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Posts Tagged ‘Bad Fantasy-Good Reality’

That Was the Week That Was (#7)

Posted in Current Events, History, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 24, 2012| 29 Comments »

Why?  It paid the rent.  –  Marilyn Monroe (on posing nude)

Ten updates from the seventh week of 2012.

Whore Madonnas (August 29th, 2010)

“The classic Madonna/whore fallacy teaches that women can be one or the other, but as I’ve said many, many times before this is complete and utter hogwash.  Any normal woman is capable of playing either role as required or even both simultaneously, and about half of the girls who worked for me had children.  In fact, I think it’s safe to say that many women enter prostitution because of their children…”  Case in point, from Offbeat Mama:

…I have the perfect suburban mommy resume [but] I keep a huge secret from my family, neighbors, and friends…I’m an escort…Scoop those jaws up off of the floor, moms and dads, because…it could happen to you.  I don’t mean you’ll be trafficked into sex work by some skeevy creeper on the internet — I mean that you may some day be in a position you never dreamed you’d be in doing things you never saw yourself doing in order to make ends meet…And you know what?  It’s not horrible.  I don’t hate my life.  In fact, sometimes I think I have it better than most American moms.  I work on the evenings and weekends the kids are at their father’s place…They never even know I’m gone.  Then when they are with me, I get to be a devoted single stay-at-home mom…

The piece is well worth reading in its entirety, and even the comments are overwhelmingly positive!

BDSM (Part One) (September 15th, 2010)

OK, I like abduction fantasies as much as the next healthy woman, but most of us have the sense not to act them out in public:

…Nikolas Harbar, 31, [of Portland, Oregon] was only “role-playing” when he…tied up his naked girlfriend, 26-year-old Stephanie Pelzner and threw her in the back of his Subaru [on Valentine’s Day]…but…a concerned witness [called the cops and when they arrived]… Pelzner confirmed that “she was voluntarily bound and nude”…[the couple was] arrested and charged with disorderly conduct, but released later that day.

Real People (February 6th, 2011)

Bethany St. James is a brothel prostitute who advocates extending the Nevada model to the whole United States.  And while I disagree with her belief that women can’t be trusted to manage our own sex lives, her recent essay in Huffington Post is excellent:

…when I recently appeared on a daytime talk show to discuss an article…I wrote…I was shocked to find that it was nearly impossible for the…audience to…fathom that a woman who works in the sex industry could be educated, happy and goal driven.  The stereotype that all prostitutes are drug addicted women with sad childhoods who’ve been reeled into a life of shame and disease…remains…prevalent.  No matter how I attempted to explain that just as in all professions, there are a multitude of factors and variables, my words seemed to have fallen on deaf ears…Not all sex workers and adult entertainers are the same, just as not all people within the same ethnic background are the same.  Although many women in the adult industry have problems, couldn’t the same be true of every profession?…there are college educated professionals with problems far worse that any prostitute I’ve known.  Job description alone should not be the sole factor when forming an opinion of a person…

Interview:  Jill Brenneman (Part Four) (February 24th, 2011)

One year ago today I published the final installment of my interview with activist and sex trafficking survivor Jill Brenneman; coincidentally, a Dutch website named Nederlandse Debatbond recently reposted her July 2010 article “Prohibitionists’ Comparing Sex Work and Straight Work:  They are Dead Wrong”, which originally appeared in Bound, Not Gagged.  If you’ve never read it, now’s your chance.

It’s Different Because It Involves Sex, Part Umpteen (June 16th, 2011)

Last year, judges in New York ruled that dancing isn’t dancing if it’s sexy.  That bizarre belief appears to be shared by a California woman who claims porn can’t be copyrighted:

…Hard Drive Productions…demanded $3,400 to make their threatened lawsuit go away but [Liuxia Wong] not only says she’s innocent and harassed, but also that porn cannot be copyrighted…In a lawsuit filed at the end of January, Wong says that she did not download the work in question and goes on to attack Hard Drive on a number of fronts…the alleged infringement [took] place [on] March 28th, 2011, but…the movie…wasn’t officially registered until April 22nd…[and though]…Hard Drive insist[ed] that [she] would be liable…even if her router was unsecured and someone else [used it] without her knowledge…Wong’s suit dismisses that…as “erroneous”.  But perhaps most interestingly, Wong is challenging the notion that Hard Drive can own the copyright to its own work – indeed, that porn can be copyrighted at all.

