Sady Doyle, SAGE, Audacia Ray, theft, and pro-sexwork books

Got something to share with the reading public that isn't an action but should be read?

Moderators: delphyne, oneangrygirl, deedle, sam

Sady Doyle, SAGE, Audacia Ray, theft, and pro-sexwork books

Postby sam » Thu Sep 10, 2009 9:56 pm

It's not too long for you to read what's going on over at the popular Tiger Beatdown blog. All the libfem feminists love Sady! She writes with great emotion! About how reading Dworkin's writing on rape makes her vagina dry, which is bad because feminism promised her a creamy cooter. Men love noncommittal funny girls too hip to wrangle with notions of right and wrong.

http://tigerbeatdown.com/?p=448&cpage=1#comment-2450

(my latest, longer comment there)

Why is it always the free speech absolutists who threaten to sue me for speaking?

Sady, I've heard your line too many times from people who think abortion is too divisive and impolite to talk about, but the difference was they didn't go on to keep talking about it while pretending impartiality for the sake of fake harmony.

SAGE's statement, posted entirely by Kristie Miller, is real and if you wanted to you could easily email them to fact check. When you find out for sure that it's true, then what will you do about the "legitimate problem" you have confirmed? A lawyer told me I had a right to sue $pread Magazine's executive editor Audacia Ray for stealing my writings but legal rights are worthless for women who can't afford justice. http://www.spreademism.com/

When it happened to me there was less concern over ethics violations than embarrassment and hopes I would just shut up lest my unsexy indignation at illegal actions be deemed 'ugly'. The same sweeping under the rug with shrugging shoulders is happening to another woman's stolen words, this time a prostitution survivor. The mainstream feminist movement doesn't think it can afford to criticize the sex industry lobbyists they wear like painless, cost-free Bettie Page tattoos.
"Your orgasm can no longer dictate my oppression"

Trisha Baptie
sam
chaotic good
 
Posts: 4391
Joined: Thu Dec 30, 2004 12:54 am

Re: Sady Doyle, SAGE, Audacia Ray, theft, and pro-sexwork books

Postby thebewilderness » Thu Sep 10, 2009 10:18 pm

I got the impression that they neither know nor care what the SAGE Project is.
thebewilderness
antiporn star
 
Posts: 437
Joined: Sun Jul 13, 2008 10:17 pm

Re: Sady Doyle, SAGE, Audacia Ray, theft, and pro-sexwork books

Postby sam » Fri Sep 11, 2009 12:54 pm

You're right. I noticed that Norma Hotaling's death wasn't covered by feminists.

Sady attended the book release after learning about the woman's stolen writing, but she didn't inquire about it or request an explanation. A wise man once told me you can do journalism or you can do public relations, but you can't do both.

http://tigerbeatdown .com/?p=471

Lady Business Interviewing: Audacia Ray on Sex Worker Literati

Along with Hos, Hookers, Call Girls and Rent Boys – hey, remember when I covered that? That was fun! – comes a new reading series, “Sex Worker Literati,” which takes place at the Manhattan bar Happy Ending on the first Thursday of every month. The reading is less an offshoot of the anthology than it is a different, and equally vital, take on the same project; both focus on introduce a wide range of voices from inside the sex industry. I recommend going to both, if you possibly can, not least because at Sex Worker Literati there is music, and a bar.

I got to see the inaugural event, on August 6, and to talk afterward with the wonderful Audacia Ray, who co-hosts the series along with Hos, Hookers, Call Girls and Rent Boys co-editor David Henry Sterry.
“One of the things that gets oversimplified about the sex industry is that it’s a monolith, there’s this idea that all sex work experiences are the same, there doesn’t seem to be much room for nuance,” she said. “The intended effect is to give people a point of reference… anecdotal, sure, but anecdotes are valuable. Most people relate to anecdotes, not to statistics.”

Did she think the reading was valuable for building community among sex workers, I asked? Or was it intended more for people who were outside of that community?

The reading would, she said, “show other sex workers what is possible, and that they are accepted and loved within this space.” But, she added, it was also “for people who are just curious. Sex work attracts a lot of people who are curious, or creepy onlookers. This scrambles their perceptions.”

Ray mentioned that she had gotten responses from people who were interested in her “new erotic reading series,” in spite of the fact that a lot of the readings were not at all erotic.

“Like the piece I saw Jodi Sh. Doff read,” I said. “Which is really harrowing.”

“I wouldn’t want to meet the person who would eroticize that,” she said.

