Sex Work – Page 4

Another brief gripe about the dearth of accessible sex worker history

Almeda Sperry was a prostitute and anarchist writer and organizer in the early 20th century. She was a good friend of Emma Goldman. Some speculate that they were lovers. Sperry certainly wrote tormented, romantic letters to Goldman, some of which are reproduced in Gay American History, which I bought a used copy of once upon a time just because it had a short chapter on the relationship between these two women.

The thing is, I don’t care that much about the “did they or didn’t they?” angle. I’m up for some historic queer anarchist soap opera action as much as the next activist, but I’m way less interested in Almeda Sperry’s crush on Emma Goldman than I am in her work. I’m interested in her as a radical figure in ho history. Sadly, whenever I have tried to research her, all I find is stuff about her possibly romantic relationship with Goldman, analysis of that. No reproductions of her writings, no chronicles of her activism or organizing efforts. It seems like her titillating connection to Goldman is the only reason why history remembers her. It seems to be just the queer and anarchist history buffs who discuss her at all, and even they are all up on the drama angle and I find that really…depressing.

I had this idea that I could write a post about Almeda Sperry, maybe introduce those of you who aren’t familiar to someone who I think is an interesting historical figure. At least one I’m interested in. The sad thing is, I really don’t have much to share with you unless I’m gonna get into dissecting her love letters.

Here’s what I know about Almeda Sperry:

-She was born on July 13, 1879 in New Kensignton, PA

-When she was young her parents physically abused her, often in connection with trying to force her to attend church. This contributed to her dislike and distrust of organized religion.

-She began working as a prostitute at the age of 21 and continued to do so off and on for more than a decade. She did not seem to feel very positively about her work or the men who patronized her.

-She worked to establish a socialist reading room in her town, have streets paved, and bring sex education lecturers to local schools. She was also supposedly involved in union organizing, but I don’t know the specifics. By 1912 she identified politically with anarchism.

And that’s about it. All that comes from New Gay America, but if memory serves me there isn’t much more in any of the books I used to have by or about Emma Goldman that mention her. I can’t check right now cuz my Emma Goldman collection was largely lost during a bed bug infestation a couple years ago. Memories.

Anyway.

I can’t be the only person who became intrigued when I came across Sperry in my reading about early 20th century anarchism and radical politics. I wish she was written about as a part of a movement rather than as a love interest. And if some of you are like, “pshaw, there’s this great biographical sketch in _____” Or “silly rabbit, why have you not checked [blankety-blank blank]” please do share!

Six Women Murdered, Three Still Missing, and Nobody Seems to Notice

NC Women Slain

There is quite seemingly a serial killer loose in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. And if there’s not, there certainly still is a murderous epidemic. Nine women have disappeared since 2005, and six bodies have so far been found.

Since 2005, nine women who lived at the edges of the poor community in this small North Carolina city have disappeared. Six bodies were found along rural roads just a few miles outside town, most so decomposed that investigators could not tell how they died. At least one of the women was strangled, and all the deaths have been classified as homicides. Three women are still missing.

Police will not say whether they suspect a serial killer, but people in the community about 60 miles northeast of Raleigh do, and they’re impatient with law enforcement efforts to investigate the slayings.

The community in which these women all lived is apparently a poor, rural one. Many residents suffer from drug addiction, and many women sell sex to make ends meet. It’s unclear from the article whether every woman who has gone missing so far was a sex worker, but it is indicated that at least several were. Many if not all were in their 30s, 40s, or 50s. And according to both the available photographs and an article in The Loop, all were black.

Had you heard this story? Until last week, I hadn’t. Until last week, at which point more media accounts began popping up, pretty much no one outside the town had. And I do believe that I just outlined the reasons why up above.

