Only the educated are free. – Epictetus, Discourses (II, i)
Every once in a while this site is discovered by someone from an online community which doesn’t overlap the sex work or libertarian circles to any great degree, and if that person goes out and “tells her friends” by linking me, there’s generally a huge increase in traffic for a few days or even weeks. Many who arrive via these mass migrations aren’t used to honesty and free thought unencumbered by dogma; some find the change refreshing and become regular readers, while others don’t like it, don’t “get” what I’m about and aren’t really interested in finding out. And that’s totally fine; humans are all individuals, and everyone has different opinions. I don’t even mind when someone dislikes my style or disagrees with my conclusions; most of my readers disagree with me from time to time, some always disagree with me on certain subjects, and a few have told me they disagree with me most of the time but still enjoy my writing or like my challenging their preconceptions. I think that’s absolutely fantastic; it shows me that my readers are largely intelligent people who know their own minds, individuals rather than herd-dwellers. But what annoys and saddens me is when ideologues decide that I’m so dangerous to their agenda they must go out of their way to misrepresent my writings to others, either by outright lies or by taking words and passages out of context. They do this to keep those others from hearing what I have to say by either A) scaring them away from reading me at all; or B) installing a preconception filter in their minds, like a preacher who tells his listeners what the “Satanic message” says before he plays the record backward and thereby ensures that the weak-minded will hear exactly that.
For any given issue there are three positions: Those who are strongly for it, those who are strongly against it, and those who don’t have a strong opinion either way. And no matter what fanatics and demagogues may tell you, the third is nearly always the largest group on any issue. When trying to sway public opinion, therefore, the wise writer or speaker targets that middle group, the “silent majority”. It’s silly to waste energy in trying to convince those who are already convinced (“preaching to the choir”), and pointless to argue with those who are dogmatically committed to the opposite view (one can’t reason a person out of a position he didn’t reason himself into). But the members of that third group, if they can be won, will decide the way the wheel turns. They are the ones who took it for granted that black and white people couldn’t live together peacefully, but now abhor racism; they’re the ones who accepted the claim that homosexuals were perverts, yet now agree with equal conviction that they shouldn’t be mistreated. And they’re the ones that in the United States believe that whores are pathetic losers, degraded victims or depraved criminals, but in most other Western nations disagree with that notion. They’re the ones the “trafficking” fetishists have drawn into their moral panic, and the ones who will drop that panic like yesterday’s fad once the majority recognize it as a lie.
Most activists spend a lot of time spinning their wheels, either by standing around agreeing with each other like a gaggle of “New Age woman” stereotypes, or by shouting at people who might as well be brick walls for all the good it will do. But the wise activists (and wisdom is found as frequently in the evil as in the good) understand that neither of those groups are the ones they need to reach, and so work on disseminating information (if pro-freedom) or disinformation (if anti-life). Since I’m in favor of free thought and free choice I encourage my readers to find out everything about the subjects on which I write; I accept disagreement and welcome correction, and I share the facts that might undermine my position alongside those that reinforce it. I trust in the capacity of human beings to make the right decision when they have all the information. Ironically, the prohibitionists feel that way, too, but since they want people to make the wrong decision instead, to choose the path of fear, darkness and submission over that of enlightenment and freedom, it’s necessary to ensure that they don’t have all the information. The easiest way to do this is by hiding it, but that doesn’t work too well in the internet era. So instead, they have to emit so much noise that their opponents’ message is drowned out, and the scholarly works are buried in vast mountains of propaganda leaflets. The most effective mask of truth is emotion; if a thought-controller can get his audience sufficiently angry or frightened or disgusted, its members will be unable to think clearly enough to recognize the truth when they hear it and may even attack those who try to share it with them.