On the community tip, Ray said that “Sex Worker Literati” is continually working to find more diverse voices – more people of color, more men, more trans folks. There were a lot of trans women, she said, working within the industry, and she particularly wanted them to be more represented. They would be donating to an organization that worked specifically with trans issues, and wanted to show that they were serious about working with communities within the sex industry.

Still, I said, the creepy onlookers worried me. There was a lot of good work being done – but I was afraid that some of the people who came to the readings wouldn’t be able to engage with it, would just be looking for a cheap thrill or something to fetishize or giggle over. Did they worry her?

“I want those people there,” Ray said. “Talking to our own people over and over again is not that useful. You can’t accomplish anything political when it’s just sex workers talking to each other.”

“I always tell people, if there’s someone who makes them uncomfortable, send them my way,” she said. “It’s a teachable moment.”

For more information about Sex Worker Literati, including footage from the events and news about events outside of New York, go here. For more information about the eminent Audacia Ray, go here, and also here, and also here to this really excellent recent guest post on Feministe. Oh, and also: go to Sex Worker Literati. I am serious about this, you guys!
sam
chaotic good
 
Posts: 4391
Joined: Thu Dec 30, 2004 12:54 am

Re: Sady Doyle, SAGE, Audacia Ray, theft, and pro-sexwork bo

Postby sam » Sat Sep 12, 2009 2:40 pm

I pissed her off. Bad feminist!

I'm really not cool with how you used my blog comment section to further
what is an apparently long-standing vendetta against Audacia Ray and sex
workers' rights advocates. It was disrespectful and uncool. The link you
provided only led to a webpage where you vented at more length against those
people. I get that you think you have the be-all-and-end-all critique of sex
work, and that the voices of actual sex workers don't matter to you if they
disagree with you (in which case they must be "paid spokespeople"). But
until you can produce proof of your allegations, you're just using other
people's websites as a way to promote your own and trying to shut down any
conversation about sex work that you don't 100% agree with. Sorry. I'm done
talking to you until you are ready to have an actual conversation.


my reply

I'm sorry you feel that way. As with SAGE's allegations, the truth of my stolen writing is made quite clear from the comparison of the letter I sent to the NYC Radical Cheerleaders and the one that appeared without my permission in $pread under Ray's helm.

>>"But until you can produce proof of your allegations"


If you choose to ignore the printed, proven facts as they stand and as the copyright lawyer I contacted confirmed, there's nothing I can do about that or your breezy dismissal of SAGE's allegations. What further proof than the two letters compared and my very clear statement to the editor, "I'm afraid I can't allow you to use my writing," do you need? I sent a certified letter explaining my lawyer's suggestions and requesting that to make amends the editors should print my full, unedited letter in their next issue with an apology for turning this woman's "No" into a "Yes." They ignored it because they could, because they know they can get away without ever owning up to their theft and dishonest manipulation of a privately-sent letter.


>>"I get that you think you have the be-all-and-end-all critique of sex work"

Everybody thinks they're right. That's why you use "sex work" instead of prostitution, because you have your own opinion you think is right.

>>"the voices of actual sex workers don't matter to you if they disagree with you (in which case they must be "paid spokespeople")."


I know who matters to me, who doesn't, and why better than you do, cyberstranger. I'm pretty sure you're accusing me of something another woman, a prostituted woman from Canada, once said in the private section of my forum that was leaked to the Internet by fraud, but if your source is something I've actually written I'd very much like to see it. Still, you've got a point that I don't regard the wants of a very small number of people who have never been abused in prostitution as equally important to the needs of millions annually being sexually abused multiple times a day.

That particular mudpie is thin and your claim to neutral fence-sittery fools no one. From the instant you joined in the global groupkick on Dworkin/radical feminism your feminist writing career was guaranteed to be comets and stars. Reformist feminism wins, abolishionist feminism loses. The Nordic model is coming soon to a country near you anyway so enjoy your ride.

Sam
sam
chaotic good
 
Posts: 4391
Joined: Thu Dec 30, 2004 12:54 am

Re: Sady Doyle, SAGE, Audacia Ray, theft, and pro-sexwork books

Postby thebewilderness » Sat Sep 12, 2009 3:20 pm

Are we to understand from this that Sady thinks there is a credible pro torture of prostitutes position?
thebewilderness
antiporn star
 
Posts: 437
Joined: Sun Jul 13, 2008 10:17 pm

Re: Sady Doyle, SAGE, Audacia Ray, theft, and pro-sexwork books

Postby delphyne » Sat Sep 12, 2009 3:26 pm

Go Sam!

