Oh so wise and hip and wonderful trendy feminist bloggers with mad feeds and amazing readership who are, in the wake of Spitzer, talking about sex work, prostitution, legalization, banning, decrim, ect...
When you make statements akin to "Farley is GOD, hookers are all stereotype, stereotype, stereotype, let us discuss and ponder and decide, but oh gads, not those whores, you know, the happy ones..., or even those on B-n-G, or those who disagree...90%, 90%! Those other ones don't count...blah fuckin' blah blah blah..."
I want you, as you sit back and bask in the glow of your coolness and blog traffic and book deals and creds and status and masters degrees and cool apartments in cool cities and interviews on news shows to ask yourself this...
You ever sucked dick for money?? You ever seriously considered or taken an offer to do six months in a Nevada Cathouse? Do you go to work every day worrying about getting busted and having your life and privacy and family utterly destroyed?
No?
Or hey, have you ever pondered taking some of that intellectual acumen and, oh, doing a study on NON street based sex workers to see what they think? How many of them don't fit the Farley mode or are okay with their jobs? I mean, currently, NO SUCH STUDY SEEMS TO EXIST, and IF IT DOES, it's never brought up in these discussions....but you know what? I almost promise you that a woman you know IS an escort. Ever pondered doing that?
No?
Then, while my gut instinct is to say "shut the fuck up" I will stick with how many unhappy whores have you helped with all that type today?
Oh, and as for the deciding what's best for sex workers/prostitutes/whatever? Thanks, but no thanks.
And don't even try to run that "selfish, selfish you, what do you do to help the unhappy and forced" line on me. Blow that bullshit right out your ass.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
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35 comments:
you know, the obvious response to the whole "well you're in the
minority so your opinion doesn't count" is,
"okay, Miz Voice of the Wimmin, you do know that as a white North
American woman with an income of ___, an education level of ____, and so on and so forth, you are in the .00004th percentile of the female population, kee-rect? Perhaps you might consider, next time you're weighing forth on matters that are supposed to speak for All Women Everywhere (and we will henceforth insist that your -every- utterance does so, even when you explicitly spell out that a given post is about your own personal experience and not meant to be universalized), that it's time for you to, o, SHUT THE FUCK UP"
Yep. Remember how once upon a time WW invited us all to put our money where our mouths were? Well see, my mouth has been places the likes of Miz Amanda, ect, would probably never fathom for money, yet, you know, on sex work debates, her opinion is more valid and real than a happy whores, because, oh, FARLEY!
ANd her imperious tone makes me gag more than any dick down the back of my throat ever has.
So yes, let's talk about sex work, prostitutes, what they feel, how horrible it is, and what needs to be done....with none of those pesky sex workers or prostitutes!
(and you know, most of the sex workes/ex sex workers who blog and still disagree with Her Royal Hipness? Hardly 5000$ a night sparkly happy whores....)
Oy gods, I'm guessing you saw this too eh?
"Whose theory is it that prostitution is victimless? It’s the men who buy prostitutes who spew the myths that women choose prostitution, that they get rich, that it’s glamorous and that it turns women on."
I about hit my head on my desk. The over simplification, marginalization, and regurgitations of stereotypes hurt my brain.
Ren, these posts are coming out of the woodwork, they are everywhere. All of a sudden, everyone's an expert on sex work! And they wouldn't even recognize Sex Workers Rights day! Incredible, isn't it?
Yeesh.
Ahhhhh, Amanda M.....flashing her "porn liberal" ass again, I see.
Amazing how some people can be so damn hypocritical these days...."MY sex life is none of your damn business and I will do as I damn well please; but YOUR sex life, though?? Bad, bad, BAD....and perfectly legitimate for public airing and revulsion."
I'm not so sure I agree, though, with the "if you are not an active sex worker, then STFU" line, Ren: don't forget that there are people who probably would never walk the streets or join an escort or even pay for sex that would on general principle of basic fundamental decency and respect for consensual choices would proudly support legalized, safe, and sane sex work.
