Feminist Current

Why Joni Mitchell’s rejection of feminism broke my heart a little (and why I’m tired of talking about Beyoncé)

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 15:43:46 -0400

Why Joni Mitchell’s rejection of feminism broke my heart a little (and why I’m tired of talking about Beyoncé):

I haven’t been able to muster the energy to care about, as everyone else seems to, whether Beyoncé is, isn’t, should or should not be, a feminist. I’m tired of trying to force female pop stars who think feminism is extremist or off-putting or who don’t really understand what it is to begin with to call themselves feminist. And, more generally, celebrities aren’t my go-to source when it comes to seeking out informed perspectives on political movements.

Beyoncé may well be a “strong” (whatever that means — I don’t find the “strong woman” label to be particularly descriptive unless we are invested in reinforcing some kind of “strong woman” vs. “weak woman” dichotomy, which I am not), successful woman, but that doesn’t necessarily make her a feminist. I’d say she’s empowered but that word has been overused to the point of having lost all meaning and now grates on my ears, so I won’t. Indeed Beyoncé has a particular kind of power in this world, but having power is not the same thing as being a feminist.

While, in the past, she conveyed discomfort with the feminist label, Beyoncé recently said, tentatively, in an interview with Vogue: “But I guess I am a modern-day feminist. I do believe in equality. Why do you have to choose what type of woman you are? Why do you have to label yourself anything? I’m just a woman and I love being a woman.” Not exactly the defiant declaration Janelle Hobson, who wrote Ms. magazine’s controversial cover story: “Beyoncé’s Fierce Feminism,” wanted it to be, but fine, if Beyoncé wants to be a feminist, she’s more than welcome to join the movement.

Beyoncé is a pop star. I like her music in the same way I like any other pop music — without much thought or commitment/when it’s dance party time. She either chooses or is pressured to objectify herself and to use her sexualized body to sell her product. Likely it is a more complex combination of “choice” and social/industry pressure/standards which our intellectually dulled, neoliberal we’re-all-special-snowflakes, postfeminist minds can’t seem to get our heads around. We are more comfortable with binaries: choice or coercion, agency or exploitation, victim or survivor. Of course, nobody is just one thing and, therefore, the reasons for Beyoncé’s sexualized image are myriad. They are, without a doubt, cultural. They are, without a doubt, due to a standard set and reinforced by a music industry that, largely, doesn’t allow women who aren’t conventionally attractive and “sexy” success. Ugly men abound in music. Not only do they abound, but they rule (and are rewarded with groupies and “video hos”). Women, on the other hand, have to be hot. There are exceptions to that rule, as there are exceptions to all rules, but it’s still the rule.

So Ms. magazine put Beyoncé on their cover. Mostly, I assume, to sell magazines. Not being either ”for” or “against” Beyoncé, I can’t bring myself to care too much about this decision. Unlike Hobson, though, I don’t Beyoncé’s fleeting girl power messages (“Who Run the World (Girls)”/ “All the Single Ladies”) as feminist and I can’t figure out why we need, so desperately, to force them to be. Sure, I wish every woman in the public eye were a feminist, but that’s unrealistic. It feels desperate to me — trying to drag stilettoed women into our clubhouse by their booty shorts, kicking and screaming, holding them down while we tattoo “This is what a feminist looks like” across their foreheads. I’d rather focus on regular women, working class women, poor women, marginalized women and on my sisters in the movement than on celebrities and pop stars, frankly.

To me, one of the worst things that came from the controversy that ensued as a result of Ms. magazine’s choice of cover model was, actually, the response from Hobson, who says:

what is surprising to me is the level of vitriol and mean-girl over-the-top outrage that accompanied the news of Beyoncé’s cover on the Ms. Facebook page. Whatever one may feel about Beyoncé as a feminist icon, when did it become acceptable to call this married mother of a toddler daughter a “stripper” and a “whore”?

Now, I don’t know what angry internet user called Beyoncé a “stripper” or a “whore” but I reckon (based on their liberal use of sexist slurs) it wasn’t a feminist. Using that as an example of the backlash against the Beyoncé cover seems a tad misrepresentative, unless we are now taking what internet trolls say as legitimate feminist critique (in which case we’re all a bunch of “whores” — sorry ladies, internet says). The fact that Hobson felt inclined to note, in the same sentence, that Beyoncé is a “married mother of a toddler,” as though being a married mother is proof of her status as “good woman” and therefore NOT a “stripper” or a “whore” (sorry, but whether or not a woman is married or a mother has nothing to do with whether or not she deserves to be called those names) was also pretty off-putting.

Hobson’s response was disappointing, as it really only reinforced this “either you can be a slut or a prude” thing that is so prevalent in conversations about the sexualization of women’s bodies. Critiques of the fact that women learn to perform for the male gaze and to make their bodies into products are turned into “pearl-clutching” and represented as attempts to force sexy ladies into buttoned-up blouses. Hobson says the conversation about Beyoncé’s sexualized image is about “policing women’s bodies.” I say it’s part of a conversation about the ways our culture teaches women to value themselves and the ways we allow women to be visible. We feel powerful when we are desired. That power is temporary and without substance. That feminists might be critical of the fact that women have to dance around in their underwear in their music videos while men get to keep their pants on (and have women in their underwear dance dance around them) doesn’t equate to “pearl-clutching” or forced modesty.

Hobson wants to make Beyoncé’s self-objectification about Beyoncé’s own personal version of feminism and turns feminists into oppressors who want to “regulate” women’s bodies, when really feminism is about supporting all the choices women make because feminism is for everybody!

Are you bored yet? Me too.

The point isn’t “Beyoncé: Feminist icon or SKANK”. She’s neither. And for whatever reason (can I get a obsession-with-celebrity-culture?) this conversation has been had to death.

So while everyone else is all up in arms about Beyoncé’s feminism or lack thereof, what I really want to know is: Why isn’t Joni Mitchell a feminist?

In an interview with Jian Ghomeshi on CBC Radio’s Q, which was mostly wonderful and intelligent and the cause of much swooning in Mitchell’s fans (of which I am one), there was this awkward moment. And I tried very hard to ignore it.

My aural love affair with Joni Mitchell began over two decades ago, with my mother’s records. Blue became one of my all-time favorite albums when I was about 15. So when she told Ghomeshi: “I’m not a feminist,” I quickly suffocated the quote with a mental pillow and stuffed it into a suitcase along with everything I don’t feel like acknowledging (because, as it turns out, everything awesome gives you cancer). “I’m choosing to ignore that,” was my response to other feminists who noted their disappointment in Mitchell’s words. They, like me (though less committed to denial), felt let down by one of their icons.

And she didn’t just say “I’m not a feminist,” and leave it at that. She was downright hostile.

The painful thing about Mitchell’s rejection of feminism and feminists is that she teases us with all of her feminist consciousness. She says, of her album, Blue: “It was a man’s world… The game was to make yourself larger than life.” Mitchell was told she revealed too much of herself on that album, showed too much weakness and, in a man’s world, vulnerability is a bad thing. She brilliantly calls out the bullshit myth that was the “free love movement” of the 60s as being what it was: “a ruse for guys” — a way to get laid. Mitchell doesn’t fake humility, as women are meant to. She doesn’t hide her talent, she doesn’t pretend as though she is unaware that she is gifted and not only gifted, but better, much better than so many (most, even) other artists. Women aren’t supposed to know they are good. At very least, they aren’t supposed to say they are good. Mitchell isn’t afraid of her ego. “I’m too good for a girl,” she says. It made her male contemporaries uncomfortable.

But then — stab-stab-stab — “I’m not a feminist.”

“Where’s that line for you,” Ghomeshi asks. “I don’t want to get a posse against men,” Mitchell responds. Stab-cry-stab.

She qualifies her statement: “I’ve got a lot of men friends.” (more crying) “Too many amazons in that community… The feminism in this continent isn’t feminine, it’s masculine. Our feminism isn’t feminism, it’s masculinism.”

There’s this idea that being a feminist means being more “like men.” It’s a stupid idea, perpetuated, I’d thought, by stupid people and conservatives. Feminism is, of course, about challenging the idea that such a thing exists as “masculine” or “feminine.” It’s about the fact that we learn gender. Neither “masculinity” or “femininity” exists in a biological sense and therefore neither is better or worse than the other. Traits that are typically associated with “femininity” are, of course, seen as “worse” because all things “woman” are seen are “worse” in our culture. Feminism is neither “feminine” or “masculine.” Nor should it be a celebration of either.

It sounds like maybe she’s had some bad experiences with feminists. She says they’ve been nasty. To her, perhaps? I don’t know. But something or some things made her hate feminism.

In an interview done by Ani DiFranco back in 1998, the Mitchell tells her: “I prefer the company of men,” going on “to describe the pleasure of being the only female presence among men.”

I don’t want to have to say “I like men, too, Joni!” “I’ve got lots of men friends, too, Joni! And I think they’re great! AND I’m a feminist! See? SEE??” Because that isn’t the point. And I’m tired of hearing feminists have to say “We don’t hate men, we love them!” as a way to try to sell our movement.

Mitchell’s rejection of feminism doesn’t make me mad, though I understand the angry and frustrated reaction from some of her feminist fans who wonder how this seemingly feminist and highly intelligent woman could take such cliched and ignorant stabs at them — it made me sad. She seems like she’s right there with us, until we get to the movement part.

DiFranco writes:

Joni has been personally disturbed by her own second-class citizenship for many years, as well she should be. It is interesting to study her public treatment, especially in the context of, say, her buddy Bob Dylan. For 30 years, Bob has been surrounded by a wealth of media hyperbole (“voice of a generation,” etc.) that was never lavished on Joni. Only now is she beginning to receive some of the public strokes befitting her contribution to popular music. After all this time, though, some of the praising “rings hollow,” she confided. Why has Bob been so thoroughly canonized and Joni so condescended to over the years? Maybe, in part, because when Joni was uppity, she was considered a bitch, and the media retaliated. From day one, however, Bob could be as uppity as he wanted, and the great mammoth rock press lauded his behavior as rebellious, clever, renegade and punkishly cool. Maybe it’s also because Bob’s songs are inherently more masculine (go figure) and have therefore been viewed as more universal, while Joni’s writing, which has a more feminine perspective, is put in a box labeled “girl stuff.”

Mitchell knows that her experiences in life and in music are gendered. She knows she’s been treated differently in the “man’s world” that is the music industry. Maybe she feels she wants to side with the men because she feels she made it on her own accord. The boys don’t need a movement to make it.

I remember wanting to be one of the boys. I tried, in a number of ways, in various periods of my life, to be one of the boys. I tried playing with He-Man instead of Barbie. I refused to wear pink until about 2010. I tried going to strip clubs and I tried hating girls. But hating women won’t make you one of the boys. Things will never get better for women by rejecting women or by trying to be more “like men.” I have lots of male friends because I like those particular men. I have lots of female friends because I like those particular women. I definitely don’t feel I should go to, or enjoy going to, strip clubs in order to be accepted by men. I no longer want to be accepted by men who go to strip clubs.

I can’t claim to know what led Joni Mitchell to reject feminism in the way that she has. I can relate, because of past experience, to what some might call internalized misogyny (if you’ve ever heard a woman say, or even said yourself: “Oh I just don’t get along with other women,” you might know what I mean) — meaning that when one learns all their life that being a woman is a bad thing, sometimes we take that on and respond not by challenging that socialization but by rejecting and hating women and all that comes along with what it means to be a woman in a patriarchal culture.

I still love Joni. I love her music. I respect her. But I’m sad, not only that she’s rejected feminism but that, in many ways, she’s rejected women. I’m sad that her experiences of sexism made her turn against us instead of develop her feminist consciousness; instead of thinking about and challenging the larger power structures and the ways in which inequality shaped her experiences.

It’s hard to be a feminist. You can’t just go along your merry way, pretending as though your status as “woman” doesn’t stalk you at every turn. But feminism has provided me with lens through which I can see and understand my experiences and the world around me in a way that freed me from anger. Which isn’t to say I don’t get angry. I do. But I know why that anger is there and I know what to do with it. Being more “like men” or being “one of the boys” isn’t going to change the fact that I’m a woman in this world. It isn’t going to stop rape or domestic abuse. Being “strong” and independent isn’t going to save me or any other woman from being harassed or groped on the bus. Objectifying other women at the strip club isn’t going to empower me or the women on stage. Objectifying myself isn’t going to protect me from objectification. Which is why feminism matters. Individual women can try as they might to change their individual circumstances, but they still are part of a social class called “women” and that still means something in this world.

With all of Mitchell’s feminist analysis and all of her experiences, we wanted more from her. But I can’t bring myself to hold it against her. All it does is to remind me how hard things still are, and how tired we all get, struggling to make it, to live our lives, and to not feel a constant sense of rage about the ways that our gender determines our experiences. We don’t want it to be true, but it is. And the awfulness of misogyny isn’t only in the ways women are treated by men, but in the ways we treat ourselves and the ways we see other women. Feminism doesn’t mean we have to love all individual women. I definitely don’t. But it means we don’t hate them because they are women. We don’t hate Beyoncé because she poses in her underwear in magazines — we hate that she has to.

The sweetest revenge (porn): Joe Francis meets karma

Thu, 06 Jun 2013 13:56:00 -0400

The sweetest revenge (porn): Joe Francis meets karma:

Hi karma. Some days you warm my heart.

Joe Francis, misogynist extraordinaire and the man who brought us Girls Gone Wild,the soft core porn empire that made millions coercing drunk coeds to flash the camera or even perform sex acts for free is trying desperately keep a sex tape of his own from going public.

He’s threatening to sue any media outlet that releases the tape; his lawyer saying: “It is not only unfortunate, but it is a crime.”

OH REALLY, JOE FRANCIS? REALLY IS IT A CRIME TO RELEASE VIDEOS OF OTHER PEOPLE PERFORMING SEX ACTS WITHOUT THEIR PERMISSION? IS IT FATHOMABLE THAT PEOPLE MIGHT NOT LIKE IMAGES OF THEIR NAKED BODIES SHOPPED AROUND ON THE INTERNET? Oh. Ok then.

Just so we’re clear, it’s totally fine to convince drunk 18-year-olds to flash the camera and then sell those tapes to the world (because everyone is on their best behaviour and has the ability to make thoughtful and clear decisions while wasted on spring break and being egged on by groups of dude-bros), BUT it’s a crime to release Joe Francis’ sex tape to the world. Because he’s a special flower who deserves RESPECT even though he treats women like a form of currency/punching bags.