One year ago today I described an interaction between pro- and anti-rights commenters on a sex worker rights article; the pro-rights people appealed to reason, provided links to facts, and pointed out that they had no desire to impose their decisions on anyone else but rather advocated that every woman be free to control her own body and sexuality. The prohibitionists, on the other hand, appealed to emotion, provided only unsubstantiated propaganda and insisted that they had a right to control other women’s sexuality due to their bizarre myth that all women are as interconnected as serpents growing out of some immense gorgon’s head. Because neither side had a clear majority, neither could drown out the other…and that’s fine, because it allows people to make up their own minds based on the arguments as presented. But when a column of mine was reprinted on Feministe last month, something entirely different happened: at first, there were both critical and non-critical comments, but soon a small group of neofeminists recognized my blog for what it is and took swift action to stop my message from getting through. They apparently went trolling to find passages they could spin in a negative way, recognizing that once they told the “true believers” what the “hidden message” was, they would see that and only that even if they went looking for themselves. In short order this blog was branded “racist, misogynist, fat-shaming and transphobic” despite the evident absurdity of each of those claims; I’m surprised they didn’t add “homophobic” for a grand slam.
But though nobody dared to protest for fear of being tarred with the same ridiculous (but to that crowd, horrifying) brush, nonetheless I picked up a dozen new subscribers by the time my traffic from Feministe subsided. Despite the vicious attempt to silence me, despite the wailing cacophony of PC terminology with which they tried to drown me out, I still found several members of my target audience: namely, sensible people who know the truth when they see it and appreciate those who let them make decisions for themselves rather than telling them what they’re allowed to think.
“racist, misogynist, fat-shaming and transphobic” despite the evident absurdity of each of those claims; I’m surprised they didn’t add “homophobic” for a grand slam.”
They didn’t need to, a user called Charlotte implied that you’re a rape apologist.
🙁
Ah, yes, an “apologist”: In other words, one who seeks to understand a phenomenon in order to more effectively deal with it rather than merely branding it “bad”, suppressing all discussion and enforcing the orthodox position at gunpoint.
Indeed. What I loved most about the entire discussion was the retarded bickering over Rome and Roman whores, when they missed the point being made that there was at one point a functional whoredom that gave women control in a patriarchal society and didn’t fall to pieces.
Instead they wanted to whine about your un-pc words.
By the way, on the subject of emotion being used to suppress critical thinking, thought you might want to peaky at this…
http://www.shrink4men.com/2011/08/29/welcome-to-the-land-of-emotional-reasoning-id-turn-back-if-i-were-you/
On the subject of historical whores, it just occurred to me that five of the most intensely researched prostitutes in history, the victims of Jack the Ripper, were all “freelancers”. There is no suggestion that they had pimps, or that they were “trafficked” or otherwise forced into the profession, despite the fact that they were from the poorest and lowest ranks of the profession in Victorian London.
That would be correct.
The pimp as we know him (excluding non-customer male associates branded as pimps by outsiders, which make up the great majority of their number) is almost entirely a product of criminalization; he appears due to the necessity of street girls to be guarded from the police or to avoid appearing unescorted (and therefore arrested). Those who really want to do away with pimps entirely should advocate decriminalization.
Well, there is a note there at the toppy which says they’ll never publish you again!
I think it was the mention of the Eskimos that sent ’em over the edge!
Heh – somehow I miss all the excitement going on with Maggie until it’s over and done with.
Maggie, I view the issue as you do – women, even poor women, are smart enough to figure out what they want to do on this. For me though – sex worker rights aren’t the sickness, they are a symptom of the nanny state. The leviathan nanny states we’re funding (no borrowing to fund) in an attempt to make the Earth some sort of “utopian heaven” – is at the TOP of the problem and every other “problem” flows from it.
We have to FIX that top problem but – I’m not optimistic.
It seems people simply do not have the correct priorities anymore. They rate things like food stamps and universal health care on an equal par with freedom. Oh well – I think the time IS coming where they shall have their priorities “reset”. I think we’re all going to learn very soon what it’s like to have NO freedom – but our every “need” taken care of by the state.
My prediction is – we won’t like it. 😀
Hilarious. It is so simple. Everybody is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts. Without agreement on facts, no use discussing anything. It has been known since Roman times that answering per hominem is the same as surrendering. So Maggie, when your blog is labeled “racist, misogynist, fat-shaming and transphobic” you prevailed. Congratulations.