Not to mention the actual voices of the CLIENTS who are being slandered and abused by the likes of Fairley and Marcotte as permanent abusers and innate rapists. They are probably just as silenced and ignored almost as much as the "happy whores" who serve their needs.
But, of course, they won't get the big bylines in the major fish wraps or the prime interviews on FOX or CNN...unless they are willing to answer such probing questions as: "What vibrator do you use to get him off??" or "Really, tell the truth now...how degraded do you really feel after you are with a client??" or simply "How many HIV/AIDS tests did you take while you were hooking?"
Yeah, "mainstream media", indeed. More like a stream of raw freakin' sewage.
Anthony
Re: your opinion/experience is the minority therefore it doesn't count... Isn't the whole common philosophy here supposed to be specifically that minorities (in terms of both power and percentages) should be heard, included, protected? Would it be okay to say, "Less than 10% of people are homosexual, therefore all sex is straight, and queers should shut up"? Or, you know: "Feminists are in the minority, therefore they should shut up"? "Jews are just 2% of the US, so the opinions of Jews don't matter"?
Those analogies aren't perfect, obviously, but the thinking is similarly absurd.
Amanda over at Pandagon (who I respect tremendously) needs to read this. It amazes me that she is always (rightfully) railing on about the right of women to choose what they want to do in life, yet poo poo on the notion that any woman could actually want to do sex work. I'm not sure she sees the dichotomy there.
Hello.
I have sort of a different perspective on this, and I am a former sex worker. Actually, a lot of the things that seem to piss you off really do resonate for me (things you referred to in this post and a few other posts of yours I've browsed through). I feel like the women I've seen posting on the internet about sex work are all happy with their jobs or think the industry isn't degrading...and their taken as representative. I feel like women who were mistreated and had horrible experiences, even if they have the means to speak about them, aren't really going to tend to feel up for shouting about them from the rooftops. It's pretty hard to talk about.
For me, doing sex work was one of the most self-destructive things I could've done. It was probably one of the worst six months of my life, I did experience violence a few times in the industry, and I was exploited (or at least ripped off) a few times without a lot of recourse. I was in a bad situation in a number of ways when sex work started to look like a decent option, and I also didn't foresee what would happen; I didn't know that it would be violent and traumatizing. I'm probably also one of those "stereotypes" you talk about because I do have a history of abuse and I struggle with mental illnesses like PTSD and depression. I never did drugs, though. I saved (though I never made all that much money) and I got out. My life isn't wonderful, but it's looking up.
So a lot of what people write about degradation rings true to me. I am pro sex workers rights. I wish I'd had a community of sex workers or people to talk to and lean on or get advice from. I'm pro decriminalization. But I also appreciate a lot of what anti-prostitution and anti-porn people say about degradation and violence and misogyny and racism and a predatory industry. I feel like expanding people's options (helping people out if they want out, giving people more choices and power to begin with). I think women (and not just women willing to buy into the current system) need more power, both within and without the industry and that is the only thing that's going to help things. Abuse is harder if people are truly equals in the situation.
I read your blog and I felt written out of existence, or unwelcome. I don't really know.
I'm sorry. I'm not trying to come off as combative. I'm mostly just saddened.
willit:
THe thing is, I don't want anyone to be written out of existence. No one, good experience, bad experience, somewhere in the middle. I don't want any one persons, or even group of peoples, experience to be applied to everyone, because everyones experience is different. And I really, really, don't like it when anyone who's never done the job to speak for/about/over people who have.
That's my problem, really. The Universal. I wouldn't deny for a second that people have had it rough, even horrible, in the sex industry...in fact, I never have. But when people say flat out everyone does...it bothers me. A lot.
Okay now, let's see here:
"I feel like the women I've seen posting on the internet about sex work are all happy with their jobs or think the industry isn't degrading...and their taken as representative."
"But I also appreciate a lot of what anti-prostitution and anti-porn people say about degradation and violence and misogyny and racism and a predatory industry.
"I read your blog and I felt written out of existence, or unwelcome. I don't really know."
