Huh, why does she keep doing this when she probably doesn't want answers or replies that differ from her own opinions...

Let the fisking commence:

Maggie Hays on Choice.

Warning, y'all, this will be a long one. Maggie's text has not be altered at all and is in blue, my responses are in italics, the link is provided in case Maggie herself would like to come and discuss the issue...but I am not holding my breath.

“Women freely choose to sell their bodies in pornography and in prostitution” is one of the main disputes that pornstitution defenders put forward as an attempt to silence any feminist critique of misogynistic industries. Wallowing in their muddy myopia, pro-porners and pro-”sex work” people argue that “women in the sex industry (especially the porn industry) are fully consenting adults and, besides, for the most part, they make a lot of money” and then they smugly hope that their “Women freely choose, so don't criticize the sex industry” argument will obviate any fair criticism of the multi-billion dollar sexual exploitation business. In other words, this “choice” argument is one of the most common excuses that pro-pornstitution folks use as a conversation-stopper.

Only, we’re not the ones constantly stopping the conversations. Truth is, it’s often the other way around. Pro-porn or sex workers rights activists are actively blocked from commentary on radical / anti-porn blogs, they are barred, discouraged, and taunted when they attempt to speak at radical / anti-porn events, when asked for forums in which to air their sides in head to head debates, they are denied. The reverse is not true. Radical / anti porn elements are not thrown out of adult industry events, they are allowed to enter and participate and adult industry hearings and forums, and often they are allowed to comment on pro blogs. Also, I might add, that no one that I have ever personally read or witnessed has ever stated that all women who are in the sex industry have chosen to be there, however, we do not flatly state that no women have chosen to be there, and that Maggie, is a huge difference. The truth is simple: some have, and some have not. We recognize that, and as such, many of the sex workers rights advocates you slander and dismiss regularly are the exact people really doing a great deal of work to help the unwilling out.


Radical feminists have never denounced prostituting women and pornography performers for their choices. Instead, we compassionately acknowledge that many of those women's choices are made under a variety of constraints. We believe that any discussion regarding prostituting women's choices should take into consideration the different conditions under which they choose.
As Robert Jensen wrote in his recent book Getting Off: "A meaningful discussion of choice can't be restricted to the single moment when a woman decides to perform in a specific pornographic film but must include all the existing background conditions that affect not only the objective choices she faces but her subjective assessment of those choices." The same applies to prostitution: one woman doesn't suddenly wake up one morning and say “Oh, I've just decided today that I'm going to sell my body for sex among a wide range of opportunities to make money”, this is absurd! Prostituting women's life stories are much more complex than this.

Bullshit we are not denounced for our choices. We are out right denounced, along with having our sanity, histories, intelligence and autonomy questioned endlessly. Some may not do it outright, but the over the top opinions offered as proclomation of fact and the patronizing language counts as denouncing. And yes, true enough, a number of women in the sex industry choose it out of limited choices. As do countless other people in other professions. And true enough, in my case; it took longer than a day to make the decision to start stripping. It took about three. I looked at all available choices within reason. I was in college. I wanted to stay in college. Going to college was very important to me, and my parents could not afford to pay for it, so I had to pay a great deal of my own way. How to do this? I could get a campus job which offered roughly nine hours a week and paid less than minimum wage, I could get a job in retail or at a fast food joint or movie theater or some similar place, which required more hours, no set schedule, paid minimum wage and left very little time for studying, athletics, social activities, eating and sleeping, I could get a job as a waitress, which had the same time flaws as the previous mentioned jobs, yet paid less and depended on the tips of, generally, other college students and staff (people not known for their tipping protocol) or, I could get a job stripping, which required far fewer hours, paid much better, and to me, was not all that different than using my body in athletics, which I had done to get into college and get some money out of them in the first place. I wanted to be in school. I had various options available to me. I took what I considered to be the best one.

And I finished school. I have two degrees. Those opened up many doors for me as far as professional choices go. Yet, I still choose to do sex work. So really now, who gets to be the ultimate authority on the validity of my choices, options and decisions? You? Jensen? Radical or anti porn people? Or do I get that honor and autonomy for myself? I am, after all, an adult…even a college educated one.

Debunking the “sex industry isn't a monolith” lie

Before I raise awareness on prostituting women's complicated choices and lack of choices, I believe it is important to mention how pornstitution's defenders deliberately and frequently obfuscate the links between pornography, stripping, prostitution and any other forms of commodification of women's and girls' bodies with their “the sex industry isn't a monolith” lie, namely pro-pornstitution folks claim that “the sex industry isn't something merely uniform and massive; there are lots of opportunities, aspects and types.”

You misunderstand the “not a Monolith” theory…(tm me, I think). What we are saying, Maggie, is that there is a world of difference between the conditions and issues facing a 14 year old sex slave forced to prostitute and a 40 year old pro-domme who’s main day job is an accountant. It is a varied business, and treating it as a monolith does a huge disservice not only to those who merely want to be left alone, but to those who need help. The concerns and needs of street workers and contract porn women are vastly different, because the jobs they are doing, the conditions in which they are being done, and the money they earn for it are vastly different: Hence, not a monolith. The radical / anti side also fluctuates greatly on when it is a monolith, and when it isn’t.