Not a bad feminist, a GOOD feminist. 8)

And to get all petty here, you're a much better (and sparkier) writer, even though Sady is clearly very much in love with her own style.

Jeez, I just looked and I can't believe she's got herself a gig at the Guardian:

http://www. guardian.co.uk/profile/sady-doyle
delphyne
antiporn star
 
Posts: 2930
Joined: Mon Dec 19, 2005 10:59 am

Re: Sady Doyle, SAGE, Audacia Ray, theft, and pro-sexwork bo

Postby sam » Sun Sep 13, 2009 6:49 am

Thanks for the sweet words on my writing, delphyne. :toothy4: It's a real shame that Sady is adamantly opposed to discussion about editors who steal and publish private writings, but the acrimonious history of feminists arguing over whether it's right or wrong to publish a woman's writings without her permission has gotten too divisive to debate evermore. She asked for proof Sterry stole a prostituted woman's writings and was given it, then asked for proof Ray stole my writings and was given it, then she ignored the proof and the proof. ???

I looked at the table of contents of the book. There is not one name of any anti-prostitution activist.

No Vednita Carter, Chris Stark, Brenda Myers-Powell.

No Rebecca Mott, Rachel LLoyd, Shelley Lubben.

No Chong Kim, Somaly Mam, Anne Bissell.

All these women have been published, appear in documentaries, and publicly advocate against prostitution, but the authors only plucked anonymous, first-name-only pieces for their book. It's possible the honest, neutral-minded editors never heard of any of these writing, speaking survivors of prostitution and that's why invitations to submit articles to the book were never extended to them.

The anonymous anti-prostitution writings are included only as a marketing device for prostitution legalization, a foil against which normalizing prostitution is meant to look preferable. "Is ring around the collar bumming you out? Try Solution XXX and watch the bad go down the drain!" It is not an honest portrayal of the majority of survivors who, like the ones listed above, don't want legalization and propose the Nordic alternative that's meticulously missing from the equanimous editors' final selections.

Do libfems think we are so stupid that we haven't noticed their ignorance of the book Chris Stark co-edited and the book Somaly Mam wrote while they cover every new Tristan Taormino release? A look at the list of contributors smoothly plugs the fawning feminist coverage of this latest book into the longstanding trend of ignoring anti-prostitution writers, and we can know that by the fact that they have acknowledged the book's existence at all.

Let's see what happens when Rachel LLoyd's book comes out in a few months. I predict Rachel will not be asked to guest post at Feministe.
sam
chaotic good
 
Posts: 4391
Joined: Thu Dec 30, 2004 12:54 am

Re: Sady Doyle, SAGE, Audacia Ray, theft, and pro-sexwork books

Postby sam » Sun Sep 13, 2009 7:18 am

People who call Sterry a "neutral" player in this need to remove their heads from their asses and procure the services of a wet wipe. The phrase "sex-4-$" makes me want 2 puke.

http://www.huffingtonpost .com/david-henry-sterry/amital-etzioni-why-are-yo_b_278879.html

Shame on you, Amital Etzioni, for the antiquated, insulting and frankly dangerous ideas you trot out like dead horses to flog in your recent essay on the review of the anthology Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys. Yes, of course, some people are enslaved in the world of sex-4-$. Just as they are in many industries, such as the garment and diamond businesses. These traffickers of human flesh should be hunted down like the filthy vermin they are, and thrown into a dark hole where the sun never shines. Yes, we all know this. But many prostitutes, or industrial sex technicians as I like to call them, actually choose to enter the sex-4-$ world as adults who carefully consider their economic options, and have decided it makes more sense to earn $250 smoking cigarettes, drinking and getting head (a scenario you reference in his essay), than earning $8 an hour getting their souls sucked out at McDonald's. Comparing a victim being forced to have sex for money with a high-end industrial sex technician is like saying slaving in a sweatshop is the same as working at Neiman Marcus.

You wrote that HHCG&RB, "has little to say about the role of money in personal, intimate relationships." Did you actually read this book? Because if you didn't, then you have no business talking about it. And if you did, you're intellectually blind not to see that this book is absolutely packed with stories about the role money plays in personal, intimate relationships. Case in point: Juliana Piccolo's haunting, melancholy piece, "Vice." It's about when she was a 17-year-old massage parlor sex technician, and had a relationship with an off-duty cop client. He falls in love with her. She craves his fatherly attention, even as he makes her skin crawl. The last time she sees him he offers her $100 for a kiss. She doesn't kiss clients. He holds out the money. She kisses him. The moment is devastating. It is a deeply personal, intimate relationship, and it illustrates the subtle, scary and very real way the line between the need for love and the need for money blur.

