Ignorance is learned; innocence is forgotten. – José Bergamín
Every so often a reader will stun me by objecting to my vilification of neofeminist prohibitionists with a statement like, “feminists just want equality” or “feminists want women to have choices” or even “feminists aren’t anti-sex”, which causes me to wonder where exactly that reader has been living his whole life that he’s never had to endure the kind of anti-sex venom which is spewed forth by the likes of Dworkin, MacKinnon, Farley, Jeffreys et al. He can’t possibly have read this blog very often, else he would’ve seen my descriptions of neofeminist rhetoric in columns like “A Short Glossary of Prohibitionism” and “A Fantasy of Hate”, my direct quoting of neofeminists in “The Other Foot” and “In Their Own Words”, and analysis of neofeminist propaganda by myself and others in columns like “A Load of Farley”, “Sales Pitch” and “Down Under”. And he must certainly have never encountered neofeminist arguments that all sex workers are suffering from “false consciousness” or “Stockholm Syndrome”, or heard them speak disparagingly of “choice feminists” and “sex-pozzies”.
Others admit to encountering these hateful harpies, but seem to believe that they are only a small and marginalized group; would that this were so! Though neofeminists are no longer the majority in the feminist movement, they still command most of the money and have the ear of governmental officials, the media and police agencies, who find their “victimization” rhetoric useful as an excuse for persecuting sex workers and undermining women’s rights. Also, the extensive mythology they have developed about whores, our lives and our work is repeated so often it has become an article of faith for many people in the general public of North America and Europe, many of whom (especially in religious-based groups) may not even recognize its origin. Indeed, the neofeminist dominance of institutional “feminist” discourse is so complete that many people (such as men’s rights activists and social conservatives) neither recognize nor discuss any other type!
So I really have to wonder just how sincere these commenters actually are. If I had this conversation, say, fifteen years ago with a bookish sort of person who didn’t watch television and never read popular magazines or anything produced by academic feminists, I might have believed that he had never encountered a neofeminist and was deriving his beliefs from some of the early second-wave literature or the odd early ‘90s sex-positive article. But in these days of the internet (and clearly anyone who comments here has access to that) and the nigh-omnipresence of sex trafficking hysteria, I just can’t accept that anyone living in a Western country has never, ever encountered a fire-and-brimstone, rape-culture-spouting, Patriarchy-fearing, “prostitution is oppression”, man-hating, head-spinning, mouth-foaming neofeminist at one point or another.
So we’re left with several possibilities:
1) That these people are fully aware of neofeminists, but prefer to deny their existence or numbers for political reasons;
2) That they’re in denial because the existence of these harridans offends their idealistic views on what feminism should be;
3) That like me, they refuse to characterize these people as true feminists and are merely expressing themselves badly;
4) That they think of the anti-sex cult as a fringe group and are merely “whistling past the graveyard” about the very real danger they still pose and the extensive damage they’ve done;
5) That I’m wrong, and some people really and truly don’t realize how many anti-sex radical “feminists” are out there and/or the extent of their influence; or
6) That they’re just yanking my chain, trolling or being willfully obtuse.
We have some really good, lively discussions on this blog, and I often learn from my readers, so I’m opening this one up to the Honest Courtesan commentariat; which explanation is the correct one? Is it a different reason in each case, or even a combination of factors? Or is it something else I haven’t thought of?
One Year Ago Today
“No Other Option” discusses a small but important segment of whores’ clientele, namely those men who, due to physical disabilities, are completely unable to acquire sex with amateurs and therefore have no other option but to pay for it.
It’s these three:
“2) That they’re in denial because the existence of these harridans offends their idealistic views on what feminism should be;
5) That I’m wrong, and some people really and truly don’t realize how many anti-sex radical “feminists” are out there and/or the extent of their influence; or
6) That they’re just yanking my chain, trolling or being willfully obtuse.”
…Because it’s almost *always* those three. Whenever you’re dealing with deeply ingrained beliefs/points of view, that quite often renders the holder of said beliefs incapable of seeing life any other way, and unwilling to consider the possibility that the world is bigger than they think it is.
Also, we’re *Americans.* American people don’t believe SHIT until it’s on TV. THEN they’ll pay attention. So lame, and so true.
I have a thought that the best answers lie with 2 and 5. Although I do think some trolling occurs, I think most people project their own feelings onto the issue, thus thinking that the radical anti-sex elements are projections or exaggerations and don’t mesh up with their own thoughts.
They don’t understand how freakish the anti-sex feminists are.
The best answers are 2 and 5, as kaiju0 said.
