Equality of Opportunity Over Equality of Outcome

Christina Hoff Sommers, for example, claims that in the US women have achieved ‘equality of opportunity’ and that anything further is an attempt to rig up some sort of ‘equality of outcome’. She focuses quite a bit on educational opportunities, gender quotas, female centered programs and the like, saying that because men and women are different and make different choices so much effort is an attempt to encourage women into fields they may not be interested in.

I’m not even going to bother arguing that topic, but what I will say is this: When it comes to the ability to earn an income women can never be considered to have achieved ‘equality of opportunity’ in a country where prostitution is in any way criminalized. CHS and her ‘gender feminist’ counterparts can argue all they want about the importance of ‘equal gender representation’ on academic panels, and on those panels they can argue all they want about how much women earn in comparison to men and how that effects that status of women, but until they recognize that the criminalization of either the buying or selling of sexual services is inherently discriminatory against women they just sound like a bunch of self-interested privileged hypocrites to me.

Allowable Enterprises

There’s a piece about trafficking & backpage on Salon containing the quote:

“While the aim of FAIR Girls to rescue victims and stop the sex trafficking of young women is laudable, the devotion of significant resources to an ad campaign dedicated to a non-solution is unfortunate.”

To which this comment was posted in response:

“…non-solution…”  I don’t agree that it’s a non-solution. It’s just one that Village Voice Media doesn’t want to make.  If you knew that your enterprise allowed for children to be prostituted over and over again, you might want to consider going as far as shutting it down.

To which I say:

Criminalizing and stigmatizing prostitution IS the “enterprise” which allows for “children to be prostituted over and over again”, so perhaps we had best shut that down.

♥

Well, This Happened

There was this video uploaded on the ZJemptv youtube channel.

The most disturbing thing about it is the comment thread where there are actually some people saying “thank you for the balanced overview of the two sides”. Of course it is NOT a balanced overview, it’s a textbook  ”radical feminist critique of sex positive feminism” – which should be assumed unbiased about as much as you’d assume that The Joker would offer an unbiased “critique” of Batman.:

I sent a tweet – which is rather out of character for me – which said “Thank you ZJ for giving someone who is not a sex worker yet another chance to speak for sex workers”. You can see the rest of our exchange, and some of the other twitter exchanges involved in the video below. I was pissed and things got ugly:

And just in case you are wondering, as one of the comments on my video says, if “zj had a chance to process everything” you should know that as far as the Love146 charity drive is concerned, it’s unfathomable that zinnia hadn’t heard about it months ago, considering how many people were sending pms and leaving comments about it, including links to the following video:

And also just-in-case, if you’re maybe thinking I was too angry in that video up there with all the yelling, take a listen to my initial reaction to the charity fiasco, where I’m sure a few people were disappointed that I wasn’t angry enough:

Sorry if this has ruined your day, it has certainly ruined a few of mine.

The MacKinnon Patriarch

If you’ve got a beef with Catharine MacKinnon then you’ve come to the right place. Watch my latest from youtube:   

Music With Pictures! Wheee!

Presbyterians ♥ Whores

 
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In the beginning:

God of compassion: your Son Jesus showed mercy to a woman condemned by harsh judgment, and gave her life. We pray for prostitutes, who are victims of lovelessness, or of a craving to be loved. Keep us from easy blame or cruel dismissal. May our church seek them out, and show such genuine friendship and true grace that they may know your welcome, and live among us, as sisters of Jesus Christ our Lord.

God? Could you maybe deliver them to understanding and acceptance instead? Because otherwise I will be easily blaming and crueling dismissing these people just as they do to others

 

And a little later:

 

With the advent of a new millennium and this report, the writing team thought it was important to begin asking questions about certain male behaviors: Why do men rape? Why do men frequent prostituted women? Why do men beat their wives and lovers? Why do men incest their daughters and granddaughters? Why do men urinate in public? There is one answer to all of these questions: Because they can. Even though all of these behaviors have been deemed criminal by our society, they are epidemic.

 

Of course! Because they can. And everyday that the fine upstanding Presbyterians manage to resist raping, incesting, beating, and urinating in public is a day that they get to feel superior to all those other less godly men who can’t manage to control themselves. Just in case you were wondering why other men support these bullshit lies – it’s so they can feel like paragons of self control for not raping women all the time like those unsaved non-christians do. It’s only the power of GOD that stops them from raping every woman they see. Let’s hope presby dudes don’t lose their faith, or it’ll be rape madness all over.

