Rachel Aimee: $pread Magazine
Tue, 2007-10-02 01:51
#1
Cueball
Rachel Aimee: $pread Magazine
Tue, 2007-10-02 01:51
#2
Cueball
quote:
I came to it from a perspective of being interested in feminist discussions around sex work, reading a lot of books about the implications of sex work for feminism, and then becoming involved in the industry myself and realizing that a lot of what I’d been reading and thinking about before was completely irrelevant to the lives of most sex workers.That’s why I wanted to start a magazine by and for sex workers, because I was tired of other people talking about sex workers and I wanted to create a forum for us to speak for ourselves, about our issues, not the issues that other people create around us.
[url=http://feministing.com/archives/006664.html]What inspired you to get involved in advocacy for sex workers’ rights?[/url]
[ 02 October 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]
Mon, 2007-10-08 21:42
#3
Reminds me of the story of a poor, lonely troll by a river teeming with fish, but none interested in his bait...
Mon, 2007-10-08 21:46
#4
Cueball
You seemed more than willing to give that source credibility in other threads, when what those feminists were saying happened to fall in line with what you think feminists should be saying.
Now of course you just dismiss them as irrelevant, and say snide things. How about actually commenting on what the woman said?
[ 08 October 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]
Mon, 2007-10-08 23:54
#5
Along came a fair minstrel who asked how he was doing.
- Not too good. No one seems interested in a happy ending. Death wish and the right to be an idiot seem in short supply.
- Really?
- Spoilt brats! Can't tell an act of empowerment when they see one. Afraid of [i]the real world[/i] if you ask me...
- Oh, that's too bad. And what are you using for bait?
- Cartoons, caricatures, really. I dangle naughty fish pictures, throw in a few latin words - at the risk of offending some fishes' political beliefs or moral sensibilities!
- Well, that's a new twist. Do you at least get a nibble?
- Sometimes. I also use selected testimonials about great frying pans and not being abnormally sautйed... But as far as I can see, they just regurgitate that stuff.
- Aaaawww...
- Muckrakers! I could come up with numerous neo-freudian analysis to explain this behaviour, you know. From one, the other is deduced.
- Sure.
- If I was a suspicious person, I'd think they have some serious issues.
- Uh uh...
- Moral misgivings, as far as I can see. They can go fuck themselves.
- Well, uh... good luck.
Tue, 2007-10-09 00:42
#6
Cueball
That's pretty good.
Tue, 2007-10-09 01:28
#7
quote:
Originally posted by martin dufresne:
[b]Reminds me of the story of a poor, lonely troll by a river teeming with fish, but none interested in his bait...[/b]
This is rude and uncalled for. When I want you to moderate the feminism forum, I'll give you a call. And I wouldn't sit home waiting by the phone if I were you.
Tue, 2007-10-09 07:23
#8
Any women in your group, Martin?
Tue, 2007-10-09 07:34
#9
quote:
Originally posted by Michelle:This is rude and uncalled for. When I want you to moderate the feminism forum, I'll give you a call. ...
?
Michelle, would you have made the same comment if it was Cueball making it about an untouched OP by Martin?
I don't get the impression he was trying to moderate the ff, just commenting on the apparent unpopularity of Cueball's topic.
Tue, 2007-10-09 07:40
#10
He was accusing Cueball of trolling, and it was off-topic and rude. Cueball wasn't trolling.
And Cueball can tell you that there have been lots of times when he's stepped over the line and been nagged by the moderators.
Tue, 2007-10-09 08:28
#11
remind
Originally posted by Cueball:
quote:
That’s why I wanted to start a magazine by and for sex workers, because I was tired of other people talking about sex workers and I wanted to create a forum for us to speak for ourselves, about our issues,[b] not the issues that other people create around us.[/b]
Thanks for this cueball, really the last part of the sentence says it all. And some people should get a grip and stop applying their own morality to sex and sex trade workers.
Sex trade workers run the spectrum of reasons why they chose to work in that field, and the trade runs throughout the socio-economic stratas.
[ 09 October 2007: Message edited by: remind ]
Tue, 2007-10-09 09:49
#12
I may be wrong, but I don't remember anyone questioning sex trade workers. We were questioning those who buy sex services.
Tue, 2007-10-09 10:33
#13
Can one be both a sex worker [i]and[/i] a feminist ? Are the two incompatible
Tue, 2007-10-09 12:20
#14
remind
quote:
Originally posted by I AM WOMAN:
[b]Can one be both a sex worker [i]and[/i] a feminist ? Are the two incompatible[/b]
Yes
No
Tue, 2007-10-09 13:50
#15
Cueball
quote:
Originally posted by jas:
[b]?
Michelle, would you have made the same comment if it was Cueball making it about an untouched OP by Martin?[/b]
But I have't done that have I? Anyway, why is this about Martin and I?
