Update: I also want to give Kerry Howley a chance to respond to a quote about prostitutes that may just “love sex” that was taking out of context. She definitely does not want anyone to think she’s under the misimpression that prostitution is glamorous or that most prostitutes wouldn’t get the fuck out given half a chance. I apologize to Kerry for misrepresenting her position. We are in full agreement that no one should go to jail for selling sex. I will admit I’m skeptical of the idea that legalizing prostitution will do anything to reduce the stigma—most legalization schemes preserve the stigma, understanding that a non-degraded prostitutes is an oxymoron in the eyes of many, probably most customers, and that without the atmosphere of degraded womanhood, there’s nothing to buy and so the trade would slow to a trickle.
One great thing about being a fan of reading blogs and general internet writing is that you flit around from piece to piece, all short attention span theater, and you occasionally have serendipitous justapositions.* I liked this one. First I read this:
Well, Caitlain, in a patriarchy, the cornerstone of which is a paradigm of male dominance and female submission, women do not enjoy the same degree of personal sovereignty that men do. This oppressed condition obtains a priori to all other conditions, and nullifies any presumption of fully human status on the part of women. A woman, therefore, cannot freely “consent,” because her will is obviated by her status as a subhuman…..
No sane radical feminist could possibly support the assertion that women are “incapable” of making decisions; we are merely prevented by an oppressive social order from exercising our capability to its fullest extent.
Last night I participated in a reading of “The Vagina Monologues” at a local university. I didn’t tell my husband what I was doing, since his politics are more conservative than mine and I just didn’t want to get into it over something I had already decided was the right thing to do. (The benefits supported a local women’s shelter.)
That said, I have to say I really liked this part of Twisty’s post:
I suspect that the rampant willingness among young feminists to deny this grim truth stems from the wholly untenable position into which it thrusts’em. They’re young, they’re fit, they wanna boink; who can blame them if they just aren’t ready to accept that nothing short of an exhaustive, uncompromising overthrow of the social order will put them in complete control of their own selves?
The interesting thing about this is that while you buck the idea that your full consent is always being pinched in these intellectual discussions, out there in the sexual field, as it were, you behave as if this were true. When sex education activists talk about teaching negotiation skills in the classroom, usually we’re thinking specifically, “Teaching young women to hold out for the condom, despite wheedling and even threats.” (Or being offered more cash to go without.) Young women who wanna boink have to become adept at working around the fact that many of their bedmates are simply not ever going to accept the idea that they’re full human beings instead of just sex toys that happen to have heart beats. (See this thread for many examples.) And if you get really good at getting yours and not letting the assholes trying to come on your face get you down, you get rewarded with being called a slut. Personally, I admire the navigational skills that many women develop and find it to be a tragedy, albeit an entirely predictable one, that the intelligence that it takes to be a good slut gets redefined as “dumb” in our culture.
In all honesty, considering this state of affairs, I can see how some “happy hookers” develop. If the price of just trying to have some fun-loving sex is frequent encounters with guys who think being gracious to sex partners defeats the purpose of fucking someone, then it’s just a matter of time before you start thinking you should be getting financially compensated, I’m sure. I just want it to be clear that while I hold men who visit prostitutes in very low esteem, I would never judge a prostitute, who is either a survivor or someone who took stock of a certain situation and decided that she’s going to game it. As well she should, since the system’s out to get her.
*New band name.
88 Responses to “Moments in juxtaposition”
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Right on, Amanda. I’m slowly learning that being single and ready to go can be a huge turn-off for men. They’re afraid of losing control of the situation. It’s quite depressing.
Also, lest I fail to show my nerd creds: serendipitous juxtaposition is a duotridecalogism.
*New band name
My husband’s cousin’s son already named his band Plan B … I’m waiting for them to open for Client Nine.
Good way to put it, Amanda. I sometimes bristle at the way some women describe all heterosex as being fundamentally non-consensual, as this is not only demeaning but also infantalizing in my view. I think this is because you are a het girl who has not totally rejected all contact with men. You much more carefully outlined the issues involved without making it sound like women can’t want or enjoy sex with men of their own free will.
It is a tenuous dance between taking charge of one’s sexuality and having that sexuality be used by specific men and general society toward non-beneficial ends. The answer is not to decalare all women who have heterosexual sex to be owned, but to teach each other about the fundamental consent issues and where the violations lie. You have to understand what consent really means before you can draw your own boundaries to being used.
You know how, in “The Beauty Myth”, Naomi Woolf argues that all the beauty routines stacked up on women function to deprive us of time and energy we could devote to real work. I can’t help but think that the amount of brain space it takes to navigate a sexual landscape where you have this huge issue to work around also puts women at a disadvantage in other areas for the same reason.
realityfighter, I suggest that you refer them to MAJeff and pablo who will break ‘em of their inhibitions and get in touch with their true selves. Leaves more of the best women for us, and, lord knows, I personally need my odds improved.*Of course, if they are not closet cases but just merely terrified het boys and pathetic het dweebs posing as men then there’s not much we can do for ‘em.
* - Or are we just dealing with the two great inevitable paradoxes of het sexual rituals? (1) Those who want offers don’t get ‘em and those who do, don’t. (2) Those who seek are prima facie disbarred from finding.
Psychologists (rich and getting richer) please queue to the left.
I sometimes wonder whether men and women have been coded (like the protagonists of Brave New World) with mind-control recordings.
The girls are told (inter alia), “if he asks to sleep with you then you must say no because he’s just looking for a place to park his dick”.
The boys are told (inter alia), “if she asks to sleep with you then you must say no because she’s obviously just a desperate slut with other things wrong with her besides”.
I vote we find those recorders and drop them off the nearest tall phallic symbol.
Feminism has done a lot of good work in defining the bad. But girls who want to navigate the shark-filled waters of sex have little inspiration to help them distinguish what is good sex. And as for men - men have only the most primitive ideas of what good sex is, and then these primitive ideas get unduly influenced by our culture and pornography.
Since feminism is the only philosophy that seems willing to take on sexuality critically and from a standpoint of complete interaction of both sexes, not just what men want and think, it follows that the lines of thought opened up by the radical feminists of the seventies into developing a less sexist sexuality should be explored again.
Is it just my ignorance, or has this line of exploration been neglected of late? I want to have sex with my wife that is free of dominance, oppression and hate, and I think we do have sex that is less oppressive. The problem is really: How do you make it sound better than porn-inspired sex? Though I know how much better it is because it is what I seem to instinctively need, I fail at trying to communicate it to others.
My only, and most fundamental summation, is that men need to dial back excessive and addictive desires as much as they can. And that doesn’t really sound too appealing.
“Those who want offers don’t get ‘em
and those who do, don’tand those who don’t, do.Fool.
realityfighter noted that “being ready to go is a huge turn-off for men”
I hope that being cautious and hesitant about jumping into sex is a healthy sign of a man who is capable of seeing a woman as more than a body to fuck. Or maybe I’m just making excuses for my own lack of manliness. Because all my life I’ve had the same problem whenever I really liked a girl.
Realizing for myself that I found it easier to have sex quickly with women I was less emotionally interested in was one of the horrors of discovering feminism. I am one of those men who hate women! I thought. But on further examination, I also realized I was still deeply drawn to love and real friendship with women, and that my sexual response was basically a pornographic one, inculcated in me by the culture and lifelong incidental exposure to porn and pornlike attitudes.