Francis went to court in 2006 over claims from two 17-year-old girls that they’d been told by a camera man that he was shooting a “private film” when, of course, he was not and over the the fact that the girls were not of age to consent. He managed to evade charges, though that was not the first or last time he was accused of turning underage girls into porn. He plead guilty to child abuse and prostitution charges in 2008, though he claimed to have “never committed any crime,” saying he only plead guilty in order to get out of jail.

Last month, Francis was found guilty of false imprisonment and of assault and will be sentenced in July, facing a maximum of five years in prison.

I hate to depend on criminal charges in order to prove a dude is a cretin, because we often end up dependent on the old everything-is-a-ok-so-long-as-there’s-consent adage or on the odd notion that there’s some kind of gaping difference between exploiting and objectifying a 17-year-old and exploiting and objectifying an 18-year-old. I’m relieved, of course, to see Francis charged for something — anything, as he seems to believe he’s not only untouchable, but that he’s doing nothing wrong and is some kind of defender of free speech and the First Amendment, but I wish that we didn’t have to rely on “consent” as the marker of ethical behaviour or wait until he is charged for actually assaulting women before deciding he’s scum.

In any case, no more pretending — this dude is the worst in every way.

It’s abhorrent that this sociopath moves freely among stars and celebs as though he’s some kind of legitimate business man and is viewed as a celebrity himself, though we’ve known for at least a decade that he’s a violent, sexist, pig. Of course this is how things go when we treat prostitution and pornography as just normal, acceptable, harmless parts of life (Here’s looking at you, “sex positive feminists!” Keep up the freedom fighting!).

In any case, I doubt the experience of trying to keep his own sex tape under wraps will cause Francis to make any connections between his own behaviour and how, oh maybe people don’t like their private lives and bodies shared and exploited for profit online, but I can’t help but enjoy the irony of it all.

"Women’s organizations propose a more holistic solution that also addresses the gendered aspect of..."

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 01:18:35 -0400

“Women’s organizations propose a more holistic solution that also addresses the gendered aspect of prostitution. Knowing that it is women who make up 80 to 90 per cent of prostitutes and that the these women experience violence at the hands of male pimps and johns, it is imperative that the solution be a feminist one. Rather than abandon women working the streets (who tend to be marginalized due to factors such as poverty, addiction, a history of abuse, and racism) to the whims of the market, abolitionists are urging Canada to look towards a more progressive alternative, such as the Nordic model, which criminalizes the purchasing of prostitution, not the selling.”

- A prostitution solution: Outlaw the customers, not the hookers

Rise of the tiny bikini: White porn chic at the beach

Wed, 29 May 2013 15:58:54 -0400

Rise of the tiny bikini: White porn chic at the beach:

By: Aphrodite Kocięda

On May 13^th, the Celebrity Buzz blog published an article titled, “Selena Gomez shows off tiny bikini.” Another celebrity blog site announces: “Jessica Alba Heats up the Beaches in a Tiny Bikini” and, in March, US Weekly posted an article stating: “Miley Cyrus wears Tiny Bikini in Palm Springs Amid Liam Hemsworth Drama.” Can you spot the trend?

It’s the “tiny bikini,” also called the “micro bikini.” Although celebrity gossip blogs are focusing on stars who wear these barely-there bikinis, this trend has repercussions for non-celebrity women as well. If you need evidence, just go to your local beach and I swear that you’ll think you’ve accidentally stepped into a mainstream porn magazine. Has anyone else noticed that bikinis are increasingly transforming into public lingerie? Now that summer weather is approaching fast, it’s becoming more and more evident that porn chic (the glamorization of sleazy, raunchy porn culture) is the hot, new thing in what I’m calling: “the sandy strip club.”

While I’m very much aware that body image is of central concern at the beach for both men and women, this trend of the “tiny bikini” impacts women in particular ways? Swimming gear for women seems to have been co-opted by porn culture.

The “tiny bikini” signifies a shift in the discipline and surveillance of women’s bodies and their habits to maintain sexiness. The labour involved in attaining a “tiny bikini” body is even more extreme. Not only do you have to be “thin,” you have to be completely hairless considering most of these bikini bottoms are composed of string that reveal pretty much everything. Hence the increasingly common Brazilian bikini wax, characteristic of women in porn. Discussion of the sexy hairless body is emphasized in magazines like Cosmopolitan — you know, that super fun magazine for young white women that provides the worst possible sex advice?

One of Cosmo’s writers wrote a piece for their website called, “Bikini-Ready Beauty Secrets,” which was almost entirely focused on getting rid of body hair. Here’s Cosmo’s bikini advice for women:

1) Take Your Time with Hair Removal

2) Get Your Best Shave

3) Epilate for Longer Lasting Results

4) Soften Your Skin

5) Get Your Glow Going

6) Fake it With Bronzer

7) Don’t forget your face

8) Tackle Your Feet

9) Beat Body Acne

In other words: “You’re fucking hideous so change every part of yourself and if you can’t do it, fucking fake it. Don’t you DARE go to the beach looking like yourself! Oh, and black women, make sure you focus on #6!! Oh wait — we’re only writing for white women! Our bad.”

Yet again, the hypersexualization of women is normalized and in order to attain this “Cosmo” sexiness, you better have the time and money to labour for it. Of course this trend also has racial implications considering the space of sexiness and femininity in mainstream culture is generally reserved for thin, white women or exoticized, light-skinned women of colour.

Going to the beach and displaying your “sexy” body for the public gaze is the process within which women are to follow in order to validate their sexiness and sexuality in a postfeminist culture. If there’s no gaze, there can’t be “sexiness.” In fact, the beach provides the perfect public arena for flaunting your successful postfeminist (thin, white, hairless) body. Men can overtly gaze at women’s bodies with no fear of repercussions (thanks to rape culture!) and women attempt to conjure up the male gaze in every space they inhabit (thanks to postfeminism).

In postfeminism, a woman’s success is through her body, which operates off of male approval. Consumption and “choice” serve as the vehicles through which women’s empowerment is actualized. These consumptive behaviors are favored over actual political feminist critiques. Shopping/disciplining your body = fun, intelligent critique = boring.

Bikini retailers are happy to participate. The company, Wicked Weasel is the world’s leading micro bikini manufacturer. Their slogan is: “micro bikinis, barely covering girls since 1994.” Malibu Strings Bikinis is another company that sells micro bikinis. They have had an online competition since 2004. From their website: “We invite our customers to submit photos of themselves wearing our products. We look for photos and video that best represent our products and label and best exemplify our motto ‘Swimsuits for the Uninhibited.‘” Under the photo guidelines, they state: “We are looking for photos taken in public or at a beach or other tropical locale.” Every single photo posted in their competition looks like a scene out of a pornographic film and, of course, almost every woman featured on the site is white. Postfeminist culture trains women to feel the pressure to act sexy in everyspace they occupy. Pretty soon our culture will offer ways for women to be sexy while taking a shit. Women are trained to be constant billboards for postfeminism. Therefore, something as simple as going to the beach and having a relaxing day with the girls is secondary to acting sexy and performing for the male gaze.

Let me state that there is nothing wrong with wanting to be sexy or wanting to feel sexy (although I think the idea of sexiness has been hijacked by postfeminist, white supremacist, able-bodied, porn culture). The problem is grounded in our culture making “sexy” the only option for women and then packaging this “option” as a fun liberating individual “choice.” We are also discouraged from questioning what “sexy” means or looks like. I am not here to tell women what they should do. That’s actually what postfeminist culture is doing to women now — it tells them that they should be sexy in every facet of their lives. I do, however, believe that more diverse cultural images and options must be created for women so that we can go to the beach without feeling forced to perform sexiness.

In creating more diverse options for women (besides just being sexy), we have to critically examine what the actual problem is. If we fail to understand why over-sexualizing women (in every space) is problematic, our solutions risk being uncritical which may reproduce the same problems. That’s actually the issue I have with the xoJane project that aims to empower larger-sized women at the beach.

An online project was created to help “plus-size” (I hate that term) women protest the idea that only thin women can wear and feel comfortable in sexy bikinis at the beach. So, the founders of the project collected photos from “plus-size” women who posed in bikinis and featured them on xoJane, under the headline: “The xoJane and Gabi Fresh Fatkini Gallery: 31 Hot Sexy Fat Girls In Skimpy Swimwear.” Although this might seem progressive on the surface, the creators of this project do not challenge the assumption that women MUST be sexualized in order to feel empowered and they don’t critique the idea that bikinis are used as costumes to conjure up sexiness, instead of something to swim in. Yet again, exhibitionism, for women, is the only way to feel liberated, no matter what size you are. They also fail to question the term “fat” which is problematic itself. It implies that the standard for a “normal” body is a thin body.

Suzanne Scoggins is founder of the activist site,Take Back Halloween, which creates fun (non-sexed up) alternatives for Halloween costumes for women. Scoggins says: “We think it’s cool that there’s one day a year when people can dress up as anything they want. What we don’t think is cool is that increasingly women are only supposed to dress up as one thing: “Sexy _____” (fill in the blank). Sexy Nurse, Sexy Cowgirl, Sexy whatever. There’s nothing wrong with sexy (for adults), and if you want to go that route, fine. Have fun! We just want there to be other options as well.” So, Scoggins is not arguing for thick women to feel sexy in these “sexy” Halloween costumes, she is arguing for us to rearticulate a woman’s experience as being something more than a “sexy” performance.

Just like with Halloween, the whole summer season is hijacked by porn culture and the beach is the epitome of this hypersexualized, postfeminist reality. So, as we know, there’s been a movement to “take back the night,” and now there’s a movement to “take back Halloween.” Maybe now it’s time to take back the beach.

Aphrodite Kocięda is a graduate student in Communication at the University of South Florida. Her current research focuses on feminist activism in a postfeminist rape culture climate.

The tyranny of consent

Tue, 21 May 2013 13:24:38 -0400

The tyranny of consent:

Emily Witt’s recent essay, within which she describes traveling to San Fransisco, where she watches a BDSM porn shoot for a Kink.com series called Public Disgrace, the purpose of which is to show women “women bound, stripped, and punished in public,” inspired a number of responses.

Despite my, probably obvious, criticisms of both porn and the BDSM genre, the piece is a very good read (by which I mean, it is engaging and complex and thoughtful); although very, very graphic (by which I mean, don’t read it unless you wish to read very detailed descriptions of sadomachochism).

There’s no real way to defend the production of this kind of film, the scene for this particular production being one in which, as described by Conor Friedersdorf for The Atlantic, “… a group of San Franciscans crowded into a basement to watch and participate as a diminutive female porn actress (who consented very specifically to all that followed) is bound with rope, gagged, slapped, mildly electrocuted, and sexually penetrated in most every way.”

He adds, accurately, that “the tenor and intensity of the event can’t be conveyed without reading the full rendering.” Granted, the scene sounds rather terrifying and one might ask, on what basis was “consent” given by this young performer. But interviewed after the shoot, the woman expressed genuine pleasure and enthusiasm about the experience. Believably, I might add.

The question that came up for me, and for some others, was this: Regardless of there being “consent” and even pleasure, is the production and distribution of this kind of film ethically defensible? While I have no real interest in exploring the responses that argue this kind of porn is ethically wrong because it’s “uncivilized” or “barbaric” or un-Godly or whatever writers for The American Conservative think about sex that happens outside of marriage and what kind of sex counts as the kind of “civilized” sex God would have, I am interested in the issue of consent and how “consent” is so consistently twisted to mean “ethical.”

In feminism, as well as in other liberal-type circles, we talk about consent a lot. “Anything that happens between consenting adults…” is the mantra. Those who have formed critiques of the sex industry, of course, are well aware of the ways in which this “consent is magic” ethos oversimplifies the concept of consent and removes relevant contexts and larger impacts from the conversation.

Consent is, without a doubt, very important and this drilling of “non-consensual sex isn’t sex” into our brains has changed the way many people engage in sex and communicate with their sexual partners. Consent is also, obviously, still not a given, as demonstrated by the incredibly high rates with which rape occurs as well as by conversations about “grey areas,” so it’s clear we’ve got a long way to go on this one.

Though the consent conversation is imperative, I think we’re doing it wrong.

“You might think we are doing things to the model that are mean or humiliating, but don’t,” said Princess Donna Dolore (the director of the Kink shoot). “She’s signed an agreement.”

She signed an agreement. Meaning, she “consented.” She even enjoyed the scene. I believe she enjoyed the scene. I believe people connect pleasure and pain. I understand how playing with power and subordination and domination and fantasy turns people on. I’ve experienced this. So many of us have and do. I know.

When it comes to the ethics of shooting a video that explicitly depicts violence and degradation and the humiliation of women, though, the issue of consent that’s become so black and white in conversations that happen in the self-described “sex-positive” sphere of feminist discourse, is distorts the issue.

Ethically, of course, there has to be consent. But also, consider that ethics aren’t about individuals. Ethics are about the ways in which our actions and behaviours affect and impact those around us. Ethics are about society. To say “she signed an agreement” — meaning “there was consent,” says nothing about society or the ways in which the production of this kind of pornography impacts women and men everywhere and social relations. So, in this case, this one individual is ok. Maybe. Sure. The performers in this particular film enjoyed themselves this time. Great. But a conversation about ethics doesn’t end there.

To be completely honest, which is something I do try to be, Witt’s descriptions of the scene didn’t upset or disgust me. The scene, as described by Witt, was titillating in many ways. I have, after all, been socialized here in this porny, violent world, along with the rest of you. But I’m certain that, to watch the finished video or even perhaps to have watched the scene in real life, would have inspired a different reaction in me. I contemplated, for some time, actually watching the video, just so I could know for sure and, therefore be better able to describe exactly what it was that changes when we watch this kind of imagery. In the end, after talking about it with a friend, I decided against it. I’ve seen enough porn in my life to know how watching women being degraded or abused on screen makes me feel. I don’t particularly want my sexual fantasies to involve electrocution or fisting or being hit with a belt. I’m not convinced I need to watch a woman wearing a sign that reads “worthless cunt” be groped and prodded and hit by strangers in a bar in order to understand the imagery. Maybe I’m wrong.

Rape fantasies exist for a reason and I’m certainly not shaming women who have them or who even play out these kinds of scenarios in the bedroom (but men who play out rape fantasies on women in the bedroom? Yeah, you go right ahead and feel ashamed). Power is sexualized in our culture. It’s why we think Don Draper is hot. Sexual violence is all twisted up in our lives and psyches. We see images of sexualized violence on TV and in movies all the time. Not in porn. Just on regular old crime dramas and in horror films. It’s part of our history. It’s hard to escape history, culture, and socialization.

