“Well, in our country,” said Alice, still panting a little, “you’d generally get to somewhere else — if you ran very fast for a long time, as we’ve been doing.”
“A slow sort of country!” said the Queen. “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!” – Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass (chapter 2)
One year ago today I published “November Miscellanea (Part Two)”, which explained how the U.S. government isn’t interested in prosecuting the trafficking of minors for sexual purposes when huge corporations like Time-Warner do it; reported that a Fox newsreader publicly advised another journalist to patronize sex workers; and linked an article called “10 Tips for Dealing with Cops”. And though I already published a three-part “November Updates” column two weeks ago, several more interesting stories have surfaced and so I present this special extra update edition.
Think of the Children! (September 30th, 2010)
Child Cultists apparently believe that sexually-active adults emit invisible “sex rays”, and that if any of that sex wasn’t entirely vanilla the intensity of those “sex rays” increases exponentially and never, ever fades away. Therefore no such person, no matter how long ago she committed these dreaded acts, can ever again be allowed with 10 meters of children lest her pervy emanations induce the dreaded “premature sexualization”,
which might {Gasp!} cause innocent children to have sexual thoughts or feelings at some point before the magical Advent of Shazam at exactly midnight on their 18th birthdays. Here, courtesy of TMZ, is the latest example of a shameless harlot recklessly endangering children with her dangerous presence:
Porn legend Sasha Grey says she will NOT back out of a national elementary school reading program — despite pressure from parents — claiming she will “not live in fear” of her XXX past…Grey…participated in the “Read Across America” program at Emerson Elementary School in Compton, CA last week. Afterward, the school received complaints for letting Grey around the kids. For the record, Grey has been out of the adult business for 2 years. Now, Sasha has released a statement … saying, “I committed to this program with the understanding that people would have their own opinions about what I have done, who I am and what I represent…I am an actor. I am an artist. I am a daughter. I am a sister. I am a partner. I have a past that some people may not agree with, but it does not define who I am. I believe in the future of our children, and I will remain an active supporter and participant in education-focused initiatives.”
Good for Sasha; I just hope she doesn’t allow herself to be shamed into quitting as Tera Myers was.
Whores in the News (October 29th, 2010)
On October 27th of last year the FBI raided the offices of Escorts.com, and reports I received from working escorts in the ensuing months convinced me that the company had been taken over by the feds and was being used in an attempt to entrap working girls. Fortunately, the operation was sloppy and heavy-handed and nobody with two brain cells to rub together was fooled; the site was closed entirely at the end of May and since the big pigs were unable to sexually victimize women as they intended, they contented themselves with stealing six and a half million dollars instead:
Two Philadelphia-based companies have been charged with running a website used by prostitutes and escort services to advertise…National A-1 Advertising Inc. and R.S. Duffy Inc. agreed to plead guilty to money laundering conspiracy and will forfeit $4.9 million, pay a $1.5 million fine and serve 1½ years of probation, according to court documents…the companies…operated Escorts.com beginning in 2007. Prostitutes and escort services paid to advertise on the site, while customers were charged subscription fees. The companies have forfeited the domain name. National A-1 also operates phone-sex lines and a pornographic website. Those portions of its business are unaffected by its plea agreement in the escorts.com case…The government said it reserves the right to prosecute individuals associated with the companies.
As we’ve pointed out before, companies aren’t responsible for the content of their advertising so the government had no case even if there was a federal law against advertising sexual services, which there isn’t. But federal prosecutors are empowered with a whole arsenal of nuisance charges (“money laundering” and “conspiracy” being chief among them) with which to hound individuals and corporations to death based on the flimsiest of evidence or even no evidence at all, so National A-1 and R.S. Duffy clearly decided that paying the ransom demand was simply the cheapest and quickest way to get on with their corporate lives.