Thinking of being pressured into having sex before you are ready as being a turn off should come naturally to women, who feel this pressure all the time. Not being able to empathize with a man who feel the same way you might is a mistake.
Though we are culturally trained to be different, some of us still react as human beings, and not as the delusional big dick studs we are trained to think of ourselves.
TP, the only men I’ve known to pull it off start from the basis of actually liking women. If a guy tunes you out when you talk as a rule, you’re probably looking at someone who thinks sex is about ritually putting the bitch in her place. Bonus points if he talks about other women—exes, friends, relatives—in terms that are similar to the way he talks about men. He knows their interests, admires them, etc. In the bedroom, you could do worse than a devotee of cunnilingus, someone who is used to the idea that pleasure all around is the point of sex, as opposed to him getting off and leaving you holding some kind of shame bag. Men who have obvious madonna-whore complexes become easy to spot over time. They think sex is dirty, and you’ll figure that out soon enough. Guys who don’t think sex is dirty are probably less likely to assign the dirtiness of having sex to the woman and treat her accordingly.
That said, spotting men who think sex is dirty takes experience. A lot of men don’t think they think sex is dirty, but nonetheless behave as if they think sex dirties a woman. They’re often the first to scramble and accuse feminists of being prudes when we call for a kind of sex that doesn’t automatically degrade women—they can’t imagine what sex that doesn’t degrade women looks like, so they assume “not degrading women” means an end to sex completely.
Isn’t this where conflicting messages come in? I had a very Catholic upbringing, and it took me ages to break myself of the “sex degrades women and women don’t want to be degraded” messages. (It created a weird little world where, exactly as the Church intended, I tended to “value a woman’s Honour more than she did herself”, in Donald Jack’s funny little aside.) The man can’t have sex with being dirty, the woman can have sex without being dirtied, and anybody who wants sex is just damned dirty: the misogynist, misandrist and antihumanist trifecta.However, there isn’t a het man out there who hasn’t (either face to face or in more neutral venues) heard the song “you only want sex because you’re a shallow asshole who just wants to fuck” from women on both the feminist and antifeminist sides of the fence. Male desire is often dismissively written off as about as sophisticated as a rutting animal.
Many men and many women are also brainwashed to believe that sex outside a recognized, monogamous, ongoing relationship will not be and should not be forthcoming, pardon the pun. I would argue that a truly liberated sexuality must have sex able to be disengaged from monogamy; not necessarily commitment, not from emotion, merely from monogamy. Not everybody who wants to experience the vibrancy of passion wants to play house or hang a GIRLFRIEND! or BOYFRIEND! or SPOUSE! dog collar around their neck, complete with shiny ownership tag.
This appears to be my day for typos:
“the woman can’t have sex without being dirtied”
This sentence from that Jezebel post nearly made me snarf coffee all over the keyboard (seriously, it took some deep breathing and concentration not to):
“I mean look I like wearing a leash and collar and peeing on people and stuff but the facial thing is just not cool.”
OH MY GOD THAT MADE MY DAY.
Funny, I was just thinking about Blowjobgate ‘06 a couple of days ago.
Yeah, I see that. I guess I’ve always put that through my own filter and regarded it all as compromised. I’ve actually found that freeing because it gave me a way to pinpoint the problem when things felt fucked up in my relationships with men and realize that it’s not necessarily about my being crazy or unworthy or the like.
I’ve encountered that myself — men acting like a woman who tries to initiate contact with them, let alone anything else, is some kind of scary three-headed stalkerbeast. It sucks. Last time I was starting something off with a man I actually found myself repeating, in my head, “let him initiate, let him initiate, let him, let him…”
Dude. Not fair. I understand your point, but I have been in monogamous relationships and I have never “owned” anyone. Also, living with a partner or spouse (which I have never been in a financial position to do, but hope to do eventually) is not a fake, corny or childish activity. It’s not “playing house.”
Sex should be friendly; otherwise stick to mechanical
toys, it’s more sanitary.
Source: Robert Heinlein
I’ll never forget the guy who said - after I had an orgasm after a few minutes on top - that I kind of took him out of his game. I guess he wanted to work at it enough to feel like he could pat himself on the back. Or the guy who complained that I kept moving for something like 30 seconds after he came.
One of the things that made me think my now-husband might be a keeper was that his interest in my pleasure continued even after he came. Pretty sad that something that should be a given - a fundamentally decent, one-good-turn-deserves-another, approach to sex is the exception rather than the rule.
Perhaps not fair, but also perhaps inadequately phrased. I was trying to convey my disdain for that viewpoint held by what seems to be the majority of the population: that unless your relationship is some way Official then it can’t involve sex. (And if you listen to the Bill Mahers of this world, as soon as Official becomes Marriage you pretty much guarantee the end of sex.) The notion of mutually respectful lovers or a relationship which isn’t either supposed to be permanent (or deceit aimed at permanent) doesn’t seem to occur to many people.Fact is, sexually, North Americans are truly and deeply screwed up by hypocrisies piled on demands piled on financial and social and class tests piled on misunderstanding of — and lies to — self and others. Feminist egalitarian thought is probably the best way out.
I’ve heard this more than once, and it’s got me wondering how often men are truly turned-off by a woman ready to go and how much of this experience is rooted in an expectation that a man will not/must not refuse sex, ever.
I’m sure that there are a lot of men out there who would be wrong-footed by an assertive/aggressive woman, but I also know plenty who would welcome that and don’t like the idea that they have to initiate all of the time. Thing is, even men are not necessarily sexually attracted to every woman they engage with and sometimes they will refuse a clear opening to have sex.
(If I’ve said something blatantly obvious, apologies.)
Yeah, well, then you should rethink your use of language. I think your initial comments fit very nicely into the Playboy/Maxim-style patriarchal framework that posits monogamous and/or ongoing sexual/emotional/caring relationships as feminine and scorns them on that basis.
Sexual monogamy is not the only valid option out there and it is often treated as if it were. I will give you that. However, preferring sexual monogamy for oneself does not in itself make a person “brainwashed” or controlling or bad.
“playing house”: something that (according to stereotype) little girls do. A silly, unrealistic, feminine Fisher-Price game, which you contrast against “the vibrancy of passion.”
“Dog collar around their neck” encompasses both an S/M reference and a reference to pet ownership — as if anyone who has entered into a relationship wherein he/she has agreed not to fuck anyone else is somehow “owned” and/or degraded and/or has his or her entire identity subsumed in a relationship category. You’re just reinforcing the binary of the larger conservative/sexist culture — have your own identity or have an ongoing relationship, because you can’t have both.
I suppose I should be somewhat grateful that you wrote “dog collar complete with shiny ownership tag” rather than “ball and chain.”
Yeah, if you listen to the Bill Mahers of the world you hear a lot of shitty things about women. I wouldn’t recommend that. The notion that women don’t really like sex and just use it to manipulate men into official monogamous commitment, after which we stop putting out? Classic sexist bullshit. If you actually want to challenge one-size-fits-all sexual norms in a way that doesn’t just reinforce the usual contemptuous Hugh Hefner tripe, you should try a little harder.
Brava, Elinor. That (#18) is some of the most lucid, articulate writing I’ve ever seen in the comments section of a blog post.
