Study: Everyone loves feminists and environmentalists!

[guruilla]

Etymology is the last resort of the frightened.

(or: This thread has now officially jumped the shark.)

[Elvis]

Etymology is the last resort of the frightened.

I'm just curious what you mean; I have an acquaintance who is constantly pointing out the etymologies of words that come up.

[guruilla]

I'm just curious what you mean; I have an acquaintance who is constantly pointing out the etymologies of words that come up.

A scaredy-cat, obviously.

[tapitsbo]

I thought lunarmoth's remark was hilarious; etymology is frightening as well as frightened though.

[lunarmoth]

Okay, I brought up Dworkin as an example of a radical feminist writer. I'll bet I could read her work nowadays and even appreciate it on some level but back then it frightened me.
Here is a bio: http://www.biography.com/people/andrea- ... 5#synopsis

Things that jump out at me: Cherry Hill, raped at 9, worked as prostitute. Raped at 9.

Cherry Hill, not that big a New Jersey town, is home to the Gambino crime family, which in Dworkin's early years had ties to Meyer Lansky, prostitution, gambling etc. A matrix of sorts.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ar-II.html
If you prioritize writing by survivors of a particular underworld, your culture will begin to reflect the values of that underworld. Dependign on how they're promoted and received, these narratives have the ability to become the dominant ones because of the power of deep disclosure of a formerly secret world.

There's a Pandora's box effect to these revelations even though Dworkin's experiences and convictions may really reflect her immersion in a special subculture...
..

[parel]

This is for those who keep asking why we can't just try to understand one another. This provides an historical context and terminology to use when issuing critiques of various singular polarizing issues. I think Dine's review of the rise of neo-liberalism and its impact on how we perceive the world and speak to each other is something most of the men here could agree with, in fact, she gets very RI in places. Give it half an hour and let let me know what you think.

I tried to watch this and lasted 20 minutes. Frankly, you couldn't pay me enough to watch a Dines video explaining feminism to me. Being of the Dworkin school of thought, I view her in fact, as just another misogynist masquerading as a feminist.

Now, I make that claim on the basis of her hatred of sex workers and her refusal to take anything we say as being "reliable". This is why speaking from experience is the only defence we have. Prostitution is not just some abstraction to sex workers. At no point in that twenty minutes did she acknowledge indigenous women, yet she lives in the sTates. What these talking heads don't understand is that indigeny is not an "ism". It is not something we can step out of and decide one day "oh I no longer agree with that!". Indigenous people should ALWAys be acknowledged first when you are standing on their land. You acknowledge the traditional owners - always. When will these white "feminists" understand that? Or white people in general? Loss of credibility right there. Another fucking colonial lecture. Nope - they never pay for taking up your time these "feminists". They want all that shit for free, so they can capitalise on the experiences of others and make names for themselves.

The bulk of the damage done by the likes of Dines is perpetrated by the state against women. And it's done in the name of feminism. I can't speak to porn, because frankly, I don't know anything about it. Sex work is the opposite of porn actually - one is a solitary activity and the other is a social activity. I don't know what actors go through. It's not something I would ever do, not because I find it disgusting. It's a confidence thing. I also could never be a stripper. I simply don't have the build for it. She is one of the ones that conflates the two (as well as conflating sex work with trafficking) and they are industries that are worlds apart. The only thing they have in common is that sex is involved. Now if you subscribe to the belief that sex is different from any other activity in life, that it is inherently "special", then I guess their line of thinking is palatable. Of course, I don't believe that having multiple partners is problematic in itself, so I disagree with them.

This leads me to why I don't want to listen to her speak. These carceral feminists DO NOT ENJOY SEX. That's the bottom line. They don't like it, so they apply a pathology to it to try to make everybody STOP HAVING SEX unless it is within the confines of marriage/relationship thing. Some of them insist that having sex with a man is a treasonous act in itself, so receiving payment for it is a mega-sin - well, as Julie Burchill once opined, "When the sex war is won prostitutes should be shot as collaborators for their terrible betrayal of all women."