They don’t really like you, you know…

Okay then. Last eve, well, technically early morning, the Renegade happened upon a post which asserted that all “sex workers” who claim to love their jobs must be in denial. You know, sex workers (no quotes please) who do anything but claim to hate and despise their jobs hear that a whole lot. This, true believers, pisses me off something fierce. And, as usual, this statement was framed with the assertion that we poor deluded sex workers have no idea how men- namely those who deal with sex workers in a business sense- feel/think/speak about us when we are not in their presence. We’ll assume, for the sake of this post, that only men hire sex workers (which hey, totally makes sense seeing as 90% of the people who hire me for pro-domme stuff are women, but lets not fuck with the majority and overriding theme here…)

So yes. Denial and we have no idea what those men think/feel/say about us…

Uh huh. Wanna bet? You see, as a sex worker, and well gee, an actual living, breathing, thinking human being capable of listening, reading, comprehension and all those other things I would have to disagree a great deal with both of those assertions. I figure I, as a sex worker, know my own mind, thoughts and feelings about what goes on in my life- both on and off the job- better than some observer from the peanut gallery and thus, know better than they do if I am or if I am not in denial, and secondly, I am well aware of what not only many of the men who deal with women in the sex industry in a business sense- but gee- a whole lot of people- think of sex workers. Hell, I do get “fan mail” occasionally, dudes are not always real shy about just saying what they think of you, and why yes, since I can read I have subjected myself to the comments made in posts about people like Jenna Jameson, so on, so forth…it’s pretty evident what people think, and no, gee, a lot of it is not flattering in the least. Shoot, you can even be murdered and people will still talk a whole lot of ugly smack about you. But as for the what do they think, and the denial us silly whores are in…

Hell yeah, let me break it all down, just so you know.

When one is a sex worker, they will often be thought of in the following ways:

-A poor idiot dupe who is deluded or in denial.
-A poor idiot with no other possible options.
-A poor idiot who is in the business because they lack education, common sense, self esteem and desperately desire attention, validation, and love.
-A greedy, gold-digging home-wrecking whore.
-An amoral hedonist. (Okay, I am possibly guilty of those leanings; you may stone me at dawn).
-A fake, inhuman creature deserving of the worst possible kinds of pain and death.
-A skank, slut, dirty whore, blah blah blah.

Often, men who deal with sex workers (any type, across the huge not-monolith of the business) may think of sex workers as any/all of the above, and:

They may not “think” of us at all, any more so than they would think of a plumber they had paid for a service. And believe it or not, why yes, some of those people might even oh, like us as people, enjoy our company, so on, so forth. Are they the minority? Why yep, I actually happen to think so, but do they exist? Why yes, they do.

But, little secret here, and sure enough, I am just speaking for me, one sex worker, of course others are free to chime in as they like…

Personally, between you and me, dear Internet…I do not care what they think of me. Simply put, I fail to care if they think of me as witty and charming or a worthless dirty slut. I am not paid to care what they think. These people are not within the circle of people in my life whose opinions of me matter at all. I do not think sex workers are any more subject to caring about what their customers think of them as people than anyone in any other business is. If one were a help desk operator and someone called them a moron, or a bitch, or whatever else do you think the average help desk operator would be crushed by this and have their self esteem reduced to rubble, or do you think they would hang up the phone, say “what an asshole” to the coworker next to them, who would probably nod, then they would go about their day and life and whatnot? Why would sex workers be any different, really? Sure, we deal with assholes. Like everyone else in the world. We also deal with people who are not assholes. Like everyone else in the world.

But wait, I know, it will be coming! With all I’ve said here- about the horrible way we can be and are treated- by everyone from asshole customers to “concerned citizens”, how is it possible to say a sex worker can like their job?

Watch this!

Well, personally, I am fond of the money and the way it allows me to set my own hours. I generally like most of my coworkers. I do dig my work attire way more than business casual (except the spiky heels, I do not like spiky heels, more of a platform gal myself). I absolutely admit without fear or guilt that I love making my own porn, you know, stuff that is depictions of what I like sexually and is a creative process for me and all. I like not having to deal with the whole corporate world thing. I love not being at a desk, in a cubicle, in a building with no windows. In fact, the whole idea of that sort of a working life is enough to make me want to put a gun to my head. I would have to be in serious denial to say I liked or wanted that in my life. Some people do love it, I am sure, but I am not those people. Likewise, I know there are people who would hate or would have to be in denial to like what I do for a living…but see, there’s that catch again, that peeve I was talking about before. We’re all different, so why would we ever be expected to like the same things? I happen to like my job, and of the jobs available to me, I prefer it to all others. Hell, I have a friend who absolutely loves his job. Quit a good position at an accounting firm to start up his own company and everything. What does he do now? Professional crime scene clean up. Would everyone want to do that job? I seriously doubt it. Is he in denial that he likes it? I sure do not think so. When I quit the sex biz, maybe I will go work for him!