Pointing out that open-mindedness about non-monogamous structures need not include dismissal of monogamous structures in toto seems like a self-evident point to me, but also seems to be lost on a lot of people. Kind of like ridiculing heterosexuality as “bourgeois” doesn’t do much to liberate non-hetero sexualities from the norm/deviant dichotomies in which they are so regularly couched.
Oh My! Are people begining to reconsider the idea that “porn” style sex might not be that peachy after all? That maybe, just maybe, there is sexism, degradation, domination, objectification, etc in the mainstream view of sexuality?
And it only took what, 40 years of radical feminists saying so for people to get it?
It’s sad that women have to play games dating in order to coexist with less than enlightened men. I’m aware that there are plenty who are, but on the whole, there are still going to be a lot who range from complete and utter douchebags, to fairly decent blokes who refuse to see or try and shift their privilege.
I do think it gets easier to see the misogyny in men with time, but what I’ve found with some female friends is that they’ve developed a coping stragegy of minimising the misogyny, of justifying it an blaming it on themselves. It’s sometimes hard to square the fact that the man you have strong feelings for isn’t always a good person, and with less-than-very obvious behaviour it can get difficult for a woman if she lets herself realise the scope of the issue.
On a tangentially related note, I saw an article from The Times (UK) which had the never-heard-of brilliance of claiming that married men need prostitutes because their wives won’t degrade themselves enough, and women who leave their men over such trifles are putting their pride above their family.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/minette_marrin/article3559363.ece
I thought with all the discusison of prostitution, it was kind of on theme. That and I would dearly love to see anyone and everyone skewer the article. >:D
(Hat tip to the F word, which is where I found out about such a shitty, unoriginal article)
TP: In my experience, the standard for sexual pressure is unequally applied to the sexes. I’ve noticed that men respond as if “pressured” when I do completely harmless and fairly ambiguous things, such as hug them, hold hands or dance with them. I’ve even seen men freak out when I use the word “hot” instead of “cool.” We’re talking standard flirtation and below, here. I see it as more of a personality issue - for me it is that I don’t bother pretending to be shy and intimidated (because that’s BORING), rather than “OMG I keep throwing myself at boys and they don’t respond, what am I doing wrong?”
I believe this all comes down to power dynamics - who should have the prerogative to choose to engage in a relationship? Of course, in a just world the decision to form a relationship - or even a hookup - should be mutual and equal, but it seems like a lot of men still cling to the idea that flirtation and dating (not to mention sex) are exercises in control, and that female desire totally fucks up the system.
As usual, YMMV.
you mean all this time i’ve been legally partnered that isn’t sex we’ve been having? the sex ended after marriage? what are we really doing in the bed (or wherever) that brings us so much pleasure I wonder?
I second the praise for Elinor at 18. That was a brilliant takedown of an unfortunately common avenue of thought.
Linnaeus: “expectation that a man will not/must not refuse sex, ever”, huh? You seem to be equating female desire with loss of male control, there.
Thanks. I get very shirty about undue contempt for “feminine” behaviour — I see this particular line of anti-monogamy thought as sexist rather than anti-sexist.
That pro-prostitution article is such a goddamn trip. “Gee honey, sometimes being married to you just makes me so miserable that I need time out with someone who’s a great deal better than you.* You understand, don’t you? All I’m hurting is your pride. Aren’t you glad I’m not fucking your best friend?”
*yes, the article specifically says “a great deal better”.
realityfighter:
If so, it’s entirely unintentional; equating female desire with loss of male control is something I try very hard not to do. I’m not sure how I’m making that equation, but maybe I just don’t see it.
After reading your comment at #22, I understand a lot better now what you’re getting at. I fully agree that there are a lot of men who are inclined to react the way you described and that they do feel a loss of control. It’s just that I have difficulty relating to that reaction because (as far as I know) I never felt that way and nor did several close (male) friends of mine.
Often, we find ways to rationalize why a potential romantic/sexual encounter didn’t turn out the way we wanted. I’m not accusing you of this here, but I know I’ve done it at times and so have my friends, both male and female.
The conversation has drifted from the original issue, about which I’m still not clear: Is there benefit in legalizing prostitution? To which I would add a corollary: Can a woman be paid for sex and not be demeaned?
Caveat:
I’m almost 50, married to my incredibly hot high-school sweetheart (is that sexist?), the only person I’ve had sex with in my life (I had the usual plethora of adolescent sexual interactions, but I technically adhered to the strict notions of virginity I grew up with).
I know that makes me a bit of a dinosaur, and a rare specimen on many fronts.
But here’s the deal: I’ve got a very well-paying job at a company that treats me well (i.e. I don’t have to work overtime, they support how my family is a priority, the work is interesting and doesn’t conflict ethically).
But, if they didn’t pay me, I’d be done tomorrow.
They get my talents applied to their problems, and in exchange I get financial rewards that I can use to enhance my life and that of my family.
I know that none of this can be separated from the patriarchy that permeates our culture, my upbringing, etc., but what is it that makes “sex for pay” inherently different?
Let me be clear that I have no illusions that there aren’t large differences in health, safety, autonomy, etc. as things are currently (and possibly always will be) structured.
But at its core, stripped of the prudish demonizing of sex, is prostitution different from any person consenting to do work in exchange for money that they would not do if there was no money exchanged?
flame-on…
I think it might be useful to think about the kind of projection that wingnuts do to liberals as an analogy here. If a guy’s model (not even necessarily his own m.o., but his general understanding of how things work) for sexual interactions is about a predator hunting prey and satisfying itself with the prey’s body, then he’s naturally going to assume that any woman who wants sex with also wants to degrade him in the way that men (in the stereotypes) degrade women by f*cking them.
This kind of warped worldview also leads (much more rarely) to the bizarre “I like and respect you too much to ever ask you to have sex with me, and if you want me that must mean you’re deeply flawed in a way I haven’t yet discovered.”
Prostitution is different because it traffics in patriarchal symbolism. Sex is nothing but a good rub/scratch outside of the symbolic realm.
The only jobs that are similar are ones with huge social inequalities built into the exchange. I can’t list all of the jobs, but think about things that are demeaning, underpaid, and hidden under the cloak of consent and you can start making comparisons.
Sweat shop workers. Indentured servants. Undocumented migrant worker.
It’s not the job. It’s the oppression written into the *real* job description.
realityfighter, you are so right. Unequal pressure was an important point that I’m glad you put in there. Like paul says, men can come to understand the reality of how they feel about women if you turn even the slightest pressure back on them.
Linnaeus, I think I understand where our thoughts diverge on the subject. But I think this topic’s gone from sort-of relevant to way off track, so I’m officially retiring it.
I think a more relevant question was asked upthread by TP: How do you make mutually enjoyable sex more appealing than porn sex? Would it require “nothing short of an exhaustive, uncompromising overthrow of the social order,” as Twisty puts it?
Learning that sex is good, women like sex, and it’s ok for me to like sex is a beautiful thing.
realityfighter: Agreed on both counts. I’ll take responsibility for my part in the thread drift.
TP’s question is a good one and a difficult one. Part of the issue here is defining what porn sex is. We may not be able to do better than arrive at a Potter Stewart-esque conclusion and say that we know it when we see it.
I may be asking a silly question, but I do think this requires some thought because that address the conundrum we observe when a couple finds something mutually enjoyable that another couple thinks is degrading. I’m reminded here of the Great Blowjob Dustup generated by one of Twisty’s posts some months back and the whole discussion about whether blowjobs were inherently degrading even if those performing them (especially straight women) enjoyed doing so.