Take out the boilerplate language about supporting sex workers rights and advocating more power for sex workers (carefully adding the part about including "not just women willing to buy into the current system)."
So here we have yet another woman who used to be a sex worker but now lives a middle-class life she thinks is better and wants to be heard in one of the few places on the Internet where sex workers who don't necessarily "want out right now" can speak openly and she wants us to know she feels silenced.
There are many, many sites where she and her negative views about sex work would be welcomed with open arms, ranging from that of Shelley Lubben to that of Melissa Farley (minus the rhetoric about supporting sex workers' rights and decriminalization, of course).
In fact, most anti-sex-work feminists nominally support decriminalization, at least for the woman, though they favor the Swedish lunacy for the men, natch. But most also want to put the hammer down on the demand side, whether legally or through social pressure, which would be just as damaging to working women in the long run.
A skeptic might wonder why these voices are being raised here at the moment, just as Spitzergate threatens to engulf the campaign of HRC and the shot some second-wavers see at finally getting someone they think they can put the arm on in charge.
As admin of a blog that's full of political tension, often instigated by people who, after a bit of electronic sleuthing, turn out not to be who they say the are, or even the gender they claim to be, I tend toward a certain skepticism about such things.
Not to nitpick, Ernest...but the Nina.com board is a bit different than a blog. Just sayin'. :-)
I'm willing to give willt the benefit of the doubt and say that she is being genuine in posting her thoughts on the profession here, and that she's legitimately attempting to reconcile her personal experiences with her attempt to develop her beliefs.
There are those who do attempt to import the antiporn agenda throug rhetorical mirror tricks and mind jousting...and Ren certainly deals with her share of the cranks who will never respect her humanity. I just think that we shouldn't just go off and assume that if someone does have some degree of antipathy about sex work, that she is automatically driven to the other side's extreme. We can be critical of people while respecting their differences, as long as they are respectful of our position.
On the other hand, folks like Amanda M., who cover their basic bigotry underneath piles of "hip", "porn liberal" nonsense, are open game for calling out their BS.
Still...if you feel that unwelcome here, willt, it's a free country, and there are other blogs. Unlike the other side, we will respect your opinion, even if we disagree.
Anthony
So nobody but me suspects trolling when the construct favored by APFs - prostituted women - appears in hostile comments on two threads at the same time, one a bit more civil than the other, and both claiming to favor sex-workers' rights and decriminalization before going on to bash everything sex workers who don't repudiate their jobs, and the men who agree with them, say and do.
Nina.com may not be a blog in the same sense this is, but we do get the same kind of double-team trolling, always starting out in the same "I'm basically on your side but ..." kind of tone.
Like the twosome who showed up in our forum a few weeks back, loudly proclaiming that they "liked some porn" but demanding to know where we stood on all that "misogynist" shit that does demonstrable social harm, and why their weren't more men on the site, supposedly for the amusement of female readers.
You think they antis don't come over here and over there to try and spread dissension on our side? Give them credit for what they do best - making sure that they get heard everywhere sex work is discussed, by one means or another.
Oh, don't get me wrong, Ernest....perhaps willt is indeed an APRF or MRA troll attempting to impose his/her ideology. I know definitely that our second anonymous commentator sounds like a familiar troll who often posts drive by smack at Ren personally.
And don't I know about getting double team attacks from antiporn trolls; remember, I'm a regular contributor to Nina.com and I get pretty much the same shit at my own blog, too (though I usually can delete most of the rougher stuff before it even gets printed).
All I said was that not all antiporn people who post here have ulterior motives, while a lot of them do; we have to go by their individual merits before we decide to drop the house on them.
Anthony
Hi again.
I don't know why people think I'm a troll. I'm not even completely sure of my position, or what "model" I might support, I just know that for me it WAS degrading and misogynistic and very violent. And I don't just "nominally" support sex worker rights. I do support sex worker rights.
I've never been to or heard of Nina.com. I came here because it's linked off of some feminist blogs I've been looking through lately. I really don't and never have had a community of sex workers or former sex workers and I had a very strong emotional reaction to finding this place, as it was the first sex worker blog I'd seen, though I've since found others.