That’s not smoke and mirrors, humans, that’s just the way it is. No denying it.

Taking the Erotic Out of Sexual Culture

I’ve worked in and around sexuality for the past 8 years of my life, in capacities ranging from researching the history of gay bathhouses in nineteenth century New York to touching stranger’s penises for money to editing and producing blogs and video podcasts about sexuality. I’ve been around the block and then some. This means, among other things, that thinking about sexuality on a daily, hourly, minutely basis doesn’t have an erotic charge for me – I don’t feel titillated by sitting in a meeting and talking about comprehensive sexuality education, I don’t get turned on when I edit a writer’s tale of a night in a strip club. Thinking about sexuality is my career, it’s my life’s work. This doesn’t, of course, mean that all things sexual elicit no response for me – but it does mean that I have a clear sense of when things are sexy or sexual and when they are not.

This sense, however, doesn’t seem to be one that a lot of other people have.

For example: I’m co-hosting a new reading series in NYC called Sex Worker Literati, which features stories and performances by people who’ve worked in the sex industry. These stories are sometimes about some kind of sex taking place, but they are frequently *not* sexy. Because really, the act of providing an erotic experience for a living is not always that arousing to the person doing the providing. It’s a job.

So of course I rolled my eyes at this obnoxious comment on our Facebook event page:

Is anybody putting out, or all talk, no action.

Maybe I’m a cranky feminist who needs to get laid more, but I think it is really important to have language to talk about sexuality that isn’t itself coded as sexual. So no, dear douchebag commenter, no one is “putting out” (and that phrase is such a lovely way to frame the female experience of sexuality. shudder). And, dear douchebag commenter, you’ll probably find that these stories are not good masturbation fodder either.

In my 7 Key American Sex Worker Activist Projects post last week, I briefly mentioned that I think it’s important to cast salacious representations of sexuality in a different light than representations that attempt to get at the depths and complexities of sexuality.

Unfortunately, as much as sexsexsex is all over our culture in neon lights, the discussion often leaves something to be desired (pun intended). This means that, among other things, people who attempt to discuss sexuality in serious, non-erotic ways get mocked or dismissed or encouraged to sex it up. And while there certainly is a place and time for sexuality to be sexy (there is, after all, nothing *wrong* with enjoying an erotic turn-of-phrase), it’s crucial for there to be spaces where sex talk doesn’t have to be sexy or sexual.

What do sex workers think about the ethics of biomedical research studies that are done on them?

Last year, researchers Dan Allman and Melissa Ditmore started a project asking sex workers about their experiences with and opinions about clinical trials, which they’ve turned into a 65 page report, Good Practice for Sex Workers’ Participation in Biomedical HIV Prevention Trials. The main mission of the project was to get feedback from sex workers about their experiences with researchers, and to encourage researchers to examine their practice and involve sex workers in the process. This is great stuff – I would love to see greater integration of communities in the process of research done about them. The Institutional Review Board, as much as anyone doing human subjects research bemoans the process, is a step in the (general) right direction, but community input is so important to creating sound research.

Here’s some of what the researchers learned from the project:

One important finding: Sex workers are not usually familiar with documents about trials and ethics. This is not obvious to researchers. And it means that a lot more education about research is critical to ‘good participatory practice’.

Many sex workers had recommendations for researchers hoping to work with sex workers such as involving stakeholders from the outset, explaining procedures in non-technical terms and translating all materials and information into local languages. More recommendations are in the report.

One of the ten recommendations is to consult local sex workers at each proposed location before beginning a trial. Acceptance and use of recommendations of local sex workers, and consideration of accommodations necessary for the lives of local sex workers will facilitate the research. Some sex workers are against any cooperation with clinical trials and in some cases, all forms of invasive research, most were not. Indeed, many wanted to learn more about research and would consider involvement in research providing they were confident it was ethical and participatory.

