welp
I never really thought of how people who take pride in being offensive tend to lose it when folks deem them offensive.
Apt.
Best short summary I’ve seen so far on twitter
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I was tired of endlessly explaining that sex work could be empowering and could be exploitative, but that most things in life could be either of these things as well. I was exhausted of being told that I had somehow “let the side down” by writing about the dark, sordid, empty, alcoholic hole that I had crawled into, steeped in loneliness and misery, pickling slowly into a preserved shrew. I was fed up with being held up by one set of feminists as a traitor to the cause, accused of personally contributing to the millions of sex-trafficked children across the world, of disrespecting women who did sex work through dire economic necessity, as if my own was somehow delusional. Then there were others who wanted me to say that sex work was positive, empowering, that it was feminism in its purest form. And of course, there were people all along this spectrum, who found my writing offensive or simply shit, or who thought I spoke to them, but very few could seem to understand that what I was writing about was my personal experience. I was writing about my personal experience and my subjective opinions as a white, educated, privileged female who worked in the sex industry, at first by choice and then by economic necessity.
I used to take my clothes off for money. I gave the occasional hand job to pay my rent in the sticky, hot Champagne Rooms of strip clubs in midtown Manhattan. A few times, I guided a man’s hand under the bedazzled blue nylon G-string to encounter my well-pruned, hairless muff, which, when parted, was hot and wet and worth an extra fifty. I sold a couple of blow jobs. I took my clothes off for drugs. My experience wasn’t empowering, but it didn’t fuck me up (I did that just fine on my own), and it was sure as hell something to write about. It didn’t involve well-thought-out safe practices, and it was more ad hoc and alcoholic than calm, more instinctual and messy than measured. It was not an example anyone should ever follow. It was much more than an episode in my life which somehow embroiled me in an argument that I didn’t know how to participate in about women and rights and feminism. It was so much more…
…What does feminism mean? I’m tempted to say it doesn’t mean very much at all. This was the wrong response, but it is what I felt. It is what I feel. For white, educated women of privilege, what does feminism mean? Does it mean the ability to speak for and on behalf of women of color and sex workers, refusing to engage with our own privilege? Does it mean very much at all if it can’t agree on what, exactly, political, social, and economic equality looks like? Does it mean anything if it can provide a smug platform from which one can judge another woman for being a sex worker or practicing Islam, if it can espouse neoliberal ideas which are complicit in other people’s oppression?“It Doesn’t Mean Very Much At All” by Ruth Fowler, in The Rumpus (via marginalutilite) -
"When the sex war is won prostitutes should be shot as collaborators for their terrible betrayal of all women."-actual quote from Julie Burchill
http://books.google.com/books?id=14nX8W3LCKQC&pg=PA168&dq=Prostitution+is+the+supreme+triumph+of+capitalism.+Worst+of+all,+prostitution+reinforces+all+the+old+dumb+cliches+about+women%27s+sexuality%3B+that+they+are+not+built+to+enjoy+sex+and+are+little+more+than+walking+masturbation+aids,+things+to+be+DONE+TO,+things+so+sensually+null+and+void+that+they+have+to+be+paid+to+indulge+in+fornication,+that+women+can+be+had,+bought,+as+often+as+not+sold+from+one+man+to+another.+When+the+sex+war+is+won+prostitutes+should+be+shot+as+collaborators+for+their+terrible+betrayal+of+all+women,+for+the+moral+tarring+and+feathering+they+give+indigenous+women+who+have+had+the+bad+luck+to+live+in+what+they+make+their+humping+ground.&as_brr=0&cd=2#v=onepage&q=Prostitution%20is%20the%20supreme%20triumph%20of%20capitalism.%20Worst%20of%20all%2C%20prostitution%20reinforces%20all%20the%20old%20dumb%20cliches%20about%20women%27s%20sexuality%3B%20that%20they%20are%20not%20built%20to%20enjoy%20sex%20and%20are%20little%20more%20than%20walking%20masturbation%20aids%2C%20things%20to%20be%20DONE%20TO%2C%20things%20so%20sensually%20null%20and%20void%20that%20they%20have%20to%20be%20paid%20to%20indulge%20in%20fornication%2C%20that%20women%20can%20be%20had%2C%20bought%2C%20as%20often%20as%20not%20sold%20from%20one%20man%20to%20another.%20When%20the%20sex%20war%20is%20won%20prostitutes%20should%20be%20shot%20as%20collaborators%20for%20their%20terrible%20betrayal%20of%20all%20women%2C%20for%20the%20moral%20tarring%20and%20feathering%20they%20give%20indigenous%20women%20who%20have%20had%20the%20bad%20luck%20to%20live%20in%20what%20they%20make%20their%20humping%20ground.&f=falseI’m posting so many links about this not b/c I’m surprised that people like Burchill exist, but b/c I’m outraged that the Guardian is still giving her a platform.
Seriously Burchill, that’s your take-away from the horrors of the sex trade and the objectification of women? Shooting sex workers is your answer?
I think the answer feminists should be looking for should be found in the international sex workers’ rights movement, where we can tell you whether the sex trade is horrific or not based on our own experience, and where we can analyze how we’re represented/objectified, and when/whether or not objectification is appropriate.
ew ew ew ew gross
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Download These Slides and Take Your Picture with Them To Help Raise Awareness
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Shout out to the Nice Guys (tm) out there who need to see this.
THIS.
best part of this movie
(Source: emmajstones)
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Eurasia.net: Turkey: Could Closure of State Run Brothels Endanger Workers' Lives?
http://www.eurasianet.org/node/66593
A transgender sex worker gets dressed on a Saturday night in Istanbul’s Tarlabasi neighborhood. Many prostitutes work outside of state-run brothels, which are being shuttered by the government, forcing sex workers to turn to the streets, posing risks to their health and safety. (Photo: Jonathan Lewis)The gradual closure of Turkey’s 52 state-run brothels is emerging as a controversial tactic in Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s declared war on prostitution. While Erdoğan’s supporters denounce brothels as a form of “slavery,” sex workers fear the campaign poses risks to their health and safety.
