One Gyrl’s Take on the Stop Porn Culture Conference
When I think of the international Stop Porn Culture (SPC) conference I attended in Boston last June, the first image that comes to mind is of a giant plastic foot with a slot in it for men to ejaculate into (Dr. Gail Dines discussed this during her presentation). The first phrase that comes to mind is humantoiletbowls dot com, the domain name of a mainstream porn site. And the first sound that comes to mind is that of a young boy gasping for breath as he is suffocated and raped by a trusted adult man addicted to pornography.
If what you’ve just read disturbs you, it should distress you even further to know that children are consuming porn at a younger age than ever before. Indeed, according to one of SPC’s presenters, the fourth most common word searched for by children is “sex,” (and what do you think shows up after such a search?); the fifth is “porn”. Where do you think your children are getting their sex-education, parents? Not from the “abstinence only” school curricula, that’s for sure.
Pornography is increasingly impacting our emotional health as well. Dear Abby had a sixteen-year-old girl write to her about porn addiction! Porn addicts have even been known to sing songs to their porn collections and stay home from vacation to masturbate to images. While we all were aware of the financial collapse, how many of us knew that men working at the Securities and Exchange Commission were jerking off to Internet porn, some as much as eight hours a day? And porn has increasingly come to (negatively) impact intimate relationships; some dub it the new “other woman.”
But, as is obvious to every woman alive, not everyone sees our porn-saturated society as a problem. As one of the founding members of Stop Porn Culture, Dr. Gail Dines, pointed out at the first SPC conference, while porn has become increasingly harsh, a feminist challenge to the porn industry has gone underground. Thus, SPC was founded in the hopes of bringing a radical feminist analysis of pornography back to the forefront of the feminist agenda. In order to combat porn, Dr. Dines suggests raising pornography consumption as a public health issue, much as was done with smoking. While this idea may be the most pragmatic way to challenge the industry, I’m saddened the exploitation of women required to make pornography does not in itself cause outrage. Perhaps male violence could be incorporated into a “public health” approach, but how likely this would be in a male-dominated society, I do not know. Yet, just the act of lessening porn production and consumption would have the effect of decreasing some violence against women, clearly a feminist goal.
Somewhat similarly, the topic of porn and capitalism came up among conference attendees. Several of the conference-goers I talked to seemed to believe if capitalism is dismantled, violent porn would cease to exist. I found this a rather odd assumption, since male supremacy is clearly present in non-capitalist societies. What reason is there to believe the images created by this imaginary society would be kinder and gentler to women? None, as far as I can tell.
These thoughts were echoed by the speakers on the panel regarding legal approaches to challenging the pornography industry. The first scholar, a woman from Durham University, stated that any new laws confronting pornography should be based on a feminist analysis of the industry as opposed to a moral one. The following presenter, Diane Rosenfeld, reminded us that the feminist community has a limited amount of monetary and time resources; we have to decide what the best use of these resources is: legal, education, etc. Rosenfeld also gave us a fairly recent example, the case of Abu Ghraib, where pictures were used to indict individuals for actions. But, when it comes to women, torture is a means to male sexual pleasure.
So, what did I take away from this feminist anti-pornography conference—in addition to overwhelming anger, that is? One of the main messages I got was that there are women fighting back; despite what the pornographers say, women will not be cowered into silence. Even if half the male population gets off to our pain, we will not go down without a fight. We will not give in to your phallic-like missiles, knives, and guns because we have justice on our side.
July 12th, 2010 at 10:28 pm
The Ms. Magazine blog has posted two parts of an ongoing interview of Gail Dines by Shira Tarrant, who declares herself emphatically not anti-porn. It may appear Ms. is giving free rein to both sides of the argument, but the moderators have seen fit to censor at least two of my comments, so far. The first was the product of extreme exasperation, so I thought perhaps that decision could be justified, but at this point, I think they are trying to drive me away.
This was the first comment, which would have followed this one:
I had quoted a passage from Gloria Steinem, from the beginning of the chapter Erotica vs. Pornography in her book Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, since my attempt to draw a distinction between erotica and pornography was met with derision and insinuations the distinction I drew was capricious and inaccurate. This was what I quoted from Ms. Steinem:
The second censored comment, on Part 2, would have followed this one:
July 13th, 2010 at 9:39 pm
The Ms. blog entries about the Gail Dines interview are fairly quiet today, only one new comment. Since it has been over 24 hours since my last attempt, back on Part 1 in response to notorious pornography industry flack Sheldon accusing Gail Dines of taking money from “a fundamentalist Christian outfit that wants abortion outlawed,” I presume I have been censored again.
My third censored comment would have followed this one:
I found out where Sheldon probably got his information. Good old Violet Blue. She posted on her blog a screen shot of the whois listing for the Stop Porn Culture website.
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At the time she wrote that, unless she photoshopped the listing, Skyward-bound Productions was the registrant and administrator, though that says nothing about the owner or financier, and in her blog post she does not say who owned the site, referring to the webmaster. Sheldon quoted her linked San Francisco Chronicle column, where she says, “Stop Porn Culture is registered and owned by Skyward-bound Productions.” However, she does not mention abortion at all in either piece, so it is not clear how Sheldon arrived at the conclusion that rather small web design company owned and financed Stop Porn Culture, and he does not explain his reasoning. I imagine it is supposed to be self-evident, but especially since the listing is obsolete, I think he and Violet Blue merely jumped to self-serving conclusions. The current registrant is Lierre Keith, who has been made aware of this. I also requested information from Skyward-bound Productions about any connection with Stop Porn Culture, but I have not yet received a response. The proprietor is Christian, but after reading some of his forum I got no impression he is a rabid fundamentalist who wants to outlaw abortion. He ran for local office in his town. One would think if abortion was such a big issue for him, that would figure prominently in his postings on his forum, but I could not find any mention of it.
Another bizarre reversal on the Ms. blog was posted by “sex worker” Jill Brenneman, who took a man to task for objecting to the term sex-positive, suggesting the more accurate term would be pro-porn. She says,
Mislabeled, huh. Like my distinction between erotica and pornography was dismissed as a misuse of language. I think that title fits just fine, perhaps not so much to women who prefer to think of themselves as sex workers, but certainly to defenders of the industry such as Sheldon. Also, I know of no feminist who opposes the rights of women in the pornography industry. Some feminists, including myself, think such women have a right to a way out.
Perhaps what really annoyed Ms. Brenneman was the quote Mr. Silver posted from a talk delivered by Rebecca Whisnant at the conference “Pornography and Pop Culture: Re-framing Theory, Re-thinking Activism” (Boston MA, March 24, 2007)
I would not have thought Ms. Magazine would fall into that trap, but in light of what is going on, perhaps I was naive about that.
Another ironic twist is what happened the last time I thought the Ms. blog was censoring me, on the entry Meet the New Kid on the Block: Male Studies. I received this on May 7 in response to my query ten days earlier:
I had to guess at the punctuation, since some of those I surmise were semicolons got garbled in the transmission. Now it appears the moderators wish to chase me away. Is this what mainstream feminism has come to? They allowed plenty of comments in defense of Gail Dines, but mine are apparently too sharp, pointed, angry, exasperated, sarcastic? What? If Lierre Keith or Gail Dines gives me definitive information that shows this allegation by Sheldon is full of crap, I will attempt to post that, and if that is censored, I will raise hell.
July 13th, 2010 at 10:56 pm
Gail Dines posted her opening speech at the conference on her blog
July 14th, 2010 at 11:07 pm
Sheldon Ranz is in his full glory today, accusing Gail Dines of being a closet prude, repeating his borderline slanderous, obsolete at best, claim about who maintains and finances the Stop Porn Culture website on Part 2, and stating that Jersey Jaxin had a falling out with Shelley Lubben, so her profile was taken down. Funny, the link I posted still works. I wonder if Sheldon has been made aware that the Ms. moderators have censored more than one of my comments.
July 16th, 2010 at 10:01 pm
My censored comments are no longer censored. I do not know what happened or why, but it appears several more comments from previous days have also suddenly appeared. Perhaps the moderators were trying to prevent the discussions from turning into train wrecks, then decided censoring comments was not helping matters.
Sheldon has not responded to my request for evidence. It is possible he has not noticed it, since Part 1 has had no comments since Tuesday.
July 17th, 2010 at 1:10 am
Sheldon did respond at 6:43 PM, but at the time of my previous comment, his comment had not been approved. He cited another site organized by Violet Blue, http://ourpornourselves.org, which has a page devoted to Stop Porn Culture. Curiously, it seems a bit more objective than the pieces I linked above, even stating
Neither is there any mention on that page of Stop Porn Culture taking money from its website hosts or designers, nor of abortion.
Sheldon Ranz and Violet Blue take exception to the current web host, bluehost.com, allegedly owned by homophobic Mormons, which happens to be the second outfit on a list of web hosting companies recommended by WordPress. I suppose by that logic, I should boycott WordPress.
July 19th, 2010 at 10:13 pm
Sheldon ramped up his mudslinging in response to me pressing him.
I attempted to respond, but surprise, surprise! My comment is still in moderation.
I do have some sympathy for the moderators, but how they can think it is appropriate to allow Sheldon to sling his mud while censoring me really makes me wonder whose side they are on. Can it be Ms. Magazine thinks Sheldon Ranz is an unbiased expert on the pornography industry? Or is it just my comments are too heated or inflammatory, so unlikely to lead to any kind of resolution of the “sex wars?” Sheldon calls himself a “liberal feminist.” I think he is a liberal, fine, but I want nothing to do with his brand of feminism.
There have been only three approved comments since Friday, one being what I quoted above from Sheldon. Perhaps there have been more comments held up in moderation, or perhaps people are waiting for Part 3.
July 19th, 2010 at 10:48 pm
Found via a Facebook friend, Quotes from Jenna Jameson in her book How to make love like a porn star, a cautionary tale. It is not a pretty picture.
July 20th, 2010 at 9:24 pm
My long comment is still in moderation, but the link to that YouTube video above was approved at the Ms. blog. There was a trackback to Part 2 from last week I had not noticed, from none other than Violet Blue, who highly recommended that “refreshingly balanced article.” So I had to try to comment about that.
Who knows if that will pass the standards of the moderators. I see one comment posted after mine has already been approved, so I am betting mine will not be. Who knows. The comment that was approved was by one of the Ms. bloggers on her own entry, so of course that would go through right away.
Another ironic twist is that while I was roundly ridiculed for protesting pornography on one of the disappeared incarnations of the Randi Rhodes forum, I was never censored or even warned by the moderators there.
July 22nd, 2010 at 10:41 pm
The previous comments got approved today. The entries are eerily quiet otherwise. Part 3 will presumably be out shortly.
