feminist blogs

INCITE! is one of my favorite feminist organizing projects and I’m excited to spread the word about their gorgeous new website. If you don’t already know about their amazing anthology, The Color of Violence, I highly recommend picking it up (especially since I helped craft the chapter that intersects with trans issues, toot toot.) Even if you don’t have a copy, the website is right at your fingertips, right now. Go check it out!

I especially want to draw your attention to one of the centerpieces of their website launch, the Organizing Toolkit To Stop Law Enforcement Violence Against Women of Color & Trans People of Color. If you have any doubts as to whether police brutality is a feminist issue, their analysis does a much better job of explaining than I have recently. Their toolkit highlights the fact that law enforcement violence against women and trans people often becomes invisible, while at the same time stressing the need to work in coalition with other organizations that struggle against the police state, institutionalized violence against people of color, immigrant rights, and so forth. (See in particular the joint statement put out by INCITE! and Critical Resistance, the prison abolitionist organization founded by Angela Davis and others.) They’re simultaneously working to integrate a gender analysis into conversations about police brutality, and also raise awareness that this isn’t just a problem that happens to young, straight black men.

INCITE!’s toolkit addresses everything from law enforcement violence against marginalized women and trans folks on the streets to violence in immigration practices and against native communities, police brutality against sex workers, and strategies for community accountability — which could be an alternative to calling the police, especially for people and communities who can’t always do that. I’ll quote a couple of my favorite sections after the jump.

Also, check out this sweet poster version.
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I already posted about reading one sex worker’s blog; that’s not the only one that got my attention recently.

I’ve been reading College Call Girl. She has been on a bit of a break for the last three weeks, and I don’t know her personally, so I have no idea when or if she’s coming back, but I keep hoping.

Now, some folks may think that this is light reading, or one-handed reading. And sometimes it is. But she alternates between the glib and hot, soul-searching, and flat-out patriarchy-blaming; so that passages like this:

Even with all the admittedly sinful diddling and fingering and rubbing and stroking I had done before, I had never once done something as terrible, as sacrilegious as what I found myself doing now.

I was masturbating to the Bible.

I don’t remember what section in particular it was that got me so steamed up, although I think it was in the Old Testament.

rub shoulders with passages like this:

One of the cruelest tragedies of the sex industry is that it attracts girls like me who already have skewed ideas about sex and self-worth and then completely reinforces all our secret fears. The men you meet, the whole lifestyle, whispers to you that you were right all along, that all that really matters is being desired.

I still struggle every day to change my thinking. It makes me almost sick to my stomach to meet new people whether in a personal or professional capacity, because I worry they will not think I am pretty. Most of my friends are men with whom I have had former dalliances because I just do not feel comfortable around people who I don’t know with certainty find me sexually attractive. In my head, my worth is completely tied up in my appearance and sex. As a result of being abused at a young age, my thinking is fucked. There is something wrong with my brain. No matter how logically I know that who I am is more important than how sexy I look, I have internalized the lesson that it is my sexuality that makes me lovable.

Of course, this is a trap that will keep me perpetually insecure because not everyone is always going to be attracted to me. When you feel that perfectly normal fact as a deep blow to your self-esteem, it’s impossible to ever really feel confident.

She’s not a representative sample; she’s one woman from a particular social position (white, class-privileged, etc.). She doesn’t represent all sex workers — nobody could, or should, or should be expected to. She represents her own experience; which is ambiguous and nuanced. She both loves and hates sex work; she’s honest about keeping it light to keep her audience entertained, and honest that she knows this glamorizes and whitewashes her own experiences:

But there’s another side to this deal that I’m afraid I haven’t shown you. It’s not easy to write about prostitution in a totally honest way because it is painful… I am a tangle of contradictions. I am not ashamed of my choices and I will fully defend mine or anyone else’s right to make them. But when you ask me if you should do this? My immediate instinct is a loud, desperate no.

Along her road of self-reflective posts, CCG put up one that I’ll probably never forget, [Trigger Warning] the sort of speaking out that one woman can do to make thousands of other women feel less alone:

The Number is Eight

I have been sexually assaulted more than once. Each time that it happened to me, I felt that extenuating circumstances kept it from truly being rape. I was working as a prostitute, he was my boyfriend, I was drunk, I got in the car. I never believed that I had fought hard enough. I made excuses for the men who hurt me; I told myself “he didn’t know what he was doing.” When I spoke about my experiences with sexual assault (which I did very rarely), I would say only that “a lot of bad things have happened to me.”

And she lists them. And she tells the story. And every one will resonate with some woman out there who reads it, who will know that it wasn’t just her; that it wasn’t her fault; that what happened to her was wrong.