“…the Copyright Clause [of the US Constitution] empowers…Congress: ‘To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries,” the lawsuit details, adding:  “Early Circuit law in California held that obscene works did not promote the progress of science and the useful arts, and thus cannot be protected by copyright”…Wong is asking the court to…[declare] that not only is she not liable…for infringement, but that the company’s movie is not copyrightable and is illegal due to Hard Drive engaging in “solicitation, conspiracy to commit prostitution, pimping and/or pandering,” during its production…

While I’m sympathetic to Wong’s right to defend herself against those who misuse the law, that defense doesn’t require actions which are just as immoral as Hard Drive’s and could potentially cause a great deal of trouble and expense for others who aren’t even involved in the dispute.

Déjà Vu (June 25th, 2011)

This column examined the strong resemblance between the Victorian and modern incarnations of anti-whore rhetoric, and its epigram was from a letter sent to The Times by an anonymous prostitute in 1858.  Well, on February 11th Dr. Laura Agustín discussed the “fallen woman” metaphor and the persistent idea that whores need to be “rescued” from our “plight”; she also wrote of Charles Dickens’ involvement with a “rescue home” and mentioned that he once tried to “save” a woman who didn’t want “saving”…the very lady who wrote the letter from which my epigram came.  If you’d like to read that letter in its entirety, take a look at Dr. Agustín’s February 14th column.

An Ounce of Prevention (October 15th, 2011)

More news about potential HIV vaccines:

The discovery of HIV-resistant sex workers in Africa could pave the way for a more effective AIDS vaccine, according to a new study by University of Montreal researchers.  “Studying women who are naturally resistant…[may enable] researchers to…[develop] vaccinations or . . . gels that could prevent transmission of HIV,” said lead researcher, Dr. Michel Roger…”Our research shows that…we should turn to the entry points…to find a means for blocking the virus.”  The year-and-a-half-long study involved 52 commercial sex workers who were uninfected with HIV, 44 sex workers who were HIV-positive and 71 uninfected [non-prostitutes]…in Benin…researchers found that the…uninfected sex workers had fewer inflammatory molecules in the vagina than [HIV-positive] women…working under similar conditions.  “We have identified prostitutes, who of course, are highly exposed to the virus and some of them, they don’t get infected even though they practise in the same way as others, in the same building, with the same clients.  They don’t get infected after four, five, seven years of prostitution,” Roger [said]…this group of HIV-resistant women [even] had fewer inflammatory molecules than [non-prostitutes]…”we need to understand better the mucosal response against HIV in order to design an efficient vaccine,” he said.  This new kind of vaccine could be administered through the nose and would immunize all mucus membranes in the body…

Bad Fantasy, Good Reality (October 27th, 2011)

Another Western female academic studied Asian hostess bars and discovered that the women there are neither “degraded” nor “victimized”, but rather following a deliberate strategy:

…seven years of in-depth research into the hostess bar scene in Phnom Penh has revealed…that…aspirations and obligations drive the girls from the countryside to the cities in search of opportunity.  For many…it was…a personal desire to earn money, after seeing friends…return to the provinces bedecked in gold, make-up and new clothes…Upon arrival in the capital, the easiest and most fruitful job for a newcomer is work in a hostess bar, where the monthly salaries range from $60-$100.  On top of that, tips and ‘ladies drinks’ (a $1 surcharge added to drinks bought for them by customers, which is then given back in their wages) can increase their earnings to as much as $300 per month.  In a country where the average monthly salary for a teacher or police officer is approximately $60-$80…bar work is incredibly lucrative…and is considered by many to be more ‘fun’ than other unskilled employment options, such as garment factory work or street trading…Most women arrive unable to speak English, but learn within months…they enjoyed the friends they made and the financial power it gave them.  All people…need money to survive; they work because of economic…motivations.  These young women are no different.  This is not to glamorise the bars – there are plenty of downsides, such as structural inequalities, exploitative bosses, large fines and gropey customers who are sometimes racist and rude.  However, [they] can also be viewed as places of opportunity, which the women exploit in order to empower themselves and improve their lives…

…these women are highly stigmatised by wider Cambodian society.  And those who…supplement their incomes by trading in sex…are considered srey kouch or ‘broken whores’…traditionally strict moral and social rules…require ‘good women’ to stay at home and take care of their families, be indoors before dark, and remain virgins until marriage…[but] within their families, the ability to speak English, learn about life outside of Cambodia, socialise with foreigners, and use the internet to communicate are also all markers of prestige and status…On the one hand, they completely defy all the social rules of respectability, such as being submissive and ‘virtuous’.  Yet the high status their families receive as a result of material goods provided by the women sometimes helps [them] improve their reputations.  In the end, they are virtuous for the help they give to their families…bar workers and professional girlfriends…don’t want to be viewed as bad women or helpless victims of exploitation that are in need of rescuing…

The author, Dr Heidi Hoefinger of the University of London, is the author of the upcoming book Sex, Love and Money in Cambodia.