True, I posted the topic because of the discussion we had about sex-trade work, and it is thematic, but I thought it good to make a thread that directly related to the sex-trade workers themselves, and not men and their relationship to sex-trade workers, since women, other than in their roll as agentless victims were continually getting subsumed in discussions about men.
Surely there must be some way the topic of women in the sex trade can be addressed?
[ 09 October 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]
Tue, 2007-10-09 20:02
#16
There are a number of writings by women about prostitution, that go beyond the "happy hooker" discourse - and no, I am not suggesting that this what "Spread" and "Rose-Aimee" do.
But lifting the taboo and looking at [b]men[/b] and their agency in prostitution - as a few of us tried to do in the preceding threads - does seem to tell a lot, IMO, about women's conditions and what they experience.
Isn't it clear that men are the ones who have the option to speak freely about the "trade" as their $$$ defines it - without organized crime, a pimp or a self-interested boyfriend punishing them for speaking out?
For instance:
[url=http://www.toynbeehall.org.uk/news_item.asp?section=00010001000100010001... New research on men who buy sex: It's just like going to the supermarket.[/url]
quote:
...A focus on the demand side of prostitution is underdeveloped in the UK. Women who sell sex often have no choice, but men who buy it, always do...
[ 09 October 2007: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]
Tue, 2007-10-09 20:22
#17
Cueball
Thanks. So what about the subject at hand?
Tue, 2007-10-09 20:41
#18
Any women in your group, Martin? Or amongst your friends? Or in your life?
Tue, 2007-10-09 21:48
#19
Actually, I suspect the "subject at hand", meaning the topic you want us to stick to, not the one you derailed in the other two threads, has probably been quite exhaustively covered on Babble, and if not on Babble, then in a lot of other places. Is this new information for you? It isn't for me.
What [i]is[/i] a different angle, and one that I haven't seen covered on Babble, including in the recent two attempts, is the demand side of prostitution. So far, I haven't heard any intelligible explanations for why this side exists, beyond "it's been happening throughout history. What's your problem?", and "disabled people may need it". Did I miss something there?
Tue, 2007-10-09 22:04
#20
quote:
So far, I haven't heard any intelligible explanations for why this side exists,
I've never even thought about going to a pro, because, personally, the idea of someone pretending to like me during something so intimate just seems like the most empty, depressing experience in the world.
That being said, I dont think it takes a whole bunch of compassion or empathy or common sense to picture why someone would go. How about loneliness? Loneliness so deep for human contact that you're willing to hire someone to pretend to like you
Tue, 2007-10-09 22:21
#21
Cueball
quote:
Originally posted by jas:
[b]Actually, I suspect the "subject at hand", meaning the topic you want us to stick to, not the one you derailed in the other two threads, has probably been quite exhaustively covered on Babble, and if not on Babble, then in a lot of other places. Is this new information for you? It isn't for me.What [i]is[/i] a different angle, and one that I haven't seen covered on Babble, including in the recent two attempts, is the demand side of prostitution. So far, I haven't heard any intelligible explanations for why this side exists, beyond "it's been happening throughout history. What's your problem?", and "disabled people may need it". Did I miss something there?[/b]
More or less everything.
For instance, my point about disabled people was directed at the problems of asserting an absolute analysis of prostitution as pastiche of the powerful exerting dominance over the weak, and more pointedly at the idea, that the act of masturbation might be considered in all cases to be "sexual", in direct line with the discussion about Justice Chisvin's ruling.
The reality is that you have completely diluted what I said in the previous thread into a stereotyped rendering of what I think, as if I am some pro-prostitution retard who is lauding the obvious virtue of the "world oldest profession" simply because nothing can be done about it, or because its "sexual healing".
Whatever. That is not what I am talking about.
Could there be other angles?
Perhaps the angle that women also act as agents of prostitution as pimps? What about that angle? What about the angle that not all boyfriends of prostitutes are necessarily "pimps." As someone who has dated prostitutes, I resent the implication that if I accept lunch from my girlfriend, I am living of the avails. How about the angle where women are not just innocent victims of crime, but also active enablers of crime, and active participants in criminal networks?
There is quite a lot of analysis on some women acting as the wardens of patriarchal oppression, when they see their interests as aligned with patriarchy. Surely there is something here to be looked at?
What is really going on at "suicidegirls.com"?
To me these are not simple problems, reduced to convenient moral dualisms, but complex relationships engendered by the serious social stresses which marginalized people, both men and women, experience together as a communities of marginalized people. Certainly within the marginalized communities of the poor it is women who are the most vulnerable, but it is not as if the males are not acting in reaction to their own vulnerable economic position, and the women are merely passive objects being exploited by them. Women who are prostitutes need protection, and this is not the protection that the police are ready to provide, since their job would be to arrest the source of income. So boyfriend/pimp girlfriend/prostitute relationships often have a mutuality of purpose, and are not always a coerced impositions of male power purely for the purpose of exploitation, nor do they always fit into TV movie stereotypes.
