Meghan), instances of rape have actually declined in the last decade, despite the far more widespread availability of porn in the last decade. That suggests the link between porn and rape is far more tenuous than we might believe. If men respond to porn at Murphy claims, then shouldn’t we have seen just the opposite occur as porn has become more readily available in the last decade?
Hugo has written extensively about male sexuality and I think one of the most insightful things he argues is that men – especially straight men – rarely experience the feeling of being desired. Based on the relatively little straight porn I’ve seen, it caters to the desire to be desired, to have the male body not treated as something worthy of being physically desired, touched, valued. Desire is complex and our society tends to pathologize male sexual desire as out of control, scary, cringeworthy, laughable or unimportant. When we acknowledge it honestly for what it is and what it isn’t then we can move forward. To put it more bluntly, when Murphy describes men as watching porn and seeing only objects, she’s reading her interpretation into the male experience.
I know she’s not a favorite of Hugo’s but I think Louann Brizendine provides an interesting insight into the impact of hormones on the brain and her insights into the ways in which men experience sexuality an desire as a result of brain chemistry are interesting. Testosterone increases libido. Andrew Sullivan wrote an interesting essay on his experience taking testosterone injections and how postiviely it affected his moods, mental state, and level of sexual desire (as well as some less positive effects). Chaz Bono has said something interesting things about the effect of “t” on his life. The fundamental point, however, is that male sexuality, male desire, the male response to porn, to women, to sex, is more nuanced and complex than Murphy’s description credits it with being. Now, do some men respond as she says? Yes. Some men rob banks, that doesn’t mean all men are bank robbers. Some women abuse their children, that doesn’t mean all women are child abusers.
@Dan
The Dutch model’s problems stem largely from the incomplete nature of its legalization. They made it ok in Brothels, but not in the street, giving brothel owners enourmous power over most sex workers. Said owners are involved in the trafficking trade as well. Also the rather ubiquitous racism that runs through dutch society doesn’t help. Women who are trafficked in don’t have many places to turn when idiots like Geert Wilders is yapping his fascist mouth off.
As was discussed in the previous thread, the New Zealand model seems to have solved those problems by legalizing it in the street, giving sex workers more power over the brothel owners. In addition NZ’s location and more robust legal system make it more difficult to traffic people in.
Also Robert Jensen is insufferable. For all our sakes don’t give him any more attention than he already has. Last I checked he was “exploring the radical possiblities of celibacy” or some other stereotypical white academic idiocy. My nonexistent God, what is wrong with people with PhDs?
The thing that most disappoints me about radical feminism is an apparent unwillingness to believe that men could ever be against something that, by-and-large, benefits men — the so-called patriarchy. Or that men’s actions could be effective against it.
Male power unquestionably perpetuates the sexist rules, attitudes and institutions of our society. But that’s not to say that male power cannot tear them down, either.
Hugo stands as as patriarchal a symbol as you like — a male professor, a stereotypical source of male authority. And then he goes and tells us about the myriad ways in which male authority is harmful. That’s brilliant. It subverts expectations, it makes people think… and I expect he is good at the job, too.
As for porn, Hugo understands the basic quandary of a make within the feminist movement; if he takes a stance for or against it, he would be being unacceptably proscriptive towards what a woman is or is not allowed to do with her body. He states clearly that he, personally, does not use porn, for feminist reasons. This to me suggests his opinions are markedly different from the sex-positive feminists. Implying that he supports them just because he refrains from publicly denouncing them is both juvenile and underhanded.
The person who used “logic” to criticize radical feminism as a tautology is laughable. He constructed a completely straw argument never to be found anywhere in radical feminism. The argument against pornography exposes the mechanisms of men’s dominatino of women–it does not assume that pornography is bad because men are bad.
I’ve been up against this kind of mansplaining logic before– pretty hilarious if it wasn’t such a mind-numbing assault on intelligence. It’s a transparent way to avoid anything substantive that has been said on this thread.
glennbd: “Men don’t watch pornography and see full human beings, they see things, they see something which exists to provide them with pleasure, it’s all for their eyes.” This is supposed to be a false or unfair interpretation of male experience? even though it is men who consume/ejaculate over pornography, and men who producte pornography, and men who use the idioms in pornography in common day sexual slurs (“scum bucket”). Consuming and ejaculating over porn is experiencing porn; the content of porn shows men ejaculating all over a women’s face, having women eat feces–ATM or ass to mouth ejaculation,and gang rapes, whippings of women. Is that or is that not the thing-ifying of women? thus here is pornography: men ejaculating over women, penetrating them, beating them, etc. And Here is the consumer of porn: men. Men therefore have in their desire for porn and use of it have the experience of wanting to see and of looking at women as objects/things. What is disputable in this argument? and by teh way, the most common place porn is the most rabid, vicious, and degrading that porn has ever been: this is based on empirical studies. See Gail Dines’ book, Pornland.
“Moral of the story? Radfems need to think out their silly ideas before they word vomit all over our screens.”
Really?
moral of the story: the staggering level of ignorance about feminist theory including research on legalization and decriminalization of pornography the and brute entitlement expressed as hostile defensiveness and the puffed up, chest-beating displays of arrogant stupidity tha tth MRAs on this list show– like this bla bla is “tautology”– wow you know a big word. now do you really know what tautology is? have you actually opened a radical feminist book or article on pornography so you can support your point? you feel you can say anything, make anything up and smear it all over the place. All of this is evidence folks on why feminists should stay clear of men, and organize autonomously.
who is not thinking through their ideas? give me one example of a dude here who has thought through one attack they have leveled at radical feminism? vomiting on th scree- yes, but with all of you spraying your junk all over the screen–just like in pornography, the gag reflex is re-activatd with each new post. Women/feminists- cut them loose!
Kathy,
Thank you for,
One: Putting words in my mouth (I never said “men are bad” but if that’s what you want to hear…?)
Two: Attempting to defeat my argument with catchphrases (mansplaining…?) rather than actual responses. You want to claim that the Radical Feminist arguments against porn aren’t tautological; then just set one out. Give me an argument that does not rely on untestable assumptions.
Three: Assuming you can read the minds of men. You literally have no ability to know what goes on in the mind of any man watching porn, let alone men who consume porn in general. Way to go ahead with unsubstantiated assumptions though (and you wonder why I called the arguments tautological in the first place?).
Four: Confirming everything I have ever thought about the way Radical Feminists defend their points.
Regarding penetration in all its forms: PIV is problematic, not because it is inherently about man’s power over woman’s, but because it is ONLY women who will suffer the various consequences of this specific type of penetration, by men. I.e. pregnancy and its myriad complications including physical and emotional collateral damage, medical problems such as fistulas, etc.
Penetration in other contexts (gay, lesbian) may be about power or may not, but male-to-female penetration (or enveloping, if you prefer) create unique concerns for women.
It’s not about sexual positions.
@Kathy
How is it offensive to point out how little rad fems think through their arguments? Seriously, if they’re gonna advocate for the abolition of porn they first need to provide a framework where that’s even possible. Otherwise they come across like the Temperance movement, well intentioned but with no capacity for critical self reflection. You can’t ban a popular and socially accepted product and expect it to disappear. Especially something so easily distributed as porn. It’s the ideal contraband, it takes up no space, can be easily encrypted and all evidence can be wiped in an instant. You also can’t ban a popular product without it going underground where criminals and socipaths run the show. At least today porn performers can get paid, and if they were smart, they could organize. Make it illegal and we head into murkier waters. The same logic applies to prostitution, the drug trade, OTC financial instruments, any black market really. They all promote the brute “chest thumping” behavior you so despise.
No matter what you think of sex work, banning it is impossible under capitalism. You just can’t do it. Men (and an increasing number of women) will pay any premium for it. If wages weren’t necessary, if we didn’t have to sell ourselves to an employer or the market…well that’d be different; most sex work would go away in a socialist economy. Not, a Swedish social democratic economy, but an actual democratic socialist, post capitalist system…like Star Trek. The Federation ain’t got no prostitutes cuz it ain’t got no currency.
Dunno about porn though. Something tells me that kink.com types would make porn no matter what. They’re in it for the love of the game
So, kathy your 2:33 comment is a prime example of the dynamic Martha Nussbaum has written about – the attempt to excite disgust as a means of shutting down rational discussion.
As a piece of rhetoric, it’s effective enough.
You made no attempt at even a cursory textual analysis. Instead, you engage the rhetoric of filth, the idea that sexuality is inherently filthy – your juxtaposition of sexuality and scum is nothing more than a message that sexuality is filthy, infectious, dangerous. Your juxtaposition of ejaculation and consumption is a deliberate attempt to confuse the issue, to heighten the emotional response rather than the intellectual one. You then deliberately conflate semen with excrement in an attempt to excite disgust – if semen is excremental then the reader must be offended by it, as a substance it must be filthy, to be touched by it is to be infected. As a piece of intellectual argument it utterly fails, as a piece of mythic performance engaging attitudes about filth and cleanliness it serves to disrupt rather than advance discussion.
As you construct it, seminal filth is put onto women, degrading them. You even invent something which literally is physically impossible (ass to mouth ejaculation) to drive home your disgust activating imagery. You even include the term rabid to further activate the emotional concept of infection.
Your comment has a great deal in common with “Porno” Pete LaBarbera and his anti-gay screeds – the focus on the physical, the language and imagery of filth and infection, the deliberately conflating the extreme with the ordinary, the unremarkable with the offensive in an attempt to short circuit discussion and undermine any attempt at rational discussion. Rhetoric such as yours isn’t about argument it is about scapegoating – about identifying men and male sexuality as filthy, infectious and dangerous and is used without regard to actual facts on the ground.
The risk of such rhetorical tactics should be obvious – the language of filth, of moral uncleanliness, of infection, has historically been applied to minority groups – lesbians, gay men, women, persons of color, immigrants. IOW, you are using the same rhetorical tactics of the very patriarchy you claim to believe is the source of women’s oppression.
Thanks for this dick-ological instruction. I’m sorry but calling a woman a “cum bucket” (to take one example of a common sexual slur) is directly related to the way pornography is constructed–including ejaculation–as part of women’s degradation. A stock element of this pornography is a group of men ejaculating on a woman’s face. Do you think this kind of language used against women has something to do with how semen is used in pornography on and against women. Is cum bucket somehow complimentary to a woman or part of a vocabulary that keeps women in line, reminding women of their essential(ized) disgusting nature as “whores”?? How do you think women feel afflicted every which way with this kind of language. There is no parallel vocabulary of disgust with the male. and if My use of it raises the specter of a new vocabulary of disgust, then hey- maybe it’s useful.
However it’s You who are using the language of infection and filth, not me. It is pornography that sees ejaculation as filthy but even filthier -the woman is who covered in it. What is this trend of spraying over a woman’s face? where does it come from?
and i made up ATM?? really??– I suggest you do some research as this is stock action of mainstream porn which involves having a penis in a woman’s anus first and then having her suck that penis, feces usually involved.
What “textual” analysis are you referring to?
Your bizarro tactic of conflating *critique* with affirmation is a tried and true form of intellectual ji jutsu: critiquing what pornography does to women is not reiterating the pornographic view of women. School yourself on the meaning of *critique.*
Kathy, “dick-ological” and “mansplaining” are “shut-down” words that have no place on my blog. If you really want a dialogue, you won’t use them. If you don’t want a dialogue, go to a separatist site where you won’t have to deal with the be-penised.
