The gods help them who help themselves. – Aesop
There’s something I’ve been wanting to write about for a while now, but have avoided because I know it will provoke controversy. However, two things I recently read on AlterNet brought it to the front of my mind so I won’t stay quiet about it any longer. The first was Renegade Evolution’s essay about the total lack of attention to International Sex Worker Rights Day from those who call themselves our allies whenever it’s convenient for them:
Nary you mind that the way things are currently, however many sex workers could get robbed and raped tonight and have it laughed off by the law, nary you mind that sex workers pulled over by the law will be blackmailed into favors, nary you mind that sex workers of all races, genders, classes, political bent, religion, will still be seen by the majority of humanity as less than human themselves, nary you mind possession of condoms in the highly vaunted Swedish State is cause for arrest and possible immediate deportation. Nary you mind. It doesn’t rate…Hell, I thought it was a feminist issue. Apparently not…If you don’t really intend to be an ally and speak up and out, don’t call yourself one. Don’t use us when it’s convenient and forget us when it’s important. Easier for all of us in the long run.
The next was a link sent to me last Friday by regular reader Shelley to this February 24th post whose author felt the need to resurrect this ten-year-old news article in order to attack Pope Benedict’s recent statement that he believes atheism was a contributing factor in the Holocaust:
The Catholic Church in Rome made the extraordinary admission yesterday [March 20, 2001] that it is aware priests from at least 23 countries have been sexually abusing nuns. Most of the abuse has occurred in Africa, where priests vowed to celibacy, who previously sought out prostitutes, have preyed on nuns to avoid contracting the AIDS virus. Confidential Vatican reports obtained by the National Catholic Reporter…have revealed that members of the Catholic clergy have been exploiting their financial and spiritual authority to gain sexual favours from nuns, particularly those from the Third World who are more likely to be culturally conditioned to be subservient to men. The reports, some of which are recent and some of which have been in circulation for at least seven years, said that such priests had demanded sex in exchange for favours, such as certification to work in a given diocese. In extreme instances, the priests had made nuns pregnant and then encouraged them to have abortions…
Any moral person should be disgusted by this, and indeed AlterNet’s readers appear to have been. But not one of over 100 comments on the AlterNet piece seems to have bothered to read the second line of the linked article. Take a look down the comment thread; you’ll see plenty of anti-Catholic, radical atheist, neomarxist, neofeminist and knee-jerk “liberal” statements, and at least one repetition of the moronic “rape is not sexual” mantra, but not one single poster as much as mentioned the fact that these rapes were largely caused by the perceived lack of safe prostitutes (itself a problem largely caused by religious and/or masculine objections to condoms). AlterNet’s stated mission is to “inspire citizen action and advocacy on the environment, human rights and civil liberties, social justice, media, and health care issues.” But apparently, its readers don’t think the rights of prostitutes count; I guess raped nuns just make better poster children. What makes this even more disgusting is that the pope many of the replies seek to demonize appears to have a more sensible view of the situation than his AlterNet critics do. Remember our old friend harm reduction? Even the freaking POPE recognizes that tolerating prostitution is preferable to allowing nuns to be raped, but do AlterNet’s “progressive”, “liberal” readers? Of course not; they’d rather make stupid, ignorant, inflammatory statements than actually embrace tolerance of women’s employment choices.
Am I sounding angry yet? If not, it’s because I’m too ladylike to really express the full extent of my anger at soi-disant “liberals” and “feminists” who are too busy checking off little boxes on their lists of approved beliefs to actually speak out for the single most systematically oppressed group in the entire world, namely whores. A large portion of the fault for this lies with the neofeminists; their vulgar, foaming-at-the-mouth rants against us and dogmatic condemnation of our work as “paid rape” inspired the politically correct “progressive” position, and the basic human rights of real, flesh-and-blood women must be ignored in order to enforce our betters’ view of what’s good for us.