I don’t want to reopen that can of worms. Nor do I want to imply that we can’t think critically about sex and the ways we have sex. But, as is often the case, context can make a difference. Is something that appears on the surface as degrading not really degrading if the partners involved have engaged in the appropriate social negotation and come to some agreement that they both like doing it? Taking a step back further, is that negotiation itself compromised by the broader context of patriarchy/sexism/misogyny, i.e., would there have been a different result if the social order were different? How do we know?
That said, I think I understand what Twisty’s getting at; a radical change in the social order would have some positive ramifications for human sexual relations. I’m just not sure that is a sine qua non for any genuinely mutual enjoyment of sex.
This isn’t an argument that prostitution is rape, it’s an argument that all hetero sex is rape. Nothing in that is specific to prostitution.
We aren’t past that inanity yet?
I have to ask the same question that gets asked of anti-abortionists: if all hetero sex is rape what do you suggest we do with all the horrible rapist men?
I understand where she is coming from but “all sex is rape” is just stupid.
Her proposed “solution” is just moronic, it’s not a solution to anything. (Antioch already tried it.) If women can’t employ free will then how does making them affirmatively say yes change anything? Won’t they just be cajoled into saying yes?
Stupid.
Can a woman be paid for sex and not be demeaned?
Yes. Is this such an exception to the rule that bringing it up constantly is a red herring?
Yes to that as well. Talking about the theoretical aspects of prostitution is an interesting idea—in theory—but in practice I find it distracts from the reality of prostitution.
To add, because I reject Twisty’s inanity doesn’t mean I reject the notion that women are pressured into all sorts of things, and that prostitutes are under even greater pressure. I just take issue with her particularly brainless take on things.
I may be asking a silly question, but I do think this requires some thought because that address the conundrum we observe when a couple finds something mutually enjoyable that another couple thinks is degrading.
Honestly, that depends. I’m concerned about the red herring aspects—the kind of communication that requires is so rare, especially amongst younger people, that people who have achieved it probably not need to hunt around for some kind of affirmation that they’re healthy and things are working out alright. All too often, I see people ask questions like this—and I’m not thinking you, because you were a lot clearer than they usually are—and they mean something closer to, “Hey, if it’s legal, it’s alright, right?” Like Twisty says, there’s a real issue in terms of is it really “mutually enjoyable” if she’s doing it because she feels she has to or he’ll leave her and then everyone will pity her because she can’t hold onto a man? Sadly, that kind of coercion is all too common and people seem really oblivious to it.
Take the recent Savage Lovecast. This woman calls in and her husband has completely quit fucking her. For about 5 years. And he’s a big, pouting baby when she tries to seek sexual satisfaction elsewhere. Dan correctly pointed out that her husband feels entitled to ruin her sex life because he has no sex drive. Dan tried really hard to get her to see the wisdom of divorce, but she was terrified of that possibility.
Well, she waved a big, red flag and he skipped over it, and I don’t know if it was in interest of time or he didn’t notice it or whatever, but it was this. She said she was 30. She had been with this man for 13 years. And she repeatedly said, “But what if I leave him and I’m alone?”
This woman was completely and utterly swamped by the fear of being unchosen. It was more powerful than her stated affection for her husband, it seemed. If I were him, I would have addressed that, and said, ah, the world tells you that everyone hates a single woman, but if you actually step out and try it sometime, you’ll find it’s often liberating. But a man who pressures a woman into sexual situations she finds distressing, either being undersexed like this woman or being compelled to act like sex is a ritual re-enactment of her oppression, he has an entire society backing him up. Telling her she’d better go along or she’ll be a hag! that no one! wants!
Margalis, do you pay for every sexual encounter? Because otherwise, I don’t get the idea that prostitution=all hetero sex.
I find that comparison pretty insulting because, to my knowledge, no radical feminist has ever suggested a state ban on hetero sex or engaged in violence against people who practice it.
I think Amanda covered everything I would want to say about Twisty’s argument in the post, so I won’t go into it.
I don’t know that this phrasing has the desired effect, given that 1) rape is technically a crime, while abortion technically isn’t, though our culture does seem to get this mixed up quite a bit, and 2) hundreds of thousands of rapists are today walking the streets, enjoying their lives and in every way, shape, and form acting like they are not the criminals they are, except when they rape the next woman. Most rapists are never prosecuted, and most of those who are prosecuted are not convicted. Your rhetorical question implies that rape might not really be so common because if it were, we would be surrounded by all these horrible men. And of course we are, but we don’t know it. But I’m sure that’s not what you meant.
I really don’t think Twisty is saying all hetero sex is rape. But think about how many women have sex they don’t really enjoy because they want to please men, or be thought of as sexy and empowered and liberated, or be perceived as a good lay or don’t want to offend or it’s easier to go along than figure out how to reject him. Think about how many self-identified feminists have (or have had) sex for these reasons. I know I have. Not all the time, by a long shot, but it’s happened. Think about how ridiculous the idea is that a man would have sex for those reasons. And then think again about what that means for how freely given our “consent” is. It is absolutely a disturbing thought, but I think we do ourselves a disservice to dismiss it outright.
Amanda: Her comments are not specific to prostitution. According to her no woman can give proper consent. She says that flat out.
The paragraph that I quoted above is her reasoning and it applies to all women equally.
Twisty’s argument:
1. Sex with a prostitute is rape because prostitutes can’t give consent.
2. In fact, no woman can give consent.
Therefore, all sex with a woman is rape. It logically follows from 1 and 2 above.
In the post she links to she says she wants to criminalize all men involved in hetero sex.
Why don’t you think that? She said that all men involved in sex should be “criminalized” and further she argues that sex without consent is rape and that ALL women are incapable of consenting.
That was something that really came to mind when I was thinking about Blowjobgate a couple of days ago. I didn’t quite understand the exaggerated response to what Twisty wrote, and I wasn’t sure why I found that response so obnoxious, and then it occurred to me that it might not be so much about Twisty at all — that posting about how much you loooooove giving blowjobs and hate the notion that anyone, anywhere, would think you didn’t might be a way to show off your “credentials” for male attention. And then I remembered that a particularly dickish “sex-positive” male commenter had assumed I must be celibate and/or a lesbian because I hadn’t posted the obligatory “I love cock” paragraph, and THAT made the whole thing feel very icky and coercive to me.
Maybe I’m off base there, but I know I’ve absorbed the message that it’s my job to be able to get and hold on to a man and that if a relationship with a man doesn’t work out, I have to rebut the presumption that it happened because I’m not pretty or sexy enough, and that makes it very tempting to try to one-up other women on those fronts. But that’s not a woman-friendly thing to do.
Margalis, she doesn’t say women cannot consent. She says that patriarchy interferes with a woman’s ability to consent. I don’t know if you read the original Twist consent post a while back. She explains herself better than I can, but as far as my interpretation of her words in terms of my own experiences, let me give an example.