I disagree with a lot of what the blog author here and other sex workers write, and maybe my view is skewed, but I do think that these views are taken as representative much of the time. At least, when I've seen or heard of or read things on the internet that actual sex workers write (like you, I think most who haven't done it aren't in much of a place to judge), they very frequently seem to be from this "sex-work-positive" perspective. And that was not my experience, and I don't think it's the experience of a lot of people. This is the reason that I think these voices are the loudest. I obviously don't think you're "censoring" me and maybe "unwelcome" was the wrong word, I don't know. I just feel like things are sort of lopsided.
I'm sorry if my language sounded "boilerplate" but I am sincere. I guess "buy into the current system" wasn't the right phrase either. I just meant that I think some people have louder voices than others, and I think there's a responsibility that comes with that.
I did want and I still want someone to talk to who has done this. I'm not asking you or anyone here specifically for that, I'm just saying that I feel really isolated about it and when I was doing it, I was even more isolated. I think if I'd had more of a community I could've handled the violence and everything else a lot better. I don't really know.
I guess I just want to say that I am sincere.
willt:
I'm not going to ban you or tell you that you cannot speak as you wish and will here, not my style, and I do think it is important for various perspectives to be out there. And you know what? I get what you say when you say you feel like "you are the only one out there"...yeah, there are a lot of happy to content sex workers blogging....but it took me a while to find them as well...I mean, I think I was duking it out here on the net for quite some time before the creation of Bound Not Gagged and before I ran across Jill B, Dacia, Gira and various others. I also often link to sex worker outreach and advocacy organizations for a reason. I'd yep, it would be a big fat lie to say I'd not taken it in the teeth almost any and every time I participate in discussions on sex work pretty much anywhere but here.
And you know what? I am loud. I am persistant, and yep, I can even be down right vicious, and no, I'm not going to shut up any time soon because while I do not think my experience is anymore valid that another persons...it is no less valid either. And I am so sick of the assumptions, stereotypes, and outright lies that I could spit. I am so sick of you get support and back pats if you sing the right tune, but if you don't, you're a monster. *My* experience in the sex biz has been, overall, good. The work suits me and I generally enjoy it...and I'm not going to lie about it to make other people happy....and that has not been a popular tack to take in a great many places and situations. I've been told that anything bad that has happened to me was something I "Deserved", I've been called more degrading names out here than I've ever been called in a porn scene, and everything from my appearance to my sanity and intelligence has been mocked liberally and at will by people who supposedly "care about sex workers".
So yeah, I get feeling silenced and discounted and talked over. Absolutely.
But you know what? I've never once denied the fact that some folk do have it rough and horrible in the sex industry, and I've never denied their experiences. The reverse is not true. And we all see things differently...just as you see all these words and stories about "Happy Whores", I see plenty of real horror stories, often trotted out and put on display by people who've never done the jobs themselves, and yep, people like me get blamed every time a woman gets her ass grabbed in a bar by an asshole dude...cause all sexism is our fault or something. Cause you know, I MADE that guy grab someones ass, or MADE a woman feel that she should be a porn slut, or MADE a guy rape someone.
It gets old. Real old.
I don't think you're a troll. But if you think being the happy whore of bloglandia is easy or fun or that it doesn't often suck, you'd be wrong, and if you think that I don't also often feel silenced, you'd also be wrong. In the last year I've been threatened, hacked, attacked in arenas where I had no chance of defending myself, and accused of just about everything under the sun. I've been called charming things such as a psychopath and Ms. Plastic Tits by "real feminists", been told I'd be better off dead, and had more assumptions made about my age, my relationship with my husband, and my mental state than you can possibly imagine...
Why? Because I blog about my job, my feelings on it, my experiences, and I defend what I do. I don't see these so called allies talking about (let alone complying) with Federal Law 2257, or realistic approaches to improvements in (let alone ending) the sex industry. I've asked "What's the plan?" more times than I can count and heard nothing...
