“Pro-Porn Activism”: It’s Our Time Now!!!

Ahhh, lookee here…guess who got really fed up with being misinterpreted and distorted??

And look what she has created in response??

And who in the hell is that whom she invited to guest host there?? Gee….who’d thunk it?? 😉

YeaPornies of the world, go there and unite!!!!  You have nothing to lose but your inhibitions…..and a foe of those heavy chains.

Renegade Evolution: Pro-Porn Activism

The Nigeria Tribune Takes On The Masturbation Menace

Gotta hand it to them….for all of the twisted stats and bloated claims they use to debunk self-pleasure, they do have a way with words.  A proper fisking follows.

Taken from the Nigeria Tribune: 

MASTURBATION: Temporary sexual pleasure with many dangers

There is a secret sexual practice common to both the young and old and it is known as masturbation. Seye Adeniyi in this report examines the causes, and the negative impacts it is having on health.

THERE is a secretive sexual practice common to both men and women, as well as young people, and it is known as masturbation. A team of scientists in Australia recently found that 98 per cent of men engage in this sexual act, while many women cannot also feign ignorance on this sexual act. In fact, they revealed that 89 per cent of females also practise masturbation. Your Health findings show that this habit is no respecter of age, as many young boys and girls are also aware of what masturbation is all about.

Oh, yeah..it’s so “secretive” that almost everyone participates in the act of self-pleasure without remorse or harm….except, perhaps, certain writers for a supposedly national newspaper who are so obsessed with regulating other people’s sex lives.

Many of the medical practitioners who spoke with Your Health agreed that masturbation, which is the self-stimulation of one’s sexual organ by hand or by other means to achieve sexual excitement, satisfaction and ultimately, to ejaculation, is generally, secretive, but a bad practice common with teenagers.

Yup…really bad, like spitting in public and jaywalking, I suppose.

Though Dr. Adewale Oguntuase says adults also masturbate, but scientists have different opinions on its effect on health. Some say that masturbation is an act that must be resisted and that those already into it should find a way to stop it because it has harmful effects on the body, especially the brain.

Yeah, right…..like simply having men rape women unabated and reducing women to baby factories for God and nation is that much better??

Of course, there are some others that say that masturbation is a normal and healthy practice if done privately and discreetly…but let’s not give our own biases away, mmmmm-kay???

Another research also indicates that more children are masturbating. The survey indicates that about one-third of all girls and about half of all boys have masturbated to orgasm by the time they reached the age of 13, with boys generally starting earlier than girls.

“Another research”??? Ahhh….are y’all so busy fighting Ponzi schemes to mix in a proofreader for syntax??

For instance, an American social historian, Edward Brecher, in a research work published in a book about sex among older people in the United States entitled Love, Sex and Ageing (1984), reports that 33 per cent of women 70 years of age and older and 43 per cent of men in the same age range still engage in self-stimulation of their sexual organs.

“Sixty-five per cent of married women and 59 per cent of married men in that age range,” the researcher stated, still have sexual intercourse with their spouses. This means that even some of the old people still masturbate.

Oh, the horrrrah!!!  We have OLD PEOPLE who can’t keep their hands out of their pants and panties!!! This.  Must. Stop. Now. Next thing you know, we’ll have brothels in the geriatric wards of hospitals!!!

The next question then is: Does masturbation have any ill-effect on one’s life, sexual life, libido and most especially, one’s health? Going by submissions of medical experts, sexual coldness in women is far more common than lack of sex drive in men. Many women that practise masturbation develop the habit as a result of many factors, including peer influence.

Now…notice the intro of the phrase “sexual coldness”…of which we can readily translate to “women who won’t open their legs for their husbands/boyfriends/whomever and make for the babies for the glory of God, family, and country. How this is blamed on rampant masturbation may be a loss for most of us mormal folk…but I do digress….

In many women, the trouble often arises from lack of normal sex instructions during the early years. Many have been indoctrinated by their parents or elders that all matters pertaining to sex are shameful and wicked.

According to a health instructor, who simply wants to be addressed as Mrs. Oyemade, “it is a strange fact that some women can enjoy sex while away on vacation, but fail to do so on returning home and assuming the normal burdens of everyday living. This shows how important it is that all women and girls should be made to understand fully the real functions of their reproductive organs at the early stage of life, and the part they play in building and maintaining a happy home.”

Many girls and women don’t have this knowledge, and that is why some of them engage in unwholesome sexual habits like lesbianism and masturbation.

In other words, if Nigerian women would just remember that God created them to make plenty of babies and that they should just be quiet when their hubbies want to mount them, men wouldn’t “abuse” themselves quite as much. And….they would probably be soooooo satisfied by the magical working of such “swordsmanship” (so to speak) that they would never want to touch their clits again. 

And this woman is a “health instructor”???  Eeeeeee-yeah.

And for Mr. Bosun Banjoko, an immunologist/public health specialist at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, “masturbation can actually affect one’s sexual life in future and also has both psychological and social effects on the doer.”

Mr. Idowu Bakare of Movement Against HIV/AIDS and Poverty (MAAIDS) and Olubowale Gbolahan, of Centre for Rural and Reproductive Health Development (CRRHD), also share the same view with Bosun Banjoko. Another health practitioner, Mr. Femi Adereti described masturbation as a secret act of sexual excitement which he said can be definitely harmful, especially when carried to excess. “Often the individual tends to become secretive, living in a kind of dream world where fantasy plays a dominant part. Many highly nervous older women freely admit that most of their troubles stem from some form of self-stimulation, indulged in for over a long period of time.”

For Dr. Bayo Omole, any young person who engages in masturbation is only exposing himself/herself to nervous problems. “In fact, nervous problems are always more common in those who indulge in this sort of thing. Many of them seem unable to face reality. Frequent masturbation, with its tendency to day-dreaming, can be harmful, particularly to those who are subject to nervous depression. So, I would advise young people, especially anybody who wants to enjoy his/her life to avoid the dirty, unholy sexual habit called masturbation,” Dr. Omole said.