This is not to say that there are not often extremely exploitative relationships of this kind, but to say these relationships are various and also complex, and if we get caught up in pastiche, we lose sight of the real problems, which real prostitutes face, and the roll that criminalization plays in making them that much easier to exploit because of their economic and legal vulnerability.
Or how about looking at the actual impact decriminalized prostitution, when purchasing sex is still illegal? Does that actually improve the practical position of prostitutes, or does it merely act as a sop of public opinion, while still relegating prostitutes to the dark periphery of society, where the criminality of their clients activity continues to force them into the back rooms, and alleys of the world where they are still vulnerable to predatory males, and criminal gangs?
It seems to me fairly much that some feminists are having their cake and eating it too. Expressing moral indignation at the exploitation of prostitutes by demanding that the onus of guilt be placed upon the male, but still criminalizing the act itself, in such a way that there is no net reward in terms of real security to the people who are being "helped". It it still illegal, and so must take place away from the watchful eyes of the police, even if only to protect the client from the police. To me this seems to be very much to be washing ones hands of the issue in a manner that appears to preserves moral rectitude, without doing much of anything concrete.
I should think there was quite a lot to talk about aside from the bland dichotomy, of innocent women, without agency, trapped by patriarchal oppression by men.
And still you have not answered the one sailent question which underscores this issue, why should any part of prostitution be illegal, and what good has it done making it illegal?
[ 10 October 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]
Wed, 2007-10-10 08:22
#22
quote:
Originally posted by Cueball:
the problems of asserting an absolute analysis of prostitution as pastiche of the powerful exerting dominance over the weak
I'm not saying anything about the powerful exerting dominance over the weak, although it's an obvious observation. Yes, there are probably some different analyses in there. Who cares?
quote:
The reality is that you have completely diluted what I said in the previous thread into a stereotyped rendering of what I think, as if I am some pro-prostitution retard who is lauding the obvious virtue of the "world oldest profession" simply because nothing can be done about it, or because its "sexual healing".
LOL. My crude synopsis was not of your arguments, specifically.
quote:
Could there be other angles?Perhaps the angle that women also act as agents of prostitution as pimps? What about that angle? What about the angle that not all boyfriends of prostitutes are necessarily "pimps." ...
There is quite a lot of analysis on some women acting as the wardens of patriarchal oppression, when they see their interests as aligned with patriarchy. Surely there is something here to be looked at?
I'm know that there is, Cueball. Why don't you start a thread about it? This is not my subject of interest here. In fact, it is you, sir, who keeps turning the focus onto the women or sex workers in this equation, when, as far as I can tell, no one has an argument with you on this matter.
quote:
And still you have not answered the one sailent question which underscores this issue, why should any part of prostitution be illegal, and what good has it done making it illegal?
I have never argued that prostitution should be illegal. This is not the subject of my concern here. Perhaps Martin has, I don't know. But I do notice that every time the focus is re-directed to the [i]consumers[/i] of sex services, everyone starts squirming and talking about "the sex workers, what about the sex workers?!?".
We're not talking about the sex workers! Jeez!
OK, maybe YOU are, in this thread. I have nothing to add on your topic here. I've been over all this before.
Wed, 2007-10-10 08:34
#23
Actually, I may have something to add somewhere down the line. To be honest, I'm processing these arguments about free agency. I have yet to hear one that is utterly convincing.
[ 10 October 2007: Message edited by: jas ]
Wed, 2007-10-10 09:04
#24
remind
In a capitalistic world, and perhaps any type of economically driven world, the fact is the majority prostitute themselves for dollars by selling our skill(s), or indeed ourselves in order to "make" a living. And of course there are those who make a "profit" off of people selling their skills.
The difference in the sex trade skill set is the obsolete and wrongfull application of false morality applied to the action. In my view, this falsely applied morality is what is the patriarchial oppression, not the action itself. It would never do to empower women, by taking away this false morality and legitimizing the trade.
Wed, 2007-10-10 13:27
#25
Cueball
quote:
Originally posted by jas:
[b]I have never argued that prostitution should be illegal. This is not the subject of my concern here. Perhaps Martin has, I don't know. But I do notice that every time the focus is re-directed to the [i]consumers[/i] of sex services, everyone starts squirming and talking about "the sex workers, what about the sex workers?!?".
We're not talking about the sex workers! Jeez!