So while the issue of why many of us are turned on by sadomasochistic fantasies or experiences should certainly be explored (and has been by many), when we talk about profiting off of the production and distribution of imagery depicting sexualized violence, there is much more to the conversation, in terms of ethics, than simply “consent.”

Witt makes this distinction after talking with Rain, a self-described “24–7 lifestyle kinkster” who works for Kink. Speaking about Princess Donna with reverence, Rain describes the burning, blinding pain brought on by getting cum in your eyes, saying:

“Do you realize the dedication that takes?” asked Rain. “That’s how committed she is.”

Witt asks herself: “Committed to what? To getting guys sitting in their studio apartments to jerk off to you for $30 a month? Not an insignificant accomplishment, but enacting a fantasy of violence for personal reasons was one thing; doing so for money was another.”

Consent is messier than we often pretend it is. It isn’t black and white, though I think we’d like to think it is. “Consensual” or “nonconsensual” are the two choices we’re offered when it comes to ethics around sex and sexuality. And those two choices, as well as our efforts to create straightforward guidelines with regard to sexual ethics, are being used against us. If signing a contract is all we need to determine whether or not Kink is producing pornography under ethical circumstances (which, for the record, they are not), then we need to re-think the ways in which we’re having conversations about “consent.”

“Anything that happens between consenting adults…” can only be the mantra of feminists and liberals so long as we don’t mind our work against rape culture and exploitation being usurped by the sex industry, for profit.

Ethics are neither limited to capital or individuals because how we conduct ourselves would never come into question if not for the “society” factor. It stands to reason that, if we aren’t considering the impact on society, as a whole, with regard to our ethical quandaries, we aren’t really talking about ethics at all. We’re either talking about profit or pleasure from a place of self-interest, in which case “consent” becomes something you get, not because it’s necessarily “ethical” or “right” or “good”, but in order to fulfill the interests of a certain faction of individuals, regardless of social context.

“Consent” is a necessary starting point, but is far from the end of the conversation.

In pornography, there’s literally a market for everything: Why ‘feminist porn’ isn’t the answer

Sun, 12 May 2013 21:56:07 -0400

In pornography, there’s literally a market for everything: Why ‘feminist porn’ isn’t the answer:

“If there’s something you don’t like about your body, put it into a search engine, put ‘+ porn,’ and you’ll find a whole host of sites that find that’s the most attractive thing about you,” porn producer, Anna Arrowsmith said in an interview with BBC, with reference to a debate she would be participating in, hosted by Intelligence Squared in London.

The debate was centered around the motion: “Pornography is good for us” — indeed, a stupidly simplistic and unanswerable question in and of itself; the debate shone a light on the intellectually void and anti-feminist nature of the delusion that is “feminist” or “queer” pornography.

Arrowsmith begins her argument in a most telling way; describing how, one night, walking through London’s red light district, she realized that, rather than feeling angry, she was “envious” that men’s sexuality was being catered to “in so many different ways.” This feeling is likely familiar to many of us and is also an entry point into pro-porn/prostitution feminism for many women. After all, it’s not particularly unreasonable that a woman might feel “envious” of men’s position in this world. It makes perfect sense to feel as though we’ve gotten the shaft (pun!), as women, as far as cultural and social prioritization of female sexuality goes. But is the answer to take what men have in the sex industry, break off a corner piece, and try to mold it into something marginally less male-centric? Is the answer to exploitation to provide “equal” opportunity exploitation? Is our goal, as feminists, to be more like men and to merely adapt to a male-dominated world as best we can? Are we so unwilling to imagine something different than simply “more porn!”?

“I knew then that it was far more productive and feminist to invest my time in creating something that allowed women to explore their sexuality than it was to thwart men’s freedoms,” Arrowsmith said.

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. And while you’re at it, be sure to let the men know you’re on their side. They need change nothing — you’re jumping on board with them. Arrowsmith wants to be seen as one of the “good” feminists. Non-threatening. Fun. Sexxxxxy. Alas, the logic and ideology behind her arguments is not only confused, it’s anti-feminist.

Not only does Arrowsmith want to reassure men they are doing nothing wrong, that she’s on their side, that all she wants is a piece of the pie — but she goes so far as to blame feminism (in particular, Andrea Dworkin) for victimizing women: “Such theorists see women as inevitable victims which, in turn, encourages women to see themselves as victims. It is this anti-porn feminism that gave men the power to taunt women with porn…”

It’s all in your head, Arrowsmith’s self-help style, faux-empowerment discourse goes — Just change your frame of mind, and you can change the world. Yet no amount of positive affirmations or standing in front of mirrors, telling ourselves we are not victims and that we are empowered, will stop men from raping and abusing and objectifying us. Feeling good is great. I highly recommend it. But a political movement to end oppression and inequality, it is not.

Feminism hasn’t victimized women. Neither does the word “victim,” victimize women. Perpetrators of violence victimize women. Blaming women for their own oppression is the lowest of the low. Naming the perpetrator is rule number one in this movement.

Still think Anna Arrowsmith is on our side? Still think “feminist pornography” has anything to do with feminism?

Arrowsmith imagines herself to be making a case for female empowerment via the sex industry. That is, if the fetishization and sexualization of everything and everyone is the be all end all of liberation.

She believes that the problem with objectification (which she understands, in her muted and apolitical way, to mean: “seeing someone for their sexual attractiveness alone”) is simply that it isn’t “socially acceptable” for women to objectify men (though they are capable of doing so “just as easily”).

You see, Arrowsmith has limited her vision of female sexuality (and is working very hard to convince us to limit ours as well) to what she sees in a male-dominated world — understandably — this is all we know. If only we could have what they have, that whole injustice thing would fade away. If women, too, were able to objectify men as men objectify women, objectification would cease to play a starring role in the global epidemic that is violence against women.

Just imagine! If a woman had objectified Joe Francis, he never would have made a lucrative career off the backs of young, inebriated women he convinced to “go wild” — Certainly if women could produce similar films, the objectification and exploitation that support his hatred of women would vanish. Certainly Francis’ view of women as objects that exist solely for his financial gain and/or male pleasure had nothing to do with his recent conviction on assault charges. Nope. The fact that if you don’t comply to Francis’ wishes, and you happen to be a woman, he may or may not smash your head into a tile floor, has nothing at all to do with his soft-core porn empire (which he, like all pornographers, presents as “free speech”). He has a long history of exploiting and abusing women and girls. If you should ever need a clear picture of the connections between prostitution, pornography, and violence against women, look no further than Joe Francis. Or Larry Flynt. Or Belgian porn king, Dennis Black Magic. Turning living beings into objects erases their humanity. It’s far easier to abuse an object. Men who don’t respect women, don’t respect women.

Would “queer porn” have changed how Joe Francis saw and treated women? If it were “socially acceptable” for women to objectify men, would Girls Gone Wild have ceased to be an exploitative, woman-hating, dick-fest? If more women with tattoos and real breasts were made into porn, would the billion-dollar porn industry lose a cent? Would it change it’s misogynistic ways? Would those porn producers suddenly start respecting women? What’s the logic behind this?

Cover your eyes and plug your ears, ladies. Objectification is for everyone. This could be your liberation.

Arrowsmith’s arguments outline many of the problems with discourse around so-called “feminist pornography” — One of those arguments being that diversity will address and erase the misogyny that is integral to the industry. So, the argument goes: if we simply include diverse bodies in our porn, it will cease to be sexist. But, if the problem with pornography lies in narrow definitions of beauty, then we’re making the argument that it’s impossible to objectify women who aren’t thin or who don’t have surgically enhanced bodies. Or that somehow it’s more ethical to objectify “alternative” or “diverse” bodies.

This is, of course, not true. Objectification doesn’t only work on hairless, orange ladies whose bodies have been trimmed and buffed and stuffed full of silicone. Oh no. Men are fully capable of objectifying all kinds of women. Rape happens to fat women and disabled women and older women and racialized women, too, Anna. Is the ability to watch “an amputee,” as Arrowsmith suggests, in porn, progressive? Would we feel better if we watched a woman over 40 be gang raped? Would fetishizing cellulite end male violence? Please.

Another key problem, according to “feminist porn” pushers, is that porn is simply misrepresented. Arrowsmith says, for example, that the oh-so-diverse ways in which porn objectifies all kinds of women isn’t represented in the “mainstream press.” But the problems with porn goes far beyond “representation.”

Germaine Greer, who was placed on the other end of this debate, points out that “porn is not a style, and it’s not a literary genre… It’s an industry.” In other words, this isn’t merely an issue of representation. Nor is it an issue of diversity. Today, pornography is just as much about capitalism as it is patriarchy. It’s about the commodification of bodies and of sexuality for the purposes of profit. Under an inherently exploitative system, such as capitalism, I find the idea that porn is about anything liberating or has anything at all to do with democracy (as Arrowsmith calls it: “the democratization of the body”) deeply ignorant. Capitalism’s whole deal is profits before people, so the notion that one who aligns themselves with a movement towards social equality, such as feminism, would advocate for an industry that exists at the expense of women’s lives, is illogical.

Arrowsmith presents the industry as one that caters to women’s needs and lives, saying: “The porn industry is organized around the women who perform in the films as they decide their limits and are hired on that basis.” Ok sure. If you think that having a three year career (which is the average amount of time women last in the porn industry) in which women are pressured to perform more and more extreme acts and, once they do perform those acts, can’t return to the more “vanilla” acts they were doing before constitutes a female-led industry. The ones who get longevity, financially and career-wise, are the men who run the industry. Women get a few thousand dollars, maybe three years, and a lifetime of humiliation as those images follow them around for the rest of their lives.

Perhaps worst of all, Arrowsmith believes that pornography is a useful stand-in for actual sex education: “It’s where most men learn about where the clitoris, A-spot, and G-spot are.” But the fact that porn is actually seen as a kind of sex education and is actually where most boys and men are learning about sex these days is not something to be celebrated. Not only does porn provide a warped understanding of what women enjoy, sexually (being dominated, facials, gang bangs, double-penetration, everything men enjoy sexually, etc.) but it doesn’t teach consent. Instead it provides viewers with the impression that women are always up for anything and, furthermore, that rape is something that turns us on, even if we think we don’t want it.

By far, the most common female character in porn is “teen.” I tend to think that sexualizing teenage girls isn’t best sex education for men. Is this the “diversity” you’re talking about, Anna? Is this the sex education we want for men? Anna Arrowsmith should probably google “teen porn” and then get back to us about this great, pro-woman sex education porn is providing for men.

Ironically, Arrowsmith runs a “campaign website” called WeConsent.org. The site purports to “campaign against moral panics and anti-erotic industry legislation.” Everything from the name to the supposed aim of the site should be raising red flags. The intentionally meaningless language intends to manipulate the public into believing that 1) the porn industry is interested in “consent,” and 2) opposition to the porn industry stems from puritanism and some kind of illusory “anti-sex” position.

I say “ironically” with reference to the name of the site because, in fact, the entire basis for the sex industry is lack of consent. And no, before sex work advocates start manipulating my words to mean that I think sex workers or porn performers can’t be raped, because every sex act that is paid for constitutes rape, that isn’t exactly the argument I’m making. Consensual sex happens when both parties desire sex. If one partner does not want to have sex, and sex happens anyway, that constitutes rape (i.e. nonconsensual sex). In porn, those involved are being paid to perform sex acts. They are paid because the sex acts they are engaging in are not desired. Once you are paying someone to have sex with you, it no longer counts as consensual, enthusiastic, desired sex. Yes, you agreed to perform whatever sexual acts — but you did so because you were being paid. Not because you really, really, really wanted to fake an orgasm while that very special man fucks you in the ass.

“Whatever happens between consenting adults…” is another manipulation put forth by the sex industry advocates. But is this the kind of consent we’re looking for, as feminists? To be paid to perform sex acts and fake enjoyment? Really? It doesn’t sound liberating to me. That doesn’t sound like “free sexuality” to me.

Even more odd is how the pro-porn “feminists” have also positioned themselves as “sex-positive,” implying that there exists a faction of feminists who are “sex-negative.” I’m perpetually amused to have been placed in some imagined “anti-sex” camp due to my criticisms of the sex industry, though it becomes less and less laughable as more and more people seem to be buying into the notion that “pro-porn” equals “pro-sex.” After all, what’s so “sex-positive” about commodified, coerced sex? What’s so “sex-positive” about promoting an industry that encourages an understanding of sex and sexuality that is not only male-centered, but prioritizes profit over the well-being, pleasure, and respect of women?

Greer’s comments, in fact, were the only “sex-positive” thing I heard in the entire debate, who said (and I completely agree): “I’m in favour of erotic art. I’m desperate to find a way to reincorporate sexuality in the narrative that we give of our lives.” That I feel nothing less than elated in the rare moments I’ve seen women’s bodies and sexualities represented onscreen in ways that don’t objectify and degrade shows me how desperate I am for this as well. We’re so accustomed to pornographic representations of sex and sexuality that we can’t even imagine an alternative. We’ve been told that porn equals sex and that, therefore, to be critical of porn is to be critical of sexual expression. That argument is then extended into one that says that, by either criticizing, limiting, or “censoring” pornography, we are repressing people’s sexualities and sexual freedom. But, as Greer points out: “Pornography doesn’t make us less repressed — pornography is a way of making money off of the fact that we are repressed.”

The solution to the massive and insidious impacts of porn on our lives and views of women, men, and sexuality is not “more porn”. Neither will “diversity” resolve the misogynistic and exploitative nature of the porn industry. The fact that Arrowsmith believes that objectifying “an amputee” or women who don’t look like Playboy models is liberating shows a depressing lack of understanding with regard to how the industry functions and the ways that objectification impacts the status of and real lives of women everywhere. The fact that she believes that women will feel better about their perceived flaws because they can find porn that fetishizes said flaws is, frankly, stupid. “Ooooh look! That man just came all over that lady’s tummy rolls! Body-hatred = resolved.”

“Whatever gives you pleasure, gives you power” can only be your mantra so long as power (rather than social equality) is your modus operandi. When Arrowsmith tells us that “whatever interests you, sexually, is what you should practice,” what she’s condoning and advocating for is not women or female sexual liberation, but a model that says that individual desire, whatever that desire may be, takes precedence over justice, equality, and human rights. Beyond that, pornography limits possibilities for, and our ability to explore real sexual pleasure outside the confines set up by the linear narrative of porn which prioritizes male ejaculation over all else and teaches women to focus on their performance (and faked orgasms) rather than their pleasure.