July 23rd, 2010 at 11:47 pm
This article is more than a bit unfair and even more unbalanced. Porn is no more addicting than any other subject that someone can derive pleasure from, be it drugs, alcohol, etc. It has already been proven that abstinence only curricula doesn’t work, and that all it does is keep the information from teenagers who are going to have sex. Abstinence only is the equivalent of not potty training a child and then expecting him to not use the bathroom. Sex and the desire for sex is a biological function, a response to the body entering the age where, when our species was young, reproduction was the most feasible.
I completely agree with Abby’s take that pornography gives a distorted view about what sex is about, because it does. I also agree that pornography is mainly consumed by men, but definitely not entirely. Pornography is just as demeaning to men, especially minority males, as it is to females. As a man I am also offended by your assertion that men always enjoy sex, all the time. Many male pornographic actors end up taking erectile dysfunction medication in order to perform in scenes, and female actors are, on a whole, paid significantly more in the porn industry.
And that is what it is, an industry, a job, a job that requires being comfortable with certain things but a job none the less. Does everyone enjoy their job, no, does that make it exploitation, no. You act as if every porn actress wasn’t a porn actress they would be an astrophysicist or a doctor, while in truth most would be a waitress or something like that. I would wager any amount of money that if you asked them would they prefer to be a porn actress or work at McDonald’s they would say Porn, because most jobs are just as demeaning but pay less.
July 24th, 2010 at 12:34 am
Who said “men always enjoy sex, all the time?” You jump to a lot of conclusions, Harry. Pornography may be demeaning to men, but the point of pornography is that women are sex objects for male pleasure. There is no equivalency. Most jobs may be demeaning in one sense or another, but the point of most jobs is something other than to reduce women to sex objects so men can get off on it. Again, there is no equivalency. Your argument is straight out of what some call postmodern hell.
All people have skills and talents. Not everyone gets a chance to develop them. If women in the “industry” were offered that chance, I have strong reasons to believe most would jump at it. The point is, the devaluation of women in this culture creates the context in which it seems becoming a prostitute or pornography “actress” is the best some women can aspire to. These are not jobs; they are traps.
August 3rd, 2010 at 9:26 pm
Gail Dines has a brief article on CounterPunch published yesterday, complete with a link to Amazon to buy her book Pornland, The Stepford Sluts.
The entries on the Ms. blog have been quiet for several days, after I responded to Sheldon affirming that I am “sex-negative” by saying I could ask for a definition, but since there could be no possible common ground on the meaning of that insult, why bother? Another entry was posted critical of Hugh Hefner, but curiously, nobody ventured to defend him.
August 16th, 2010 at 7:33 am
One critical issue to prostitution and pornography that gets swirled into maximum confusion is the meaning of consent. Nobody will defend selling a woman as a sex slave, unless she has a say in it. Suddenly that makes it just another choice, to those who think some women sell themselves as sex slaves of their own free will. Leaving aside the blatant contradiction inherent in that concept, if one is concerned with more than technical legal issues, I think a feminist approach demands an examination of why a woman would make such a choice. Is it really a free fully informed unpressured choice between reasonable alternatives?
In rare cases, that may happen, but I contend the vast majority of women who choose sex slavery as a career do not see a reasonable alternative, so the choice is constrained, uninformed, and made under pressure. This is consent? Consent contaminated to such an extent is meaningless, yet this is supposed to be a fact of life, that men are entitled to buy sex or watch images of sex slavery.
It is argued, this is comparable to wage slavery, and it is true enough that many jobs are a meaningless grind, endured for the paycheck. This is a failure built into the economic model. If it were otherwise, if the economic system enabled everyone to thrive by developing their best talents and skills, no woman would have to face the desperation of seeing no reasonable alternatives. This may seem hopelessly impractical, but what does the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness really mean when so many people can aspire to no more than being cogs in the corporate machinery?
Since the economic model is what it is, the question is raised, why blame the victims? Why are prostitutes criminals, while those who buy them are just bad boys being boys? The reverse has been tried, with promising results. One may think I am suggesting buyers or makers of pornography should be criminals, since the consent of the women is questionable. To deal with the symptoms of prevalent economic and value systems while leaving them intact is bandaging the problems at best. I think it makes more sense to treat pornography as an extremely costly luxury than as a law enforcement nightmare, unless the women are getting physically injured or underage. I draw that line because that is where informed consent is impossible. Perhaps if the buyers of pornography had to pay enough tax so the cost was comparable to a work of erotic art, they might consider buying art instead. This is far from an ideal solution, but if the economic and value system are taken for reality, I think it is better than treating pornography and prostitution as normal facts of life. Ultimately I insist the solution is to provide women better alternatives, but that would require profound revisioning of prevalent theories of value. My first blog entry was devoted to that subject.
One section of the much older Free Soil Party Bill of Missing Rights says,
What is the point of education, if not to provide an opportunity for fulfilling and meaningful employment? But of course, the powers that be do not see it that way.
August 20th, 2010 at 9:42 pm
This was my latest response to Sheldon, who reacted to my thoughts about logic by saying my theory of knowledge sounded like nihilism.
August 30th, 2010 at 11:11 pm
Jennifer Drew posted to the Global Sisterhood Network today an illuminating article from The Irish Times on increasing violence experienced by prostitutes.
I quoted that sentence about the link between increased aggression and more degrading demands from younger men with the universal availability of hard pornography on the third segment of the Ms. blog interview of Gail Dines, asking Sheldon if he cared to comment. Certainly he and other pornography apologists find the link possible to ignore; I predict he will claim the link is unproven, or that the increased violence experienced by prostitutes is unproven. Sheldon is very big on proving things, as a major fan of Mr. Spock, the supremely logical science officer in the original Star Trek series. Apparently his confusion of my philosophy with nihilism arose from his conflation of knowing things and proving them.
Last Friday Gail Dines posted a direct response to Shira Tarrant, to defend her assertion that pornography is racist. The fireworks show no sign of abating, as the whitewashers of the pornography industry attempt to defend it by saying not all pornography is sexist or racist. Why is that relevant, and why is it these apologists refuse to recognize that what they call non-sexist, non-racist pornography, if it indeed qualifies as such, should be called something else, such as erotica? Why would they not wish to disassociate depictions of “shared sensuality,” as Gloria Steinem put it, from clearly sexist and/or racist depictions of the sexual abuse of women? These apologists shy from making such a distinction because they prefer to claim the opponents of pornography are sex-negative prudes who think any depiction of sexuality should be banned! Some people do believe that, but they are generally religious fanatics, not feminists.
September 8th, 2010 at 9:06 pm
The Ms. blog moderators are at it again. This time they censored me for quoting excerpts from two blog entries by ex-prostitute Rebecca Mott, which I thought answered a commenter responding to my first quote from her blog by opining nobody would try to silence Ms. Mott and that she denied the different experiences of other prostitutes.
I quoted an excerpt from Break Down posted July 22 and another from a week earlier, You are Not Just an Individual.
I cannot recall exactly my comments I interspersed with these excerpts, but I suspect it was these bitter fiery words from Ms. Mott that were too much for the moderators, not my brief pointed remarks explaining why I had quoted these excerpts.
From the earlier entry:
There is much noise on that blog entry about hearing the voices of women in the sex industry. Apparently the voice of Rebecca Mott is too divisive for the moderators. The first entry I quoted was from May 1, Do Not Call It Work. I posted that because Monica Shores, the author of the blog entry How To Respect Sex Workers stated
No, sex worker was conceived as a means of whitewashing the sex trade. My patience with the Ms. blog moderators is about to end. They allowed me to rip apart the credibility of Mr. Sheldon Ranz, but they have put me on notice that I must not go too far. I have been naive about what liberal feminism represents. It appears to me that they wish to represent a branch of feminism that wants reform, but nothing too radical that might rock the boat or seriously threaten the powers that be. In other words, they see problems with society, but still think it is possible for feminists to accomplish meaningful reform by working within the system. I think the system is rotten to the core, and the sex trade provides a crystal clear reflection of that rot.
September 15th, 2010 at 10:37 pm
Surprise, surprise. The Ms. blog moderators approved that comment today, after over a week. They also approved a few old comments by Sheldon, and apparently, if my recall is accurate, a few others that had been held up. I had asked Sheldon on Part 3 if he was proud to call Larry Flynt an ally. I thought he had not bothered to respond, but two of his comments suddenly appeared today, from at least two weeks ago. He said he thought the statement I quoted from Flynt trashing Gloria Steinem was inappropriate, but did not disavow Flynt. After his attempt to trash Gail Dines because Stop Porn Culture originally picked a web designer which he called “a fundamentalist Christian outfit that wants abortion outlawed,” I think his attempt to dodge my question is a clear example of a double standard.
September 16th, 2010 at 10:11 pm
Since the Ms. blog moderators saw fit to edit my last two comments, I will post them in full here. This was what I attempted to post on How to Respect Sex Workers, with the deleted text in italics:
This was from Part 3 of the Gail Dines interview:
Today the moderators posted an apology for the delays in moderation, and reminded the readers that ad hominem attacks will not be approved. I am supposed to believe the parts of my comments that were edited out are ad hominem attacks? I was objecting to what I perceived as unfair attacks that were approved, but it appears my remarks were too pointed or sarcastic for the moderators. I made my skepticism known, at least to the moderators. I do not know what to expect from them. I could take a hint and disappear; I did refrain from commenting for a week because I was so disgruntled over the delay in approving my quotes from Rebecca Mott.
September 23rd, 2010 at 9:25 pm
I made three comments yesterday that are currently held up in moderation, all part of my continuing battle with Sheldon Ranz. It is becoming difficult for me to comprehend why the Ms. moderators do not simply ban me. The first two were on How To Respect Sex Workers, and the third was on Part 3 of the Gail Dines interview.
This one was a response to this comment by Sheldon:
My second presumably censored comment was in response to this comment:, where Sheldon reiterates his stance that “sex workers desire sex with their customers because of the money gained.”
My last censored comment from yesterday was in response to this comment, where Sheldon accuses me of “endorsing” the concept of female masochism, and again dodges my attempts to corner him about whether he considers Larry Flynt an ally.
Are the Ms. blog moderators attempting to get rid of me? If not, they certainly could have fooled me. I am sick of arguing with one hand tied behind my back, wondering what the moderators will allow me to say. I will reserve judgment for a few days. It is possible the moderators will reconsider, as they did before for all but one of my comments, which was not one of my best anyway. In the meantime, I jumped into another entry about Bristol Palin, this one actually somewhat sympathetic to her in light of sexist trash being hurled her way. Many commenters attempted to make that all about hypocrisy and abstinence-only sex education, so I mentioned that Sarah Palin is a proponent of teaching children about contraception, and today I wondered why it had not been mentioned that the health insurance reform bill restored funding for abstinence-only sex education.