Now, you do happen to spot the trend here towards citing numerous psychoanalyst “experts” to prove their case about the ultimate evil threat of masturbation to Nigerian civilization……because, quite simply, it’s a distraction f from doing God’s work, or so I guess.

From a religious point of view, Pastor Yemi Aduloju, an Ibadan-based man of God, in one of his sermons, submitted that masturbation is a sexual sin with dangers to health and most especially to one’s spiritual life. According to him, masturbation opens one to sickness and diseases as spelt out in biblical passages like Proverb 6: 32 – 33. Pastor Aduloju said: “Sexual sins like masturbation bring down great men and has also brought down great destiny in life. It makes God turn His back on you, even immediately you commence the dirty, unholy, sexual act with temporary pleasures.”

You mean, it’s not just about Lot defying God by spilling his seed??

For Okeke Uzoamaka, a senior social worker with CEREHAD – a non-governmental organisation, increasing cases of unwholesome sexual habit like masturbation, lesbianism and homosexuality among youths can also be traced to the advent of the internet. “Many young school boys and girls now go to cybercafe to watch pornographic films on the internet. Though many of them would tell you they are going to browse, but ask them what actually are they browsing? It is either X-rated films or blue films or they are looking for ways to commit internet fraud or crime. So, this is where they learn all these dirty sexual habits like masturbation which eventually would mar their health later in future,” Uzoamaka stated while speaking with Your Health recently.

Memo to Amber Rhea: You can forget about starting up a Sex 2.0 branch in Nigeria anytime soon.

Howeover, some people who spoke with Your Health do not see anything bad in masturbation. Many of them believe that masturbation is a normal sexual behaviour which almost everybody engages in. A medical doctor who will not want her name mentioned stated that for many people, masturbation remains a taboo subject and a practice that is still regarded as perverse or immoral. “Some medical practitioners and psychologists had condemned masturbation as destructive to mental health, even recommending amputation of the penis as a way to cure the habit in compulsive males. But today, many medical experts are beginning to change their belief.

“But for me, there is no ill-effect attached to masturbation. There is nothing wrong in it. It is not against the law, it is not immoral. It is perfectly a normal healthy thing done by 98 per cent of men, but the other two per cent are liars, who will not want to say the truth, but yet practise it,” she stated. In the opinion of Dr. Andrew Weil in his report entitled: “Dr Weil’s Vitamin Advisor for your Body, he states: “Now it appears that masturbation is not normal, it may be healthy and protective, especially for men. Said he: “In my view, masturbation can be a normal expression of sexuality in both men and women, when done compulsively or addictively. It can be irritating or exhausting, but in moderation it is medically harmless and may even be healthy, so if the Australian Scientists’ findings are confirmed, they should be part of the advice doctors would give men for protecting their repoduction systems.”

So….first off, why not publish the name of the “medical doctor” who offered a defense of masturbation….or for that matter, the names of all those who are not so reticent about defending mutual masturbation as a perfectly harmless (when done privately and consensually and respectfully) act of self-pleasure??  Could it be because that would really destroy the (il)logic of this entire article??  Naaaaaah…

Nonetheless, other dangers of masturbation as spelt out by medical experts include psychological guilt. A chance masturbator stands the risk of nervous-depressing permanent insanity, premature death, especially for those with high blood pressure, diabetes, blood diseases, inability to perform sexual act naturally, etc. Other dangers attached to masturbation sexes include inability to pull out of the act. It has even been documented to cause more deaths among boys in Europe than any plaque or war. Masturbation also results in total loss of sexual feelings and desire due to lack of sensation when it is time to actually engage in legitimate sexual intercourse. Quick, early or premature ejaculation is also one of the rewards of regular masturbation.

WOW.  If we are to believe that, masturbation causes death…more death than the Middle Ages wars, the Bubonic plague, cancer, lung disease, malnutrition, and violence….combined. And…it also leads to premature ejaculation in the “main event” of conception, too.  Really.  For sure.  Experts prove it!!!!

In girls, the breast development is arrested or retarded and the individual also stands the risk of experiencing spinal irritation resulting from epilepsy as a result of loss of seminal fluid in a male.

Oh, please….so loss of sperm count leads directly to epilepsy and spinal injury in women, as well as smaller breasts???  Gee, you forgot smaller, less rounded asses, too!!!

In.  Freakin’. Credible.  And I thought that only the Mormons and Paul Cameron had the exclusive monopoly on sexual crackpottery and wingnuttery.

The Death Penalty For Porn Producers:The Final Frontier For Radfems??

OK….I know that it’s been a while, so I have some catching up to do…..I’ll just do as Blackamazon does so well and kinda wing it in a “whatever breezes through my mind at the moment” way.

I’ve been wanting to post on this story, because there are so many angles, both on the political and sexual fronts, that can be raised here.

Iran Approves Death Penalty for Pornogaphers
By: David Sullivan
*
TEHRAN –Iran’s parliament has approved a bill that would sentence persons convicted of producing pornography to death.Lawmakers voted 148-5 with four abstentions that “producers of pornographic works and main elements in their production are considered corruptors of the world and could be sentenced to punishment as corruptors of the world.”

The “main elements in…production”*referenced in the bill include producers, directors, cameramen and actors. According to CNN, the term “corruptors of the world”*is derived from the Quran and carries a death penalty under Iran’s Islamic Penal Code.

Distributors and adult website operators could also face imprisonment and death. The bill encompasses all forms of sexually explicit media, including videos, DVDs and CDs. Pornographic books and magazines are already banned in Iran.

In order to become law, the bill must now be approved by Iran’s Guardian Council.