And Dobb, and the rest of you, let’s not paint all radfems with the same brush. I had hoped that this thread could serve as dialogue for a civil exploration of differences. Those who cannot pledge civility as part of that dialogue can go to the numerous places on the interweb where they can rant to their own choirs.
In the ages 18 to 35 Our Whole Lives curriculum, there’s a great line quote that says “Homophobia is really erotophobia.”
There’s a strong cultural current that treats sexuality as dangerous – something which must be contained, controlled, girt round with taboo and managed by powerful restraining forces. In the religious right’s narrative, the choices are church sanctioned, heterosexual monogamous marriage versus absolute sexual license – the fear often stated bluntly is that permitting same sex couples to marry would be the equivalent of abandoning all forms of sexual morality. From the non-liberal left, we see a similar concern with sexuality – a similar desire to control it through strict taboo and a similar perspective on sexuality as dangerous, out of control, and damaging. While the two sides arrived at their positions very differently and for very different reasons and understandings of society, they have in essence become mirror images of each other.
In the middle is the liberal position – which recognizes both risk and reward, which tries to mitigate harm while maximizing individual freedom. Ss a liberal Christian and a sexuality educator in my denomination, my thinking about sexuality is informed by both tradition and current medical and scientific evidence. As a Christian, I believe the old saying Gloria Dei, Homo Vivens – the glory of God is humanity fully alive. Part of that fully aliveness is fully alive to our sexuality, to embracing and celebrating it without treating it as disgusting, horrifying, shocking and bad. Within the Christian tradition, sexuality has been treated in many different ways – despite their bad reputations, the Puritans were actually pretty lusty and encouraged married couples to enthusiastically and unabashedly discuss and experience their sexuality with one another (some of the letters written between puritan husbands and wives are capable of shocking us today in their sexual frankness). Our sexuality can and should enhance our lives.
It is, therefore, with no small dismay that I read kathy’s comment celebrating the idea that she might expand the dialogue of disgust toward human sexuality. Equal opportunity disgust is really only means equality in misery and suffering. Our bodies are gifts from the Divine, they are given us as an avenue to experience joy, pleasure, communion with another person. How can anyone regard such a gift as disgusting and see that as progress?
The overall project (if you’ll pardon the language) is to cease stigmatizing human sexuality, to celebrate our creativity in giving one another physical pleasure. This means we must engage one another in discussion.
As for example, I do not believe the majority of men regard semen as filthy. Ejaculating onto one’s partner’s body is not seen as an act of defilement for most men. I realize the doctrinnaire radical feminist reading sees that act as one of defilement, but that doesn’t mean it is. Perhaps the reality lies in between the two (otoh, certainly among gay men the act is not regarded as problematic which to me suggests a flaw in the radical feminist perspective on it). I believe that most men regard female sexuality and bodies as beautiful, desirable, wonderful, admirable; for straight men, there is huge vulnerability when they relate to women which unfortunately is often expressed as disdain towards women – but it’s more nuanced and complex than the simple “woman hating” formulation of radical feminism. Yes, our culture can be deeply schizoid about sexuality but that’s not the same thing as universal disdain, disgust or dislike. Men enjoy sexuality and hope their partners will enjoy it as well.
Hiding – often in plain sight – in both fundamentalist religion and radical feminism is a profound distrust towards sexuality in general, a tendency to use language of filth, of infection, of dominance, of cleanliness and uncleanness, about sexuality and to read that language into all expressions of sexuality. Equally, both seem to regard sexuality as purely physical – to describe it as purely physical and to separate it from the emotional component. I believe there exist many reasons for these dynamics but they are present – and I think part of the explanation is our society’s often deep-seated erotophobia.
Anyone who puts the term sex work in “quotes” inspires me to violent thinking, especially if they have never done it and is, regardless of her spin, willing to disregard anyone who says its a job they picked and like as the oddity. I could not bear to read the whole dialogue because of it, really.
Folk like this accuse folk like me of cherry picking. Its ironic really, because they seem to be willing to accept the farley/jensen line as gospel when it is ANYTHING but.
“and i made up ATM?? really??– I suggest you do some research as this is stock action of mainstream porn which involves having a penis in a woman’s anus first and then having her suck that penis, feces usually involved.”
ATM is a common act in porn, but feces usually NOT involved, quite the opposite really.
“Women who have positive experiences as sex workers aren’t going to tell a radical feminist who dismisses them about their experiences. So the women who do talk with radical feminists about sex work are going to be the women who had bad experiences. It’s a basic sampling error.”
EXACTLY. THIS RIGHT HERE. I cannot stress that enough! Radical feminists consistently write off/disregard/ and on occasion out right mock and threaten sex workers whose experiences do not fall in with what they want and need those experiences to be, and thus- treat ‘em like crap….so sex workers who don’t have horror stories are rarely willing to sign on for the dehumanization, abuse, distortion and other assorted bullshit that goes on in dealing with them. And hell, WHY SHOULD THEY?
What you’re saying is that rape victims talk about being raped a lot more than non-raped women talk about not being raped. That goes against everything feminism (all kinds of feminism) has long understood about rape victims and reporting.
What if the large amounts of sexual abuse we’ve heard of in relation to the sex industry is merely the tip of the iceberg because rape victims are the least talkative of violent crime sufferers, with prostitution victims even less willing to speak about their rapes than non-prostitutes? That’s more factually consistent with what feminists (all kinds) know about rape.
I wrote something here and at the other thread last night that hasn’t appeared even though posts written after it have appeared. Were they rejected?
No, Mandos, I haven’t deleted anything from you!
Must have fallen through the WordPress cracks. Grrr.
Kathy, well put. Good work. I don’t see much value in having a nuanced radical feminist discussion with men, but I do see the value of women supporting other women in this endeavor, and alerting women to radical space on the Internet. The most radical thing a woman can do is talk honestly about liberation to other women. The most honest thing male allies can do is to come down very hard on the oppressors who do this to women, and to end rape, woman hating porn and prostitution.
Prostitution is about buying and selling human beings, and it is something that is done almost exclusively by men worldwide. Men believe they own women, that is the story of marriage… it’s origins are in male ownership of female bodies.
And never in the history of the world has an oppressor ever liberated the oppressed… you don’t have British men voluntarily leaving India, you don’t have Russians voluntarily leaving Eastern Europe, and you don’t have men voluntarily end their reign of terror on women worldwide. It’s just not going to happen. I don’t believe that men are going to stop this stuff on their own, I think it’s going to take a global revolution in consciousness on the part of women, and expect extreme pushback, expect appropriation of feminism by men, expect more men to murder and pornify more girls and women, expect men to support slutwalks etc. It is all a part of the process of liberation. The most powerful force in the world is when women gain education, gain power, gain all women spaces to speak to each other honestly and directly without the interruption of men.
You’d think men would be ashamed of what they do to women worldwide, you’d think they’d be ashamed of the world they created, but no, what men want is power, and control of women, what they want is to buy women’s bodies and do degrading things to women. This is what men do in the world, and the horror of it boggles the mind… take a hard look at the rape cultures of the world, a hard look at the mass infanticide of girls or the 100 million girl children who were sex selectively aborted in parts of the world, where the population is now seriously skewed for the next 50 years. So Kathy, thank you for speaking up here, thank you for defending women, for being the feminist you are.
Men, go do the world of changing other men, that’s what I want you to do. Get men off my back, off my neck, end male violence, end rape, end prostitution and pornography. Stay out of the way of the revolution, and stop appropriating the classroom and the boardroom. If you can manage to end rape in one large city, I’ll be impressed. If you can manage to let women teach the radical process of feminism to other women without appropriation, that would be amazing. Stop stealing the labor of women, stop expecting your wives to sacrifice themselves while you go and have a “career.” Start looking at the world you have run for over 100 years, start looking at the mass rapes of women and the 100 million disappeared female population groups. Yeah, it’s pretty ugly guys, it’s so ugly that a lot of us think you can’t change which is why I favor women talking to women. I don’t believe you will change, but you can prove me wrong. Women like Kathy give me hope, women like Megan give me hope. Radical feminism is a powerful intellectual force worldwide, it won’t go away, and it is the most threatening ideology to male supremacy out there. It is not a liberal reformist ideology, it is so much more. And it threatens the hell out of male supremacy, entitlement and every thing men believe about women. It is a movement and an ideology by, for and about women. It is a place for women to reveal what really goes on “in private” between men and women, and it gives women the space we all need to breath, to talk in complete safety without the oppressors in the room.
And no group ever achieves full liberation without uniting together. Men want their power, they want their porn, they want those jobs in universities… and no oppressor ever voluntarily steps aside. But women can do the radical act of talking to each other everywhere on the internet, in all blogs and all spaces. Give liberation to other women, fully honor that kind of courage.
@Ren – When forced to use the term “sex work”, I always use quotes. It is a term that removes all context, all misogyny, all exploitation that comes with prostitution and pornography. “Sex work” pretends that male power, that the abuse of female bodies, that the idea that women can be purchased and that they exist to be penetrated and used by men doesn’t exist. That REALLY this is just a job like any other. It is not. You use the term “sex work” because it makes life easier for you and it enables you to ignore the horrific realities, the rape and the abuse that happens to prostituted women. “Sex work” is a term that deserves quotations. Of course it makes you angry, it disrupts the reality you imagine and disrupts your worldview. It makes you uncomfortable because it hints at the truth and leads you to consider, for a brief moment, what prostitution is and what pornography represents. The messages they send to men and women. The fact that this is exploitation and sexism in action. Using the term “sex work” comforts those who don’t wish to deal with the reality and who don’t wish, really, to challenge much of anything.
According to Meghan’s argument, pornography, by definition, involves misogyny and exploitation.
This is why I cannot help but feel that the radical feminist argument being presented here is tautological: it depends on accepting certain definitions without question. To make matters worse, when a woman involved in pornography comes forward and says she is not being exploited, her point of view is disregarded as irrelevant.
To me this is the true disrupted worldview: the radical argument depends on a definition that is called into question by the experience of a woman who enjoys her involvement in pornography. The response, to claim that this experience is unrepresentative, followed by extensive remarks about generalized exploitation, seems to match exactly the belief disconfirmation paradigm of response to cognitive dissonance.
This is why I questioned the value of this dialogue in an earlier comment: when one side employs this kind of argument, how can a middle ground exist?
It does? I thought it meant pulling together disparate kinds of sex-for-money – prostitution, stripping, pornography – in a way that emphasizes this is labor, and not something that the worker is doing for fun or ‘empowerment’.
I wonder why you think that sex workers feel they can talk in ‘complete safety’ with women who think they are brainwashed gender traitors.
@Meghan:
You done lecturing about what makes me comfortable and allows me to ignore shit? Prety fuckin’ bold coming from someone who doesn’t even freakin’ know me much less what I do or do not know about the sex industry. Which I have, oh, actually been in, which is prolly more than I can say for you. Also involved in other shit that has given me a real eyefull, cupcake. And I’ll tell you this: People Like You? You don’t get to tell People Like me How to identify, or what our realities are like, and you show just how much you really (don’t) give a shit when you pull this patronizing I KNOW BETTER THAN YOU, You just got blinders on crap. Heh You wanna know why you get all the sob stories and shit? Because chances are those of us who don’t have em prolly could not stand to be in the same room with your pretentious, arrogant know it all BUT U R SO WRONG asses for more than five minutes without wanting to pop you one straight upside the head.