And I've been more or less told my choices and autonomy matter not at all.
So if I seem hostile, it's because I am. With reason.
That said, I'm more than willing to discuss anything and everything under the sun with anyone who can recognize the fact that I'm human and behave in a somewhat civil manner. That too is my style. But as for being the burning happy whore effigy? No thanks. Been there, done that. If I was interested in silencing you, I'd not publish your comments. I'm not interested in silencing anyone...but I'm not shutting up either.
And let's get real about the proportions involved.
Willt feels silenced because of a tiny handful of sites and blogs that don't toe the standard all-sex-work-is-evil line of which she happened to stumble on one.
You can hardly go online without tripping over dozens of sites that deplore, decry, denounce and otherwise demonize sex work and everyone associated with it, except for those who, like Willt, regret and repudiate their former occupations. She would find plenty of support in those quarters.
The notion that women who feel victimized by sex work have no place to go to talk about it, including with other former sex-workers who feel they got a raw deal, is simply not supported by fact.
So whatever the professed motives of someone who absolutely insists, ever so plaintively, that she's excluded, silenced etc. here and just has to use this space to ventilate her dismay over her bad experiences as a sex worker, I still have to wonder what she expects to find on this blog in the way of support from people who are basically pro-sex-work that she can't find in the world of the antis.
She may or may not be a troll - I wish i had a dime for every troll who insisted that he or she wasn't on our site - but her POV isn't exactly news either to us or to those who see things her way, so I choose to remain dubious of her claims on our attention.
Her experience is her own and she's certainly entitled to recount it, and I appreciate your willingness to give her the space for it, but I'm still left wondering, why here?
I have more to say about this (firstly, thank you for your responses and for publishing my comments), but I did want to note that I found a study on non-street-based prostitution here.
"So here we have yet another woman who used to be a sex worker but now lives a middle-class life she thinks is better and wants to be heard in one of the few places on the Internet where sex workers who don't necessarily "want out right now" can speak openly and she wants us to know she feels silenced.
There are many, many sites where she and her negative views about sex work would be welcomed with open arms, ranging from that of Shelley Lubben to that of Melissa Farley (minus the rhetoric about supporting sex workers' rights and decriminalization, of course)."
Ouch – that's pretty harsh, Ernest.
As much as I'm a supporter of full decriminalization of sex work for both sellers and buyers, I do know there's a down side to the sex industry and not everybody has a net positive experience in it. A lot of people don't, and they deserve to be heard.
In fact, an essential first step in improving the real conditions of sex work is hearing out those people who had less-than-happy experiences with it.
And I certainly wouldn't want to tell anyone, especially an ex-sex worker, who's less-than-sanguine about the sex industry to go pitch their tent in Shelly Lubin's or Melissa Farley's camp. Who do you think that helps?
I have to agree with Ernest about at least this:
"Willt feels silenced because of a tiny handful of sites and blogs that don't toe the standard all-sex-work-is-evil line of which she happened to stumble on one."
I think your feelings are genuine Willt, but really, this is a very small corner of the blogosphere that is ours, and I think there's something to be said for the unbelievably huge rest of it which does more often than not give you voice.
I will agree with Ernest on that point, IACB....there are plenty of sites as well for those who might be anti-prostitution and antipathetic about their porn/sex work experiences, but not quite to the extremes of the Fairley/Craft cultists. Saying that this blog should be a safe space for those who happen to be more sex-positive and more pro-sex work is not necessarily censoring or silencing opposing views, nor does it mean that critical views about sex work or porn are neccessarily not welcome.
Heck, even many of us here have some degree of criticism of the actions and behaviors of those involved with sex work; the main difference between us and the antis/abolitionists is that we accept the diversity of difference of experiences and work to improve the conditions and experiences.
In that context, Willt actually does some good by posting here, if only to keep us honest with our positions. Now, as long as he respects the fundamental position of this blog and those involved, I have no problem with him here. The moment (s)he starts pontificating antiporn boilerplate, though, is when the red flag will go up.