About 10 years ago, I had a male friend. We started having sex, a really informal, friends with privileges sort of thing, that was fun for a few months. I moved away, we both had other relationships, we kept in touch. About 18 months after I moved away, I went back to visit friends in that other city. We got in touch, though I told him beforehand that I didn’t want to have sex with him. He said that was fine, and on my last night in town, we had dinner, a few drinks, and then went back to my hotel room, where we kept drinking. In the wee hours of the morning, he tried to put the moves on me. I stopped him, told him I didn’t want to have sex, he stopped. I didn’t make him leave. He tried again, same deal. After the third or fourth try, I just went along. It seemed rude somehow to deny him. I went through the motions, but inside, the whole time, I just wanted to get up and walk away. Afterward I showered and he drove me to the airport. I didn’t talk to him the whole time. I was very angry, though I wasn’t sure at whom. He kept asking me: Are you mad? Did I do something wrong? I said nothing, and I never spoke to him or e-mailed him again.
Now, what happened there certainly meets the legal definition of consent, and I don’t consider myself, legally or otherwise, to have been raped. I don’t even really blame him for what happened. But I didn’t want to have sex, and I did anyway. What kind of socialization must exist beforehand, how messed up are relationships between men and women by patriarchy, that my story is completely unremarkable. If you have never had a similar experience, where you had sex because it just seemed easier than sticking to your guns, then I’m very glad for you. But I suspect it’s more unusual to not have had that experience, at least once or twice.
So when Twisty says patriarchy interferes with women’s ability to consent, I don’t think “she’s saying all sex is rape.” I think “Women have sex even when they don’t want to because we are so socialized to put other people’s needs and desires above our own.” And men benefit from that, whether they want to or not.
An insistence only on the most narrow legal definition of consent is really inadequate for a revolution in sex relations. After the revolution (if you believe in such a thing), I would think no one would have sex unless they actually wanted to because they would understand that their own desires are at least as important as the other person’s.
I understand the possibility of “it’s all okay” becoming a red herring that distracts us, and that’s definitely something to keep in mind. For my part, I wonder if a position like Twisty’s can lead to a false consciousness argument: there’s consent, but not real consent, and a woman who says she enjoys a sex act that I find problematic is only fooling herself because she’s been socialized to do so.
Which is not to say that you, Twisty, or anyone else here holds that position. Chingona above explains it pretty well. It’s just that the boundaries of socialization and individual autonomy are pretty blurry and we need to find ways to tease them apart.
As an aside, I can sympathize with this woman; one of the reasons my last relationship ended was because we hadn’t had sex for over a year (I wanted it, she didn’t) and we decided that that just wasn’t going to be worked out within the parameters of the relationship. So five years without has got to be really hard. That said, if she were to go outside of the marriage for sex without some mutually agreed-upon arrangment, it’s cheating. It sucks, but that’s how it is. On the other hand, she doesn’t owe him a marriage and has every right to divorce him. But that’s a good illustration of how she easily falls into the trap of “I’ll be alone.”
Want to add:
You can take the view (and it would be a popular one) that this is a problem for individual men and women to work out. Women just need to be more assertive. (Or maybe men need to be more respectful of women’s words and stated desires, though that is a less common formulation.) But I think from a feminist perspective this problem is bigger than the individuals living it out and speaks in a really profound way to the position of women in our society, compared to men. I picked up these messages despite being raised by feminists and hearing only two pieces of sexual advice: Never do anything you don’t want to do, and use condoms. No guilt-tripping, no nothing, and I still ended up in that trap. I don’t know that we (men or women) can truly be “sex positive” until we deal with this shit.
I’ve only ever told one person about what happened that night. It was a guy. I was in his apartment. He said that if I really didn’t want to have sex with that guy, I shouldn’t have been drinking with him in my hotel room. Later that night, when he kissed me, I understood pretty clearly that I should go along. If I didn’t want to, I wouldn’t have been in his apartment, right?
chingona, I don’t discount experiences like that, yes they happen, yes they are a problem, and yes they are an institutional problem.
However let’s say for a minute that we adopt Twisty’s solution that you have to say something affirmative to give consent. Wouldn’t you eventually be pestered into eventually saying “alright, let’s just do this and get it over with?”
If you start with the assumption that women can be pressured into doing things they don’t want I’m not sure what prevents them from being pressured into saying something affirmative. It’s just moving the problem over a little.
Well that’s just stupid.
Well, I think the idea is that we would get beyond all that and nobody would be pressuring anybody and we would just do what we want and nothing more. Obviously, it’s utopian, but it can be a goal, or at least a dream.
Mar, you’re taking her waaaaaay out of context. She’s saying that women have to negotiate our sexual encounters in a society where our full humanity is not recognized. If you’ve ever been a woman trying to go out there, fuck some dudes, and have a good time, you know exactly what she means. You can be all about the consent, and many a dude will insist on pushing the envelope, because unless you’re coerced and humiliated just a little, it’s not exciting for him. It doesn’t seem like sex, really, to alot of dudes.
Don’t shoot the messenger, Mar. If you don’t like the idea that a lot of people can’t imagine a heterosexual encounter that isn’t degrading to the woman, take it up not with the feminists describing the problem. Take it up with the dudes creating the problem. The ones who don’t think you’re really getting fucked unless you say “Ouch!” at least once.
Twisty’s interesting idea is that instead of assuming all women are automatically consenting until they throw a fit and say no, we assume the answer is no until it is a firm “Oh god do it now”. I don’t see a problem with that idea. Men get to have the benefit of having other men believe they don’t want to be penetrated until they ask nicely. Any guy who feels he can’t get laid unless the lady in question is merely letting him stick it in while she pretends to be somewhere else is someone who needs to seriously reconsider his life before he goes out and tries to have sex again.
Yup, those are the only two options alright, existing in a binary universe where everything is either one thing or another, and where there are no continuums or complications.
There are so many ways you could say things without having it sound like “my opinions on things I’ve never done and worlds I’ve never been a part of are the sole truth, thus saith the Disco Ball.”
You’d also be amazed at how hollow not judging prostitutes but judging punters sounds. It’s like hating the sin but loving the sinner - sounds good in theory but doesn’t work that way in practice. You basically set up a moral landscape that functions according to your rules but doesn’t work for hookers - either they do what they do with loathing of their customers or they don’t hate their customers and are therefore enablers and part of the problem. Damned if you do…
It’s no wonder Happy Hookers are such a big problem - they’re you’re platypuses.
Hello! I’ve been reading this blog from up here in Canada for a while, but I just couldn’t resist jumping in on this.
“I’m concerned about the red herring aspects—the kind of communication that requires is so rare, especially amongst younger people, that people who have achieved it probably not need to hunt around for some kind of affirmation that they’re healthy and things are working out alright.”
As a “younger person,” I’d just like to say that I doubt this particular categorization. I’ve been lucky enough to spend a large chunk of my social time talking about sex with all sorts of my peers (not just my limited group of friends). The overwhelming conclusion is: the only way to have a good sex life — whatever gender or combination of genders you happen to be — is to figure out what you want, and talk to whoever it is you’re with about it. No, not every situation is perfect, and we can’t all realistically expect for the answers to always be that easy and straightforward. But that’s the basic statement we go back to.
What’s the one thing we all have in common that helps us stick to that when it gets tough to believe it? We’ve learned to talk, and think, about it critically. We’re lucky enough to be getting these kinds of discussions from all angles: there are classes on gender and sexuality, we read blogs and articles about it, we talk about it at breaks and parties and sometimes even bars.
Yet we’re able to do this because we are constantly checking in with each other about what is healthy and positive. The kind of communities open communication about sex build are, I think, the most effective way of encouraging young people to take themselves, and their sex lives, seriously. Our youth can be an advantage: we can build these communities, and if we have the opportunities to do so, we will. Enthusiastically.
