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Sad to say that 77 year old Dr. Sue Johansen will be ending her Oxygen network show this Sunday evening.

Best quote ever:

77-year-old Sue said, "It's been part of my life and I just love it. I'm going to miss writing scripts. I'm going to miss having to read books. I'm going to miss playing with sex toys."

Who wouldn't love having a grandmother who says things like that? We'll miss you Dr. Sue.

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.

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.

You might already know I Wanna Fuck You from the immense amount of radio airplay it was getting last year, in the censored “I Wanna Love You” version, of course–the distinction here is important, which is why I’m not being radio-friendly. If you’re not, it was the first single to reach #1 on the charts for Senegalese-American rapper Akon and the second for his collaborator, Snoop Dogg. Akon also got attention last year for humping 14-year-olds onstage.

So although I heard Akon’s version about a billion times in 2007, I just found this other live video from spring of last year. It seems that the deeply weird American-French sister duo CocoRosie started performing an inverted version of Akon’s song during their European tour. Like the original, it features a guy trying to pick up a dancer at a club, but from the opposite point of view, far more introspective, and rotated towards their signature Billie-Holiday-meets-fractured-experimental-trip-hop style.

Here are the choruses of the two songs:

Akon:
I see you winding and grinding up on that pole,
I know you see me looking at you and you already know
I wanna fuck you, you already know
I wanna fuck you, you already know

CocoRosie:
You see me trying to smile up on this pole
But I’m just hiding the pain that’s deep in my soul
You wanna fuck me, I already know
You wanna fuck me and toss me back on the floor

I had a series of strong reactions to this song.
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Well this is bullshit. Sen. David Vitter, a right-wing “family values” crusader and abstinence-only indoctrination architect, will likely be getting a pass in the trial of the D.C. madam he visited. Several other powerful men who visited the sex workers also won’t be at the trial.

Who will be hauled into court? Fifteen sex workers, who will subsequently be humiliated and asked about all the titillating, dirty details:

Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana and other powerful men appear likely to get a pass. Less lucky: the 15 terrified women being hauled by prosecutors into court to recount in graphic detail their past work as prostitutes — and more than 100 other former prostitutes whose names prosecutors are trying to make public.

Wednesday, prosecutors forced a 63-year-old retired PhD — her name, like those of other witnesses, now a matter of public record — to testify about inducing orgasms in her client; the government’s lawyers had similar questions for a mother of three who worked briefly for the escort service nearly 15 years ago.

Yesterday, it was the turn of a young naval officer to take the stand; the case will almost certainly end her career. The prosecutor, Daniel Butler, had the woman spell her name slowly and clearly, then had her talk about when she was “aggressive” with a client, when she was “more submissive,” when she had a difficult client (”he tried to remove the condom”) and how often she got “intimate.”

“What do you mean by ‘intimate’? ”

The soon-to-be-former naval officer looked at him in disbelief. “Touching, caressing,” she explained.

“What happened” after that? he demanded.

“Sex.”

“What type of sex?”

“Sometimes it was oral sex; usually it was normal.”

“Normal?” Butler persisted.

“I’m not sure what you’re getting at,” the stricken witness pleaded.

“What’s normal sex?” Butler again demanded.

Judge James Robertson intervened. “He wants to know if you mean intercourse.”

Butler pressed on with more humiliating questions until the judge cut him off. “That’s enough,” Robertson said. Minutes later, the dazed woman was helped out of the room.

So the women who worked for about $40 an hour as sex workers to some of the most powerful men in the country are dragged into court and humiliated (at one point the prosecutor even asked one woman what she did about the whole sex thing while she was menstruating). But all the men who broke the law by visiting sex workers get a pass — and, like David Vitter, get to stay in office, and get to continue fighting for “family values” policies that do harm to the very women they paid to see.

Once again, I am eternally grateful for our “assholes” tag.

This is vile.

Now that Senator David Vitter is likely to get a pass for this past summer's scandal with having a connection to the "D.C. Madam" prostitution ring, prosecutors are having their day in court with D.C. Madam and 15 other women who worked with her in a pointless , slut-shaming witch hunt.

Prosecutors are making the women recount sexual experiences with their clients, condescendingly poking and prodding into personal and irrelevant details. Prosecutor Catherine Connelly even asked DC Madam:

'Did you specifically discuss what happened when you went in the shower?' the prosecutor wanted to know.

The witness explained, 'I was having sex.'

'What would happen if you were menstruating?' Connelly asked.

Because a lady's bleeding has everything to do with money laundering! For this, women's careers will be ruined; a young naval officer on the stand yesterday was put on leave from the navy after being forced to talk about when she was "aggressive" or "submissive" with a client.

And this is just the beginning. Over 100 other previous sex workers will also be publicly named.

We all know who should really be ashamed here.

I’ve been meaning to write some more game-related posts, especially in the wake of the very fun presentation that Roy and I gave at WAM! 2008. For now, however, I just have a review of Mighty Jill Off, a free downloadable PC game that I recommend you all check out. It’s bound to be one of the more notable offbeat, indie, retro, lesbian-BDSM-themed jumping games of the year. OK, so it’s probably also the only game that fits those criteria. Ever.