It’s fuckin’ hysterical…some high and mighty savior of women talkin’ down her goddamn nose at other women who actually DO the work she is making her creds on but happen to think her standpoint is full of shit. Woooo, soooo horrible to be challenged by those ungrateful whores, how DARE they disagree and suggest the reality you are trying to paint just ain’t the real thing at all.
If you actually give a shit about women in the sex industry, then quit assuming you know some great fuckin’ truth they don’t and that you are just so much more enlightened and aware than they are. It’s patronize, dehumanizing, and arrogant as hell. Sex Object- Bad, Victim Object- good.
Same shit, different know it all.
glendenb: In the ages 18 to 35 Our Whole Lives curriculum, there’s a great line quote that says “Homophobia is really erotophobia.”
That’s interesting. When I was in high school I said that I masturbated, which my friends strangely thought that it was homosexual.
Ughh. Hugo, I appologize for the tone and cursing in my last post, well, this stuff just pisses me off big time as a woman sex worker who has dealt with this kinda attitdue a zillion times before. But yeah, I am feeling more civil now and have some actual questions/ comments for the radical feminists/ radical leaning women here in this thread:
1) Did y’all go to college, if so, who paid for it, including tuition, living expenses, books, all that.
2) In research you often quote, from Jensen to Farley- do you actually know the conditions under which it was gathered and the sizes of the sampling pools used?
3) If you take an “end to the sex industry” stance- what is your plan for making this happen? Aside from bringing about the downfall of capitalism, elminating the desire for no strings pleasure and or power over from humans- as well as he desire for pornographic visual media, and undoing eons of social conditioning- I am not sure how you are gonna pull this off, so I am curious to know what the plan is and how you intend to accomplish the goal of ending the sex industry.
4) What about the women who are not forced into it?
Now, I myself, as a sex worker and sex workers rights activist, come at the whole thing from a harm reduction stance because, well, I think it is more practical in this day in age. I don’t think the sex biz is going anywhere- have never seen a plan for how it will be ended- and thus, concern myself and focus my energy in the hear and now- working on and with other people -mostly sex workers- to help with everything from legal situations to, why yes, exit stratigies for those who desire them. I have, in my day, been at Sex Worker events attendend by everything from the Pro Domme who commands an hourly rate similiar to her White Collar High Power clients to the big city street worker who has been stabbed, beaten, and raped repeatedly who does the job to surivive, feed themselves, and get their drugs. I have seen a lot and heard a lot- from the very mouths of the people who do the job- cis-women, trans women, men, of all colors and ages and backgrounds and places within the overall industry. And thusly, I embrace harm reduction and working towards helping those who want out to get out, and leaving those who are content the heck alone.
I have also reserched and written extensively about the problematic nature of Anti- Porn/ Anti-Sex work feminism- from the flaws in the research to the patronizing delievery of their points. I have been invited to Universities to debate this, and have even faced off against “expert” Robert Jensen and poked holes through his “Price of Pleasure” documentary flim in a room full of students and other professor- much to his chagrin. I have witnessed and been treated to first hand to the way many leading radical feminist educators- from Jensen to Dines, refuse to engage with those who can test their theories and proclimations and written about their own abusive language and over use of assumption repeatedly….
I am, I guess you could say, no bimbo novice to this topic of discussion and QUITE versed in how it does and where the problems rest when discussing it, so yes, I would be HAPPY to engage civilly and get REAL discussion (not assumptions and patronizing slander) going.
But I am BIG on proof. Above, somone stated as if it were fact that 80% to 90% of porn depicts acts of agression and violence. I would like to know WHERE they got this information they are stating As Fact, because, well, it is wrong. And yes, I can prove it. Simple fact is the top selling pornography in the US is a kind called a Feature Film- which rarely depicts aggression or violence of any kind. Anti Porn resarchers tend to ignore the actual top selling sort of porn ENTIRELY and focus on BDSM porn and Gonzo and then try to PASS it OFF as the top selling type of porn….but it isn’t. Flat out. Thus- some lying and distortion going on to try and prove their point, and no one challenges this- well, except people like me. And when we DO challenge it- even though I am a woman and a sex worker- we get shot down and disrgarded because well, not singing the right tune.
So yeah, I would be thrilled to engage civilly and debate and challenge and show proof-anytime, anywhere. I think if the Radical Anti Porn faction is so convinced they can in fact back up their arguements and prove their point- they’d be thrilled to do this to not only show they are right, but to shut people like me up….but as of yet, they’ve not seemed too willing to have their “facts” tested, challenged, and held up for scrutiny, and I kinda wonder why. Okay, actually, I do not wonder at all. I know why.
But, yes, there it is- I am ready for a civil debate and discussion ANYTIME.
@Joanne Costello — I don’t claim to have exhaustively researched the slutwalk phenomenon, so perhaps you could tell me or point me to exactly what messages some members of the group, or the slutwalk as a whole, has produced that you find problematic. A little context may help here. Dispossessed and marginalized people I have had the honour of working with have taught me the devaluation of certain women has nothing to do with their actual behaviour, sexual or otherwise. The implications of “slut”: dirtiness, impurity, indiscipline, and consequent vulnerability attach to stereotypes imposed on many racialized women as much as to any behaviour. As a result, I believe that a movement that aims to make all women safe has to declare it unacceptable to stigmatize any woman in this way– even those who actually do sex work. When thousands of women and men worldwide come out to make this statement, I see it as an obviously incomplete but promising beginning: certainly not, as Ms. Murphy says, an embarrassment.
If you disagree, I’d like to get a sense of your arguments in a little more detail.
With regard to teaching Women’s Studies, I should hope things have improved considerably since the time Billie Jean King, when starting a magazine called *Women’s Sports* or something very like, had to hire a male editor because there was no qualified woman available.
Although personally it came after my time, to use something out of my own experience, I don’t think I’d likely be comfortable being graded in Queer Studies by a straight professor. Or, at least, it would be so liberating not to feel a need to please a member of “the oppressor class” that that would be an almost irreversible plus in favour of Queer Studies being queer-taught. It seems instinctively that it ought to be much the same for women taking Women’s Studies. I can believe in there being value in taking an “oppressor-taught” course, but at least my first instinct would be to put that course at at least late undergraduate level rather than making it likely to be a student’s first exposure to the discipline.
As for the pornographic portion of the discussion, it reminds me of a day-long conference I had some minor role in organizing – eek! – over twenty years ago. There was a discussion period after four talks on Ableism, Sexism, Racism and Heterosexism. While the one strong image of the day is how tired the Racism speaker seemed as she related how a vast majority of little girls of colour wanted the white, blonde Barbie, I can also recall the Sexism speaker claiming that all (firmly underlined) pornography abuses women and the Heterosexism speaker mentioning as a brief aside that there existed pornography in which no women appeared. It would have been nice to have seen that same-sex side of the issue addressed or at least acknowledged, though I suspect that pornography in which no men appeared would generate an even more multi-faceted discussion, including new and curious layers of heteronormativity.
I’m not at all sure how I feel about men as women’s studies professors. I don’t object to it, but I’ve never actually thought about if various women taking those classes would feel uncomfortable or on guard or the defensive with male professors teaching the subject matter. I don’t think I would, but I am not every woman, every woman is not me- and I can see where for some women it COULD be strange or cause some sort of tension or pressure and thus impact their ability to engage and learn.
BUT, I also kind of think that if there are choices in professors who do teach the material- as in, a student CAN sign up for the same subject with a woman professor and a male prof isn’t her ONLY option, then the question of Should There Be Male Profs teaching becomes moot for me- because there are choices available.
Grin…I also gotta say, in any discussion of “isms”, well, way back when I attended college, well, it is safe to say that most of the people teaching the classes I took and most of the people in them with me were of a higher class strata than I was, and the classism in the effect was apparent and often went unchallenged completely. In fact, I think classism is one of those “isms” that when coupled with others, or even on its own, is one that is RARELY addressed or addressed well and often very glossed over- which then impacts all kinds of conversation and discourse in countless ways….then again- that is also one of those things *I* notice as a person effected by it that those who are not well, they might not notice it at all.
@Ren I appreciate the acknowledgment of class,but we can’t address class when we think of it like racism. Class isn’t something you’re born with that stays with you forever. It’s not a racial, sexual orientation or gender identity, it’s a social relation to wealth. When we use words like classism, we reduce the problems of capitalism to an identity frame which doesn’t apply. Instead of talking about the abolition of a broken and idiotic economic scheme, words like “classism” make us think that scholarships for poor kids and public spending would solve the problem when the problem is in fact market forces and wage labor, two things fundamental to capitalism.
So let’s all remember. Next time you meet a rich asshole, don’t call him classist. Call him a capitalist bastard in need of expropriation…and a swift kick to the nuts. As for high brow professors? Well…you can’t expropriate them, but you can still kick em in the nuts.
Just FYI, I am one of three professors who teaches women’s studies at PCC (at times there have been as many as four). I have always been the only man.
I also developed, Douglas, the college’s first course on Gay and Lesbian History a decade ago. At the time (2001), PCC was only the second community college in the country to offer such a course.
Biology isn’t destiny… or pedagogy.
Hugo – I find it interesting that you’ve chastised Kathy for saying “dick-ological” and “mansplaining” and then you are silent while folks like Ren to name-call, use sexist slurs and threaten violence. Not cool.
Meghan, Ren and I discussed it. You’ll notice her subsequent apology for the tone and cursing in her follow-up post, when she says at the end that she’s ready for civil debate. I haven’t gotten that apology or follow-up from Kathy. I agree, civility should work both ways.
Back in the days when I had less effective email spam filtering than I do now, and therefore got more porn spam, I recall the spam emails I got as falling into three types:
1) Porn spam that described acts that felt creepy to me (e.g. woman has sex with a horse), and also described the women and acts involved in terms that I’d see as involving, to borrow a phrase from glendenb, “the rhetoric of filth.”
2) Porn spam that described acts that I wouldn’t see as creepy at all (e.g. well-endowed black man has sex with a white woman), but still described the people involved in language that felt to me like “the rhetoric of filth.”
3) Porn spam that neither described acts that I’d find unpleasant nor described the actors in terms that I’d find degrading (a lot of this type of email simply describes the physical attributes involved, or the age category, or some specialty taste).
I mention this because of glendenb’s remark that “As for example, I do not believe the majority of men regard semen as filthy. Ejaculating onto one’s partner’s body is not seen as an act of defilement for most men. I realize the doctrinnaire radical feminist reading sees that act as one of defilement, but that doesn’t mean it is.”
Reading that, and remembering the porn spam that I now thankfully see less often than I used to, what I remember is that the spam that described things that weren’t in themselves squicks, but in a squicky way, actually felt worse to read than the out and out squick stuff. Maybe because I have trouble actually believing the porn industry is compelling lots of unwilling women to have sex with horses; legality means there are some limits, no? But it’s much easier to believe that there are bunches of people out there who really do see some perfectly normal thing as filthy and defiling.
And it occurs to me that because this language of filth and defilement (in ads and marketing material) is such a squick to me (but presumably a turn on to someone, or it wouldn’t be used), it might be that, for acts that would otherwise simply be unfamiliar and not particularly appealing, that kind of description would be the tipping point to turning the act from a probable no to an outright squick. And that might be the reason that some acts that are minority tastes among women, but not exactly universally loathed (such as anal intercourse), get such a strong squick response.