However, this view of the sex industry is very limited and male-centered. It all boils down to the consumerist vision of johns/porn users and the heartless capitalism of pimps/pornographers. This view of the sex industry serves to obscure the reality of a business that is one of the world's major cases of trafficking (other main traffickings being in guns and drugs): sex trafficking, i.e. the global sexual exploitation of women and girls and their suffering inside of the sex industry.

How is it so very male centered when you have women everywhere writing on the non-monolith nature of the business? Oh, and with regards to trafficking…excuse me, but show me your UNPARTISAN stats. I want to see a neutral accounting of how many people are unwilling trafficked in the name of the sex industry, solely. In comparison with the numbers trafficked in for cheap domestic labor, manufacturing, textiles, farming, mining, and other industries. I’d like to see them now, please. And, I might add, an adult woman who makes the decision to go from Ohio to Nevada to work in a legal brothel is not a trafficked, forced, sexual laborer unless someone Forced Her to do it.

A man can choose to take unfair advantage of the brutal and popular commodification of women and girls' bodies in various ways: he can choose to be a strip-club patron, a pornography user, a john, etc. or he can choose to be a strip-club owner/manager, a porn producer/director, a pimp, etc.

Some men can, absolutely. As can some radical / anti’s who use women’s images in their presentations and slide shows in violation of 2257, misuse or alter their words for their own agendas, refuse to listen to, hear, or debate them, ignore their decisions and opinions, and profit from this.

On the other hand, a woman or girl entering the sex industry will very likely start as an exotic dancer or a prostitute,etc. then become a porn 'actress' or 'nude model', etc., or vice versa. To prostituted women, the 'sex' industry is something uniform and massive in this constant way: they are being (ab)used and controlled by men. The only different thing is that there are various ways within which they are being (ab)used and controlled by men.

It’s true; there is crossover from various aspects of the sex industry in many cases. However, in others there are not. Many strippers or pro BDSMers, for instance, see a vast difference between what they are doing and what occurs in porn or prostitution (i.e., sex). And loose the fucking condescending scare quotes. Porn actresses do act (after all, so many of you are convinced they fake it every time, there is some acting going on) and a nude model is exactly that, a person who poses nude, often in a totally non-pornographic way, for a camera. And yes, prostituted women are often used and abused, but not all women in the business are prostituted women. Many are independent contractors, or work with and for women for that matter. Once again, an illustration of the non-monolithic nature of the business. Failure to see otherwise on your part (i.e., all women in the sex industry are prostituted women under the control of men) denies many women’s agency, erases their voices and experiences and is, dare I say it, abusive and controlling.

To most prostituting women: prostitution feels like “paid rape”; pornography is prostitution plus a camera; trafficking is being transported from one place to another (domestically or internationally); stripping is a particular way of being prostituted and having one's body being used (i.e. strip bars' customers are often led to the impression that they have bought “the right to touch, grab, slap or otherwise violate, degrade, or devalue the woman stripping", as former stripper Taylor Lee explained).

Most women from…what? Farley’s flawed research? Which did not include porn performers, or strippers, or higher end escorts, or dommes, or phone sex performers, yet is applied so freely to everyone in the biz? From one former stripper? Take a gander around for the words of a few other strippers. Oh, and in porn, there is a level of professionalism, health concern, and security not seen by street prostitutes…hence, once again, not a monolith. Or wait…I mean, I’m a whore, so I, you know, have done a lot of this shit before. So I have to ask… have you? And yep, I realize that there are radical / anti women who have. Their words and experiences should be listened to and believed…but so should ours.

As a matter of fact, prostitution businesses are interconnected. The Truth is that prostitution is a global industry of sexual exploitation in which sex is traded for money, clothing, food, drugs, shelter, or favors. Prostitution (or “the sex industry”, term used as an euphemism) includes strip bars, lap-dancing clubs, massage parlors, brothels, saunas, adult and child pornography, street walking, live sex shows, phone sex, prostitution rings, Internet pornography, escort services, peep shows, ritual abuse, and mail order bride services.

And don’t forget the institutions of marriage, monogamy, parenthood, dating and life in general.

Therefore, this “the sex industry isn't a monolith or something being merely uniform and massive, blah, blah, blah” view promulgated by pro-pornstitution people is a male-centered and misogynistic myth because, in the end, it all boils down to this: the exploitation and abuse of prostituted women and girls will have various forms (in order to cater to different kinds of male needs to use female human beings as merely objects to degrade) but it still will be the exploitation and abuse of prostituted women and girls, and an ongoing suffering to them.

No Maggie, it’s the truth. Even the radical / anti side recognizes that when it is convenient for them to do so.

You're right on this one point, pro-pornstitution folks: “the sex industry isn't a monolith”; it is a mega-monolith of interconnected forms of sexual exploitations, abuses, and ongoing suffering of prostituted women and girls!

Forever and ever, ad infinitum, amen. For every woman in it. No matter what they say, how often they say it. Who’s exploiting whom now, again?

Corporate media propaganda

Given the mass-pornified media propaganda pervasive throughout this culture, it is no wonder that many people believe that “women freely choose to sell their bodies in pornography and in prostitution”. The malestream media typically portrays and elevates misleading images such as of “the happy hooker”, “the glamorous life of the stripper”, or “the empowering job of the porn star”. HBO and other major TV/cable channels are filled with deluding glamorizations like these in order to gloss over the dark side of the porn industry and other forms of sexual exploitation of prostituting women. Corporate media only shows the few "Jenna Jamesons" of the world, the few prostitutes/'porn actresses' who "made it to the top", while ignoring the overwhelming majority of women who appear in video and Internet pornography.