But it’s not just them; one would think that of all people homosexuals would recognize our demand to be allowed to have sex on our own terms as intrinsically similar to their demand to be allowed to have sex on their own terms. But do they? Hell, no. Sex worker activists and even organizations like SWOP are always marching in “gay pride parades” and spending their energy, rhetoric and very limited funds on speaking out for so-called “LGBT” issues, but how often do “LGBT” activists return the favor unless male or transsexual prostitutes are involved? Almost never; they’re too damned busy pushing for the minutiae of their own agenda to fit a word in edgewise for even the largest concerns of ours. And how many of the prominent women parroting drivel about “choice” ever own up to the fact that a woman’s right to choose the REASON she has sex with a man is at least as important as birth control or abortion? Not one damned hypocritical bitch among them. A “What Is Choice?” page on the NARAL Pro-Choice America website lists abortion, birth control, sex education and “healthy pregnancies” as the only choice issues, completely ignoring a woman’s right to choose whom she wants to have sex with in the first fucking place!
Well, it has to stop. Now. Sex worker advocates need to concentrate on OUR rights and stop wasting our time, money and energy on “LGBT” and general feminist causes like abortion rights. Am I saying those causes are unimportant? Don’t you dare even imply I said such a thing or I swear to Aphrodite I’ll slap your silly face into next week. OF COURSE they’re important, but they’ve also got millions of dollars, scores of celebrity advocates, hundreds of legislators and many thousands of low-level activists behind them; they don’t need us. We, on the other hand, have only ourselves. The day that mainstream “gay rights” and feminist groups start consistently speaking out for prostitutes’ rights is the day I start giving a damn about “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and the concerns of white middle-class women in corporate jobs. Until then, I have my own sisters to worry about.
I do believe that the National Organization for Women actually has a pro-prostitution platform that they put together in 1973. The reasoning being the right to control your own body, like that of abortion. Perhaps they need to be reminded of that.
The feminists don’t understand that their constant failure to protect and encourage the right of contraception and abortion over the years is due to the fact that they haven’t really stood up for the right of women to control their own bodies via prostitution for the past forty years. Instead, they’ve bought into the same patriarchal Whore/Madonna complex—only they’ve changed the wording to Pimp/Child instead. But it’s the same *complex*, only the wording is different.
Precisely. Second-wave feminism has degenerated into an anti-man movement rather than a pro-woman one, just as first-wave feminism did in the late 19th century. The rhetoric promoted by mainstream feminists is easily as misogynistic as that ridiculous fraternity letter everyone’s so up in arms about; like the author of that sorry attempt at humor, mainstream feminists don’t appear to think women are “real people” unless we chop our hair off, refuse makeup, proclaim offense at every compliment about our looks and join the Holy Feminist Party.
My position in numbered form to keep things short:
(1) Let’s remind those who need reminding that sex workers (male and female) are PEOPLE and, like all people, they have RIGHTS, whether we like that or not. Those who think bad things because of the words “sex worker(s)” are falling into the error of labelling as well as the Fundamental Attribution Error.
(2) Rape is rape: it maims and kills. I invite those who take a different opinion to come to court with me and learn a few things about it, from both the perpetrator’s and victim’s sides.
(3) Most men in fact do not automatically go for prostitutes even when they are/become horny as hell and ready to explode. Prostitutes do not have (and have never ever had) the power to lead men or anything else astray. To those who don’t think so, the fact that those priests raped or otherwise have sex with nuns, isn’t that as much a case of nuns leading celibate men astray? WTF, get a grip on reality.
(4) The lesser of two evils. Let’s be bourgeois and provincially conventional for a moment. Assume prostitution is a social evil. Get a grip on reality, please! Rape has to be more of an evil. Anyone who says different should see a doctor quickly.
(5) I’ve noticed this for a long time, but just didn’t have the energy or inclination or time to argue: feminism today is less about feminism and women’s issues than about women trying to become men. Go to law school, preferably one next door to the sociology department, and marvel at the drivel that comes out from sociology – which is packed with the turgid-minded, badly educated, ill-mannered, narrowly read, emotionally tense, organisationally lax bunch of people. Please, come with me, I’ll show you this in several different countries and marvel at the consistency of what you see.