October Updates, Part Three (October 4th, 2011)
In my update to “A Tale That Grew in the Telling” I discussed the way stories get distorted in the process of rumor-spreading, becoming progressively more lurid and exaggerated. Here, via Furry Girl, is a perfect example from journalist Anderson Cooper: after the tsunami which struck Sri Lanka on December 26th, 2004, a man on a motorcycle took two injured children to a hospital. Some bystander decided he was actually kidnapping them, and it was so reported in a Sri Lankan newspaper; by the time the story reached New York a few days later dozens of storm orphans were being abducted into sexual slavery. It’s rather like And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street, except not at all cute.
The Crumbling Dam (October 14th, 2011)
Speaking of Furry Girl, I reported last month that she had to resort to a mobile billboard company for her sex worker rights ad after all the regular billboard companies rejected it (despite the fact that they’ve carried anti-prostitution ads in the past). Well, her billboard finished its run on November 9th, and here’s a report from her (with photos) telling about how it went. Let’s hope her next project finds an advertising company which is more interested in making money than in promoting a moral view via censorship of paying advertisers.
Two things I didn’t know about Sasha Gray – that she was as brave and articulate as she seems here – makes her more sexy in my eyes. Second thing I didn’t know – she’s retired? 🙁
For the life of me – I can’t figure out why people conclude that adults who are engaged in “extra-vanilla” sexual activity are bad around children. If you look at the Catholic Priest scandal, and the Penn State Coaching Scandal … which is now evolving to include Syracuse University – the logical thing to conclude it’s the people who aren’t overtly engaged in some kind of adult sexual activity that people should be worried about.
Nevertheless … this attitude exists in my immediate family. My daughter had been dating a Marine for years and I loved the kid – he and I were kind of “buddies” and I thought he’d make a great son-in-law. But – she kicked him to the curb suddenly.
Apparently my daughter caught the guy surfing porn on more than one occasion – and she was worried that this habit might make him dangerous around kids when they eventually had them. She thought there was a chance he might actually molest one of his own kids because he liked to view porn online. Month later, I told her … “You DO know that all men are ‘perverts’ right?”. She thought she’d be cute and said … “Oh yeah right Dad – well wouldn’t that make you a pervo too?” … And I said … “Uhm yeah – I just hide it well”
She did NOT get these views from my wife or myself. My wife KNOWS everything about me and she’s been with a lot of other men so she KNOWS how “strange” men can be.
I think my daughter got these views from the neofeminists in college – and, I don’t know what to do about it because my daughter is now nearing 30 and she’s a very attractive, and professionally successful woman who’s dreadfully lonely because she’s looking for some sexless Beta Male out there that I don’t think exists. If he does – I don’t think she’d be happy with him. I really don’t know what to do about this situation.
I’m sorry to say there’s nothing you can do. At some point a mother bird has to kick the babies out of the nest, and they either fly or die. Humans like to pretend it’s otherwise with us, but it isn’t; at some point the fledglings have to be evicted, and then they’re on their own. Oh, you can keep them in the nest, all right, but then they never learn to fly; in other words, they never know what it actually means to be a bird. A woman needs to make her own adult choices, to know what it means to be a woman, and that includes dealing with men on her own, a task neither you nor her mother can help her with. By rejecting a real man, your daughter is saying that real flight is too scary; she’s afraid to do more than short chicken-like hops between the ground and the low branches, and that’s no life for a true bird.
Yeah, you’re totally right. I just don’t want her to end up like my neofeminist sister-in-law … after she married her perfect “beta male” … a guy from … Sweden no less. After two years he figured out he was gay, or maybe it was better if he was gay – and left her for a guy. She’s now an old, bitter, lonely bitty … and she’s not pleasant to be around during the holidays.
Sounds like she’s become the type of person who finds their life’s purpose in starting neofeminist movements. >.>
Worry.