And it isn’t the first time she’s said it either. Check out her archives.
Twisty is an absolute genius of the written word, one of the best writers of our time.
But she is not the best philosopher. When an issue gets too complicated, she just shrugs and moves on. If you follow her reasoning to its logical conclusion, all heterosexual women should despair until the gold age of the End of Patriarchy. Which will probably never come.
And if you dare try to challenge her on her own site, her slavish minions will shout you down.
Here is an issue that neither Twisty, nor, I’ll wager Amanda will address because it doesn’t fit in with their neat little paradigm about women, men and money.
I’m 47. I’ve been out of a relationship for almost 2 years now. I am finding it impossible to get laid. And I know lots of women my age in the same predicament.
Every desirable man I have met in the past 2 years is taken. I’ve tried personals - incredibly time-consuming and discouraging - the sheer volume of sexist, slobby, ugly losers (who also think THEY are to good for ME) out there is truly mind-boggling and just contemplating it squelches my sex drive.
And so I am seriously considering hiring a male prostitute. Or, at the very least, being a sugar momma, which is basically a barter-system form of prostitution.
Now, suppose I did this. Does that degrade ME, as a woman living in a patriarchy? Or does it degrade the man for accepting money? Or does the whole automatic degradation paradigm fail once it’s the woman with the money?
If you address these questions, you can no longer fall back on simplistic statements like:
“This oppressed condition obtains a priori to all other conditions, and nullifies any presumption of fully human status on the part of women. A woman, therefore, cannot freely “consent,” because her will is obviated by her status as a subhuman…..”
If I am offering a man money for sex, is that proof enough that I freely “consent” to have sex?
And will Amanda hold me in very low esteem for resorting to paying/bartering for sex in order to get laid? Or do I get a pass, being female?
And here’s the thing: Women can tell you that the guys in situations like chin’s know that they’re getting what’s not really consensual sex. Like she said, to cover the base you covered, they’re not legally raping you. But they’re treating you like a commodity and they bargained you down. They know. They know you’re bored and upset while they’re humping you. They know you’re mad when you don’t talk. But they’re just stuck in this sex-as-a-conquest mindset that they find themselves wanting bad sex (universally acknowledged as worse than no sex) because to get no sex is to lose somehow. That is Fucked Up.
Okay, McDuff. Or anyone in between who is both suffering at the hands of male abusers and occasionally takes pleasure in the fact that at least she’s scratching some money off them. So your strawman is gone. I acknowledge many women fall in various places on the scale, though I didn’t weigh down the prose with that disclaimer, giving you an opening to construct a strawman to establish your fantasies about prostitution.
And so I am seriously considering hiring a male prostitute. Or, at the very least, being a sugar momma, which is basically a barter-system form of prostitution.
Now, suppose I did this. Does that degrade ME, as a woman living in a patriarchy? Or does it degrade the man for accepting money? Or does the whole automatic degradation paradigm fail once it’s the woman with the money?
Good luck with this plan. I hear the pickings of male prostitutes are very slim compared to female prostitutes, not that such a disparity should make us question whether or not this is an institution built more around male dominance than just a straightforward sex as a service.
As I predicted, you won’t address the issues. It’s so much easier to avoid these non-simplistic scenarios, isn’t it?
You hear the pickings are slim. Where do you hear that from?
There is no doubt that men have more money than women. Which is why men can afford to pay for sex more then women can, hence the disparity. But that still doesn’t address the issue of whether, if women did gain economic parity, would ALL forms of prostitution be automatically degrading.
And what about male-male prostitution. Another issue that neither Twisty or Amanda will address.
But say I DID somehow manage to find a desirable male prostitute? What then, Amanda? Would you hold me in very low esteem? Would it be more esteem-enhancing to remain celibate instead?
Aww. Will some strapping male Pandagonian volunteer to satisfy Nancy’s needs, thus rendering her dilemma moot? Maybe in a cabana boy outfit.
Yeah, some sarcastic hateful fuckwad is exactly what I need. Thanks ever so much you piece of shit.
Medium Dave demonstrates exactly why things are so bad for straight women. It took less than 10 minutes to be personally attacked by one of them.
“by one of them.” - straight man, I mean.
I would definitely pay a male prostitute extra not to be a hateful fuckwad piece of shit.
Amanda, your update once again derides all decriminalisation schemes and advocates of legalisation or decriminalisation with some extremely ignorant and very mean ideas. Who would have thought that 70s Australian feminists wanted to “preserve the stigma, understanding that a non-degraded prostitutes is an oxymoron in the eyes of many, probably most customers”.
You really need to research this topic some more, because you are doing a lot of work to insult a previous generation of feminists who worked really hard for the rights of women in very difficult situations. And you are misleading a lot of your readers with your “facts” from sweatshop activists and dodgy studies. If you don’t have anything correct to say, I would recommend not saying anything at all.
Now, what happened there certainly meets the legal definition of consent, and I don’t consider myself, legally or otherwise, to have been raped. I don’t even really blame him for what happened. But I didn’t want to have sex, and I did anyway. What kind of socialization must exist beforehand, how messed up are relationships between men and women by patriarchy, that my story is completely unremarkable. If you have never had a similar experience, where you had sex because it just seemed easier than sticking to your guns, then I’m very glad for you. But I suspect it’s more unusual to not have had that experience, at least once or twice.
Consider this report as another data point:
“The Sunday Star-Times’ Being a Bloke survey last year found that 29% of the 5000 men surveyed felt they had been pressured into having sex or had had sex unwillingly. “
No that’s what *you’re* saying, and what you very charitably read into her comments. She says that women “cannot freely consent” and that sex without consent is rape. Put those two together and what do you get?
Why is it that I’m the one quoting her and you are the one very roughly paraphrasing? I don’t think it’s right to give someone a free pass on what they actually say just because you agree on the broad politics.
Her “solution” is that at any time any woman who had sex with a man could get him arrested for rape for any reason.
Let’s make all men who have sex criminals who have to count on the good graces of women not to report them. That’s her clear meaning.
In a way it’s silly to ask you to defend her, but you did quote her chain of posts that essentially seeks to criminalize maleness. I’d suspect you’d have some explaining to do if you quoted Falwell to make a point, the same principle applies here.
Again it isn’t right to smooth over wingnuttia just because the wingnut in question is somewhat sympathetic.
I don’t think you agree that all men who have sex are criminals, so I’m not sure why you are defending someone who clearly does.
In the comments here she explains that she meant exactly what I think she meant:
http://blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com/2007/05/12/she-said-i-know-what-its-like-to-be-dead/
There’s no question. She thinks that 15 years after the fact a woman, for any reason, should be able to call the cops on a guy that she had sex with and have him arrested *just* because they had sex.
Of course most of her readers eat it up, and the few who point out how abusable that is are mocked as terrible misogynysts.
She’s batshit insane. At first I thought she meant that women should have to give affirmative consent, specifically say they want sex, but it’s way way beyond that. The woman can pull off her clothes, beg a guy to fuck her then get him put in jail for it.
“She’s batshit insane.”
And Mar’s real agenda is revealed. No hoenst dissection of Twisty’s words, just radfem demonization.
How typical and boring.
“The woman can pull off her clothes, beg a guy to fuck her then get him put in jail for it. ”
A flat out lie.