OK, maybe YOU are, in this thread. I have nothing to add on your topic here. I've been over all this before.[/b]
Well that isn't the way I see it because the previous thread was a direct derivative (it's even linked) to a discussion that was about the agency of sex trade workers, and the dangers of legalizing prostitution and the state forcing women into the sex-trade, in the light of a recent judgment of an Ontario judge -- this is where the question is asked. This is where the discussion starts -- agency is at the heart of the issue.
In subsequent thread I not only directly answered your question, but also raised possibilities outside of the very limited set of options provided by Martin Dufresne, which were universally negative and bound within the limited scope of his preferred paradigm: "sex as increasingly being about excess, power over, transgression, constraint."
So, while it may be the case that you raised a question which might have led to a more nuanced discussion, Dufresne's comments certainly set the tone, a tone which you approved of, apparently:
"...I support Dufresne in bringing that to our attention.'
'For some reason, he's pushed a few people's buttons here. I wonder why."
I certainly did not evade when answering your question, and I note that you have not even ventured to answer it yourself, or pose any possible answers, in any form. Perhaps if you took a stab at answering the question you asked, rather than talking about [i]other peoples[/i] evasion, you might get more helpful responses.
[ 10 October 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]
Wed, 2007-10-10 19:46
#26
Why do men use prostitutes? Well, I'm a woman but I certainly find women attractive. My girlfriends and I have ritual of going to The Brass Rail strip club every Christmas holiday just to "dyke out." I got a lap dance once. It was great fun. I can totally see why men would want to pay for a prostitute’s time. Christ, it would probably be a hell of a lot more fun than seeing a counselor and you get sex. I mean sex is fun and you can't always get it easily. And I mean [i]easily[/i], like maybe you don't want to have to go to all of the trouble of going to a bar and finding someone who clicks with you and dealing with all the emotional shit.....the conversation and yadda, yadda, and then somehow establishing the kind of rapport with this person that makes it possible for the two of you to just have sex. That's difficult. I mean for some people it's easier than others but that's a lot of time, people skill and effort just to get laid. And if you're not particularly good at it, well [i]years[/i] could go by. I mean Jesus Christ who wants that? I can understand why men use prostitutes. I don't understand why more women don't.
And let's suppose that you are an attractive man who can get women easily. Let's suppose that you're married and you don't like your wife...Or worse, she doesn't like you. Going to be kind of hard isn’t? Do you have time for a full blown affair? Between work hours and your kids? Well how are you going to do it then? Just say no sex for the next 30 years? You're going to want to use a hooker.
Doesn't it make sense? Why is this such a mystery? You're making is sound like sex is some icky thing that nobody wants. "Yuck, who would want to buy that?" They’re all sorts of people want to have sex. Christ, who doesn't?
And what if you have weird taste? I mean what it there's something that you like to do that not just any girl in a bar is going to be willing to do? Well what then? What if you want to wear her panties? Eh? Go to your local bar and try that with some chick. Yah right, your whole neighborhood will know.
Now maybe you're into something a little kinkier than that even, or less politically correct. Maybe you like to hit girls. There’s the S&M scene but maybe you really like to hit girls. Not just a little bit. You like you like to beat them up. And you don't necessarily want them to have any power in the situation. Well, a hooker might be an attractive option, especially the way things are now. You can pretty much do anything you want to her and she can't call the cops. Well, that's why I think hookers should have unions. You see I think the gamut of reasons why men use hookers ranges from the mundane, through the kinky to the edgy, violent and into the utterly sociopathic. There are men who get sexually turned on by beating a woman to death. That's what makes them cum. Now that's not the kind of sex you can have just any old time any old where. The convenience that hookers provide currently runs right into the realm where men pay, essentially to take out their anger.
By keeping prostitutes in the underground, we as a society have assigned them two roles: They are sex trade workers and also disposable people with whom a greater license than just sexual license may be taken. Serial killers take full advantage of this societal role. By not lending the sex trade any legitimacy, we blur the boundaries of the trade. It is a trade. Like any other trade. Some things are a hooker's job and some things are not. The job is to sell sex, not to be a professional murder victim.
Now, I have tried to answer the question repeatedly posed, "Why do men use prostitutes?" and to show how the range of answers necessitate firm definitions of what a hooker's job actually is. The sex trade workers themselves have the right to establish these boundaries, professionally.
Wed, 2007-10-10 21:34
#27
I disagree. I think prostitution is exploitive and degrading to women. I think that women are worthy of more dignity than that.
Wed, 2007-10-10 21:55
#28
Cueball
So therefore it should be illegal?
Wed, 2007-10-10 22:02
#29
quote:
Originally posted by Saber:And let's suppose that you are an attractive man who can get women easily. Let's suppose that you're married and you don't like your wife...Or worse, she doesn't like you. Going to be kind of hard isn’t? Do you have time for a full blown affair? Between work hours and your kids? Well how are you going to do it then? Just say no sex for the next 30 years? You're going to want to use a hooker.