Sasha Gray drives the neofeminists bonkers because she’s smart, eloquent and has a very clear view about what she does (or did). I’ve literally had someone say, “well she can’t be that smart if she does porn”. She’s not the only porn star who is educated either (e.g, Lex Steele or Ron Jeremy or Asia Carrera). I’m sure that as your site grows in profile, we’ll see the same BS emerge — that it’s impossible to be both smart and a sex worker (despite the objective evidence showing that it is). It is the fundamental arrogance that can occur in someone educated beyond their intelligence: I’m smart, I would not do X, therefore no smart person would do X. It’s as though they think education or brains give some window into the objective morality of the universe.
Circling back to the main point of your post, if the events of the past couple of weeks have taught us anything, it’s that “respectable” jobs and positions are no guarantee that someone is safe around kids. At least you know Sasha’s sexual interest is in adults.
I’ve had a few “true believers” claim that I couldn’t possibly have ever been a whore because I’m “too smart”, as if intelligence were somehow a Golden Ticket to the great chocolate factory of life and that anyone who has it never need worry about money, freedom or anything else. The cult of intellectuality to which neofeminists and many others prostrate themselves is based on the wholly fallacious notion that intelligence is magically different from every other human characteristic (just as sex is magically different from every other human activity), and that making a living with “intelligence” is somehow “better” than making it with talent, beauty, luck, inheritance or hard work. Well, I’m here to tell you it isn’t, and in fact tomorrow’s column is about that very subject.
If Intelligence were a golden ticket, then why are most teachers and professors not extremely wealthy, or even fairly well off. Despite the common Industrial era myth, there’s no correlation between one’s scholastic achievement (best measuring stick of life for intelligence specifically) and net worth.
People skills, social success, entrepreneurship, a drive to succeed and refusal to accept defeat or failure as one’s deserved fate are what lead to success; the mindset of a business OWNER as opposed to an employee.
Those things and good old-fashioned LUCK. A lot of deficits in entrepreneurship can be compensated for by being born into a family which can and will send you to the best schools and knows all the right people, and some guy inventing something you never could have dreamed of may make what you’re doing suddenly more valuable than the day before.
Maggie, I’ll wait until I read it tomorrow before I comment on intelligence, but I’ll admit I’m feeling antsy.
Teachers especially but also professors are doing what they love, not what will get them the most money. Excepting perhaps the most senior, who’ve worn out, and are the best paid.
Many more people would love to be professors than there are professor positions. They’re beating them away with sticks so they can keep the supply low enough that they get paid at all.
People may not be utility maximizers, but they’re closer to that than they are to being money maximizers.
Dear Krulac,
Your daughter is unreasonably jealous and she probably feels betrayed and that the deserves better. There are lots of great guys available but she’ll never see them if she uses her fear as a shield. She should also read what non-Christian scientists say.
I agree with you about Sasha Grey.
Well – my daughter is an atheist scientist actually. She abhors all religion.
There’s no doubt she’s looking for some perfectionist ideal – and I think it’s the neo-feminist ideal of what a husband should be. It’s going to have to be someone who never has a sexual thought or fantasy that involves someone other than her – and when that thought does involve her, it should be a thought that is respectful to her, with activities which don’t fall outside her real life boundaries.
Based on my experience personally – I don’t think that guy exists and I don’t really want to meet him if he does. Personally, sex pops up in every THIRD thought that I have. Try living that way ladies … with a brain that goes … “Football … Basketball … SEX!”. I freakin’ don’t know how it was men that invented the light bulb and the airplane – where did these guys fit time in their thinking for that stuff??!!
Personally, for me … I fantasize about my wife all the time and usually she’s doing something she won’t normally do – like make love outside (but I’m going to eventually win on this one) or while sky diving or some bullshit like that. I’ll even tell her the fantasies and she just laughs and says … “Oh, so you were really fantasizing about ME this time? Yeah dream on dude – I’m not doing any of that!” My wife “gets it” – she understands how men think and she’s good with that. My daughter – not so much.