September 24th, 2010 at 8:32 am
Since Sheldon Ranz repeatedly cites NOW as a bastion of liberal feminists who share his views on pornography and prostitution, I did some research to see if I could find anything to back that up. It appears the usual suspects, such as COYOTE and ifeminist icon Wendy McElroy, think NOW has favored decriminalization of prostitution since 1973. Yet NOW memorialized Andrea Dworkin without a hint of the rancor Sheldon likes to imply has always existed between her and liberal feminists.
That same year, a resolution was proposed to reaffirm the 1984 NOW resolution against pornography. Note, the above link is to an organization that on its welcome page says,
I cannot find what happened to this resolution, except that it was supposed to come up for a vote in September 2005, but was tabled until December after Sex Worker’s Outreach Project and others launched a campaign to stop the resolution. Heart posted an announcement about this campaign, which I also found posted here.
Contrary to the claims of Sheldon Ranz, it appears NOW has for a long time taken a dim view of both pornography (as distinct from erotica, a distinction Sheldon thinks only confuses the issues) and prostitution. NOW may consider arresting prostitutes a wrongheaded, unfair, and counterproductive approach, as do most feminists I know, but this hardly implies that NOW has no problem with “sex work,” as Sheldon likes to think.
The comments I posted here yesterday are still in moderation, though my comment on the Bristol Palin thread was approved. At this point I am inclined to boycott the Ms. blog. If my comments are approved, I will bring these quotes from NOW herstory into the discussion.
September 29th, 2010 at 8:17 pm
My comments, along with a host of others, some from Sheldon and a bunch from berryblade, suddenly appeared today. I do not know what to think of this. Perhaps Ms., if they are serious about hosting a controversial blog, ought to hire a moderator or two, at least part-time. Currently this is being done by volunteers in their spare time.
September 30th, 2010 at 11:45 pm
Sheldon applauded the decision by the Ontario court that struck down Canada’s anti-prostitution laws. Others are not so pleased. This story is from CTV News
If that 97% figure sounds high, an article from the Deadline Press & Picture Agency of Scotland says 90% of prostitutes in Scotland want out.
Mr. Robertson is onto something. I have made the point over and over on the Ms. blog that prostitution is not a free informed choice, that the vast majority of prostitutes only put up with that life because they need the money and see no good alternative.
As of now, Sheldon has not answered any of my newly approved comments. I am not eager to test what the moderators will do if I attempt to post another comment, but I imagine I will find out soon enough.
October 4th, 2010 at 11:16 pm
This is from an editorial in the Globe and Mail by a Canadian male law professor in response to the court ruling. Jennifer Drew posted it, along with her commentary, on the Global Sisterhood Network yesterday.
That the laws cause the risks to prostitutes is the primary argument made by advocates of decriminalization. If only it were legal, prostitutes could expect their rights to be respected? As if the law reliably protects women in any situation from abusive men. Under the Swedish model, since the police are mandated to arrest johns, an abused prostitute is more likely to feel the police will do something about it than if the law treats the matter as just part of a legal business transaction, or as if she should know what to expect. When a prostitute cannot go to the police without risking arrest, she effectively has no recourse no matter what the john does to her.
October 18th, 2010 at 11:23 pm
There is an interesting take on the pornography business posted today at the business site Minyanville
Anything goes, indeed. How exactly are women empowered by pornography? Answer, the point of pornography has never been to empower women, rather to be a part of the arsenal male-dominated cultures employ to keep women down.
October 19th, 2010 at 10:53 pm
I really should give up on the Ms. blog. This was my latest censored comment, in response to Sheldon citing the “standard dictionary definition” of pornography:
(I included the tribute in full, without comment, which is also above in my comment from Sept. 24.)
I suppose I should have known the moderators would have a problem with that, but I am beyond caring. They can stuff it. Sheldon is no feminist, and I see no reason a genuinely feminist blog should allow his “liberal feminist” (read pro-pornography, pro-prostitution to the point of averring the double standard prevents women from enjoying a similar “right” to “sex” on demand) opinions to go unrefuted. Berryblade and Laurelin were also edited and/or censored by the moderators. Who knows who else has been stifled so Ms. can maintain its big tent it calls feminism. I do know that some comments from Sheldon also took awhile to appear, but I do not know if any of his were permanently blocked or edited. He appears undaunted, in any event.
November 23rd, 2010 at 1:51 am
Sheldon has gone off the deep end, in his response to me correcting him once again about his insinuations about the hosting and design of the Stop Porn Culture website. For some reason, his comment I could only find in the RSS feed of the Ms. blog.
Sheldon responds:
Uh huh. How would I go about checking out every web site hosted by my ISP? The list of clients of any ISP happens to be private information, which I would have no way to obtain. Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff (aka Heart), who ran for President in 2008, has her own blog and web site, though I have quoted her here several times. I put myself on a pedestal? Where did that come from? Traditionally men have put women on a pedestal as a form of flattery, which really was designed to keep women confined to the domestic sphere. Since I am not so confined, and have the nerve to challenge every aspect of this culture, that must mean I put myself on a pedestal?
Sheldon mistakes getting caught with making a mistake. If those mistakes say anything about Stop Porn Culture, correcting those mistakes should say more, as a deliberate act of disassociation, as opposed to an inadvertent act of association. Sheldon wants people to believe this alleged alliance was surreptitious, meant to fly under the radar. The alliance never existed except in the imagination of people such as him and Violet Blue, but they never bother to let facts get in the way of trying to assassinate the character of their opponents. Sheldon considers himself a feminist, whereas those he calls sex-negative hypocrites he thinks must be feminists in name only. Sheldon needs to look in the mirror.
November 23rd, 2010 at 1:59 am
Another of my comments appears to have been censored. If it does not appear soon, I will post it here. I was explaining why the claim, “there is no evidence” raises red flags for me, since Mr. Michael Goodyear, of the Center for Sex Work Research and Policy, asserts there is no evidence most prostitutes are miserable.
November 23rd, 2010 at 10:38 pm
The Ms. blog has a limit on the length of comments, so I had to break this one into two parts. The first was approved, but the second (which starts with Continued) I think will not be.
A few things jump out at me. “My point was that by continuing to describe heterosexual relationships including sex work in terms of active males imposing themselves on vulnerable females, one merely, even if unintentionally, re-inscribes patriarchy by emphasising this particular masculine gaze, rather than emphasising the positive aspects of female sexuality.” How can you call “sex work” a relationship? They are not comparable, though some men may flatter themselves to think they are in a relationship with a prostitute. Feminists describe heterosexual relationships in this way to protest traditional values, not to reinscribe them. This is not an unintentional oversight, it is a deliberate protest. If women had equal power in relationships and society, there would be no need to object to men imposing their will on women.
I do not interpret high-end prostitution as indoor prostitution. As I observed above, Rebecca Mott was an indoor prostitute. I use the term to refer to high-class high-priced prostitutes, such as the escort service patronized by Eliot Spitzer. They make lots of money and have lots of leisure time, and are somewhat protected by the fact their relatively wealthy clients are not anonymous and have something to lose if blackmailed. These clients often do want companionship as well as sex. None of this applies to the average prostitute, indoors or not.
You are evading my issue with the favor Ms. Agustin did for lo tekk. This is not a matter of her sharing an opinion with antifeminists. She went out of her way to leave a friendly comment on his blog, as if he were a valued ally. Perhaps she did not bother to check out his blog, but since there were only seven comments on that post, why not? I have commented on hostile blogs, but I did that to confront people. I also allow hostile comments on my blog, but I confront them. I do not believe in guilt by association, and in fact took someone you may know, Sheldon Ranz, to task for attempting to discredit Gail Dines on the grounds the ex-web designer for Stop Porn Culture turned out to be a religious fundamentalist. A web designer is a business associate, not an ally, but they got a new web designer after reading an article by Violet Blue gloating about uncovering yet another connection between anti-pornography feminists and anti-pornography fundamentalists. Sheldon claimed the web designer was funding Stop Porn Culture, but he had no evidence for that. The new web designer chose an objectionable web host, so Sheldon was arguing this was evidence that Gail Dines is in league with antifeminists. Guilt by association is a slippery slope. Perhaps Stop Porn Culture is guilty of lack of due diligence, but how much research into the associations of a web designer is one expected to do?
I also took issue with the substance of that article I cited on the Laura Agustin blog, which was written by a guest author, libertarian activist Louise Persson. One statement I found particularly telling was to belittle the anecdote of an unhappy prostitute in the study of the Swedish law Ms. Persson was critiquing. “”But this strategy won’t hold up, because Swedes know that all sex workers are not miserable.” I wondered on this blog, Is that the point? Do Swedes “know” that most prostitutes are not miserable? If not, is the experience of a few contented prostitutes to outweigh the misery of most?
You contend it is the other way around, that most prostitutes are relatively content? I wonder if unhappy prostitutes would be talking to the researchers you find credible.
“I don’t think that sex work specifically objectifies women – that is already engrained in social attitudes and pervades advertising and the way women are portrayed.” It has been argued here that decriminalizing prostitution would specifically counter the objectification of women. I see no evidence for that. If the conception of woman as sex object was foreign to human consciousness, could prostitution exist? I think not.
“Objectification is not linked to violence which is more related to power inequality.” Does objectification not go hand in hand with power inequality? What is the purpose of objectification, if not to maintain power inequality? Do you believe male sexual aggression has become less of a problem, and that the mainstreaming of pornography deserves credit for that? I do not understand how Naomi Wolf could make that argument, which is a staple of men’s rights propaganda, as if pornography provides an outlet for men who otherwise would be harassing and raping women, but I would like to see how you would defend it. The risk of violence is a matter of degree. I never expected what happened to me. I thought it could not happen to me. I was naive. The reason prostitutes are at greater risk is that they have to deal with so many men they cannot trust, and the risks multiply. The law may not help matters, but it is not the cause of male violence against women in general, or prostitutes in particular.
(Continued)
There are many ways to conduct a study to bolster preconceived conclusions. A study of an illegal activity will have great difficulty obtaining a sample of a representative population. I suppose you know the saying, figures never lie, but liars always figure. Those who believe men are battered as frequently as battered women claim to have solid studies on their side. Studies can be flawed by poor design or overlooking contrary evidence. Medicine and science are littered with examples. Scientists like to claim, for instance, that there is no evidence that nuclear power has killed anyone, or that genetically modified food crops are different from conventional crops, except for possessing the desired engineered traits. Now the Transportation Security Administration is saying there is no evidence those full body scanners are dangerous. When people say there is no evidence, red flags go up for me. What they mean is that there is no evidence they find credible.
You believe men in general respect women in general, and that this is reflected in the experiences of prostitutes? How could sexism remain prevalent in a culture where men generally respect women? I am curious, have you read anything from Rebecca Mott’s blog? I quoted her extensively in my comments on How To Respect Sex Workers.