Legal Is As Legal Does (December 14th, 2011)

US law allows politicians and cops to tyrannize whores as they like, but in New Zealand even prohibiting streetwalkers from working in certain areas requires a new law:

…A bill that will allow Auckland Council to ban street prostitution in specific places is to be considered by the local government select committee.  Other city councils including Christchurch are expected to show interest and may seek to have the same powers applied generally…Chairwoman Nicky Wagner, who is MP for Christchurch Central, said…street prostitution in the inner city had moved out to the residential areas…[Manurewa MP George] Hawkins said he would have preferred to have had a bill amending the Prostitution Reform Act 2003 to outlaw street prostitution nationally…[but] the committee believed [that] would negate the intentions of the…Act…

The story also illustrates that freedom can never be taken for granted, because there will always be those who want to criminalize anything that isn’t currently criminal.

Moloch (January 29th, 2012)

Here’s another story of American “authorities” sacrificing kids to their filthy devil-god; the February 10th episode of the public radio show This American Life tells of attractive young police women posing as students in Florida high schools in order to ruin the lives of teenage boys by using their sex appeal to trick the boys into getting marijuana for them.  Once again, the sickness of American culture is revealed for the world to see:  Independent whoring to support one’s kids = degraded criminality, but whoring for the State Pimp to destroy innocent teenagers = heroic and laudable.

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Bad Fantasy, Good Reality

Posted in Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 27, 2011| 21 Comments »

Fantasy consists in a morbid fascination with unrealities, which secretly transforms itself into a desire to make them real.  –  Roger Scruton

One year ago today I published “Good Fantasy, Bad Reality”, about a Missouri case in which Ed and Marilyn Bagley were accused of torturing a young woman in extreme BDSM activities; the Bagleys say the activities were consensual, a view supported by several witnesses.  Were these people twisted monsters, inexperienced dominants who overstepped their bounds, foolish kinksters who failed to recognize that their sub was mentally disturbed enough to betray them under the influence of her family, or some combination of the three?  No matter what happens in court, the truth may never be known because it’s a sure bet every single person involved – defendants, alleged victim, witnesses, cops, prosecutors and even “expert witnesses” – is going to lie in an attempt to sell the jury his own version.

From the viewpoint of the American media, the truth isn’t even important; lurid fantasies of “trafficked sex slaves” are much more interesting to the hoi-polloi than Rashomon realities, so you can bet that any story involving prostitution or BDSM (or both, as this one does) is going to do its level best to make the “criminal” look malevolent and the “victim” look helpless.  Nowadays this is generally accomplished by claiming she was either a “child” or “mentally handicapped”; it was both in this case, and the cops in the Maurice and Toni Johnson case invoked both by claiming the alleged victim “functions on the level of a 10-year-old”.  But when neither claim is remotely credible, the yellow journalist can always fall back on “economically disadvantaged”, and if the so-called “victims” have brown skins and cross an international border to work, our reporter has hit the racist, paternalistic jackpot.  Women from developing countries can be portrayed as childlike, unsophisticated and economically disadvantaged, thus denying them agency and setting the stage for benevolent Americans to “rescue” them.  The truth, of course, is that most of them neither need nor want to be “saved”, and patronizing American demands that they be robbed of a livelihood “for their own good” show exactly how out of touch with reality politicians, moralists and neofeminists actually are.  And that’s what makes this two part-article by USC sociology professor Rhacel Salazar Parrenas (which appeared in Business Week on October 12th and 13th) so very satisfying:

A decade ago, the U.S. government determined that apart from terrorism, the gravest threat to democracy in the world was human trafficking…congressional hearings focused attention on what was said to be the forced labor, debt bondage and coerced migration of 800,000 individuals, 80 percent of whom supposedly were women and children, throughout the world…[and especially] in the sex industry.  The hearings culminated in…the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000…[which] requires the U.S. Department of State to submit to Congress an annual…Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report — describing the efforts of foreign governments to eliminate human trafficking.  A country that fails to take significant actions receives a “Tier 3” assessment, which can trigger the withholding of…assistance from the U.S.