The bill follows in the wake of a scandal involving a pornographic video of Iranian actress Zahra Amir Ebrahimi that began circulating on the country’s black market last year. While Ebrahami has denied that she is the woman depicted in the video, she faces “fines, whip lashing or worse” for violating Iran’s morality laws. Ebrahimi’s male partner in the sex tape fled to Armenia but was later brought back to Iran, where he currently remains in jail.

The Associated Press notes that “porn material is easily accessible through foreign satellite television channels in Iran. Bootleg video tapes and CDs are also available on the black market on many street corners.”

[H/t to Ernest Greene at Nina Hartley’s forum for posting that excerpt.]

This pisses me off for several reasons, and not just the obvious ones.

First off…there is the citing of the Quran’s statement of “corruptors of the world” in supporting the death penalty, which would apply not only to producers, but also distributors, website operators, and even the  actual performers. I mean, it’s known knowledge that Islamic societies are far more conservative and restictive when it comes to sexuality….but to go as far as to seek the freakin’ DEATH PENALTY for acts of private consensual sex??? I would think that that would run the risk of playing into the very scapegoat of “Islamofascism” that those who seek to topple that government would use to justify their actions.

And what would that say for those on the opposite side of the political equation: those on the political Left who have basically laid themselves down in defense of the ruling Iranian government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against those who favor toppling his rule?? I especially point to some American leftist women like Yoshie Furuhashi, who has been the most consistent defender of Ahmadinejad as an anti-interventionist and a revolutionary populist…..on occasion conviently glossing over the more reactionary social policies and gross anti-feminism that underlies his fundamentalism. She may be an extreme example of the boosting of fundamentalist Islam as populism and a acceptable alternative to “liberal interventionism”, but she is hardly alone.

Now, I happen to be a staunch anti-interventionist, and I will no more support invading Iran merely because the ruling government happens to be run by a bunch of misogynist thugs using religion to support their power trips, than I would have supported invading Iraq merely because Saddam was a butcher with a secret porn fetish. But….it does bother me more than a bit that so many Leftists are so willing to sacrifice even their own principles to defend “the enemies of our enemies”.

This isn’t to say that the fawning of “Cruise Missile Leftists” who exploit such issues as this to push for mass invasions are any better or worthy of my support, either; it’s just that perhaps we might be willing to acknowledge that merely opposing something without understanding clearly who we are standing with and standing for does make for some dangerous alliances that could easily wreck even the most careful  organized progressive movement.

The other angle in this that gets to me is something pointed out by Ernest Greene in his post at Nina’s forum; it is a standard theme of his regarding the unholy alliance between fundamentalists and radicalfeminists on the subjects of porn and sexuality:

Now while I’m sure they’d deny it loudly, anti-porn feminists undoubtedly take some glee in the notion of pornographers being executed. Anyone who has spent much time at The Den of the Biting Beaver or read Andrea Dworkin’s “novel” Mercy, which extolls the virtues of murdering male derelicts as a form of protest against the patriarchy has some idea of the depth of homicidal loathing these fanatics feel toward pornographers.However, in their delight at the prospect of smut-peddler’s heads being lopped off, they might have overlooked a significant detail from the story above, which is that the first target of the Iranian death-for-porn law just happens to be a woman.

Societies that suppress pornography most brutally are the very societies that suppress the rights of women most brutally as well. This is a lesson that any American feminist traveling in the Third World is all too likely to learn first hand. But then, since most of them prefer the comforts of Wheelock College, with its $36K per year tuition and, its tenured professorships for porn-bashing paranoids and its cozy conferences dedicated to denouncing the evils of sexual liberalism at which no opposing voices are allowed a hearing, they needn’t have their sleep troubled by such contradictions.

That last sentence is directed towards Dr. Gail Dines, one of the main antipornradicalfeminist activist voices.

Again, I recognize that not even all APRF’s will go as far as to support something as extreme as the death penalty for (male) porn producers or consumers; but it does seem for some of the more strident activists (*cough* SamHeart(less)GayleStormCloudBitingBeaverWitchyWoo*cough*) that if they are serious enough about their advocacy that porn consumption amounts to nothing less than the total abuse of women and the gateway to rape and rapicity, then why wouldn’t they carry their arguments to the logical conclusion?? Of course, they would have to sustain some deniability to seperate themselves from the Religious Right…but I wouldn’t think that that wouldn’t stop them from at least looking the other way at such a solution.

All this is a segue into the rumble currently going on at Feministe, where Roy originally posted how news of the Iranian proposed death penalty law (and an associated post by Trinity at The Strangest Alchemy) gave him a totally new perspective on things:

 I sat there at my desk, talking about sex workers and sex work and porn like they were abstractions… but they’re not, and mythago rightly called me on my shit. It took me a while to realize that, but it was a totally fair criticism. My sitting there saying that stats show this and stats show that and look how many sex workers were this or that… none of that helps them now, and talk like that does make me more likely to find myself allied with religious conservatives who have a “moral interest” in condemning sex work… and sex workers. And that’s the thing that mythago knew when posting that “Mackinnon and Dworkin made the silly assumption that their anti-feminist allies on the right would see their point of view, and apply protectionist ideas in a way that would help women instead of as a way to control women” and that trinityva was getting at when posting “often even “enlightened” people here who object to porn for the “right” reasons are willing to form alliances with those who oppose it for reasons of “religious morality”.”And when I allow myself to ally with questionable or even flat-out bad groups, I have to accept that the damage they do in the name of our cause is damage that I’m contributing to. I can’t wash my hands of the harm that my allies do if they’re doing the damage in the name of our mutual cause. If I’m rallying behind the cry of “PORN HARMS ALL WOMEN!” and I allow myself to get backing from a group that’s adding “BECAUSE DIRTY SLUTS ABUSE SEX!” then aren’t I at least somewhat culpable? Because, ultimately, don’t my actions help further that cause, as well? And doesn’t that mean that the damage they’re doing is to some extent, on my hands?