Really? You're going to want to use a "hooker" for
30 years, rather than deal with your really sad situation? What's wrong with you?
quote:
Doesn't it make sense? Why is this such a mystery? You're making is sound like sex is some icky thing that nobody wants. "Yuck, who would want to buy that?" They’re all sorts of people want to have sex. Christ, who doesn't?
What is it that you're seeking in "having sex"? To cum? Some kind of intimacy? If it's just to cum, why would you need to pay a stranger? And if it's for intimacy, how are you going to get that with someone you've only known for 10 minutes? Someone who's charging you money to be with them. Isn't that a little sad?
quote:
Now maybe you're into something a little kinkier than that even, or less politically correct. Maybe you like to hit girls. There’s the S&M scene but maybe you really like to hit girls. Not just a little bit. You like you like to beat them up. And you don't necessarily want them to have any power in the situation. Well, a hooker might be an attractive option, especially the way things are now. You can pretty much do anything you want to her and she can't call the cops. Well, that's why I think hookers should have unions. You see I think the gamut of reasons why men use hookers ranges from the mundane, through the kinky to the edgy, violent and into the utterly sociopathic. There are men who get sexually turned on by beating a woman to death. That's what makes them cum. Now that's not the kind of sex you can have just any old time any old where. The convenience that hookers provide currently runs right into the realm where men pay, essentially to take out their anger.
Uh, with all due respect, shouldn't you in this case be seeking out a counsellor, or some kind of help, rather than a "hooker"? Holy fuck.
Wed, 2007-10-10 22:27
#30
Saber offers various realistic reasons why men use prostitutes. Easy access to excitement, not bothering with communication/reciprocity, access to confidential so-called kinky sex, escaping married life while maintaining its entitlements, and violent misogyny -- ultra-thinly justified as "to take out their anger".
What remains unexamined is men's entitlement to all these perks that having disposable income bring. This seems a given in Saber's analysis.
Yet, other examples of absolute use of power come to mind, that we as a society don't accept just because money talks.
Another unexamined question is what kind of lives we and our close ones, our community, and especially the dispossessed of these communities will have in a system where sex will become just one more commodity because of traffickers, johns and pimps new-found freedom to use women and youths for fun and profit, where sex will indeed become what some people are for. The picture from countries where the market has been given free rein isn't pretty.*
Saber apparently takes for granted that unions are enough to keep clients' violence in line in a system where their interests rule. But when the overarching principle is the might of power/money, violence-happy johns will find their mark - they will simply pay more - and will do so with immunity because the principle of prostitution is basically the buying of someone's agency, her being turned over to the buyer for the time of the contract. And excesses will be merely that in a system where the exercise of power is normalized, sanctified because it's constructed as sex(y) for the man with the money.
That is the industry's offer. We don't have to buy in. Yet. A growing number of countries are even turning it down - and male scrota don't seem to be exploding...
[url=http://netfemmes.cdeacf.ca/les_actualites/lire.php?article=8890]Montrйal peut et doit lutter contre la prostitution des femmes et des jeunes[/url]
*[url=http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/06/world/europe/06bulgaria.html]NYT: Bulgaria, joining an European trend, reverses its stand on legalization[/url]
quote:
(...)Bulgaria is only the latest European country to shift its approach to prostitution. Finland last year made it illegal to buy sex from women brought in by traffickers, and Norway is on the verge of imposing an outright ban on purchasing sex.
Even in Amsterdam, the city government has proposed shutting down more than a quarter of the famed storefront brothels in the red-light district. And in the Czech Republic and the three Baltic republics, attempts at legalization similar to the Bulgarian one have been turned back.(...)
[ 10 October 2007: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]
Wed, 2007-10-10 22:41
#31
Cueball
So your solution for workplace hazards would be to ban coal mining? You see the whole problem with your analysis Martin is that you assert that "sexuality" must remain free of capitalist imparatives. The double standard is obvious, there is special moral standard to be applied to sex work, and activity most often practiced by women. You demand that they should not be allowed to comodify their sexuality, and thus solve their economic problems, while proposing no alternate.
You accept the primacy of capitalist relations, but don't see fit, to say make a big issue of men doing degrading work such as coal mining, or oil rigging, or any number of things that are both dangerous, and damaging to the health in the long run, and also spirtually degrading, and primarily done by men.
Its obviously sexist to take a moral stand against degrading mechanisms aquiring wealth that are easily available to unskilled women, to the point where it should be made illegal, while accepting completely the "necessary evil" of degrading mechanisms of wealth creation which are available to unskilled men.
For some reason, this special category of morality reagrding degrading and dangerous work applies only to women.