And what’s with the study from half a century ago?

Then further on:

 

Invite your friends to join you in taking the Prostitution Test (Appendix A). Find out what you already know and what you need to learn about prostitution and prostituted women.

Remember it takes two to “turn a trick.” Don’t blame the victim. Engage in conversation about the role of men in prostitution and sexual exploitation, not only as pimps, but also as clientele. Why do men frequent prostitutes? Why do men rape? Why do men commit incest? Why do men batter their wives and lovers? Why do men urinate in public? It is a form of exhibitionism.

 

You already asked me those questions, you penis obsessed pervert. And I already took your offensive test, fuckwit. And thanks for telling me to “know what I believe”,  but I really don’t need a list from church to tell me that. Only moral inferiors need lists to tell them what to believe.

 

 Know What You Believe

 Establish for yourself and your congregation a list of your core beliefs about prostitution and sexual exploitation. The following list is from “Pornography: Far from the Song of Songs,” but there are others you can add:

• God is the source of human dignity;
• There is equal dignity of women and men as being created in the image of God;
• Human beings were created with the possibility for the ultimate acts of celebration   and joy in sexuality;
• God calls human beings to positive expressions of mutual affirmation and   commitment, especially as typified in the calling to faithful, respectful marital and   family relationships;
• The historic pattern of dominance and subjugation in human relationships is a   distortion of God’s intended creation;
• God’s gift of sexual pleasure is fulfilled in acts of human love and mutual respect;
• God demands sexual responsibility, balancing love for the self and love for the other;
• God calls us to promote the dignity of all persons and to confront the circumstances   in society that negate the integrity of human life;
• Christians are called to model the covenantal, compassionate community;
• The love of Jesus Christ is the Good News, (and brings) empowerment to a world   filled with conflict, alienation, and fear.

 

Would it be impolite, or improper of me to ask people if they are pushing a religious agenda when they talk about “dignity” and use those other buzz words we hear all the time? Because it seems like maybe it’s sort of impolite for these moralist shitfucks to go around trying to turn us all into sisters of Jesus, especially since they are doing it for the glory of a god I don’t believe in at all. I’d really like to start calling them out on what I know is their real agenda.

Can I try to force them to smoke weed and sleep around, and conform to my personal faith? No, probably not… 

I’m getting pretty goddamned sick of this murderous religious persecution that is being committed against sex workers with decency laws trussed up as anti-trafficking efforts.

And I’m getting pretty goddamned sick of the psychological warfare being waged on sexually liberated women of all feminist persuations by rape prevention scare campaigns that have convinced a generation of young women that they are LUCKY to find a man who isn’t a rapist.

 

The Feminist Fault Line

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So, if Martin Luther King Jr. visited prostitutes, would that make him some sort of rapist asshole woman-hater, or does it mean that somebody is telling a dirty vicious lie? Or does it mean that men who visit prostitutes are sometimes, if not often or usually, good and decent men with value in our society?  I know, I left one out: Was he merely unaware of how many of those women were forced into prostitution against their will and/or had no other choice due to economic desperation?
  

Like A Pack Of Wild Whores

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I posted some of this as a response to this post at Bound, not Gagged here’s the first few lines (of the original post, that is):

One thing I’ve noticed again and again is that when men make online comments in any way supporting sex workers (like on news articles or major blogs), they always hasten to add that they have never seen a sex worker and have no need of it. Obviously, they believe client-stereotypes (e.g. all clients are ugly losers) and feel a strange need to pretend they’re not clients.

I wonder why they even think the disclaimer is relevant — can’t they, as arguably intelligent people — support sex workers with or without vested interest?

but I started rambling and posted an extended version here:
 

A Few Things

Grace Silver’s Theological Dictionary:

(c. 1923)

 

Grace Silver - A Lot More Fun Than She Looks

…
 JESUS: Son of Mary. No one knows who she was. Father was god, who deserted his mother before his birth, leaving her without room rent or medical attention.
 …
 LOVE: A sentiment which all preachers are supposed to feel for all men, women, girls and boys. Sometimes it leads to a prison sentence.
 …
 MISSIONARY: A fellow full of enthusiasm and religion, who endures mosquitoes and malaria in order that he may christianize the heathen, in return for which he receives an allowance, an extra pair of wings, and a pass to an orchestra seat in heaven. The poor heathen are defenseless.
…

 

Four Hundred Thousand Swedish Perverts
GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies
Don Kulick 2005

I Suspected As Much!