An honest reader who approaches Twisty’s writing while assuming that she’s a rational person who understands how the world works (crazy, I know, but bear with me) will probably conclude that she’s engaging in a thought experiment here. I doubt that she has any expectation that this concept will be literally be incorporated into criminal law.
This topic does tend to draw the tiresome fools, doesn’t it? I can’t imagine why…
He he, kidding. I know why. When someone takes a moral stance on a controversial topic (and here we have two doozies: Prostitution and consent), inevitably a parade of people show up and demand loopholes. They are not interested in dialogue; their aim is to displace responsibility for their own choices. It’s moral cowardice, and that’s why I feel that mockery is sometimes the best response. (Sorry, Nancy, but you did walk into that one.)
The current situation is one in which most men do whatever they want and women just live with the consequences. Most women who are raped never report it. If they do report, they often aren’t believed and have to justify every action that they took. Yes, there is some false reporting. I won’t say that no women ever lie. But it is dwarfed by the number of unreported and unprosecuted rapes. I would say the current situation is about as unfair to women as Twisty’s proposal is unfair to men. I see Twisty as asking why women should bear the brunt of the unfairness. As it stands now, millions of women live with the knowledge that their rapist was never punished in any way, he’s still out there, he could come after them again. She posits an alternate scenario - yes, one that might send a few dozen or even a few hundred innocent men to prison, but one that would liberate millions of women. She asks why we should continue to throw ourselves under the bus for people that abuse us. She asks why we fret so much about the small number of falsely accused men and so little about the large number of raped women. She asks how changing that would change the power dynamics of sex. Maybe it would cause a lot more men to knock off with the wheedling and pressuring and only have sex with women they were absolutely positive wanted to be there doing that - the ones that pull off their clothes and beg the guy to fuck her.
Twisty writes in a very extreme way. She feels no need to pull her punches or make her point delicately. She might very well have no problem if it were actually implemented, but I don’t feel the need to defend or account for every nitpick of what that legal process would look like because it won’t happen in any of our lifetimes or probably ever. I’m willing to paraphrase because I take it as a bit of a Modest Proposal, a “what if” that causes us to examine the things we take for granted, and looking at that “what if” helped me think through and articulate a lot of things that are wrong with the status quo. (That your vision of affirmative assent includes men continuing to beg and plead and pressure for said affirmative assent shows just how much messed up shit we take for granted.)
You may think Twisty greatly exaggerates. Most of my sexual experiences have been a lot more positive than the one I described for purposes of illustrating her point. I’m not even really asking you to agree with her, but I think saying her analysis is “brainless” is a little brainless.
This is an aspect of all blogs and the Internet in general, not unique to Twisty. I’ve had my ass handed to me here a few times for points I thought were completely reasonable, and I suspect anyone who comments long enough is going to have that happen eventually. The anonymity doesn’t just free people to go on the attack. It also makes it impossible to know if I’m arguing in good faith or just being an annoying concern troll.
PIATOR, your link actually reinforces my point. When men do it, it’s normal (or has been considered normal). When women do it, it’s predatory - the headline refers to women roving in packs looking for men to have sex with. But either way, we still have this messed up dominance/submission model. I’m not talking about negotiated, mutual BDSM relationships. I’m talking we have a problem even thinking of sex without viewing it as someone getting something from someone, and that’s pretty twisted.
I won’t say that no women ever lie. But it is dwarfed by the number of unreported and unprosecuted rapes. I would say the current situation is about as unfair to women as Twisty’s proposal is unfair to men. I see Twisty as asking why women should bear the brunt of the unfairness. As it stands now, millions of women live with the knowledge that their rapist was never punished in any way, he’s still out there, he could come after them again. She posits an alternate scenario - yes, one that might send a few dozen or even a few hundred innocent men to prison, but one that would liberate millions of women.
She posits a situation where the whites are picking the cotton and the blacks are wielding the whips. This may be a necessary point to hammer home to those who think that niggers in slave collars is the natural order of things, but it’s likely to piss off the white abolitionists who’d rather see the blacks free because they think *no-one* should be a slave.
And even given that the abolitionists are personally threatened by the idea of clapping whitey in chains, this isn’t the only reason they’re pissed off by people applauding the solution.
It is quite reasonable to claim that the feelings of white abolitionists are not worth considering while an entire people remain enslaved, and this is quite true. But the abolitionists are unlikely to be plantation owners, the owners are likely to see such calls as further justification for keeping the niggers cowed, and they’d love to see the blacks and the whites who want the blacks to be free sniping at each other.
“they” are interested in dialogue - it’s Amanda and Twisty who refuse to truly examine what they spew - and then there’s their apologists, like you, who claim that they’re just engaging in a “thought experiment” and so shouldn’t really be questioned.
And no, you are not sorry, and to have you attack me personally was not me walking into it - it was your outright hostility. Not to mention blaming the victim -you HAD to insult me because I “walked into it.”
And once again, NOBODY has addressed my points, other than to personally attack me.
Which demonstrates that in fact, it is YOUR side who are the “moral cowards” - as anybody with any sense of fairness or integrity can see for themselves, simply by reading this thread.
So if the radical feminists stop proposing radical solutions, we’ll get to the Promised Land faster? All I can really say is if you want peace, struggle for justice.
“who claim that they’re just engaging in a “thought experiment” and so shouldn’t really be questioned.”
Untrue. But, of course, you know that. The point isn’t that one can’t question. The point is one can’t create a house of strawmen and then ask people to comment on their personal choices as if has *any* bearing on the dicussion at all.
I’m late to the discussion here, but I wonder what you think about this scenario I read of in some scifi:
On a certain planet it is illegal to offer to pay someone for sex. You can approach anyone you want and ask for sex, and they can decide to turn you down, or to accept. If they decide to have sex with you they inform you whether they will have sex with you for free, or else, what they will charge you. If they want to charge you, you can then decide you want to go ahead. You cannot haggle with the person you have approached (I think, I don’t have the book to hand).
When reading the book, it wasn’t specified, but I assumed that sex acts would also be agreed up front, and that there was an age of consent, so that children would not be exploited. I also assumed that ‘married’ people would have a different contract between them. In the book, the penalties for breaking these rules were serious (death penalty for rape I think).
Anyway, when I read this, I thought it was a really interesting and good idea. I can imagine all sorts of situations it would subvert - one is ‘unattractive’ people approaching ‘attractive’ people, who they have assumed would turn them down, to see if they have a price they can afford. In this case, if lots of people approached you for sex, what would your price be? If no one approached you, what would you be willing to pay?
A problem I see is that the culture of the planet in this scenario was very concerned with respect, expressed through polite behavior. Visitors to the planet were given a hardcopy of all the rules (very specific), made aware of all the penalties (generally severe), and expected to comply, or punished accordingly. Given that vast swathes of English speaking populations (maybe other populations too, but these are the ones I have longest and firsthand experience of) seem to have little respect for others in their societies, let alone the rest of the world, could this work?
My “personal choices” have EVERY bearing on this discussion.
But kudos for at least trying to come up with an excuse for why you refuse to address my points.
Notice how I’m the one quoting what she actually said at length, and you aren’t quoting what she said at all? Somehow that makes *you* the one honestly dissecting her words?
The best you can do is “ur wrong” and I’m the dishonest one.
And look, here’s Medium Dave, someone who likes to hear himself talk without saying anything relevant.
If I didn’t know better I’d think the two of you are bullshit artists.