If you are really concerned about the commodification of sex, then you had really better start talking about system of commodification itself, which creates the economic need in the first place.
[ 10 October 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]
Wed, 2007-10-10 22:49
#32
As I wrote: "Yet, other examples of absolute use of power come to mind, that we as a society don't accept just because money talks."
Cueball apparently feels this doesn't cover the Left's and indeed society's opposition to unsafe, exploitative labor imposed by capitalist businesses. "Exotic dancers" have been waging the very same struggle against pimp bosses Cueball would have us embrace as free entrepreneurs entitled to free rein.
Wed, 2007-10-10 22:52
#33
Cueball
quote:
Originally posted by martin dufresne:
As I wrote: "Yet, other examples of absolute use of power come to mind, that we as a society don't accept just because money talks."Cueball apparently feels this doesn't cover the Left's and indeed society's opposition to unsafe, exploitative labor imposed by capitalist businesses. "Exotic dancers" have been waging the very same struggle against [b]pimp bosses Cueball would have us embrace as free entrepreneurs entitled to free rein.[/b]
That's a keeper! I post a perfectly reasonable and respectful response to yet another one of your preachy lectures, and all you can offer is more snide moralistic smears.
I think you should go fuck yourself.
quote:
Yet, other examples of absolute use of power come to mind, that we as a society don't accept just because money talks.
My point is that we do accept them, they are perfectly legal. The way coal miners and oil riggers have been protected, to the minimal extent that they are, by instituting labour codes, and safety regulations. I can see no reason why you think the same rights should not be available to women, as prostitutes.
In fact it seems to me your opposition to the legalization and regulation is the enforcement of a sexist double standard, one that not only does not afford prostitutes even the basic workplace protection given to men who do dangerous and degrading work but also adds extra-penalty to what is already embarrassing enough as it is by stygmatizing the persons who do it, by making them visit the local jail in fuck-me-boots and a miniskirt once or twice a month.
And don't blow smoke up everyones ass by trying to tell me that only prosecuting the johns changes this reality. It doesn't. Hookers doing tricks still get taken down to the police station and are still required to appear in court, do interviews with the police, and any number of inconvenient and unpleasant things in order to perform as witnesses, even if they are not on trial.
And none of this is doing anything to help them feed the kids.
[ 11 October 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]
Wed, 2007-10-10 23:59
#34
Cueball
quote:
Originally posted by jas:
[b]What is it that you're seeking in "having sex"? To cum? Some kind of intimacy? If it's just to cum, why would you need to pay a stranger? And if it's for intimacy, how are you going to get that with someone you've only known for 10 minutes? Someone who's charging you money to be with them. Isn't that a little sad?
[/b]
Right. So basicly all this comes down to what you think sex should be like, based on your moral perspective.
[ 11 October 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]
Thu, 2007-10-11 06:41
#35
quote:
They’re all sorts of people want to have sex. Christ, who doesn't?
Umm... maybe Martin?
Nobody wants to admit they have no libido or that they're just old-fashioned and feel unfomfortable with our society's recently relaxed attitudes towards sex. Nobody wants to admit that they are a bluenose. I think it was Germaine Greer(?) who said that the problem with some feminists is that they have the liberty won by teir mothers but they retain the morality of their Victorian grandmothers. I read Martin's posts and see a conservative Catholic's attitude towards sex mutated into "feminism"
[ 11 October 2007: Message edited by: minkepants ]
Thu, 2007-10-11 06:51
#36
Cueball
I just love it when people put you on their PM ignore list, when you have never sent them a message.
Anyway, I don't think speculating on Martin's personal sexual life is a solid contribution to this thread, and also I think it is fairly well established that Dworkin was not asexual, but a Lesbian. Your post amounts to sexual hazing, really.
I say this despite the fact that I agree that much of the tenor of this particular brand of feminism is just Judeao-Christian anti-sexual morality rehashed as feminism.
I was going to send you something to that effect in a PM, in the hope that you would change it. But I guess now it has to be a matter of public record.
[ 11 October 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]
Thu, 2007-10-11 07:12
#37
Is this thread about thongs by any chance?
Thu, 2007-10-11 07:25
#38
Yo, Cue:
I put you on ignore about 9 months ago to try and avoid escalating static when I was new and we were arguing about something or other. I dont know if there's anyway to change that back. anywho, I put you on my buddies list so maybe that means you can PM me. Yeah, I was thinking of editing that anyway.
send me a test PM then I'll know
that being said, I dropped the ref to McKinnon and Dworkin pending rereading some of their stuff.
As for Martin his whole thing is lecturing others about their sex habits, so I think being the initiator, he invites speculation relating to his motives.