I also note that the writers of A Billion Wicked Thoughts (book website http://www.billionwickedthoughts.com/index.html and blog http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/billion-wicked-thoughts) say that a large portion of men’s searches for Internet porn involve what they call “male dominance/female submission”), and, though they’re clearly distinguishing these from much rarer sexual interest in fantasies of out and out violence, the “male dominance/female submission” category itself includes some content that would definitely head into squick territory for people not interested in that particular kind of dominance/submission.
So, when I see radically different reports about the nature of video porn, I wonder how much of the difference in perspective comes from picking different varieties of porn to appraise (e.g. gonzo vs. feature) and how much has to do with different reactions to the language used or to dominance/submission, so that people may actually be differently describing the same thing.
Why I’m wondering about this: However bad and wrong video porn might be, in however many ways (and, not having watched any of it, I’m in no position to second guess either Ren or Jensen on what its content actually is), I feel a mental disconnect whenever I hear both that the most popular porn is incredibly violent and degrading and that nearly all men watch it. I realize that, from a radical feminist perspective, this would be a “Not My Nigel” argument, but, to my mind, while the men I know (and, for that matter, the women I know) may often enough be sexist to one degree or another, out and out deep misogyny isn’t that common. This makes me suspect that, if nearly all the men I know are viewing porn, most of them are probably at least not viewing porn in which someone like me gets subjected to all kinds of pain and torment. That they might be getting off on fantasies of things I wouldn’t personally like doing in real life, but wouldn’t, for the most part, be getting off on the fantasy of me being subjected to things I hate.
Meghan:
I apologize again for the tone of my above missive there, this is truly a hot button issue for me and others, and yeah, it torques me off something fierce, BUT I do apologize for being that aggressive.
Also, folk more familiar with me know I swear a lot and call EVERYONE I’m annoyed at, male or female- cupcake. I will however refrain from calling YOU cupcake in the future and attempt to cut back on the cursing.
I did, however, find your original reply to me to be quite patronizing and full of assumptions- the sorts of things I reckon do make folk angry. So, I publicly apologize (again) for my language and venom, but, I wonder now if you will have it in you to even acknowledge the patronizing and presumptuous tone of your reply to me? Or is okay to be patronizing and presumptive so long as you do not…curse?
That’s very kind of Ren to have apologized to you, Hugo. Unfortunately I do NOT feel like engaging in any conversation with someone who issues threats of violence and calls women ‘cupcake’. Enjoy your forum, Ren.
Meghan, Ren has now apologized to you as well. Sorry, everything gets stuck in moderation now, as the bile of some commenters has made that necessary. That means some cross-posting.
And please, folks, let’s do what we can to avoid “shut-down” language that dismisses people’s lived experience. Men, women, radfems and sex workers are all welcome here — let’s not pull “epistemic privilege” on each other, please.
So you’d prefer we not carry on like a bunch of shit flinging howler monkeys?
Oh, that’d be fine. Because then you’d stop to groom each other very nicely.
@et all:
I want to make one thing clear: I did NOT threaten anyone. When one expresses a point that various attitudes could make someone want to smack someone upside the head, it is an expression of frustration, NOT A Direct or Indirect Actual Threat of Violence. I’ve not threatened ANYONE here. Let’s make that very clear right now.
@ Meghan:
It is also interesting to me as it seems a convenient way to avoid engaging with someone who could, oh, perhaps challenge your view points out in the open where people can see rather than merely nod and agree with you ala an echo chamber. Calling someone a sexist (even though an actual cupcake has no biological sex or gender and is a term that can be used to address women or men, and why yes, I do use it for both constantly- perhaps a southern thing, who knows) and say woo She Directly Threatened Me -which is not the case at all, but convenient to put oneself fully in the victimized position, deflect attention away from their own behavior, and avoid actually having their viewpoints or treatment of other people- even those they are supposedly speaking for- challenged in any way.
The whole thing makes me very curious on many levels. One, the double standard you apparently find fine and dandy- as in you can be patronizing to me and make various assumptions about me with zero knowledge or basis, then pack up your toys and go home when I call you…a desert food…and accuse me of Directly Threatening you when I did no such thing. So, thus, obviously you think it is perfectly acceptable to treat others poorly but do not think anyone should treat you poorly- even if you have treated them poorly first.
You also apparently think it is just spiffy to state your opinion as fact then make up things like being actually threatened when someone comes along saying they can refute your stance. It is, however, typical. I have seen it time and time again out of SOME radical anti-porn feminists: they can treat people like crap and assume all kinds of things about them and, yes, basically call them names (outright or via their patronizing attitudes), state their views as absolute fact and shut down/ dictate to anyone who disagrees, then actually refuse to engage/run away from anyone who dares to challenge them on their own less than stellar behavior, treatment of others, and Stances on the Issue. They can, as people are wont to say- dish it out, but they cannot take it (and when i say ‘take it’, I mean poor treatment and disagreement- it is in no way a sexist or violent statement- just to clarify ’cause apparently at this point me rolling my eyes is sexist and threatening.)
Now, this is not my forum. It’s Hugo’s House, he is the House Music. I have apologized to both he and you, behaved reasonably civilly since my angry post, and asked legitimate questions about your own attitude and behavior, as well as questions regarding the issue at hand itself. A decent conversation on the matter *could* actually occur, and I could look past your initially presumptive and patronizing treatment of me just as you could look past my angry response to it and a dialogue could occur- but frankly, I doubt it will happen- and not because I am sooooo spooky, but because the Stance you support is hard to defend, full of holes, and is easy pickins for anyone who has done any homework at all on the issues. Heck, with the exception of Jensen, I have YET to find a radical antiporn feminist willing to engage with someone who could potentially sully their precious hardline- even when that person is nothing but polite and civil.
This speaks volumes, really- and frankly, hostile at all or not, when ANYONE who claims to have the best interests of sex workers and women in mind, then treats a sex worker and a woman who does not agree with them first in patronizing/presumptive manner, then acts in an oh-so victimized manner when that woman sex worker gets angry for being treated in a presumptive and patronizing manner, well, it has in the past made me fully believe that radical anti porn feminists are classist snobs who care less about the actual women in the sex industry and more about their precious theories, what those theories will get them in the name educational credit, papers, grants, and why yes money, and being RIGHT. I also tend to think THEY are the ones with blinders on as well.
I’d love to be disproven on this, but as of yet, I’ve not been, and frankly, I am not surprised.
I mean for real, if you ACTUALLY engage in Real World Activism, do you stomp off in a huff when a bitter, angry, the world has shit on them sex worker/prostituted person swears, calls you a name you don’t like, or uses a violent term in an expression of frustration? I certainly hope not, and if you do NOT engage in actual real world activism where you would have to deal with real live breathing sex workers/prostituted people? Uh, lemmie suggest you NEVER do, because if this is ANY indication, you are not cut out for it. Real people are messy and have feelings and get angry- theory is neat and clean…and in dealing with folk actually IN the sex business and not merely reading/writing about them? You learn that, real quick.
I’m a man who uses porn, and I consider myself a feminist. I will freely admit I don’t actually need to use porn, but I don’t consider that relevant partly because I’m also into BDSM, which means you would undoubtedly call all my sexual fantasies degrading to women if I were to describe them to you. And I wouldn’t disagree with you on that; my only defense is that just like practitioners of actual physical BDSM I am able to distinguish between the things I get off to and the things I really believe.)
Why do I not consider my use of porn detrimental to my feminism? Number one is that I’m very careful to avoid porn that might have hurt real women. (At the risk of providing too much information, this means that my porn is mostly drawn or written, and doesn’t contain many pictures of actual women, because once there is an actual women that could have been exploited I have to go make sure that she wasn’t, and that can be difficult.)
Number two is that being looked at sexually is not, in itself, bad in any way. That women are always looked at sexually and not men is bad, but the way to solve that is more porn for women. That women in the real women are often looked at sexually to the point it makes them uncomfortable is bad, but that’s not caused by porn, that’s caused by assholes.
Yes, much of the current crop of porn is pointlessly demeaning to women, but that’s a much more focused and specific problem than you make it out to be. There can be and is such a thing as feminist porn, and there is definitely such a thing as porn for women, and it’s not fair to condemn them along with all the misogynist crap.
—-
But finally, I must say as respectfully as possible that I think you are disrespecting men and male sexuality. I think you don’t give enough credit to men to not be barbarous dolts about porn. Most men who see the kind of porn some of your allies have described (which by the way isn’t nearly as common as you think) are as creeped out by it as you are. (I certainly wouldn’t want to watch a video of a woman eating shit.) And even those rare men that actually do want to watch that are perfectly able to separate that from the real world and their real beliefs about women. If they don’t want to it’s their own fault, not the fault of the porn, nasty and demeaning though it may be.
Oh, and tangent to Sheila, specifically about “I don’t see much value in having a nuanced radical feminist discussion with men”. Men are people just like you are! They think like you do, they feel like you do, and they are entirely capable of caring about other people! I realize I’m coming from a position of privilege so I try not to ask too much, but please don’t disrespect the entire class of men; we don’t deserve it any more than you do.
I have said this so many times I think my eyeballs are going to start bleeding from re-reading the words: it doesn’t matter if sex workers who say they enjoy (or at least don’t hate) the work are a teeny tiny minority, which I don’t necessarily believe is the case. Criminalising us or any aspect of our work is still a terrible, harmful, anti-feminist idea. I honestly do not understand why anti sex work feminists have such a mental block about this. You can believe that someone hates their work or is only saying they enjoy it because they have a “false consciousness” all you like (even if this makes you an insulting, condescending douchebag) but if you’re genuinely on that person’s side, you will want that work to be legal and as safe as possible. The evidence says that that means supporting decriminalisation.
Also, Meghan? The ableist language was unnecessary. You could have expressed that you thought lipstick was anti-feminist without using a term that dehumanised people with physical disabilities.
>“I don’t see much value in having a nuanced radical feminist discussion with men”
Then whatever are you doing on a male’s blog?
Then again, I’m not seeing a whole lot of nuance. What I am seeing is repetitive “staying on message”. Great propaganda technique, but not really discussion.
———
I am rather curious why when Meghan calls for the state to suppress sex-work, this is NOT identified as being pro-violence (what does she thinks states do, make modest suggestions?); while when Ren describes her as “full of shit”, this is an act of violence. It IS and act of vulgarity; but why is “tone” being made an issue by people that routinely denounce “tone” as an issue.
Let’s get real. Meghan is calling for an attack by the state which derivatively would hurt Ren and people like Ren. Ren has called for no such attack by the state on Meghan. Nor has she called for an attack on Meghan by anyone else.
I’m sure this comment will be like spitting into the ocean… the men who insist that porn doesn’t affect how they see women and the women who go along with this attitude aren’t likely to change their attitudes, it appears. To be fair, neither are those (like me) on the other side.
I just don’t see how anyone could see the act of ejaculating ON A WOMAN’S FACE as anything less than incredibly insulting and demeaning. Why not just pee or shit on her face? Although I am sure that there is porn that depicts just that. And that is just one small example. From what I’ve read (and actually seen, unfortunately) much worse acts are performed in mainstream porn.
That is part of the problem i have with porn. One doesn’t fantasize about doing harm to someone who represents another human that you respect and treat as an equal. (Same goes for the actual practice of BDSM, IMO.)