Because those people have made it absolutely clear that they don’t care about the women involved. They’re not working to help end the abuse of sex workers. They’re not condemning poor working conditions. They’re not working to help sex worker’s rights. They’re not even remotely interested in making sure that their voices get heard. They’re interested in keeping the whores out of their neighborhoods.

For the record, here’s what Trin posted:

Now this is Iran and not here. But I do want to post it, as I do think that it’s important to remember that in many parts of the world, including here, a lot of the objection to pornography IS a deep-seated fear of corruption or contamination. And a goodly bit of the opposition is religious. As a few kerfuffles I’ve posted about here have cast into relief, often even “enlightened” people here who object to porn for the “right” reasons are willing to form alliances with those who oppose it for reasons of “religious morality”.While this does have limited relevance to the US or even the UK, I think it helps to notice the strain of thinking that does look at porn this way. (It’s also worrisome to write this off, IMO, because we run the risk of doing that typical White US-ian “oh, we’re so much more EVOLVED than THOSE (brown) people!”)

We often like very much to hide behind veneers of theory. And to many of us: why shouldn’t we? We live in a wealthy country. Many of us are white, middle class, highly educated, comfortable. It’s very easy for us to think that we can dismantle an industry through “radical” means, at which point anyone formerly “enslaved by” it has a better life, presto change-o.

Too often our “radical” dreams can’t be achieved without nasty alliances. And too often we think of our “radical”ness and our “revolutionariness” and ignore what we deem collateral damage.

It didn’t work in the Iraq War. Why should it work in the Vice War either?

The subsequent thread went haywire when the usual suspects (read, Sam and gayle) decided to intervene with a defense of the “Swedish model” of controlling prostitiution, among other distractions…but that is a different story for another time.

But, it does go to show that in our efforts to dive in head first into any given controversy, we sometimes forget to understand exactly who we are diving with. The enemy of your enemy today could well turn out to become your enemy tomorrow…which is why it’s best to stick to principles as much as humanly possible.

As for me, I see no conflicts whatsoever between not supporting the ruling government of Iraq and simultaneously opposing a military invasion of that country by others.  In the end, the same rule of self-determination that defends individual sexual autonomy (whether it be for LGBT’s, feminists, or porn) applies just as much for whole countries resisting war and imperialism.  Ultimately, Iranians must decide what government they want, not the US….and certainly not by bombing them into submission. If you are that opposed to their sexual fascism as I am, then the better solution is to offer those women and men facing such repression a place of sanctuary until the laws are changed to reflect some decency and common sense.

As the old saying goes: An eye for an eye ultimately ends up blinding everyone.

A Hater Bigot At The Hands Of A Pissed-Off Henchwoman

Oh..but you just HAVE to go over to Renegade Evolution’s blog today, and read where she just broke off Witchy-Woo in the proper way.

Apparantly, W-W, in all her finest arrogant assholery, decided to post a comment in this thread in defense of the manager at the domestic violence shelter who decided that Ren wasn’t good enough to volunteer there due to her chosen profession as a sex worker. An excerpt of one of the jucier bits:

[…] 

2. Many of the resident women and children are seeking safety from the effects of what you do – the effects that it has on their own lives. Sexual violence? Ever heard that that ‘fun’ thing you do has repercussions on the real lives of real women (and children)? Well, yes, I know you have because I’ve told you. 

As the manager of a Women’s Refuge (shelter) there’s no way I’d accept a pornography performer as a volunteer because pornography harms women and anyone who has women’s interests at heart would know that. Ergo: porn performers have a somewhat different agenda. Refuges (shelters) don’t exist to help the volunteer’s feel good – we exist to help stop women and children from being killed and to enable their recovery process.

Perhaps the former director’s boundaries were a tad blurred – whatever, I don”t know – but, for all your suck-up’s, saying “asshole – how awful for you”, maybe you should prioritise the life-safety of abused women and children above the needs of a comfortable and wealthy prostitute who has no idea of the damage she does to other real live women…Totally behind the new shelter manager – that’s how things should be done – if you’re a feminist with women’s interests in mind.
 

Feel free to note the “I’ve told you” bit…as if W-W has, by self-decree of her being a radicalfeminist, given herself the all the powers of presuming to represent all of womanhood in her reading the Scarlet Letter of “slut” and “sexbot” onto Ren…and her dictates that even all the good that she has done can’t erase the permanant taint of her apparant stain of being a porn performer and a sex worker….which, in W-W’s twisted mind, automatically disqualifies Ren from ever blackening the doors of any true “feminist” women’s shelter.

And of course, there’s the usual explicit vent (quite unlike the implicit, thinly-veiled assaults of alisalives, if you will remember) that by virtue of her mere existence and her profession, Ren and any other sex worker who does not completely dance in total unity to the radicalfeminist antiporn hymnal, is responsible for all the evil acts that men impose on women for all eternity.

And…”comfortable and wealthy prostitute”.  Goodness, is Ren hiding her mansion from us??

Anyways…after removing the knife from her back (since W-W had been previously playing the moderate “good cop” role in the side while folks like StormCloud and Heart and delphyne launched the real stinkbombs), Ren went on full “red alert rage” mode and read the full Riot Act at W-W. 

Witchy:

And to think I EVER considered you someone worth making bonds with…Here’s the deal, Witchy. I never told, she fucking asked. I worked my fucking ass off at that shelter, and MY EVIL male driver sent a few abusive male boyfriends, ex’s, pimps and whomevers on their way AWAY from those women. AND FUCK YOU, you think what you do and say doesn’t have repercussions on me, on Kim, on Amber, good women all shot to shit by things you’ve said? Don’t talk fucking woman-hating without looking in the goddamn mirror. Shit, you, someone I actually DARED to believe in as a damn middle ground burned me on feminism, period. I never DID this to feel good about myself, Witchy, you fucking forget that I WAS ABUSED, but by a WOMAN so I guess that was okay? That does not MATTER? I had no help, I grew up with not a whole lot and no one was there to HELP me when I needed it? When my arm was a mess of bloody burns or when MY ribs were broken AND MAYBE I want to help people because NO one was there to help me?

