Posts by Emma Hart
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I mean, that would have been a dream friday night when I was in my 20s.
..and for many others too. And then in their 30s, 40s etc
And I admire their stamina.
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of course many women may freely choose to be involved in this industry and genuinely enjoy it. but what about that seemingly large number of women who don't, the ones who are abused?
What Ren does for them is work for SWOP, which involves getting help for sex workers who need it, getting them out of the job if that's what they want, and supporting them if they want to stay in it. I'd say she's got as firm a grasp on the realities of the situation as anyone - that's why I chose her for this. She doesn't paint the whole thing as a glorious rose-strewn path, and neither have I.
Her situation is complicated by working in an environment where sex work is illegal.
The UO report I linked to in the column has the data for NZ prostitutes. The number of prostitutes who say they've been raped by a client in the last year is 3%. Those who say they entered the industry to support a drug habit, 16% of female workers, but 60% of male workers.
When it comes to reasons for staying in the industry, 'supporting drug use' is outnumbered two to one by 'enjoy the sex'.
I agree that the language of some porn can be really, deeply disturbing and misognynist. But that's not all porn. Here's Ms Naughty talking about how she hates the clichéd language of porn, in the context of talking to another woman who likes it. There's an uncomfortable fact that some women really enjoy rough sex or 'degrading' sex, but it's still consensual sex.
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Beautiful, Jolisa.
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Heh, epic quote fail. More coffee...
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this is a must read
Link no worky, anjum, can you repost it?
I will get there, when I have more time, but is any of it causal? ie, we took a bunch of people(male and female), examined their attitudes towards men and women, then made them watch a bunch of porn over an extended period of time, then re-questioned them and their attitudes had changed? Because it may be, surely, that having those attitudes towards women makes those men more likely to watch large amounts of porn, and not the other way around?
If you surveyed couples who watched pron together, do you think you'd get a different result?
<quote>Is this okay to you? That he needs porn to get aroused and then uses your body - who is he really screwing? Is it just visual viagra?
Kerry, I wouldn't be happy if someone 'used my body', whether or not there was porn involved. If a woman uses sexual fantasy to become aroused and then has sex with her partner, do you view that the same way, as 'using his body'?
Was it for this the suffragettes lay down their lives?
Can you see how some women feel like, socially, they've traded being told what to do by men, for being told what to do by women? They're defending their right to choose. Katie Roiphe said feminism had gone from giving women a voice to telling them what to say, and was lambasted by feminists, which kind of proved her point.
In any case, claims of empowerment inside that structure might well be approached sceptically.
Believe me, I see both sides. I also think there's a difference in usage of language that stops both sides from properly understanding each other. So when some people talk about empowerment, they're talking about an entirely internal, personal thing, and others hear them and are confused and horrified because they're thinking of being empowered in terms of an external power structure.
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Whoa nelly. Do you have a link or reference for that? Not because I'm doubting you or anything, I would love to know more about the money side of this.
http://www.msnaughty.com/blog/2008/08/06/oprah-does-porn-gamelink-gets-female-friendly/ (link has NSFW pictures in the sidebar)
On Monday, the theme of the Oprah Winfrey show was “237 Reasons To Have Sex”. One segment on it was a relatively lengthy discussion of the usefulness of porn in spicing up a sex life. They also discussed the fact that women like porn and that - apparently - “in the $12 billion adult entertainment industry, $1 out of every $4 is spent by a woman.”
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a kind of feminism that celebrates women who feel empowered pleasuring men for pay - again, fine by me, in and of itself - does give me a little pause
Y'know, I don't wanna be saying what sex-pos/third-wave feminism is 'about'. Not my job. But I think 'celebrates' is a strong word. It's more about saying 'it's okay if that's your choice, and it's okay if it's not'.
Because at the end of the day, once you've taken the stygma out of pornography and the exploitation out of prostitution, you realise hey, it's never been a better time to be a guy, has it?
I get your point. But, y'know, there's that generalisation again. Women use porn. Men appear in porn. And I don't think the stigma is leaving pornography any time soon.
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So for instance, a very thin successful model could feel empowered by her work, while many women who don't conform to that repeated and widespread ideal feel undermined, disempowered and generally quite shitty as a result.
Sure, I agree with that. But I think there are a whole plethora of issues around women not feeling good about their own bodies, for instance, and criticising women who DO feel good about their bodies doesn't help at all.
And y'know, when I was a teenager, I didn't want to look like a supermodel, or a pron star, I wanted to look like the other girls at school. I'd like to start with the way ordinary women talk about each other. We've all got the power to not criticise other women for the way they dress or look, yet how many of us have occasionally said 'OMG WTF is she wearing?'
at the same time as attending to the impact on large numbers of women
Sure, but let's concentrate on what the impact actually IS. As porn consumption has gone up, violence against women has become LESS acceptable. One in three women uses porn, one out of every four dollars spent on porn in the US is spent by a woman. As more women become porn consumers, more people like Candida Royale and Erika Lust are able to make their brand of 'woman friendly' pron, with plotlines and relationships and dialogue and everything.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think it's simple by any means. Because it's not simple, I think people should at least be prepared to listen to and consider other points of view. I'm in my mid-thirties and I'm still working through these concepts myself. I do know that trying to conform to conventional 'acceptable' ideas of female sexuality was damaging and disempowering for me.
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Ren on stripping as empowerment.
I think empowerment, on a basic personal level is exactly that, personal, and some folks will find different things empowering. So, when Amber says that for her, pole dancing is very empowering, I believe her, and I can see how it would be. People have an image of pole dancing in their minds, I suspect: a stripper in heels twirling around and grinding on a pole in a club wearing little to nothing in front of a bunch of men…which is not what Amber, in her class, is doing... aside from some of the moves, it is not the same as in a strip club. It’s a bunch of women, in dance (dance, not strip) clothes, mastering the art, and yeah, I mean art, of pole dancing, which DOES take grace, balance, athleticism, flexibility, and rhythm, and it is a damn good work out. Belly dancing is JUST as suggestive, really…but I’ve never heard anyone complain about a woman belly dancing for fitness, for fun, or even for a living…(yeah, I belly dance too).
Depends what you mean by 'empowerment', Cecelia, and what you mean by 'women' - ie women as an homogenous mass, or the individual woman doing the pole dancing.
I know women who pole dance (and it's not just women who pole dance, either), who are good at it, and love it. It's difficult, and being able to do it well makes them feel confident and happy. How would it be empowering to tell them they shouldn't do it?
Also, I think to say, as some people do, that how a man feels watching a woman pole dance is more important than how a woman feels when she's pole dancing is, well, sorry, sexist
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Yes! On ya Emma. Sometimes I am really glad to read wise words like this. Thank you for improvin' the day. Now a glass of wine :)
Aw, thanks Sofie, that's great to hear. Have one on me.
Because blaming the victim of rape is such a feminist thing to do.
Well, yeah. Or sitting round coming up with terms like 'sparkle pony' and 'bikini feminist' to denigrate other women.
But y'know... I've got no right to tell somebody else whether they're a feminist or not. In the end I've just had to decide that it doesn't matter whether someone calls themselves a feminist or not. I'll look at what they do and say, not what label they're wearing.