My other main point of revulsion against porn is that it treats women as objects… a collection of body parts.
It hurts me to think that men think of women in this way and then try to pass it off as harmless fantasy. As for myself, I’m not in a relationship right now, and that is probably largely due to my distaste for anyone who thinks that using porn is OK. I’d prefer to think that the men in my life don’t use porn. If I were to find out that they do, I would be deeply disappointed. If it’s true that the vast majority of men DO use porn, well, then, I’ll probably spend the rest of my life alone, because I could never trust anyone who thinks of women in that manner.
And in all this, the main issue has been ignored. People who are against rape, or really any other assault against anyone, just oppose the rape/assault. They don’t negotiate and demand concessions, before joining the alliance.
This demand that sex-work be denounced PRIOR to being willing to stand alongside sluts and whores OF EITHER GENDER is simply a way of saying “Well, Rape is kind of negotiable. I won’t oppose what *you see as rape unless you oppose what +I see as rape.
*violent seizure, fraudulent representation, intentional incapacitation.
+engaging in sexual commerce, respecting a person who says they with trade sex for cash, goods or services enough to either take the deal or reject it solely on the basis of its merits.
This is rather like saying “I won’t support emancipation from slavery enforced by whips and chains and guns unless you accept what I define as ‘wage slavery’.”
Hugo, please don’t pull any “but I *rilly tried* with those radfems!” after this. It is apparent you are not used to setting up spaces congruous with women-centered radicals.
Your strongest admonishment has been toward a radical woman who had the nerve to say “mansplaining” and “dickological” (as if such words so evoool..???) while numerous commenters have outright bashed radical feminism through ignorance and insults–or threatened violence.
Your mealy-mouthed responses to these people has amounted to “hey, play nice.”
Yet, you make a public example of Kathy’s words and then privately address violence?
Weak. Radfem-Engagement Fail.
@ Caro: There is an argument that porn is dehumanizing to both men AND women, wrt to collection of body parts and such, and it is my humble opinion that CAN be closer to the truth that its just that way towards women…
Regarding Various Attitudes towards sex work and sex workers: Hexy is DEAD ON that people who actually gave a crap about the folk IN the industry would not seek to heap the extra bs of making them criminals upon them considering the bs they already face….and frankly, I seriously wonder WHAT THE HECK people are thinking when they talk about making all forms of sex work and porn illegal. DO they HONESTLY think this is a GOOD idea? Legal or not, people will still buy and sell sex, and make porn- and frankly, the mere thought of a illegal deregulated under ground black market porn industry SCARES THE HELL out of me. Not only would this just, simply put, be a nightmare….but the most at risk, vunerable women and children the Anti Industry types are always talking about? THey would be the ones who would without a doubt suffer the MOST in an illegal, deregulated industry WITHOUT question.
The whole thing seriously leaves me shaking my head- its like an acceptable losses thing- throwing X amount of sex industry people into a meat grinder is totally okay so long as the End Goal of No Sex Industry is achieved. And End Goal, by the way, which there appears to be absolutely NO solid plan to achieve.
THIS is the problem with people who deal exclusively in their precious theories and causes and end goals. People who get college credit and lecuters and book deals and such via, why yes, exploiting people actually IN the sex industry for their own ends- while not actually listening too, working with, or caring about them as, oh people- at all. People do not cheer criminalizing people they supposedly CARE about. Nor do they speak above, about, around (and not actually to) them in such arrogant patronizing ways.
THIS, in short, is why well, it is likely that ACTUAL sex workers and their Advocates will NEVER truly ally with, respect, or even GET ALONG nominally with Anti Sex Work Radical Feminists- real hard to do that with people who care more about their theories and causes then the actually people they are making their bones off of, and real hard to do with ANYONE who consistantly and without FAIL treats those who do not share their views like utter garbage.
Plain and Simple, really.
(and frankly, I still think if these folk were SO SURE they were right and their precious theories and research could stand against debate and being challenged- they would welcome it- but they don’t no, do they?)
Talk about mental blocks eh? No feminist argues for the criminalization of prostituted women. What is it with this obsession with arguing about something that has never been said before? Is it that pro-sex work advocates hang on so tightly to this argument because their arguments are so weak to begin with and they need to prop them up with lies? I also don’t see anyone, including myself, arguing that anyone else has a “false consciousness” – can we stick to talking about the actual arguments that are being made? I feel like that would make for a more productive conversation. I have to admit though, it really doesn’t feel like many of you want productive conversation and would prefer, instead, to reinforce your own worldview, which is, again, based on lies and misrepresentations.
@Ren – Yeah you know me! Getting rich off radical feminism!
Is this what you call ‘engaging’: http://theger.wordpress.com/2011/06/19/you-know-i-swore-to-my-dang-self-i-wasnt-gonna-get-riled-up-about-this-bullshit-anymore/ ?
I’m sorry but engaging with you is impossible because your ‘defense’ and what you view as poking holes in arguments (which it is clear you are not able to do, otherwise I doubt you’d resort to childish name-calling and blatant lies) equates to nonsensical ranting.
So, seeing as you have somehow deluded yourself into believing that radical feminists are wealthy (you do realize that it is, generally, the liberal feminists who get paid speaking gigs, not the radicals….) and, since you asked, let me clarify a couple of things for you.
It is absolutely none of your business, but seeing as, for some odd reason, the ‘pro-sex work’ folks are constantly demanding to know how I pay my tuition, here you go! I am currently doing a Master’s degree in Women’s Studies. I did a BA in Women’s Studies which took me about 9 years to complete because I worked full time and could only manage to take the odd night course for most of those years. Eventually I had to stop working full time in order to actually take the courses I needed to finish my degree. I am about $60,000 in debt. Happy? What else do you want to know about my personal life that has absolutely no relevance to this conversation? Let me know! Because God knows it’s your right to know. Abusive relationships? Daddy issues? Where I buy my underwear? How many years out of 31 I spent in heels? ALL.YOUR.BUSINESS. Would you like to know, really, what ‘qualifies’ me to speak about feminism and about the oppression of women? It’s because I am a woman and a feminist. I do not presume to know anything about your experience nor have I told you how to feel or what your reality is. What I have done is described the reality of porn and what the existence of prostitution means in our world. I have addressed (barely) how it impacts women and how it impacts men. Your desire not to be ‘a victim’ (the reason why people decided to start describing prostitution as ‘sex work’ was so that they could pretend all the misogyny and the exploitative nature of the work away) does not trump the realities of most women or the reality that we live in a patriarchal world AND that (yes!) WOMEN are prostituted because of this reality. You go have fun, call yourself whatever you like – it has no effect on anyone but you. And guess what? This isn’t all about you.
@Hugo: censoring comments from radfems while letting vitriolic comments slide by on account of what is clearly an insincere apology isn’t helping this dialogue in any way.
If we take the assumption that porn as it exists now is exploitative, isn’t calling for the end of porn essentially the same as saying people shouldn’t wear clothes because most clothing is made in sweatshops?
I don’t know if people will accept this as a roughly equivalent analogy, but it would seem the solution is to improve the working conditions of clothes-makers or to set up your own clothing manufacturing company that doesn’t exploit young children with long hours, bad working conditions, and low pay.
Couldn’t you say the same for the porn industry? If there are problems with how it’s run, run it better… or provide visually stimulating feminist-friendly porn as an alternative. Any campaign to put Type A business is going to be a lot more successful if you say “Don’t shop at Type A; shop at Type B instead” instead of just “Don’t shop at all.”
Or are people going to make the case that any visual depiction of sexual contact is inherently (regardless of working conditions, regardless of what is being depicted and in what proportions) exploitative?
And yet you reject those qualifications in other women if they disagree with you. “I am a woman and a feminist” only counts for thsoe who agree with Ms. Murphy; all others making that claim are malicious liars.
As I’m sure you’re well aware, Ren’s point was not whether you buy your underwear at an approved location, but whether you know anything about sex work other than what you read in your Women’s Studies texts. If not – and seriously, watching Not A Love Story doesn’t count – then you might want to think about sex workers as something other than useful rhetorical props.
If we take the assumption that porn as it exists now is exploitative, isn’t calling for the end of porn essentially the same as saying people shouldn’t wear clothes because most clothing is made in sweatshops?
Not really, since it’s possible to do without porn (or to do without porn that’s in any way likely to exploit actual people), but not really possible to do without clothes, unless we move the entire world’s population into the very limited portion of the world where your health won’t be gravely at risk if you wander around the whole year naked.
This isn’t to say that I’d support outlawing porn, even if we do start with the assumption that porn as it exists now is exploitive, since I think the most vulnerable people can better be protected in a legalized porn industry than an illegal one. Rather, it’s to say that, when it comes to what you buy and use, opting out of the market entirely is possible in the one case, and not a viable option at all in the other case.
…So if radfems don’t want to criminalize the sex industry how do they propose we get rid of it? Barring the abolition of capitalism, I don’t see how. That’s why everyone is confused. Give us a plan as to how you can eliminate sex work without legal penalties and without capitalism’s elimination.
Dobb, I can’t speak for the other posters here, but there would be a couple of simple ways to reduce exploitation:
1) Prosecute traffickers without criminalizing sex workers. For example, in the US we (finally) have a program where crime victims, even if they are here illegally, can qualify for legal residency if they help prosecute their abusers. It’s far from perfect but the motivation behind it is sound.
2) Make sure that women have the social and economic power to make other choices. It’s ridiculous to tell a woman “Sorry, but working as a porn model demeans the sisterhood, so even if it’s putting food on the table, we want you to quit right now and go work for minimum wage somewhere else.”
OK, Meghan, let me ask you again to expand a bit on your use of the word embarrassment to describe a series of fairly spontaneous events that have managed to get several thousand people into the streets in over a dozen cities. Obviously, the theme of “slutwalk” has resonated with many thousands of young women. This response has released energy on a significant scale; at least, I have difficulty recalling a similar outburst of energy around these issues in recent years. I’d like to ask three specific questions around your response to this:
1) Have you considered that you might have something to learn from the women (and, yes, men) who have turned out for slutwalk. If not, why not?
2) If you maintain you have nothing to learn from the energies of these thousands of women, do you believe a social movement that lectures to rather serves its claimed constituency can maintain its relevance?
3) I assume you have guidance to offer to the people who turn out for “slutwalks”. How have you, or how to you plan to offer it?
That’s all well and good Myth but we already prosecute drug traffickers and the like. While it does catch some, it also inflates the price and increases the remiaining trafficker’s profits. In fact it makes the situ worse sometimes, because the trafficking shifts from mom and pop ops, to corporate style cartel operations. That’s a big reason why the Mexican cartels are so powerful today, that and the breakdown of old PRI patronage networks (but that’s another story).
And sure a lot of women would chose not to do sex work if there were other avneues, but that would again simply drive up the price. Sex is an inelastic demand,if the average hourly rate goes from 100-200, well…men will pay. At least some will.
That’s not to say I disagree with those propositions. Those are all good ideas, but they wouldn’t eliminate sex work, which is what the radfems are trying to do…no? Even if 75% quit the game the remaining 25% might not, because the pay would be too damn good. At that point I wonder what the radfems would do, when the only sex workers left are the ones who either enjoy it, or just enjoy the pay. You can’t convince those folks to leave the profession. So do you just declare victory and go home? Or do you just keep arguing with them? Or do you try and criminalize them?