What annoys me is the absurdity of the insults chosen. “Racist”? When I support immigration reform and constantly rail on those who think they’re better than brown people? “Fat shaming”, when the only post I can recall in which I even mentioned fat told women that there are plenty of “BBW” escorts and appearance and confidence are more important than a perfect figure? “Transphobic” (by which they mean “afraid of transsexuals”) when I discussed how the David Reimer case supports the reality of transsexualism and called the Tennessee legislator who wrote that awful anti-trans bill a “throwback”? And as for “misogynist”, that’s one’s too stupid to even address.
If they had said “anti-feminist”, or “bitchy”, or “verbose”, or “elitist” or any of a number of other insults they’d have had a point. But instead they just picked stupid one-size-fits-all canned PC insults, and thereby destroy their own credibility. The real insult is that they didn’t think I was worth coming up with proper insults to attack.
I don’t know what half those words mean. 🙁
But … they could never call you an “elitist”.
An “elitist” would at least buy a golf cart to drive to and from the barn. 😉
Hey, just one more comment though. The gal who “re-posted” your article on that website begs forgiveness from her readers because, she says, she never read your whole blog.
I call bullshit on that one. She knew very well what this blog is about but didn’t expect a backlash from her own readers. Not a profile in courage, that one.
The lady who reposted the column there was not the one who put up the disclaimer. The re-poster was just a contributor, whereas the one who put up the notice is the editor/webmistress. I don’t blame either one of them; the contributor didn’t think people would be that petty and the editor has to protect her economic interests by kowtowing to her audience. I just wish she had given me the honor of using valid insults instead of inapplicable ones from tins.
The neofeminists are themselves bitchy, verbose, and elitist. They see those as virtues, therefore you are not allowed to have them. They weren’t about to credit you with them.
The clue is there in the phrase ‘fat-shaming’ : the poor beta females who can’t attract a mate are bitching in the schoolyard again.
Of course, even if she looks divinely feminine, as soon as a neofeminist opens her mouth to spout crap, she’s sunk: personality filth absorbs 20x its own weight in beautiful.
If the guy has any sense, of course. Some of us are just miserably horny 😍
Sorry, it is “ad hominem”
I’m a newbie to your blog and I say keep up the good work!
It’s refreshing to read this kind of perspective. I am tired of reading posts which talk about prostitution from the outside in ways that erase the voices of the women living the experience.
I took some time to read the comments under the Feministe post and I find it offensive these people use the term Feminist. That’s not a brand Feminism that I recognise; I recognise that as attempts to bully yourself and other casual readers into a neat little line where people know thier intellectual or societal place. Which reminds me very much of misogyny.
Not sure how old you are, SPM, but that’s typical Second Wave Feminism. That it somehow survives today, after all the critiques against it by the Third Wave, I don’t know… I’m guessing this is what Maggie refers to as “neo-feminism.”
As a two-time graduate student myself, I’d say that most of those comments are by those who live in a very protective, ivory-tower bubble, and have probably no experience at all with lower-class experiences or with the Third World. Even I won’t speak out against this crowd until I get tenure, cause even at this late day in age, you still gotta repeat all the Second Waver bs unless you wanna get ostracized…
I just left a comment with a note at the bottom about Misogyny. That was wrong of me. The rest of the comment I stand by but to add that on the end was very wrong and stupid. I apologise.
The backward masking thing made me think of this girl. Some record label should get her to sing stuff backwards. 🙂
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4099993/YouTube-news-Backwards-talking-girl-is-a-real-mouthful.html
She’s cute, too.
Well, that entire thread was fascinating if unsurprising.
It’s really chilling the way Jill closes the entire comment thread. She’s essentially saying:
“Yes, You’re right. There’s some stuff from that author that We really don’t agree with. Because we don’t agree with her on some topics it invalidates anything the author has to say about all other topics and it actually makes her vile. Sorry for the exposure to a world outside our little sounding box! From now on we’re going to limit our guest bloggers to people we agree with 100%. Hugs and kisses my little group thinkers!”