These women want us dead. All the ones I have named. The fact that most sex workers are of "exotic" extraction means that their attacks on us are also racist. I just recoil at the sight of these people and their ugly vision for their ugly sex-free "perfect world". Is it really that subversive to come out and say "I'm a woman and I enjoy sex!". Apparently so.

There have beens stories circulating about these women - Dines, MacKinnon, Farley being abusive to the "trafficking victims" they champion or to people who have worked with them. They are chauvinists with vaginas. The bottom line for me is this - a feminist does not sic the cops onto other women. That's what they do. They call for more state intervention into people's private lives to control THE SEX they are having. Bed sniffers. A true feminist solution to a perceived problem is to sit down and talk to the women involved and act on what they are saying. Instead, they deflect by calling us pimps and traffickers, mentally ill, not 'representative' or 'demagogues' for those with good debating skills who know their stuff. The most dangerous place for a sex worker to be is in police custody. It is not clients (in the main) that are a threat. It is the police violence that sex workers fear most - quite alarming when you consider that being charged with an offence with photo and name printed in the paper can be ruinous for some women. Studies are starting to provide evidence of this police violence. Here is one that I worked on that looked at VASW in 4 countries - Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Nepal & Indonesia - http://asiapacific.unfpa.org/sites/asia ... inal_0.pdf

She is also allegedly abusive to co-workers who don't subscribe to her world view.
"dines’ perspective is that empowerment is a word for women who believe falsely that they have power when in fact they are ‘oppressing themselves.’ now, it seems to me like this was her way of keeping me from seeking out a feeling of empowerment for myself. because there was nothing empowering about working with gail. it was a constant anxiety, fearing for the lives of all womankind" - See more at: http://www.feminisnt.com/2013/gail-dine ... EBbkq.dpuf

Jill Brenneman, who was held in slavery for years became the poster child for anti-trafficking and says that she has never felt abused in the sex industry like she was by the so-called radicals. Yes, she became a sex worker after she got away from her captor and now she marches with us for sex worker's right. This interview is quite harrowing but gives an insight into the abuse from someone who has lived it.
https://maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/201 ... -part-one/
https://maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/201 ... -part-two/

Dines may have explained the terminology well, but why would anyone take instruction from a confirmed enemy? This is a war after all. A war on women being perpetrated by women.

[parel]

My shero. The woman who coined the term "carceral feminism", Elizabeth Bernstein. This essay describes how the anti-prostitutionists operate with the state and the religious right to attain their goals.
https://sph.umich.edu/symposium/2010/pdf/bernstein2.pdf

Other feminists who inspire me: Angela Davis, Haunani Kay Trask, Michelle Alexander, Maya Angelou (sex worker as a young woman), Camille Paglia, Selma James and Germaine Greer. I'm totally into Margaret Cho right now too, because she outed her sex working past recently and took on child rape, PTSD within the same series of tweets. She is a good counter to the anti-prostitutionists wheeling out their "celebrities" who pathologise sex workers - Mira Sorvino, Demi Moore, Meryl Streep, Ashley Judd, Susan Sarandon and the endless list of "experts" on trafficking. Don't any of these people give a hoot about the damage they are also doing to trafficked persons by muddying the waters? Evidently not. They don't care about anyone or anything but their careers.
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainmen ... -1.2417136

Malcolm X was also a sex worker as a young man.

[American Dream]

Selma James, Alisa del Re, Mariarosa Dalla Costa, and Silvia Federici have all been particularly influential to me.

[Elvis]

Parel, thanks for post. You cast some new light on things I didn't really get from Dine's lecture, such as—

They are chauvinists with vaginas. The bottom line for me is this - a feminist does not sic the cops onto other women. That's what they do. They call for more state intervention into people's private lives to control THE SEX they are having. Bed sniffers. A true feminist solution to a perceived problem is to sit down and talk to the women involved and act on what they are saying.

She did tend to lump all pornography and sex work together, and even *I* know that's not right. Her examples of pornography were really extreme, disgusting actually, to me, nothing I would want to see, and as far as I know (I have a friend who has seen pornography) is not representative of all pornography or sex work.

This leads me to why I don't want to listen to her speak. These carceral feminists DO NOT ENJOY SEX. That's the bottom line. They don't like it, so they apply a pathology to it to try to make everybody STOP HAVING SEX unless it is within the confines of marriage/relationship thing.