Nothing I ever write will matter that much.

The “D.C. Madam” has committed suicide.

Opinions among feminist about sex work vary widely, but I think we probably all agree about one thing: no just system would make things worse for the women that do the sex work, than for the men who act as customers. Yet, this blog has covered before, in this case, the johns were spared public humiliation, but the sex workers were dragged up on the stand and asked painfully invasive questions. This is not the first suicide in the case; according to the story, one of the women who worked for the service previously killed herself. A culture that puts women in a position of doing sex work and then so shames them and persecutes them for it that they take their own lives is deeply sick.

Some of you know me from the comments, and from my past guest spots here. I’ll be around to fill in for a couple of weeks. I’m not big on introductions.

Back when the Spitzer story broke, there were posts (notably this one) here and a lot of discussion about sex work. Whenever that happens, someone reminds us (err … I mean “me”) that, whatever the rest of us have to say about sex work, sex workers can and do speak for themselves. Renegade Evolution, the last link and no stranger to Feministe’s comment threads, is one, and her blog links more. Lately, I have been reading another.

Those of you who read certain blogs by women of color, Sudy’s for example or BlackAmazon’s, may have run across Joan Kelly in the comments or even visited her blog. She does the kind of writing that there isn’t space for anywhere else but blogs; she lays out long-form personal ruminations and self-exploration. Lots of people do that, and not all of them well.

(As an aside, BA’s blog is now apparently friendlocked in the wake of the dual Marcotte controversies and dual Seal Press controversies; a sad loss for those of us who had a lot to learn from her. Sudy’s is still up and her Saturday post in particular requires readers to employ real intellectual chops. I recommend reading it and ruminating.)

I first saw Joan comment on Feministing, a year or more ago, and I thought, “it can’t be that Joan Kelly.” But it was: the former professional submissive Marnie, already a published memoirist. The book focuses on her work in the pro BSDM scene and skews heavily positive. On her blog, she deals with class issues and and race and racism and with white privilege a lot, and links WOC blogs heavily. She also deals both with sex work and with BDSM, but she is much more critical. Including sometimes pretty self-critical.

(That’s an endorsement of her writing ability, her intelligence and her willingness to dig into issues, though certainly not agreement with everything she says.)

I’m always impressed with bloggers who are willing to dig both hands into deeply personal stuff; as Jill posted about recently, it’s hard to do. Carol Hanisch recently reminded all of us, 38 years after the original was published, what she meant by “the personal is political.” And reading Hanisch’s new intro has reminded me that women’s stories about their lives, about the “personal” misogyny and indignities of patriarchy, should not be dismissed as “personal,” that in sharing them the pattern emerges and the structural nature of these dynamics is laid bare — to quote Hanisch, “women are messed over, not messed up.” Women who share their deeply personal stories do a service of inestimable value to other women and to male allies. Joan did that this month, posting frankly about her past experience being raped by a coworker and sometime lover. It was one of those posts that I expect lots of folks would write and erase instead of posting. But she didn’t. She put it up.

As the Spitzer scandal burns down into its coal-like embers, there’s been a lot of discussion about the nature of sex work as well as what society’s response to it should be. Legalization? The Swedish model? Or something else? Should we be looking at sex work as another kind of labor in which people–especially oppressed people–are victimized, coerced, trafficked and usually unable to exercise control over their work and their pay? Or is it somehow inherently different and deserving of different treatment? I don’t pretend to have all or even any of the answers to all of this. I’m not a sex worker myself, and since it seems clear to me that sex workers themselves are especially marginalized and victimized from multiple sides (traffickers, coercive environments, the dangers of a black market, bad clients, the hostile anti-prostitute stigmas of our culture, and not least law enforcement) I tend to think we should work to give sex workers–especially the most marginalized and silenced–more political voice and agency in how this industry is affected by theory, laws, policy, and practice. The most I can do on that front is try to be an ally to the current and former sex workers in my life, and to organizations that are run by and for sex workers and former sex workers.

One such organization is the Sex Workers Project here in New York City. Interestingly, they not only provide legal services to criminalized sex workers and victims of trafficking, but also worked with Elliot Spitzer and his office on the new laws aimed at stopping trafficking. The most ironic tidbit? Spitzer actually pushed to increase penalties for those who buy sex, such as himself. The Sex Workers Project actually opposed those penalties, and I wanted to know their thoughts on the Swedish model for reducing demand and other current hot topics. Last Wednesday, I got in touch a friend of mine: Sienna Baskin, who’s one of the attorneys there. It’s not the usual kind of thing for Feministe, but I thought I’d post our interview. It may raise more questions for many readers than it answers, of course–but in my book, that is never a bad thing, and of course it’s why we have the comments.