They did it to get chicks, silly! 🙂
(Dammit, she beat me to it. 🙁 )
sasha’s defense was , ” I …..”, “I …..”, “I ….”, “I ….”. She made no comment about the children.
Sasha’s history triggers a disgust factor for most parents. The parent/child/teacher relationship is based upon trust and respect. As a parent , I’d be unable to support a teacher I couldn’t respect.
Maggie, never having raised children , you are particularly clueless as to the relationship.
Clueless? If you say so. But I know that every single child on this planet got here through sex, and that every man who isn’t castrated has sexual thoughts which would frighten naive women half to death (and that includes every single solitary male teacher, coach, scoutmaster, principal, cop, clergyman and doctor parents trust their kids with every day). I also know that some of the best mothers I’ve ever known were whores and that about 10% of the female population have taken money for sex at least once in their lives. So I think the demonization of women who have done sex work as somehow unfit to be near children is not only delusional and evil, but the height of hypocrisy. People do lots of monstrous things in the name of “protecting the children”, and it doesn’t make them right.
jz, I am a parent and, as long as Sasha kept her clothes on or didn’t talk about her work, I’d have no problem with her joining a reading campaign. I will grant that I am unusual in that regard. Most parents would have a problem. But that doesn’t make it rational or right. Most parents won’t let their kids walk to school either. I’d liken this to the billboard campaign Maggie highlighted some time ago (http://maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/2011/02/06/real-people/).
You’re not unusual and, I’m probably an overprotective parent because no – I never let my kids walk to school … and my youngest daughter has the nickname “Radio Girl” in my neighborhood because anytime she’s outside alone she has a walkie talkie I force her to wear so she can check in with me every five minutes.
I would have ABSOLUTELY no problem with Sasha Gray in a reading program. So Sasha’s a pron star? The cool thing is, she still has the head on her shoulders to hold it high in public – and she doesn’t hide. To me, that says she has a quality that I’d actually like my kids to learn. Not being pron stars – I’m not talking about that – I’m talking about the independent self-confidence and refusal to be driven underground.
I will have to chime in here, even though the post is nearly two weeks old.
I am the father of a seven year old daughter so I am not clueless about parenting. I don’t believe it is my role as a parent to protect my daughter from everything that might be dangerous (and an ex-porn star is not even in that category) unless the learning experience is lethal in itself (like playing with the mains outlet). I also don’t believe in shielding her from different views and opinions nor shielding her from the consequences of her own mistakes. To use Maggie’s analogy above, I am teaching her so that she may one day fly, instead of hoping on the branches!
I would have no problem if someone like Sasha Grey were doing a public reading at her school. (Nor would I have a problem if Maggie did it. 😉 What does her past have to do with her public reading-skills? If anything, acting skills enhance reading performance.
As for trust and respect? Really? You would not trust nor respect a person because they have a history as a sex-worker? I must say, that is quite narrow-minded of you! I don’t want to cast aspersions on you, so instead I ask; would you have the same problem if an ex-con or ex-drug user did a reading or public lecture?
you threw out lots of strawmen , Maggie (ie. procreative sex, male desire) and then the usual insults to us lay women. None of those are my point.
The teachers/coaches/mentors for children are supported in their roles by parents. Parents can’t support/backup if they don’t respect the teacher.
Those are not straw men at all. When teachers start getting fired for any behavior at all that some parents don’t like, not just sexual behavior, you’ll have a case. But they don’t. And Sasha Grey is not a teacher but a volunteer. Furthermore, though this may sound hard, beggars can’t be choosers; anyone who is getting something for “free” has no right to bitch if it isn’t to his liking. If I didn’t like the way my child was publicly schooled I’d make the sacrifice to put him in a private one, as my parents did for all five of us.
Here’s a blog topic for you to write on : are whores jealous of wives? why do whores denigrate wives? why all the insults?
We aren’t, and there are no insults. You simply interpret my saying whores and wives aren’t very different as an “insult”, which is like a white person considering it an “insult” if a black person says that there isn’t any important difference between the races.