How … abysmally boring and limiting. If i limited myself to reading the works of authors with whom i completely agree I wouldn’t be here; frankly I wouldn’t be reading anything at all.
One benefit to slogging through that was a link buried in the comments section to http://thebeautifulevil.wordpress.com/. I’m going to have to dig into that site a little deeper when my time permits.
Bloggers and people who create and maintain spaces for conversation also have the right to determine what kind of conversations take place there, what are the rules, and what is the focus of the discourse.
Personally, I do not see a difference between Jill closing that comment thread and announcing no more posts from Maggie would be allowed – and Maggie not allowing neofeminists/trafficking panic promoters to comment in her blog. I believe Maggie wrote in the past that once a commenter is allowed to post, all of their posts go through – so to prevent this space from being drowned in emotional and repetitive fights, she doesn’t allow some people to post. I apologize if I remember this wrong or if it changed since and I didn’t notice.
Both decisions, to me, are ways to direct the conversation and keep it focused on what the moderator sees as valuable by limiting who can contribute. Both prevent people who strongly disagree from entering the conversation. Both can be justified.
If somebody could explain the difference between them to me, I would appreciate it (and I am not being sarcastic here).
P.S. Count me among former sex workers, who strongly support sex worker rights, read Maggie regularly, and believe she does very important work. At the same time, I also find Maggie’s style of presenting material alienating and often disagree, yet usually have no time or energy to engage in debate.
I agree; as I said to Krulac above, Jill had the right to close the thread and disallow any other posts from me. I simply wish she would have given valid reasons (even “she grates on my nerves”) rather than making statements which were, frankly, total crap. I respect people who insult me as long as the insults have a basis in reality; i.e. I respect “Maggie is an opinionated cunt” but not “Maggie is a stupid bigot.”
Off topic: does anyone know what the problem with the gravatars is? I have to log into WordPress to post anything here plus when I do the gravatar info won’t show up. I check the gravatar website and there doesn’t appear to be any problems with mine. I don’t see anything on the WordPress front page about any overall problems. Thanks in advance for any help/info.
Just now the gravatar showed up for the 1st time in days…smile…(too tired to look for the smile head code). But, I’m still having to log in to WordPress to post.
Sure they are touchy, but no one at Feministe tried to “silence” you. The original post is still up, Feministe just declines to publish you on their blog again, and they called you some unflattering names. Seems pretty tame for the blogosphere. And you are right, I never would have heard of this blog and subscribed if I had not been looking at that one.
What I meant is that those on the comment thread who shouted me down (not the editors) didn’t want other people thinking about what I had to say. It’s not at all the same as a government or other powerful entity “silencing” a person, and I’m sorry if I gave that impression.
Welcome to the blog, BTB. 😉
what i missed all this ,i was on spring brk. I`ll have to read up , sounds like you were pretty succeful, Maggie.
Two points. First, one of the problems with blogs and comments is that it makes it very easy for people to selectively quote. You’ve written something like half a million words here. Anyone could read it and know what you’re about. But it’s clear some of the commenters trolled through here, looking for something they could quote to make you look bad.
Second, even of you were … what did they say? … classist, fat shaming, racist, whatever … so the hell what? Does that disprove anything you had to say about prohibition? Does invalidate your facts? I tire of this guilt by association bullshit. Person X believes ridiculous idea Y so I can ignore their arguments on issue Z. It’s a lazy way of dismissing arguments you can’t win.
Post Scriptum – A tip of the hat to Gorbachev for going over there and driving them absolutely bonkers with facts.
I got into an argument with Jill, iirc, on that site a few years back. It had to do with prostitution in the Third World. I recall telling her something along the lines of: “Yeah, you white, First Worlders think brown Third Worlders are just totally stupid and agentless pawns and that you are all way smarter and always know better than them.” So, yeah, I wouldn’t worry about the racism accusations, Maggie..