Check this out, I found it on Democracy Now the other day, it’s about a year old. This, I think, is good ammunition to use against those who push the “Swedish Model” for ending demand of “commercial sex”.  People who aren’t really informed about the “swedish model” probably don’t realize that the Sweden today isn’t the same swingin’ cool Sweden we saw depicted in late 70′s softcore porn. It’s the Sweden that loves Bush and Rove. I mean I’ve got a category called “the ASTM and the NeoCons” because if anyone bothers to look it’s sort of obvious – but this little interview from democracy now really sums it up better than my long rambling posts do:  (and oh yeah, I made a blog thing on salon, and posted about this interview and some other general sex workers’ rights vs. moralizing prick type stuff if you want to check it out, i just figured that maybe some people would see it there and start noticing the swedish model problem)  (– also, yeah, some stuff in this interview might be of interest to non-prostitutes’-rights-obsessed people too) and there is video of the interview thru the headline link:

Bush, Rove Tied to Effort to Dismantle Sweden’s Social Welfare Program

Shady Bullshit

I’m livid. That’s almost my highest anger level, by the way. It’s pretty rare. Surpassed only by “absolutely livid”.

This is how they do it. I’m not good at explaining these things, I can write from my heart with no problem, but when it comes to presenting information, I can’t focus long enough to finish it. I have pages and pages and pages of almost finished diatribes and screeds, all jumbled up. It’s my ADD, there’s no doubt about that. So please bear with me – short version – The F Word published a review of a book about HIV/Aids in marginalized groups: sex workers, transgender, drug users, the review was written by a contributer from WeNews and it’s worse than it sounds – I’ll explain in a second. And, Womens eNews didn’t publish a sex worker supportive article in the prostitution section, and it’s worse than it sounds – I’ll explain in a second.

Outer Space

THE OBSTACLE COURSE

I think everyone can relate to having a broken heart. We’ve all been there. I think most women can understand being horny, and as such can understand being a horny woman, and can understand that horny happens on it’s own, sometimes fairly often, sometimes it doesn’t show up but once a decade.

Here is where we DON’T derail by saying too often can be bad, and once a decade is sad. Here is where we Don’t Do That.

I would like any discussion of prostitution to be about women who have the broken heart + the horny and how prostitution is a wonderful, empowering thing for those women.

Here is where we don’t debate whether it is empowering for every woman, what about the women who are forced. Here is where we Don’t Do That.

All Women, All Men, All Gods

Most of the time I write about stuff in generalities: Women do this, Men do that. I say that women do this or that and men do this or that, but I know it’s not ALL women and ALL men. I know it’s outrageously more complicated than that.

When I talk about sex work, I know all sex-workers aren’t women, and I don’t mean to make it sound as if they are all women, but the issues that affect sex-workers affect all sex workers regardless of gender, and it’s those opposed to sex-work who claim they oppose it on the grounds that it’s oppressive to women. I know it’s an attempt to stifle debate, I’m tired of wasting time being sure to point out ‘men too’ or ‘trans too’.

I’ll talk about “sex workers” – for example: “sex-workers face danger, but women are often more vulnerable to assault even if they aren’t sex workers” – I don’t mean to say all sex-workers are women, but so often the anti-sex work factions use ‘women’s vulnerability’ to justify their anti- attitudes, so I don’t bother partitioning the people into “men, women, trans” because that just plays into a “divide and conquer” strategy that (imo) they have implemented to silence anyone who argues against them. They want to waste our time, and they want to tire us out by making us go to the effort to “be specific” – yes, it’s important to be specific, but the fact that it is important can’t be used as a tool to silence me. Not anymore, goddammit.

Protest In Italy

A tussle breaks out at about 3 mins in.

Anybody speak Italian? Translate?

Does this, below, say what these women were saying? Or is it just an article? :

Sexual Progressivism is Not Regressive – And Then I Platonically Dialogue Your Ass

progressive, not regressive.
sex progressive
sex positive
not regressive
not repressive
not negative
so there.