Yes, they are strawmen. I address “respect and support”, and then you divert to male desire and procreative sex.
If I can’t respect a mentor, her cost is irrelevant (funny how you think in terms of money) . If I can’t respect her, I can’t respect her at any cost.
If you don’t like the free meal, go to the restaurant next door. And if you don’t like the “free” education, send your kids to private school. How is that “irrelevant”?
Your blog is full of comments and insults to wives, as though we are clueless ninnys. Are you so far away from mainstream culture as to really believe that?
You see what you want to see. Please link one single insult made by me to wives in general rather than to one specific wife or a certain group (i.e. naive American middle-class wives). You seem to forget that I am a wife, have been before, and that most of my friends are wives. You want to believe I’m attacking your “us group” so you don’t have to listen, but the fact is there are lots and LOTS of whores in that “us group” whether you like it or not.
I’ve seen the insults here from yourself and commenters, and, NO , I will not comb through to find them.
As I’ve seen many internet commenters say, “cite it or it didn’t happen”. I don’t make assertions for which I have no evidence, and I hold others with whom I discuss things online to the same standard.
not wasting my time.
You wasted your time (and ours) when you made charges you can’t back up. And please, don’t tell us “well I could find it but I won’t bother but just believe me” or any variant. I quit falling for that one at about seven years old.
When I was a kid, I was teased a lot. I’d complain to grownups, but when they asked what they said to me, I couldn’t think of anything damning. Part of this was faulty memory, and the rest was because it was almost all in the TONE. It was terribly unfortunate and unfair then.
But this is the internet. You DO have a perfect log of everything that’s been said, right here. And there IS no tone outside of the words themselves, and what you added in your head.
My argument when I was a kid was marginally persuasive at best. Here, it does far worse.
Exactly.
Maggie, a rhetorical suggestion: all analogies are incomplete.
So are all solutions to all problems, so obviously we should never, ever try to solve any problems.
Jz … Maggie’s been a “wife” herself for longer than she was a “hooker”.
The major point here is that Sasha Gray is no threat to kids. Sasha did porn – probably not because she especially “got off” on doing it, but because it was a good way to make a lot of money doing something that is uncomfortable for others – but obviously not for her.
Maggie is right … there’s really no need to be worried about Sasha’s “predatory” sexual habits – because she doesn’t really have any, and if she does – they’re aimed at adults and not kids.
As a parent, I understand what you’re saying when you say there’s a “trust” relationship here. But – what makes Sasha Gray untrustworthy? She’s not a criminal and she earned her living in a legal manner. She obviously didn’t try to hide who she was – she was honest about who she was and is honest in talking about what she did.
Contrast that with the Sandusky guy up at Penn State – WHO HAD EVERYONE’S TRUST. Yet, that guy was actually serially raping ten year old kids who were a part of his “charity”.
jz,
philosophical suggestion: your overweening “sensitivity” does not an insult make.
I wish Sasha did not retire as quick as she did. 🙁
And it was always great to read/ watch her interviews…they always showcased how intelligent and articulate she is.
Been wondering when the “cult of the child” topic would come up again so I could share this.
Betty’s sexy adorableness never registered on him as a child because he as yet did not have a sufficiently developed sexuality to relate to it. That entire aspect of her flew right under his young radar, and wasn’t even committed to memory.
Betty’s flirtatious behavior was no doubt filed in his young brain under the heading “acting silly”.
Her sexuality never did him any harm, because as a child, he didn’t understand it. That didn’t make her silly cartoons less fun for him to watch, of course.
And kids do this all the time, even today! The Shrek movie franchise is a great example. They’re laden with jokes, humor and gags aimed squarely over the kids’ short heads to score a bullseye with the adults who brought them to the theater. What a novel concept; a kids movie that also entertains adults just as well, if at different parts and for different reasons. You can hear it sitting in the theater; the high-pitched laughter of delighted young children one moment, and later the deeper laughter of delighted full-grown adults.