I’m new to your blog, and was drawn here after feeling turned off by Kristof’s recent anti-trafficking crusade that called for a shutdown of Backpage. I agree with your statements that it is completely irrational to criminalize and stigmatize all prostitutes in the name of protecting those who are forced into it. I think prostitution, when practiced by consenting adults, should be legal and safe. I also think this is a feminist stance, because ultimately, prostitution practiced by women, by choice, hinges upon the celebration of female sexuality, and the empowerment of females as both the object and origin of desire and pleasure. I think you write about this very eloquently and I’ve enjoyed your blog, so I don’t understand both your frequent vehemence against some modern feminists or the unfair way you’ve been characterized by Feministe.
I don’t know what exactly is causing the disconnect, but my personal stance is that there ought to be a better acceptance of the variety of female perspectives and experiences relating to gender identity, wherever we as individuals find ourselves on the feminism spectrum. I can relate to the way you write about the power and opportunity we have as women to assert our gender through our beauty and sexuality, but I can also relate to the feeling that femininity can seem like an oppressive fallacy in this world of photoshopped celebs and porn stars with bleached nether bits. I’ve appreciated your blog because it debunks such myths and talks about sex plainly, from the way you see and experience it.
Maybe part of what turns off some from your writing is that you often talk about female sexuality and experience in contrast to the male perspective. Maybe if I was not a mostly hetero woman I would think you were limited by “patriarchal structures” in doing so, but honestly I think sex is often about power dynamics and difference and that to deny that, or demonize it, would be to diminish human experience. I refuse to believe that is what feminism is and I hope you feel the same and consider yourself a feminist.
Hi, NDE! There are several things that turn me off to “neofeminism” (in other words, the decaying remains of second-wave feminism). First and foremost is that it’s simply disguised Neomarxism, with “women” substituted for “proletariat” and ‘men” for “bourgeoisie”. Men and women are equal partners in society, yet neofeminists depict it as one-sided oppression and that’s nonsense even in cultures where women have far less power than ours. Next, I despise the way neofeminists presume to speak for all women; even if I agreed with their agenda that would be invalid. They are against femininity, preaching that women should act like men, yet also that men are “bad” or defective as they are; I honestly believe some of them would have been staunchly patriarchal had they been born men, because they want the sex of which they happen to be a part to totally dominate and control the other. And they’re against sex, preaching that it should be repressed and controlled by “authorities” via anti-porn laws, anti-prostitution laws, censorship of public figures who say things they dislike, etc. Finally, I oppose anyone who advocates that his point of view, whatever it might be, should be imposed on others at gunpoint. As soon as a group, ANY group, advocates a law against consensual behavior of any kind, or even worse states that the government has the right to commit crimes in the name of some “principle”, that group has lost my sympathy.
“I don’t understand both your frequent vehemence against some modern feminists”
“there ought to be a better acceptance of the variety of female perspectives and experiences”
Thing is, it is a constant complaint from those like Maggie that mainstream feminists DO NOT WANT TO ACCEPT their experience. It is not just Maggie saying this.
Why don’t they want to hear about their experiences? Well, look at one of the comments posted on that Feministe thread. One guy said something like: “I work with prostitutes and I can assure you that 99% of them are sex slaves and only 1% are happy hookers.” I don’t want to go back and re-read the comment for the exact wording, but those are the numbers he gave. So, if that is what they believe, then, of course, who would want to hear from the 1%?
Guys like that are naked emperors; they don’t realize what their deep need to believe that women are sexually controlled by men most of the time says about them.
I find that if a reporter, blogger, journalist etc. who writes on a subject about which I have an interest, suddenly receives a load of ad-hominem attacks, it actually makes me more interested in discovering what attracted the attacks in the first place.
I guess you will see this…but just in case.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2120110/Spanish-police-investigating-Madrid-prostitution-ring-free-woman-19-ownership-tattoo-wrist.html
Damn. Sounds horrible. Strange, though, that El País (the main Spanish newspaper and a paper that many say is the best in the world) hasn’t written anything about this yet.