“…there is evidence that amongst the young more men than women are selling sexual services.” I find that about as credible as the claim men are battered as often as women. I think promiscuity is a red herring. I take issue with male promiscuity, and I do not think promiscuity is something women should emulate, or that it has anything to do with the reasons women go into prostitution. That is a patronizing argument based on traditional values, not radical feminism.
I could say more, but I am falling asleep, so I will have to leave it at that.
November 26th, 2010 at 8:53 pm
I posted another two part comment Wednesday evening. This time the first part, the longer of the two, is missing. I am getting tempted to copy the entire thread, or at least my comments and those to which I responded. I am wary of doing that because there could be legal issues, if Ms. decides to make trouble for me. I am not looking for that kind of trouble, and I doubt Ms. is either, but given the way they are handling my comments, I have no idea where I stand. Unfortunately, if I only post my own comments, they are out of context. This was the full comment; the part starting with (Continued) was approved today.
I would appreciate it if you would send me at editor@freesoil.org a link to wherever you found someone claiming to know who I am. As far as I know, there is only one person in the blogosphere who knows my identity, and I did not mention the site of this person. I would assume that identification is incorrect, and that any attempt to out me would be done out of hostility.
The Ms. comment policy is at http://msmagazine.com/blog/contact-us/#comment. I am not going to speculate about why my comments (and those of some friends) have been held up, blocked, and edited. I have already protested that, and see no point in belaboring the point, but since it has happened on this entry, I thought I had better mention that. I imagine most people commenting here do not feel they cannot speak freely. I posted my missing comment on my blog, as a comment to the top entry, the writeup by a friend of the recent Stop Porn Culture conference. By the way, I did not think anyone would think my blog is hard to find. Click on my name.
There is a difference between misquoting and misinterpreting. I do not mind being paraphrased if my intent is understood. As to whether this is going anywhere, I was referring to our dialogue specifically, but also the entire thread and my presence on this blog in general. I have political differences with FMF that make me think my days on this blog are numbered, regardless of whether I would like to continue to participate. I am used to seeing the opinions of radical feminists misunderstood and twisted like pretzels, but it is still tiresome. Many radical feminists would not recognize me as one of their own, one reason I prefer to call myself a feminist revolutionary.
“No, I am not saying transactional sex is ‘ordinary commerce’, it is quite unique but it represents work in the lives of the people who sell. I don’t wish to downplay power differentials, but I think you are seeing all transactional sex in terms of that power differential, which is incorrect. Do you see all heterosexual interactions as characteised by power differentials? To put it very plainly, when a person possesses something another person desires, they hold power over that person, who has to sacrifice something to achieve the realisation of that desire.”
I think this is the crux of our disagreement. For one thing, I just made a big point of saying I never generalize about all men, or all relationships. I disagree with every sentence in that paragraph. One of the posts I quoted from Rebecca Mott was entitled, Do Not Call It Work. I totally disagree that having something someone else desires gives me power over that person, or that sacrifice is required for the realization of that desire. Would you call love a sacrifice? But then, I disown the entire concept of power over, which in my eyes is more about abuse than real power. If this makes no sense to you, perhaps you ought to read the new book by Gloria Feldt, No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power.
“You cannot assume something exists because you believe it to be true. The picture you portray is not what sex workers tell us. Are they truthful? That has also been discussed at length. I believe they are because they are consistent, and the evidence triangulates. If the experiences you suggest were universal, most people would leave.”
What do I assume to exist because I believe it to be true? I keep my assumptions and beliefs to a minimum. I am skeptical of nearly everything commonly believed. Which prostitutes are talking to you? I do not doubt they are being truthful, but I do have reason to doubt they are representative of any large group of prostitutes. Obviously the experiences of prostitutes vary widely, even for any one person. Is it not possible many prostitutes convince themselves the abuse they experience is not that bad in order to keep their sanity? Rebecca Mott did. Is she an outlier? Do you think most unhappy prostitutes feel free to leave? Many battered women do not feel free to leave their abusers. By your logic, it would seem they must not be unhappy enough to leave.
(Continued)
“I could equally argue that the sex worker objectifies men.” Yes, and you could also argue the power differential between men and women is a double-edged sword. Perhaps in a way it is, but this does not mean there is symmetry or equity between men in general, and women in general.
“Perhaps you can elaborate on objectification as a form of violence. Do you apply that to advertising, and media, and stereotypes in literature, film and television?” Yes. Objectification is othering, deriving from the not quite yet obsolete conception of women as less than human. This does violence to women by inducing self-contempt, and all sorts of behaviors women have learned to think we must act out to attract men. It is psychological warfare. The battle of the sexes is not a meaningless metaphor, or without harmful consequences.
I think there is very little that is inherent in human behavior. Inherency is properly the province of instincts, and people have the capacity to override their instincts. Even the hunger and survival instincts can be overridden, at least temporarily. I would not call any aspect of human behavior inherent unless it is completely and absolutely inescapable. What qualifies? Consciousness is inescapable, except through death, though some would argue not even death is an escape.
November 29th, 2010 at 9:16 am
Aletha
Thank you for your clarifications and explanations. I left a note at Ms. as to why I was not responding to you there. If we take up this this thread where you address my comments it might be helpful.
You copy one of my paragraphs and state: “I disagree with every sentence in that paragraph.” Since we come to this topic from very different backgrounds we may have to agree to disagree. Let us at least agree about the dangers of generalisation.
Specifically you challenge the concept of “work”. I am referring to work, from a sociological perspective as an activity which an individual performs for compensation, that is their livelihood. Sex workers are virtually unanimous in placing the need to make a living as their highest priority. Therefore in their lives it represents “work”, whether we like the activity or not. There are other occupations which some people disapprove of.
Next you disagree with me about the nature of purchase. I am making a simple statement about economics and markets, people make exchanges because they need or want something, and are prepared to give up something in exchange. I don’t think that position is assailable. I think it is the word “power” you object to. Power lies in the hands of both actors, although clearly one may be much more powerful than the other overall (such as someone seeking a loan from a bank). But it is power if it makes the other person act in a certain way at the will of the other. I was interested that you reply using the concept of love. Are you implying that love is a commodity? Some writers such as Zelizer, in The Purchase of Intimacy, imply all relationships are about exchanges, that is the nature of social cohesion as opposed to us all living as hermits.
As I understand Gloria Feldt, she is asserting that power is not about barriers but about will, and that maybe women have internalised values that exclude them from sharing power. I am not sure what connection you are making with the power of purchase, or how you are bringing in abuse to the transactional state.
You ask why I state “You cannot assume something exists because you believe it to be true.” I was responding to your statement “I think you are also downplaying the experiences of exited prostitutes who have documented their horror stories. We will have to agree to disagree on how representative they are. ”
I am glad you avoid making assumptions. In answer to your question about who is talking to me, it is women and men from all walks of life. That’s my job. None is representative of the whole, but each is representative of their own niche. But even being ‘representative’ fails to take into account the experiences of those with particular experiences. I believe I conveyed to you that unfortunately I was familiar with abuse, violence rape and murder amongst the people I know, but it is not everyone’s experience, although it seems to be getting worse.
What you may not appreciate is that for those most vulnerable to physical violence, they do not rate it highly in their general assesment of the risks and benefits of their lifestyle. Like the rest of us, they assess risks and make decisions, not necessarily ones that you and I would make. They would rather the risks were lower, and as a group work towards making it so.
No, I have not found sanity to be much of an issue, one makes adjustments. Exiting is not commonly expressed, although on the other hand many transition in and out regularly, exit and return, or just do it on a part time basis, or when necessity dictates. I understand your battered wife example, but have not found any similarity in practice. You say “they must not be unhappy enough to leave”. That is correct. Not even prison convinces most to leave.
However we also have to realise how we as a society trap women and men in sex work, via stigma, criminal records and inability to find work with similar or better conditions. We need to work on that.
I think we agree that objectification is ingrained in our culture, and is not desirable, and exists on both sides of the gender fence. I certainly have no quarrel with your conclusions, otherwise why would we strive to make the world a better place. So we do have quite a bit of common ground.
michael
November 30th, 2010 at 12:05 am
Nicholas Kristof wrote an editorial for the New York Times about his encounter with a trafficking victim.
A Woman. A Prostitute. A Slave.
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: November 27, 2010
Yes, the men buying her services all mistakenly assumed that she was working of her own volition. Why would they assume otherwise? It seems natural for men to assume prostitutes choose that life for the money. Perhaps some do, since they see no good alternative. The point is, there is no way for a john to know the true motivations of a prostitute, or what is happening to her behind the scenes. Why should he care, anyway, as long as he gets what he wants? What kind of society is this where a woman would see prostitution as her best or only way to survive, or where a woman can be tricked into sex slavery and see no way to get out?
November 30th, 2010 at 12:38 am
Dr. Goodyear, you insist on comparing relationships to transactions. That might make sense for a traditional relationship, but a feminist relationship is not comparable to any kind of business transaction.
I am saying this does not apply to an egalitarian relationship. I desire my lover, and he desires me. It is mutual. Neither of us has “power over” the other. We are vulnerable to each other. It is not the same, not even close. When there is conflict, some sacrifice may be necessary, but how did you conclude I was implying love is a commodity? That is the opposite of what I was saying.
I also reject the notion a prostitute has any power over a john. He is free to choose another prostitute if one attempts to assert any kind of power over him. He may sacrifice money, time, energy, or his self-esteem (unlikely, that last), but she has no power over him.
My point in comparing prostitutes to battered women is that all too often, neither feels free to leave. People often point the finger at a battered woman, asking why did she not just leave the abusive man? It is not that simple. She may want to, fervently, but she feels trapped, and going to the police will not protect her from him. Prostitutes make adjustments? People can adjust to just about any kind of hell, but that is one hell of a euphemism.
November 30th, 2010 at 10:56 pm
It was Sheldon who thought to identify my real name, but he had only managed to mix me up with Heart. I tried to post a comment to clear up the confusion, but surprise, surprise, Laura Agustin is holding the following in moderation!
Ms. Agustin, I could possibly understand why you would not find your visit to the blog of lo tekk memorable enough to remember him, but if you go back there and read some of his posts about feminism, you might understand why I was taken aback that you would give him the time of day. He linked to the entry “Behind the happy face of the Swedish anti-prostitution law,” which shows up as a pingback. In return for that favor, I suppose, you left a comment on his entry. You see, I did not do this linking Sheldon finds absurd, you did.
I do not know what problem Sheldon is having with his memory. Can it be he does not remember Heart, a major nemesis of his from the long defunct Ms. Magazine bulletin board? Her real name is Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff. My real name will hopefully never be known. If she has disavowed radical feminism, that is news to me. I have not disavowed it either, though some who call themselves radical feminists make me feel I should not share that description with them. I have similar feelings about some who call themselves feminists, but I am not about to claim I am not a feminist, or a radical. It simply seems more precise and less subject to confusion for me to call myself a feminist revolutionary political philosopher. I will inform Heart of this mistaken identification by Sheldon. She will be amused by his error, no doubt.