Holly: First off, tell me a little about the Sex Workers Project and what you guys do?

Sienna: Sure. We are a non-profit that provides free legal services to sex workers and victims of trafficking. We’re part of a larger organization—the Urban Justice Center, which has 8 different projects all supporting poor people’s rights. Clients come to us with questions about their immigration status, housing, criminal arrests, custody of their kids, employment problems, all of the legal problems that flow from being part of a stigmatized and criminalized community, We also connect them up with social services if necessary, do know your rights trainings for sex workers and work in close alliance with sex workers groups.We also do policy work on state, national, and international levels.
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I've stopped blogging for a few reasons, 1) because I've been really busy with work and the SPCA and my "real life" and 2) because I've just grown really weary of the same old blog wars being fought over and over and over.

I realize that not all feminists agree with one another or have the same priorities and I kind of don't give a shit. I'm so over the bickering back an forth over small and large things with other women.

There are plenty of MEN with actual POWER who are ACTIVELY trying to harm women - financially, spiritually, sexually, physically, and emotionally. I feel like my anger and resentment and outrage are better directed at them rather than other women who may or may not share their same goals.

Yes, there are women who are assholes and who are trying to fuck shit up for other women, but there are ten times as many men doing the same shit or worse and that's where I want to focus my attention.

So here are some things that have been running through my mind lately:

* Since when did they revoke a woman's "right" to pole dance?
* Since when did they shut down the strip clubs and end prostitution?
* Since when did they end racist, sexist pornography, advertising, television programs, radio shows etc. being broadcast?

As far as I know, the answer is since never. All of those things are increasing exponentially and becoming more and more mainstream and normalized and "appreciated" by liberals and conservatives alike so I'm not sure why the pro-porn crowd is so fixated on shutting up radical feminists. It's not like anyone listens to us or respects us or cares about what we have to say anyway.

Also:

* If stripping and porn are so "empowering", why don't more feminist women aspire to it and more feminist parents encourage their daughters to pursue it?
* If porn and prostitution are so "empowering", why do the majority of porn stars and prostitutes try to retire as soon as possible or move "up the ladder" into pimping instead of continuing to do porn or turn tricks? (i.e. Why is Jenna Jameson writing books now instead of still starring in porn?)
* If you're a "sex-positive" feminist do you use prostitutes? Why or why not?
* If you're a "sex-positive" feminist why aren't you a prostitute or a stripper or a porn star?
* If you think sexwork is so positive and feminist and empowering why aren't you doing it?

It just seems like in theory sexwork is AWESOME! But the sad fact of the matter is that sexwork isn't just theory, it's real life and women and children are raped, battered, abused, kidnapped, tortured, trafficked and murdered everyday as a result of the sex "industry" and men's demands for new, younger victims, and more degrading, disgusting fetishes.

No one is taking away your dirty magazines or your stripper poles or your HOOTERS girls, for the love of Maude, so I have no idea why there's such a concerted effort to terrorize and harass and shutdown radfem blogs.

Why don't you stop acting like the victim of radical feminists who have exactly zero power and focus on the TRUE victims of sexwork and work with us to end trafficking and exploitation and child rape?

"Sex-positive" feminists say they are against trafficking and want to help the victims who want to get out but whenever radical feminists talk or write about that, "sex-positive" feminists always seem to turn the discussion back to the so-called "happy hookers". If we were talking about ending world hunger would the focus always have to be on middle-class women and fad diets? Those who choose to skip meals?

Anyway, that's what I've been thinking lately, and why I haven't been posting. It's just exhuasting to read all the same old bullshit everyday when there's real fucking work to be done. I've been doing it instead of just reading or arguing about it.

School starts on Monday so I'm thinking about closing this blog. I don't have the time to monitor it anymore and I don't want to worry about it being hacked or destroyed by MRAs and their supporters like so many of my favorite radfem blogs have been lately. I'm going to leave it up for now, but you might want to bookmark any of your favorite blogs in my blogroll just in case.

Namaste.

my ass.

SFPD veteran charged in molest case

Sgt. Donald Forte, 58, was charged by Alameda County prosecutors with committing a lewd and lascivious act with a child of 14 or 15 years of age by someone at least 10 years older. He was released from Santa Rita Jail in Dublin on Friday after posting bail.

The girl was a 14-year-old prostitute whom Forte picked up on the 1700 block of International Boulevard in East Oakland on Thursday night, police said. The sergeant alleged agreed to pay her $50 and took her to Calcot Place, a dead-end street near the 23rd Avenue on-ramp to Interstate 880, police said.