Do the kids get all the grown-up jokes? Of course not, but why should that disturb them? As children, not fully grasping everything going on around them is a fact of life! (For adults too, though we like to tell ourselves otherwise. :P)
“Magic sex rays” I think is the Maggie uses to mock the idea that being in the pretense of a sexually active adult somehow harms children by radiation. She’s right to mock.
I could play a porn movie at full volume in the living room in front of an eight year old. If he/she asked what the movie was, I would say “they’re wrestling” and the eight-year-old would accept that answer, nod, and wander away in search of something more interesting to them.
Be honest, parents out there, how many of you have been walked in on by your younger kids and used that same excuse?
(I really hope you did, instead of mistakenly sitting the child down for a long conversation trying to explain properly something their by no means ready to understand yet. Walking in on their parents probably wouldn’t scar a 6 year old, but trying to shove an adult understanding of sexuality into that young a mind might.)
We don’t need to kill ourselves trying to protect children from sexual ideas; their own psychology protects them until they’re of an age to start identifying with the subject personally (quite a bit younger than 18 or 21, but that’s another blog post).
Let’s by all means protect them from the sort of people who would FORCE an understanding of sex upon them in a physical manner (without starting a witchhunt and punishing those who have never in their lives displayed interest in doing so… And again, that’s another blog topic).
However… Just (for example) seeing a boob will NEVER harm any child’s psyche (watching their parents/role models throw a hysterical fit over the mere sight of one on a TV might give rise to strange values and ideas, however). For goodness sake, those used to be their food source! They’ll understand boobs are sexy when they’re ready to start thinking about it, not before.
(Hmm… image embedding failed. Quite possibly Maggie’s blog is set up to block such things to prevent the childish from drowning out serious discussions with porn-spam. >.> Or… I buggered up the html. I AM much more used to forum coding. :P)
Betty Boop Picture is here, then. 😛
No, you just had the HTML wrong. I fixed it. 😉
Thank you! ^_^
I used the cut&paste code straight from photobucket, so I’m not sure where the mistake was.
(views source code)
Oh, that’s MUCH tighter… I’m copying that for another day. 😛
(Pardon, not meaning to derail the topic of the day with technical difficulties. :P)
“I was a lot happier when I was in the industry. It was a lifestyle. My freedom. I was in control. I could be home with my children. I watched my daughter grow up. Now I watch her go to daycare. I had a lot more time with my husband. Now we hardly see each other. I miss the attention.” – Trinity James.
Succinctly put; in other words, the neofeminist ranters and their Lawhead buddies are spouting bollocks. 😒
carried ant-prostitution ads in the past.
It is unconscionable that these advertisers have acquiesced to the sexual exploitation of these social insects in the past. We obviously need a Scandinavian model for the downtrodden Formicidae!
LOL! 😀
OK, Smart-ass, I fixed it. And thanks for the good laugh, even if it was at my own expense. 😉
If I’d ever had a daughter, or the raising of a girl, I’d have done my best to pound into her head from the moment she was interested in the topic that men are NOT women with funny plumbing, and do not think like women! If she came to accept this, she’d be a lot less likely to rack her life up looking for some guy who fits an impossible neofeminist ideal.
And I’d also make it clear that “ladylike” behavior is appropriate for some times and places, and not in others. Several of my friends who did get married have told me that one fertile source of friction was that their wives literally couldn’t unbend…even if, consciously, they desperately wanted to. The conditioning was that strong.
And I wouldn’t expect her, or any male children I had, to be sweet little sexless angels. I’d do my best to prevent unwanted pregnancies and disease, but wouldn’t flip my wig at the idea of them having s-x.
“…a true lady takes off her dignity with her clothes and does her whorish best. At other times you can be as modest and dignified as your persona requires.” – Robert Heinlein
Lower- and upper-class women have always understood this; it was only the middle class women who didn’t. And since nearly everyone in America is middle-class, that goes a long way toward explaining the peculiar and unhealthy American attitude toward sex.