SO NO, WITCHY, FUCK YOU. I have HAD it with this…I grew up with NOTHING, in case you fucking MISSED that, and I want to help people, and more than ANYTHING I am damn burned that you DARE speak ill of the old director, Vi, who, sorry, unless you have LIVED in DC…well, cupcake, you have NO idea of what you speak.

[…]

All your fucking work? Shit, woman, I spent time in Kenya setting up space for raped children and OTHER abused people, I’ve marched on DC, I’ve helped women who do not enjoy the work I do out of the business, and I’ve fucking cleaned blood and grey matter of of floors where I would one day sleep….so don’t you tell me. Don’t you ever tell me ever again. I do what I do because I have to, I want to, and it’s right, everything I do. So no…don’t you tell me.Unless It is to say what a fucking FOOL I was for EVER believing in YOU.
 

You know…if people fascist, sex-hating smug asshats like Witchy-Woo are the future of feminism, then I may have to do as Queer Dewd ended up doing and just say: “Fuck feminists”.  (And not in the sex-positive meaning of that phrase, either.)

 

Radical[Right]Feminism Rears Its Head Again

[Written in social solidarity with Ren]

I guess that the moral to this is simple:

In the APRF world, all women are created equal.

That is, until some women decide to engage in professions that become anathema to APRF ideology.

Then, of course, they become pariahs, and slightly less equal….and must be purged to protect the purity of the "sisterhood".

Regardless even if they volunteer their time and effort to help actual victims of the very abuses that radfems want to abolish.

Because, you see, freezing out women for the sin of getting paid for sex is so much more important than having effective workers who help victims of domestic violence.

Just like it’s far more important for the Boy Scouts to maintain their "Christian" purity standards and purge out gay men.

Or for a "women’s only" rape crisis center to deny services to a transsexual so that "women-identified women" can get special privileged treatment…at the expense of other rape and DV victims.

But, I’m sure that the likes of Heart(less), Stormcloud, and the rest of the posse are nodding their heads in agreement.  That’ll show that sexbot bitch how not to mess with "us".

So much for antipornradicalfeminism being anything other than a clone of the Christian Right.

Fight on, Henchwoman…and just fuck ’em all.

 

“Blogging For Sex-Ed (Post) Day”: My Penny’s Worth

As is the usual for me, I tend to catch things a bit too late…so I will apologize to Renegade Evolution if my contribution to her mighty and well-timed carnival isn’t so well-timed. 

Most of my thoughts are reflected all so well by other contributors, to which you can check their links over there at Ren’s…so my contribution will be a bit more brief. Mostly, it will be an expansion on a comment I sent there today.

Personally, I do happen to believe that sex education is pretty much FUBAR..mostly because of the natural monopoly that the Christian Right has established over the dominant ideology with their "abstinence only" policy of denial combined with their meme of "Sex is a privilege given only to married couples for the direct purpose of procreating God’s/Allah’s, Yahweh’s/whatever deity is king of the moment’s childen; anything else is sin and heresy and a direct threat to homeland security worse than ‘Islamofascism’". I’m not so sure, though, that using the schools as a vehicle for an alternative would be an effective counter solution.

The problem I see is that all the political and social institutions in this culture are driven by a lot of sex negativity and sexual denial to begin with; and it doesn’t necessarily come exclusively from the Christian Right. Even the most supposedly liberal and hip and cool parents are just as capable of passing extreme judgements on adolescents about their sexuality and their sexual development, even as they pay begrudging respect to the incessant growth and popularity of sexual imagery driven by both the improvements in technology (especially the Internet) and the natural thirst for information previously hidden from young adolescents and young adults. Of course, there is much to be concerned about when it comes to teenage sexuality….STD’s, reproductive issues such as unwanted pregnancy and abortion, proper health care, and simply negotiating sexual desire with others who might not have their better interests in mind.  But simply firing stats about how many women get infected with the variant strains of herpes or other STDs or moaning about how many young girls are dressing like the Pussycat Dolls and reading Jenna Jameson’s bio without wanting to burn it afterwards is no more effective than merely throwing condoms at young men and telling them, "Just do it, as long as you wrap up." (Not that the latter shouldn’t be part of the message, mind you."

The main issue here for me is that most young adults don’t have the resources or the access to non-judgmental, accurate, and humane information about their personal sexuality, and that the alternatives (either watching porn or relying on the usual misinformation and disinformation) simply don’t meet their needs adquately enough.  The fact that the overwhelming majority of these adolescents happen to be working class who often rely on material designed basically for the more economically privileged might be a factor that has been lost on a lot of sex-ed activists.  For these people, it isn’t enough merely to offer condoms at the local clinic; there has to be a complete system of health care available and accessible to them. So, it is as much a class and economic issue as it is a cultural issue…indeed, the two simply cannot be seperated.

My own personal solution to this dilemma is to combine progressive peer- and community-based structures of role modeling and mentoring where adults and the more mature adolescents can do the bulk of the shoe leather and educating work on demystifying sexuality and providing the accurate and non-judgmental information and resources needed; with an overall assault on economic inequality overall.  A focus on a radical, sex-positive, humane, and egalitarian approach to sex education that doesn’t rely on imposition from above, but rather on reform and even revolution from the masses and from those most affected would do much good, in my view.  This is NOT the libertarian Right "if it feels good to you, it’s OK, and damn the consequenses for everyone else" approach that is far too commonly pushed as an opposite to the "faith-based abstinence only" lies; it simply acknowleges that adolescents are, no less than adults are, sexual beings who do deserve both support, respect, and the full array of choices and responsibilities for exercising their right to explore that aspect of their being. If, after some time, the educational establishment decides to catch up and adopt this approach, that would be fine by me….but until then, I wouldn’t trust them to teach my nephews and nieces about the facts of life any more than I’d trust Playboy or Penthouse or the next Vivid feature.