Download the PDF of the report here.

7 Key American Sex Worker Activist Projects

A few weeks ago I gave a talk about with this title at an event called Interesting Amsterdam, and I thought it would be worth reproducing the bullet points and some examples here. The sex industry is big and weird and varied, and there are a lot of different issues that face people who are in the industry by circumstance, choice, or coercion. The industry is not a monolith and there are lots of things that need to be done to improve the lives of the people who work within it. In my perception, there are seven key areas in which projects to support sex workers need to be (and are being!) developed here in the U.S. There are of course lots of other projects happening both in the US and abroad (more on the latter in another post). But these are the areas I think are the most important and intriguing. And – some of these are projects I’m personally involved in, I’ll disclose which ones as we go.

Public Education – Media coverage of the sex industry is salacious and shallow, and most people I’ve to about the sex industry say they’ve never met a sex worker before – or at least, not outside of the confines of some kind of transaction. The experiences of sex workers are rendered in a really narrow way – the fact that they are sex workers is not only the most important, but also only thing that is regarded as interesting about them. But sex workers are whole people. This is why it’s important for there to be public education iniatives about the sex industry – ones that aren’t coded as sexual or sexy. Sex Work 101 (disclaimer: which I created and is an initiative by my org Sex Work Awareness) is one such project. The video at the top of this post, titled “I Am a Sex Worker” is another public education project (disclaimer: that I produced) made as a collaborative effort of the participants of the first Speak Up! media training for sex workers, held in NYC this past April.
Support Networks – Emotional, spiritual, and just plain old friendly support is really key for sex workers to maintain health and sanity. Organizing on any level is just not possible while sex workers (or insert the name of any other group) feel alone and alienated by other communities. Though primarily a political and labor organizing group, the national Sex Workers Outreach Project and its more than a dozen chapters around the country does a really good job of providing this kind of space. Most chapters hold semi-regular meetings – being able to see and talk to people who get it is so valuable. in New York, the organization Girls Educational and Mentoring Service (GEMS) provides support services for underage girls who have been coerced into and exploited by the sex industry. It’s survivor-led and they do some really amazing work. There is also the now sadly defunct Starlight Ministries, an outreach ministry to exotic dancers that was totally awesome and not in any way a creepy paternalistic shaming religious group.
Decriminalization/Legalization – Many parts of the sex industry are legal in the United States: phone sex, nude modeling, performing in porn in some states, exotic dancing, some forms of BDSM work. Prostitution is illegal with two exceptions: in Nevada counties with less than 400,000 residents, brothel prostitution is legal; in Rhode Island indoor prostitution is decriminalized (but might not be for much longer – more on that in a future post). There was a ballot initiative in San Francisco this past fall election cycle to decriminalize prostitution – it got 40% of the vote. There is a lot of debate around whether or not a decriminalized or legalized approach to prostitution would protect people who do not want to be in the sex industry. Most people who work on this issue from a rights-based framework believe that decriminalized prostitution will give prostitutes greater ability to seek out the services they need for health and well-being without fear of arrest or exploitation in the hands of the law. The Sex Workers Outreach Project is one of the key organizations working on this issue.