Oh you have got to be kidding me? HBO and other pay cable networks? Versus Dateline, Nightline, 20/20, the Network News, the O’Riley Factor, Crossfire, Law & Order, Law & Order Special Victims Unit, Law & Order Criminal Intent? CSI’s Vegas, New York & Miami? Without a Trace? The Profiler? A&E? The Investigation Network? COPS? Oprah, Montel, Maury, Steve Wilkos? The Unit? NCIS? All have done specials, reports and fictionalized features on the dark side of the sex business. L&O: SVU makes weekly top ratings out of it- all the dirt, all the suffering, all the abuse, all the rape, all the violence and murder and exploitation you could ever want and relish in whatever strange sort of way…right there, every Tuesday in Prime Time, and several hours a day in syndication. And guess what? The hookers, even the happy ones, end up dead. Hardly alluring. And speaking of ignoring…I’m no Jenna Jameson, nor are most of the sex workers who blog, Internet porn is part of my job…it’s a decent living that I’m in by choice.

For instance, the problem with a typical HBO-type (or other TV channels) documentaries which glamorize the porn industry is this: the sample size (usually around 30) of porn performers interviewed is both too small and unrepresentative of the overwhelming majority of porn 'actresses' for these pro-porn TV programs to be accurate portrayals of what life is like for the women in the porn industry.

Just are the cherry picked sampling of porn performer testimonies used in radical / anti arguments. The radical / anti stances bolstered by interviews are no more accurate than the pro ones.

Of the millions of women who are pornographized worldwide, the (usual) thirty that HBO (or another TV channel) picks are the ones who are near the top of the business, who have some degree of name recognition and some kind of "fame" among porn consumers. It is likely that their tales differ to an extent from those whose names we will never know, who don't get the "glamorous" Vivid contract, and who work in some disgusting grimy basement for a miserable amount of money.

Humm. Not famous, no contract, name unknown, no deals with Vivid, work in sketchy locations often…eh, money is average for the acts I do in the East Coast side of the business…and look, I still disagree with and question you!

Those on screen probably also have to protect themselves -- if they say defamatory things about the pimps that prostitute them out for mass consumption, they're likely to lose their position to someone who is a lot more compliant. Glamorized pornified documentaries such as these should normally be deserving of our contempt and little else. As a friend of mine once told me, "why does anyone believe mega corporations with billions of dollars invested into pornified media will provide a fair analysis of pornified media?" Unfortunately, too many people fall for the lies perpetuated by pornified media.

And why should anyone believe the studies and books and words of radical / anti authors and speakers like Dines, Jensen, and Farley, who are also profiting and building academic careers off of porn and prostitution? They have a great chunk of their livelihoods tied up in this too. They have a vested interest in saying what they say in order to remain on top of their game in their given industry as well now, don’t they?

And actually, various porn stars have been critical of directors they did not like. Ashley Blue, Tori Lane, Trina Michaels have all said there are people they dislike working for and with, and won’t work with even if the money is good. Nina Hartley has spoken out extensively about rights and medical concerns…yet…they are being paid off and silenced? Humm. Well, here we go… I think Max Hardcore is a real asshole and Janet Ramano (Lizzie Borden) has made some films that are really over the line and offensive. Let’s see if I ever work in this business again!

In a recent article which was published in the in Hartford Courant, Gail Dines wrote that mainstream culture "is accepting, even promoting, the media-generated sugar-coated image of the porn industry as glamorous, fun and cool. This image has been made popular by Howard Stern, documentaries on E! Entertainment and celebrity magazines such as People. The Vivid Girls are the elite of the porn industry, women who earn a decent, if short-lived livelihood, and are somewhat protected from the much larger world of more violent and body-punishing hard-core movies called “gonzo” by the industry. The (mainly white) Vivid Girls are the respectable face of the porn industry; their job is to make porn look like a wholesome route to stardom; they act as a recruitment tool for a mass production sweatshop industry that needs to keep replenishing its supply of female bodies."

Huh. Tera Patrick is white? Adam & Eve’s Mika Tan isn't. Jenna Jameson gets ripped apart by the media regularly. Shrug. I do gonzo. By choice and everything. Never mind that you are never going to see Gail Dines quoting gonzo performers -unedited- like Audrey Hollander who say they are the ones constantly looking to take it to the next level, or Ashley Blue who says that her films are no different than what she likes to do in her own bedroom, or Kelly Wells who says she finds it to be an incredible rush to film gonzo scenes. See, it’s a lose/lose situation. You get to be a dirty whore or you get to be a hapless, silenced, controlled and abused victim. You can’t ever just be a person doing a job. Maybe even on that you chose to do, or maybe even don’t hate. That’s the worst thing about the sex business in my opinion: everybody else’s fucking opinions, stereotypes, fears, assumptions and impressions shoved on to you. Daily. Without your consent.

Dines also wrote that "Those women who do go into porn are mostly women from underprivileged backgrounds who, facing a life of minimum wage labor, see porn as a way out of anonymous economic drudgery. And why not? The only image they ever get of porn is one that highlights the lucky few who actually make real money and get to mix with a few B list celebrities. What they don’t get to see are the thousands and thousands of women who start in porn and end up, within a short time, working the brothels of Nevada for a pittance, or having to deal with substance abuse and sexually transmitted diseases."

