Palfrey's death, and more on porn
DC Madam Deborah Jean Palfrey Commits Suicide
Palfrey, known as the “D.C. Madam,” was convicted April 15 by a federal jury of running a prostitution service that catered to members of Washington’s political elite, including Sen. David Vitter, R-La. She had denied her escort service engaged in prostitution, saying that if any of the women engaged in sex acts for money, they did so without her knowledge.
She was convicted of money laundering, using the mail for illegal purposes and racketeering.
But the trial concluded without revealing many new details about the service or its clients. Vitter was among possible witnesses, but did not take the stand.
Palfrey faced a maximum of 55 years in prison and was free pending her sentencing July 24.
I can't say I liked the whole scandal, but this just saddens me. I'm not going to get into conspiracy theories without more evidence. What I will say is that unless I've missed something truly enormous here, that maximum sentence is insane. Yeah, she probably wouldn't have gotten it, and yeah, whatever she ended up with could still be shortened. But I can't imagine how it would feel psychologically to know that other people think you might deserve 55 years in prison for providing a service that some of the very people who fight tooth and nail against avail themselves of anyway.
Which leads me into something I wanted to say about the Stagliano/Belladonna obscenity case. I've been wondering just what anti-porn feminists think of the case, if anything. I haven't seen any buzz from the bees, but I tend to avoid their blogs so it doesn't mean much.
But I decided to look at that case through the lens of the critiques of porn as violence against women or training in becoming violent against women.
What we've got in the trailer I saw from one of them is a "squirting" theme, including squirting out of liquid from enemas. As I mentioned, I find this rather squicky, especially since people then drink it. So my reaction is one of disgust, and mild safety concern. It's a level of risk that I'm sure many people take all the time (I figure, perhaps incorrectly, that it's similar in risk level to unprotected rimming if they've cleaned themselves out well), though, so I don't think it justifies calling pornography wildly unsafe "for women" (or anyone else).
So is it "violence against women"? I don't think so. It's rather gross to me personally, but I don't see any reason that it would be violent unless the production of it were nonconsensual or coerced. Now, I don't have any way of proving it's not, which they take to be telling and I take to not be grounds to assert that it must have been. And the thing to me is that "violence" is a serious word to toss around, one that should be restricted in the kinds of things to which it refers.
So even if you do think "women drinking one another's enema water" is demeaning to women or should be stopped, I think there's something very misleading about thinking of it as violence. Which is one of the many reasons I'm not anti-porn.
Palfrey, known as the “D.C. Madam,” was convicted April 15 by a federal jury of running a prostitution service that catered to members of Washington’s political elite, including Sen. David Vitter, R-La. She had denied her escort service engaged in prostitution, saying that if any of the women engaged in sex acts for money, they did so without her knowledge.
She was convicted of money laundering, using the mail for illegal purposes and racketeering.
But the trial concluded without revealing many new details about the service or its clients. Vitter was among possible witnesses, but did not take the stand.
Palfrey faced a maximum of 55 years in prison and was free pending her sentencing July 24.
I can't say I liked the whole scandal, but this just saddens me. I'm not going to get into conspiracy theories without more evidence. What I will say is that unless I've missed something truly enormous here, that maximum sentence is insane. Yeah, she probably wouldn't have gotten it, and yeah, whatever she ended up with could still be shortened. But I can't imagine how it would feel psychologically to know that other people think you might deserve 55 years in prison for providing a service that some of the very people who fight tooth and nail against avail themselves of anyway.
Which leads me into something I wanted to say about the Stagliano/Belladonna obscenity case. I've been wondering just what anti-porn feminists think of the case, if anything. I haven't seen any buzz from the bees, but I tend to avoid their blogs so it doesn't mean much.
But I decided to look at that case through the lens of the critiques of porn as violence against women or training in becoming violent against women.
What we've got in the trailer I saw from one of them is a "squirting" theme, including squirting out of liquid from enemas. As I mentioned, I find this rather squicky, especially since people then drink it. So my reaction is one of disgust, and mild safety concern. It's a level of risk that I'm sure many people take all the time (I figure, perhaps incorrectly, that it's similar in risk level to unprotected rimming if they've cleaned themselves out well), though, so I don't think it justifies calling pornography wildly unsafe "for women" (or anyone else).
So is it "violence against women"? I don't think so. It's rather gross to me personally, but I don't see any reason that it would be violent unless the production of it were nonconsensual or coerced. Now, I don't have any way of proving it's not, which they take to be telling and I take to not be grounds to assert that it must have been. And the thing to me is that "violence" is a serious word to toss around, one that should be restricted in the kinds of things to which it refers.
So even if you do think "women drinking one another's enema water" is demeaning to women or should be stopped, I think there's something very misleading about thinking of it as violence. Which is one of the many reasons I'm not anti-porn.