[ 11 October 2007: Message edited by: minkepants ]
[ 11 October 2007: Message edited by: minkepants ]
Thu, 2007-10-11 07:54
#39
quote:
Originally posted by Scout:
[b]Is this thread about thongs by any chance?[/b]
[img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img] [img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]
That said, I think Cueball is right, that speculating about whether or not other people in this thread like having sex is not within bounds of reasonable debate.
Thu, 2007-10-11 08:19
#40
remind
quote:
Originally posted by I AM WOMAN:
[b]I disagree. I think prostitution is exploitive and degrading to women. I think that women are worthy of more dignity than that.[/b]
So your questions, based upon your stated position, were purely rhetorical then?!
From that position, then you must feel that the majority of cohabiting relations between women and men must be exploitive and degrading to women? It is well studied fact that women are fulfilling an unpaid services when cohabiting with men. This lacking of a fee for services, thus means women are prostituting themselves for the "other" benefits contained with the cohabitation dynamics.
Thu, 2007-10-11 08:41
#41
quote:
Originally posted by Cueball:Right. So basicly all this comes down to what you think sex should be like, based on your moral perspective.
I believe that our sexual relationships deeply inform our social relationships. I believe that sex should involve intimacy. If there is a large faction of the population renting people for sex, or sometimes just taking it, and this is considered the normal order of things, I believe there is a problem in our society that isn't being examined. I think the "new" sexual liberality (and what's new about it?) is a mask for the same old status quo. On the one hand, yes, we need to be able to talk about sex more, but we also need to grow up about it, and this "sex at any cost" morality is not the answer, imo.
And anyway, you don't have a moral perspective on sex? How do you decide which sexual relationships to have? Or did leftism get rid of all morality? How "liberating".
I think it's the people who profess to all this liberality who are the ones to react so strongly to anything they perceive as repression, which is why they are so quick to jump on others as "anti-sex".
What is anti-sex? Perhaps the people who use the term all the time can explain it to us, since they seem intimately familiar with it.
Thu, 2007-10-11 09:27
#42
quote:
Originally posted by remind:
[b]So your questions, based upon your stated position, were purely rhetorical then?!
From that position, then you must feel that the majority of cohabiting relations between women and men must be exploitive and degrading to women? It is well studied fact that women are fulfilling an unpaid services when cohabiting with men. This lacking of a fee for services, thus means women are prostituting themselves for the "other" benefits contained with the cohabitation dynamics.[/b]
Equating couples that live together with a prostitute turning tricks is ridiculous. What "unpaid services" are women rendering by voluntarily living with their boyfriend or husband ?
Thu, 2007-10-11 09:44
#43
I was going to write a long rebuttal to jas and I AM WOMAN but I changed my mind, not worth it. Their last two posts are so out of step with what progressives understand about feminism that I shouldn't have to be having such fucking basic conversation on babble.
Thu, 2007-10-11 09:53
#44
remind
quote:
Originally posted by I AM WOMAN:
[b]Equating couples that live together with a prostitute turning tricks is ridiculous. What "unpaid services" are women rendering by voluntarily living with their boyfriend or husband ?[/b]
Are not the good portion of prostitutes voluntarily rendering their services, only they require payment? And it is not ridiculous.
Unpaid services:
1. Cook
2. Housekeeping
3. Laundry
4. Sexual
5. Personal shopper
6. Dishwasher
And many more depending upon the connectedness of the male to do "his" share.
Thu, 2007-10-11 10:10
#45
Cueball went:
"I think you should go fuck yourself."
Hey, I thought you felt my sex life was out of bounds...;-) (How quickly they forget...)
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yet, other examples of absolute use of power come to mind, that we as a society don't accept just because money talks.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cueball: "My point is that we do accept them, they are perfectly legal.(...)"
Not all of them, no. Renting wombs is one example I can think of.
"And don't blow smoke up everyones ass by trying to tell me that only prosecuting the johns changes this reality. It doesn't. Hookers doing tricks still get taken down to the police station and are still required to appear in court, do interviews with the police, and any number of inconvenient and unpleasant things in order to perform as witnesses, even if they are not on trial."
No, actually they don't, in juridictions like Sweden that have taken seriously building their proof against johns without imposing on prostituted women to act as witnesses. Domestic violence is another field where the law has been forced by feminist advocates to acknowledge that they could revictimize people by asking them to beear responsibility for challenging their oppressors in a hostile system.
Indeed, I still feel *you* are the one doing just this, "putting the chicks up front" to deflect thinking and action against pimps, johns and traffickers, as you did by posting the $pread article without a word of acknowledgement of your own standpoint, the net effect being that for us to criticize prostitution was to appear to criticize the woman (?) quoted, rather than you for pulling that cheap and hackneyed trick.