Health – Sex workers have specialized health needs when it comes to physical, emotional, and mental well-being. Many sex workers are stigmatized against by health care practitioners and are not treated with respect by health care providers. It can be difficult to talk to a general practioner about health issues related to sex work. This stigma is not just about STIs though – I know more than a few strippers who have knee and ankle problems and have a lot of anxieties about talking to their doctor about this issue. I would love to see a sex worker-led initiative to educate health care providers about the unique needs of sex workers and best practices for making sex workers feel comfortable talking about work-related health issues. In the U.S., there are two Calirfornia-based organizations that are devoted to doing health care work for people in the sex industry: in San Francisco there’s the St James Infirmary clinic (which, by the way, has been hard hit by the economy and has had to dial back its services, so donations to them are encouraged) and in Los Angeles the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation (AIM). AIM primarily does STI testing and care for porn performers, but it’s open to all sex workers and has somewhat recently launched a nationwide network of clinics where both adult industry and non-industry people can get a comprehensive STI panel – including tests for herpes and hepatitis, which are not tested for as a matter of course when you ask for STI testing.
Legal Advocacy – The needs of sex workers who work in both legal and illegal sectors of the industry are pretty unique. Most people who are arrested on charges of prostitution, solicitation, and loitering related to prostitution plead guilty no matter what the circumstances. Standing up for one’s human rights in the face of police aggression, arrest and jail time is a really scary thing. On the legal side of teh industry, there are lots of intense labor issues, many of which come to a head in strip clubs. Generally, strippers need to pay a “house fee” to work at a club, plus tip many of the different workers at the club – over the past several years, there have been several successful lawsuits against clubs that enforce this structure, as well as several others that are in the works (which I can’t link to because the people involved aren’t ready to go public). The New York City based Sex Workers Project is a legal services and advocacy group that provides support to sex workers dealing with all kinds of legal issues. SWP also works with trafficking victims to secure their rights and navigate issues around immigration and autonomy. Plus, they’ve done three major research studies (available for free as PDFs via the link), on indoor and outdoor prostitution in NYC, plus the use of raids to fight trafficking in persons. SWP has also recently started getting involved in policy advocacy, especially in New York state. Legislation and lobbying could be number 8 on this list, but I think the sex worker rights movement is a little bit in the baby stages of clarifying what our legislative priorities are and how to pursue them.
Sex Worker Culture – Full disclosure: creation of culture and media advocacy (#7) are my pet projects, so the next bunch of links are all to projects that I’m heavily involved in. Creation of culture and expressions of experiences that people -real human beings- have within the sex industry are key to making progress on all of the other projects I’ve listed here. Visibility is important. I’ve heard the argument that there are images of people in the sex industry all over the place, so why do we need to make even more of them? The answer is that most portrayals of sex workers by the mainstream media are exploitative, and it’s important for sex workers to represent and speak for ourselves in ways that are not connected to marketing, in ways that are honest in both beautiful and ugly ways. To this end, some projects you should look at: $pread (where I was an editor for 3 years), a magazine by and for sex workers. Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys, a new anthology edited by David Henry Sterry and RJ Martin that was just published by Soft Skull (I have a piece in the book and created the website for it). And a new project of mine that I’m super excited about: a monthly reading series in NYC, Sex Worker Literati (the first one is August 6 at Happy Ending, free).
Media Advocacy – Creating sex worker culture is important, but it takes training and planning to make it happen. The organization that I co-founded, Sex Work Awareness, aims to do media training, advocacy, and capacity building for sex workers who want to interact with and create media (which isn’t and shouldn’t be all sex workers). Our big project to this end is a media training workshop called Speak Up! – we did our first day-long training in April for 9 sex workers. The day includes training on reactive and earned media, with interview role plays, tips on messaging, writing letters to the editor, and much much more. In the future we hope to travel with the workshop but that depends on funds and time. We will definitely be doing another training in NYC next spring – next time it will be a full weekend. Have a look at a blog post by a participant, What Speak Up! Did for Me, and download the 45 page CC licensed training manual PDF here.