And in what post-Puritanical, Victorianically-repressed world does an open, honest discussion of sex and money, "embarrass a bunch of frat boys"? I guess it's been a while since you've spent any time with frat boys. It's very difficult to embarrass them. Given the fact that there's a good chance they're doing Jell-O shots out of the stripper's vagina. In your opening salvo, you call this book "sensationalistic". If you had taken the time to carefully read HHCG&RB, you would've seen that it is in fact a piece of American oral history that gives voice to a population that is woefully underrepresented and misunderstood.

Finally, one of the biggest peeves I keep as a pet is when people who have never turned a trick in their lives, who have no idea what sex-4-$ is like, try to tell us about it. What do you know about the "facts" of the world of sex? When was the last time you sat around chewing the fat with people who actually inhabit that world? I have a news flash for you: people who exchange sex for money are not illiterate, pimped, diseased, drug addicted, career criminals. And it is grotesque, condescending, and ignorant to imply, as you do, that they are. I know because I was one. An industrial sex technician. No one forced me. My employment counselor/pimp did not take most of my money. Of course he got his taste, just like my current literary agent does. I was not on drugs during my time in the Life. In fact, at the high-end agency I worked for, if you were caught taking drugs, you were fired. I have no diseases. The only time I was a criminal was when the Prohibition era laws of America turned me into one while I was making money at the oldest profession in the world. I edited the above mentioned anthology, Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys. I put together this book as an attempt to tear down harmful myths about sex work and sex workers -- myths which you sir, seek to perpetuate. But just to show you there's no hard feelings, next time you're in New York, call me and I'll hook you up with my friend Naughty Michelle. She'll open all your eyes. And it'll only cost you $300.
sam
chaotic good
 
Posts: 4391
Joined: Thu Dec 30, 2004 12:54 am

Re: Sady Doyle, SAGE, Audacia Ray, theft, and pro-sexwork books

Postby laurelin » Sun Sep 13, 2009 8:33 am

That article makes my skin crawl.
laurelin
antiporn star
 
Posts: 895
Joined: Mon Feb 20, 2006 4:31 am
Location: UK

Re: Sady Doyle, SAGE, Audacia Ray, theft, and pro-sexwork books

Postby deedle » Sun Sep 13, 2009 8:43 am

If you had taken the time to carefully read HHCG&RB, you would've seen that it is in fact a piece of American oral history that gives voice to a population that is woefully underrepresented and misunderstood.


That's all well and good, but where's the evidence?? [/snark]
Remember; resist; do not comply.
- Andrea Dworkin
deedle
antiporn star
 
Posts: 735
Joined: Wed Jan 25, 2006 5:07 pm
Location: UK

Re: Sady Doyle, SAGE, Audacia Ray, theft, and pro-sexwork books

Postby delphyne » Sun Sep 13, 2009 9:10 am

Take a look at Sterry's website, Laurelin, it's even creepier. Full of Sterry in his multiple identities.

Nice of him to offer to pimp his friend Michelle out at the very end there though. There's nothing quite like seeing one man offering another man the use of a woman's body to show just what a great idea prostitution is.

WTF does Sterry know about what it's like for women in prostitution anyway? Nothing, that's what. It's a fetish and a game for him. And a book deal of course.
delphyne
antiporn star
 
Posts: 2930
Joined: Mon Dec 19, 2005 10:59 am

Re: Sady Doyle, SAGE, Audacia Ray, theft, and pro-sexwork books

Postby rmott » Sun Sep 13, 2009 2:48 pm

Every time you think you have reach the depths of despair, have had your fill of anger - another thing crashes into you.

When Norma Hotaling was alive, SAGE was one the very few beacon of hope for prostituted women, hope that there could exiting that would work in the long-term and not just about harm-reduction and sending women back into the sex trade.
I cannot believe, or maybe don't to believe this utter disrespect for the vital work that SAGE had done.

This book and it's attitude is an insult to Norma Hotaling's legacy.

I want to be sick when I read "industrial sex technicians" - WTF. That is the coldest thing I have ever seen.
So prostitutes are just machines, so all the violence means nothing, for these women and girls have no human feelings.
rmott
antiporn star
 
Posts: 603
Joined: Sun Jan 20, 2008 12:30 am


Return to essays, articles, rants for public view

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 36 guests

cron