You and Sheldon should presumably be amused by the actions of the Ms. blog moderators. They seem intent on eviscerating my arguments so that I will see no point in continuing to comment there.
November 30th, 2010 at 11:29 pm
I suspect that may be because incidents of actual physical violence, especially severe violence, are relatively infrequent, as opposed to incidents of psychological abuse. There may also be an element of feeling severe acts of violence cannot happen to them, and that their ability to deal with the abuse and minor acts of violence shows how tough they are. Prostitutes are tough, no doubt, and may be able to dismiss psychological abuse and minor skirmishes as annoyances, but in what kind of culture do women see tolerating this kind of abuse as the best alternative available to them?
December 2nd, 2010 at 12:09 am
The note Dr. Goodyear left at the Ms. blog was approved, but now it is gone! He informed me via email that he had attempted to correct it. Perhaps he embarrassed them by drawing attention to the fact my comments were blocked. I really wonder what kind of game they think they are playing.
December 2nd, 2010 at 10:35 pm
Michael Goodyear has given me permission to copy the discussion between himself and me, so in the interest of providing the context for some of the comments I posted above, I include that history here. I jumped into the discussion after it had been going for a couple of pages. Dr. Goodyear was in it from the beginning, replying to the first comment and many others before I decided to raise some questions. These are all from the entry Why Decriminalizing Sex Work is Good for All Women.
I then responded to Jennifer Reed claiming that “Very often there is an emotional component, companionship aspect, etc to the transaction.”
For this, it was insinuated I had no knowledge about average prostitutes.
Dr. Goodyear responds.
The continuation of that comment was never approved:
Here Sheldon jumped in to defend his character assassination of Gail Dines. I responded,
This is where the longer of my split comments was censored:
This was approved:
That is the extent of the discussion between Dr. Goodyear and myself from the Ms. blog, with my missing comments added in. Dr. Goodyear posted a reply there, explaining that he did not see the point in responding there because it was obvious part of my comment was missing. That reply, and a further clarification he posted the next day, are also missing. His response to this last comment is above.
December 8th, 2010 at 11:18 pm
Professor Goodyear and I have been carrying on an email exchange. He attempted to explain to me the use of the term “sex-negative.” He seems to think this is an example of the “pitfalls of assumptions,” and of how “some extremists on both sides can tar the image of many more reasoned people.” This is my response:
December 10th, 2010 at 7:41 am
Thanks Aletha,
I should state that I don’t like this whole labelling exercise people engage in – it is an act of intellectual laziness, seeing the world as a series of monolithic structures that do not require detailed examination for their strengths and weaknesses.
I think ‘lumping’ is a favourite tactic of many people who engage in pure rhetoric. For some though, it is clearly intentional, conflation ‘tars with the same brush’. This is akin to calling anyone who disagrees with you a fascist or communist.
We need to be on our guard against such rhetorical tactics, and expose them.
michael
December 11th, 2010 at 1:58 am
It is hard for me to understand how Ms. Agustin picks which comments to block. On her entry about Julian Assange and the prevalence of rape in Sweden, some rabid men’s rights activist and self-proclaimed antifeminist commented about his theory of why “rape in Sweden is a worldwide joke….” This was too much even for Sheldon, who pointed out that this man actually advocates rape on his own blog, but he had to get in a dig about “sex-negative feminists” and how both they and “women-negative anti-feminists … channel their bitter personal experiences into their sexual politics.” These comments Ms. Agustin apparently thinks contributed something valuable to the discussion, but mine did not qualify. Go figure.
December 17th, 2010 at 11:28 pm
The rape advocate made some more asinine comments, but Laura Agustin deleted them. How they got onto her blog is a mystery, since she does moderate her comments, but she says she was away and returned to find a commenter had turned her blog into a nasty place.
She has posted a long article about the history of attempts to help prostitutes, Helping Women Who Sell Sex: The Construction of Benevolent Identities. In her conclusion, she states
Yes, indeed. And what kind of culture is this in which many poor women find themselves in that predicament? I made the point over and over on the Ms. blog that most prostitutes, for all intents and purposes, feel trapped, because they see no better alternative. I was ridiculed for this, as if I denied these women had any agency. How meaningful is agency for a woman who sees no better alternative? Ms. Agustin seems to be arguing that prostitutes do not need or desire any help. It depends on what form that help takes, and the motivations behind it. Certainly prostitutes do not benefit from being treated as criminals, “fallen women” in need of punishment and/or cure for their alleged sinful promiscuity. That is how prostitutes are treated, still, in most cultures, but that is far removed from what feminists have in mind when decrying the abuse of prostitutes, or attempting to help them get out. The cult of domesticity that motivated non-feminist attempts to help prostitutes reclaim their “virtue” has been based on traditional values, not feminist values. Certainly prostitution has provided an alternative to “domestic bliss,” but except in strictly financial terms, it is hardly a productive, meaningful, or rewarding use of the talents and skills of a woman.
I will cite again a section of the Free Soil Party Bill of Missing Rights, which states
If everyone had this right, would poor women find themselves in the predicament of having to take up “the one employment opportunity that offered independence and better money than could be found anywhere else?” I think not. People may say that right is utopian, but I see it as an eminently practical solution to poverty and its associated ills.
December 20th, 2010 at 10:23 am
Aletha
your question “And what kind of culture is this in which many poor women find themselves in that predicament?” is a very valid one that I have made many times – addressing social issues with the blunt instrument of the criminal law is doomed to failure. However I would be wary about extrapolating that to “most prostitutes, for all intents and purposes, feel trapped, because they see no better alternative”, particularly given the cultural and historical contexts of Agustin’s comments.
This last statement is not in keeping with empirical research, which does not mean that there are not women in such predicaments. However many other factors contribute to entrapment including the law itself, and stigma. I just think we need to be very careful about what we mean when we say “most”.
I hope that helps
michael
December 20th, 2010 at 10:16 pm
Are you splitting hairs? Perhaps many prostitutes do not “feel” trapped, but if an impoverished woman finds herself with only that one employment opportunity, all other alternatives seemingly worse or nonexistent, is this not being trapped, even if she convinces herself she likes it? People can adapt to just about any kind of hell. How conducive to her peace of mind is it for her to feel the full weight of that hell? If she numbs herself so she can tolerate it, is this, again, not being trapped?
Perhaps you cannot accept what I mean by trapped. In my eyes, even being viewed as a sex object is a trap. Traps for women are ubiquitous in this male-dominated culture. Prostitution is just one especially glaring example, symbolizing how women are devalued. There are other kinds of traps ensnaring men. This culture does not exist to empower anyone except a tiny elite who wield power and influence far out of proportion to their numbers, or any sensible metric. It is not quite as hopeless as one dollar, one vote, but the US political system is closer to that than to a democratic republic. In most other parliamentary democracies, I think the problem of money corrupting politics is less stark, but still a problem.
December 21st, 2010 at 9:21 am
Aletha I am not splitting hairs. The difference is that you are concentrating on the meanings of entrapment. I am questioning whether you can really say ‘most’ (which in itself can mean different things to different people). People can feel trapped in many jobs. I am also pointing out that for those who do feel trapped, that is they face major hurdles to changing jobs, a large part of the reason is cultural. This is partly the inequalities you refer to in terms of power, opportunities and wealth, and the devaluing of women’s work. But it is also the structural factors imposed by law and social stigma.
In plain words it is very difficult for a woman who has worked in the sex trade to work anywhere else. The skills don’t translate well, and her past history particularly if she has been in trouble with the law is a major barrier to any other sort of employment.
I think many people, particularly women, who have less opportunities, feel trapped in employment where they are wage slaves. As usual I think we agree on more than we disagree.
December 21st, 2010 at 11:12 pm
Yes, I agree the obstacles a prostitute faces in getting out are substantial, and should not be laid at her feet. This reminds me of how battered women are blamed for not leaving. What puzzles me is how you can contend most prostitutes are not trapped. Or are you saying, most do not “feel” trapped? I think too often prostitution is cast as either one of the two extremes, the high-end escort service where the women make lots of money and may actually enjoy their encounters, as opposed to the pimped street prostitute who has to turn most of the money over to the pimp and numb herself to be able to tolerate her miserable existence. Most prostitutes are somewhere in between. Their experiences with johns vary between appreciative guys on one extreme and guys who want to act out cruel fantasies they found in pornography on the other extreme. It is difficult to generalize about such a wide variety of experiences, but the principle of buying a woman for sex is deeply rooted in oppressive traditions, which used to regard women as the legal property of their husbands. In this culture, that notion is supposed to be obsolete, but many men in Western cultures still view their wives or “girlfriends” as their property, and in other cultures, the notion never became obsolete. As long as a john thinks his money gives him a right to fulfill whatever fantasy strikes his fancy, prostitution will be prone to abuse. If it were understood the prostitute would be calling the shots, it might be a different story. I alluded on the Ms. blog to the concept of a sex educator. I think many men could benefit from some education about sex, and I do not mean what they learn in school. They could learn plenty from listening to their lovers, but too often, the fragile male ego gets in the way.
December 24th, 2010 at 7:41 am
Thanks Aletha
Let me elaborate on some of those points. What I say is based mainly on empirical research and grounded in the lived realities of the people I encounter on a daily basis. I think we are using words like ‘trapped’ differently. As with other jobs many people move on when conditions change or other opportunities present themselves, but as we have outlined above that can encounter substantial obstacles. There are a number of schemes that offer re-training, although some suffer from being judgemental. However what is interesting is the number who return to sex work after exiting. Probably one of the best studies is Sanders, T.L.M. (2007) Becoming an Ex-Sex Worker: Making Transitions out of a Deviant Career. Feminist Criminology, 2(1). This study found criminalisation the largest obstacle to changing careers. Many work part time or only seasonally. However I have not found many that either feel trapped or particularly want to do something else.
Rather than the polarisation model you cite or three compartmental model you suggest, I think the reality is a continuum, which makes it very difficult to generalise. I would contest the concept of ‘buying women for sex’, and so would most sex workers. They are emphatic they sell a personal service not themselves, a major distinction. Much attention has been paid to the level of control of the parties in a sexual transaction. Whatever customers might think, sex workers are on the whole pretty clear as to what the rules are and lay them out. Any deviance from those on the part of the customer constitutes a breach of contract and they are asked to leave, without entitlement to a refund. (In New Zealand that is legislated). So the right to fulfill fantasies is not what happens. or if you like – the prostitute calls the shots. We need to do everything we can to enable them to successfully negotiate their work conditions.