“Lower- and upper-class women have always understood this; it was only the middle class women who didn’t. And since nearly everyone in America is middle-class, that goes a long way toward explaining the peculiar and unhealthy American attitude toward sex.”
This is a extremely good point Maggie! 🙂
I didnt think about it before but its holds alot of truth in it. I look at upper class couples like David and Victoria Beckham(who most definately have an open marriage ) as an example of proof to this statement .
Are the Beckham’s upper-class? Considering that he’s a sports star and she’s a singer I presumed they were both working class. Of course, it amounts to the same thing sexually, but still…
Sorry I just automatically thought about wealth when you mentioned “upper class”, but it looks like im not using the terminology the right way
I don’t know that singers and athletes are upper-class, but they are a bit outside regular working-class society. Fame and wealth take away some of your “normalcy,” but they repay it in freedom to, well, not be so damned normal all the time.
Victoria Beckham comes from a rich family that became rich not through inheritance but because her father started a business that’s ended up doing very well.
So she’s middle-class, then. What about him?
David comes from a poorer family.
In the United States, everybody except the very rich and the very poor consider themselves middle class. I’m sure that it’s similar in many other countries. Both Victoria and David probably grew up thinking of themselves as middle class.
I say “probably” because of course I can’t know what’s in their brains.
It’s another example of “category boxes”, the whole “class” thing. Thank you for NOT ASS-uming about the Beckhams. This is 1 of your many wonderful traits (not assuming the worst about people based on limited and/or no information on them).
Yeah, I’m wonderful. Just ask Laura.
[hugs]
In Britain, class distinctions are very complex and arbitrary, and are based on family backgound, accent, what school one attended, and many other things having absolutely nothing to do with income. So even though Britain is just as middle class as the US by the American definition, less than half of Britons define themselves as middle class. So David Beckham, and probably Victoria, too, most likely never considered themselves middle class.
It gets confusing making comparisons between the US and Europe that involve class, since the two societies define it so differently. Most Americans probably define class solely by income or standard of living, but social scientists and Maggie seem to prefer European definitons.
I’ve long thought that the different concept of class is the main reason Socialism (as a political philosophy) never caught on very well in the US.
Well, we do see differences between “old money” and “nouveau riche,” but of course most of us middle class folks think that’s just rich folks acting silly. 😉
Now the theme from The Beverley Hillbillies is running through my head.
I almost mentioned the Sasha Grey story the other day after I read about it on Yahoo News. I was really annoyed by some of the comments on the story. There were several people worried about the invisible sex rays, although of course, they never phrased it that way. They just seemed to assume, without any explanation offered, that having a former porno star around kids would be extremely dangerous. And then I was really offended by the people who expressed shock that a porno star could read.
The best news was that about half the comments were in support of her, which at least gives the rational people a plurality.
I was really offended by the people who expressed shock that a porno star could read.
That is particularly ignorant, isn’t it? After all, why shouldn’t a porn star, stripper, or whore be well educated? They’re among an ever-shrinking group of people who can afford to pay the ever-rising college tuitions without having to take out a massive, life-crippling loan to pay for it.
They can also continue working in the evenings while they attend school, making in an hour more than most college students can make in an 8 hour shift. 😛
But remember, many people don’t believe that; the anti-whore activists have convinced them that most of us are dominated by “pimps” who take all of our money.
Also, since everybody knows that hookers start at the age of fourteen (or is it twelve now?), they obviously don’t get a chance to finish their education. Also, slaves aren’t allowed to read.
