Saturday, June 2, 2018

"Whore" by In This Moment

::WARNING:: I'm about to get on my soapbox and share some unpopular opinions. I'm sure I'm going to be labeled a "bad feminist" but whatever. I have a really strong internal sense of justice (as all Gryffindors do) and, quite frankly, I don't care what you think of me. ::END WARNING::

Today is International Sex Workers Day (or International Whores Day, if you prefer that better) and, you may be surprised to find out, I have some strong thoughts on sex workers' rights. Here comes that unpopular opinion I warned about - the Nordic Model, i.e., punishing the sex worker clients rather than sex workers, is bad for sex workers. You know how I know? Because I actually listen to what sex workers think about the various "solutions" for making sex work safer. Now you may be wondering -- well, why? Have you ever been a sex worker? No. I don't have to know what it's like to care what happens to these men and women when Congress passes bad policy. Because they're human beings who deserve love and empathy and understanding, just like everyone else. They are, in large part, people of color and members of the LGBTQ community and seem to be everyone's favorite punching bag until they get caught having an affair with a hated politician. And today, they are out protesting the passage of SESTA/FOSTA and you should know why.

SESTA (Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act) and FOSTA (Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act) do many things but most notably, they hold online platforms accountable for what users say and do on their websites. Now, that doesn't sound so bad but it ignores one crucial fact - the internet has made sex work significantly safer within recent years. More sex workers have been able to turn to independent work rather than relying on brothels or pimps, they're better able to screen clients prior to meeting them, and they can readily share information about potentially dangerous clients so others (especially younger, inexperienced sex workers) know who they should avoid. It also gives them the ability to do remote sex work (through Skype and video/photo sharing) and avoid dangerous situations altogether, if they so choose. SESTA/FOSTA destroys that safety net.

In addition to SESTA/FOSTA, mainstream feminists keep pushing to enact the Nordic Model in the United States. Here's the thing with the Nordic Model - if you punish sex worker clients, then the only clients who sex workers will be able to find will be the ones who don't care about performing criminal acts, i.e., people who are more prone to violence. It assumes that all sex workers are victims and, I'm sorry, that is the most un-feminist thing I've ever heard. Here's another unpopular opinion: For men and women who don't like sex work and want to get out, we should absolutely help them get out and give them options for pursuing their best life. But for those who enjoy it (and some of them do), then we need to ensure that they are safe while they are working in their chosen profession. SESTA and FOSTA are going to (and probably already do) have measurable, statistically significant body counts. And I don't know about you, but I am NOT okay with that. I am not okay with sacrificing marginalized men and women on the altar of Decency. I have a lot more to say because I get mad about how people don't think about the consequences when it doesn't affect them. But this isn't about me and I've shared the information sex workers want - need - you to understand for today.

Onto the video....I've been listening to a lot of In This Moment because Maria Brink always acts super witchy and I love it. When I first saw this video, I was kind of uncomfortable letting my son watch it (and he actually really likes this song....he's weird) because the video seems so sexy. But I wasn't listening to what she was saying - that men (and women) judge her for how she looks, paint her as a whore, even though she's successful and in charge of her life. Which, admittedly, was exactly what I was doing. In the video, she's actually more covered up than Taylor Swift is in most of her videos, she just happens to have a more curvy body type. I really do try not to do that to other women - not to objectify them - but I'm really bad at doing it to myself. I always second guess myself when choosing clothes because I'm afraid (because of my natural body shape) people might think I look slutty. Even when I feel like I look really nice, I feel self-conscious. But it doesn't really matter what I wear, because some people are going to give me dirty looks anyway. However, I'm pretty sure the video is meant to be sort of lascivious - an attractive vampire (erm...hot, tattoo'd goth guy) walks into what is essentially a sex club and Maria "performs" for him. That's pretty obvious so you've been warned.

2 comments:

  1. Co-signed.

    The worst stigma associated with sex work is the lifetime of bullshit it hangs over one's head; including legal sex work. Sasha Grey should be able to read at an elementary school in peace. Aurora Snow shouldn't have to write a letter to her unborn son, released publicly for all to see. These men and women, working legally or illegally, are providing a service in demand. They are essentially participating in the economic system they grew and developed in. This is not even accounting for the simple truth of their humanity and how we generally don't define a person solely by their job otherwise.

    However, that's not what gets me what gets me more is you talk about sacrificing at the altar of decency. I ask what decency? As a nation America has committed genocide and condemns millions of children to go hungry every year and yet we pretend to have this altar of moral superiority onto which we sacrifice sex workers and their clients. It's not the altar of decency, it is an altar of lies we named decency.

    To counter the lie named decency I wish to offer this truth. Women, specifically prostitutes settled the western frontier. We leave their names out of our history books and treat them as an embarrassment but they built and ran schools and entire towns sprung up around their brothels. Prostitution is at least as American as manifest destiny. We should acknowledge the truth and stop the erasure of women and sex workers from our history.

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  2. Thanks for saying all the stuff I was too fired up to say. And I was being facetious about the Altar of Decency. Because the people who condemn prostitutes more often than not have no decency, no moral superiority, aside from the cosmetic righteousness they envelope themselves in. Even with this Stormy Daniels thing (which I alluded to) -- this story has been going on for months but the media (even the liberal sites) still feel compelled to tell us every day that she's a pornstar, as if we don't already know. That's not what's important.

    That's what I love about the wild west. Growing up near Tombstone, it was always well known that Big Nose Kate, a prostitute and later a brothel madame, was a pillar of the community. She was considered a town elder until she died and she made sure the girls that worked for her were safe and cared for. Not only that, but history is filled with women whose stories begin with prostitution, but people gloss over it because it's an ugly truth. ::sigh::

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