Arrowsmith says pornography is like “a game or a sport,” and she’s right, in a way… The “game” is one of narcissistic conquest wherein, as Anita Sarkeesian reminded us recently, with respect to “the game of patriarchy,” rather than being the opposing team, women are the ball.

Arrowsmith’s “queer, feminist porn” is nothing more than a desire to jump into the court and grab a racket in the vain hope she won’t get hit.

Was Danny Brown sexually assaulted on stage?

Thu, 02 May 2013 00:11:00 -0400

Was Danny Brown sexually assaulted on stage? :

This story is pretty all around gross. Trigger warning for grossness, k?

Because we’ve yet to hear from Danny Brown on the whole incident, aside from his bragging on Twitter, it’s hard to say exactly how everything went down or what the context was for Brown getting a blow job from a fan, on stage, at a recent show in Minneapolis, MN.

The story’s getting a lot of attention, not just because it’s kind of a, let’s say, “salacious” story, but also because rapper, Kitty Pryde, who is on tour with Brown and witnessed the incident, is “mad as hell” that people aren’t calling it “an actual sexual assault.”

Some further context (this is an account from someone in the audience):

“I was right behind the girl and saw everything it was scaring: Okay so this is how it all went down, I was near the front row and all night Danny had been going up to the crowd and having random girls touch his d*ck through his pants. Then this girl in front of me starts flashing him and he goes up to her and grabs her t*ts. Then all of a sudden gets up close pulls his shirt up a little and she start blowing him. Then I’m behind her and I start getting pushed against her by the crowd shifting. It horrible and i hope you guys will be donating to my future therapy sessions but also i came back with a story. He rapped the entire time during too.”

In case you aren’t a hip-hop fan, or haven’t heard of Danny Brown, he’s not exactly the most pro-woman of rappers. And I know that isn’t necessarily saying much…. But I think it’s reasonable to say he’s something of a misogynist, in lyrics and in life. (Full disclosure: I included one of his tracks, “Grown Up” in my not-famous-or-even-remotely-something-anyone-cares-about-but-me-and-two-of-my-friends top ten hip-hop tracks of 2012 list, before I saw this conversation between him and A$AP Rocky and decided to leave him off next year’s list…)

Now. I understand, full well, that men can be sexually assaulted. Even misogynist men. Like women (though at lower rates), men, too, are raped (by other men). I’m not saying that Danny Brown isn’t “assaultable”. That’s not my point.

If I were Kitty Pryde, and I was the opening act for another rapper and had to witness him getting a blow job on stage, I would be pissed too. Livid, in fact. But her reasons for being angry about the incident confuse me a little.

She says that her friend, Danny Brown, “like anyone else… wants to be respected as an artist and a human.” Ok. Sure he does. He doesn’t seem to have much respect for women, as “humans,” with lyrics like “Fuck a bitch mouth until her fucking face cave in,” but whatever. They aren’t important. Danny Brown wants our respect, so we should give it to him. Pryde says, specifically, Brown wants to be respected “as a man.” And we all know what that means, don’t we? To be respected “as a man,” particularly in hyper-masculine, pro-misogyny environments, means treating women like holes that dicks go in.

Pryde also says she’s mad that “when two dudes pulled my pants down onstage, other people got mad too, but when it happened to Danny the initial reaction was like one big high-five.” So ok. I’m mad, too. I’m mad that this is part of hip-hop culture and I’m mad that this kind of thing gets Brown props. I’m mad about all the ass-shaking women do for Diplo, too. In general, mad about the way women are marginalized and relegated to being either ornaments or prostitute/groupies in so much of hip-hop (and culture at large!). But I also understand why, when two dudes pull down a woman’s pants on stage, versus what happened to Brown, the reaction would be different. So, what Pryde is “mad as hell” about seems misplaced to me.

If the accounts are true, that Brown was having random girls touch his dick, through his pants, throughout the night and that he grabbed the breasts of a woman who flashed him, and, if you look at the photo of the incident, you see Brown’s hand on the back of the woman’s head and assume it’s a semi-accurate depiction of what went down… I don’t know… I feel like the context for this incident, in comparison with a situation where two men pull down the pants of a woman on stage, is quite different.

I don’t agree that people should be performing sexual acts on strangers without their consent, obviously. And I do think that a culture wherein men are supposed to enjoy it when this kind of thing happens, because they’re men, and they’re supposed to want it all the time, is really, really awful and dangerous. But to be all up in arms that people either don’t care “because a girl did it to a boy” or that people aren’t calling this rape or are unwilling to say that what happened at that show is the exact same thing as two men ripping the pants off of a woman on stage or sexually assaulting a woman on stage seems a bit off base to me.

Brown uses women as objects to prop up his own masculinity — in his lyrics and at his shows. He brags about not missing a beat as a woman blows him on stage. He holds the back of her head as she’s doing it. Is that the same thing as a man raping a woman? And is it true that we “don’t care” because the gender roles are reversed? It’s times like these where I feel that context is important, and that perhaps Pryde doesn’t quite understand the significance of that context.

Now, if Brown comes out and says, you know, “that photo is manipulated and I bragged about the incident in order to protect my masculinity but actually I felt violated,” fine. Maybe we can have a different conversation. But at this point I’m uncomfortable simply switching out “man” for “woman” and saying “it’s the same thing.”

Women’s Coalition for the Abolition of Prostitution granted leave to intervene in Bedford case

Wed, 01 May 2013 02:34:15 -0400

Women’s Coalition for the Abolition of Prostitution granted leave to intervene in Bedford case:

The Women’s Coalition for the Abolition of Prostitution, a pan-Canadian coalition of equality-seeking women’s groups, has, as of today, been granted leave to intervene in the Bedford case, scheduled for hearing on June 12, 2013 at the Supreme Court of Canada.

The Court will decide whether or not to keep the current prostitution laws (which criminalize communicating for the purposes of prostitution, running a brothel, and pimping) or strike any or all of them down.

The Coalition consists of: Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter, the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC), the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies (CAEFS), the Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centres (CASAC), Le Regroupement Québécois des Centres d’Aide et de Lutte contre les Agressions à Caractère Sexuel (CALACS), la Concertation des Luttes contre l’Exploitation Sexuelle (la CLES), and Action Ontarienne contre la Violence faite aux Femmes (AOcVF).

The Coalition will argue to keep the current laws which criminalize men who buy sex, sell women or profit off of prostitution, and to decriminalize prostituted women. Their position is based in the understanding that women enter the sex trade due to race, class, and gender inequality.

The other groups who got leave to intervene in the case are:

1) PIVOT, SWUAV, and PACE

2) Secretariat of the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS

3) BC Civil Liberties Association

4) Evangelical Fellowship of Canada

5) Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, and HIV & AIDS Legal Clinic Ontario

6) Christian Legal Fellowship, the Catholic Civil Rights League, and REAL Women of Canada

7) David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights

8) Institut Simone de Beauvoire

9) Asian Women Coalition Ending Prostitution/Asian Women for Equality Society (AWCEP)

10) Aboriginal Legal Services of Toronto

The groups who were NOT granted leave to intervene were:

1) POWER, Maggie’s Toronto Sex Workers’ Action Project, and Stella, l’amie de Maimie

2) Feminist Coalition (for some further background Jane Doe’s and her Feminist Coalition’s perspective on feminism and prostitution, click here)

3) Canadian Civil Liberties Association

4) Scarlet Alliance Australian Sex Workers Association, New Zealand Prostitutes Collective Trust, and Rose Alliance – Riksorganisationen För Sex & Erotikarbetare

For more on the abolitionist movement, check out the Pan-Canadian Campaign We Want More Than Prostitution for Women, which calls for the abolition of inequality, poverty and prostitution.

Just because you like it, doesn’t make it feminist: On Game of Thrones’ imagined feminism

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 02:30:00 -0400

Just because you like it, doesn’t make it feminist: On Game of Thrones’ imagined feminism:

Someone messaged me yesterday asking my perspective on Game of Thrones; wondering if I had any feministy links or insights to share with him.

I stopped watching GoT early in the second season, after Joffrey forces one prostitute to beat another unconscious in a horrifically sadistic and gruesome way. I’d already been having a hard time digesting the women’s-bodies-as-wallpaper theme in the show, never mind the sexualized violence, and watching this misogynist man-child force a woman to beat another bloody pushed me over the edge. It was bad enough that, in the very first episode, teenaged Daenerys is raped by her new husband and it was bad enough that the directors feel it’s necessary to include naked prostitutes roaming around in the background of scenes that don’t require porny, decorative ladies there for any particular reason, but this just did it for me. I feel like I’ve watched enough rape and violence and sexed up sadism to last me a lifetime. No more please.

To be clear, I have zero problem with depictions of sex or nudity on screen. I wrote about Lena Dunham’s non-porny nude scenes in Girls as an example of the difference betweeen pornified objectification and non-sexist depictions of women’s bodies and of sex on screen to show that, yes! it is possible for women to be naked or sexual without turning it into porn. But we just don’t much like doing that these days in mainstream media and pop culture. It’s as though we’ve forgotten how, or are simply too lazy to imagine anything different. Women are to-be-looked-at and we expect women’s bodies, in imagery, to turn us on — We’ve learned that’s pretty much the whole point of women’s bodies.

After receiving this message, I started looking around online to see what feminists were saying about GoT, having stopped paying much attention to commentary on it since I stopped watching the show.

The first thing I came across was this article at Buzzfeed: “9 Ways ‘Game of Thrones’ is Actually Feminist.” And man, am I getting sick of people trying to force feminism into places it doesn’t exist. Last week I read a post over at Bitch about how, while the actresses who play Peggy and Joan on Mad Men were reluctant to call their characters “feminist,” they (according to the writer, Yoonj Kim) actually “displayed feminist thinking” and were only rejecting the label because of negative connotations. But both actresses point out that their characters have little interest in any kind of radical movement and while they may want respect, or to get ahead in the workplace, that doesn’t necessarily equate to feminism. Why Kim feels so adamant about pushing the feminist label onto these characters, I don’t quite understand.

I get the feeling that (some) women, especially younger feminist women, really, really want the things they like to be feminist. Which is a nice thought, of course, but is also ridiculous. Just because you’re a feminist doesn’t mean that everything you do, think, or watch is, or must also be, feminist. I watch Real Housewives on the regular, for example. I really, really love it. It isn’t feminist. Not in any way. And that’s fine. I’m over it. Why do we feel like we need to look for feminism in places it doesn’t exist?

It’s how we end up desperately insisting that burlesque or porny selfies are “empowering” or even feminist. “IT MAKES ME FEEL GOOD RIGHT NOW. PEOPLE ARE LOOKING AT ME. I MADE A CHOICE. TO SHAKE MY TITS ON STAGE” has nothing to do with a movement to end patriarchy. It just doesn’t. Feel free to post photos of your cleavage on Instagram all you want, but don’t call it feminism. It just makes me feel sad. Likewise, trying to force feminism on things you like — Mad Men, Game of Thrones, Magic Mike, whatever — doesn’t make it true.

The argument being made by Kate Aurthur, the author of the Buzzfeed article, seems to be that the creators of the show altered the female characters in the books in order to give the characters in the TV series more power and agency, making some of them into more multi-dimensional characters than those which were depicted in the books. And sure, that might be true, but having some forms of power or having moments of agency doesn’t equal feminism. Particularly in a show that unnecessarily objectifies and sexualizes pretty much all of the female characters. Just as, while some individual women may hold power in the world, that doesn’t necessarily equate to an equal world or work towards the collective liberation of all women.

In a post over at The Literati Collective, Elizabeth Mulhall points out that “none of the female characters demonstrate power that is not in some way mitigated by their gender.” So these characters may be allowed to be temporarily powerful in certain contexts, but we’re always reminded of their subordinate status or their role as object of the male gaze. Even in the books, author George R. R. Martin (who claims to be a “feminist at heart” HAAAAAAAAA) obsessively reminds his readers about Daenerys’ young, sexy, lady-boobs, which certainly has translated into imagery in the show. From the books (and inside the mind of a, supposed, male feminist):

“When she went to the stables, she wore faded sandsilk pants and woven grass sandals. Her small breasts moved freely beneath a painted Dothraki vest …”

Don’t forget about her boobs, you guys. She has boobs. And she thinks about her boobs whenever she does anything. We all do. As Mulhall points out, “Her demonstrations of power are almost always balanced out by observations about her nubile body and general boob-havingness.” It’s like, ok, we’ll give you some power, but stay sexy. Which is pretty much how things work in real life too, if you hadn’t noticed. Sure, a few of you can have some money and some power, but also pose for photos in your underwear. Deal?

Martin seems to think he did his female characters (and, actually women everywhere!) a favour by letting them be humanish, but I’m afraid that isn’t enough to make the show, or the books, for that matter, “feminist.” Nor does “less rapes,” as Aurthur seems to think.

Not only that, but when confronted with criticisms about the over-the-top sexualization, the show creators, David Benioff and D. B. Weiss can only muster up defensiveness, saying:

I don’t know why sex and violence get highlighted so much… You don’t hear people talking about gratuitous punch lines and gratuitous politics: It’s all about what belongs in any given scene. We put in the show what we think belongs in the show.

“Wah! We like it!” Is pretty much their response. If you can’t even accept and address these kinds of criticisms, I’m not inclined to put any effort into buying some garbage about how “Oh, but the female characters are human beings!” Whatever. So a girl runs an army. Not only does the ability to kill other people or have some power over a certain number of other people not equate to the liberation of women, like, in any way at all, but if feminists are telling you you’re objectifying women and sexualizing violence and your only reaction is to defend said objectification and sexualization, you lose pretty much all your credibility in feminism-land.

I’m afraid we’re grasping at straws on this one, ladies.

Men’s Rights Activists advocate for ‘human rights’ with rape and death threats

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 18:02:53 -0400

Men’s Rights Activists advocate for ‘human rights’ with rape and death threats:

By Danielle Paradis & Anne Theriault

The latest from A Voice For Men’s “activism” files is a smear campaign against a protester they are calling “Big Red.” “Big Red” (nothing sexist about that name) is a woman who dared to speak out (USING SWEAR WORDS, OH NO) against Men’s Rights Activists’ anti-feminist agenda.

For those who are unfamiliar with this situation, earlier in April a Men’s Rights Activist (MRA) group called the Canadian Association for Equality (CAFE) sponsored a lecture at the University of Toronto where there were talks by Janice Fiamengo about how feminism is mean. Specifically, a “mean-spirited bias against men in the humanities.”