Let’s get the preliminaries out of the way: this is not a porn-tastic game replete with breast physics and girl-on-girl action to appeal to adolescent gamer dudes. If anything it’s closer to the opposite, and the theme actually makes a disturbing amount of sense. (And not only because the creator seems to be kind of into BDSM and fetish stuff herself.)

It’s long been noted by game scholars and humorists alike that there’s a masochistic quality inherent in many games. Hemmed in by the demands of an almost arbitary system of constraints and rules, you willingly submit to the system in search of an elusive and transitory experience of “fun,” to the extent where you let most of your thought processes be taken over.
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What. The. Fuck. And here I thought we couldn’t do any better than “Evangelical mega-church preacher does crystal meth with male prostitutes.”

(Sidenote: You know a sex scandal is insane when the first thing you think of is an Overheard in New York quote).

I’m not going to quote at length from the article because the whole thing is just too fucking weird and I feel dirty just reading it, but the gist of it is that the head of Formula One’s governing body was caught on video with five prostitutes playing concentration camp fetish games. And don’t worry, the cracker-jack reporters at ABC news explain that “While the Nazi concept is not unusual in sadomasochistic circles, playing both sides in such a kinky ritual is unusual, say sex experts.”

He played both sides? Well in that case, he really is a pervert!

In an interesting twist (as if there had to be anything else), the guy’s father was the founder of the British Union of Fascists and a supporter of Adolph Hitler. It’s almost the perfect storm of sex scandals — if only he were a right-wing politician playing Nazi dress-up with dudes it would seal the deal.

And, sweet Jesus, there is a video. I haven’t watched it because I’m not such a fan of that stuff, but I’m going to guess that it is neither work-safe nor for the faint of heart.

Also: Best/Worst Sex Scandal Graphic:

It’s kind of an amazing confluence of all things offensive in one place.
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My beaver is not to be compared to a beaver! (I keeeed). But really, I don't know about that thing.

via.

Thanks to Dave for the link.

I have very little to say about this article, other than:

1. Talking about condoms and safer sex is not the same thing as demonizing abstinence, and if you’re under that impression, I sure hope that you were a legacy admission to Harvard, because otherwise that’s just embarrassing.

2. You look dumb when you complain that “there is just one lifestyle that doesn’t get recognition” and that’s abstinence. Abstinence gets recognition to the tune of more than $140 million in federal funding every year. Abstinence is discussed constantly. It is brought up in every single sex ed program. It is the subject of Congressional investigations and debates. It is studied by researchers. It is discussed in the classroom, in churches, in homes, in the news, and on blogs. Abstinence-until-marriage is discussed perhaps more than any other lifestyle choice made my less than five percent of the population.

3. You look even dumber when you complain about how mean and alienating the comprehensive sex ed folks are, and then you say stuff like pre-marital sex “deeply compromises human dignity” and leads to “personal unhappiness and social harm.” I can recognize that it is hard to remain abstinent, especially in the face of a very sexualized culture. I appreciate and applaud the personal strength of individuals who decide abstinence in the best choice for them. But what I can’t support is the constant attacks on sexually active people. People who have sex do not feel a constant need to tell abstinent people that their human dignity has been compromised, or that they’re dirty, or that they are secretly unhappy, or that they’re headed for total life ruin. I can understand how abstinent people may feel like society regards them as freaks because it seems like everyone else is having sex, but, statistically, most adults do have sex before marriage. It doesn’t mean you’re a freak if you don’t, but it does mean you’re making a different choice than 95 percent of the population. You can’t really expect that the choices made by the overwhelming majority won’t be normalized; you can, however, expect that your choices be recognized and respected. Unfortunately, the most vocal abstinence crusaders don’t do that. They instead choose to tell the rest of us that we’re making bad decisions and that we’re compromising our dignity as human beings. That’s far more fucked up and judgmental than anything I’ve ever heard a sexually active person say about abstinent folks.

4. You are not Ghandi or Nelson Mandela for choosing not to have sex.

5. I’m glad you’ve given this a feminist analysis, and I think there are feminist reasons for making your own sexual choices, including abstinence. But thinking that dudes are going to talk about you in the locker room and believing that oral sex is “disgusting” are not great justifications for the no-sex stance. First, if you think all men are dogs who are going to do the locker-room play-by-play, what makes you want to marry one? And why do you think that your guy will change from scum into a prince the day he puts a ring on your finger? Second, what makes you think that the constant “Don’t think about sex!” message will actually make people not think about sex? It’s the old “pink elephant” game, isn’t it? Third, if your abstinence is based in feminist theory about controlling your own body and not giving it over to men, why are you against masturbation? Fourth, could you please just stop pretending that your abstinence is based in feminism and secularism? It’s pretty clear that it’s not, and your anti-masturbation stance isn’t the only clue. If your choices are religiously motivated, that’s fine — but you really don’t need to co-opt other movements to try to trick other people out of a condom-lovin’ fuck.

6. When you’re a dude who authors an article like this and you end it with a competition between the virgin and the whore and then conclude with a quote saying “most guys out there would rather end up with a girl like Janie [the virgin],” you do all involved a disservice.