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I think it speaks to men's approach to sex workers rather than being any comment on sex workers themselves. And I think it's an accurate analogy. Sex you purchase, like drunken sex with someone you don't even care about, is pretty much the same as finding a convenient receptacle.
Women are not receptacles.
Remind, I found your response predictable. I don't think you actually understood much of what I was saying and I have little confidence that whatever I say will find any receptivity with you. Generally I have found your behavior on these threads horrifying and you are one of the main reasons I am even bothering to speak up, I felt ashamed that my silence could be taken in any way as support for your views.
That's right, they're not. And this is what I hate about the sex trade -- that their clients treat them as if they were.
I think what we are hearing from some women is that they do not feel this way, I don't dispute that many women feel that men treat them that way.
As to Remind's question of which women do I find intelligent? All of them.
ennir I find that insulting post to Remind completly unacceptable and ceratinly does not meet any definition of feminism that I know. I regret that are being initiatied to this level of discourse and intolerance for civil discussion. I hope you will apologize and try to exchange views with more care and respect for yourself and others. Remind has been a major contributor to this conversation and as such should have your ear and your consideration for her thoughts but whetherr or not you agree with her posts or her points there is no need nor tolerance on my part for expressions of anti-feminist contempt
ennir, as for my behaviour it is not like i have been making personal attacks, like yours, with your falsely accusing me of behaving badly, when i haven't been. and even trying to ascribe "shame" to me.
how many prostitutes have you known in your real life?
not expecting an answer back, as i take it you have no daughter's, seeing as you did not answer my honest question and chose to be attacking and snide instead.
Of course i "understood" every thing you said, so apparently you do not find all women intelligent, and moreover i have heard it ad naseum over the years...
What part of this didn't you understand?
You can be intelligent without understanding another's point of view.
You don't think that you have behaved badly towards Susan?
And do you seriously think a woman has to have a daughter to feel for young women and want to see them respected and cared for? No Remind I am not going to answer that question, I think the question is offensive.
Hey Remind that is a real leap to my ascribing shame to you, I said I felt ashamed that if I did not speak up my silence could be taken as support for your words. You are the one that leaped to that, I have no interest in whether you feel shame or not.
please stop making personal attacks ennir, it is discomforting, in the feminist forum especially
Anti-feminist contempt, please show me examples?
Again, who defines feminism?
I guess we disagree on this, I don't feel I am attacking you, I am telling you how I feel, you are free to do whatever you want, I am not calling you names, I am saying I don't think you listen to me. I said that I found you behavior horrifying, I am not telling you what you should do I am telling you how I feel.
Restraint of trade happens all the time -- the most vocally opposed among them are free traders.
As I am, despite the fact that I'm not convinced that full decriminalization of selling genital contact is a good thing for women.
Wow. Been staying out of these threads for a variety of reasons, one being not enough time...
I see sex workers saying that no one should have the right to tell them what to do with their bodies. I agree, no one has that right. You can have sex with whomever you like, in any number and with any variety of acts. None of our business. However, that's not the part I am concerned about. What concerns me is the commodification of the sex act and what repercussions that has on the world and social order that I live in and that I will send my daughters out into as young women sooner than I'd like. And I don't see any positive effects from a feminist perspective. I also find the dismissal of progressive concerns for the most vulnerable of the sex worker cohort intensely disturbing from both a feminist and humanist point of view.
So there has to be input from the rest of the people. Even if we're not connected to sex work, because you're changing our social landscape via the business of sex, not sex itself. We expect a level of input on other industries as well. We don't get enough, but we do get some.
That's an excellent way of putting how I feel, Timebandit.
selling genital contact-
fuck you guys are insulting. this so diminised my work and the life i live...i am not a fuck doll or a receptacle.....any more than you are a baby factory remind. this type of discourse s disgusting. i do not remember any sex workers or former sex workers saying that was appropriate language for describing my life and work.
i have heard rape, prostituted, sex work......
i just love how youall uselanguage to belittle, diminish and oppress us.its pretty sad.
i totally understnad.if you read our plans for sex industry review boards or working groups, we do include mainsteam society as a stakeholder and respect that they must have input. please, add anything you like to those plans or state any concerns.
it's in the sex worker rights forum......
i would also like to say that sex work has been around a long time, in the oldest piece of writing on the planet- "the whore of babylon story" from 6000 years ago- has a sex worker in it...this is hardly new or some kind of addition to our "social landscape". we are here. we are part of the human experience and we will claim our rights as human beings.
Susan, I agree that people have to be more sensitive about the words they use to describe sex workers.
My feeling, though, is that they're talking from a feminist point of view about the way male society (not all males) view sex work and sex workers. I think that the feminism forum has to be open to this kind of analysis of the sex trade - that many men DO see buying sex as "buying genital contact". Many feminists believe that the sex trade doesn't just commodotize sex trade workers, but also all women when they can buy sex either in person or on a screen.
Just as many people believe that the capitalist class does not see the humanity of the workers, and considers them cogs, or widgets in their machinery, there are a lot of feminists who believe that the patriarchy uses prostitution and other trade in sex as a way of reducing women to mere sex objects, simply in place to satisfy men.