PROOF PLEASE. How many porn stars and performers, of all kinds, from the big names to the net girls, did Dines ASK about their educational backgrounds and economic situations? I want names. Mika Tan- biology scholar. Aurora Snow- law school (and gonzo performer), Nina Hartley- Nursing, Shy Love- editor, Harmony Rose- director & producer, Jenna Jameson- mutli millionaire, and there are not even enough brothels in Nevada for thousands and thousands of ex porn performers, and often times….

Those gals make more than a pittance, and NEVADA LAW requires monthly health exams.

Different stories

While I was having a conversation with Janice G. Raymond (the co-executive director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women – CATW International) at a conference last year, she said to me “There are some women who choose to prostitute but there aren't many”. I believe it is possible that there are a few women out there who do freely choose to enter the industry, are fully aware of what's involved and/or make a lot of money. Still, I do not believe it is honest people focusing all their attention on those few somewhat privileged women while ignoring the vast majority of prostituted women who never got the chance to choose a better life, who are being controlled and mistreated by pimps, and who are used and abused by johns.

Maggie, who are the CATW people ASKING? Really, it’s a legit question. If they are asking street workers, I absolutely, 100% believe most of the people in that end of the business, male, female, trans, straight, gay, bi, old, young, in between, black, white, brown, did not choose to be there. But that isn’t everyone. It may not even be “most”. And applying those stats and opinions and experiences to ALL people in every single aspect of the sex industry- to the pro dommes and high end escorts and porn performers, to the phone sex gals and nude models is distorting and dishonest. Also, us horrible sex positives and sex worker outreach types? Hell, we are on the same page with regards to helping the unwilling OUT. I don’t think it is honest to say that we don’t (which you and others have done), and I don’t think it is honest to use those experiences as a universal for all, with a brief caveat to talk about “unicorns”. It is not a monolith…hell, your allusion to happy hookers and the fact you do, somewhat, think some women do choose suggests that it can’t be the monolith. No one would choose it if it were, and everyone, literally everyone in it, would want out.

Stories of “happy hookers” or “women who love doing porn” are magnified by malestream media and are elevated in patriarchy. These “happy pornstitution stories” are exalted by pornographers and their defenders. All this done with the purpose to conceal or obscure the real life stories of those who undergo a vile and excruciating form of slavery: the sexual slavery that is prostitution.

See my comments on Law and Order, as well as the words of not famous sex workers who have serious issue with radical / anti proclamations, as well as consider the fact that folk like Dines, Jensen and Farley are also doing this to make a living and build their careers.

What kind of a world is this, in which many women have to go through the pain of being penetrated vaginally, orally and anally by five to ten men a day in exchange for money (which for the most part goes to their pimps) and then all of this gets defended as "sex work"? What kind of a world is this, in which the very same acts which are done to these women, whose bodies are being sold, are filmed or photographed and then all of this gets defended as "sexual freedom" or "free speech"?

Ah, see, again with the not monolith. But first, are you saying it is NOT work? That labor, sweat, physical action is not required? Humm. Now, as a person who does this for a living…my body is not being sold, its earning me a living. I shoot a scene; I am not owned by the person who paid me. I’ve performed, provided a service. And, penetration, even anally, in and of itself is not always painful. Lubricant, both natural and purchased in a bottle, goes a long way. Once again, not a monolith. A prostituted woman being fucked against her will in whatever orifice with no stimulation, lube, or consideration and then has to give the majority of the money to a pimp? Paid rape, and painful. A porn gal who has consented, is given time to prepare, is stimulated and lubricated and takes most of the money home (if not all of it, for those who do not have agents and work truly as full on independent contractors)? Not paid rape, and not painful. You cannot honestly tell me these situations are exactly the same, can you?

There is no doubt that pro-porners, cruelly reveling in their pornographic 'fantasies' and being deaf to the cries of millions of suffering women and girls, would rather not hear stories like:

Sarah Wynter's:"I was thirteen when I was forced into prostitution and pornography. . . I was drugged, raped, gang-raped, imprisoned, beaten, sold from one pimp to another, photographed by pimps, photographed by tricks; I was used in pornography and they used pornography on me; "[t]hey knew a child's face when they looked into it. It was clear that I was not acting of my own free will. I was always covered with welts and bruises. . . It was even clearer that I was sexually inexperienced. I literally didn't know what to do. So they showed me pornography to teach me about sex and then they would ignore my tears as they positioned my body like the women in the pictures and used me.";

Rebecca Mott's:“My entrance into prostitution overlapped with stepdad's sexual abuse of me. For me, it was a logical move, after all I was already having sex and getting gifts. I knew I was nothing more than some holes for men to use. So when I stayed up late and went to clubs, I was attracted to sleaze. I wanted to be the "bad girl" because being good never stopped the pain. . . From aged 12, I had started drinking. It deadened my pain. It made me not care how I was treated. I drank because then I forgot for a while. It was also a slow way to killing myself. It was within this head-space that I entered into paid sex. I was aged 14 when I first had sex for money. I thought I knew what I was doing but I had no idea. . . I was having sex too much. I had sex, but I had no love or affection. I had decided I was just an object for men to fuck. I had lost who I was. Now, I had hit on a form of self-harm that fitted me. I find it so hard to see that time, for I was so scared and abandoned. I see that time, and all I think is that I was recreating the images I had seen in hard-core porn. For, as I was being raped over and over again by these men, I had learned to act as if I was enjoying it... I was so dead inside, that after many acts of violence, I would "act normal" afterward. I could not allow myself to think about what had happened, because then I would lose my mind.”;

