Yes, I will be there, as will sunny.
I was actually at the contentious roundtable spoken of in the article. I've written a little about it before on witchy-woo's blog:
http://witchy-woo.blogspot.com/2006_07_ ... chive.html
"Something I noticed at one prostitution conference in Toledo, Ohio I attended was that even though there were a large number of black women in attendance, not one black woman that I saw supported 'sex as work'. Many black women were survivors who had turned their lives around and decided to try and help others get out, and at one point I thought an ex-prostitute/counselor was going to assault one of the all-white pro-prostitution women for the joking and 'sexy' attitude towards prostitution she was bringing to the roundtable discussion. The counselor was sitting next to me and she said to me in an angry hush, "She saying what I think she's saying? I know she ain't saying what I think she's saying."
That woman sang a song during lunch and I bought her CD."
What started it was Robyn Few going off loudly about how oppressed she is, how feminists all hate her sexy self, how she's maligned and everybody's against her. Because I'm not quite the hardline bitch pro-johners would like to paint me as, I said a few words to Robyn about working together in the hopes that could really happen, but even then you could tell she sees feminists as her real enemies, not pimps and violent johns. I found out after that meeting that she was convicted and jailed not for being a prostitute, which she had stopped doing years prior, but for pimping about two dozen women across state lines.
As she was a prostituted runaway at the age of 13, I can understand such life-circumstance paranoia being transferred to the legitimized bullshit of pornographers who whine about their poor, maligned multi-millionaire selves. Her topic at this year's conference harps on this poor little rich girl theme, "Taking action against all odds," as if the entire media cumglomerate complex isn't on her side and as if even the most male-approved feminists aren't eating up her spoonful of whore-power shit disguised thinly as chocolate.
I'd like to say I won't fall for the lies of prostitution profiteers/sex worker rights advocates again, but several times now these self-interested women who present themselves as put-upon freedom fighters have joined committees I've been on and several times I have given them every benefit of the doubt that they're earnestly interested in helping prostituted women who really need help. Every time it has eventually turned out to be about them securing their money source more than about helping women.
Every time.
There was the local woman who was a heroin junkie street hooker for years and is proud now that her teen daughter is bringing in the cash because "It's just a job like any other" and "You shouldn't be judgmental about pimps, they're people too."
There was the stripper who thought grant money given to a women's crisis line to help sex workers would best be applied teaching strippers how to let men squeeze their tits and finger their pussies more without getting fined because the law says no touching but more touching means more money.
I'm such a pushover for prostituted women, so sensitive to being non-judgmental and openminded about their experiences and they know to use that against me, against all people sincerely concerned about women's rights. Just like how liberal fucks like the Utne Reader crew, Alternet, The Nation, etc. know damn well to keep all eyes on either big-tittied non-victim pornstituted women or Third World victim pornstituted women because they know it works as a shield for the conservative and liberal
men who create the overwhelming demand for pornography, prostitution, and trafficking victims.
by CoolAunt » Mon Sep 25, 2006 7:26 am 