I dunno. As I’ve said before, unless you eliminate capitalism, there will be wage work, and part of that will be sex work. Either we accept that and try to as you say “reduce exploitation” via legalization, unionization, and cooperativization. Or we criminalize and make things worse. Or you engage in some sci-fi scheme to eliminate male sexual desire.
Not really, since it’s possible to do without porn (or to do without porn that’s in any way likely to exploit actual people), but not really possible to do without clothes
I think you’re missing the point. It isn’t about whether it’s necessary or not. It’s about whether the depiction of sex at all for the purpose of stimulation or arousal is intrisically or essentially wrong. If it isn’t, then the most effective way to change things is to make male-targeted porn that is not exploitative and then encourage men to view that instead. I don’t often hear this option in feminist circles. I see a lot of blasting of current male-centered porn and then occasionally the promotion of female-centered “erotica.” Not much about validating men’s desires without also oppressing women in the process.
The message, in other words, seems to be “If your current male sexual desires oppress women, the solution is to not feed those desires” (male desire bad) instead of “If your current male sexual desires oppress women, the solution is to have male sexual desire that doesn’t oppress women” (male desire is good.. just not the way it is now).
Dobb, not really seeing the comparison to cartels. Drugs are things. Human traffickers are selling people.
Your price argument also makes no sense. If the price goes up, then fewer men will choose to purchase sex, correct? And that also means that for women who choose to do sex work, it will pay better. Not seeing why this is a problem, since we’re also assuming that women have other options.
@Meghan:
Nah, that link there? That’s what I call VENTING. Not engaging. VENTING my frustrations about a woman who, oh, leads off the engagement by being patronizing and presumptive (and refuses to admit it), then accesses me of threatening her, which I did not do, and oh, addresses NONE of the actual things I have mentioned that have to do with the actual topic. So, you callin’ me a liar is rich. Oh, and YOU may not make money and get speaking gigs/university cred and grants off of Radical Feminism, but Robert Jensen, Gail Dines, Melissa Farely and others absolutely do, or would you like to deny that too then have me prove you wrong? Which I can, and you probably know it. She, that’s the problem here Meghan- I can actually argue these issues with proof and poke those holes, and that’s probably the actually scary part of it. Not my venting., not me continuing to point out that my hostility towards you was a direct result of YOUR initially patronizing and presumptive tone towards me, none of that.
If You Truly Think Your Points and Arguments Could Stand up To Scrutiny, Why not Put Them to the Test?
“It is absolutely none of your business, but seeing as, for some odd reason, the ‘pro-sex work’ folks are constantly demanding to know how I pay my tuition, here you go! I am currently doing a Master’s degree in Women’s Studies. I did a BA in Women’s Studies which took me about 9 years to complete because I worked full time and could only manage to take the odd night course for most of those years. Eventually I had to stop working full time in order to actually take the courses I needed to finish my degree. I am about $60,000 in debt. Happy? What else do you want to know about my personal life that has absolutely no relevance to this conversation? Let me know! Because God knows it’s your right to know. Abusive relationships? Daddy issues? Where I buy my underwear? How many years out of 31 I spent in heels? ALL.YOUR.BUSINESS. Would you like to know, really, what ‘qualifies’ me to speak about feminism and about the oppression of women?”
Wow, and I am the fly of the handle oh so hostile one? Gee, I guess you are capable of venting too. I did not ask about your family, your father, your underwear, your preference in footwear, any abuse in your past or any such thing- It’s not my business NOR did I ask. I asked the question about college in order to possibly oh, engage in a discussion that factored in differing levels of education, class, opportunities, so on, and yes, when engaging with someone ON the topic, I do like to know their background with regards to that. I could give a rat’s behind about your shoes, undies, and childhood, really….and I NEVER suggested such things WERE my business and thusly, never asked about them.
“What I have done is described the reality of porn…” And how would you know this? Ever been involved in its making? If not, then what sort of grasp could you actually have on it’s true reality?
And Meghan, I am about the most un-fun human on the planet, really. Grim, very, very grim in truth, BUT…see, you either CANNOT admit it or do not EVEN see it…When you first addressed me- right of the dang bat with:
“You use the term “sex work” because it makes life easier for you and it enables you to ignore the horrific realities, the rape and the abuse that happens to prostituted women. “Sex work” is a term that deserves quotations. Of course it makes you angry, it disrupts the reality you imagine and disrupts your worldview. It makes you uncomfortable because it hints at the truth and leads you to consider, for a brief moment, what prostitution is and what pornography represents. The messages they send to men and women. The fact that this is exploitation and sexism in action. Using the term “sex work” comforts those who don’t wish to deal with the reality and who don’t wish, really, to challenge much of anything.”
Well, you do a whole lot of things, really. One- rude. Two- absolutely presumptive as you have zero idea what does or does not make my life easier or why I use the terms I do, or why using the quotes makes me angry (but hey, you go ahead and assume its because it disrupts my reality and world view- there’s a leap), you assume it makes me uncomfortable (when in fact anyone who chooses to identify a group of people they are not a part of with zero consideration to their feelings on it- well hell, that shit just pisses me off and has nothing to do with comfort really), and yep, assume to know what I do or do not want to challenge- and YES, the entirety of it WAS patronizing.
But hey, can you say- gee, I am sorry if you thought I was being patronizing….nahhh, why bother? Even though I apologized for my caustic response to your patronizing assumptive one- well, its pretty obvious that you, Meghan, feel it is fine and dandy to treat others like garbage but then get quite ruffled and makes up serious exaggerations when she receives the same in return. Gee, it must be nice to be that…privileged. Clue here, in the real world, when you get all patronizing and presumptive with people, well, gee, it just might make ‘em hostile.
Oh, and I did not threaten you- I said if you brought your attitude into an actual gathering of sex workers, chances are a lot of ‘em would wanna slap you upside the head. A fictional, theoretical situational want is NOT a threat…and I am sure any law enforcement official or legal person could tell you that. It may not have been nice or polite of me, but it was NOT a threat, and frankly, when people are presumptive patronizing sorts to me, I am not inclined to be nice or polite back.
NOW, I can ask again, you know, if I truly have NO leg to stand on in an argument and well, couldn’t challenge your wisdom on my best day and your worst and your view of things is just so amazingly solid and correct….
1) What is the plan to bring about the end of the sex industry?
2) Do you know the methodology and nature of the sampling pools used to draw the data many radical anti-porn feminists state as fact in their arguments, such as the very famous Farely “90%” applied to Sex Work?
3) What about those who do not wish to leave the industry?
My curiosity about your education is satisfied. But please do keep your family history, underwear and shoe preferences to yourself.
Myth, the comparison is that drug cartels and traffiking rings run on the same business principles. They’re about trafficking in contraband. The cartels are usually the main traffickers these days, the coyotes are thier employees. The same applies to the european syndicates. The Mafia trafficks women and drugs from Ceuta in the same containers. I remember speaking to folk who took that trip and they can remember sitting on bags of Horse. Strange I know but you’d be amazed at how inept Spanish and Italian border controls are and how corrupt their governments are (but again, another story). My point here is that the tighter enforcement gets, the more sophisticated the smuggling. So prosecution isn’t always the most effective solution to trafficking, sometimes it entrenches the problem by empowering the mot effective players. That’s not to say we should abandon it,just that it has to be used in tandem with other strategies.
And yes it would drive up the price of sex, which would empower sex workers. But that’s not the point here. You and I seem to agree that we shouldn’t try to eliminate sex work but try to curb the outright exploitative aspects. But the rad fems want to eliminate it altogether. I was pointing out that such actions are economically impossible under a market system. The number of horny, sexually frustrated men won’t go away, and the smaller pool of sex workers would only drive the price up, leading to a “golden handcuffs” situation. How then do eliminationist feminists solve this problem? Or do they try and solve it all? Perhaps the radfems would call that a win? But then that would screw up their ideological consistency, and cognitive dissonance doesn’t seem to be their thing. They seem to think that any form of sex work is terrible and must be eliminated.
…So if radfems don’t want to criminalize the sex industry how do they propose we get rid of it?
Just to be clear, I’m not a radfem, and I differ with them on matters related to the sex industry. I just think that opting out of the market’s a much more defensible choice than criminalization.
You’re forgetting that trafficking is different than selling a good. The trafficking victims, eventually, become slaves. They’re not broken down into product and consumed. And I don’t think anybody suggested that penalizing traffickers is the ONLY thing that must be done.
You’re also positing a false dilemma re sex work. It’s like saying “anti-slavery activists ought to realize in a market economy it will never really go away, so unless they can free every slave everywhere they’re stupid hypocrites”. I mean, what?
I’m also not following your ‘golden handcuffs’ argument.
As for the ‘radfems’, I would agree that in a world without patriarchy, there will be a lot less sex work – and when there is sex work, it will not be much like the industry we have now. (I’m assuming you’ve read Pat Califia’s essay “Whoring in Utopia”.)
Myth let me break it down.
Radfems want to eliminate all sex work. How do they do this? You propose that with added options most women would opt out. I somewhat agree, some women would opt out. My point is that those left would command greater market power, making their profession far more lucrative and attractive. That’s a good outcome for me and you and the non radfems here, but not for the radfems. It’s an outcome they don’t want.
If you read Meghan’s arguments she thinks that ALL sex work under capitalism is degrading, wrong, and a kind of rape. So it would logically follow that she and her cohorts would oppose not just sex work now, but this hypothetical sex work situation. To them this is still sex as transaction and therefore a form of objectification and rape. But even though the radfems oppose all sex work, they would be unable to stop it without some kind of state coercion, because the sex workers themselves wouldn’t want to give up their lucrative positions.
THAT is my point. I am bringing radfem positions to their logical conclusions in order to highlight their practical absurdity. That even under the most pristine conditions you couldn’t eliminate sex work so long as there was an economic means for it. We would be ok with that, but they wouldn’t and I want to know what they would do about it. How would they respond to a rather large sex industry (there’s just too much money for it to get all that smaller) whose participants have no interest in leaving? Do you follow now?
I’m not saying harm reduction is bad. I’m saying that for the rad fems harm reduction isn’t enough. As they see it, the fundamental problems would remain. If harm reduction was their goal, then they wouldn’t attack the term “sex work” and they wouldn’t be opposing sex worker unions. But they are. They envision a world where there is no sex work. Where it’s gone completely and barring socialism, I don’t see how that’s possible.
As for the trafficking…well that was a quibble mostly. I was trying to demonstrate that going after traffickers doesn’t always make the situation better. When you go after them you have be smart about it otherwise you risk making the situation worse. That’s what we’ve done with drugs, we catch the dumbest traffickers and dealers while the smart ones slip through and adapt. They’re like superbugs and the more it happens the more sophisticated they get. And while slaves and drugs are two different situs, the criminals treat them functionally the same.
They use the same tactics to sell drugs as they do to sell the services of sex slaves. The businesses are similar not just in the smuggling, but in their distribution. You don’t sell drugs openly, you do it on the sly, with multiple security layers. The same applies to sex slaves, you don’t openly sell their services, you follow the same plan. There’s more infrastructure involved, but it’s basically no different. The arms race between enforcement and the criminals continues just as with drugs. And to a degree this is unavoidable, but we shouldn’t think it will do much good. Open immigration, drug and sex work legalization would go a lot farther than any enforcement program.
