Agency, Abuse, Sex Workers...

[fierceawakening]

There's a big brouhaha going on in the blogoverse lately, based on a post by one Maggie Hays, anti-"pornstitution" feminist. So much has gone on regarding it that I can only touch on one tiny part of it, which I'll take you through now.

Ms. Hays has this comment about the agency of sex workers. See, it seems that when "sex-pos" people claim that

Comments

[iamcuriousblue]

Actually, I'm not a big fan of the way Penn and Tellar present their arguments on "Bullshit", and I say that as someone who's often in agreement with their larger point. Its this kind of stuff that gives skepticism a bad name.

In the case of the porn episode, I think there's a bunch of statements that Gail Dines and Diana Russell easily hang themselves on because they're so over the top and make statements that there's damn little underlying evidence for, and in a few places P&T actually do offer a counter-argument. But they also shout and belittle so much that it really undermines their point.

The whole thing on porn and abuse backgrounds - I'd counter that not even by pointing to relatively well-off porn stars, but simply asking where the evidence of above-average levels of abusive backgrounds are. When it comes down to it, there's not one study of porn models that says anything one way or the other about this, and if you dig a little, the antis are probably once again using a few anecdotes plus once again extrapolating Farley's statistics to be descriptive of all sex workers.

[godess_of_night]

Their yelling and belittling don't really bother me. I thought that episode as well as most of them are very interesting.

[fierceawakening]

IACB,

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of their yelling and belittling either. But I do think it's important to note that Dines did, in fact, say "there are no good studies" and act like badgering her for STUDIES, as opposed to badgering her generally, was mean and made no sense. That's telling.

[iamcuriousblue]

I agree - she says that was what she had to say on the subject of porn and rape causation, but claims that there are good studies on the role of porn in shaping men's attitudes toward women. That's so reductionistic, its not even funny. There are an awful lot of things that influence the attitudes of men (both individually and collectively) toward women, and to reduce it down to porn or even media in general is ignoring a great deal, to put it mildly. That's why I don't think the "but for porn" arguments hold up in general.

Here's a link to Dines response, BTW:

http://www.counterpunch.org/dines06232008.html

[fierceawakening]

Yes, exactly. And well, if she did give specific citations and they were edited out, then that does worry me. But I'd like to know what they were -- for example, if they were Malamuth. Because that seems to be the one and only, or at least the gold standard -- yet it's very old. (And I've heard, but the person who told me this hasn't yet emailed me to back it up, that even Malamuth didn't intend his research to be used quite in the way that it is by many APRFs.)

And the thing is that I've been saying for a LONG time now that I want to see studies from the era of 'Netporn. Because if what APRFs often say is true, and things have only gotten worse with the advent of "body-punishing" gonzo, then there should be an avalanche of new studies wherein the link is increasingly obvious.

Yet I see people citing the same old stuff from 1985.

It smells truly fishy to me. Maybe there's a good explanation, but I surely have never seen it.

[fierceawakening]

and you know what I HATE? I hate how people on that side will see this and immediately wonder why a female, like me, is on the side of "the pornographers." I hate that they'll deem me a sellout or self-harming because I value scientific data and reserve judgment until I see it. I hate how that BY ITSELF supposedly makes a woman "deluded" about pornography, or desperate for male attention, or male-identified, or the enemy. Why is desire for information demonized by these people? Why do you get treated as if you've betrayed women because you honestly say "I haven't seen convincing evidence?"