I am in complete agreement about educating men – mothers could be a start. Sex workers do see education as one of their roles, and again I am going to cite Teela Sanders: (2006) Female Sex Workers as Health Educators with Men who Buy Sex: Utilising Narratives of Rationalisation Social Science and Medicine 62,10, 2434-2444.
Best of the season to you and yours,
michael
December 27th, 2010 at 11:40 pm
Sigh. I think we are going around in circles. I thought I was describing a continuum, not a “three compartmental model.” Or does “somewhere in between” represent a distinct well-defined compartment to you?
I think it is time to pin you down on how you draw your conclusions about the operation of the sex trade. Would you consider Rebecca Mott unusual? You are aware that her description of her life flatly contradicts what you are saying about how prostitution operates? Is she lying, exaggerating, delusional, or an outlier? She has been accused of all of that, but I think her life is representative of far more prostitutes than you seem willing to believe. I cannot prove this, but I have no reason to believe your portrayal of prostitution is more accurate or representative than hers.
Prostitutes may want to believe they are selling a service, but I doubt many johns see it that way. The distinction is important, but probably lost on the john. I think johns buy prostitutes to act out their fantasies despite whatever the prostitute has in mind. She may not want to play along, but one thing the sex trade does have in common with conventional businesses is that refusing to make the customer happy is bad for business. Unless she is working for herself, with nobody else to answer to, an unhappy customer can make trouble for her. Pimps and madams want to make money. This makes them more interested in making the john happy than what that means for the prostitute. I imagine the rules you cite are meant to protect the prostitute from outright physical violence, and sexually transmitted diseases, perhaps? What exactly do you mean when you say the prostitute calls the shots? I suspect it is not what I meant when I used the phrase. You say, “We need to do everything we can to enable them to successfully negotiate their work conditions.” Does this not imply prostitutes are currently having trouble negotiating their work conditions? That sounds to me as if they are not calling the shots. You can blame that on the law, but I think the laws are just making a bad situation worse. I brought up the concept of a sex educator as a contrast to prostitution. Some johns may be looking to get an education from prostitutes, but I would expect that to be rare, considerably more so than men who think they are getting an education from pornography.
Is it not true that many prostitutes cannot realistically imagine doing something else? Would it make sense for them to desire something they cannot see happening? Such desires are not exactly conducive to mental health. Neither is feeling trapped. A prostitute making the best of a bad situation is unlikely to waste her time thinking about what else she would rather do, nor to wallow in feeling trapped. This does not mean there is nothing she would rather do, if the opportunity presented itself, but since the opportunity will not present itself, why would she torture herself wishing for something that will not happen?
I still have to wonder why you would expect prostitutes who do not fit into your model of a legitimate, relatively non-exploitive business would make any effort to disabuse you of that picture. Why would they expect you to be sympathetic, even if you are? You must realize how difficult it is for prostitutes who hate their lives to talk about it to anyone, let alone someone they would expect to think they are exaggerating.
January 6th, 2011 at 10:43 pm
Professor Goodyear may have had enough of this discussion. He could argue that he has already answered those questions. That I find his answers problematic is not really his problem. I neglected to check for new comments for three days. Since this blog has not been a hotbed of activity of late, I have been remiss in checking for comments over weekends. WordPress is supposed to notify me via email whenever the blog gets a comment, unless it gets intercepted as spam by Akismet, but for whatever reason, I got no such notifications for any of his comments.
The Ms. blog has put up a couple of puff pieces celebrating the wonderful record of ex-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is on the cover of the current issue. It is difficult for me to comprehend how feminists can celebrate the accomplishments of the Democratic Party, as if that party really has the best interests of women at heart. Spare me the revisionist history lesson, which leaves out everything that party has done to show its true colors. The reforms Ms. touts were so full of loopholes, they might as well be called corporate bailouts. The health insurance reform came at the cost of Obama enshrining the Hyde Amendment, virtually guaranteeing insurance coverage for abortion will be a thing of the past, which will hit poorer women especially hard. Even NOW denounced the health insurance reform bill. But the Feminist Majority Foundation is loyal to the Democratic Party to a fault, supporting the war on Afghanistan as well as being willing to overlook every slap in the face the party has delivered to women.
This verbal slip on a renewal notice is rather amusing, considering. This is one of the bullet points of “what Ms. can uniquely bring you:”
I am certain that double negative was unintentional, but it appears to me the content put out by the Feminist Majority Foundation is heavily compromised by its attachment to mainstream politics.
January 7th, 2011 at 11:33 pm
Naomi Wolf has caused consternation among feminists on more than one occasion. One might wonder whose side she is on when she jumps to conclusions such as this dismissal of the accusers of Julian Assange
Ms. Wolf also thinks the shielding of the identities of raped women is a relic of the Victorian past that protects rapists! Really! Ah, well, considering what I have been through over at the Ms. blog, another feminist selling out the cause should not surprise me.
I support whistleblowers, as a rule, especially when they expose war crimes, but Mr. Assange does have a serious attitude problem about feminism. Lucinda Marshall posted this revealing quote from The Australian on her blog Feminist Peace Network, illustrating how he views his current predicament:
I had wondered if it is was possible that US pressure was behind the charges against him, given the ardent desire of the US government to put him out of business, but after that wisecrack, I have little reason to doubt the accusations against him are true. He claims to be baffled by the charges. Perhaps so. Men often do not realize how their actions offend women. Keith Olbermann, Michael Moore, and all the other leftists who have jumped to the conclusion that Assange was wrongly accused should be ashamed of themselves. There are no heroes in this world. However much I may appreciate what Mr. Assange has done with Wikileaks, that does not make him a hero who can do no wrong. He may not be a rapist, technically speaking, but he did something to those women more serious than making them jealous of each other, or refusing to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases.
February 2nd, 2011 at 10:04 am
Hi Aletha, sorry, been away most of last month. Thanks for these thoughts. Well I don’t know about circles but it would be surprising if there was convergence and congruence given starting points in an issue that is one of the most divisive in feminisms, often bitterly so. OK, so let’s agree on a continuum.
I think we need to respect everyone’s lived lives. Thus Rebecca speaks for herself and her experiences. As I have indicated so difficult is it to characterise the sale of sex that saying what is ‘usual’ or ‘unusual’ needs to be approached very cautiously. Nobody is denying abuse, though they may differ on the extent, the whys and the particulars. What we do know is that there are a body of former workers who relate tales of abuse, presumably the reason why they are former workers. These people’s lives have been seized on by activists and paraded as the ‘truth’. However we also have many former and current workers giving very different stories. So clearly there is a diversity of experience. Women abused in traditional marriages (possibly equally problematic) would provide similar perspectives on the state of marriage and masculinities. Thus I would never accuse her of any of the things that you suggest. Life is a prism. The question I think you are asking is what is the experience of the vast majority – of all types. All I can do is point to empirical research, and while nobody claims thee people they worked with are ‘typical’, when you add it all up there are general themes. These imply a stratification from survival workers, drug using workers, street based workers, indoor workers, escorts through to independents. I have reasonable confidence that Ms Mott’s experiences cannot be generalised to all sex workers, but undoubtedly represent a group of workers. When researchers go to certain locales to derive their samples, such as shelters, detoxification centres and prisons, they find a very different picture from those who work through organisations of or for sex workers. It is a matter of selection.
One of the recurrent themes is whether the harms associated with sex work are inherent and intrinsic, or imposed by structural factors which are therefore amenable to change.
You say you doubt that clients see things the way workers do. While research on clients is admittedly limited compared to that on workers, both the indirect work on sex workers’ accounts of their clients, and the direct work with clients suggest that they do both see things similarly. Again – that’s in general, there are often exceptions. From a criminological perspective one of the difficulties has been to determine whether men who abuse sex workers are genuinely clients or are simply predators who seek out sex workers as vulnerable people who they can harm. Work with these men, including court transcripts suggest the latter and that they get their ideas from the media, police, governments and all those who preach hate against sex workers. That again suggests something that we can address.
I agree with you about fantasy, that is also in common with service industries, which we refer to as emotional labour. Sex workers sell fantasy and illusion and customers buy it. At heart both believe it is not true, but go along with it. As you say – it is business. However all business has standards and many sex workers have very strict standards, and what are unwritten codes of conduct. Customers who do not abide by the rules will be refused. Furthermore their particulars are then circulated and in some areas the police share that information. Where sex workers find themselves as employees or more usually independent contractors, the issues you highlight become problematic, whereby abuse may be more from employers. However it is a market and workers will go to work for more reasonable employers – and word travels fast.
You are correct that negotiating working conditions is made difficult by the criminal law and stigma. Evidence around this formed the core of the recent constitutional challenge in Ontario, leading the judge to void the sections of the law that she felt directly reduced sex workers ability to control their working environment. I think maybe you are imposing a dichotomy on ‘calling the shots’ whereas the situation is one in which workers try very hard under the circumstances to negotiate. Without being able to use traditional business law and occupational health and safety standards, they are left more vulnerable than they should be compared to the rest of the work force. Therefore the situation in New Zealand where the laws were changed in 2003 is of interest and we have seen a considerable improvement in sex workers’ conditions there since.
Again – the sex worker as educator is difficult to quantitate, but it is real enough for many governments to fund sex workers as sex educators, and in some countries they have been credited for controlling the epidemic of HIV/AIDS.
No, I don’t think it is true that they can’t imagine anything else, any more than you and I. Many have worked in other fields, or are part time. To give you an example – two colleagues came out to me recently as former sex workers. However if you have a criminal record from working in sex work, you are effectively trapped in it. That is why New Zealand destroyed their criminal records. I think the scenario you paint is one that has been raised many times, but does not match what workers tell us. However the point is that we should maximise choices for all workers, and making it easier for people who wish to leave to do so should be part of any public strategy.
Contrary to what you say, we find that once you earn people’s trust (and that is not easy) people are very keen to find ways that their voices can be heard, hence the move to organise and unionise.
February 3rd, 2011 at 12:12 am
Needless to say, there is a lot going on in the world at the moment which has been preoccupying me, but a couple of things jump out at me.
I do not think this is a matter of either-or. The harms are both intrinsic and exacerbated by structural factors, such as the law. The law could be changed, but that would not eliminate the harms, though it might put a dent in them. The results of the changed law in New Zealand are hotly debated, as I am sure you know.
As for whether many prostitutes cannot imagine doing something else, you left out my qualification, realistically. I qualified my statement for a reason. I was not implying prostitutes are deficient in imagination.
I think you may exaggerate your ability to win the trust of prostitutes. Those who agree with you would be more inclined to trust you. Those who do not, probably would not give you the time of day. Very few of their voices are heard, and those who venture to speak out about the hell they have been through are roundly ridiculed by those asking people to believe the harms of prostitution are primarily, or exclusively, due to the law. You may not participate in this ridicule, but I imagine those who ridiculed me on the Ms. blog do.