You’re both obviously incapable of addressing the subject at hand; call that “moral cowardice” or “dishonesty” or whatever you want.
chingona is attempting to have a reasonable discussion. Medium Dave and Anony are just your typical apologists, making jokes and unsupported assertions when called out.
Well said, Margalis.
Well it’s NOT OK if someone like Charlotte Allen says outrageous things and then apologists say “where’s your sense of HUMOR? She wasn’t SERIOUS” but it’s fine for Twisty to say outrageous things on the grounds that she’s “engaging in a thought experiment.”
And they absolutely do NOT get the hypocrisy. At all. Because you see, THEY are on the moral high ground, while we hate women, because we question simplistic, outrageous statements about prostitution, hetero sex, etc.
And some of us DARE to MENTION our personal preferences. As if all women’s personal preferences mattered, and not only those who tow the party line.
Considering Twisty’s not a lawmaker, a president, a judge or a plantation owner; yeah, I’d say it’s a thought experiment.
How about we talk about the assholes in Congress, circuit courts, state assemblies and pulpits who are enacting their own personal agendas on our bodies ? Or is it easier to pick on a blogger ? I’d concern myself with the actual experiments before I struck out at the thought ones.
A lot of what happens on blogs are “thought experiments.” It’s when people come together and express ideas and work out the issues and angles and talk about their experiences and sometimes get a little flourish-y with the fancy words. That’s writing.
If you were actually confused, and believed that Twisty was the ruler of your particular city-state and was going to enact that law tomorrow, I apologize. I hope you feel better now.
Also, PiatoR: She posits a situation where the whites are picking the cotton and the blacks are wielding the whips.
That strikes me as a pretty astute observation, as did the rest of what you said.
I understand the confusion and reactions of people to that kind of scenario-flipping, I even sympathize, because it is truly rocking their world; but at the same time I always feel like there’s a group whose reaction to turning the tables (even only in dialogue, not in real life) will always be “OMG NO FAIR WAAAAAAAH YOU’RE CRAZY.”
I’ve rarely seen such misplaced condescension.
And of course, one more way to refuse to address the issues I brought up.
Nancy, since you feel that no one is engaging your example of a woman hiring a male escort, and since I am a woman with a high sex drive who happens to like younger attractive men and may find myself in your shoes one day, I will acknowledge your 0.000001% situation.
Namely, is a woman who wants to pay a guy for sex as bad as a man paying a woman to have sex?
I recommend you take your experiment a little further… go ahead, find that male escort (I suspect some of the gay ones are bi enough that they’d go for it), meet up, let him know what you’re looking for… maybe even pay for that sex act. At what point do you realize, hmm, actually you want to have sex with someone who is mutually into the act for something other than money?
If you get all the way there without having this feeling –without basically feeling like a creepy person– you’re objectifying someone, no matter the configuration of your genitals.
This sort of objectification is dehumanizing someone, is an act of (non-BDSM) domination/submission, is part of the patriarchy.
Are you doing terrible damage to someone, akin to coercion and/or force of a young girl into prostitution? Likely, no. Are you still part of the problem for objectifying someone for sex? Yes.
And yet you “may find myself in your shoes one day, I will acknowledge your 0.000001% situation”
Putting aside “your 0.000001% situation” since I have no idea what you mean by that.
You say you “happens to like younger attractive men ” - aren’t you “objectifying” them for their youth and attractiveness? Why can’t you find an older, unattractive man and want to have sex with him on the basis of his charming personality?
And what empirical studies have your conducted that tell you that all male prostitutes are gay (with maybe a small percentage who are bi) ?
Nancy, I have only one thing to say: I feel for you. For strictly personal reasons I won’t get into (no, not rape), I have gone “spinster” about 7 hears ago (I am 20 years your younger) and have had no partner, occasional or otherwise, since, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to again (I said not rape, sheesh)
In the past 7 years, I have been variously involved in many forms of prostitution that seem to quite inconveniently slip through the net of Amanda’s or Twisty’s rhetoric. I have exhausted my Amazon wish-list several times over with cam-whoring before burning out. I have paid my cellphone bills with phone sex, and occasionally still do. To meet my “clients” I cruise internet chat rooms where I witness the most diverse kinds of money-for-sex transactions. What about men who buy sex from men, Amanda? is that morally objectionable too? scornful? Or how about men who buy sex from transsexuals? Women who buy sex from transsexuals? What’s the Standard Feminist Narrative there? There’s a lot of variety, too - I would leave a more colorful comment (like I did on Feministe), but I don’t want to get typecast. Really, women are overrepresented on the streets and underrepresented anywhere else. Preoccupy yourself with the plight of street women and please leave the overarching moral argument out of this, because to some of us it sounds ridiculous and ignorant
iolight: you sound plain uninformed to me. Sheltered maybe, with your made-up statistic and your spiteful vitriol and condescending attitude (the personal reason I resorted to prostitutes instead of contenting myself with “plastic buddies” is that the only sexual contact I did miss were kisses. Go figure)
Nancy: I have no experience on male prostitutes, but yes, I share the impression that they are considered “luxury” goods. All I can recommend is you give a go to shemale escorts. I had to work very hard to let myself go and try, and it might just not be for you, but I found them the safest bet (and a lot of fun)
[yes, the young spinster said “shemale”; “pre-op transwomen” would make the assumption for them that they want to change, that they need to change, and that they think of themselves as women]
Stay strong, auntie. There is no shame in your desires, and you will find what works for you
I don’t know if my response didn’t go through, is stuck in the tubes, or what.. so let me start by examining your assumptions:
On what basis do you assume that all male escorts are gay, except for a few bisexuals? You stated it oddly, but that’s what you seem to be saying.
And finally yes, Twisty censors her comments section. Nothing outside of gushing sycophantic praise and easily-mocked criticism gets through. Certainly not calling her on the cheer-leading stable she’s building. Her blog is an entertainment site with no learning value. A less nice person than me might call it a “circle-jerk” (oops, that wasn’t very nice of me)
Interesting posts, Antonella. Although I’m not sure if I’m ready to be called “auntie.”
I’ve actually tried a couple of times to go the sugarmomma route - that is, barter for, rather than pay for sex but this is difficult for 2 reasons - first because attractive young men are more expensive. Although women have made strides in economic parity, men still have much more of the money.
AND most young men still don’t get the concept - they think that MY appearance is still what’s up for discussion/judgement/etc. even when I’m paying for everything.
I would prefer to have a relationship based on affection, respect etc. in addition to sexual attraction and no money/barter involved. But that just ain’t happening.
So I’m looking at my options. Amanda and the others don’t care if I never get laid again as long as I live, so they can afford to be dismissive and/or derisive of my situation.
Thanks for being sympathetic. And maybe I will try the shemale route, although I am really just interested in males… to my ever-increasing regret.
I know a woman paid a female sex worker for sex. She got the bonus plan too, more than was strictly in the package she paid for. I don’t know how this fits into the oppressed sex worker narrative either.
I have also seen articles of late about middle-aged, middle-class white western women doing sex tourism with handsome black men in Kenya. It would be considered extremely oppressive if the buyers were men - the prostitutes in this case (the young men) live in the hotel rooms ofthe women they are paid to sleep with, they get food and gifts from these women, but they don’t actually get paid directly in cash. That’s white western women with money doing a sex-for-acommodation exchange. How does that fit Amanda and Twisty’s narrative?