This is by no means a comprehensive list of all the activist projects or project types that are happening within the United States right now. I’d love to see links to other orgs and descriptions of their work in the comments!

Sex Work and Marriage

Okay, so we’ve already had pointed out this story, the tale of a Gov. Official in Florida who was fired after he married a porn performer. The reason given? His choice of a spouse did not live up to the “Good Family Values” the city of Ft. Myers FL is trying to maintain…

Now, the cynic in me says that if Ft. Myers was so concerned with family values, they should be praising this guy for “making an honest woman” out of his long time partner and mother of his children…and hell need we remind anyone, Ft. Myers is often regarded as the birthplace of Spring Break and when it comes to porn production and the profit made due to it Florida is second only to California, but anyway…

This article made me decide to write about something I’ve been pondering for awhile now, and because I am so kind (ha) and what not, I thought I would save it for my stint here at Feministe…

There are a lot of things people who are not sex workers take for granted, and one of those things is the ability to be married. Nah, no room for critique of the institution of marriage here, that is another post, but let me let you in on a little secret: A lot of sex workers are married…and that is another place where they take it in the chops in a way other people may not understand.

I’m married, and while my job is not a huge source of strife within my marriage, as in, between me and Mr. Evolution…there is definitely some odd mojo going on in our lives because of my job. For example:

His parents do not know what I do for a living, nor, with any luck, will they ever- because flat out, they would not accept it and it would be a huge shit fest. His co-workers do not know. It is pretty much a given that around his family, his families friends, his co-workers, or various other people we know that when the “What do you do for a living” question comes up I will lie. I do not like doing this, but it is done. I actually like my job and take pride in my work, but that does not matter. There have been times where it has really, really pissed me off… as in, I am slated to work weeks in advance, his family will invite us up to see them or go somewhere, and I cannot go. The why I cannot go has to be lied about, which has at times led his family to think that I hate them, that I do not want to go places with them, that I am lazy and have no job at all, so on, so forth. I cannot tell them or a great many other people “Hey, I am speaking at college X about sex work” so they then wonder why I am just jetting off to MN or something. I cannot say I am going to this event or working on this scene or any of that. It is not done. It is also very possible, that like the folk in that news story, that my job could get Mr. E fired or some such thing. Even though what I am doing is legal.

And as always, even under often highly vaunted models like that one in Sweden, it is worse for those engaged in straight out prostitution. In Sweden, even with their model, it is illegal from one to benefit from the earnings of a prostitute. Which is to say, when said prostitute spends the money she has earned to put food on the table for a family, technically she is breaking the law.

And then, as always, there are the reactions of other people. People freak out at the idea of a sex worker being married. Any time I speak somewhere, the room sits and nods when I discuss performing act whatever in a porn scene, then gasp when I say I am married. “What about intimacy?” “What about fidelity?” and, my favorite (Mr. E’s too), “How can you let her do that?”/ “Your husband let’s you do that?”

The short answer is Mr.E…well, there is no “let” involved, but in any event, this is what one who is a sex worker can expect when people find out they are married. In this situation, not only does the sex worker get the great googlymoogly, but so does their partner. They get in on all the bullshit right along with their sex worker spouse.

They can be fired, they can lose their kids, they put up with all kinds of shit right along with their partner in that til death do you part kind of way. They (if male) get accused of being pimps, or abusive, or it is assumed they have forced their partner into the sex biz. It is just a whole extra load of shit sex workers (and their partners) get to deal with. I mean, if Jane the accountant married John the IT guy- well, no one would bat an eye.

If you are a sex worker? Well shit, then the rules are different. Just ask the Janke’s…or any other married sex worker.

The stigma and dehumanization, you see, runs very, very deep.

Questions…and generalized misanthropy.

Right then…in my intro post I described myself as curmudgeonly, I think now is where and when I exhibit how and possibly why…

It will, undoubtedly, be asked, either in public or on the aside what I am doing blogging here since I do not identify as a feminist. Let’s go ahead and say right now that I’m here because I was asked to be here, and you can save your wondering because whatever one might say about it has already been said and the question just clogs up the comment threads…so, if you want answers on that one, read last years intro post and save everyone some time. However, the why I don’t ID that way…well, let me show you. No, what I am about to do is not particularly nice, but then again, when this is tolerated and unquestioned as appropriate feminist behavior…well. that’s just not something I can overlook. I mean, there is a lot of (IMHO) woman hating in the following group of words. The topic, porn, the statement: “Do I want to look at some plastic-surgery enhanced woman who doesn’t even look human being porked”, the subject, how women who perform in porn (or are in the sex industry at large) suffer from Stockholm Syndrome.

Now see, that just chaps my ass in all the wrong ways. I mean, a huge thing that you see coming from anti porn feminists is that they hate the porn because it dehumanizes and degrades the women in it. But see, I am not sure how someone saying those very women do not even look like human beings is anything but dehumanizing and degrading? You know what? I am willing to bet that every single woman in porn breathes, sleeps, eats, gets the occassional zit or dry skin, sweats, thinks, has emotions, and does every other thing that qualifies her as human. Hell, I will go as far as to say, holy shit, those women are real women too! Enhanced or not. They are…get this…people. They might never actually get treated like real people, but sweet Krishna on a Lotus, they are! So yeah, I have issues identifying with or as a memeber of a group of people who refuses to see them as such. I can’t be a part of something where those women serve as one of two things: victim poster girl of the week or non-human being. Don’t like it? Well, this surgically enhanced cyborg fails to care. I have my reasons, and yep, sure enough, I think they are good ones.