2) That they’re in denial because the existence of these harridans offends their idealistic views on what feminism should be;
5) That I’m wrong, and some people really and truly don’t realize how many anti-sex radical “feminists” are out there and/or the extent of their influence; or
5 (people not realizing how much influence the anti-sex radical “feminists” have) is most common among Americans over 45 who went to college before the anti-sex feminists took over the women’s studies curricula in the early 1990’s, or over 60 so the last time they had exposure to college feminism was in the 1960’s.
Hello Maggie, first post. Fantastic blog you have here, the volume of your literary output is impressive; I am still trying to catch up 🙂
I had been reading several neofeminist blogs, and was quite surprised by how hateful they were. Their antipathy towards gays and transsexuals is certainly not a standard leftist position… and their critique of certain lesbian practises is simply strange.
“That I’m wrong, and some people really and truly don’t realize how many anti-sex radical “feminists” are out there and/or the extent of their influence”.
I think many people believe this, I certainly used to. It’s quite sad to compare establishment “feminists” to genuine, freedom-loving feminists like Wendy McElroy, and having to confront the reality that the authoritarians are dominant.
Hi, Gumdeo! Thanks for the compliments, but did you mean “impressive” or “obsessive”? 😉
Hi Maggie,
Completely off-topic but I ran into this over on ESR’s blog. I am curious what you think of it.
http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=3768
I have to agree with him; from an evolutionary standpoint, “equality” of the sexes in the way envisioned by feminists is an inherently unstable system. It’s interesting to see how little the commenters understand what the word “submissive” means, though, and how much they’ve all bought into the concept that gender role dimorphism automatically results in oppression when in fact there are many historical societies in which that was not the case.
I never even knew who Dworkin and Farley were before I started reading your work, Maggie. Thanks for introducing me to these wonderful neo-feminists who stir my loins and fill me with such lustful passion! 😛
Seriously, most guys won’t admit it … but we all have a secret desire for a carnal romp in a romantic hot tub with Catharine MacKennon or one of her feminazi colleagues. 😀
Okay, the real “grunts” view of this …
I think most “grunts”, like me – have a hard time believing that women who are satisfied in their personal lives can be as damned angry as most neo-feminists are. I mean – they are just really angry and unhappy people.
So, to us “grunts” – these women are probably very easily “fixable” with a bit of gentle, yet torrid and FIRM – “horizontal calibration”. 😀
The problem is – finding men on this planet who have the requisite skills and are willing to take one for the team on this.
I’m pretty sure this would work to correct the situation.
But … I’m not a “volunteer”!!
A few years back Catharine Mackinnon and her fiance at the time were profiled in New York Magazine: http://goo.gl/G5in1
I’m pretty sure any such attempt would just make a woman more misandrist. This idea that you could potentially “fix” a woman with the right kind of sex really seems to prove neo-feminists right. Not to mention it would probably mean rape. You can’t just go up to a woman and “show her a good time”. Unless she’s attracted before you take your pants off she’ll just punch you in the nuts and run away screaming. It doesn’t matter how awesome the guy is, to make the encounter anything other than creepy you’ve got to actually connect with the woman on some level.
So really, it’s not even worth joking about. It would just be rape if you really really tried it, and it’s based on some dumb ideas about sex.
It’s this:
“2) That they’re in denial because the existence of these harridans offends their idealistic views on what feminism should be;
5) That I’m wrong, and some people really and truly don’t realize how many anti-sex radical “feminists” are out there and/or the extent of their influence;
Also don’t forget to add: “there are many kinds of feminism and they’re all valid” approach.
Much of feminist literature (on all sides) is infused with vitriolic Marxist-inspired groupthink: this dictates that the class struggle (women against men) is of paramount importance, and you should have solidarity with other women as a class – even if their ideas are radically opposed to yours. Why? It gives you leverage against your enemy: Men. Focus on the enemy; deal with your “allies” later.
Also add in: Convenience. Most women don’t want to see men disenfranchised, but when *they* need to get divorced or strip men of the right to see their kids, then it’s very convenient for them to have misandrist laws in place – hence no real resistance. The lack of resistance to the absurd date-rape laws that have mushroomed across the country is part and parcel of this; it’s easy to say “I support my menfolk” while also reserving the right to take advantage of anti-male sentiment when it’s convenient.
It’s called “feminism of convenience”.
Hey – you should pay for this date and be chivalrous. But don’t even hint that you deserve anything for it – I want the benefits but don’t want to pay the price.
Etc.
This is all huge. Women tolerate the Dworkinites because it gives them leverage in personal squabbles.
Feminism of convenience. I say this is a major reason.