And yet…..even they would be totally preferable to the numbnuts who currently populate the White House and who are channelling the worst of sexual Puritanism to impose sexual ignorance on the rest of us.

OK…that should be enough for now, I guess.  I’d say more..but I gotta go earn my paycheck.

 

 

The “Janet Parshall” Doctrine (APRF Update)

When the facts don’t jibe with your particular faith, attack the messenger as unpatriotic/patriarchial/radical.whatever.

Case in point: This shorthand of an online rumble:

Anti-Porn Radfem (aka Faith of Feminist Nation): Oh, rats….look at all those nasty Google search terms loading up my other blog about what men surf for in porn; just proves why we oughta wipe it out!!!

Sex-PosFem (aka Trinity of The Strangest Alchemy): Oh, really?? You do know that most of those "searches" could have been generated through spam bots, right??  And that that says nothing about the overwhelming majority of porn surfers who go towards legal adult consensual porn, right??  Try being a bit less emotional, OK??

Faith: Emotional???  I’m being emotional???  Why, you no good pro-porn sellout, I have PROOF of how porn destroys women and distorts men; get the fingers out of your damn ears and listen, you Janet Parshall wannabe!!

Trinity: Oh, please….that’s your proof??  And, OMG….thery’re all from right-wing antifeminist Christian fundamentalist right groups and right-wing think tanks!!! You know, the ones who want to destroy feminists like you???  For shame!!

Faith: What???  You calling me a right-wing fundamentalist?? Look, now…you just don’t want to admit that in your heart, I’m right and that porn really is evil and should be banned. And stop lumping us radfems with the Christian Right; we are fundamentally different!!

Pro-Porn Supporting Men (played by Iamcuriousblue and moi): Ahhh, Faith…is the shoe fitting a bit too comfortably here?? the complicit alliance between APRF’s and the Christian Right isn’t a figment of the imagination; it’s proven FACT and HISTORY.  Who’s doing the denial now??

Faith: Oh, there you pornified liberal men go again! Of course you’d defend porn….what would you say about defending Larry Flynt’s racist, misogynist ass?? Don’t blame us radfems….ahhh, I mean, feminists if we want to protect women and children from you men!!

Moi:  Ahhhh…Flynt has not a damn thing to do with this…unless you have proof that other than some nasty book covers and  a few satirical cartoons, Flynt and HUSTLER represents the heart of "trafficking of women". And what about those women who fight against everything you say you are against, but stop short of endorsing your brand of sex-shaming and male-baiting…I guess that they aren’t feminists now?? But the likes of Judith Reisman and Alberto Gonzales are, their antifeminism on other matters aside??

Faith: OK, OK…I changed the links to a less homophobic and more neutral source.  Happy now??

Moi: You call that "neutral"?? You do know that the founder of that group was the very one who prosecuted Mapplethorpe and Flynt on obscenity charges, right?? And that he once said that even softcore simulated sex scenes in cable and satellite TV should be prosecuted and banished under his interpretation of obscenty law?? Hell..James Dobson would be merely "conservative" in your mind??

Goodness. With "feminists" like Faith, who needs Pat Robertson???

 

 

 

 

The “Janet Parshall” Doctrine (APRF Update)

When the facts don’t jibe with your particular faith, attack the messenger as unpatriotic/patriarchial/radical.whatever.

Case in point: This shorthand of an online rumble:

Anti-Porn Radfem (aka Faith of Feminist Nation): Oh, rats….look at all those nasty Google search terms loading up my other blog about what men surf for in porn; just proves why we oughta wipe it out!!!

Sex-PosFem (aka Trinity of The Strangest Alchemy): Oh, really?? You do know that most of those "searches" could have been generated through spam bots, right??  And that that says nothing about the overwhelming majority of porn surfers who go towards legal adult consensual porn, right??  Try being a bit less emotional, OK??

Faith: Emotional???  I’m being emotional???  Why, you no good pro-porn sellout, I have PROOF of how porn destroys women and distorts men; get the fingers out of your damn ears and listen, you Janet Parshall wannabe!!

Trinity: Oh, please….that’s your proof??  And, OMG….thery’re all from right-wing antifeminist Christian fundamentalist right groups and right-wing think tanks!!! You know, the ones who want to destroy feminists like you???  For shame!!

Faith: What???  You calling me a right-wing fundamentalist?? Look, now…you just don’t want to admit that in your heart, I’m right and that porn really is evil and should be banned. And stop lumping us radfems with the Christian Right; we are fundamentally different!!

Pro-Porn Supporting Men (played by Iamcuriousblue and moi): Ahhh, Faith…is the shoe fitting a bit too comfortably here?? the complicit alliance between APRF’s and the Christian Right isn’t a figment of the imagination; it’s proven FACT and HISTORY.  Who’s doing the denial now??

Faith: Oh, there you pornified liberal men go again! Of course you’d defend porn….what would you say about defending Larry Flynt’s racist, misogynist ass?? Don’t blame us radfems….ahhh, I mean, feminists if we want to protect women and children from you men!!

Moi:  Ahhhh…Flynt has not a damn thing to do with this…unless you have proof that other than some nasty book covers and  a few satirical cartoons, Flynt and HUSTLER represents the heart of "trafficking of women". And what about those women who fight against everything you say you are against, but stop short of endorsing your brand of sex-shaming and male-baiting…I guess that they aren’t feminists now?? But the likes of Judith Reisman and Alberto Gonzales are, their antifeminism on other matters aside??