Sex-prog. I dig it. I hate sex positive, because frankly, you don’t have to like sex to want to challenge and change attitudes about sexuality. If you asked most of the people who know me, irl, they’d tell you I’m a big prude. It’s just a ‘been there done that’ ‘do you think you invented blowjobs?’ sort of prudishness, but comes out in the way I roll my eyes or sigh when some young whippersnapper starts telling a story. Online, I know not to type out a message and hit send unless I have something at least helpful to say, or unless I’m pissed off way past sighs and eyerolls.
A few weeks ago I was telling my buddy that they are calling types like me “fun-fems” and he almost shat himself with laughter. I can be quite funny, but nobody would ever call me fun.

_____________________
And ha, yeah, sexually-progressive is totally what it is, because the so-called progressives pushing the attitude that women’s bodies and sexuality are responsible for rape-culture aren’t progressive in any way, that stuff is totally regressive, repressive and another word that conveys the same general idea but I am to lazy to think of right now. It’s straight out of the bible – in fact that stuff is the best known stuff out of the bible.
I read the other day, about purity balls, and pledges and the writer (it might have been the yes means yes blog) said something like how they focus on ‘virginity as a commodity’ or something, which I agree with, but that commodity argument is what is always used against prostitution – that it devalues a woman because her sex is a commodity… which is the same thing, right, whether it’s a christian teaching saying to keep your purity for your husband, or anti-prostitution types saying… wait what….. see lost again. What the fuck oh yeah! But it’s all based on who is doing the commodifying? The religious leaders? the person who has that particular sex organ on their body? Regressive feminist leadership?
Yes, the pro-sex, prog-sex, sex-prog, sex-proggies let them call us! We at least aren’t regressive.
What sort of crap is that anyway? That the christians hate loose women, and so do the ‘radical’ regressive feminisms – one group because of the bible, and the other group because of rape-culture. And both groups are scared shitless of all things evolutionary. Biology, psychology or what have you. Doesn’t help much that the evolutionary biologists and evolutionary psychologists are too busy hating each other to team up and score one for evolution in general.
I want a change, I want something very very new, the opposite of it all, a real overturning of the real status quo – that status quo that says only women poisoned by the devil or patriachy like sex. That says women who devalue sex, and are willing to sell it or use it for whatever purpose they choose are bad women. They are fine women. Not in spite of it. Not because of it. I want to get to where it is not a factor, in anything, unless it’s used to hurt someone else. As it should be for men as well. As it is for men.
And that’s what gets me, (apparently a lot of things get me) – the total hypocrisy and the outlandish way it is justified.

 

Dialogue’n yer ass:

 