And then there’s this, Maggie:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-dui-setup-20111017,0,7922829.story
More good news from the “Women are angels and are morally superior to men” front. They never engage in fraud, falsely accuse men of rape (Who could possibly do that, and for what? Ahem, …), commit fraud or deny men access to their kids through false claims of domestic abuse.
Of course, all of these things are common; but I’ve never seen government/law enforcement literally in bed with scammers like they are in this story.
Those who trust the modern American legal system and the cops are the insane ones.
Just so you know, my views on feminism have been called (at best) Chauvinist.
6) That they’re just yanking my chain, trolling or being willfully obtuse.
Especially, if they’re quoting _anything_ from the late Andrea Dworkin.
I would expect that it’s a reflection of differing experiences. Online in particular there’s a fairly strong feminist culture which *isn’t* like the people you label as “neo-feminst”, and while one can be aware of the existence of the latter if one’s primary experience of feminism is with the former, well, that gives one a different perception.
You’re a target for the anti-sex/authoritarian type, so that’s what you mainly see. They’re louder, they’ve got better slogans, and they’re more colourful. So they’re more visible. And as you argue, they’re quite useful as cover for the non-feminist authoritarians who run much of the world.
Actually, I’ve had so little hate mail I’ve pretty much been able to give each example its own column (the next one will be on October 29th). But I probably pay more attention to their ranting since it’s against my group (if not me personally), so I understand what you mean.
“Online in particular there’s a fairly strong feminist culture which *isn’t* like the people you label as “neo-feminst””
Where? I would say that vast majority of feminists are alot like the “neo-feminists” that Maggie describes.
Give the pretty lady a cigar! The fact is that most people, even those who think of themselves as political, are not that informed. I consider myself a political junkie, but your blog has taught me more about sex worker issues than I’d learned in the previous 30 years.
It’s so much easier for people to pick a team for their political/social issues and stick with them no matter what. Democrats, republicans, conservatives, liberals, red, blue, green — these are teams, not philosophies. And people will go all out to defend their team and attack the other. How often do we see the most ridiculous political bullshit repeated without any critical thought? And how often do we see the most appalling betrayals poo-pooed? People aren’t playing issues; they’re playing teams. Even their stance on an issue — war, the economy, the environment — will be dictated by the team’s position. They will find a reason to agree even if their team is clearly wrong. It’s Mike’s Rule #3: Human beings aren’t very good at reasoning; but we are dead awesome when it comes to rationalizing.
I think these commenters just don’t want to believe that their team can do bad things or believe stupid things. They’re feminists, but in a general sense of believing in equality. But they’ll happily ignore the behavior of the side that purports to represent them. The appeal of feminist “sisterhood” is very strong. And the radicals are experts at exploiting it for their own neurotic ideas.
Would you mind if I give the cigar to my husband? He enjoys them once in a while with a glass of Scotch. 🙂
It’s interesting you say this about the teams, because it dovetails neatly with Wednesday’s column.
Could it be that sometimes people pick a team because the team’s avowed positions on issues reflect their own? That sometimes it’s not so much a case of “I’m a Republican, and Republicans say that abortion is bad, so I think abortion’s bad too,” but that it might be “I think abortion is bad, and the Republicans say that abortion’s bad, so I will become a Republican”?(*)
Of course, both can play a part. One might become a Republican because of an agreement on abortion, and then later adopt a Republican position on capital gains taxes because hey, they were right about abortion so they’re probably right about capital gains, even though you may not have even heard of capital gains taxes before joining that team.
(*) Fell free to substitute “Democrats” for “Republicans” and “a woman’s right to choose is important” for “abortion is bad.” There’s no need to substitute “capital gains taxes” for “capital gains taxes.”
Somewhere in here belongs the Media’s responsibility for soft peddling the repellant dogmas and repulsive behavior of an awful lot of Trendy Intellectual Twits. You have to be the kind of person who looks for other points of view to encounter much criticism of radical feminists, or academic jerks like Ward Churchill (whose plagiarism and tendency to refer to the article he wrote last year to support the article he wrote this year is entirely typical of a certain kind of modern intellectual). Sadly, even people who cruise the Web can be devoid of any impulse to check their assumptions, especially if they are spoon fed those assumptions by the supposedly unbiased Press.
Who started the idea that it was even POSSIBLE to have unbiased media, and can we desecrate his grave, please?