And nah, I’m not done yet.

I was looking over the Feministe linkage today, and I started to wonder… “what the hell am I doing here?” Yep, this is my third stint here- but I’d not noticed this until today. This summer, a lot of (well, three so far that I’ve noticed) of the guest bloggers are sex workers and sex worker activists. I suspect that perhaps the group of us were asked to be here because of that…yet…I see no links to sex worker blogs here at feministe…no Bound Not Gagged, no waking vixen, so on, no links to sex worker outreach orgs like Scarlet Alliance or SWOP, HIPS, or UBUNTU, and no links to Sex Worker media like $Pread or the Sex Workers Art Show. See, IMHO, sex workers rights and outreach are not a summertime gig, they are a full time gig, and while yes, I am a bit of a loud-mouthed angry freakshow who causes strife merely by breathing, if one is interested in these things enough to have three of us for the summer tour, perhaps an all year commitment or at least links to those who feel it is so is in order? I would at least expect BnG to get a link in the blogroll or something.

Gods I have no manners, I am calling out the folk who were nice enough to let me blog here. Eh, such is life.

And when people ask me, as the non-identifying sort what is wrong in the world today as far as women and girls are concerned…well, this sort of thing (warning, may be triggering) bothers me more than pole dancing classes and what Michelle Obama was wearing…yet you know, I saw two, and only two, blog posts about it. There may have been more, but I read a lot of blogs, and I saw…two.

Sheesh, you see what a buzz-kill this teehee fun expat feminist becomes when she has insomnia? Next thing you know, I will be on about plastic surgery…and filming what they are doing to my neck so you can see how fun that is too! Glitter glitter!

The East, the West and Sex: Author Richard Bernstein responds

Apparently Richard Bernstein read my non-review of his book and didn’t find it particularly flattering. You can read his comment here. He’s right that I haven’t read the book, and did draw most of my conclusions from various reviews (the Slate review specifically), and from my own experiences with men who have made similar arguments. I still don’t plan on reading the book, but I’ll direct you to a very good review by someone who has and leave it at that.

One Book I Won’t Be Reading

The East, the West and Sex by Richard Bernstein.

The Slate review is actually pretty good. It points out Bernstein’s troubling view of women, and “Eastern” women in particular — with “East” apparently meaning Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Bernstein basically argues that, sure, colonialism was kinda bad and racist, but the sexual interactions between colonizers and the colonized weren’t always exploitative; additionally, when European men commented on the sexual depravity of th “East,” they weren’t totally wrong. From the review:

Bernstein deserves credit for raising a tortured subject from which it is easy to avert our gaze. And yet, and yet … there is something deeply uncomfortable about a book that seems at times so complicit in the very exploitation it aims to scrutinize. It’s not just the tone, though Bernstein’s oblique confession to having his first sexual experiences in an Asian brothel is creepy. It is the fetid attitude toward women.

Bernstein’s view of the role of women in his story of cultural and sexual collision is nuanced to the point of being myopic. He is describing men who went to foreign places, toppled their leaders, stole their resources, and then tossed their women a few pennies to spread their legs. Yet he writes: “From the standpoint of the currently fashionable political morality, [this behavior] appears very bad, an illustration of the unfairness of colonial rule. … But let’s try to see the erotic history of the West and the East as part of a great human pageant, one in which the women, the girls and the boys involved were not necessarily passive.”

Wait, why should we try? Bernstein’s own attempts to claim that the women were involved in choosing their fate are extraordinarily feeble. He tells a story about an Arab queen choosing to have sex with a Western traveler, but how typical was she? He concedes that “much of the sexual opportunity presented by the East has always been, and still is, based on exploitation and injustice.” But he goes on to defend the men who took part in that exploitation. Of Burton and Flaubert, he says, “They used no force; they abused no children; they did what they were invited to.”