J.W.'s:"[O]ver a period of eight years... I worked as a prostitute, dancer and nude model... As a prostitute I worked in massage parlours, peep shows, private apartments, street corners, bars and for escort services... At the age of seventeen I began dancing in topless and bottomless bars. I was working for a pimp and was under a lot of pressure from him and the club owners to make a lot of money. In these bars they had pornographic videos playing constantly which contained graphic scenes of various sexual acts. The women in the videos were usually naked and the men were often clothed except for their penis. . . I had never seen pornographic movies before. I soon found out that in order to make tips I had to lay on the dance floor, spread my legs and expose my genitals to the customers, just like in the videos. . . A lot of my work consisted of acting out particular scenes for the customer [john] which caused him to become aroused. . . Some of the most violent pornography that I saw was in the houses of customers that I saw through escort services... I considered the men who were into pornography to be the most dangerous and potentially violent since that is what aroused them. . . At least fifty percent of the men that I saw professionally were into fantasies and pornography such as I have described. They were men from all over the world and all types of professions. Every prostitute I know has had similar experiences. Often we keep it to ourselves because it is very painful to remember. I have been scarred for life both mentally and physically. I have violent nightmares on a regular basis which replay my worst experiences of sexual violence over and over. I have difficulty relating to people in normal social situations. I cannot make love with someone without having flashbacks of being a prostitute. I have very little self confidence...";

Jersey Jaxin's:"I’m just tired of the industry. The way that they treat us as though we're just pieces of meat. That we don’t have a mind and our body is everybody’s and we have no soul... [In the porn industry] Guys [are] punching you in the face. You have semen… Twenty or thirty guys all over your face, in your eyes. You get ripped. Your insides can come out of you. It’s never ending. You're viewed as an object not as a human with a spirit. People don’t care. People do drugs because they can’t deal with the way they’re being treated... You are a number. You’re bruised. You have black eyes. You’re ripped. You’re torn. You have your insides coming out of you. It’s not pretty and foofoo on set. You get hurt... You have to numb yourself to go on set. The more you work, the more you have to numb yourself. The more you become addicted, the more your personal life is nothing but drugs... Your whole life becomes nothing but porn... We’re ripped, we’re tired, we’re sored, we’re bleeding, we’re cut up, we have dried semen all over our faces from numerous guys and we can’t wash it off because they want to take pictures. You have this stuff all over you and they’re telling you, ‘Hold it!’... It’s all about the money. They’ve forgotten who they are and they don’t care who they’re hurting.";

Suki Falconberg's:"[Melissa] Farley presented a panel on prostitution shortly after her book [Prostitution and Trafficking in Nevada: Making the Connections] came out, and a number of former prostitutes spoke. One said that Las Vegas is greatly lacking in services to help prostituted women, girls, and children. (The city has a thriving business based on the sale of young girls, ages 13-17.) She said that local charities would not help the prostituted. Once they discover you worked as one, they throw you out. . . At the panel, one prostitute came up with a startling fact: that very few women, girls, or children actually make it out of prostitution, and, of the few who do, life expectancy is short. Most are dead two or three years later. From insanity, suicide, disease?. Her remarks made me stop breathing for a few seconds. I now realize that I was incredibly lucky to actually survive the three-year stint I spent in prostitution and that the odds of my being alive now are amazing. When I was in it, I saw no way out. Esteem so low and a body and mind and emotions so battered that I could not see past the next hour or so. I felt as if I was in a ten-foot pit and could not see the rim. I smiled all the time, as if everything was okay. But I simply assumed I would die in prostitution. I gave up. What life is there after being raped thousands of times by men you don´t know? There is none. I have no courage, no self-worth―all these must come from inside and there is only empty cold space inside me. I am afraid to leave the house. I am terrified of everything. I am not a rape/prostitution survivor. I didn´t survive. I have no ´support network´ since I have never spoken to another prostitute. I am always afraid I will see the same sadness in her eyes that I see in my own. The only way I know what other prostitutes think is through people like Melissa Farley, who has talked to so many all over the world. With surprise, I found many similarities―whether it´s Bangkok or Bombay or London or Las Vegas, the raped body feels the same. Through Farley´s interviews, I have also found ones who are ´true´ survivors. Hope and peace and safety they have found. That´s not me. No hope, no peace, and certainly no safety―since I am terrified to go outside the door. This is a big deal for me since you can´t do much of anything else if you can´t cross the threshold, into the outside world. I pretty much live in spite of this. The beautiful things in the world--I know they are there--but I can´t reach them for comfort. I am still ten feet down, in that pit. I love sparrows. So small and cute and sweet and fragile, yet also so cheeky and spirited. I wish I could appreciate the beauty of a sparrow again."; or

Carol Smith's:"What I saw were women just like myself who were desperate, addicted to drugs, homeless, and I'm sure probably at least 80 percent of them suffered from sexual abuse as children. I saw them re-living their childhood experiences by getting into that industry. They were looking for attention, pleasing men, and being abused. And that's all they know. They think it's great. They think it's wonderful. I could've looked you in the eye ten years ago and told you that I loved being in pornography, was proud of what I was doing and that I was having a great time. But now I can tell you that it's so far from the truth. I was very convincing. I could convince you. I mean, I could walk up to a porn star today and she could tell me the same story and I can remember being in that place."