I wonder how "empowered" and "independent" and "free" she was to "choose" the glorious life of prostitution, to be raped and molested by those who are paid to protect her.

Totally vomit inducing, especially after reading all the pro-john bullshit over on that feministe thread.

Everyone goes on and on and on about how important it is to listen to sexworkers when it comes to their health and safety, but apparently that only extends to the sexworkers who say what the pro-pornstitution crowd want to hear. When radfems want to discuss the health and safety of the vast majority of sexworkers and what they actually say, the ones who want out immediately, we're accused of disrespecting and derailing.

Well excuse the fuck out of me, but I totally don't respect a bunch of johns defending their right to a ceaseless supply of pussy and I'd like to see every last one of them behind bars.

It's always about "free" with them. A brief look at what some of my latest visitors were searching for when they found me. These are all unique searches from different ISPs, mind you.

donkey shows xxx
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give me some hot cunt girls that love to fuck email address so i can talk to them
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pitchers girl and boys having sex

It's disturbing on many levels, not the least of which is how specific they are in what they're looking for, but also in the deep hatred of women and girls they so clearly possess. (And how stupid they are. "Pitchers"? Evil fucking morons.)

Granted, there are numberous searches for "free xxx porn", but the overwhelming majority of searches I get come from these specifically disgusting, hate filled requests. It really makes me look at everyone differently now. I wonder if the UPS man or or the MUNI driver or the guy who owns the deli where I get my salad every day could be one of these perverts. It's so fucking depressing.

Why come up with original content when Sam is such a genius and I can just copy and paste hers?(Her comments in bold.)

Decriminalizing Prostitution Can Stop Illegal Brothels, Trafficking of Women and Increase Public Health and Safety.

1.) If prostitution were decriminalized there would be no illegal black market for sex slaves. If we remove the profit incentive, we remove the motivation of the traffickers.

Decriminalization doesn't remove the profit motive from forcing women into prostitution because a poke at a woman's pussy, anus and/or mouth is still worth several hundreds dollars a trick and that's very incentive-full profit. Legal maids and fruit-pickers haven't reduced trafficking for domestic and farm labor.

2.) If prostitution were decriminalized the existing zoning laws would prevent brothels from opening in residential neighborhoods. Laws that apply to legitimate businesses would also apply to brothels.

Pimps who don't give a fuck about rape, murder, kidnapping and zoning laws now won't suddenly give a fuck about zoning laws after decriminalization.

3.) If prostitution were decriminalized licensed brothel owners would not jeopardize their business by hiring illegal, underage trafficked women.

You mean like this New Zealand brothel owner who sold raping privileges to 24 men who wanted to rape a 14-year old girl in the care of Child, Youth and Family Services?

4.) If prostitution were decriminalized it would allow law enforcement the ability to concentrate on determining and distinguishing between child prostitution and consensual adult prostitution.

The simple fact of age already distinguishes children from adults.

5.) If prostitution were decriminalized it will help eliminate pimps by providing prostitutes with occupational choices.

The occupational choice to be a prostitute is almost always made by the pimp, not the prostitute. She makes it sound as if prostitutes choose pimps instead of pimps choosing prostitutes.

6.) If prostitution were decriminalized it would help prevent violent offenders from remaining on the streets. With equal protections under the law prostitutes could report assaults perpetrated against them or others without fear of prosecution.

Cause that worked so well for the legal stripper in the Duke case and strippers everywhere.

7.) If prostitution were decriminalized it would promote the mental health of prostitutes. Many women involved in sex work feel ashamed because they are criminals.

And here I thought it was a neverending line of men dumping their semen into prostituted women like toilets before beating/burning/choking/slashing/kicking the living shit out of them that caused their PTSD, but no, it's just the same stigma of criminalization that makes marijuana dealers commit suicide regularly and not the gobs of violence tricks and pimps heap on prostituted women making them suicidal in skewed numbers.

8.) If prostitution were decriminalized it would improve health education, STD and AIDS prevention outreach. Education will allow people to make safer choices about sexual health. Police using condoms as evidence of a crime does not promote safe sex.

These things not only can be greatly improved without allowing men unlimited sexual access to women, but since the global health community has pegged "male sexual predation" as the core problem of AIDS then honest sex ed combined with reducing male sexual predation in all its forms, including prostitution, would go much further in reducing not only AIDS but the rape, incest, and marital infidelity that men's belief in their entitlement to sex breeds.

9.) Laws against prostitution have no effect on demand, but have a profound effect on the safety of sex workers and society as a whole.