Meghan, anti sex work radical feminists usually promote the Swedish Model, which for those who are unaware criminalises clients of sex workers. This pushes sex work underground, makes it more dangerous and risky for sex workers. It is an anti sex worker model of legislation, and I view promotion of it as inherently anti feminist.
Moreover, I have seen repeatedly that in areas where sex work is criminalised and sex workers are pushing for decriminalisation, or where sex work is decriminalised and sex workers are fighting for it to stay that way, anti sex work radical feminists will not support our work. They would rather see laws implemented that directly and demonstrably harm us than actually listen to us as the experts on our lives and work and put their efforts behind us.
As for the “false consciousness”, it’s a common radical feminist theory on sex workers who say they enjoy their work, although admittedly not one you’ve espoused. Perhaps you should read up a little on what your compatriots are saying about us?
Mythago:
It’s worth noting that human trafficking is already illegal in all Western countries regardless of the legal status of sex work, and can remain so under a decriminalised model. Ideally, the immigration status of a victim of trafficking or coercion should not be dependent upon conviction or co-operation in an investigation… this is itself coercive, and can lead to pressure on victims to give inaccurate testimony, which then jeopardises prosecutions.
Trafficking and sex work are two entirely different things.
I’m not a lawyer but …
…there would seem to be a difference between “trafficing” and “enslavement”. As I said, I’m not a lawyer, and before Myth punches me in the mouth, perhaps an actual legal definition might be forthcoming, then there might be a more enlightened response.
Meghan,
I rather doubt you’ll hear what I have to say but I’m full of chirpy gerbil optimism so what the heck.
It occurred to me last night that you had an interesting opportunity here to address a critical but not hostile audience. Hugo’s readers are generally well informed and well read. You had a chance to speak to an audience that is persuadable that your position has merit. You blew it.
Reading through this thread, I was struck by how often you dismissed comments and commenters our of hand. Rather than engage critics, you’ve dismissed them as invalid.
No one likes having their ideas criticized but with this thread you had a chance to address critics who take your ideas seriously enough to read them, to examine them and to ask tough questions. You’ve dodged, you’ve restated your position, but not expanded on it or explained how radical feminism offers insights into a wide array of issues. You’ve missed lots of openings to explain how and why you chose the rhetoric and positions you’ve chosen.
It could have been a fruitful discussion with your ideas at its center. Instead, you’ve come across as a standard issue radical feminist – dogmatic, judgmental, and defensive, engaging in personal attacks, drunk on rigid ideology, and hyper sensitive. Your claim that Hugo has treated radical feminists differently than other commenters is a final rhetorical dodge that is a boring trope of radical feminist behavior.
Read through the comments here – there are lots of interesting ideas and challenges to radical feminist thought that are valid, even if you think the commenters don’t deserve your attention. I think you’ve done your ideas and the readers here a disservice.
“such actions are economically impossible under a market system. The number of horny, sexually frustrated men won’t go away, and the smaller pool of sex workers would only drive the price up, leading to a “golden handcuffs” situation.”
Dobb, you seem to be comparing men to some unstoppable force of nature that women will just have to work around, rather than people with morals and responsibilities. It’s a depressingly common attitude in regards to rape, but it’s even more depressing to see how willing people here are to ignore it when given the chance to bash radfems instead.
In Denmark, we’ve had legalised prostitution for several years now, which (I better hurry to explain, in order not to be branded a radfem and dismissed) I’m in favour of. But it also means that trafficking has become more mainstream, and many people seem to be totally OK with it.
I have a male friend who was frustrated over going a long time without sex, and I asked him why he didn’t visit a prostitute. He told me that the price was too high, and when I asked if he couldn’t get anything cheaper than the price he mentioned, he answered “There are cheaper places, but I can’t be sure the women there are into it voluntarily”. I saw a TV program about disabled people and sex, where a guy in a wheelchair said something similar. He had the money to pay for it, but he also mentioned being very careful because there was a wide selection of women and not all of them were volunteers.
Both of these guys made a choice to condone prostitution, but they also chose to take deliberate steps to avoid committing rape. And it’s really not that hard, since it mostly consists of avoiding foreign prostitutes and people acting as pimps (which is illegal anyway). But unfortunately, they seem to be in the minority, since trafficking is flourishing here.
Non-trafficked prostitutes have done their share to contribute to this (mostly by lashing out at anyone who don’t condone every act of prostitution ever, and generally being condescending and unpleasant), but the real reason it happens is that there is a big market for men who don’t care about seeking consent to sex, as long as they can excuse it by not calling it something other than the r-word.
You talk about “horny, sexually frustrated men” as if they were a constant. They’re not, they’re people who make choices (such as whether to commit rape or not, which is a pretty important one), and part (or more correctly, all) of the reason the sex industry contains as much abuse as it does is because enough of the customers make the choice to not care. And because of that, enough people here have concluded that men can’t act responsibly enough to handle prostitution, which is why Denmark will probably switch to the Swedish model after next election. Which is a damn shame if you ask me.
Instead of acting as if there was just x amount of need for sex (with 0 amount of need for consent), and legalisation was necessary as means of damage control, why not focus more on the culture that the sex industry operates under? Yes, pointing out that many men (and probably a fair share of women) use the sex industry to cover for sexual abuse is a boring, finger-pointing, second-wave thing to do, and not nearly as fun as bashing radfems and shouting your liberated sexual attitudes from the rooftops.
But I’ve personally seen (in the public debate here) how prude-shaming and talking about men as representing a passive, inhuman need have driven people away from liberal feminism and into radical feminism (as much as these terms make sense in a Danish context). And despite how empowering it must feel to firmly assert that you’re not one of ‘those feminists’ (i.e. radfems), it’s also a very defeatist attitude. “Men will always be men, so we just have to get the best out of it”. Is that really the best this board can come up with?
Why do so many radical feminists persist in using “pornography” as shorthand for “the mainstream porn industry”? It’s not that many extra words. I can see by Meghan’s reference to feminist erotica that she is not in fact using the standard definition of “pornography” as encompassing pretty much any kind of erotic imagery and thus value neutral, and frankly this is only going to keep confusing people.
Of COURSE the porn industry as it stands is abusive, misogynist and generally terrible. I ahve NEVER seen a feminist argue that it isn’t. But, newsflash: people (not just men, natch) are not going to stop being visually aroused. It is unrealistic to expect to rewire human beings so that they no longer want to look at sexy things. all we can do is try to change the definition of “sexy” – and I’m pretty sure Meghan actually agrees with me, or she wouldn’t have mentioned feminist erotica.
Deciding that “pornography” can only be used to refer to “bad pornography” is a) tautological and therefore unproductive in debates like this and b) completely useless at actually changing pornographic trends, which will only happen if people support the shit out of independant companies producing ethical porn, thus REPLACING mainstream (abusive) porn. You can call it feminist erotica if you like, but it’s still porn. It’s just not horrible. Deal with it.
>“Sex work” pretends that male power, that the abuse of female bodies, that the idea that women can be purchased and that they exist to be penetrated and used by men doesn’t exist.
Natural correlary – “prison guard” pretends that the abuse of inmates doesn’t exist. The proper term is “Inmate Abuse Establishment”. Presumably, anyone who uses “prison guards” – executive or judicial is part of “Inmate Abuse” culture and should be outlawed.
Natural correlary – “Legislator” pretends that the public is not abused through larcenous and malicious legislation. The proper term is “Public Predator” and those who are part of the “Public Predator” process should be outlawed.
>Of course it ["sex work"] makes you angry, it disrupts the reality you imagine and disrupts your worldview.
Of course the term anti-sex-worker make Meghan angry and disrupts the reality SHE imagines and distrupts HER worldview. However, I doubt that it makes her uncomforable since her commentary on their industry meets with the approval and grading system of people who are partisans masquerading as scholars. I mean she toes to the line that her professors reward. Why should she care who she hurts. She has a degree to get? One that is very self ratifying.
Meghan, I notice that you mentioned Robert Jensen and his perspective, which you described as consonant with radical feminism. I’d like to ask how you respond to Robert Jensen’s assessment that “the pornographers have won”.
Just to attach some rough numbers to that assessment, at the time I grew up, the average man could get access to more or less twenty paper publications, depending on what the police would tolerate. Each of these publications would have about thirty photographs, meaning a man in that time willing to spend $50/month (about $500/month in current dollars) could have access to about seven or eight thousand images a year, all or almost all of simple nudity. Today, anyone willing to spend a hundred dollars a month can easily have access to seven or eight thousand new images every week. That includes access to moving images, including violence of all kinds. This raises the question: at what point does purity in defeat start to matter less than some kind of success? Because it seems apparent that right now, things have worked out not necessarily to the anti-pornography movement’s advantage.
Ms. Gazis-Sax: on the topic of pron spam, I also remember the extremes of ugliness that used to flood in-boxes, and wondering who on earth they could have appealed to. Assuming the ugliness of spam has some marketing logic, and does not simply reflect the somewhat warped outlook of people who make their livings sending email that almost nobody wants, I can only suggest that spam senders need only to appeal to a small fraction of the people they harass. If they make one sale for a million items of unwanted email, they can still come out ahead. Since some of the greatest profits come from consumers who make bad decisions, and strong emotions lead people to make bad choices, making spam appeal to anger and hate makes a kind of twisted commercial sense. A lot like spam itself, when I think about it.
Just to clarify something:
I was hired full-time in 1994 to teach history. We don’t have a separate women’s studies department. Women’s studies was a secondary field of mine, as my doctoral dissertation was in English medieval history. I was hired as a generalist, with the understanding that I would teach a variety of courses: European history and women’s history chief among them. We have ONE women’s studies course in the social sciences division: Women in American Society, and I am one of three faculty members who teach it — and I am the only man. Students have options.
@glendenb You’re right – there are many thoughtful comments in this thread and I have not dismissed them but rather have read and considered them. The only commenters/comments I dismissed were those that, as you have accused me of doing, ‘made it personal’ and derailed the argument or misrepresented the arguments made. Unfortunately those kinds of folks tend to take away from the more thoughtful and intelligent ones. I find these threads are often overtaken by those who don’t desire productive conversation at all but simply wish to spin.
I have really only interjected here in order to clarify my position rather than to engage with the arguments made and will engage further with this debate via a post on The F Word’s blog.
I ‘claimed’ that Hugo treated one radfem differently than others. He did. But it’s his comments page so it’s his prerogative what he publishes. It’s too bad that you’ve represented my responses to one commenter who, you’re right, I shouldn’t have wasted my time on as my energy would have been much better spent engaging with those who are sincere and willing to respond to the arguments made here, rather than simply trolling for a space upon which they can rant at the world, as being somehow representative of a response to all those who have commented here.
It’s funny because I don’t see anyone here or over at my blog demanding that Hugo engage with them in the comments section. I’m not interested in being bullied into engaging on your terms and will do so, on my terms, as I see fit.
Again, I will be posting a response on my own blog at some point soon. Feel free to share your comments over there if you wish. I do very much appreciate the reminder to not let few bad eggs spoil the basket!
To everyone else, thanks for your thoughtful comments. Especially SheilaG and Kathy, whose time, energy, and patience is remarkable.
Sigh, alas, and these were earnest questions, on topic, and all that other stuff:
1) What is the plan to bring about the end of the sex industry?
2) Do you know the methodology and nature of the sampling pools used to draw the data many radical anti-porn feminists state as fact in their arguments, such as the very famous Farely “90%” applied to Sex Work?
3) What about those who do not wish to leave the industry?