Faith: OK, OK…I changed the links to a less homophobic and more neutral source.  Happy now??

Moi: You call that "neutral"?? You do know that the founder of that group was the very one who prosecuted Mapplethorpe and Flynt on obscenity charges, right?? And that he once said that even softcore simulated sex scenes in cable and satellite TV should be prosecuted and banished under his interpretation of obscenty law?? Hell..James Dobson would be merely "conservative" in your mind??

Goodness. With "feminists" like Faith, who needs Pat Robertson???

 

 

 

 

Where “Reefer Madness” Meets “Raunch Culture” (Or, Radfems Gone Wild…Again)

Dig, if you will, this picture:

A putatively "liberal feminist" writer for a neoliberal website writes an essay for the website of the not-so-liberal Wall Street Journal Op-Ed section decrying the antics of Girls Gone Wild creator Joe Francis (who is still, in my book, a grand insult to assholes everywhere for using young women for his profits)….and, as a means of granting protection to young adult women from such sexual predators, calls for legislation raising the legal age for consenting to perform in adult sexual media from 18 to 21….for their own protection, of course.

It is true that teenagers become legal adults at the age of 18, right around the time they graduate from high school. The age of consent to serve in the armed forces is also 18 (17 with parental consent), as is the minimum voting age since 1971, when an amendment to the Constitution lowered it from 21. But the federal government is already happy to bar legal adults from engaging in certain activities. Most notably, the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 raised the drinking age to 21 (by threatening to withhold highway funds from states that did not go along). In practice, the age limit is flouted on college campuses and in private homes. But it has still had a positive effect, not least by driving down fatalities from drunk driving.

A new legal age for participating in the making of erotic imagery–that is, for participating in pornography–would most likely operate in the same way, sometimes honored in the breach more than the observance. But a 21-year-old barrier would save a lot of young women from being manipulated into an indelible error, while burdening the world’s next Joe Francis with an aptly limited supply of "talent." And it would surely have a tonic cultural effect. We are so numb to the coarse imagery around us that we have come to accept not just pornography itself–long since routinized–but its "barely legal" category. "Girls Gone Wild"–like its counterparts on the Web–is treated as a kind of joke. It isn’t. There ought to be a law.

— excerpt from Garance Franke-Ruta: Age Of Innocence Revisited (OpinionJournal.com)

Never mind that most of the regulations on alcohol she cites deal not with private consumption or even age limits, but with blood-alcohol level and purchasing of alcoholic beverages, or that the law she quoted did not legislatively raise the age but simply threatened to pull highway spending to those states who refused to go along. But that’s moving away from the main topic here…

Anyways….said writer gets deservedly whacked for her proposal as a infantilization of otherwise legal adult women who are simply not to be trusted with their own judgement and free will on such matters; as a gross paternalism that dictates that young women old enough to be drafted to die in war and old enough to be executed as adults for capital crimes simply can’t be allowed to make basic decisions about their sexuality; and as an ineffective solution that ignores the modern technology that allows such "hostile" and "damaging" imagery to show up without the aid of GGW cameras.

How does said writer respond to such criticisms??  By breaking out the old "my critics are evil liberal men who care more about their dicks than the damage of raunch culture to women" card:

If I had intentionally set out to write an article intended to provoke a backlash that made liberals look like a bunch of leering louts eager to ogle 18-year-old girls and transform society into a deregulated libertarian paradise where low-income women are routinely exploited, I think I could scarcely have come up with a better approach than the Wall Street Journal piece I published on May 4 arguing for raising the age of consent for appearing in pornography to 21. Such a backlash was, perhaps, entirely fitting, given that the topic was a soft-core porn company that has cut deals with major Democratic Party donors and preys mainly on young women in red states But it was also disappointing in the extreme.

Critics of my article have raised some good points, but by and large the responses were disturbingly marked by a far greater concern for access to pornographic depictions of teenagers than for the exploitation of young women. “I Want My Barely Legal Porn!” Matthew Yglesias trumpeted at his eponymous blog, boasting his argument “befits a man whose blog was once featured in Playboy‘s ‘Girls of the Pac Ten’ issue (really!).”

[…]

Other[s] liberals, finding the present raunch culture wanting, posited a need for an even more sex-saturated media environment. “If the brain-damaged idea of sex as explotation [sic] is the problem, I say let us militate against that idea,” wrote thespian Roy Edroso at Alicublog. “Let us have wide and unapologetic dissemination of sexual imagery.” And yet others called for a loosening of existing laws intended to prevent the exploitation of the young. Avedon Carol, a UK-based founder of Feminists Against Censorship, argues that existing child porn laws go more than far enough. “As if being treated ‘like a child’ when you are a child – and therefore not recognized as owning your own sexuality – were not bad enough, Garance wants to treat us as children when we are well past childhood,” she objected.

[…]

Sadly, in the rush to defend raunch culture, neither Yglesias nor the other critics closely examined the record of “opportunities” provided by Joe Francis’ firm (or others in its genre), the cases against them, and the long history of failed legal attempts to prosecute firms like his for abusive treatment of 16-21 year olds under existing laws. Nor did they look at the major Democratic donors who have helped Francis expand his reach and normalize his approach of creating “gratuitous nudity, end to end,” even though such efforts have helped fuel the backlash against “Hollywood liberals” that has been so successfully used against would-be Democratic office-holders.

— excerpted from Garance Franke-Ruta: Porn Again (CampusProgress.com)

…and recruiting a well known antipornradicalfeminist to her side.  Entree’ vous, Ann Bartow:

Can the harms that attend our new raunch culture be resolved, as some suggest, by amending the consent waiver process? Or will it require something more?