Anthony
I appreciate your response, Renegade, thank you. And I don't want "happy whores" silenced, either. I just feel sort of alone.
I don't know who Lubbin is, though I have (recently) heard of Farley. I'm not sure what kind of support you think I would get from her, and I don't agree with everything she says, either, and I also don't think she is speaking from experience? I could be wrong; I am not that familiar with her.
I'm not an abolitionist either. But I do think there's something skewed about the fact that almost the entire industry is built around catering to men. I don't think fixing that would be my first priority, though, I think the most important thing is labor rights and freedom from violence.
I might write more later but there were two things that stuck out to me. The first was what you said about 2257. I saw your other post about 2257 also, and I absolutely agree with you there. You said that these performers might not agree with their images being used in those sorts of arguments and I would add...it really isn't a good idea to use images from nonconsenting performers or performers who thought they were consenting to something else or performers who wouldn't normally have consented but were desperate either. I think that might even be more vile.
I also think that anyone (feminist or no) who has called you Ms. Plastic Tits is being fucked up and misogynistic. I don't think surgically-altered body parts are fake. They aren't fake for burn victims or transpeople. They aren't fake for anyone, IMO.
Actually, to clarify further the "women who buy into the current system" comment, what I really meant was that I think there's potential for women who do like the way things are run to move up in the ranks a bit, but that really all the women involved need more power in the situation. And also women who are pro sex work or don't think it's degrading and violent seem to have louder voices, to me, among sex workers and ex sex workers who are talking about it (and that's sorta powerful), and like I said I think there's a responsibility that comes with that. And all the women involved need more power in the situation. I realize that I'm repeating myself a little but I wanted to clarify that I meant both of those things.
IACB,
Yeah, well, I can be pretty harsh sometimes when it comes to attempts to jack one of a very few places where it's safe for sex workers who have something good to say about what they do by using it to reiterate the same, tired stories of violence and degradation that are the daily fodder of sites operated by everyone from Focus on the Family to Hustling the Left.
You don't need to tell me that there are downsides to sex work. I've been doing it on and off since I was 24 and I've seen some very, very ugly things. I've spoken out against those things and I will continue to do so when and where I think it's appropriate.
But the fact that there are bad things about sex work is hardly news and gets plenty of play in MSM and on the Web. You ask me who I think it helps to send someone who obviously has nothing good to say about sex work over to places where bad-rapping sex work is the norm. The answer is that doing so puts them in a camp where their views fit right in and keeps them from using Ren's bandwidth to propagate ideas that are inimical to hers and those of most of the people who contribute here.
Sex work needs robust defenders in a hostile climate. Yes, there is a place for non-hostile internal debate, and plenty of that goes on in the places where people who don't parrot the language of sex work "abolitionists" exchange ideas. But it wouldn't take long - and I speak from bitter experience here - for those with an anti-sex-work agenda to begin their predictable process of drowning out other opinions if not challenged on arrival in a venue they don't rule. It's not like they don't rule plenty of others.
Do you really believe that "those people who had less-than-happy experiences with" sex work haven't been heard out? They get heard out by everyone from Diane Sawyer to Nicholas Kristof.
Do I think that donating yet another platform to the recitation of the oft-described evils of sex work will really improve conditions for workers? Horror stories of this type have been the stuff of tabloid journalists and tent-show reformers for decades. Has any of that ever improved anything?
No, what has improved conditions for sex workers is the insistence of a brave few on recognition as honest laborers to be treated with dignity instead of pitiful victims to be rescued. Only when positive messages about commercial sex began to make the rounds in the past few years have we seen any real favorable change in both the perception of sex workers and the manner in which they are treated.
I've been accused many times, often more than once in a single day, of being an "apologist" for the sex industry, a "paid lobbyist" for it, a "sell-out who cares only about his own economic well-being" and on and on and on, which is very funny, considering how unpopular I am in certain quarters of that very industry for having spoken truth to power about its faults on so many occasions.
But that is about speaking truth to power.