I really am curious to know what your responses to these three things are, or if you have any. I have apologized, I can be polite and civil, and really- they ARE questions which are relevant to the whole Sex Industry debate. Heck, I promise to be civilized and rational and all those good things if you will answer them, as they are germane to the subject. If you do not have those answers I will also accept “I don’t know” and simply leave it at that….
But all angst and anger and everything else aside: A great many of us who ARE in the sex industry and advocates for sex workers have asked hundreds of times What the Plan to End the Sex Industry is, and never, ever, ever heard an answer, a theory, anything like that- and well, to us, it IS relevant. I also truly wonder if people know the truth of the studies and research they are quoting, because really, it behooves them to know about it as well as someone like me, because frankly- in an actual debate setting, it is probably BETTER to know than get caught off guard and blindsided by someone who DOES know.
So yes, I apologize for my caustic missive, no qualifications even- but can you answer my questions, or even try to best as you can?
Meghan, are you really refusing to interact with a sex worker about the subject of sex work, which is how you make your living? You make your living off them, right? You can academically pontificate about them, but they can’t reply without you flouncing out of the room because they don’t act like proper ladies and use (gasp) cuss words? Good God, whoever referenced the WCTU was right on the money.
Could you at least answer Ren’s college question? Because when women who had their bills paid by daddy are preaching to the rest of us who danced with pasties on our nipples simply to pay the rent? Makes the quick of my nails ache.
Let em eat cake, I believe is the expression.
Hugo, please don’t pull any “but I *rilly tried* with those radfems!” after this. It is apparent you are not used to setting up spaces congruous with women-centered radicals.
FTR, I consider myself a radical feminist and have since 1972. I just disagree with you and Meghan.
As Roy Kay pointed out, Meghan wants to jail Ren, Hexy and women like them. How is this “women-centered” again?
Daisy: What in god’s green earth are you talking about?? Make my living? I’ve don’t have a living. I’ve been getting by on part time work and/or student loans. I’m on EI as we speak. Y’all need to stop making these assumptions. It’s really getting nutters. Not one of my bills has ever been paid by ‘daddy’. I’ve been living below the poverty line for about 10 years now. I answered Ren’s question about how I paid for my education which is absolutely none of your or anyone else’s business. Enough.
I’d like to also just remind you that Hugo does indeed get paid for all his work, his writing and his teaching. Which is fine. People should be paid for their work. All of this work I do? I do it for free. All of it. Just for fun! Oh, and because I believe it is of vital importance. It is our lives after all. So I find it strange that you would accuse me of making my living off the subject of sex work when clearly it isn’t me who’s getting rich off their backs. Do you gander to guess who it is who makes the most money off of sex workers? I’ll give you a hint – it isn’t women. Oh and by the way, my father is unemployed. My mother is the sole breadwinner in their home. Done?
(Note here: This post will be quite NSFW, so if you are uncomfortable talking about sex in detail this is the time to stop reading.)
—-
“I just don’t see how anyone could see the act of ejaculating ON A WOMAN’S FACE as anything less than incredibly insulting and demeaning. Why not just pee or shit on her face?”
I have personally seen porn that contains that very sex act (ejaculation on a face, not pissing on a face) and is not insulting to women. It’s not terribly hard to imagine if you haven’t already assumed that “ejaculation into face == demeaning”.
To explain why, let’s move the analogy over to vanilla sex. “I just don’t see how anyone could see the act of ejaculating IN A WOMAN’S VAGINA as anything less than incredibly insulting and demeaning. Why not just pee or shit in it?”
Move back a little to blowjobs “I just don’t see how anyone could see the act of ejaculating IN A WOMAN’S MOUTH as anything less than incredibly insulting and demeaning. Why not just pee or shit in it?”
Since neither of these makes any sense at all, we’ve gotten to the principle that it doesn’t really matter where he ejaculates, or in fact anything about what sex is going on specifically. In actual shitty porn, the woman is demeaned only as a function of a bunch of subtle and unsubtle stylistic decisions and not as a feature of any specific act of sex. A woman giving a titjob enthusiastically is not being demeaned even if the man ejaculates during it; a woman whose face never appears onscreen is being demeaned no matter how mild the sex is.
Dr Schwyzer – Actually, I like the option setup. My own day was before even WS, let alone QS, but, if you’d had How Gays Think straightsplained to you as often as I had by academics who’d learned everything they’d ever need to know about non-straights at their stereotypically anti-gay fundamentalist churches, you’d appreciate that I might not even want to take QS if it were just going to be another round of Appeasing Straighty.
Note that Ms. Murphy carefully ignores the observation that she refuses to talk with sex workers, only about them, and refuses to acknowledge that anyone who lives that experience has anything worthwhile to say unless it confirms her from-the-outside point of view. This is what we in the feminism world refer to as “silencing”.
Dobb: radfems eliminate sex work by eliminating patriarchy. Duh! Therefore you’re really setting up a deliberately unfair dilemma: in a patriarchy, come up with a solution that is perfect, otherwise you lose, QED.
Myth, I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that the questions I asked above, which I have asked (even in a very polite manner sometimes even) to numerous anti-porn sorts over the years…well, they have no answers. No solid concrete ones anyway. I have been forced to beleive, actually, via the countless times sexworkers, myself and others, have asked about the plan to end the sex industry that, well, there really isn’t one- aside from bring down the Patriarchy, which is only even offered up rarely- which, well, is kinda nebulous…when I ask how they intend to do that- no answers either. Maybe it sounds good enough’ “Yeah, we’re gonna end the sex industry!” that well, no actual plan is really needed and the pep-talk fumes keep ‘em running. I have also come to beleive that most of ‘em do not know how this research that is stated as fact came about- nor do they care. Farley says 90%, she is above question, so that must be good enough! Nevermind the study the 90% came from was done on roughly 200 street based workers in Calfornia and Southeast Asia, and included NO strippers, pro dommes, porn performers, Non-Street Based prostitutes, trans women or men, or well, anything other than those 200 or so street based workers- Yet, Suddenly, that means than 90% OF ALL WOMEN invovled in the WHOLE OF the Sex Industry…want out. Now, oddly enough I have zero problem beleiving that 90% of street based prostitutes in Cali and Southeast Asia want OUT of the sex industry. None At All, but extrapolating that to include ALL sex workers, in ALL realms of sex work? Humm. Shady. Seems very shady to me- but hey, it sounds good if you are on the anti-side, eh? I reckon that’s why folk keep saying it and seemingly do not care how distorted and inaccurate it is when speaking on the whole of the sex industry. Heck, I’d like to know WHY it’s apparently okay- but- much like other things- I reckon I never will. And I am willing to guess the answer to the What about the women who don’t want out is…well, who gives a crap what they want.
I really did not used to be this jaded and cynical, but yeah…
Meghan has an updated response: http://www.feminisms.org/2970/the-pornstitution-debates-some-thoughts-on-civil-debate-with-hugo-schwyzer-et-al/
Meghan – I was right – you didn’t hear what I said. That you interpreted my comment as an attempt to bully you proves it.
You had an opportunity to communicate and you missed it. Posting at your blog isn’t the same thing as engaging the commenters here – I’ve been reading over there and most your commenters seem to operate from a stance of “we all agree”; the odd stray comment that diverges from the orthodoxy gets knocked down pretty quick. At Hugo’s place you’d have to deal with some tough minded folks who’d be pretty quick to toss aside the jargon of radical feminism as well as ask for more than sloganeering. It would be a tough conversation for you but one that would benefit the audience. It’s about meeting people where they are not where you think they should be.
“I’m not interested in being bullied into engaging on your terms and will do so, on my terms, as I see fit.” My response to that is to quote Auntie Mame talking to Sally Cato – “You do that, honey.” Seriously, though, the idea that you’re only going to engage on your terms is a recipe for failure. A fews year back, I was invited to speak to a coalition of community groups working on an issue at the legislature. Now some of these groups were liberal, but a couple were conservative and were working on the issues for very different reasons. I could’ve gone in and given the standard liberal spiel but that wouldn’t have been as effective. I went in and made the case that we share common goals, that are reasons and rationales and language might be different but we could work together on this issue if we got out from behind our various defensive barriers and really talked with one another. With other leaders, we had to do a lot of work to keep that coalition together but we got done what we wanted to get done. You had a similar opportunity here to meet people where they are. I think you missed that opportunity and we’re all worse of because of it – you had a chance to lead and your leadership could have made a difference in this discussion.
As far as why people at your blog aren’t asking Hugo to participate in the conversation – that’s easy. Two very different audiences with very different expectations. I think your readers would find Hugo’s voice jarring, even distracting from what they expect to find.
As I said before, I doubt you can hear what I’m saying, but hey, I’ve got that optimism going on.
I have been with men who view ejaculating on a person as an act of degradation. As I’m not someone who gets off on degradation and my preference is to avoid sleeping with assholes, this means that those men have avoided this activity because they don’t want to demean the women they care about and are attracted to.
Having talked to and been intimate with them, I’ve always ended up feeling sorry for them. It’s a sad state of affairs when you’ve been conditioned to feel that your perfectly clean and normal body fluids are disgusting and demeaning for your partners to come in contact with.
If my partner performs oral sex on me and ends up with my fluids on their face, I certainly don’t think they’ve been degraded by the experience, even if I ejaculate in the process. Rather, I feel honoured and happy that they’ve overcome the body shame and sex negativity that our culture tries to program into us. Sexual fluids are not disgusting.
HAHAHAHA. ha. heh. @glendenb If you think most, or even many commenters agree with me over at my blog you clearly haven’t read my blog. Wouldn’t that be nice though!
Three final comments:
1) I have actually found this conversation quite illuminating on the subject of sex and sexuality in repression and oppression. So thanks, Hugo.
2) Some of this discussion raises, once again, the vexed question of the relationship between a movement and its constituency. How far can members of a movement speak for their group before falling into disrespect? To what extent do those who work to improve conditions for people have an obligation to deliver practical results?
3) The conflation of pornography and prostitution raises a series of questions, because written and even– increasingly– visual pornography don’t actually require the participation of anyone but the writer or artist. Does that mean that only material made with actual (possibly trafficked) human performers or models counts as pornography anymore?
Again, Hugo and Meghan, thanks for an illuminating discussion, even when a lot of heat came out with the light.
This thread is a sausage fest. When are the women going to get a chance to be heard?
>I have really only interjected here in order to clarify my position rather than to engage with the arguments made and will engage further with this debate via a post on The F Word’s blog.
>I ‘claimed’ that Hugo treated one radfem differently than others. He did. But it’s his comments page so it’s his prerogative what he publishes.
And thus the invite to post where the posts will be “moderated” to eliminate argument and instead will be misrepresented in a false “synopsis. I think just about everyone here has experience that at a “rad fem” blog.
Cherry: I think there were an even number of women here: Meghan, Hexy, Daisy, Kathy, Shelia, Myself and various others: women.
cbl – you’re fingers aren’t painted on. Share your opinion.
cherryblossomlife, I count at least three women actively commenting. Kindly cram your silencing, only-women-who-agree-with-me-exist tactics.
For resources on the abuse of women in sex industry jobs outside of prostitution itself, try here:
http://www.object.org.uk/./index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3&phpMyAdmin=434389b7797bbb375d2d62203fa2df74
Pingback: SlutWalks and blanket bans on porn/sex work « Diary of a VirginWhore