There were protestors at the event which CAFE says could be heard shouting during the talk. From their website: “Dialogue confronting sexism proceeds while protestors scream to shut down even.” Paul Elam and friends at A Voice for Men took it upon themselves to celebrate free speech by editing videos featuring Big Red, while Dan Perrins wrote an article entitled: “Little Red Frothing Fornication Mouth” that you can find yourself if you are so inclined. This campaign highlighted Big Red’s protest and compared her practice of disagreement, which however loud and obnoxious is still covered under freedom of expression, by comparing what she was talking about—patriarchal theory and how it affects men—to tactics used by the Third Reich.

First of all, let’s be clear here: No, Big Red was not polite. Yes, she was abrasive and caustic and downright rude. No, neither of the authors of this article would necessarily choose to protest an event that they feel is designed to silence women by yelling shut the fuck up. Yes, we see the irony in the fact that she was screaming over (seemingly reasonable) voices, claiming that she isn’t being heard.

But you know what? As Polonius said: “Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.”

She’s not being heard. Those men aren’t listening to her when she’s countering their points about how hard it is to be a man. Those men aren’t listening when she’s trying to explain how feminism is not, in fact, the work of Satan and actually does work to address the issues that they’re bringing up. Those men aren’t listening when she tries to read off a list explaining the actual goals of feminism, but yet they insist she read their list.

Look, Big Red might not the person that we would choose as the poster child for Canadian feminism. Maybe her behaviour isn’t ideal. But we also understand how dealing with men, men who won’t admit to the existence of the patriarchy, men who deny the idea of male privilege, men who hate women, can wear you down until you turn into the screaming feminist banshee that the MRAs thought you were all along, anyway.

Big Red has (naturally) been identified on the Men’s Rights subreddit, where those Hardy Boys of misogyny have used their super sleuthing skills to discover her real name and have pulled photographs from her twitter account and various dating profiles.

This woman, who has been re-christened “Little Red Frothing Fornication Mouth” (so charming!) by A Voice for Men is now receiving death threats, rape threats and, of course, tons of crude sexual commentary regarding her appearance and behaviour. We wish that we could say that we’re surprised, but we’re not.

The fact is that you are fucking kidding yourself if you think that Elam’s Men’s Rights Movement is about anything other than silencing women. And even if it were true that every single individual MRA wasn’t out to destroy all feminists everywhere — the ultimate goals of the movement as a whole is to Teach Women Their Place through whatever means necessary.

Aside from how triggering and painful it is to watch yet another woman be thrown to the internet wolves, it’s also just plain exhausting and demoralizing having to hear the same old song and dance from the MRAs about the evils of feminism:

“Feminists are trying to silence men.”

“Feminists hate men.”

“Feminism has lead to the oppression of men” (seriously, every time someone says that, we want to break out Mandy Patinkin’s old Princess Bride gem: “You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means”).

“Why is it called feminism if it’s for human rights?”

The truth is that, fundamentally, these arguments used against feminism by the MRAs can be applied much more accurately to their own movement.

For instance, how can A Voice for Men demand free speech while practicing silencing and bullying tactics worthy of the McCarthy himself? They mimic the practices of Neo-Nazi website Redwatch, claiming to be suffering from oppression while at the same time publishing personal information about far left and anti-fascist activists in hopes that their supporters will attack them. The constant comparison of feminists to Nazis employed by the author of “Little Red Frothing Fornication Mouth” doesn’t hold up well to scrutiny when you publish on a site that borrows neo-Nazi tactics. Also: Ideologically, feminism is far more closely aligned with communism than fascism. Read a book.

One of the writers of this piece has had the delight of speaking with people who, enraged about her video explaining that feminism is not hatred of men, have mocked everything from her looks to her intellect. Other posts written by feminists are rife with commenters insinuating that our preoccupation with rape belies some deep urge to experience it (RAPE – IT’S WHAT WE ALL WANT, AMIRITE LADIES?). And this sentiment isn’t happening in the periphery of A Voice for Men– not at all. In fact, it’s included in much of the featured content on their site.

Paul Elam, founder and publisher of A Voice for Men, wrote in his June 22, 2011 article, “The Unspoken Side of Rape”: “The concept of rape has a lot of utility for women. One, it feeds their narcissistic need to feel irresistible”. Interestingly, we have yet to hear one single feminist posit that MRAs write about prison rape because it makes them feel desirable or sexy. The difference, they would likely argue, is that the feminists talking about rape are heterosexual women who are talking about heterosexual rape (sidebar – how come we’re all man-hating lesbians when it’s convenient for them, and other times we’re all undersexed heteros?), whereas prison rape is heterosexual men being subjected to homosexual acts. THIS IS FUCKING BULLSHIT. Equating sexual preference with rape is a false comparison. Rape, by definition, is unwanted.

But maybe A Voice for Men’s (intentional) misunderstanding of this fact is what allows them to feel comfortable threatening women with rape — Because in their minds, it’s what we all secretly want anyway.

Unfortunately, Big Red’s case is not the first time that A Voice for Men has used silencing tactics against feminists. Emma (Claire) Kadey is listed on register-her.com along with women the MRAs have listed as pedophiles and rapists, for taking down posters of the U of T students and loudly protesting against the lecture. On June 28th, 2011 Elam gleefully declared “You see, I find you, as a feminist, to be a loathsome, vile piece of human garbage. I find you so pernicious and repugnant that the idea of fucking your shit up gives me an erection” (pssst we call that hate speech).

Additionally A Voice for Men has offered $1000 bounties for the personal information of the creators of a (fake) video where a man is shot point-blank and then the females present gleefully dance around his dead body. Do the authors of this article think that video’s fucked up? Sure. And yet, we don’t typically demand the personal information for those who create graphic BDSM videos, or of those who produce the sub-genre of horror known colloquially as torture porn.

A Voice for Men created register-her.com, a fake “offenders registry” of women they’d like to believe are criminals. In AVfM land, criminals are people like Jessica Valenti, Sophia Guo (a protester at MRA god, Warren Farrell’s 2012 talk at the University of Toronto), Katherine Heigl (kind of a weird addition), and Amanda Marcotte.

In short, their “criminals” are feminists.

A Voice for Men can lie all they want about their intentions to expose hatred within the feminist community. They can pretend that they have nothing against women, per se, just that they’re trying to protect themselves against the Evil Machinations of Man-Haters Everywhere. They can go ahead and make trumped up claims about how badly feminists have hurt them, how little power men have, and how very dangerous feminism is (while boasting a terrorist manifesto by Tim Ball calling for police, courts and government to be burned out). They can pretend that they’re on some kind of human rights mission.

But you know what? We don’t understand how promoting human rights equates to lobbing death threats and rape threats at women who dare to speak out against MRAs.

We have never seen a feminist threaten an MRA with any of those things. Of course, in the bottom half of the internet you never know what you will find, but we haven’t seen it. The usual cries against feminist literature “but the SCUM Manifesto—feminists are mean!” Well, Solanas has been quoted as saying “it is a literary device. There’s no society and never will be”. So it is going to be ok! There’s no group of feminists out there plotting mass gendercide. Equality… We want equality.

In all movements there happen to surface voices that we wouldn’t choose to represent the totality of the whole movement. In fact, there are many MRAs who are starting to feel that way about A Voice for Men. Even in the Men’s Rights Reddit there are dissenting voices against A Voice for Men’s tendency to demand free speech while practicing silencing tactics.

The fact is that A Voice for Men promotes rape culture and violence against women, and that’s really all there is to it.

Look. Guys. We get it. A lot of you haven’t had easy lives. You’ve had shitty things happen to you. You need a scapegoat, and feminism is an easy one. You feel that women get a free pass in life, and that men are treated badly as a result. But you know what? The most common complaints that I hear from MRAs are things that came about as the result of the patriarchy.

Historically, patriarchy operates through the disproportionate (sometimes exclusive) conferring of leadership status (and formal titles indicating that status) on men, a tradition characterised by casting all women as naturally unsuited to lead men, no matter what talents and expertise they might possess (unless there are exceptional circumstances resulting from intersections with other social hierarchies conferring high status that gives rare women political authority such as the royal lineage in the British family, or the divine claim to authority of Joan of Arc).

A few examples:

Society has always been better to women.

If by better you mean “for centuries society did not consider them to be people, and thought that they were incapable of doing any work outside the home” then sure. In pre-industrial France a man would take a wife when he couldn’t afford a servant.

Biologically every woman counts in reproduction, where males are more disposable.

Look, we don’t like being walking incubators any more than you like feeling as if you’re nothing more than some kind of sperminator. We don’t want to be treated as if we’re special just because we have the ability to get pregnant! This is actually the opposite of what feminists want.

Courts always rule against men in cases regarding child custody

You know why? Because the patriarchy teaches us that only women can be nurturing, loving caregivers. This is not what feminists want! We want to break down traditional gender roles!

Women are rescued first in any emergency or disaster, lifeboats!

First of all, that’s not true, and second of all: Patriarchy. Patriarchy is what teaches us that women aren’t competent enough to save themselves and therefore have to be given some kind of special priority.

Men work longer hours at more dangerous jobs, men have to fight wars, men are more likely to die violent deaths.

Guess why? Oh right, patriarchy, that’s why! Because traditionally we have been taught that women are not strong or brave enough to work at dangerous jobs or fight on the front lines. These are more gender stereotypes that feminists want to get rid of.

And we don’t want men to die violent deaths, I promise. Pinky swear. We need you to fill our sad, empty wombs with babies. Haha! Just kidding! A little feminist humour for you there. No but seriously, we for reals don’t want you to die.

At the end of the day, the fact is that we should all be on the same team. And feminists want this! I promise! But for that to happen, you (and by you, I mean dudes) need to accept a few things: 1) The patriarchy is real, 2) Male privilege actually is a thing, and 3) That women are still struggling for legal and social equality. We need you to be willing to listen to us, to give us the benefit of the doubt, and actually believe us when we tell you that something is sexist or misogynistic.

We want to work with you. But first you have to stop hating us, calling us criminals, and threatening us with death and rape. You need to take a good, hard look at what the Men’s Rights Movement is really trying to achieve, and decide if those are actually goals that you support. And you have to just plain give us a chance.

Danielle Paradis is a writer and blogger scribbling furiously across the feminist internet on Fem 2.0, Flurt Magazine, Persephone Magazine, and Paradigm Shift NYC. She’s completing a Masters in Learning & Technology at Royal Roads University. Danielle currently lives in Edmonton, Alberta while dreaming of any place warmer. Learn more at Danielleparadis.com

Anne Theriault lives in Toronto with her husband and young son. She spends her days teaching yoga, reading in cafés, and trying to figure out how to negotiate in toddler-ese. She regularly blogs about books, nostalgia and feminism at bellejarblog.wordpress.com

Is this journalism? A response to DiManno and The Toronto Star's falsification of the prostitution debates

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 13:07:01 -0400

Is this journalism? A response to DiManno and The Toronto Star's falsification of the prostitution debates:

A piece published in the Toronto Star over the weekend may have led you to believe it would, as the headline: “Feminists take opposite stands on prostitution” alludes, explore different feminist positions on prostitution and prostitution law.

The author, Rosie DiManno (“one of the Star’s best and most prolific writers!“), immediately trips all over herself in an attempt to rile up some page views by framing feminist positions on prostitution as “completely oppositional,” following through with a 1300-word story she made up in her head about feminism. Cool story, Rosie! Oh wait, are we pretending this is journalism? Sweet.

As much as the prostitution debates in feminism are divisive, they aren’t “oppositional” (though, I don’t know how many more times I can point this out without feeling like no one really cares to cover these debates accurately). As DiManno may or may not know, the division among feminists (with regard to prostitution law, in any case), is centered around the criminalization of pimps and johns. It’s safe to say that the vast majority (if not all) of feminists advocate to decriminalize prostituted women. It’s also safe to say that all feminists want an end to violence against women, including women working in the sex industry. The value in pointing this out is both to find common ground, because there’s lots of it, but also to avoid falling back on tropes and nonexistant stereotypes. In terms of having this debate with some kind of integrity and with the goal of finding a real and viable path towards equality (which, one would like to presume is a goal of feminism), honesty is useful.

And with that point, the “honesty” one, let’s move back to DiManno. The headline suggests we can expect a fair shake of sorts — a piece that explores two sides of an argument. “Misleading” is a tepid word in this case, as it becomes immediately clear that DiManno’s goal is anything but exploratory, unbiased, or honest. Which isn’t to say I think we must be unbiased in our writing, but rather that it’s reasonable to expect, at very least, some level of truth. Particularly when we are trying to convince our readers we are, indeed, exploring two sides of a debate with integrity. DiManno’s goal, it’s clear, is not only to further divide, but to do so on deceptive ground.

Let’s start at the beginning (maybe take this opportunity to take some Gravol or grab a drink), with DiManno’s explanation of these “dual, completely oppositional feminist perspectives on prostitution”:

“The first operates from a premise that sex for money — the business of prostitutes — is inherently wrong and exploitive. These arguments cleave to a time immemorial moral disapproval, which is why its proponents, though often calling themselves feminists — and by many definitions they indeed are — have a great deal more in common with religious organizations and the family values mob.”

OH ROSIE. Let’s try this again. The abolitionist position (is this what we’re talking about? You’ve yet to say exactly WHO it is you are pretending to characterize here) argues that women’s bodies are not things that exist for male use. We argue that women should not have to resort to selling sex in order to survive or to feed their kids. We argue that prostitution exists as a direct result of class, race, and gender inequality. “Moral disapproval” has no more to do with our approach and ideology than socialism is about “moralizing” against the exploitative nature of capitalism. It could be argued that advocating towards an equitable society is about morals, if you believe that equality is “right” and inequality is “wrong”; but I’m pretty sure that’s not where you were going with this. Case-in-point: This line, which claims feminists have “a great deal more in common with religious organizations and the family values mob.”

Well I don’t know, because as an atheist and as a person who rejects the nuclear family model, the institution of marriage, and traditional notions about women’s primary purpose in society as baby-maker, I’ve never felt I had much in common “with religious organizations and the family values mob.” The Christian right doesn’t think prostitution is “bad” because they want an end to male power and to elevate the status of women. They think it’s bad because they believe sex shouldn’t happen outside of marriage or without the purpose of baby-making/maintaining a traditional, heterosexual, patriarchal family. This position is actually “oppositional” (you know that word, right, Rosie?) to the feminist position on, well, everything.

Next paragraph!

At the most radical end of that spectrum, some might even subscribe to the infamous assertion by the late anarchist Andrea Dworkin that “all heterosexual sex is rape’’

It’s high time (and by “high time,” of course, I mean: Clearly none of you give any fucks about accuracy) people stopped misquoting Dworkin on this non-point. You could try actually reading her work, or you could do a quick Google search for: “Dworkin ‘all heterosexual sex is rape.’’’