What’s also willfully ignorant, arrogant and disgusting is when the non-whore women (like me) who are sexually wild, etc., are told they’re literally stupid for choosing not to charge a cent for sex. Also that we think we’re “above it all”, “snobs”, “not admitting what we REALLY ARE”, etc. for choosing not to charge. Another 1 is we’re “not brave enough” to be whores. RIGHT! The truth is that to seek men, couples, etc. out takes some bravery. It takes some work also. There’s also always some risk to meeting new people to find what I call “sex only friends”. Thanks for listening.
Well if you decide to read to children, hope nobody finds out you aren’t a virgin.
I wonder how they would react to, say, Pamela des Barres being in such a reading program?
Dear Sailor B, this whole thing with Sasha Grey (babe!) is disgusting. Yes, with Pamela (1 of my personal heroes) I imagine she’d get the same ###***. Speaking of Pamela, a while back I told you I was reading reviews of 1 of her books on Amazon.com. It’s a book about other groupies (YES!) that the documentary we both loved came from. I expected and saw: these groupie women are literal trash; they have no self-esteem (imagine how much these people would hate it if I told them how me having sex only friends HUGELY RAISED my self-esteem which NEEDED raising); they’re full of STD’s; they have sex with anyone at any time and could care less if the men are married, don’t have open relationships, etc. (I LOVE that 1 about us non-whore women…yes, we could care less who we have sex with. We don’t care if the men are married and lying to their wives, not married and lying to their girlfriends, etc. We just have sex with anyone at any time…eyeroll…I disprove that 1 and am not the only 1 who does); if my daughter was this way I’d tell her burn in hell because you’re worthless trash; women that don’t want to be monogamous are evil trash no matter what, etc., etc. When reading all this, I laughed (it helps you cope!) and it also proved how the non-whore women need to keep speaking out.
Really, is anyone surprised at the whole Sasha Grey thing? If so, you really haven’t been paying attention.
I’ve known of other former sex workers who lost jobs that had nothing to do with children when their pasts were exposed. I did once, too. I was working a straight temp job, trying to please a former lover. I had no contact with children, or even the customers. I sat in front of a computer putting orders in all day.
Then, one day, as I walked past the loading dock with an arm full of orders and contracts, I noticed the guys on the dock stopped working and gawked and laughed at me.
The next morning, the company called and told me not to come back, I wasn’t needed any more, but that I could pick up my last check and stuff that day at the receptionist desk. When I did, the receptionist, a horrible gossip, whispered a question, “was it really true? Did I do “dirty movies?”
I went back to the sex business, to hell with them, and made more in one day than I made in a week working at that place.
But it’s a worry. Now that I’m too damned arthritic to do as I used to, I do work in an office again. No one knows my past. That’s why I freaked a bit over the whole Porn Wiki Leaks thing. All any of my co-workers had to do was google my name, and that was the first thing that came up, and there it was, all laid out for them.
NO one wants to give a retired whore a chance to do anything else. You know, we’re all supposed to die young of drugs or suicide.
Are you serious? Men that act like that(the guys who gawked and laughed at you) seriously bother me. I dont see what is funny about someone having a past profession to support themselves…which is in their mind “unorthodox”.
If you dont agree with the type of job….then fine. But laughing at the person? Sorry if it sounds like im overexagerrating but i strongly abhor condescending attitudes like that.
Given the ubiquity of cell phones, sexting, video uploads, etc., we are eventually going to get the point where most people have something out there. Everyone will have some nudie pic or sex video or whatever. And as a culture, we’re going to have to learn to deal with it.
I’m sure we will, eventually. Within a few decades, the steps to running for President will probably include “release a sex video”. It will fit in right between “form an Iowa campaign” and “sign pact with Satan.”
Well, it was more the kind of “We know something about you” kind of half laugh that people do. It wasn’t out and out laughter.
And in their minds, I’m sure my status had changed. I went from being normal office worker woman to whore.
OK well in that case its not as bad. Sorry for getting heated about it LOL
[…] sex work produces such intense levels that sex workers cannot be allowed near children ever again for the rest of their lives. Even objects we handle (including money and virtual objects such as emails) must be kept […]