To be honest, I did get this from Dines in the video. About an hour in, Dines says, "the women who run the feminist movement are actually 14-year-old boys with hard-ons. Cuz all they talk about is sex. Sex, sex, sex, sex. I mean who else talks about sex but a 14-year-old boy with a hard-on? You know? We've got other things to do. Orgasms are nice but revolution is better."

Some of them insist that having sex with a man is a treasonous act in itself, so receiving payment for it is a mega-sin - well, as Julie Burchill once opined, "When the sex war is won prostitutes should be shot as collaborators for their terrible betrayal of all women."

Yeah, that's where I get off the boat. It's beyond the pale, so much for equality. Thanks again for your perspective, Parel.

[tapitsbo]

Speaking of cops/feminists, it's interesting that a feminist march of ~30 women had to be escorted (not escorted as in "protected") by literally hundreds of police cars this summer in Montreal (especially in light of AlicetheKurious' most recent post in the "Mothers..." thread.)

And I say this as someone who would ascribe a certain level of cultural influence to certain strains of feminism, and welcome criticism of them.

[guruilla]

My late brother (he died of heroin addiction) did his own stint as a sex worker, and in Dandy in the Underworld he called prostitutes “the most open and honest creatures on God’s earth.” “The whore fuck,” he wrote,” is the purest fuck of them all.”

While there may be exceptions (there always are), I don't think it is possible, or responsible, to separate sex work, on both sides, from sexual abuse that occurs in childhood; the overlap is too significant, as is the overlap between childhood sexual abuse and drug addiction, alcoholism, and suicide.

The notion that sex ~ i.e., the act which creates life ~ is no different from eating and drinking is incomprehensible and absurd to me. It is a socially constructed idea that I am pretty sure has only been around for a few decades (AFAIK sex is historically either seen as sinful or sacred, never as just a mechanical means to pleasure). It's also only even possible thanks to having the drugs and technology to separate ourselves from our biological processes (even then, I still don't quite understand this view).

Saying that Dines just "doesn't enjoy sex" is a cheap shot, IMO. Maybe she doesn't, but if so, there's surely a damn good reason for it. People who are sexually abused as children (including those of us with no memory of it, which may be the majority) tend to go one of two ways: they (we) either become sexually dysfunctional or sexually compulsive. They (we) either can't have sex or they (we) can't not have it.

Dines is talking about the very real harm that both stems from and further exacerbates the mechanical use of sex for pleasure and profit, and that has successfully divorced it from intimacy. It's extremely unfashionable to do that these days and all-too-easy for people to call her a prude who just needs a good fuck. But I say good for her. To my ears, it's the voice of reason (albeit a bit too strident for my tastes).

Full disclosure: I visited prostitutes in Guatemala during a period in my life; it was an enjoyable experience and not devoid of intimacy. I was always very conscious of wanting, needing, to connect to the young women in more ways than merely physical. I am neither proud nor ashamed of it. I recognize (and did at the time) that it was part of a long journey of healing my own traumatized sexuality. I never judged those girls for what they were doing, or felt the need to pathologize them; but I certainly never thought it was anything like an optimal lifestyle choice (many did it for a few years, to make enough money to get more conventional work); and I never for a moment believed that they were happy doing this work. I did my utmost not to add to whatever harm they were enduring, by treating them as lovingly as I was able.

I now consider pretty much all forms of pornography (not counting animation) to be harmful to the user, never mind to those who make it, and I haven't looked at porn in many years. This isn't about morality. It's about knowledge and experience.

Sex is a life-flame, a dark one, reserved and mostly invisible. It is a deep reserve in a man, one of the core-flames of his manhood. What, would you play with it? Would you make it cheap and nasty! Buy a king-cobra, and try playing with that.
D. H. Lawrence

I guess he felt he couldn't speak for women, and neither can I. But I do speak for man (and not Sky Gods).

[slomo]

My late brother (he died of heroin addiction) did his own stint as a sex worker, and in Dandy in the Underworld he called prostitutes “the most open and honest creatures on God’s earth.” “The whore fuck,” he wrote,” is the purest fuck of them all.”