Pro-pronstitution folks would rather not hear such stories; they'd rather avoid such stories; they'd rather not care about such stories; they'd rather try to silence these women's stories. I do not believe it is fair. There are many stories like these and probably many more that we do not even know about. These accounts are the true stories of the daily lives of many women an girls who are/have been in the sex(-slave) trade and these bought and sold female human beings don't want to hear about “sex work”!

Guess what, I read all of those, and I’ve read others, and I agree they are horrible, and yes, people on all sides of the issue should read them. But there are two sides. There are other stories. And I am not willing to dismiss these women or their experiences, but your side seems all too willing to dismiss and not hear the stories and experiences from the other side. And no, porn isn’t for everyone. It is not a job anyone and everyone can deal with. Yes, it can be exhausting. Yes, you can get sore. Yes, washing several dudes cum off you or out of your hair can be annoying. Yes, you can end up working with assholes. But semen aside for a moment…is that not true of many jobs? Do we not all have asshole coworkers or bosses at some point? Do we not all have long, tiring, stressful days? And do not many people who work end up sticky and dirty at days end? The answer there is yes. And porn, like any business, is about money.

The problem is that, for most people, it is very hard to understand why women who are in prostitution or pornography would not enjoy their 'job', because people only see a few of them on TV pseudo-documentaries which glamorize the sex industry and the women they see typically say they do it because “they love the sex and they feel good about their bodies”. People usually fall for mainstream media propaganda and conclude that prostituting women are “having a great time” because “they say that they are having a great time”.

Which is why we have the right wing calling us all worthless depraved whores, and Judge Deni ruling an armed gang rape a theft of services, why we can be laughed out of court, why we can be discounted by radical /anti interests, why we have issues getting credit, finding other or secondary jobs, why people feel they can scrutinize, assume, question, mock, dismiss and other us, any and everything about us, at will, why we are told we don’t deserve any rights….because the world just loves us, right? Sooo glamorous! Hell, generally at work, I do have a good time. Sure, like anyone with a job I have shitty days, but the real bullshit? The real bullshit isn’t the stripping, or the fucking, or the porn, it’s the stuff I mentioned above. I’ve been treated worse by feminists than I’ve ever been treated by a pornographer, and at least in porn, I know I’m gonna get fucked up the ass in advance, and I get paid for it. And no Maggie, it's not just the men doing it.

Unfortunately, most people do not understand Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the mental process of dissociation. Of the 854 prostituted respondents interviewed by researchers, 68% met the criteria for PTSD. Women in prostitution whose tricks or pimps had made pornography of them had significantly more severe symptoms of PTSD than did prostituted women who did not have pornography made of them. While it is hard to tell how another person feels, we do know that prostituted and pornographized women often have their mind splitting into different parts of the self in order to be able to cope with what they do.Dissociative disorders are common in prostituted women. Seeing a prostituting woman on a screen smiling and saying that “she loves her job” does not necessarily mean that she is happy . She might believe that she is happy while being shielded in a form of protective denial with the purpose to protect herself from the painful reality she lives in: the ongoing abuse which occurs in the sex trade.

And while much of that probably does come from the job itself…how much of it comes from the attitudes of society surrounding the job? The constant view of the subjects as lesser, subhuman beings? The patronizing attitudes? Which, do not, at all, come solely from men? Hey, there’s an interesting idea for a study…and once again, the strata of the interviewees, please?

In a study of the strip bar industry, strippers reported a dissociation to abuse: "It takes a willingness to do it…anybody can do it." "It takes somebody who can shut themselves off and be really fake." In her book Prostitution, Trafficking, and Traumatic Stress (2003), Melissa Farley, clinical psychologist and researcher (whose research on prostitution has been used by state governments, as well as by advocates and organizations providing services to prostituted and trafficked women) wrote: "In order to survive the brutal commodification of their sexuality in prostitution, women dissociate, and appear to accept the view of themselves as sexual commodities."

Sigh. We’re ALL commodities, but more on that later. And it takes a willingness to do it/anybody can do it is a contradiction. Plus, not everyone can do it, but more for physical appearance reasons than various other ones.

Choices

In a study of 854 prostituting (mostly female) human beings from nine countries (Canada, Colombia, Germany, Mexico, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, USA, and Zambia), 57% reported having been raped in prostitution; 73% reported having experienced physical assault in prostitution; 49% had pornography made of them; 75% were currently or formerly homeless; and 89% stated that they wanted to escape prostitution immediately. Summarizing different study findings, research carried out on prostitutes (some of whom had pornography made of them) and clinical literature on different types of prostitution, it is estimated that between 65% and 95% of women in prostitution were sexually assaulted as children. This Farley et al. nine-country study is the most comprehensive research on prostitution which the world has known to date!

Done on a very specific classification of prostitutes, and applied universally to all people involved in the sex business, erroneously.

In Germany, where prostitution is legal, out of the estimated 400,000 Germany's “sex workers” only 100 joined a union. That's .00025% of German prostitutes. According to the Nevada Coalition Against Sex Trafficking, 81% of women in the Nevada legal brothel prostitution urgently want to escape it. This makes even clearer that women don't want to be prostitutes!

And why didn’t they join the union? Where is the why? Monetary reasons maybe? And 81% of the brothel workers Farely interviewed and included in her research, not in the Nevada legal brothel system. Let's at least attempt some accuracy here, please.