(6) Maggie is right about these things and you should listen to her. If you don’t, eventually all your thinking privileges will be taken away from you.
“If you tolerate this, your children will be next.” – English proverb.
As was pointed out earlier, Penn & Teller are on board, and if every actress who ever played a prostitute in a movie were to join the cause, you’d have an army of supporters. Everybody from Jodie Foster to Dolly Parton, from Brooke Shields to Melanie Griffith.
Me, I’m a combination of a Libertarian and what the Democratic Party claims to be. So the liberal label is one I wear proudly. And to me, if you’re not willing support the rights of prostitutes, you need to turn in your liberal card. You can disapprove of prostitution and still be a good liberal, but you have to support human rights and workers’ rights, even for humans doing work you’d rather they did not.
Yes, precisely. I disapprove of drug abuse (especially cocaine as you and other regular readers know), but I still think it should be legal because my personal disapproval or even disgust is not grounds for my telling anyone else what they can do with their bodies.
You can also be socially conservative and be against Drug War, etc. I’m so tired of the thinking that if you’re a social conservative on ANY issue that automatically means you’re a Moral Majority type, never have fun and hate when anyone else does, etc., etc. You can be completely against things like using any drugs for anything besides true health problems, prostitution, etc., but don’t want the government to keep these things illegal.
What you’re talking about is groupthink, the doctrine that if a person agrees with a certain group (Republicans, feminists, Christians, gay activists or whatever) on one issue, then he must mindlessly espouse the party line on all other issues. The most common example of this is the bizarre American notion that if one believes in the importance of civil liberties, one must automatically be in favor of giving up those liberties in any economic or self-defense matter; and that if he believes in the right to defend himself and manage his own financial affairs, he must support government control of his sexuality. This colossal cognitive disconnect is almost universal in our society; nobody seems to comprehend that some of us want the government to keep its fat, filthy collective hands off of our bodies, our beds, our books, our movies, our wallets, our land, our weapons and every other thing which belongs to us.
:0
I think this is the first time since I’ve started reading this blog that I’ve heard the author cuss. All I’ve got to say is…
AMEN sister! Get mad. Inspire others to get mad and push to DO something. Tell them – if you give a shit then get off your ass!
If we all had the same cause then nothing else would get done. If we are all for ‘save the whales’ then other causes (such as cancer research) would have fallen by the wayside without any accomplishment. Does that mean cancer research supporters don’t give a dam about whales? Not at all and could be quite the opposite. We just need to put our personal strengths and knowledge to what we feel we can benefit the most. I support LGBT issues but don’t know enough about it to make a difference and I don’t have a vested interest. I DO feel that I can make a difference with issues of prostitution because of knowledge and experience. The problem is getting people to listen.
Just what we have all been talking about. Good to hear someone say it out loud Maggie.
I think that one of the main arguments that abolitionists have against Roe vs Wade is that the government does have the right to determine what a woman can and cannot do with her body. They use seat belts, and drug laws etc as examples of that fact.
Which, to me simply means change those other laws too…
Something to remember when you speak up for a group that many don’t want to hear about at ALL is to never give up! We can never give up. I never have despite being very discouraged and disgusted many, many times. Even if things don’t change to the degree they should, at least you know you did all you could. I see it as if even 1 person is CHANGED by your speaking out, all the efforts have been worth it. As bdevereaux said in another way: DO SOMETHING! If you claim to care, put your money where your mouth is. Even if all you have is a little bit of time to spend on even 1 issue, then do what you CAN. I’m so sick of people claiming to care who don’t do anything. I was 1 of them for too many years. I hate how my awakening came about (family tragedy), but thank God it FINALLY did. Thanks for listening/
Well said, Maggie 🙂
“…nobody seems to comprehend that some of us want the government to keep its fat, filthy collective hands off of our bodies, our beds, our books, our movies, our wallets, our land, our weapons and every other thing which belongs to us.”
