Lots of girls get bad reputations.
from Bikini Kill: Girl Power (Issue #2)
It is really obnoxious when feminists assume that sex trade workers don't know what they are doing, and have been "duped" by the patriarchy. I mean, do they honestly think that you take off your clothes and get up naked in front of a room full of men who wanna stick dollar bills in your butt, and ARE UNAWARE that you are being exploited? Come on....it's a fucking job, and like all jobs, it sucks. I, personally decided to become a sex trade worker cuz I feel a lot less exploited making $20 an hour for dancing around naked than I do getting paid $4.25 an hour (and being physically, psychicly and sometimes sexually exploited) as a waitress or burgerslinger.
As a woman who lives in a fucked up hierarchical based society where men almost always have power over me (as bosses and stuff), why do certain feminists want to penalize me for choosing an obvious form of exploitation instead of a subtle, lower paying one? And why are they assuming that my choice is based on my "false consciousness" or some shit, when in reality it is much more likely based on the fact that women (esp. women of color, women without degrees, etc...) don't have any jobs that can offer them the same financial and scheduling benefits that sex trade work (sometimes) does.
Penalizing women who are sex trade workers, making us pay fines (there is already a really oppressive and fucked up fining system in most west coast clubs) and register with the police is not gonna make men stop abusing women...and that is really the main priority in my mind. I mean, men who hold guns to women's heads and make them have sex with other men or pose for pictures or act in videos, are not gonna comply with ANY laws anyways. Likewise, guys who're doing child porn (which's already illegal) are not gonna take the kids they're abusing and take them down to the police station and try to pass them off as 18 year olds. GET REAL. Legislating against porn is not a legitimate feminist priority if our main objectives are to support victims/survivors of abuse and prevent further abuses from occurring. It would be more beneficial to support current work being done within the battered women's/rape relief movement, to help create more jobs for women without "official" educations, to make your own pornography that is not based on powertrips or abuse, and to stop treating prostitutes and sex trade workers like non-beings.
It's so fucking obvious....the closer porn gets to being illegalized, the worse it gets for marginalized women. I mean, obviously lesbians are gonna be among the very first people who get censored.
Illegalization will also make it harder for sex trade workers to: *Organize themselves *Come forward as victims of sexual harassment and other crimes (it's already a common belief, esp. among cops, that prostitutes cannot be raped) *It will further stigmatize a group of people who're already discriminated against and stereotyped as "sluts." Also, illegalized, porn will just increase its value in the underground trade and be much harder to monitor in any way. (What do we care, it'll only be women who'll die)
AND YES I do recognize porn (and erotica, the middle class' acceptable yet essentially The Same, answer to hardcore porn) as part of the target network of anti-female propaganda....but I do not see fining sex trade workers as an acceptable feminist solution, that is if feminism's goal is to make things better for ALL WOMEN and not just ones with goodgirl type jobs. We should not be willing to sacrifice sex trade workers and lesbians on the altar of feminist fucking righteousness, no matter now hungry for change we are.
AND NO I don't wanna have to look at stupidlame images that enc. dumb sexist shit, but I do not want the cops, my Dad, the judges or the politicians deciding what is offensive and what isn't.
These things aren't simple and by making it seem like there are only two viewpoints, pro or anti-porn...we are glossing over specifics, discouraging dialogue and silencing those of us who are trying to make up new ways of thinking about this stuff. We need to get past this archaic concentration on who is right and who is wrong and move on to forming strategies. Us women and girls can take matters into our own hands if we want to. We could destroy/steal all the violent fuckporn that pisses us off and affect the real people who're profiting from female exploitation (business owners and manufacturers) without hurting the women who work for them. We can build tight communities based on protecting each other during these actions, and who knows, maybe some of us will be using the money we make stripping to buy spraypaint and big marking pens. It's an idea.......................
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