Go on. I’ll wait.

Ok. Let’s compare notes. You likely came across a number of entries correcting this common (and intentionally, lazily manipulative) misrepresentation/myth. One of those places was likely a Wikipedia entry which clarifies that, while Dworkin was, yes, very critical of heterosexual sex as both the norm and as a potential space for female subordination within the context of a patriarchal society, there is actually no place in the history of ever where she is quoted as saying “all heterosexual sex is rape” (Quick tip for future reference: Quotations often imply that you are quoting someone). Dworkin herself corrected this misinterpretation a number of times over (for example, in this interview from 1995 — That’s over FIFTEEN YEARS AGO, folks! Think it might be time to put this one to rest?), saying things like: “I think both intercourse and sexual pleasure can and will survive equality,” and “Since the paradigm for sex has been one of conquest, possession, and violation, I think many men believe they need an unfair advantage, which at its extreme would be called rape. I do not think they need it.” (Again, this information is available via handy Wikipedia! You don’t even have to do any real reading or research to know what you’re talking about — That should please you immensely, Rosie).

So it’s not actually possible to subscribe to a notion that doesn’t exist, for starters and while, yes, there are some anti-PIV feminists, I nor any of the women I work with in the abolition movement believe that “all sex is rape”.

Now, you got the Nordic model mostly right, Rosie (nice one!) — It’s a feminist model that sees prostitution as a product of patriarchy (and capitalism) and, works towards a society where women have other options than to sell sex while simultaneously teaches men that it is not their right to use women’s bodies simply because they have an erection/cash. There is absolutely no argument that can be made to argue that prostitution is not a gendered industry when 80-90% of prostitutes are women. We are all, also, fully aware that the vast, vast majority of clients/johns are men (even when sex is being bought from other men and boys). The Nordic model targets male buyers rather than female prostitutes because of the gendered (and economic) power imbalance. That is also why we call this model a “feminist” one. Violence against sex workers happens at the hands of men, and therefore the focus should be on the perpetrators. You can call that “aggressive” if you like, provided that you admit that you think feminist ideology is somehow “aggressive” and then provide an argument that backs up the notion that working to end the oppression of, and subsequent violence against, women is, somehow “aggressive.” Be sure to let us all know what you come up with.

Next up: the Bedford v. Canada case.

Bedford v. Canada was initiated by Alan Young. He brought on three women, two of which have aged out of prostitution and are looking to open and brothels, as part of his efforts to challenge Canada’s prostitution laws. Currently the laws in Canada criminalize living on the avails of prostitution (pimping), communicating in a public place for the purposes of prostitution, and running a bawdy house (brothel). On September 28, 2010, Justice Susan Himel ruled for the Ontario Superior Court that these three provisions were unconstitutional and struck them down. That decision was appealed and went on to the Ontario Court of Appeal.

On March 26, 2012, the Ontario Court of Appeal struck down the bawdy house law, upheld the law criminalizing communication (the law that, in essence, criminalizes women working the streets), and found the “living on the avails” law should apply only in “circumstances of exploitation” (so no real change there as that is, after all, the point of that law).

At this point, the impact of this decision is nil (and would have only had immediate impact on Ontario’s prostitution law, as the laws are decided on a province-to-province basis) and the judgment was appealed and is going on to the Supreme Court of Canada (scheduled for hearing on June 12th, 2013).

DiManno claims that “neither side was happy” with the Court of Appeal’s decision (because it left the communication law intact), but that’s actual bullshit. Both Young and his clients were elated by the decision, calling it a “emancipation day for sex workers” and a “victory.” This is because the primary purpose for the case was not to decriminalize street prostitution, but to legalize brothels. Bedford herself is quoted as saying: “I was mainly concerned with winning the bawdy house law because of what happened to me at Thornhill” (Bedford’s “Bondage Bungalow” in Thornhill, Ontario was raided in 1994 and she was charged with keeping a common bawdy house, which is what lead her to get involved in this case).

DiManno goes on to quote “Jane Doe” who seems to be under the impression that she’s debating someone (evil, imaginary feminists, one might presume?), who says she “rejects outright the moralizing quotient and maintains that keeping solicitation on the books, in fact, furthers violence against women, particularly the most marginalized prostitutes who will continue to work on the streets.”

This statement manipulatively implies that, somehow, there is a “moralistic” faction of feminists who want to criminalize prostitutes, placing the Bedford claimants on the other end of this imagined spectrum which, as noted above, is a lie.

DiManno continues to quote this anonymous person in order to confirm and reinforce all the sweeping and untrue stereotypes she set out to “prove” in the first place — comparing the religious right and radical feminists, and making the mysterious claim that abolitionists believe “prostitution is responsible for all violence against women, but especially sexual assault.”

I will say this again, though I doubt it will stick and imagine I’ll be repeating this for the rest of my life so long as folks like DiManno feel comfortable ignoring facts, research, and ideology; publishing bold-faced lies in order to put forth their arguments (to what end, I have no idea, really, as that which women like DiManno might see as a successful outcome of these misrepresentations — the decriminalization of pimps and johns — has been proven disastrous): Feminists don’t hate sex, they don’t think prostituted women are “bad,” and they aren’t “anti-sex worker.” Abolitionists are far more “pro-sex” (if you want to call it that), than those who believe sex is something that should happen under duress or out of desperation. You want “enthusiastic consent”? That’s not going to happen under a model that treats prostitution as a social safety net. If a woman needs to give blow jobs to pay her rent or feed her kids, that doesn’t count as “enthusiastic consent” — that counts as having no other choice.

And finally, we come to exit programs. An integral part of any system that wishes to help women leave the sex industry if they desire. Jane Doe says:

What the state offers right now are exit programs. The police arrest you and the woman is given a choice — get charged and go to jail or take this exit program. They’ll teach you how to use a computer, how to put your resumé together, and the ill of your ways. I know what I’d choose between those two. They’re completely ineffective and insulting to adult women. They encourage you to get the job at McDonald’s. Women can do that all by themselves, without exit programs.

So actually no. There are no real exiting programs in Canada. Nothing comprehensive or functional, in any case, if what we’re looking at is actually helping and supporting women who want to leave the industry. And the thing is that, if we legalize or completely decriminalize prostitution, we lose any and all leverage we might have in terms of lobbying the government to allocate money for these kinds of programs because prostitution becomes just a job like any other. Do we provide exiting programs for people who work as massage therapists? Or as waitresses? Do you need an exiting program and years of therapy, drug treatment, retraining, safe housing, and treatment for PTSD when you quit your job at the coffee shop? Nope. Think there might be a reason for that?

In Sweden, one of the progressive countries that’s adopted the Nordic model, when the police come across a john and a prostitute they offer the man the choice of admitting the offense and paying a fine, based on income, or going to court (but then risking publicity). The prostituted woman, “who hasn’t broken any law, is offered help from social services if she wants to leave prostitution. Otherwise, she’s allowed to go.”

If we can all agree, which it seems we can, that “the violence is the problem,’’ then we should also be able to agree that it is the source of that violence that needs to be addressed. There’s some common ground for you.

And to DiManno: Lying and manipulating readers via misguided, misinformed, misrepresentative, anti-feminist diatribes is almost as bad as liberally quoting an anonymous source’s misguided and misinformed lies. I don’t know what the Toronto Star thinks it’s publishing, but it isn’t journalism. It isn’t even an informed opinion. Shame.

Tom Matlack: Victim of feminism

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 21:37:00 -0400

Tom Matlack: Victim of feminism:

Tom Matlack, who I’d pretty much forgotten about because, well, because he’s irrelevant, is at it again. And by “at it” I mean, of course, whining about the mean, mean feminists. It’s his thing.

Some history on me and Tom: Back in January, Matlack, who is the co-founder of MRA-lite site, The Good Men Project, wrote a blog post for The Times as part of an incredibly inane “debate” about whether or not makeup “helps or hinders a woman’s self-esteem.” I responded to his post, entitled “Women Should Do What They Want” (oh gee, thanks for the green light on that, Tom!), by saying, basically, that nobody cares about what Tom thinks about what women should or should not do with their faces. Tom got super choked that I would DARE criticize his nice-guy stance but claimed that “personal attacks bounce right off [him]” and that what he’s really upset about are “the attacks on The Good Men Project as a whole,” which are, according to Tom, “unfair and unjustified.” But the thing is that they’re not “unfair and unjustified.” Not in the least.

Tom Matlack is white dude with tons of cash. The Good Men Project is profitable. That he continues to obsess about being victimized by the evil feminists doesn’t make much sense as feminism, and what feminists think about him, very clearly have had little impact on his life (aside from maybe the amount of time he spends instigating and engaging in Twitter wars with feminists). Unless, of course, you place his whines within a Men’s Rights context. Because what Matlack is doing is what all MRAs do — Pretending that white men, who are the single most powerful group of people on the planet (which is different than saying that individual men can’t experience oppression or be victimized — they can — but AS A GROUP white men are not discriminated against on a systemic level) are actually victims of feminism — a movement to end the oppression of women, as a group.

He goes about this in a super-sneaky way; reminding us over and over again that he’s on OUR SIDE you guys! He’s a “good man,” after all. If we would just stop “attacking” poor Tom, the feminist movement would actually be able to get somewhere. He says things like: “I am all for equality. I am all for women’s rights. What I am not for is making this one giant zero sum fight in which men get bashed.” He pulls the classic “we’re just being honest,” card, as though “being honest” is an excuse for being a sexist mansplainy moron. He thinks feminists are getting in the way of feminism, which is something he is an expert on.

Just today, Matlack published another whiny post that basically equates to “Why me? WHY. (Me)” opining, yet again, feminist “attacks” on men, cloaked in this “I really care about women’s liberation, but women are doing it wrong” thing he’s become so fond of.

When a commenter says the following:

If feminists were truly concerned about equality they would not be seeking superiority. There are more challenges that we as men are facing today that females are not. Frankly society is not stepping up to the plate to bat for us. “They just don’t care.”

Tom responds saying he “couldn’t agree more.” These aren’t the words of an ally. This is MRA stuff, plain and simple.

So here’s the thing, Tom. Feminism doesn’t want you. The last thing we need is some rich, white dude explaining to us how REAL liberation should happen. You’ve proven yourself over and over again to be a sexist douche who thinks feminists are bashing all men simply because they call YOU out on your bullshit. YOU are part of the problem. And anyone with two brain cells can see that a man who goes around calling feminists crazy isn’t of any help to the feminist movement.

So here’s my suggestion: Stop talking about feminism. Stop talking about equality. Stop pretending to be on women’s side. You aren’t. You’re on your side. Your opinion on our movement is irrelevant and we keep telling you as much, yet you continue trying to force your opinions about women and “equality” onto the world and then get all butthurt when we tell you, once again, that you aren’t helping. What do you need from us? You’re already making more money than any of us evil feminist bloggers. Do you need attention? Kind of like a spoiled child? LOOK AT ME. ME. ME. Why not just come out, once and for all, as just another MRA who can’t put together a coherent argument to save his life? The “good man” shtick is such a shoddy cover for your men-are-real-victims M.O. and your desperation for relevance is offensive.

Why doesn’t anyone talk about unionizing arms manufacturers? On the idea of sex worker unions

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 15:54:15 -0400

Why doesn’t anyone talk about unionizing arms manufacturers? On the idea of sex worker unions:

No one proposes ending war by unionizing arms manufacturers. Proposing to end violence against women in the sex trade by unionizing them is likewise untenable. The best way to end violence against women in the sex trade is still to end the sex trade. The unionization strategy is a reformist position – and the position that we would like to live in a world where there is no such thing as prostitution, strip clubs, pornography, while it might seem fantastical, is a revolutionary position and the correct line to have for a leftist who calls herself a feminist. It’s not moralistic hand-wringing to criticize the base assumptions of the military industrial complex; why then, is it just my “personal baggage” speaking when I criticize the sex trade?

First, we should look at the conditions in which women in the sex trade live, and ask ourselves if these conditions could be alleviated by unionization:

Seventy percent of women in prostitution in San Francisco, California were raped (Silbert & Pines, 1982). A study in Portland, Oregon found that prostituted women were raped on average once a week (Hunter, 1994). Eighty-five percent of women in Minneapolis, Minnesota had been raped in prostitution (Parriott, 1994). Ninety-four percent of those in street prostitution experienced sexual assault and 75% were raped by one or more johns (Miller, 1995). In the Netherlands (where prostitution is legal) 60% of prostituted women suffered physical assaults, 70% experienced verbal threats of assault, 40% experienced sexual violence and 40% were forced into prostitution and/or sexual abuse by acquaintances (Vanwesenbeeck, et al. 1995, 1994)… The prevalence of PTSD among prostituted women from 5 countries was 67% (Farley et. al. 1998), which is the same range as that of combat veterans (Weathers et. al. 1993).

From Farley et. al. (2003) “Prostitution in Nine Countries”

Is this staggering violence a result of lack of unionization? Let’s see what the International Union of Sex Workers is fighting for:

All workers including sex workers have the right to:

full protection of all existing laws, regardless of the context and without discrimination. These include all laws relating to harassment, violence, threats, intimidation, health and safety and theft.
access the full range of employment, contract and property laws.
participate in and leave the sex industry without stigma
full and voluntary access to non-discriminatory health checks and medical advice

Here is where we begin to be mired in questions, a case by case judgment of “good” vs. “bad” prostitution. What defines coercion? What defines trafficking? What defines abuse? What defines empowerment? Certainly, the assumption of the IUSW is that the sex industry is a normal, neutral industry wherein women happen to be subject to incredible amounts of violence and poverty, where nearly half (47%) are under the age of 18 when they begin working. The idea of the IUSW and other unionists is that the trade is not the focus – the focus, as we so often find it when discussing sex work, is on the women themselves.

Unions often define themselves by their relationship with management – with the “boss” - but for sex worker unions this is hardly ever the case. As the women are primarily seen as independent contractors for the sake of analysis, the john and pimps are left out of the picture. The culture surrounding the sex trade is not up for analysis, either. It is a neutral, unchanging constant.

The boss is the john, and to take action against the john or the culture that encourages him is to shut down business. Instead, the union is supposed to either challenge the state (to legalize prostitution) or to perform the functions of the state (provide protection, legal counseling, health services). Yet, these are reformist measures that simplyserve to react to the conditions women live in, rather than challenging the very conditions themselves. Lest we forget: women are not raped and abused because of a lack of state regulation (or too much state regulation), they are raped and abused because the john, pimp and cop decide to do so, and exist within a system that shelters them from consequence.