Discouraging those who really are attempting to speak truth to power by hammering them with the same old guilt-trips and hackneyed accusations of ignoring the"down sides" that can be heard all over the land on this topic is about perpetuating myths and stereotypes that may have some applicability to certain individuals, but are given attention out of all proportion to the realities of the sex trade.
And as for what I would tell any unhappy sex worker, assuming I believed this individual really was who and what he or she claimed to be, is to either lend a hand to efforts to organize for the improvement of the workplace, or take his or her complaints where complaining is the main focus, of which, as has been pointed out, there exist plenty already.
If that sounds less than compassionate, I'm sorry. But I reserve my compassion for those who still need it, not for those who claim to have successfully gotten themselves away from a life they consider destructive and now want to come around and tell the rest of us just how destructive it was for them and, by implication, how destructive it is for all of us and how excluded and left out they feel because we dare to see things differently.
There are therapists for that, as well as other forums.
I stand by what I said, just as I stand by Ren's choice to let many voices be heard here, including discordant ones.
For those who can't deal with a bit of healthy skepticism toward their world view, relief is just a mouse-click away.
Everyone:
Well, at this point, I see no reason for Willt not to be able to speak her and discuss things that concern her. I mean, I agree with Ernest in that there are very few places that people on the pro side can discuss sex work, porn, and their experiences and hell, I'm glad to be considered one of those places...
But we all know it ain't all fun and games all the time, and yep, sure enough, I think it is important for other voices to be heard. And frankly, I mean, maybe some folk found Willt's initial comment to be an attack or what have you, but hell, to me it looked pretty damn tame. My skin is pretty thick. I mean hell, how many Farley-esque blogs have I been mocked openly on and banned from? Heh, it's like a badge or something..."I banned that asshole Ren".
Willt is refreshing by comparison, and I actually give her credit for coming into what generally would not be considered friendly territory.
And while I do appreciate the defense and the very right assertion that folk like me need our own places, I think that ignoring or refusing to talk with people who have different views and experiences than mine isn't right. It's exactly the sort of behaviour I abhore out of the rad fems, so I'm not going to do that. Willt's not been abusive or what have you, so yep, she too is welcome here.
And just to clarify what I said, I don't think anyone should be silenced either. I repeat that I stand by Ren's choice to let many voices be heard here, including discordant ones.
But I think it's fair enough to challenge those voices when they say things that seem to play into the rhetoric of those who have repeatedly stirred shit wherever and whenever any sex worker dares to stick up for what he or she does.
The more I read of willt's posts, the less she seems like a member of the latter camp. I still don't agree with much of what she says, but I think she's sincere and brings no hostile intent to the discussion, which is all I would ask of anyone who wants a seat at the table when these issues are discussed.
Now Amanda is on a Feministe thread talking about how men view sex workers as "cunt dispensers."
:|
I wish I were making that up.
Hi Earnest. :)
I'm still a few years younger, as we speak, than you were when you first got involved in the sex industry. Maybe that colors my experiences a little, but then I think I read that Renegade was young when she got involved, too.
BTW, I, personally, don't "rule" any venues. I don't normally talk about this stuff publicly. The last time I did...wasn't a good experience. This has been a little kinder. :) Thanks for that.
I'm not sure what you mean by "horror stories of this type" since I haven't actually shared any personal details or personal experiences. I thought about doing it to flesh out some of my points but I didn't really feel comfortable. I felt like I was pretty likely to get attacked or criticized about what I could have done differently by people who weren't there or just made to go on the defensive. And needing to go on the defensive about this stuff really tears me down. Maybe that's just my own fears...you guys here do, in general, seem like a decent bunch, but I don't really know if I could do that. I do really sort of desperately want to tell people about it, people who know about sex work and so on, but 1) I can't do it publicly and either get torn down or have personal details recognized or what-have-you and 2) I can't really ask anybody to be my "therapist" for me either. I was really just sharing my opinion and I might've fleshed it out with my experience but I'm not feeling like I can.