In spite of all this, "sex work" advocates carry on their propaganda by upholding the anti-woman status quo. “Prostitution is the world's oldest profession”, they frequently say; this misogynistic saying should be translated as “Women as whores: that's what women are for, have always been for, and will always be for: being men's whores”. It is also worth pointing out that the pornstitution industry and pornified corporate media glorify the few women who defend them as an attempt to conceal the obvious misogyny of the 'sex' industry (i.e. trying to show something like this: "See, if some women defend it; it can't be misogynistic").

I imagine hunter/gathering is the world’s oldest profession, in truth. But, with the dismissive again. Sex Work advocates advocate a lot of things: rights for workers, safer working conditions, full protection under the law (all horrible things, I know), and why yes, assisting and attempting to get those who want out of the sex industry out. Do Not Paint All Sex Worker’s Rights Advocates As Something They Are Not.

Many of the pro-pornstitution women are, without any doubt, financed by the 'sex' industry itself! So, pro-pornstitution women more often get to be heard than us (rad fems) in this atrocious patriarchy. Radical feminists know that the overwhelming majority of people who defend pornography and prostitution are in fact men, though. Pro- pornstitution women are merely a sideshow (a pro-porn tactic to create diversion).

Okay, wow. I’ve been called a marketing front, a whore, Ms Plastic Tits, a bitch, a monster…blah blah blah, and yep, now a sideshow by Radical Feminists. Loooovely. And I sure as hell don't need the men to disagree with you. Now, true, I am paid for my work in the sex industry. Who pays me to blog? No one. Who pays me to write about my thoughts and experiences? No one. Who pays me to participate in Sex Worker Outreach? No one. Who pays me to speak at/view and listen at events? No one, in fact, I pay out of my own pocket to go to them. Don’t make accusations you cannot prove.

The few somewhat privileged women who genuinely want to stay in prostitution (probably due to the deeply entrenched institutionalized female masochism enforced by patriarchy) are elevated in male-supremacist culture. They are magnified by pornified media, highly praised by "sex work" advocates and pro-porners; they are given megaphones, book deals, spaces on major websites, etc.

Don’t talk to me about privilege- suggestion one. I’m a switch. Snicker…right…I am “highly praised” (does vile mercenary count as high praise?). No megaphone, no book deal, no on going gig at a major website, etc. On the other hand, radical / anti’s are given time at many universities (and you too can get college credit for it), are on the news, in the paper, have book deals, are invited to major debates and forums…and get paid for it!

Some of those few women who “make it to the top” in the pornstitution industry become pimps (i.e. Madams) themselves and (ab)use the other women they sell, instead of channeling their internalized anger (from past abuse) in the right direction: toward the industry itself and the johns/porn users who abused them. The "sex work" advocates inhumanly refuse to hear the stories of the vast majority of prostituting women or prostitution survivors and attempt to silence them.

Huh, so when I got threatened by a radical /anti, what was that? My boss is a woman at the stripping agency, funny, she isn’t very pimp like- on the contrary, she’s very reasonable and nice…and a former dancer and married mom with kids. Oh, and sure enough, we listen and hear…we’re not the ones with the hearing problem.

A few months ago, some "sex work" advocates violently attempted to disrupt a play entitled My Real Name, which used the real life stories of survivors of prostitution. My Real Name was about, by, and for survivors of prostitution and sex trafficking, and was a racially and ethnically diverse production. Maxine Doogan, a "sex work" advocate who wrote a propaganda piece called "Anti-prostitution group commits violence on sex worker", is a convicted madam from Washington state. She encourages prostituting women to oppose anti-prostitution feminists and sex industry survivors. Maxine Doogan was one of the women who orchestrated the racist and classist ruckus that occurred when the play My Real Name was being performed in Berkeley.

Two sides to that story again. Both sides behaved poorly.

Some "sex work" advocates, such as Yasmin Nair in Clamor Magazine, have even gone so far as saying that women who are from poor countries and who are trafficked into the U.S. for prostitution, are lying about being pimped, enslaved, raped, beaten and sold into the American sex industry. Those "sex work" advocates have claimed that trafficked women are "problably migrating for 'sex work'" instead. Victims of sex trafficking have been recognized by Amnesty International, Equality Now, the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, the Polaris Project and hundreds of other international organizations. This sort of "sex work" advocates' propaganda indeed erases rapes and promotes racism.

And your erasure of the Countless Other Sex Worker Advocates & Associations because of Yasmin Nair constitutes what, exactly?

There are many agencies that specialize in recruiting young women to the porn industry with the promise of making big money and becoming a star. Indeed, the money is an attraction for mostly young, working-class women who face limited choices in a harsh economy. Given those economic realities and the glamorization of pornography, it’s not surprising that some young women will see this as a viable career option. Undeniably, the whole culture promotes the "porn star" job as a glamorous job. In TV shows, the image of the "porn star" is shown as "liberating" and "empowering" for women.

It can be a viable career option. In TV shows, porn stars end up murdered.

Some young girls unfortunately, turning 18, fall for the pernicious ideologies that the media industries (whose owners, managers, producers and broadcasters are predominantly men) want them to believe. Brainwashing pornified pimp culture obviously trains women and girls to view the porn industry as glamorous. However, those young women and girls who enter the porn industry after having had a harmful pornified media training, are often not aware of the conditions in which they will "work". They've only seen the glamorized side of porn and hope they can become the next Jenna Jameson. They aren't aware of the ongoing sexual violence that goes on in porn.