Closing down state-run brothels “will not keep men from visiting prostitutes,” explained 48-year-old Istanbul sex worker Berna, “but it will push even more women into illegality and the back streets, where they will be without protection, and without any rights.”
Brothels have existed in Turkey since Ottoman times, and were tolerated by Ottoman rulers. During the first years of the Turkish Republic, state-run brothels were established as a way to control prostitution closely on all levels. Under the conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP), though, the emphasis appears to lie more on stamping out activity many Turks view as a moral outrage.
(Source: marginalutilite)
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Celebrities seeking to provide “a voice for the voiceless” would do well to remember that sex workers aren’t voiceless, just consistently ignored. There may well be women out there who relate to Fantine, but in reducing the experiences of all sex workers to one tale of tragic misery, Hathaway’s comments silence and dehumanize the same women she seeks to ‘help.’
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The Happy Hooker: extra-deluxe: datsueba: “sex work is empowering” i’d like to hear...
http://happyhookernw.tumblr.com/post/43764483453/extra-deluxe-datsueba-sex-work-is“sex work is empowering”
i’d like to hear someone who is not a middle class white girl say this for once
sex work is empowering for the individual who feels empowered by it but as a whole empowerment isn’t the objective or driving force for most sex…
They don’t like the narrative so they’re trying to change the rules on who’s voice is valid.
As far as I’ve seen, sex workers are generally excellent about being clear that their experiences and opinions are not to be held out as valid for all sex workers. It’s non-sex workers who talk about sex work that pretend like their realities hold true for all sex workers and/or all women. It doesn’t have anything to do with white middle class sex workers vs. POC and/or poor sex workers. It has everything to do with white middle class feminism vs. sex workers.bolded for emphasis.
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In the nineteenth century, a woman who owned property, made high wages, had sex outside of marriage, performed or received oral sex, used birth control, consorted with men of other races, danced, drank, or walked alone in public, wore makeup, perfume, or stylish clothes — and was not ashamed — was probably a whore.
In fact, prostitutes won virtually all the freedoms that were denied to women but are now taken for granted. Prostitutes were especially successful in the wild, lawless, thoroughly renegade boomtowns of the West. When women were barred from most jobs and wives had no legal right to own property, madams in the West owned large tracts of land and prized real estate. Prostitutes made, by far, the highest wages of all American women. Several madams were so wealthy that they funded irrigation and road-building projects that laid the foundation for the New West. Decades before American employers offered health insurance to their workers, madams across the West provided their employees with free health care. While women were told that they could not and should not protect themselves from violence, and wives had no legal recourse against being raped by their husbands, police officers were employed by madams to protect the women who worked for them, and many madams owned and knew how to use guns.
While feminists were seeking to free women from the “slavery” of patriarchal marriage, prostitutes married later in life and divorced more frequently than other American women. At a time when birth control was effectively banned, prostitutes provided a market for contraceptives that made possible their production and distribution. While women were taught that they belonged in the “private sphere,” prostitutes traveled extensively, often by themselves, and were brazenly “public women.” Long before social dancing in public was considered acceptable for women, prostitutes invented many of the steps that would become all the rage during the dance craze of the 1910s and 1920s. When gambling and public drinking were forbidden for most women, prostitutes were fixtures in western saloons, and they became some of the most successful gamblers in the nation. Most ironically, the makeup, clothing, and hairstyles of prostitutes, which were maligned for their overt sexuality (lipstick was “the scarlet shame of streetwalkers”), became widely fashionable among American women and are now so respectable that even First Ladies wear them.
Women who wished to escape the restrictions of Victorian America had no better place to go than the so-called frontier, where a particular combination of economic and demographic forces gave renegade women many unusual advantages.from _A Renegade History of the United States_ by Thaddeus Russell, quoted extensively on alternet (via marginalutilite)
HO
LY
SHIT
(via australian-diaspora)
(Source: alternet.org)
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Better Than You: magicpoppy: everythingbutharleyquinn: also the reactions to that post...
http://everythingbutharleyquinn.tumblr.com/post/43703991071/magicpoppy-everythingbutharleyquinn-also-thealso the reactions to that post are rather beautifully showing off the English-jargon supremacist attitudes our so-called radical and activist communities have: if you’re not absolutely down with the lingo and the proper way of turning a phrase, then you’re A Bad Activist. Never mind people who speak English as a second language, or people without access to sufficient resources that impart the jargon, or people from different generations. Naw, you gotta be able to talk the talk exactly right or The Good Activists will swarm to tell you how vile and disgusting you are.
“I can’t form a coherent argument to rebut yours, so I’ll attack your writing-in-complete-sentences privilege.” What a joke.
This is a silly straw man, and a projection, considering that it is the sex-pozzers here who wallow in stilted academese. One thing I like about the Tumblr radfem cabal is the utter lack of pretentious academic jargon. I think communicating with a general audience is as important to them as it is to me. If you have internet access and time to dick around on Tumblr, you have time to learn how to write.
“This is a silly straw man” and ”One thing I like about the Tumblr radfem cabal is the utter lack of pretentious academic jargon. “
What’s funny about this is that she derailed a former post to avoid answering several challenges I put to her to dwell on how she didn’t know what EASL meant because I mistakenly added an extra letter to the acronym, even though from context it was perfectly clear what I was referring to.
A radfem being a hypocrite? Neveeeerrrrr…
Oh, except for the part where that is basically their entire schtick.