February 6th, 2011 at 7:28 am
Perhaps it is just me, but I also have to object to this concept of selling sex as a service, which you say is how prostitutes prefer to term their way of surviving. Perhaps that is a more bearable description than selling the body, but this concept derives from the traditional role of women, to serve men, and specifically sexually. This was her role, part of her duty to the man who provided for her and the children, to service his needs and whims. Her pleasure had nothing to do with it.
Feminists have a different idea about sex, that it is mutually desired and pleasurable. Money cannot create this reciprocity. A prostitute agrees to be the fantasy companion for a price. If the man is nice about it, it might not matter so much that sex is still sunk in meaningless commercialism, women competing to be bought for a short while. The traditional roles did not require the man to provide pleasure; that was the job of the woman, to service her husband. He had no responsibility to care if she enjoyed sex as much as he did. That responsibility was the idea of feminists. The *sex-positives* like to say, their opponents idealize sex, do not recognize sex comes in many varieties. Granted, but I maintain, sex not mutually desired is one criterion for rape. Needing money cannot create desire for sex with a stranger. Money cannot create relationships; there has to be some substance or it is all meaningless fantasy at best. You say this fantasy is harmless. I think probably for men it is, but not for women. This concept of the service of sex rankles, whether within traditional relationships or prostitution. It is the principle of the thing.
February 8th, 2011 at 10:11 am
Aletha
While I can understand that you are likely to disagree with me about the nature of harm involved in sexual transaction, I am going to contend that you are assuming the intrinsic harms. There is no reason other than ideological as to why such exchanges between consenting adults should be harmful. Perhaps we need a more thorough debate on this, and the natur eof harm. If people are abused, as in other walks of life, we cannot assume it was because of selling sex. You also refer to law, but I am stating that the violence of stigmatisation is one of the worst harms.
You say that the situation in New Zealand is hotly debated. That’s a point of view. Taken literally it is true – the opponents of the law were unswayed by its passage and continue to attack it relentlessly. That is not so much a matter of the credibility of the evidence as deeply felt beliefs. The evidence in terms of evaluation and what I saw with my own eyes and ears is that things are much better, but not surprisingly stigma has not diminished – that could take a generation, and those who continue to denounce it add to the stigma and prejudice. (Gillian Abel, Lisa Fitzgerald, Catherine Healy, Aline Taylor: Taking the crime out of sex work
New Zealand sex workers’ fight for decriminalisation. Policy Press 2010)
I think sex workers’ consider life’s alternatives in much the same way as you or I. Even those trapped in chaotic lives of drug use and homelessness do so, although clearly their opportunities for improvement are narrow, but not impossible, if we place the means within their reach.
I know a large number of current and former sex workers. Some have been through hell and others have not. They all have their opinions on it. I agree that for many one of the commonest complaints is their apparent invisibility and inability to have their voices heard. But I think it is conjecture that there is somehow a large silent majority. The people we deal with in outreach are those with the worst experiences, but they are not notably different in their views. Certainly there are those who have moved on and complain bitterly about their experiences, and likely those who don’t complain but feel similarly. As before I agree with you that to riducule them is totally unjustified. However that does not affect the generality that it is not so much a matter of intrinsic harm, but conditions which we can do something about.
February 8th, 2011 at 10:23 am
Aletha
I am not sure why you say “surviving”, unless you mean we all work to survive not being independently wealthy.
While people talk about “selling bodies” as a construct, that simply does not fit the facts. Sex Workers compare themselves to other personal service workers. Obviously I agree with you about traditional views of patriarchal hegemony. However I hope you do not mean to imply women never derived any pleasure.
You are generalising when you say “feminists”. I would disagree that this is a view fundamental to feminism. Interestingly most sex workers I know self-identify as feminists. (For a study of sex workers, desire and pleasure, see Anna Kontula: The sex worker and her pleasure. Current Sociology 2008).
It sounds as if you and I use the term rape very differently. My concern is that by extending its meaning we diminish the extent of the wrong. I think also you may be projecting your feelings on to the situation. People have very different views on these matters, and I am sure that to many women the concept is unthinkable. Yet is is equally clear that there are also many who feel quite differently, and we need to respect those differences.
February 9th, 2011 at 12:39 am
Oh, really. Next are you going to tell me there is no intrinsic harm to women in being treated as sex objects? I am assuming these harms? You have to downplay the entire context of the history of male domination over women to conclude that. Not to mention, I would dispute what you mean by “consenting.” I went into that matter in some depth on the Ms. blog. Consent in the context of severely limited opportunities is severely compromised, intrinsically. In many cases the extent of that compromise makes consent meaningless.
Evidence is interpreted by the eye of the beholder. Certainly you are aware of the problems of assuming evidence can be interpreted without bias. Others have looked at the same evidence as you and come to vastly different conclusions. This is not just a matter of belief. People will perceive what is in accordance with their beliefs, true, but there is also the matter of in what terms a situation is perceived to be better. Does denouncing the objectification of women contribute to prejudice? It depends on where the denouncer is coming from.
Prostitutes with the worst experiences are not “notably different in their views?” That statement makes me incredulous. How would you know those with the worst experiences are availing themselves of outreach? You assume too much. I think that statement is a matter of conjecture.
Calling selling sex a service is not a matter of fact, but of definition. So is selling the body. My point was, in traditional relationships, the pleasure of the woman in the sex act is totally besides the point. I contend the same is true of prostitution, and pornography. Identifying as a feminist means almost nothing these days. Even Sarah Palin sometimes claims that mantle. In some ways she is feminist, in others not. Even Larry Flynt has said only radical feminists have a problem with him. Obviously I am using my own definition of feminist. I view reclaiming language as an important part of a feminist revolution. When Larry Flynt can claim most feminists have no issue with him, the word needs reclaiming. Not that I would dispute that most prostitutes are feminist; if their experiences did not make them understand feminism, I do not know what would. However, those who glory in getting paid for being a sex object, as if that is so empowering and feminist, I would have to question what feminism means to them.
Are you saying sex not mutually desired is not necessarily rape? Why not? The Republicans recently had to backtrack on their attempt to redefine rape for the purpose of determining whether federal funds could be used to terminate a resulting pregnancy. They wanted to change the law so that a pregnancy resulting from forcible rape would still be exempted from the restrictions of the Hyde Amendment, but not a rape not involving force. How are you concluding I am extending the meaning of rape?
February 18th, 2011 at 2:33 pm
“Next are you going to tell me there is no intrinsic harm to women in being treated as sex objects?”
No I am not, and you know I am not. The situations are distinguishable. I said that two people exchanging something is not inherently wrong or harmful. Obviously the context of exchange can be one in which harm occurs, just as anything can be abused. Swindling someone is clearly wrong, but it does not make the exchange itself wrong, merely the terms and motivations.
I would dispute your contention that consent is “meaningless”. All decisions occur within the context of constraint because it is rare that we are all equal in all ways. That does not change our inherent moral agency – the ability to make choices. It is our ability to always make the choices we would like that is constrained – our autonomy. Feminists refer to relational autonomy, meaning that all choices are made in relation to power structures, but they are still choices. Consent is always consent, it cannot be meaningless by definition. If you are forced to do something, that is not consent. To dismiss consent is to reduce the other to a subhuman condition devoid of agency or voice. That is very dangerous and depersonalising.
“Evidence is interpreted by the eye of the beholder.”
No it is not. There are various ways of assessing evidence, including its weight and validity, science is one example, law is another. “you are aware of the problems of assuming evidence can be interpreted without bias.” Absolutely, all evidence is biased by definition. It is our responsibility to assess the extent and direction of bias and to interpret evidence accordingly. “Others have looked at the same evidence as you and come to vastly different conclusions.” Obviously, or we would not be having this discussion. As you know there are strong voices that have conceptualised sexual exchange as wrong, as a form of violence, as degrading, and as a blow to gender equality. But on the other hand there is a huge body of thinking which finds no basis for this, including virtually everyone in academia. One is a belief based on social construction, the other is empirical knowledge. That makes it hard to have a dialogue. There is no empirical data to support the former point of view.
Who would not denounce the objectification of women – or any other group?
What I said was “The people we deal with in outreach are those with the worst experiences, but they are not notably different in their views.” These are people who have experienced attempted murder, rape, physical assault, imprisonment, homelessness, prejudice, poverty, and having their children taken into care. Why do you assume that somehow there is a worse off group? We are the only people offering some care and support. Is it not possible that it is you that is making assumptions? Where is your evidence that somehow we are missing a large and significant group? We ask them to find others in need of help.
I do agree with you about the problems of self-identified feminists, which covers an enormous range of ideas and philosophies. Which is why we frequently say “feminisms”. To that I would add “radical”, other than where one refers to people who self-identify with that label. And yes I agree with you regarding reclamation, it is something I feel strongly about.
“Glory” is probably not a word I would have used, but then who glories about being paid for working at McDonalds? Similarly I would contest “getting paid for being a sex object”. I don’t anyone like that.
“Are you saying sex not mutually desired is not necessarily rape?”
I am actually, but at the same time question the meaning of both “mutual desire” and “rape”. The latter might seem strange but there has been a recent trend to call many things rape, which seems to trivialise the act itself. If two people engage in a sexual encounter because they are acting in a film – is that lacking mutual desire? Surely people can negotiate their own terms without us telling them what is good for them? We have come a long way from recognising that sex need not necessarily be procreational but may be recreational. But are we still depicting sex as “good’ and “bad”, just as people did when the former meant “within the bonds of marriage”?
You ask me “How are you concluding I am extending the meaning of rape?” I was referring to your statement “Granted, but I maintain, sex not mutually desired is one criterion for rape.” To me anyway that seemed to extend the definition beyond that of forced penetration. But I may have misinterpreted you.?
Once again Aletha, thanks for your patience and persistence in this important dialogue.
February 19th, 2011 at 2:46 am
You insist on dismissing distinctions between prostitution and other forms of exchanges. This is why I wondered whether you were going to tell me there is no intrinsic harm in women being treated as sex objects. There are other ways women are treated as sex objects, all of them harmful to women. Are you saying prostitutes are not treated as sex objects? How so? Note, I am not speaking of how they view themselves. That is a separate issue.
“All decisions occur within the context of constraint because it is rare that we are all equal in all ways.” Rare and all do not mix. Are there exceptions or not? I contend there are, and not only that, those exceptions ought to be the rule, not the exceptions. This is not the society we live in, but that does not make it right to downplay the compromises contaminating consent as if they do not matter, just because someone thinks such compromises are unavoidable. They are not. Those compromises are all created by the culture. Are you saying consent is never so heavily compromised as to be effectively meaningless? Does a child who does not want to go to school, but feels there is no choice, consent or not? What about a worker in a sweatshop, to which Noam Chomsky compared women in pornography? Decisions are sometimes relatively free, sometimes a matter of necessity or feeling one has to make the best of a bad situation. I contend far too many prostitutes find themselves in the latter situation. They decide to allow themselves to be used, because they perceive this is necessary for them to survive. I call that meaningless consent. It is not “forced,” per se, but it is too heavily compromised to be meaningful.