I don't know where all these other sites are that you guys keep talking about, but the "radfem" stuff I've seen recently does seem really ignorant a lot of the time and even if I'd be welcomed there and heard out, would I really want to be? I REEEALLY don't want to associate with people who don't accept transpeople, for instance. I mean, my earlier point was that when people say it's violent, it's misogynistic, it destroys people, or even, "degradation is part of the appeal," I want to stand up and say, YES!!! Or at least that all of that is consistent with my experience. But I don't want to be anyone's puppet or part of anyone's agenda or part of a movement that's led by people without any direct experience. You seem to have this community here and at that BNG site, of sex workers and former sex workers and you stick up for each other and talk about sex work...I'm kind of jealous of that. The only meaningful difference is this sex-work-positive thing. I don't know. I do think it's work. It's just really horrific and violent work, or was for me, and that's coming from someone with a less than pretty abuse history. I'm not saying that it has to be that way....
Get involved with efforts to organize and fix things? Fuck yeah, I want to do that. I live out in the boonies right now (incidentally, way the hell across the country from where I lived when I was doing sex work) but I'm moving to NYC in the early summer and fuck yeah I want to get involved. I think it's going to be really hard, emotionally and psychologically but I really want to do it because I think it's really important.
willt,
Have you visited boundnotgagged.com? It's a blog run by sex workers. Much of it is focused on activism. Also, they will post stuff from sex workers, current or former - you don't have to post it yourself, have an account on the site, anything like that. Just email it to boundnotgagged@gmail.com. You can use whatever pseudonym you'd like.
Several of the bloggers on BNG live in the New York area. Also, when you move to New York, maybe you could get involved volunteering with SWANK, SWOP, PONY, or $pread.
Oops, just re-read your comment and saw you mentioned BNG. Sorry! Missed it last time. THis is what happens when I comment on blogs late at night!
That's ok. I still learned stuff from your post...I didn't know that they would post things they are emailed for instance. What's an appropriate thing to email to post? I haven't heard of many of those organizations you mentioned, do they have websites? I have heard of $pread but I got the impression that it was very focused on sex work as a good thing.
"Now Amanda is on a Feministe thread talking about how men view sex workers as "cunt dispensers."
:|
I wish I were making that up."
Jesus, I do wish Amanda and the radfems would stop projecting their fucking negativity on men. I'm one of those evol Patriarchs who's on the consumption end of the sex industry, and I don't see sex workers that way. But what do I know – I'm on the wrong side of the dialectic, so I guess I don't really know what I think, now do I?
"Cunt dispensers" – that's a new one. Sounds like somebody at least needs to own up to their whore-hatred.
To say that any of these organizations are focused on "sex work as a good thing" is... well, not quite right. I can understand that you might get that impression, but in reality these organizations are focused on advocating for sex workers' rights, getting sex workers' voices heard, dispelling myths and stereotypes about sex workers, and so on.
SWANK - http://www.myspace.com/weareswank
SWOP - http://www.swopusa.org/
$pread - http://www.spreadmagazine.org/
Can't find a web site for PONY.
As for what's an appropriate thing to email to post on Bound Not Gagged... it's my understanding that they'll pot anything from a current or former sex worker as long as it's not abusive. But the best way to find out for sure is to just email boundnotgagged@gmail.com and ask.
From the $pread web site:
"$pread's editorial mission is decidedly open-minded: We'll publish any perspective, even those we may privately disagree with, as long as it is the view of a current or former sex worker. We are proud to be a forum for sex workers to write articles, submit photographs, and create art without censorship or the threat of moral backlash."
Yeah, Amanda is a real charmer. I commented briefly over on that thread...I also love how her concern is more about the "man in her bed" or what the hell ever, and yep, she needs to lay off the Sam Berg. She also happily proclaimed that GEE, Sex Workers SHOULD get to have an opinion! over and p'gon.
My opinion? She's no fucking ally to sex workers, and her arrogant proclomations have become REAL old.
But then again, I'm one of those silly chicks with fake tits, so what do I know about anything when compared to a cool indie hipster like herself, right?
Amber, thank you. So much. Seriously. <3's.
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