Within the realm of the normalized sex trade, rape and abuse are no longer crimes against the person, but rather occupational hazards. In the blog, “Tits and Sass”, two articles underscore this quite well. The first, about rape, is written from the perspective that “unwanted sex” is still consensual when the woman sees material gain from the process. This agrees with studies of john behavior and attitudes, wherein a full quarter believe that the very concept of raping a prostitute is “ridiculous.”

It’s rare that I give authentic “enthusiastic consent” while I’m working. And that’s how I prefer it.

“Enthusiastic consent” was conceived in an effort to eradicate the so-called gray areas of sexual assault, so it’s hard to talk about without also talking about rape. While I appreciate the centering of desire and consent, it wouldn’t hold that every sexual encounter taking place without the enthusiastic consent of both parties is rape… But I still turn over plenty of work-related questions in my head: what does it mean for a man to keep paying to have sex with a woman who doesn’t give signs of enjoying it?

Another article, entitled “On Stripper Burnout” advises women who are tired of the verbal abuse that goes with stripping to buy new clothes, look at photos of money to boost morale, eat sweets, or work for a cruel booking agent as “fear can be a great motivator.” There is no advice here on leaving the sex trade – emotional, verbal and physical abuse in the normalized world of pro-sex work advocates becomes a grey zone, where the woman’s personal attitude is what determines the difference between occupational hazards and something that might contribute to PTSD – putting the onus of responsibility on the woman rather than on the john.

The practical side of unionization brings us back to the current, atomized-view of sex work in general. It is a localized solutionwhich does nothing to address a global problem.Questions arise: Who do you bargain with? How do we unionize all women? If a woman was in the sex trade and did not belong to a union, would this be her choice? Are johns supposed to solicit union prostitutes out of a sense of guilt, a la consumer activism (fair trade hooking?). Do we really expect johns to spontaneously grow a conscience when they are told women are for sale and it’s okay to buy them? When it comes to women in pornography, the average career tenure is quoted in several sources at being between five months and three and a half years – how then, to unionize these women? Same with prostitutes, who on average enter the trade when they are underage – how to unionize these women? What about pimps and madams, pornographers and mobsters – are they allowed in these unions?

Any leftist worth their red will agree that punishing women is the most counter-productive way to handle prostitution or sex work. Yet unions stop short at criticizing johns who, on the whole, generally acknowledge that women in prostitution experience homelessness, substance abuse and physical and emotional degradation. Johns know, on average, that women enter into it when they are underage and against their will. They buy sex anyway. Unionizing women will not end trafficking, will not end violent deaths – it simply turns what is a societal problem into an organizational problem. Like most unions as they exist under capitalism, a sex-worker’s union’s primary purpose is to keep the more politically-minded in line with the management. We should look elsewhere for solutions that liberate women.

Taryn Fivek is a writer in New York City.

'Putting selfies under a feminist lens' by Meghan Murphy via The Georgia Straight

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 23:48:36 -0400

'Putting selfies under a feminist lens' by Meghan Murphy via The Georgia Straight:

“Gail Dines, a professor of sociology and women’s studies at Boston’s Wheelock College and the author of Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality, doesn’t believe the selfie is about vanity.

“I think it’s the human desire to be visible,” the scholar and activist told the Georgia Straight by phone.

Men, according to Dines, can gain visibility in a variety of ways. “But for us [women and girls] there’s only one way to visibility, and that’s fuckability,” she said. “To call it narcissism is to take an individual, psychological approach as opposed to a sociological one which asks: ‘What is the culture offering girls and women as a way of visibility?’ ”

Meghan Murphy's op-ed at Al Jazeera English today: "Creating gender equity: Lessons from Iceland"

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 16:01:55 -0400

Meghan Murphy's op-ed at Al Jazeera English today: "Creating gender equity: Lessons from Iceland"

The truth about me (and Steve) *TW for sexy times

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 17:41:52 -0400

The truth about me (and Steve) *TW for sexy times

‘Prostitution Chic’ is a thing now

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 14:42:38 -0400

‘Prostitution Chic’ is a thing now:

Earlier his week, The Gloss featured old photos of prostituted women in order to highlight the fact that being poor and having to service nasty-ass dudes in the early 1900s also involved wearing cool tights. A comment left on the post reads: “Well, I’m obviously going to be an old school sex worker for Halloween this year.” — I can’t tell if that’s sarcastic or not, but I think it shows that The Gloss really made their point.

Of course, I think it’s super awesome that The Gloss, who claims to be “a big fan of both sex workers and women of the past,” is promoting prostitution as an outfit you put on. What I think is even more awesome is Louis Vuitton’s ad campaign promoting “prostitution chic.” Working the streets, hanging out in alleys wearing lingerie, and getting into cars with strange men is super chic and sexy, y’all. Apparently some think “the film is tongue in cheek, and playfully risque,” but I tend to think violence against women isn’t a super cute, playful, sexy joke.

Katie Grand, the editor-in-chief and a collaborator of Louis Vuitton’s creative director Marc Jacobs, has now issued a completely sincere apology that shows how very clearly she understands the implications of glamorizing exploitation and abuse, saying: “It certainly wasn’t my intention to cause offence.” No, no. It wasn’t your “intention to cause offence.” It was your “intention” to sell clothes.

All this does is reinforce my impression of the fashion industry as one filled with vapid, self-centered, bougie hipsters who think they’re artists and, therefore, post-oppression.

Luckily not everyone buys this BS, and a number of lefties, feminists, and intellectuals complained about the campaign, accusing it of “assimilating luxury with the world’s second most profitable criminal activity after drug trafficking.” A letter published in Libération, a leftwing, French newspaper asks if Louis Vuitton realizes “they are promoting violence, pornography and sexual slavery.”

Oddly, a writer at The Gloss complains about the campaign — Though mostly concerned that it “stereotypes” prostitutes, the author, Jamie Peck, also represents those who spoke out against the campaign as being naive about the fact that the fashion industry (are you all sitting down?) also objectifies women. DUN DUN DUNNNNN.

Peck goes on to say: “So long as you support a capitalist system whereby people are forced to sacrifice their time and bodily autonomy in exchange for food and shelter, you have no business telling anyone what they should or shouldn’t do to survive.”

Well true that. I hope no one ever tells the author that most abolitionists are not actually fans of capitalism, that the Nordic model is a socialist model, and that most feminists who advocate for an end to the exploitation of women also advocate for affordable housing and social safety nets (which are decidedly not capitalist concepts), because that might blow her mind.

Anyway, where’s the apology from The Gloss? Do they really believe that being “fan[s] of sex workers” is the same as representing prostitution as fashion choice or a costume?

The Nordic model is the only model that actually works. ‘Duh,’ says Sweden

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 16:48:19 -0400

The Nordic model is the only model that actually works. ‘Duh,’ says Sweden:

An article was published recently in The Independent looking at the Nordic model in Sweden. The journalist, Joan Smith, took a ride in a squad car to see how a model wherein the buyer is criminalized and the prostitute is decriminalized actually worked. What she found will likely be met, by any progressive, intelligent, feminist person, with a resounding “Duh.”

Of course the cries of “uptight!” “freedom!” “choice!” “meandmydick!” will likely continue, regardless of facts, because North Americans have their hearts set on buying into ridiculous and illogical notions of liberty that imagine sex and SUVs to be some kind of human right. But here’s how it actually works:

Smith and the squad car pull up to a car park at the top of a hill where johns tend to go with prostitutes. She writes:

What happens next is a textbook example of the way Sweden’s law banning the purchase of sex works in practice. The driver of the car, who’s brought a prostituted woman to the island to have sex, is arrested on the spot. He’s given a choice: admit the offense and pay a fine, based on income, or go to court and risk publicity. The woman, who hasn’t broken any law, is offered help from social services if she wants to leave prostitution. Otherwise, she’s allowed to go.

So, dude pays a fine; the woman is offered alternatives without pressure. OPPRESSION!

It’s so obvious it makes your head spin. Some of the most progressive, egalitarian countries in the world have adopted this model and it’s working. Meanwhile, those who’ve opted for legalization or those like Canada and the U.S. who continue to treat prostituted women like criminals while offering them few alternatives, flail.

Julie Bindel points out that the only thing the Dutch government’s 12 year experiment with legalization succeeded in doing was to increase the market. The illusory labour-based approach, put forth by confused lefties, wherein prostitution is imagined to be “a job like any other” hasn’t worked either:

Rather than be given rights in the ‘workplace’, the prostitutes have found the pimps are as brutal as ever. The government-funded union set up to protect them has been shunned by the vast majority of prostitutes, who remain too scared to complain.

Under the “labour” model, assault and rape is no longer violence against women, but “an ‘occupational hazard’, like a stone dropped on a builder’s toe,” Bindel writes. There’s simply no reason for police to charge men for doing something they feel they are legally entitled to do. Without reeducation and training, which is a key aspect of the Nordic model, the police are unlikely to change their attitudes towards marginalized women, prostituted women, and, more generally, with regard to women’s human rights.

Those who argue that prostitution is dangerous due to “stigma” turned out to be wrong too, as Bindel reports: “Only 5 per cent of the women registered for taxation, because no one wants to be known as a whore — however legal it may be.” The stigma remains, as does the exploitation.

In 2009, the police had to shut down a large number of brothels Amsterdam’s red-light districts due to organized crime having taken over.

Under legalization, trafficking increased, organized crime moved in, and women have continued to be abused and degraded. Is this the “liberation” we’re looking for?

Talking about sex work as work doesn’t help women. It doesn’t help women leave the industry, it doesn’t create gender equality, it doesn’t stop the violence, and it doesn’t destigmatize prostitution. Reframing legalization as ending the “stigma” has not only been shown to be untrue, but it distracts us from the reality that violence and inequality doesn’t happen because of stigmatization — it happens because of male power and systemic injustice.

Detective Superintendent Kajsa Wahlberg, Sweden’s national rapporteur on trafficking in human beings, is quoted as saying: “The problem is gender-specific. Men buy women.” Which is why a feminist approach is needed. And, as of yet, the only legislation that is specifically feminist in nature is the Nordic model.

Smith writes that prostituted women who come to Sweden from the Baltic states or Africa, who have sold sex in other countries say “they’re much more likely to be subjected to violence in countries where prostitution has been legalized.”

Men in Sweden, on the other hand, are afraid to commit violence because they know the women they are buying sex from have more power in the situation than they do. They know they will be charged if the woman calls the cops and so they behave better.

Crime statistics show that trafficking has decreased since the Nordic model was enacted in Sweden. Places like Victoria (Australia), where prostitution has been legalized since the 80s, adopted the model in order to “contain the rampant growth of the highly visible brothel and street prostitution trade, eliminate organized crime, to end child prostitution and sex trafficking, and eliminate harmful work practices.”

Instead, what’s happened is that “Victoria has created a two-tiered system—a regulated and an unregulated prostitution industry.” There are minimal exit programs for women who want to leave the industry (perhaps a moot point for legalization advocates, as the whole idea of exiting services seems to exist in opposition of the “job like any other” mantra — because what other, just, you know, “jobs” require therapy and exiting services in order to quit? The military, perhaps?), illegal brothels are rampant and trafficking has increased.

These facts fly in the face of the argument that criminalizing buyers will drive the industry underground. It seems that, in fact, legalization encourages the “underground” (illegal) industry. It’s no coincidence that those who wish to operate illegally or as part of a “black market” flock to countries where prostitution is legal.

There is, in fact, zero evidence that shows that criminalizing johns has driven prostitution underground. Under the Nordic model, there’s also absolutely no reason why, if prostitution is “underground” the cops wouldn’t be able to find these industries: “If a sex buyer can find a prostituted woman in a hotel or apartment, the police can do it,” one of the detectives Smith interviews says, “Pimps have to advertise.” Because the police have the resources and a vested interest in charging the exploiters, they have reason (and the support) to look for them.

In South Auckland, NZ, where prostitution has been legal (fully decriminalized, meaning that running a brothel, living off the proceeds of someone else’s prostitution, and street solicitation are all legal — which is what some are advocating for in Canada) since 2003, street prostitution has increased dramatically and recent reports show child prostitution is on the rise. Just like in Victoria and Amsterdam, illegal prostitution has increased.

In contrast, since the Nordic model has been in effect in Sweden since 1999, street prostitution, organized crime, trafficking, and pimping have decreased. The country also has strong social safety nets and exiting programs for women who want to leave the industry.

In a recent debate about the legalization of prostitution, hosted by New Internationalist Magazine, human rights lawyer, Diane Post begins her argument by saying:

Legalized prostitution cannot exist alongside the true equality of women. The idea that one group of women should be available for men’s sexual access is founded on structural inequality by gender, class and race.

As far as equality goes, there’s no argument here and we need to stop pretending there is. Prostitution doesn’t promote the status of women. Societies and countries that have been shown to be progressive, egalitarian, and “sex positive” (like Iceland, a place that has a much more open-minded and “liberal” approach to sex and sexuality than the U.S.) are also societies that have adopted legislation that works towards an eventual end to prostitution, supporting the women who are in it in the meantime, and teaching men that buying sex isn’t acceptable. It’s no strange coincidence that Iceland, which ranked first place in the 2012 Global Gender Gap Report, has also banned strip clubs, is considering a ban on hardcore pornography online, and has adopted the Nordic model.

The argument for the legalization of prostitution is largely about individual rights. But we do, sometimes, have to choose between prioritizing the rights of certain individuals and building an equitable society.

The popular position among some American feminists and progressives is to pretend as though prostitution is simply something open-minded people do “on the side” for kicks. This is to pretend gender, race and poverty don’t factor in. But prostitution isn’t merely a “zoning” issue. It isn’t, either, about fashion. To these people, I point you to commentary from Margriet van der Linden, chief editor of the feminist magazine Opzij, who said, in left-liberal daily De Volkskrant:

The daily practices of prostitution are portrayed as a romantic world full of mistresses with fishnet stockings and jovial laughs who embody the liberal values of the Dutch, and complaints ring out about the spread of narrow-minded bourgeois values. But not a word is said about the current legislation that has been such a disaster and has contributed to the shocking figures according to which approximately seven in ten prostitutes are victims of violence.

Prostitution hurts some individual women and benefits some individual men. But it is also part of, as lawyer, Gunilla Ekberg says, “a structure reflecting and maintaining inequality between men and women.”

Post points out that “the answer to poor jobs, low pay and harsh working conditions for women is not to consign them to a lifetime of abuse.”

“There is no alternative,” is, after all, what conservative British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher said. The response from the left has always been that, indeed, there is an alternative, and we’re going to fight for it.