It’s also possible for one to simply focus on the literature of non-neo feminists. I follow a couple different feminist blogs and haven’t seen much of what you speak of. This includes feministing.com which has a greater ONLINE presence than any major feminist organizations. Of course it’s not surprising that the younger feminists might dominate online discussions and many grass-roots, where as the older ones administer old and powerful organizations and schmooze with the politicians. Add that younger feminists tend to be more sex-positive and the older feminists probably talked to Andrea Dworkin in person back in the day…
I also remind everyone that Maggie McNeil wrote about the odd synergy between Neofeminists and social conservates in certain specific cases. They both hate sex workers of all stripes and the “Swedish model” satisfies both lines of thought immensely. A lot of feminist rhetoric paints womankind as the victim of mankind, however the view of women as the victims of men existed long before that. The difference in social conservative thought is that women relied on MEN to protect them from other men. Plenty of politicians willing to work with neofeminists in order to feel like those guys.
PS Looking through feministing, they don’t have a lot of stuff on sex work. Most but not all of it generally agrees with this blog. This one should be downright familiar.
http://feministing.com/2011/03/24/research-behind-craigslist-adult-services-shutdown-debunked/
Jezebel is a strange site; mostly they seem pro-sex work if that work is in porn or phone sex, but they seem slightly uncomfortable with stripping (though not male stripping, natch) and very ambivalent about prostitution. The language one finds there is a mixture of third-wave and second-wave, with a lot of “empowerment” and “victimization” rhetoric, a thick layer of “social construction of gender” and neofeminist mushrooms popping up all over the place then vanishing again.
Jezebel is pro-porn but very ambivalent about prostitution, because they think of themselves and their regular readers as porn viewers – not porn performers. They’re comfortable with women who are the consumers of sex work, but not with women who are the providers of sex work, mainly because of American feminism’s deep classism; it’s okay to be a university-educated white collar professional woman who likes watching porn, but it’s not okay to be a high school graduate/dropout who performs in porn because she doesn’t have the education to make a good living in the white collar professional world.
I think you’re right on. I once compared the Jezebel staff to “a gaggle of debutantes volunteering at the local homeless shelter because they think it’s the right thing to do, but unable to really disguise their disgust for the ‘icky people’.”
I came to the USA as a teenager, back in the 70’s. Those are my best memories of feminism. I campaigned for the ERA. I remember when feminism did things like have sessions where women sat on pillows in a circle, with mirrors, leaning what bits they had down there. Surprising how many really didn’t know much. I remember the book “Our Bodies, Our Selves” being published.
I remember that even then, sexual harassment of female employees (mostly secretaries) by male bosses was just considered normal. I remember when some businesses had a standing policy of not hiring women for the good jobs.
I volunteered in a rape crisis/domestic abuse center when in my early 20’s. I saw how the cops and courts treated women who had been raped.
Yes, there is an all too influential group now days calling them selves feminists who are anti-sex, and pretty much anti-women. But they aren’t feminism. I still stand behind the gains we made back then, and on all the work yet to be done, despite the harpy crowd. They aren’t my feminism. Over the years, whores are some of the most feminist women I’ve met. Looking at history, they always have been.
This is a complicated one, Maggie. My short answer is I agree on 2. and 5. And I think Matt McC and Comixchik make terrific points.
One way I would think about this is by reflecting on women I have known. My college friends I think would all have self-identified as feminist; one of them even worked for NOW. But their feminism was solidly rooted in questions of workplace equality, wage equality, and especially reproductive freedom, not gender theory. They were small-f feminists, not Womens’ studies majors. The animating cause of their generation was abortion rights and clinic defense. Their focus was more on battling the political and religious right, which posed a clear and present danger to rights they felt were important to them personally, and not at all on critiquing a universal patriarchy. On the contrary–they quite enjoyed the company of men both sexually and as platonic friends.
To the extent my many small f feminist buddies thought of prostitution at all, which wasn’t much, they probably fluctuated between sympathy for abolitionism rooted in pragmatic sociological and psychological conceptions (the conviction that most women enter prostitution for lack of other options and are generally damaged by it) and support for decriminalization as a means of harm reduction. Generally the more experience they had in street level outreach through clinics, or suicide hotline work, or aids prevention work (this was the 80s) the more they shifted from the first to the second view.
But they key thing is that these well-educated, thoughtful small f feminists were much more interested in defending rights of immediate relevance to them than they were either in abstract gender theory or the politics of pay for play. They spent their activist years a lot more worried about Randall Terry than the silliness of Dworkin et al. I think the world is still full of small f feminists who engage the movement on entirely practical not theoretical terms, and remain largely unaware of, unengaged with, and unmoved by the pornography wars, queer theory, etc.
So will you do a follow up column and tell us all if we helped?
You betcha. 😉