According to the 2004 report, Filipinas who work as hostesses in clubs in Japan constituted the world’s largest group of sex-trafficked persons, making up more than 10 percent of those 800,000 victims.  They were identified as trafficked under the assumption of their “sexual exploitation”…After being placed on the Tier 2 Watch List, a deeply embarrassed Japan imposed new visa requirements and a more rigorous screening process for migrant entertainers from the Philippines…the number of Filipina hostesses…fell 90 percent, from 82,741 in 2004 to 8,607 in 2006.  This…poses a setback to the emancipation of women.  It has stripped thousands of migrant women of their livelihood, forcing them to stay at home, often in impoverished conditions…In a nine-month study in Tokyo in 2005 and 2006, I interviewed 56 Filipina hostesses and worked as a hostess myself.  None of the hostesses I encountered wanted to be rescued from their employment.  Most found that migration had made them breadwinners in their families, a position that granted them decision-making power and earned them the respect of their kin.  In some instances, participating in commercial flirtation allowed them to challenge conservative norms that limited the acceptable sexual activities of women.

…Filipina hostesses…perform sex work in that they titillate customers via commercial flirtation, [but not all] “sex work” is…“prostitution.”  It encompasses a wide array of services including flirtation and stripping — in addition to prostitution…For the most part, no one coerced my fellow hostesses to work in Japan.  They were not drugged, taken on planes and trapped in clubs.  No one lied to them or explicitly told them they would only be singing and dancing onstage.  This is not to say that migrant Filipina hostesses do not face serious problems.  First, middleman brokers who arrange for visas, transit and job placement charge high rates upfront, subjecting hostesses to what amounts to indentured servitude.  Once in Japan, hostesses cannot legally change clubs.  Because being undocumented is a crime, those who are fired and remain in Japan become dependent on their next employer and on other Filipinos who may exploit their vulnerability by withholding wages or overcharging them for housing.  Still, migrant Filipina entertainers see servitude abroad as a much better option than their other choice of immobility in the Philippines…

Regular readers will recognize not only Laura Agustín’s point that migration for work is nearly always freely chosen even when the conditions of employment are less than ideal, but also my mantra (and that of other vocal whores) that being paid for sex is empowering and being denied the right to be paid is harmful.  The second part of Parrenas’ article is longer and goes into detail about the clubs, so you may be interested in reading it in full.  But I want to call attention to this part:

…[At] first…I…struggled to meet hostesses willing to participate in my study of their conditions.  My visits to clubs as a customer had not provided any solid leads…Even hostesses whom I befriended had always declined my request for an interview.  I had assumed that they had experienced emotional distress from the stigma associated with their occupation.  I had come to Japan believing claims by other academics that “hostess work” was a euphemism for “prostitution”…[but] after I began working as a hostess, every person I approached agreed to talk to me…I had entered an unfamiliar sexual world…[which] has been condemned…for “crimes against humanity.”  Japanese hostess clubs…have been labeled by the U.S. Department of State as hotbeds of sexual trafficking…women are not just endlessly harassed, but supposedly also held against their will, forced into prostitution and made victims of sexual violence by lecherous Japanese men.  What I discovered, in fact, was that these women come to Japan voluntarily and gratefully, knowing what their jobs will be.  Very few engage in prostitution, and if they do, they do so willingly…hostesses view themselves as modern-day geisha…

This is a very important passage because it demonstrates the critical problem with the “rescue industry”; as long as “rescuers” remain outsiders, forcing their own ignorant and patronizing judgments on sex workers, they remain dangerous nuisances to those they claim they want to “help”.  Only by entering their world and sharing their experiences can feminists hope to understand sex workers…and once they do, the scales fall from their eyes.

…the “dohan” [paid date]…requires that a hostess spend some time with a customer outside the club…[and] guarantees at least one hour with the hostess inside the establishment…Most hostesses do not think a “dohan” harms them; they told me it was unlikely to mean coercive sex, though it might involve voluntary prostitution…hostesses on a “dohan” are sometimes envied, because they are often taken to a Filipino restaurant.  Yet the U.S. State Department cites the “dohan” as an indication that Filipina hostesses are sexually trafficked in Japan…[which] prompted Japan…to reduce the number of visas for Filipina hostesses by 90 percent.  Anti-trafficking and anti-prostitution crusaders counted this a triumph.  But no trafficking and very little prostitution was stopped, and 81,000 Filipinas lost their livelihoods.

Unsubstantiated claims of the forced prostitution of Filipina hostesses are morally charged, and divert attention from the need for regulation and protection of sex workers.  For Filipina hostesses, the goal should be job improvement, not job elimination.  What’s needed are laws to prevent abusive behavior by middleman brokers…Hostesses don’t need to be rescued.  They need the empowerment that comes from being independent labor migrants.  Only then can they remain gainfully employed…and have full control of their own lives.

Parrenas arrived in Japan believing prohibitionist dogma, and left a wiser woman who is now in a position to do sex workers some real good by speaking out.  She found that more than 10% of all women labeled as “trafficked” by prohibitionists are nothing of the kind; does anyone doubt the same can be said of most of the other 90%?

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