Specifically, its name is Femen.
If you haven’t heard of this group of twits and twats, they are an especially obnoxious feminist group that does topless protests and rants incessantly against the sex industry (And Islam. And hijab. And, apparently, fat women). They are so very concerned about the safety of women, they even storm the stage when one is performing and assault her in front of an audience! And brag about it! Initially, I had a link here to the video of the heckling and stage-storming but curiously the video is not working at the moment.
As someone who spent most of her childhood and adolescent years as a stage performer, I have a deep seated hatred of hecklers of any sort. It’s distracting, rude, and unnecessary. I’d rather someone silently walk out of a performance than to purposely distract the performers. It takes a lot to get up on a stage and entertain a group of people. And if there are multiple performers on one bill, heckling one performer unnerves all the other performers. On that point alone, Femen deserves nothing but criticism and ridicule.
Not to mention their ridiculous xenophobia and racism, as noted by this group of Muslimah. I’m all for new ways to call attention to a political cause, but not when it reeks with hypocrisy. This nudity is okay for Femen because they cover their naked skin with cliched, butthurt slogans about the EVILS OF PATRIARCHY!!!!; however, nudity is not okay when one turns it into a money maker. M’kay. Telling female sex workers to commit self-rape (how the fuck does that work, again?) is okay and apparently different from…rape-rape? I don’t understand their mentality.
And again, WHERE is the mainstream feminist outrage at displays such as this? Where is Meghan “there is no feminist war on sex workers” Murphy, and others, denouncing the public assault of a sex worker by a self-identified feminist group? Stella Marr? Wouldn’t this be “triggering” for you, as a self-identified former victim of violence in sex work? How does this event not count as violence in sex work? Ms. Steinem? Mr. Kristof? Ms. Mam? Can’t put down the Perrier-Jouët for a second and talk about how any violence against any sex worker is the work of those Big Bad Traffickers & Exploiters and not of those who want to help?
Ah, but of course. Their concern was never about accepting sex workers as they are, nor their choices, nor their varied circumstances, nor addressing actual nuanced concerns within the industry instead of generalizations and strawmen big enough to put a wicker man to shame. Just personal squicks made into laws and statutes that, in the short and long term help no one except career politicians and lobbyists.
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