That said, I also think it's extremely disrespectful to call sex workers "receptacles" or "blow up dolls" or to even imply that they act like it. It may be true that this is how some men see sex workers (and perhaps other women as a result of the sex trade which some feminists believe encourage this view of women), but I think we have to be really clear that we are talking about patriarchal attitudes towards sex workers and women, instead of ascribing that status to sex workers ourselves, when we use inflammatory terms like that.
Regarding the diminishment of your work, Susan: feminists do not have to agree with you that sex work has positive value. There are a lot of feminists who believe that the sex trade is not good for women overall, and they have to be free to express that viewpoint here as well.
Exactly why, I first used it in relation to how male society would/will/does see my daughter and granddaughter. To make the clear point I was speaking about ALL women, and even to the point of personalizing it down to my family, so people would get what I meant by its use...
When something is commodified, it no longer remains what it was.....and it becomes disposable...just like all other gadgets, toys, and games...for leisure time activities...
You have got to be kidding me. If anything remind has been nasty, disrepectful and horid to the sex workers here. Apologies should come from her. No one owes her an aoplogy.
Okay, Lee and Stargazer - unless you'd like to apply for the volunteer mod positions ;) then how about leaving it up to the moderators to determine who needs to apologize to whom.
Thanks.
This isn't even just a reality for the sex trade, it has long been my contention as an eco-feminist, that if people refused to work at toxic jobs, then the people using toxins for commercial purposes would be forced to design and use environmenbally friendly products and approaches.
No one has to agree with people's job choices that they believe will be destructive, or of no worth, to society, the environment, or indeed people....
Indeed... I called my stepfather a company hack, and told him he was a traitor to his grandchildren, because he chose to work at a pulp mill, and accept the nasty environmental practises they used, instead of fighting from within to use better technology and environmentaly safe practises, for himself and the population at large.
Did not mean I did not love him as a person, or would not hang out with him, just meant that I was not accepting of his job choices, and that he wasn't fighting for the environment, and he was getting paid to destroy it. He was not his "job".
He finally came around, saw what I meant, and worked with his union brethern and the community to make changes that were needed....
selling genital contact-
fuck you guys are insulting. this so diminised my work and the life i live
Abolitionists are clear that prostitution is an institution. Critiques of that institution should not be painted as persoanal attacks on people. Are we diminishing prostitution itself? I wish... it's a thriving, billion-dollar industry. As for Babble, if a member of the Canadian Armed Forces were here as such and telling us that we are diminishing his work lifestyle by criticizing Canada's war on Afghanistan, if he or she were to attempt to control our words to speak of it, e.g. "fuck, it's a peace effort!", would we let that silence us?i would just like to add re: selling genital contact.
i understnad that both perspectives can be represented here but this statement is so un representative of sex workers or prostituted people.
i use condoms and never have "genital contact". the entire point of safe sex is not to have genital contact. this statements narrows the definition of "valid voices" to desperate or mentally ill workers who offer bare back full service and is hardly representative of our community. prostituted person or sex worker are accpeted terms and i take exception to the underlying tones of this definition of our work.
all of us use condoms.onstreet- off street- in very few circumstances- ie- the most extreme situation on street- do sex workers sell genital contact. it plays into the tired old crap of sex workers or prostituted people as the vector of disease and i find it incredibly offensive. remind is not as sex worker and neither is loretta. why are they allowed to define our reality for us?
we use codoms, no sex worker sells genital contact. these assertions are hateful and oppressive.
Nonsense.... you are selling access to your vagina, it is genitalia, as is a man's penis, covered or not, and condoms break....
Your vagina is a commodity...that you are choosing to sell...
spanks a prostitute had a lot to say to you in another thread about trying to dress up fancy what prostitutes do.
Indeed, in another thread you felt it was okay for fortunate to obliquely call a woman a bitch, and yet here you are complaining about hateful words, when they are merely formal words describing exactly what is going on....
you are so rude dude.....dang......
tryin to dress up fancy.....?you are showing your true colours now......
i do not sell gential contact and to describe it as such is misleading. i would prefer you say selling my vagina over genital contact, as i never sell genital contact.
also, remind you state above that 90% of sex workers in PG are FN? bull- please post a link proving such an assertion. i know african american, caucasian and first nations workers in PG and saw the same over representation in the dangerous street level trade of first natios wokers we see all over canada.- when combined with knowledge of PTSD this takes on a different context- not every suicide note is in writing- and we must work to protect these vulnerable people.
i went ot PG during the "trade Secrtes" occupational health and safety training- consultations and the group represented many backgrounds and gender identities. nowhere close to 90% FN
please back up your claim or withdraw your statement.
Sorry, Susan, but that's a dodge, and I'm pretty certain you know it is. The assertion that you sell coitus is not hateful, it's a fact. However, if you feel that fact is oppressive, we might just be getting somewhere.
ETA: It's possible, Susan, that Vancouver is not the ROC. remind's point was that the cultural and racial diversity in large centres probably isn't reflected in smaller centres and more outlying areas of the country.