The Steubenville rape case: This is masculinity

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 20:51:52 -0400

The Steubenville rape case: This is masculinity:

Two high school football players from Steubenville, Ohio were found guilty of raping a 16 year old girl on Sunday. They were both convicted of digitally penetrating the victim, and one was found guilty of illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material.

The allegations against the young men, Trent Mays, 17, and Ma’lik Richmond, 16, came after a series of photos, videos, texts, and social media posts were brought to light last August. One photo showed the victim “lying naked on the floor at a party, with semen from one of the defendants on her chest.” Another, widely circulated, showed the two young men carrying the passed-out girl by her arms and legs. Mays and Richmond have been sentenced to at least one year in juvenile jail, but can be held until they are 21.

These young men have been both pitied and vilified (but mostly pitied). Anyone who followed the reaction online after the verdict was announced on Sunday will have likely witnessed some of the horrific victim blaming that went on (and continues). Matt Binder documented some of the many Tweets arguing that the victim should be charged for underage drinking, that if “you don’t want to get raped, don’t get blackout drunk,” or that “of course the girl is going to cry rape once her parents find out after videos go viral.” It got much worse than that. Two girls were arrested today after sending death threats to the victim.

I don’t pity these boys. For once, men are being held accountable for their behaviour. It’s abnormal, for sure. No wonder people are shocked. After all, we’re used to dicks reigning with impunity. We’re used to hearing stories, whether in the media or in our own lives, about rapes going unpunished. What’s shocking is not that this happened in the first place, but that these young men were found delinquent (the juvenile court equivalent of being found guilty).

But I’m also not interested in vilifying these individuals. What I think we need to understand is that, yes, this behaviour was absolutely disgusting and horrific and that absolutely this must be treated as a crime, these young men are not monsters. They are just regular guys. Regular guys who play football, go to high school, and go to parties with their friends and who have learned, growing up male in a rape and porn culture, that women aren’t real, full, human beings. They’ve learned, as many boys and men learn, that women exist for the entertainment of men; whether on stage at a strip club, on screen in porn, or blackout drunk at a party.

The transcript of the text messages which led to the convictions in the Steubenville rape trial has been posted online (warning — the transcript is graphic). The conversation between these young men is very difficult to read. They ‘lol’ about raping the girl before realizing that sharing the photos of the assault could be incriminating. Their primary concern is not the well being of the victim; far from it. She is mostly irrelevant. A toy to be played with and mocked. The real concern is getting caught. They knew full well that what they were doing was wrong:

Sean McGee to Trent Mays: U shouldn’t have did it if she was that hammered

Trent Mays: Only a hand-job

Sean McGee: I saw the pics, bro. Don’t lie.

Trent Mays: She was naked the whole time but she was like dead

Sean McGee: If she tells someone, it could get back to her parents and then back on u

Trent Mays: She knows what happened

Sean McGee: No, she don’t

The conversation continues:

Multi-media picture message from Trent Mays sent to Anthony Craig and Mark Cole: (picture is that of a naked Jane Doe; has a caption) Bitches is bitches. Fuck ‘em.

The boys try to plan a cover-up:

Trent Mays to Evan Westlake: Deleate[sic] that off You-tube. Coach Sac knows about it. Seriously delete it.

Evan Westlake: Deny to the grave.

Trent Mays: Her dad knows, and if our names get brought up, if asked, she was just really drunk.

Trent Mays: They knew she stayed at Mark’s. You just gotta say she was asleep by the time you got there.

Trent Mays to Cody Saltsman: Nodi’s running his mouth saying how dead she was. If anyone asks, we just took her to Mark’s, and she fell asleep.

Trent Mays to Mark Cole: Just say she passed out at your house if anyone asks.

Mark Cole: IDK she was fucked up. It was her fault she was fucked up.

Cody Saltsman to Trent Mays: I got you, man. I’ll say that you all were just taking care of her.

They’ve learned the art of victim-blaming well.

My point in sharing this conversation is, again, not to vilify. These boys aren’t monsters. These are men I’ve known. Men I went to high school with. Men I went to parties with. Men who raped my friends. These young men are no anomaly. This is masculinity. This is male culture. Regular, “normal”, every day male culture.

By no means do I intend to say that all individual men and boys behave in this way. They don’t. All men are not rapists. All individual men don’t literally see and treat women as fuck-toys. I know many men, in my life, who I love deeply and who are men who treat women like human beings. But these young men from Steubenville are also not abnormal men. There’s nothing “wrong” with them. They aren’t mentally ill. This is the culture we live in. Where life is a porn movie. Where rape is punishment for getting too drunk. Where sex acts are filmed and posted online so the world can see what women are really for. So women can be mocked and blamed and assaulted simply for existing in a rape culture.

These are men I have known. These conversations documented in the transcript, are conversations that have happened many times over. What happened to this girl has happened many times over. To women we know. If you’ve managed to avoid witnessing masculinity and male culture manifested in this form, count yourself lucky. I can only assume you’ve never been to a frat party, to a strip club, or watched porn. That you’ve never been to high school. Or, if you have, you were somehow protected from this behaviour and these conversations. You’re lucky if this conversation shocks you. It isn’t shocking. This is no seedy underground. This is our life, our world, our men and boys.

On ‘gray rape’, Girls, and sex in a rape culture

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 15:59:09 -0400

On ‘gray rape’, Girls, and sex in a rape culture:

About five years ago, I was out and about with some dude-friends. We went to a bunch of bars, danced, drank, etc. I was single and also, therefore, mingling. Flirting, they call it. Eventually when there was no more bar-hopping to be had, we went back to a friend’s house and laughed and talked and made jokes and took stupid photos. One of the men I’d been flirting with, let’s call him Brad*, gave me a ride home. We got to my house, made out, and I said something along the lines of “Alrighty then, see you later!” He said “No, I’m coming in.” I said “No, you’re not.” This charming back and forth went on for a little while until, eventually, he did come in.

So there was no force, no screaming, no violence. I didn’t feel afraid, per se. I “gave in”, I suppose you could call it. I imagine he thought he was being charming. This is likely a game he had played (and won at) dozens of times over. I, on the other hand, felt repulsed. I’d had sex with someone that, while yes, I was attracted to, was flirting with, and even kissed, did not plan on or want to have sex with. It wasn’t part of the plan. It become “part of the plan” because this man didn’t take my “No thanks!” seriously (and was clearly unconcerned with what I wanted) and because I eventually gave in. I didn’t know what to call it when I told friends about it. I think I went with “date rapey behaviour”.

Amanda Hess wrote about the most recent episode of Girls for Slate. In the article, entitled: “Was That a Rape Scene in Girls?” she describes how the Adam-Natalia sex scene wasn’t one that you might call the cops over; but it also wasn’t consensual in any true or ethical sense of the word. It wasn’t acceptable sexual behaviour by any means. But was it rape?

Hess writes:

What happened here? On the one hand, Adam has fulfilled Natalia’s initial requests—he is on top, comes outside of her, no soft touching. On the other hand, he is no longer being “really nice” or taking things “kind of slow.” This time, no one is laughing. What was abundantly “clear” the first time is now muddied. The first time, Natalia communicates with Adam to do just what she wants; the second time, Adam wields her words against her to do what he knows she really doesn’t. So when Natalia says, “No, I didn’t take a shower,” Adam says, “Relax, it’s fine.” When she says, “No, not on my dress,” he comes on her chest instead. “Everything is OK,” except when it’s not.

She goes on:

There is rape—a crime reported to the authorities, investigated by the police, and prosecuted in the courts. And then there is everything else that is not consensual, but not easily prosecutable, either: “gray rape,” “bad sex,” “they were both drunk,” the “feeling” of being “borderline assaulted.” It’s what happens when a person you want to have sex with “has sex with you” in a way that you do not want them to.

It’s muddy, yes. But we all know (or should know), that it isn’t ok. It’s what happens to women. It’s a run of the mill experience for many of us in this culture. It’s not something easily categorized as either “rape” or “consensual”. As many of us know all too well, there’s much more middle ground. And that “middle ground” is often disturbingly comparable to legal rape; but sometimes more difficult to talk about or sort out in one’s mind.

What happened between Adam and Natalia has happened to me before in one form or another. Once, when I was about 19 or 20, with a boyfriend who was angry and blacked out from drinking. I didn’t want to have sex, he did. We didn’t have sex. Instead, he masturbated over me.

Was it rape? Not technically, no. Was I going to call the cops and have him charged? No. Was it acceptable behaviour by any means? No. Was it a show of power? Yes. Did it make me feel sick and dirty and violated? Yes. Was it ‘consensual’? Hell no.

While “’no means no,’” Hess writes, “it is not the only measure of consent.”

After the incident with Brad — the “No, you’re not coming in”/”Yes, I am coming in” incident — I didn’t know quite what to call it. I told a couple of friends, one of them being one of the dude-friends I was out with that night, a friend of mine and of Brad’s. I said that, well, I suppose you would call it a kind of date rape. But no, it wasn’t “call the cops” date rape. It was, “Ok. I guess you’re coming in.” And “Ok, I guess we’re having sex that I didn’t really want to have.” My friend agreed that this was “date rapey behaviour.”

What happened was perhaps unclear in a legal context, but the way I felt about the situation was far from unclear. It wasn’t ok. Those I told about my experience knew it wasn’t ok.

On International Women’s Day, Toronto Mayor, Rob Ford, allegedly told transit advocate and publisher of the Women’s Post, Sarah Thomson that she “should have been with him because his wife wasn’t there.” And then, she says, he grabbed her ass.

Classy guy that Ford his, when Thomson went public about the alleged sexual harassment, he not only accused her of peddling “false allegations,” but he used feminism against her, saying: “What is more surprising is that a woman who has aspired to be a civic leader would cry wolf on a day where we should be celebrating women across the globe.”

A woman called a man out on sexual harassment and he actually had the nerve to use the woman’s movement against her.

I have a point. I’m getting to it.

Life happens in funny ways sometimes and five years later I was (briefly) dating a relative of Brad-the-sleazebag. Let’s call him Dave*. Needless to say, I didn’t tell Dave what had happened. I assumed it would come up at some point, but not on the first, or second, or third date. It became clear, eventually, that he what he knew was that we’d slept together about five years ago and that I had hated Brad ever since.

That relationship didn’t work out and, by coincidence, our mutual friend mentioned the whole “date rape” thing to Brad. He lost his shit and demanded I clear his name, to which I replied: “I don’t think I should have to say ‘no’ more than once. I’m not sure what you believe constitutes date rape, but if you want to avoid being accused of such things in the future, my recommendation would be to respect and hear ‘no’ the first time a woman says it.” He didn’t take that very well. He was enraged, in fact.

In some less-than-friendly parting emails between Dave and I, it became clear that, while I hadn’t told him exactly what had happened, Brad had told him about the “date rapey” descriptor. Via email, Dave accused me of somehow twisting the scenario around in my crazy, crazy head, in the process, “doing something” terribly cruel and unwarranted to poor, innocent Brad. Not only that, but, by describing my experience as one that was not consensual in any way I’d like to understand the word consensual (Let’s talk enthusiastic consent, hey? Not, I-wore-her-down-until-she-eventually-gave-in, consent) I was a bad feminist. Because, I suppose, what good feminists would do would be to pretend as though talking women into having sex with you even though they’ve said a number of times that they’d prefer not, is totally fine. His email was eerily Rob Ford-esque, saying: “given your role as a defender of women’s rights I find the hypocrisy staggering.”

Oh the hypocrisy.

Rather than simply take responsibility for his behaviour and admit that his behaviour was unacceptable, Brad’s primary concern was to defend his sleazebaggery and paint me as an evil liar, out to get him at any cost! He didn’t want to connect what he understood to be rape with his own behaviour and when men don’t want to understand or be accountable for their own behaviour, they accuse women of lying, of being crazy, or, apparently, of setting women’s rights back with their devious and delusional stories.

See, these men think they’re the “good guys”. The bad guys are in movies, climbing through windows or attacking women in parking lots. And those guys do exist, without a doubt, but if men are unwilling to acknowledge their own behaviour as part of a rape culture, women are going to continue to experience these traumatic “gray” areas and not feel able to call it out. If men are more interested in protecting their ingrained beliefs that they are right and good and entitled to behave in these ways, than treating women as more than sexual conquests, they aren’t likely to change.

The comment from Dave was so odd (and hurtful, as it always is when people victim-blame), partly because, as a feminist, what I’d always felt most guilty about was, first of all, that I hadn’t been “strong enough” to stop the sex I didn’t really want to happen from happening, and secondly, that when I described the experience to a few friends, I couldn’t be completely clear. “Date rapey,” I called it. “Not the kind of thing you press charges over but, you know, I said no, he said yes. And then we had sex anyway. I felt gross about the whole thing.” Shouldn’t I be able to name this incident in some kind of firm way? I felt I should know better on a number of levels. And here I was being accused of failing feminism for entirely opposite reasons.

I suppose you could call these “gray rapes”, as some people did with regard to the scene in Girls where Adam tells Natalia to crawl to the bedroom and then says to her: ““I want to fuck you from behind, hit the walls with you,” to which she does not say “no”, but is clearly not enthusiastically on board. He does fuck her from behind and then pulls out and masturbates over her. She says: “No, no, no, no, not on my dress!” Her face conveys how disturbed and unhappy she is with Adam’s behaviour. The lack of consent isn’t really confusing. He comes on her chest. “I don’t think I like that,” Natalia says. “I, like, really didn’t like that.”

Is she going to call the cops? No. Will she press charges? No. Will she even say that what happened was date rape? Probably not. Was she violated? Most definitely.

Hess writes:

… though terms like “gray rape” help some people talk about assault outside of the context of the legal system, they shouldn’t be used to excuse the aggressor—they should help raise the standard of what we all consider acceptable sexual behavior, whether or not the cops are called.

It’s scenarios like these that leave us without words to describe our experiences. They also leave us open to accusations of “crying wolf” or making “false accusations”.

But we know what our experiences are. We know when there is not consent and yet we can’t call it rape in a legal sense. These experiences leave us vulnerable to being silenced, blamed, and disbelieved. They leave us feeling unsure of ourselves. We ask ourselves what happened — Was it rape? Was it “borderline assault”? Was it just a bad experience that most women probably have? Should we have said “no” more clearly? Loudly? Firmly?

Certainly it’s something more than just a “bad experience” or “bad sex”. And yes, it’s muddy, but only because we live in a rape culture, where the line between consensual, nonconsensual, and legal rape are horribly blurred.

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*Names have been changed