I think we need to form a third party.
There already is one, but people just keep flocking to Team Red and Team Blue. 🙁
Thanks Maggie, I only recently started reading your blog and really enjoy your straight-up writing style. To be honest, I don’t recall ever hearing about Int’l Sex Worker Rights Day before until I read your piece “Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs.” My apologies, I’ve only been an activist/ally on this issue for 5 years and am still learning,
I hope that things are starting to change for the better in terms of issues converging, as in the increasingly-accepted phrases in the global community: sexual and reproductive health (SRH) and sexual and reproductive rights (SRR). Most – although unfortunately not all – pro-choice people I know also support the human rights of sex workers and decriminalization of sex work. I don’t know of any who don’t support sexual freedom for women. You’re right though that they don’t speak up nearly enough about it!
I believe that Canada is further ahead than the U.S. on these issues, which may help these issues to converge more. We have no legal restrictions on abortion at all, and have high hopes that our Supreme Court will also decriminalize prostitution within the next few years. I’m ED of a pro-choice group in Canada (www.arcc-cdac.ca) and also a co-founder of FIRST in 2007 (www.firstadvocates.org), the first explicitly feminist group in the world – that I know of – advocating for the rights of sex workers and full decrim. I partly got into this issue because of the strong parallels between pro-choice philosophy and sex worker rights and autonomy. However, I’ve spoken out very little on that when representing my pro-choice group because it’s not part of our mandate and some of our members/supporters lean towards the abolitionist side. On the other hand, I’ve experienced strong support and very little backlash so far from my public advocacy of both causes, as well as sexual freedom, so I’m inclined to continue linking them all together (as i did here: http://www.straight.com/article-398430/vancouver/videos-naked-truth-adult-entertainment-award). For FIRST, I mostly focus on doing social media communications, speaking and writing. I must admit I enjoy skewering prohibitionist arguments; for example pointing out how similar they are to anti-choice arguments: http://choice-joyce.blogspot.com/2012/01/cozy-bedfellows-prostitution.html
I actually mentioned FIRST in a column named “The Cold, Grey Light of Dawn” in January of last year, so I’m really pleased you turned up here! From what I’ve seen, Canadian feminists are a lot more ex-positive than American ones; I even wrote a column called “The Other Foot” in which I quoted a Canadian prohibitionist group whining about how they were starting to be verbally abused just as they themselves abuse sex workers and our advocates.
I’d like to put a link for FIRST in my “organizations and allies” box on the right, if that’s OK.
That would be great if you linked to FIRST, thanks Maggie! 🙂
Yes, I remember reading your great “Other Foot” piece. I recently came across that type of thing myself when I reposted my piece: http://www.rabble.ca/columnists/2012/03/how-prostitution-abolitionists-substitute-ideologies-facts, on a feminist listserv in Canada. A prominent feminist prohibitionist complained that I had dismissed as ideologies their abolitionist “evidence-based arguments” including “personal testimonies” from “prostitution survivors,” and asked: “Is this how they can expect to be treated in allegedly feminist space? Survivors are telling us, among many things, that they have to endure incredibly misogynist on-line harrassment by johns, pimps and their supporters, intended to browbeat them back into silence. But [here] too?”
So by critiquing the prohibitionist position (in a logical evidence-based manner, I might add), I’ve become a misogynist, harassing, browbeating pimp lackey responsible for creating an unsafe environment for sex workers. And this was from someone who respects my pro-choice work, so I don’t know how they square the contradiction of a feminist misogynist. At the same time, I’m kinda glad that prohibitionists are on the defensive and lashing out so irrationally, because it means we must be having a real impact.
[…] getting any help or support from mainstream gay organizations, because it won’t be forthcoming. Over two years ago I wrote, “Sex worker advocates need to concentrate on OUR rights and stop wasting our time, money and […]