How would you feel if a sweatshop owner was to publish alleged testimonials by women saying how glad they are to have a job at his place (regardless of whether they actually are, in a system that denies them better options)? How do you feel about the racist pig Southern plantation (and Northern aristocratic household) owners who based the defense of their exploitative system on how Blacks were happy in their "big family" (when the alternative was to get thrown off the boat)?
It is not "Rachel-Aimee"'s text I am challenging, but your gross use of women's words - if they are that - to defend traditional male privilege.
[ 11 October 2007: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]
Thu, 2007-10-11 10:32
#46
quote:
Originally posted by Scout:
[b]I was going to write a long rebuttal to jas and I AM WOMAN but I changed my mind, not worth it. Their last two posts are so out of step with what progressives understand about feminism that I shouldn't have to be having such fucking basic conversation on babble.[/b]
Now Scout I AM WOMAN claims to be a feminist writer in her profile. Are you getting a little suspicious yet?
quote:
I will follow I AM Whatever's Request.
[url=http://www.rabble.ca/babble/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_profile&u=00014593]If you want to see I AM SOMETHING's profile click on here.[/url]
And she loves pink.
[ 11 October 2007: Message edited by: kropotkin1951 ]
[ 11 October 2007: Message edited by: kropotkin1951 ]
Thu, 2007-10-11 10:33
#47
quote:
Originally posted by Scout:
I was going to write a long rebuttal to jas and I AM WOMAN but I changed my mind, not worth it.
Okey-dokey. I don't see how my posts are even remotely related to IAW's, but apparently you do.
Thu, 2007-10-11 10:44
#48
kropotkin1951,
Please delete my profile information from the message board. Thank You.
Thu, 2007-10-11 10:45
#49
quote:
I still feel.
quote:
use of women's words
quote:
traditional male privilege.
I am having an irony attack.
quote:
Okey-dokey. I don't see how my posts are even remotely related to IAW's, but apparently you do.
You wouldn't, which is exactly my point.
Thu, 2007-10-11 12:13
#50
quote:
Originally posted by I AM WOMAN:
[b]kropotkin1951,Please delete my profile information from the message board. Thank You.[/b]
Why anyone can look at it?
Thu, 2007-10-11 13:12
#51
Cueball
quote:
Originally posted by martin dufresne:
[b]
It is not "Rachel-Aimee"'s text I am challenging, but your gross use of women's words - if they are that - to defend traditional male privilege.[/b]
The difference is Martin, I am not pretending to be representing women. I haven't formed a "feminist" organization of males that independently pushes the line of a specific feminist analysis, outside of caucus of a duly constituted women’s organization which [i]supervises[/i] my activities, and actively entered the debate as a full contestant, representing women.
I speak for myself as a leftish male. Rachel-Aimee speaks for herself as a feminist and a sex trade worker.
I posted her item because it specifically draws on a leftist tradition which asserts the power of the marginalized to speak from their own perspective, about themselves, as opposed to having people come along and disempower them by imposing their preferred narrative on them.
And you are in fact challenging her directly and her assertion of her right to empower herself thus, because you are in fact pushing a specific feminist line "in feminist theory" which she is objecting to, as she says "the issues that other people create around us."
The thing is Martin, in all "solidarity" work, which is the essence of what you are doing, the byword is not determining for yourself what is best for those who you want to be in solidarity with, but empowering them by accepting their definition of the problem which they face, and the solution they choose to resolve it, [i]not the one you think is right.[/i]
If there was a consensus among sex-trade workers that sex work should be made illegal, through whatever mechanism, then you would be right to take the stand that you are, in solidarity with those people. But the fact is that no such consensus exists, and in fact it seems there is a good deal of evidence that the opposite is true.
In fact, in almost every case, where I have read the views of women in the sex-trade who have organized to deal with the issues that confront them in the day to day struggle of their lives, they clearly state that it should not be illegal, nor do they advocate for feminist organization to continue to lobby for the state to put pressure on their clients.
This has also been my experience of what women in the sex trade have told me directly. Even the ones who have an inate distaste for the whole business, still do not want the state to make it even more complicated and embarrassing than it already is, or have their source of income harrassed.
They can speak for themselves. I am speaking in line with what they are already saying. Please find for me one organization of working prostitutes that advocates your line.
quote:
No, actually they don't, in juridictions like Sweden that have taken seriously building their proof against johns without imposing on prostituted women to act as witnesses. Domestic violence is another field where the law has been forced by feminist advocates to acknowledge that they could revictimize people by asking them to beear responsibility for challenging their oppressors in a hostile system.
And you can bet that conviction rates are so low, and investigative procedures so time consuming that the police don't even bother laying charges most of the time, very similar in fact to the way that police here rarely charge anyone for domestic assault when the primary witness will not make themselves available, even though the police lay the charges themselves.
[ 11 October 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]