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

[miz_evolution]

EXACTLY

[fierceawakening]

thank you

[fall_of_sophia]

beautiful.

[fierceawakening]

ty

[lisaquestions]

Beautiful summary.

Perhaps not coincidentally, I wrote about how some feminists coopt survivor voices to sustain an acceptable victim narrative - well, not specifically in those words, and it was focused on DV/Rape survivors and how they're used to excuse trans exclusion.

But it's part of a larger pattern, since sex worker voices are only acknowledged among these radfems if they present the proper victim narrative - it's why they're so violently against Ren, as she won't fit into their theories. Or how they completely ignore others who say "I'm a survivor of sex work, and this isn't what my experience was like."

I wish I had gone into more detail on how they talk about sex workers now, and then I could've been a full part of the zeitgeist.

[fierceawakening]

yes. and thanks.

[lisaquestions]

Okay, posted about this specifically.

I didn't really respond to Maggie's arguments, but rather to the way Maggie and others approach activism on this front.

[lisaquestions]

Whoops, link.

[kawakiisakazuki]

I wonder if part of their defect isn't that their idea of "abuse" is "my boyfriend watches porn and it makes me feel inadequate" so they only *think* they know what actual abuse is... There does seem to be a bizarre Orwellian tendency to blur categories in ways that don't make sense in the real world (porn=prostitution, sex=rape, blaming=agency, women=victims, men=rapists, etc) that makes one wonder how a mind can actually function on such premises.

[godess_of_night]

Not all sex workers were abused. As Penn and Teller pointed out in their show Bullshit many do it because they enjoy it and make good money. One such featured lady was actually using her profits to put herself through college.

[fierceawakening]

Oh yeah, I definitely know that not all sex workers were abused, that some are in it by choice and love it, etc. I'm just saying here that some of the strategies of the antis strike me as not so great even for the people who do match their understanding.

[godess_of_night]

I understand completely just though I would throw that out.

[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