Or in waitressing, or modeling, or working in a factory, or a law office, or on a college campus…

The average age of entry into prostitution is 13-14 years old (Sources: M.H. Silbert and A.M. Pines, 1982, "Victimization of street prostitutes", Victimology: An International Journal, 1982; and D. Kelly Weisberg, Children of the Night: A Study of Adolescent Prostitution, 1985). Many women in pornography are only 18, and are easily used and discarded by the industry. Most pornography performers have a very brief "shelf life", they find themselves being overexposed so, even if they initially command a high rate per scene or per movie, their market value as "fresh meat" declines rapidly. Some ex-porn 'actresses' and people who knew pornography performers, are also known to have revealed that most women in porn are indeed survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

Not a monolith. There is a huge difference between forced at 13 and choosing or taking a viable option at 18. At 18, you can vote, go to war, buy a gun, live independently, and yep, go into porn. And yes, there are 18 year olds in porn. There are also many women between 25-45 in porn. Now, this is where my vile side does reveal itself…if you want to play statistics, we can do that. Studies say 1 in 4 woman have been raped or sexually assaulted. When those women go into other fields- law, medicine, retail, education, athletics- they are given the benefit of the doubt on agency. Some of those careers can be dangerous, can involve a great deal of sexual harassment (female cops, military personal, athletes, eh, any “traditionally masculine field” are notorious for their sexism), yet…humm, I suspect you catch my drift. Sexual abuse and rape can cause a woman to do many things; take self-defense, do porn, take an interest in the law, engage in various forms of outreach, even, dare I say it, become a radical feminist. However, only one of these things is constantly subject to scrutiny of that choice and constantly her choice and agency is called into question. If a woman in porn does not have the agency to make decisions for herself because of past sexual trauma, what woman who is a victim of past sexual trauma does have that agency? Dangerous times indeed…yet valid if you are going to go that route, and well, expect that I will follow and push.

When we expose the facts, "sex work" advocates argue that we are “portraying women in the sex industry as victims” and that we are “denying their autonomy”. All this is untrue and "sex work" advocates fail (do not want) to understand our analysis of circumstances within which some women have much more limited choices than others in patriarchal capitalist society. "Sex work" advocates simply do not want to face the fact that denying major study results on prostitution along with real life stories of prostitution survivors is a deplorable repudiation of one's empathy.

Ah, like Bob, go with empathy. So then, tell me, how is using Farley’s study on street prostitutes and select brother workers as law for all people in the sex biz accurate? How is referring to all women in the sex biz as “prositituted women” not portraying all of them as victims and not questioning their autonomy? How is denying, mocking, and threatening women who say they did choose it, amid other reasonable choices not dismissive and geared towards producing desired results, statistically and otherwise? How is refusing to dialogue with your opponents looking towards understanding? How is it that you simply do not want to face the fact that it is not an monolith, studies done on one strata of the sex industry by paid academics and advocates with careers to bolster are not accurate for all and that ignoring the real life stories of non-forced prostitutes and sex workers is also a deplorable repudiation of not only one’s empathy, but one’s understanding?

Some "sex work" advocates claim that the exploitation of prostituting women arises from the social stigma associated with prostitution. There is a great body of evidence that prostituted women are still being horribly discriminated against in countries where prostitution is legal. The issue of stigmatization of prostituted women and girls simply cannot be separated from their ongoing reality of economic exploitation and sexual and physical violence.

Also in places like the vaunted Swedish state, where a woman in possession of condoms can be charged with prostitution, and if she is a non-Swede, deported without question. And sorry, the social stigma is very real (theft of services, anyone)? Which is why I say, firmly and solidly, if you are against rights for those in the sex industry, you are no ally and part of the problem. Unless people in the sex industry can be treated equally under the law and have access to the rights people not in the sex industry take for granted, you are part of the problem, and you do nothing to stop not only the stigmatization, but the violence against people in it.

The 'sex' industry has done a great job in focusing the debate on "women's choices", while the focus of any discussion on the subject should be on the consumers who CHOOSE to use pornography, and, in the case of prostitution, on the johns who CHOOSE to buy women for sex.

Guess what…those choices have been looked at, but you know, I will say sure, hell, I agree with you here…that could be looked at more in depth.

"In the past we had a women's movement which understood that the choice to be beaten by one man for economic survival was not a real choice, despite the appearance of consent a marriage contract might provide. Yet now we are supposed to believe, in the name of 'feminism', that the choice to be fucked by hundreds of men for economic survival must be affirmed as a real choice, and if the woman signs a model release then there is no coercion there".-- Catharine A. MacKinnon.

As a woman who has been fucked by hundreds of men, for both profit and for fun, I say yeah, it was my choice...beats the hell out of working in an office cubicle in my opinion. And the woman in the photo you used for your piece? Did you ask her permission, credit her or the photographer? Find out her feelings on the matter of her image being used in your argument? It’s not porn, 2257 does not apply, but she is a person, do her opinions on the issue…matter?

Now Maggie- I invite you to engage. I welcome it. I lust for such a debate, truthfully. You’re a radical / anti porn feminist, I’m a willing sex worker and sex workers rights advocate. You’ve done a little baiting; god, goddess and all the little deities know I’ve done the same in my time. We’ve got the whole big (not)monolith to ponder, and I even promise not to resort to blanket statements, assumptions or personal attacks. So yeah, the door is open.