Another strange thing is that I don’t know of any other city where street walkers say that they PREFER working on the streets, because they have more freedom and they feel safer. After all, on the Calle Montera, which is featured in that article, they actually built a new police station a few years back to better monitor things. In fact, one night when I was there last summer, there was a big crowd of prostitutes–like 35–gathered around the police station vigorously complaining about something.
It’s instructive, and dreadful, to read that savage, blinkered thread on Feministe.
I wonder if you fully realize, gentle rationalist that you are, how bitterly you are hated by their hive-mind.–
Probably not; I’ve never been able to comprehend hate at all. I mean, I can understand anger, disgust, that sort of thing; I can understand feeling revulsion in someone’s presence and wanting to be far away from him. But I can’t comprehend feeling that anti-love, that obsession with a person one can’t stand. It’s totally counterintuitive to me; if I dislike someone I want not to think about him. 🙁
Hate often rises out of fear. In the Neofems’ case, fear of men, fear of their own sexuality (or lack of it), and fear of other women who are NOT fearful like them.
You’re right. But many women do have very good reasons to fear men, no? The problem–and I totally agree with Maggie here–is that 2nd Wave Feminism adopted the Marxian notion of the base and superstructure to explain what is going on. And I do not blame them for adopting such a notion at the time, i.e. the 50s, or in countries still today that give women very few rights.
The superstructure is ideology–laws, the media, public discourse–which ALL work to maintain the base relations, in this case, to oppress women and keep men on top. Any women who “participate” in this ideology–such as women who like to show off their body–suffer from “false consciousness, ie, they are stupid and unaware that their actions are all part of the grand plot of the patriarchy.
So, impressionable undergrads and women who have experienced abuse, when they learn about this 2nd Wave notion, suddenly feel that they FINALLY know the enemy. The enemy is the entertainment industry, the porn industry, the advertising industry, the cosmetics industry, etc, etc. For them, decrying the advertisinng industry for portraying women as “objects” is one and the same as decrying rape. And if you defend any of these industries, you are also defending rape, since all this is a part of the superstructure that has as it’s aim the perpetuation of the patriarchy.
Unfortunately for them, Foucault and the Third Wave has shown us how totally problematic that Marxian notion is. They have shown us that power has multiple sources (not just top-down) and that every one has a hyphenated identity, for example, she is not just a woman, she is a poor, Mexican-American living in the deep South.
Ah yes, the theory of the kyriarchy. Certainly that makes more sense than the idea that the all-powerful patriarchy just happens to give the neofems (from Jeffreys to Raymond, from Daly to Dines) good jobs in academia.
Thanks, gumdeo! I hadn’t heard of “kyriarchy.” Looks very interesting!
Congratulations Maggie. If you are getting this type of reaction, it means that you are hitting too close to their own self-delusions. As Carol Leigh said in “Unrepentant Prostitute,” (paraphrasing here), “I would have gotten along with feminists in the “70’s fine, except I liked penises too much.”
Sex with males is not rape, my feminist friends, unless their is a real element of coercion, not an imagined one.
[…] with a quote from retired prostitute and occasional guest blogger Maggie McNeill, writing about advocating for sex workers: For any given issue there are three positions: Those who are strongly for it, those who are […]
“For any given issue there are three positions: Those who are strongly for it, those who are strongly against it, and those who don’t have a strong opinion either way. And no matter what fanatics and demagogues may tell you, the third is nearly always the largest group on any issue. When trying to sway public opinion, therefore, the wise writer or speaker targets that middle group, the “silent majority”. ”
This is one of the few things I’ve read that give me any hope at all about the future of this country. The idea that there actually is a silent majority who can be convinced ..by logic? Reason? Even…science? –gasp- Reproducible results? –faints–
Here’s hoping, Maggie.
The bad part is, they can ALSO be convinced by emotion and nonsense. It can go either way, which is why it’s so important for activists to keep putting the truth out there and debunking the lies. That’s the truth’s one big advantage: it can’t be debunked, only lied about.
“That’s the truth’s one big advantage: it can’t be debunked, only lied about.”
I’m tempted to make that my new sig.