The hypocrisy is that women have a right to autonomy – except the intersected sexual and economical autonomy that is prostitution.
And that’s FEMINISTS saying that?! Wha?! How does that make sense?
Because it hurts women.
How?
Trains men to expect sex.
What? You mean trains them to pay for sex?
No it trains them to take it.
Wait. What? but….
Yes, they get used to just being able to go have sex whenever they want to.
And that’s bad for who?
It’s bad for women.
What women?
All women, everywhere.
How so?
Because it trains men to think they are entitled to sex.
Oh. But wait, I’m still confused…
That’s what they do, they confuse you. They are smart that way.
Ah. I was thinking it was YOU that was trying to confuse me….
I only want to help you understand. Even you do not really do these, we call them ‘performances’, because you want to do them, you think you do because it’s natural for you to want attention or to be loved or valued, but men, this male culture of ours, has so convinced you that the only way – or the easiest way – to do it is by using your sexuality. It’s what we’ve all been taught. But, you see, because it’s been going on for so long, when you reward men with your sexual performance, it re-inforces the culture that allows them to do that, you reward them for their hard work of training women to use their sexuality to gain approval. Women are starting to wake up and notice this.
Ok, well, that actually makes a lot of sense…
wanders away…..
…
4 months later…
Ok, ummmm, remember you were saying how we’re all trained?
Yes, yes, have you been noticing it now?
I sure have, all over the place. But…
It’s overwhelming isn’t it?
Quite. But… I still don’t really understand how prostitution is the same thing as being convinced to perform, really, I mean don’t they want to perform for the money?
Well, of course, it’s for the money. How sad is that though? Why should a woman be reduced to selling sex to earn money? If she had another way to earn money, wouldn’t she choose that?
Eh, well, it’s a lot of money though, for the time you put in… I don’t think there are many other jobs that pay that much…
You can’t measure it in time put in, you have to also measure it in psychological trauma, and wear and tear to the body, and you have to remember that so many of these women are terribly abused, and no amount of money can be worth that price.
Sounds terrible, put that way – but is it really like that? how do you know they get abused?
We’ve done the research, almost all of them have been abused, or they have drug addictions that their pimps take advantage of, and most of them tell us they’ve been raped – these are the things these women tell us.
Well, I actually know a prostitute, not very well, but she never seemed like she had those problems, and I know she doesn’t have a pimp….
She’s very lucky then. Many women who were abused as children seem as if they’ve dealt with the trauma just fine, until you realize that they are selling themselves to the highest bidder like a piece of meat.
Hey now, I’m pretty sure she wasn’t abused when she was a kid, I know about her life, just not her life as a prostitute…
Do you think she would want to talk about it with you? Culture teaches women to be ashamed about their sexuality, so they learn to not complain about their victimization at the hands of men, especially their fathers.
Well, yeah, I guess you’re right about that…
wanders away
…
Hi, remember me?
I sure do.
I talked to my friend, and told her what you said and she got kinda mad about it. She said she wasn’t abused, and even if she had been it wouldn’t mean she sells it because she’s all trauma’d out and stuff.
Hmm. Like I said, she’s very lucky. It’s rare, but the stereotype is true every now and then, that prostituted women have chosen to do that to themselves.
Prostituted women?
Well, we find it helps to get the message across that these women are victims, not criminals, they haven’t chosen that life.
But she chose it, she says…
It’s really a choice out of no choice, nobody would choose it if there was a better option.
I see. But… well, nevermind…. I wonder though, besides if prostitutes get abused or do drugs, how does that make men get used to expecting sex? Or however it was you put it?
Well, think about pornography, which is just prostitution on film -
oh, ok -
Pornography effects many many women, the men, they watch it, and bring those attitudes into the bedroom they share with women like you and me, and they impose those pornography promoted behaviors onto us, in the way they demand lingerie, make-up, even the sex acts they see in pornos.
Yeah, my guy sometimes asks “why don’t you do this or that” it’s annoying…
See, that is a real problem, it effects us all, average women, women who didn’t make the choice to do pornography, women who have worked hard to be taken seriously for their accomplishments, and we are made to feel as if the most important thing, or the only thing that matters is whether or not we are sexually appealing.
Ok, so yeah, I get that, but what sort of guys are you with that they don’t just respect your wishes, if you tell him not to expect you to be a porn star because you’re not a porn star, if they keep hassling you, they are jerks and you should tell them to scram, right? If he demands porny stuff, you demand respect.
Ha! You’re quite a dreamer! That’s back to the basic problem – we can’t demand respect, because he can just go out and find a prostituted woman and buy the right to use her any way he wants to.
Ha! well you’re a dreamer too if you think men get to do ‘whatever they want’ even with a prostitute.
They can. There is no denying that – a man can go out and find a woman who will do anything for him for a sum of money – he can find a child to buy if that’s what he wants to have sex with.
Wow. That’s not even remotely the same thing. A guy going out and finding someone willing to give him a blowjob and he’s willing to give her some money, it doesn’t have anything to do with children.
You think you can seperate the two things? You can’t it’s all sex, sex that men feel entitled too… The same thing that enables a man to go out and buy a woman for sex, enables him to buy a child.
But what thing is that – what “enables” it?
The cultural attitude that he can. The attitude that it’s just “no big deal” if a man is able to buy sex, or rape a woman, or beat a woman.
What? How can you conflate all those things? And the way you say it, as if everyone already agrees with you? I don’t think buying sex is the same as rape, or abuse, or even buying children for sex.
Well, it’s not the same really, it’s more of a cause.
Holy shit. Wait, so my friend, who chose to make money this way, for whatever reason – let’s says she’s out of her mind on crack even – that her choice out of no choice to do that causes rape and abuse and child rape too? Lady, you are cruisin’ for a bruisin’.
Please I don’t appreciate your threats.
What threats?
Your threats of physical violence, that you want to bruise me.
Yeah, um, that was pretty much a joke.
Ah yes, a joke. I’m willing to engage with you, but I won’t put up with threats of violence. I’ve been threatened by people who don’t like what I say for years already.
Well, that might have something to do with your criteria.
It’s rape culture that creates the criteria, this attitude that violence is ok.
I don’t think violence is ok, but neither is saying that prostitution is the same as rape, or causes rape, or any of the horrible things you said.
I agree. They are horrible things to say. And to hear, the truth is always hard to hear.
Oh you are good. – It’s not true, I don’t believe it. It doesn’t make sense.
It’s difficult to come to terms with, it’s such a huge problem that it’s easier to pretend it doesn’t exist.
I say I don’t believe it, you don’t bother asking me why, you just explain to me why I don’t believe it? That it’s hard to deal with? That I’m pretending?
Well, there isn’t any other plausible reason for it.
Reason for what, even – rape? rape-culture? men expecting, feeling entitled to sex? – you’re accusation that I am “pretending IT doesn’t exist” – what is the “it” there?
Women’s oppression, all the ways that they are oppressed is the “it” there.
So, prostitution causes women’s oppression?
In a way yes, it re-inforces it, promotes it, and we won’t be able to liberate women from oppression – truly liberate them – until all the things that promote their oppression are stopped. Ended. Destroyed. Abolished.
Yes, well, that was actually a lot of nothing that you just said there.
What about it was “nothing”? The idea that women shouldn’t be oppressed? The idea that women being oppressed is unstoppable or natural or “god’s will” or some such other patriarchal nonsense like that.
It’s hard to keep up with you, you know.
I’ve been told that before – but it’s only that I’ve been working against that oppression for so long, I know the arguments by heart
Who uses the “god’s will” argument to defend prostitution? God’s will types are against prostitution too.
True, it’s one of the few things they got right. God’s will types think that women’s oppression is “god’s will” not specifically that prostitution is god’s will
I still don’t understand what is supposed to be the cause of it though, of any of it, what makes rape and abuse happen then?
It’s a cultural conditioning, that tells men it’s ok to take sex, and tells women not to complain about it.
But why? Who first decided to do that? Did men just one day decide to rape all the women and lock us up in a room and we’re all just decendents with stockholm syndrome handed down from our mothers?
In a way, yes.
What do you MEAN “in a way”? In what way? And why, in ‘that’ way, or in any way? Why did men originally “want” to oppress women?