The proposal — first suggested to me by Ann Bartow, author of the Feminist Law Professor blog and a professor at the University of South Carolina Law School — to build a waiting period into the consent to participate in pornography is an intriguing one, and would do much to mitigate the impact of alcohol on the burgeoning porn-star for a day phenomenon. Yglesias also suggests this, as a counter-offer to my proposal that the age of consent to participate in porn be raised to 21. It’s a fine idea as far as it goes.

Revising the consent process, unfortunately, does not get to the heart of the problem, which is about the right to privacy and the costs to young women of the cultural and technological changes of the past decade.

And in the next paragraph, Franke-Ruta gives the game away….it’s really all about protecting young women’s privacy and "intimacy", regardless of whether they want such protection or not…..and mostly, it’s about wiping out "rauch culture":

The issue is only partially about consent, or even impaired consent. The issue is also that over the past decade and a half there has been a massive decline in the space of life that is private in the sense of being undocumented for all posterity, even if publicly conducted — and that there has been a simultaneous increase in media outlets, distribution channels, and commercial interest in the “scandal” of young female nudity.

Yglesias pretends that a young woman’s “decision” to have nude pictures of herself floating about without her consent is no different than picking a college major or “getting tattoos.” But he’s wrong. People don’t lose their jobs – or become permanent public spectacles – over “buying lottery tickets” or choosing to major in chemistry rather than physics. The difference is that there is an active harm being done to young women when pornographers take control of their images, without their consent (but with the consent of the courts), and that what people are choosing to do when they pose for pictures and what ultimately becomes of the images they choose to be in are often very different things. Miss Nevada Katie Rees lost her crown after pictures of her, bare-chested and kissing other girls, surfaced on the internet. She was 19 when they were taken, grown in form, but clearly not yet a mature individual. Or look at the case of the friends of American Idol contestant Antonella Barba, 20. Semi-nude pictures of her surfaced soon after she joined the show, leading her to say, “The pictures that were released of me – the ones that are of me – they are very personal and that is not how I intended to portray myself nor do I intend to portray myself that way in the future.” And it wasn’t just pictures of her, either. There were plenty of shots that exposed her young friends, too — women who were not looking to become famous or trade on their figures, and whose momentary goofing around at a beach outing is now public for all posterity.

Should such women have the right to control their own images? And do young women have an interest in not being manipulated, whether through drink or through peer pressure, into situations where they sign away what rights they do have? Those are the real questions at stake. The laws, as they currently stand, err too greatly on the side of protecting pornographers’ rights to transform unwitting or intoxicated young women into sexual commodities, and favor men like Francis, who reportedly earns $29 million a year, over the impecunious 18-year-olds off whom they have become rich. Raising the age to consent to be in porn to 21 may seem like an overly broad solution; alternative proposals that would address the issue of involuntary distribution and publication of private images, in addition to the questions of drunken consent, may ultimately prove superior. So far, however, I haven’t heard them.

Now, I could go into the basic fact that Franke-Ruta completely mistates and distorts Avedon Carol’s objection to her proposal as "loosening existing laws designed to protect the exploitation of the young", even as she herself further down decries those existing laws as woefully insufficient (she does the same to Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon by quoting her in support..ignoring the fact that she goes on to state her ultimate opposition later on); or that she completely takes out of context various male liberal commentator’s glib snarkiness as tolerance for kiddie porn predators….not to mention that she doesn’t even bother to post links to Lance Mannion (who has a nice rebuttal to GF-R’s lunacy here) or Roy Edroso to show what they really said (or didn’t say) about her proposal); or that she basically uses the old APRF slam of "(male) liberal Democrats" as essentially sexual slavers and child traffickers (she quotes several Democratic politicos who recieved money from Joe Francis’s enterprise as proof that liberal men are covering up his rape and pillarging..perhaps that explains why the WSJ Op-Ed site managers were so quick to promote her column.

But it’s Ann Bartow’s entry into this that fascinates me most of all. Of course, you’d expect her to rise to the defense of wiping out porn and all things "raunchy", but really, Ann….how in the hell does soft-core kissing and panty flashing and boob flashing lead directly to "trafficking in women" or double anal or other "degrading" activity??  And how would limiting the rights of 18- to 20-year old women to willfully engage in such behavior help protect the rest of womenhood, anyway?? And what would prevent you from moving the goalposts further and saying that 22 year olds aren’t mature enough to make such decisions, either, and thusly the age of consent should be moved up even further to "protect" women from their own actions?  After all, they don’t need GGW to get them drunk or even to flash their goodies; anyone with a decent digital camphone and access to the Internet can put out compromising photos on the ‘Net…and for free, no less. 

After all, if Jessica Valenti’s bare midriff book cover for Full Frontal Feminism and Teri Hatcher’s "see my panties" cover for her feature article last year at Vanity Fair was enough to raise Bartow’s pressure about "raunch" images, why should we think that she would rise to the occasion and diss pictures of young inebrieated women flashing and kissing as "damaging" to their future career?

Fascinating how sexual conservatism makes for strange bedfellows, ehhh??

(For the ultimate defense of the girls who do such dastardly deeds of posing for porn or such; see Greta Christina’s seminal article here.

“Bound, Not Gagged”: Where Sex Workers Defend Themselves

It seems like some people are finally getting tired of being beaten down.

Please go over to the new blog Bound, Not Gagged, which is run by sex workers and their supporters who are simply fed up with being silenced, distorted, and intimidated for standing up for their rights to be heard and accepted for their profession.

The contributing authors list includes such heavy hitters as Jill Brenneman, Scarlot Harlot (nee’ Carol Leigh), Robin Few, Melissa Gira, and Karly Kirchner; and they even got Annalee Newitz as a liveblog contirbutor.

Already, they’ve posted some righteous and thoughtful missives on the DC Madam case and the future of sex work.

And just as already, the usual love letters of support from the radfem caucus has been rolling in, too.

Just go there and give your support.