While there may be exceptions (there always are), I don't think it is possible, or responsible, to separate sex work, on both sides, from sexual abuse that occurs in childhood; the overlap is too significant, as is the overlap between childhood sexual abuse and drug addiction, alcoholism, and suicide.

The notion that sex ~ i.e., the act which creates life ~ is no different from eating and drinking is incomprehensible and absurd to me. It is a socially constructed idea that I am pretty sure has only been around for a few decades (AFAIK sex is historically either seen as sinful or sacred, never as just a mechanical means to pleasure). It's also only even possible thanks to having the drugs and technology to separate ourselves from our biological processes (even then, I still don't quite understand this view).

Saying that Dines just "doesn't enjoy sex" is a cheap shot, IMO. Maybe she doesn't, but if so, there's surely a damn good reason for it. People who are sexually abused as children (including those of us with no memory of it, which may be the majority) tend to go one of two ways: they (we) either become sexually dysfunctional or sexually compulsive. They (we) either can't have sex or they (we) can't not have it.

Dines is talking about the very real harm that both stems from and further exacerbates the mechanical use of sex for pleasure and profit, and that has successfully divorced it from intimacy. It's extremely unfashionable to do that these days and all-too-easy for people to call her a prude who just needs a good fuck. But I say good for her. To my ears, it's the voice of reason (albeit a bit too strident for my tastes).

So, I allude to this in one of AD's copypasta threads, but some of my philosophy is informed by having come of age, and come out as a gay man, in a large American city during the AIDS crisis. It is tempting in liberal circles to blame the crisis on the willful neglect of the government at the time, but looking back, a large share of blame can also be placed on the gay community itself. I say that as someone who went through my own sexual libertine phase (evident in a close reading of my comment history). It is worrisome to me that it is starting up all over again, with the advent of PrEP, the pharmaceutical solution that allows us all to go back to the 70s and open our sphincter to every stranger we happen to meet on Grndr (or whatever the latest gay mobile dating app is). Promiscuity isn't liberating at all, it is, from my perspective, profoundly enslaving. Even acknowledging that random pairings can occasionally produce brief moments of real intimacy, on the whole the culture of promiscuity is antithetical to intimacy.

[lunarmoth]

An old Japanese man I studied Zen with, once said: "Sex is very important human symbol" (or something to that effect). I think he might have meant it's how we experience the cosmos. Expansion and contraction. Absolute Zero at both ends of appearing and disappearing. But we have warped it beyond all recognition.

[parel]

While there may be exceptions (there always are), I don't think it is possible, or responsible, to separate sex work, on both sides, from sexual abuse that occurs in childhood; the overlap is too significant, as is the overlap between childhood sexual abuse and drug addiction, alcoholism, and suicide.

The notion that sex ~ i.e., the act which creates life ~ is no different from eating and drinking is incomprehensible and absurd to me. It is a socially constructed idea that I am pretty sure has only been around for a few decades (AFAIK sex is historically either seen as sinful or sacred, never as just a mechanical means to pleasure). It's also only even possible thanks to having the drugs and technology to separate ourselves from our biological processes (even then, I still don't quite understand this view).

Saying that Dines just "doesn't enjoy sex" is a cheap shot, IMO. Maybe she doesn't, but if so, there's surely a damn good reason for it. People who are sexually abused as children (including those of us with no memory of it, which may be the majority) tend to go one of two ways: they (we) either become sexually dysfunctional or sexually compulsive. They (we) either can't have sex or they (we) can't not have it.

Gurilla, thank for sharing your story about your brother and also for disclosing that you have visited sex workers. It's really important for more clients to out themselves so that in turn, more sex workers feel safe to do so. I think people would be surprised to see how common it is. Many people have, at some point in their lives, traded sex for money/favours. Thanks too for focusing on the nurturing side of the job. I think when people imagine sex work, they go to the most base and exploitative versions of it, which are unfortunately, presented in the mainstream media as "the norm". Often without basis or evidence.