If British men can learn to double their demand for prostitutes in ten years (1995-2005) then it follows that British men can also learn to reduce their use of prostitutes in ten years. If men's demand can go up then men's demand can go down, and there's plenty of research refuting the myth of men's immovable tricking behaviors. http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchArticle.action?articleURI=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0000060

10.) A criminal record impedes mobility from the sex industry to other occupations. If prostitution were decriminalized sex workers would be able to move from one occupation to another without discrimination.

Ah, the beauty of the Swedish model shines its Promethean light again.

Once, not even that long ago, I was a total moron and posted something on my older, stupider blog, like i *heart* porn! and then listed a bunch of half-assed, ill-informed reasons why.

I really don't know who the fuck I was kidding though, because I remember watching porn regularly with my then boyfriend and frequently feeling incredibly sad, hurt, inadequate, and scared. But rather than voice any of those feelings, I just kept announcing i *heart* porn! like it was some badge of honor and proof that I was a totally "cool" and "open-minded" chick.

I did everything I could to convince myself that porn was great and feminist and empowerful and that only ignorant prudes couldn't handle it. Sadly, I fell for it for far longer than I care to admit. I even had an I *heart* Porn! lighter that I'd received from a friend's husband which I sported proudly at every happy hour. I was such the asshole.

Needless to say, the lighter and the friends and I have long since parted company.

As my feminism has evolved and I've become more involved in the movement to end violence against women, my views on pornography have evolved as well. I've listened to women's stories, become better informed, and with that knowledge comes responsibility. I've since gone from *hearting* it to HATING it, and here's why:

Once she started giving her own answers to questions and trying to explain her years of coercion, she discovered that reporters were reluctant to rush into print. Her story was depressing, not glamorous or titillating at all. Because she had been passed around like a sexual trading coin, sometimes to men who were famous, there was also fear of lawsuits.

Only in 1978, when she was interviewed by Mike McGrady, a respected newspaper reporter on Long Island where she had moved with her new husband, did her story begin the long process of reaching the public. McGrady believed her. In order to convince publishers, he also put he through an eleven-hour lie-detector test with the former chief polygraphist of the New York district attorney's office, a test that included great detail and brutal cross-questioning. But even with those results and with McGrady himself as a collaborator, several major book publishers turned down the manuscript.[...]

One wonders: Would a male political prisoner or hostage telling a similar story have been so disbelieved? Ordeal attacks the myth of female masochism that insists women enjoy sexual domination and even pain, but prostitution and pornography are big businesses built on that myth. When challenged about her inability to escape earlier, Linda wrote: "I can understand why some people have such trouble accepting the truth. When I was younger, when I heard about a woman being raped, my secret feeling was that could never happen to me, I would never permit it to happen. Now I realize that can be about as meaningful as saying I won't permit an avalanche."

The Real Linda Lovelace - By Gloria Steinem
Excerpt From Making Violence Sexy: Feminist Views on Pornography

Awhile back, I wrote a letter to the editors at Bitch about Linda Boreman's story which they never published*. It was in response to an article they'd published highlighting the empowerfulness of sex work and neglecting to note the dangerous, enslavery side of it. The article made note of Deep Throat being the highest grossing porn film of all time, but didn't bother to mention that Linda Lovelace/Boreman said that anyone who watches that film is watching her rape.

Fancy that - a feminist magazine failing to mention porn's connection to rape when they have an actual, real-life example. They wouldn't want to bring anybody down or diminish sales by pointing out that a movie that millions of men have jerked off to was the filmed rape and torture of a real, live, woman. Like Linda said, "I just thank God today that they weren't making snuff movies back then."

Another reason I hate porn is because of the people who thrive on it. Those pillars of society and beacons of women's liberation who search the 'net for such empowerful film subjects as "free pics of hot incest", "girls treated like dogs porn", "shits in a girls mouth", "free porn snuff videos", "xxx incest free", "father and daughter porn xxx pictures", "girls pony sex porn", "hot underage girls being raped pics free vids" and so on, all of which are actual search terms perverted fuckwads have used in the last 24 hours, disappointed I'm sure, to find my blog instead.

I wish more people would wake up to the reality of porn and realize what it is they're actually contributing to; that they're perpetuating the myth that women enjoy objectification, subordination, and abuse. They are creating a demand for a product that by it's very nature ensures that thousands upon thousands of women and children will be raped, tortured, abused, and enslaved, world without end.
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* Interestingly, they published only one letter about the article and it was positive. They laughingly noted in the Letters to the Editor column how they'd expected to receive more negative feedback and had been surprised to get just the one positive letter. So I resubmitted my letter via email and post yet they still never published it. I'm not saying they were intentionally silencing dissenting voices or anything, but that's what it felt like.