What Is Wrong With These People?

Seriously – Here’s a discussion from BBC radio I think (do they even have radios over there? : P ) and it says it’s only available online for a few more days, so listen while you can.

1) They have a panel discussion of 3 anti-prostitution moral crusader types – (who say things like it’s good to stigmatize prostitution, so good girls won’t stray) – and just one “former prostitute”/journalist/mother of 6 kids who also -kicker!: went to jail for making false rape allegations -which of COURSE bothers the hell out of me and that shit ought to bother the hell out of everyone but here’s the thing that all y’all haters better understand – really fucking understand – that’s why they chose her – to discredit the prostitute’s rights movement. If you think they did the right thing by trying to discredit the prostitution rights movement you’re an asshole. It’s fair and balanced don’t ya know, because they have the sacrificial lying dirty whore there to represent all the rest of us lying dirty whores. Wonderful.

- Someone at the forum I found this on, which I will endeavor to find the link to in a moment (ah-ha) observed something about one of the moral crusaders that was really key -

MRA Guide To The CEDAW

Awww isn’t this sweet? Amnesty International has a little fact sheet for homophobe woman-haters on why they shouldn’t be afraid of CEDAW

Don’t worry! With The CEDAW:

1) Still lets the U.S. be above international law
2) The women you assault, stalk, harass won’t win any lawsuits they file against you, cuz after all you’re a ‘Murkan Man.
3) You can still wear the pants in your family, and you can still terrorize your own kids.
4) We won’t let the ladies kill their precious unborns – not if we have any say – we’re neutral, like Stupak.
5) It can be like Jim Crow for girls!
6) Gays still can’t marry. Your ass is safe.
7) You can still kill whores, and nobody will care.

So get on with the Ratifying already! What are ya waiting for! You got all your fine upstanding NGO’s in the field ready to “help” these women become good moral women who can’t wait to cook you dinner.

Read the rest:

Ignorant? or Spreading Misinformation? What do you think?

Really? Are you fucking kidding me? Are you fucking kidding me? Has this woman never heard about PEPFAR watch? Are you fucking kidding me? DOES SHE FUCKING HAVE GOOGLE? I guess maybe she can’t bothered to research anything, what with all the pearl-clutching and fainting she’ll have to do.

Yeah, it’s a couple weeks old, but I try not to subject myself to things like this too frequently:

Feminist Law Professors‘ Ann Bartow:

  And how much do rape, pornography and prostitution contribute to the spread of AIDS? Wish there was some data on that, but not holding my breath. From the HuffPo:

 In its first study of women’s health around the globe, the World Health Organization said Monday that the AIDS virus is the leading cause of death and disease among women between the ages of 15 and 44.

