I’ve noticed an annoying trend of late: people including my screen name on Twitter so as to summon me into an argument they’re having with prohibitionist wackos. Please don’t do that.
No, that isn’t nearly strong enough: Don’t Fucking Do That.
There are a number of reasons why this is a colossally bad idea, but I’m just going to list a few of them. First, I don’t debate prohibitionists because it lends them credibility and gives them a platform from which to regale people with their nasty “sex trafficking” wanking fantasies, yet accomplishes absolutely nothing positive because the head of a prohibitionist is “so stuffed with the reality-denying rubbish of his belief system that there is no room for facts“. Next, I’ve already been over all this territory hundreds of times, and it’s an obscene waste for me to even be asked to “restate the content of my entire professional oeuvre in convenient 140-character sound bites” when it’s all right here on my blog. I’m not a fucking monkey to dance for the amusement of internet randos with absolutely no power to change bad laws, nor am I an attack dog to be whistled up to dispatch annoyances you could easily just mute as I do. It isn’t just that these people aren’t offering to compensate me for my valuable time, though obviously that’s bad enough; it’s also that (and this may be the most important point) I don’t fucking accept being told what to do by anybody, and the best way to get me not to do something is to demand, order, threaten, or attempt to trick, shame or intimidate me into doing it (and don’t even think of using reverse psychology on me, either). I’ve always been this way; it’s one of the reasons my mother and I never got along, and why I so often ended up in the principal’s office despite being a straight-A student and a basically well-behaved kid, why no square job other than librarian ever lasted more than six months, and why every husband, boyfriend & male friend I’ve ever had has yelled at me at least once for flying up in a cop’s face. I do not acknowledge that anyone has “legitimate” authority over me, so the second anyone acts as though they’re entitled to my time, energy, resources or (especially) obedience, any chance of their getting what they want goes down the toilet. You want something from me? Ask nicely, in private, and offer to compensate me. But if the request is “please come beat up these idiots for me”, I’ll most likely just point out that it’s impossible to reason someone ought of a position he didn’t reason himself into, and suggest you mute them rather than letting them steal your time and energy.