It is your assumption I am “dismissing” consent. I am elucidating why I find the concept problematic. Many choices in this culture are the result of deception. The person making the choice is usually unaware of that; this is why I make such a big deal of the concept of fully informed consent, which I find wholly incompatible with prostitution, and pornography.
I am not convinced by your concept of the objective interpretation of evidence. This blog is full of my commentary on the corruption of science. Are you not aware that scientists routinely claim there is no evidence that anyone has died from the use of nuclear power? That there is no evidence connecting a mercury compound used as a preservative in vaccines with neurological disorders, such as autism? That there is no evidence that genetically modified crops are any different from non-engineered crops? Examples of the selective use and interpretation of evidence are rife in science, and do not get me started on the law. Lawyers spin evidence as a matter of course. There are objective facts, but those applying to human behavior are few and far between. You concede all evidence is biased, yet you deny it is interpreted by the eye of the beholder? All perceptions are interpreted by the eye of the beholder. What did you think I meant by that?
Consent is also too heavily compromised to be meaningful when a woman allows a man to have sex with her because he is persistent, and she fears what might happen if she persists in rejecting his advances, or she just gets tired of the battle. This is rape, but not necessarily forcible penetration. The man will claim the woman consented. Juries often refuse to convict a rapist on the grounds a woman should have known better than to have a drink with a man, or accompany him to his abode. More examples of meaningless consent; the consent is deemed implied by her behavior, which she should have known would be taken as provocative. Consent is a huge can of worms men have used very effectively against women in cases of acquaintance and date rape.
It could be said that a slave consented to work for the owner. That the slave had no choice in the matter did not matter to the owner; the apologists for slavery contended that was natural and best for the slaves. The slave did have a “choice,” however impractical; the slave could try to run away, or commit suicide, or simply refuse to work and accept the punishment.
“As you know there are strong voices that have conceptualised sexual exchange as wrong, as a form of violence, as degrading, and as a blow to gender equality.” What are you calling sexual exchange? Some extremist lesbians view all heterosexual sex in that way. I object to you conflating selling sex with sexual encounters engaged in out of mutual desire. These extremists see the distinction I would draw as a distinction without a difference. I got the impression from some of the comments on the Ms. blog by prostitutes that they also see the distinction as meaningless. They may allow men to use them, but at least they are getting paid for it! As I stated above, in traditional relationships the distinction did not mean much, because the pleasure and desires of the woman in such relationships is totally besides the point. In some cultures it is still legal for a man to purchase a bride. Are you saying it is a matter of empirical knowledge that prostitution and pornography are not degrading to women? No, it is a matter of definition, a definition I reject utterly. Is someone like Gail Dines virtually alone in academia? I doubt it. For one, Noam Chomsky would reject that definition.
“We are the only people offering some care and support.” I call BS on that. How arrogant. Perhaps you do not view people trying to help prostitutes get out as caring or supportive? You recall the rosy picture of prostitution painted on the Ms. blog? Are you saying these horribly abused women are not notably different in their views? I find that really difficult to believe. Perhaps you mean the prostitutes who painted that rosy picture on the Ms. blog are as unusual as Rebecca Mott. I think they are far more unusual. Were they not glorying in their perceived empowerment? What word would you use? Perhaps I do not understand what you mean by “notably.”
“Similarly I would contest “getting paid for being a sex object”. I don’t anyone like that.” I think you left out a word (know?), but would you care to elaborate? What do you think prostitutes are getting paid for?
“If two people engage in a sexual encounter because they are acting in a film – is that lacking mutual desire?” It depends. You may not have read the entries about pornography on the Ms. blog. I attempted to draw a distinction between erotica and pornography. I even quoted Gloria Steinem from her first book making such a distinction (see my first comment on this entry), only to be ridiculed for it, on a blog created by an organization she co-founded. If there is mutual desire, I would call such a film erotica. Yes there are plenty of people who still depict sex as good or bad, but I am drawing a distinction between exploitation and mutuality, and I contend mutuality cannot be purchased. Do you believe women are always aware when they are being degraded? Hardly. If that were the case, whole industries would go out of business in a heartbeat. Should I not criticize breast implants? High heels? Toxic cosmetics? Women purchase all these of their own free will, though I question whether their consent is fully informed.
You did not misinterpret that I do not restrict rape to forced penetration. I hotly object to your characterization that not restricting rape to that trivializes rape. Perhaps you and I use the word force differently. Are you referring to physical force exclusively? When a woman agrees to sex because she feels threatened or pressured in any way, physically or otherwise, that is rape, in my eyes, and so is when a woman “agrees” to sex because she is too drunk to realize what is happening to her. Obviously there are degrees of brutality in cases of rape, like any form of abuse, but they all have something in common, the lack of mutual desire. No doubt you are aware that many men think rape requires active resistance by the woman, and if she does not physically resist, there is no force involved, hence it is not rape. Many rape victims are too terrified to resist. These men seem to think if the woman does not try to fight, she must be enjoying herself. I am not saying you are in that camp, but to say only forced penetration is rape is a slippery slope, and that such men would agree with that definition, though they may not interpret force in the same way you do. Perhaps you ought to define “forced penetration.”
March 14th, 2011 at 9:09 pm
A couple more things I did not comment on because I did not want to speculate about what you might have meant:
Is this a trick question? There are a great many men who have no problem with the objectification of women, some secretly, others who maintain this is the natural order of things. How about johns, for instance?
I do not consider radical a label. Some people strive to go to the root of matters. In that sense, I am a radical feminist. When the word is used as a label, it all too often is misused as an attack on extremists. For example, feminists and Democrats often rail against “radical” Republicans who are anything but radical; it would be far more accurate to describe them as extremists, reactionaries, or both.
March 24th, 2011 at 10:48 pm
I think Professor Goodyear has given up on this discussion. He may not have anticipated that I would have so little regard for conventional wisdom. Rebecca Mott has written a new piece that debunks many of the myths surrounding prostitution.
But the good professor believes the problem is the law? Wishful thinking, I say. The law is part of the problem, but the bigger picture is the institution of prostitution, which will not cease to be oppressive and abusive if made legal.
April 20th, 2011 at 12:47 am
France is now considering the Swedish approach to prostitution! The French social affairs minister says, “There is no such thing as freely chosen and consenting prostitution.” This story is from the Guardian
I would dispute that encouraging slavery and trafficking is the problem with prostitution. I see the larger issue as the lack of free fully informed consent. I stand by my position that when a woman wants sex, she does not want money for it. Genuine desire is not something that can be bought. That a woman may think this is a reasonable way to make a living does not mean she desires to have sex with a john; she is merely willing to accommodate the john because the money may seem worth it. People will do all kinds of things to survive when they feel they have to, or to make the best of a bad situation. This does not mean they desire to do these things. Desire and necessity are rarely commingled. When people are too hungry to be picky, they will eat just about anything, regardless of how unappetizing it may be. Very few prostitutes can afford to be as picky as they would like to be when choosing a sex partner. It is a rare prostitute who has the luxury to choose only those clients she finds particularly appealing. It is the general rule that her wishes and desires are completely besides the point; she must allow johns to indulge their fantasies so she can survive. She may or may not be in a position to get a john bounced if she feels she is in danger, but this is a matter of self-preservation, not her wishes or desires.
April 29th, 2011 at 10:58 pm
The current Spring 2011 issue of Ms. Magazine has a cover story and an ad relevant to this entry. The cover story is Rape is Rape, which takes apart this notion that rape is only rape if it meets the FBI Uniform Crime Report definition from 1929,
Pressure shamed Republicans from dropping language in the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act that “defined real rape exclusively as forcible rape.” However, the FBI UCR definition still limits reporting of rape at the federal level, which has a chilling effect on the willingness of rape victims to report the crime, and feeds into the notion that rape victims who are not bruised and bleeding must have asked for it.
The advertisement is at the end of the magazine, one of three ads under the heading WOMEN UNDER ATTACK: Porn, Plastic, and the Right, for the Gail Dines book Pornland. Robin Morgan, Ms. Global Editor, is quoted:
I wonder if Ms. Morgan is aware of how that book, and Gail Dines personally, were trashed on the Ms. blog.
January 31st, 2012 at 1:03 am
Rebecca Mott has written a piece called Manipulation, where she describes the state of denial that allowed her to survive her torment.
Ms. Mott knows all too well of what she speaks. She lived it. People trying to make the best of a bad situation can convince themselves of just about anything to get through the hell. In this culture where women are trained that our lot is to subordinate ourselves for male pleasure, it is not that hard for some women to convince themselves they enjoy being abused, or at least that it is not that bad, or that the john really does care. Sex is not a commodity; it cannot be bought or sold, because sex is an expression of mutual desire. Anything less is abuse, regardless of how much a woman may be paid for it.
February 4th, 2012 at 2:54 am
Rebecca Mott took on the lies of “sex-positive” feminism.
Yet the Professor Goodyears of the world will insist in most cases “the prostitute calls the shots,” that there is nothing degrading about prostitution except when ideology makes it degrading, that it is the law that makes prostitution dangerous, that he does not know anyone who is getting paid for being a sex object. It may seem hard to believe an expert so heavily involved in outreach for prostitutes can be so blind to reality, but he is comfortable with his interpretation of the “empirical evidence,” and he thinks I am the one who is distorting the reality of prostitution.
March 12th, 2012 at 11:00 pm
Tuning across the radio dial last Friday, I heard John Phillips solicit calls from prostitutes, saying he works in talk radio, and what prostitutes do is no more degrading that what he does. So easy for him to say. He prides himself on being outrageous, but that was asinine. An ex-prostitute did call in. Phillips had a bunch of questions for her. She did not sugarcoat her experiences. She said she had been raped and beaten, it was very dangerous work, she could never know what the man might do to her, and the men did not respect the prostitutes.
Raquel Welch, voted #2 on Men’s Health’s Hottest 100 Women of All Time list, sounded off on pornography at the end of an interview posted on their site last Thursday.
Some of the commenters called her hypocritical. They missed her point. She also had some choice words about the directors of her movies, who not surprisingly exploited her as a sex object and were not interested in hearing any of her suggestions.
What was that Professor Goodyear said, he did not know anyone who is getting paid for being a sex object? What planet does he live on?
February 10th, 2013 at 6:24 am
Meghan Murphy has a new entry on Feminist Current, There is no feminist war on sex workers, attempting to set the record straight about allegations “that feminists are the real enemy of sex workers.”