 Unsafe sex is the leading risk factor in developing countries for these women of childbearing age, with others including lack of access to contraceptives and iron deficiency, the WHO said. Throughout the world, one in five deaths among women in this age group is linked to unsafe sex, according to the U.N. agency.

 “Women who do not know how to protect themselves from such infections, or who are unable to do so, face increased risks of death or illness,” WHO said in a 91-page report. “So do those who cannot protect themselves from unwanted pregnancy or control their fertility because of lack of access to contraception.” …

If prostitution actually was voluntary and consensual, if pornographers actually respected the wishes and bodily integrity of performers, if contraceptives actually were freely available, how different the world would be for women.

–Ann Bartow

-right, she’s concerned with human rights, my fat ass.

Maybe she could check out this 259 page WHO pdf. full of suggestions on how to be a better researcher -  (they spent a decade writing it so you know it’s good) – because she has certainly already mastered the CATW’s guidelines for the media on how to report on the issues of sex-workers:   “How News-Men Can Better Shame Whores”  – ‘course that’s just my little pet title for it.

Woman, Rambling

I can’t decide what to write about… but I have been motivated to ramble on endlessly at other people’s blogs, and in an attempt to disguise my blogging procrastination I offer them for you here:

On Jem’s Lair I read an interesting post on Sex as negotiable action, with this bit:

“I don’t think I could do sex work myself, I’ve never felt the curiosity to try, nor have I ever had the need (thankfully). Not because I think it’s icky – it’s sex and it’s no different than any other sexual relation in that regard – but because I dislike the idea of engaging in sex for someone else’s sake rather than my own. That’s purely my own feelings, though, and I respect and understand that people are different and that others won’t mind this like I do”

which got me rambling:

I have a video tape of myself from 20+ years ago (omg), when I was 18 where I said almost this very same thing. Almost verbatim – I really need to find that tape again and get it onto my computer….

Anyway, here’s the thing….

Sexy Sex And Stuff! Giggle! Except It’s More About Structural Libertarianism Actually

You might already know that I am enraged by the whole “whores are damaged and stupid, but it’s not their fault they’re too stupid to even know” shtick, and today I happened upon a thread over at Tiger Beatdown which was actually one of those pop-culture-feminism-conversation things that I HATE – anyway here is the part that literally flipped my lid (for realz i spilled my pot cuz I was so upset!):

SADY: [...] i think the only people who think it is empowering are people who don’t get structure, and are kind of libertariany and weird.

AMANDA: yeah. “i do something, and i am a woman, so that thing is empowering for women” doesn’t really make sense

here is my comment, which might still be stuck in the moderation queue:

It doesn’t make sense because you are trapped in the twisted glorification of women’s sexuality. It’s about libertarianism, because it’s about freedom. Sexual freedom and reproductive freedom. All at once, together, forever.- (big surprise)

 
So, ok, sure there’s the anti-sex freedom stuff that bugs me – but the anti- libertarian stuff just makes me extra extra stabby. It has for months too, well for more than a year since before the election last year when all of a sudden there was all this anti libertarian hate everywhere. I’ve been a libertarian since – like forever – since jesus gotta think now… 1991? Since before I voted for Bill Clinton, I mean I was registered as a Libertarian when I voted for him, so whenever the fuck that was… – . Anyway, when all the libertarian hate started I endeavored to find out where it was coming from – and well I didn’t have to endeavor much because alla sudden BLAM here comes the far-right Randian whack-jobs – and ta-da yeah, not a surprise that everybody hates them. 

But ok, here we have two worthy feminists, 2 smart women who write great stuff, and I understand that this is a conversation I’m reading but to have the “libertariany and weird” thing thrown out there, and then have it followed by the “doesn’t really make sense” stuff …. I mean HAVE YOU TRIED TO FIGURE IT OUT? Cause it ain’t that hard, as my unneeded endeavoring shows. Libertarianism is a big big big ummmm spectrum of beliefs and nuances and all sorts of stuff… the ONLY thing that it holds true across the spectrum is that Libertarianism is NOT Authoritarianism. Full Stop.

As an example, here is my “political compass” (and take yours, I bet that you’re a libertariany weirdo somewhere near the Dalai Lama too!)