In a one hour job, a lot of dawdling goes on - shower, brushing his hair, listening to his problems. There's maybe 10 or 15 minutes of sex and voila! you've got the rent. Usually it is vanilla sex for the average 'non specialised' sex worker. I tried to be a dominatrix but actually disliked treating people like shit and inflicting pain. I prefer the counselling-style. It's not the sex that has maintained friendships over years and decades with former clients - it was the human connection.

As for the sexual abuse/sex work link - that is very tenuous. I'd like to see the evidence although I am unaware of any rigorous studies ever having been done on that topic. I'd like to know where that idea originates (as its common in the Western world). I wasn't sexually abused but I did have trouble navigating the sexual scene as a young woman because sex often meant some kind of ownership ritual followed. You hooked up with the guy or he went and told everyone you were a slut. Entering sex work made that easier - by virtue of its secrecy. It meant I could have sex whenever I wanted and there would be no repercussions within my immediate family/community. Of course, there was a new problem - police and laws - but at the time, that somehow seemed easier to navigate than the "singles scene". The sexual abuse link might be applicable in some places but not others. In Asia, people don't even make that connection (well not automatically). But then, they tend to have healthier attitudes to sex than we in the Christian west.

And I'm not saying that Gail Dines doesn't enjoy sex. Quite frankly, I don't care what they do in their own bedrooms and don't even wish to visualise it. *recoil* I'm saying that she is part of a cabal of women who want THE SEX TO STOP by any means necessary. They want OTHER PEOPLE to stop what they are doing because she/they does not agree with the kind of sex they are having. That is, where it involves a transfer of money, goods or favour for sex. Marriage was founded on ownership of women. Arguably, things have changed over the centuries but why the heck do we still do it? Yet, this is the kind of sex that carceral feminists espouse - exclusivity to one person. Maybe more, as long as there is no material benefit to either party. Doing it within the confines of marriage is fine. Doing it outside of marriage is not. They aren't about empowering women (or even listening to those involved). They are about stopping the sex. Sex workers didn't invent capitalism, but we sure get the blame for a lot of it. Read: misogyny.

Also, not saying that sex is an activity like eating or drinking. Am saying that sex work is work and that sex workers deserve human rights and labour rights. We are a primarily labour movement, even if most unions won't take us. In Calcutta, the sex workers are a large enough contigent to be a voting block on their own - 65 000. The ruling Communist Party treats them with respect because it is sex workers who are influential in voting them in.

I notice the links I posted about Gail Dines have gone. Another article I once read about her being abusive to a co-worker has also disappeared, so I suspect there are slander issues there. What I was trying to illustrate was that her critique of the state and the centralisation of power did not translate in real life. She and her cabal call on the state to go after what she sees as "the bad guys" and in the process, harms the very women she purports to be rescuing. (and it's always about women. the male/transgender workers are ignored. lucky them).

The theory sounds very nice, but does she live by her own theories? The answer is "no". Perhaps if she worked at grassroots level, she would have to alter some of her thinking about "exploitation". The fact that she can stand in a place like America and disseminate her doctrine is indicative of the great privilege that white women hold, that is based on genocide and dispossession. Without acknowledgement, I might add. If people acknowledged the traditional guardians of every place they stood, every time they spoke, the thinking about "white privilege" would start to change. There would be no other choice but to ruminate about how they "got here".

[coffin_dodger]

lunarmoth:

An old Japanese man I studied Zen with, once said: "Sex is very important human symbol" (or something to that effect). I think he might have meant it's how we experience the cosmos. Expansion and contraction. Absolute Zero at both ends of appearing and disappearing. But we have warped it beyond all recognition.

Yes, we have warped it. Well... we haven't - Nature did the warping for us - by giving us clues that were vague enough to be credibly misinterpreted and presented for general consumption, whilst allowing those same clues to be used to exquisite effect by the predators who perceived correctly the power hidden within the correct interpretations.

"Expansion and contraction. Absolute Zero at both ends of appearing and disappearing."

That Absolute Zero at both the beginning and the end is, in fact, the same zero - (which contains everything and nothing, a tough concept to get your head around, admittedly) - but because we live in a Universe of motion coursing forward in waves, (driving time onwards), it presents itself - in a linear sense - as a zero 'at both ends'. That Absolute Zero is what I term 3State. It's accessible, btw. You're a/in part of it, now.