Feministing says, "Rebecca, stop raping and killing yrself!"

[sam]

I don't mind "sexworker rights" advocacy because I know that prostitution lobbyists blowing media noisemakers ultimately benefits the Nordic model. They raise the public's sympathy, then when it's time to sit at the table with all the facts and find solutions, the Nordic model decriminalizing prostitutes and criminalizing johns wins.

Feministing has decided to celebrate today with "Target Women: Women who rape and murder with their words," which wouldn't be so bad if they actually included quotes from any of the women they accuse of raping and murdering with their words.

In the sixth grade I wrote an essay with the opener, "They say..." and my teacher wrote in the margin, "Who said, and what did they say?" Since then I have been meticulous about avoiding that common rhetorical device.

http://feministing.com/2010/12/17/their ... more-28153

Today marks the 7th annual International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers.

To mark this important day, we’re featuring this guest post on the impact of violent language of anti-sex work groups by Calum Bennachie & Jan Marie. The article was excerpted from “Research for Sex Work 12”, a journal published this month. Both the journal and the website amplify the voices of sex worker-led organizations around the world that speak out about violence from police, institutions, clients, and intimate partners, while challenging the myth that sex work is inherently violence against women. You can download the full journal, with eight more articles about sex work and violence, for free here.

Written by Calum Bennachie & Jan Marie

When most people discuss violence against sex workers, they talk about the physical violence that they perceive sex workers are exposed to by clients, by authorities, and by others. However, violence takes many forms, and what is often omitted from discussions of violence against sex workers is the verbal violence of anti-sex work groups. The language they use reflects not merely a dislike of sex work, but a hatred of sex workers, especially those who act contrary to what Ronald Weitzer calls the ‘oppression paradigm’ these abolitionist groups have adopted. Their language has several severe consequences, one of which is that it actively encourages violence against sex workers.

Abolitionists often use a language of war, and their hatred towards sex workers, which does not show remorse, can almost be tasted. For example, it could be argued that their descriptions of sex workers’ vaginas are more women-hating than those in any mainstream pornography. Statements such as these make a major contribution to both popular and theoretical academic representations of sex work. They receive much attention and wide acceptance, which impacts on the lives of sex workers in relation to stigma, stereotypes, media representation, funding and implementation of interventions, and the construction of government policy. If everything they say is true, then obviously the sex industry is bad and all people who try to close it down are good. Within this belief system, it makes sense that those who support the industry should be punished and sex workers should be rescued out or punished for staying in.

This Is What They Say

The sex industry:

* Is ‘an institution of male violence and racial and economic privilege’ that objectifies and keeps women in their place to fulfill male desires.
* Is a ‘symptom’ of all that is wrong with masculinities.
* Forces and traffics sex workers, especially migrant sex workers.

Commercial sex:

* Is ‘rape that’s paid for’.

Sex workers:

* Enjoy rape and domination and accept pain and humiliation to get rewards and avoid further abuse.
* Are predators who contribute to rape, battery, and violence against women and children.
* Are misled about the concept of having choice because they are victims of the system of male domination and individual males within that.
* Have permanent emotional scarring and other ongoing consequences such as changed appearance.
* Have vaginas that are receptacles to be masturbated into and are filthy with semen and lubricant.

Harmful Consequences

There are five main consequences of this discourse of hate. First, sex workers who are confronted with these opinions are likely to doubt their self-worth and their self-agency, and may put themselves in the position of victim, thus making it more likely they will become victims of violence. When subjected to violence, they are less likely to make complaints about it.

Secondly, the discourse encourages hatred of sex workers, clients and all who support sex workers in any way. All cultures have approved objects of hatred. Often this hatred takes aim at whole classes of people. Speech denigrating particular groups has been described as a ‘psychic tax on those least able to pay’. As an example, it has been shown that negative comments about the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) communities contribute to increases in physical and verbal violence against homosexual and transgender people. This can be extended to sex workers as well.

Thirdly, conflating sex work with trafficking and violence against women has affected the funding of sex worker groups. For example, PEPFAR (the US government AIDS fund) will not fund organisations that support sex workers or promote the decriminalisation of sex work. As a result, this has led to groups that supply sex workers with condoms, or support the rights of sex workers, not receiving funds, thus endangering the lives of sex workers and putting them at risk of HIV infection. This policy also reinforces stereotypes, stigma, and discrimination against sex workers.

Fourthly, male, gay, transgender and gender-fluid sex workers are made invisible. The violence against these groups is ignored, and rarely appears in any of the papers they produce. In fact, male sex workers rarely appear in any of their publications, perhaps, because they assume male sex workers to be gay men. For example, Sheila Jeffreys calls gay men the cause of women’s subjugation, while male-to-female transgendered sex workers are referred to as ‘self-mutilating men’. Perhaps they count even less as human?

Finally, and cumulatively, the discourse actively encourages violence against sex workers. The way something is defined can make a huge difference in how it is perceived and how it is interacted with. When one understands a group of people as ‘other’, different, dirty, filthy, stupid or malevolently manipulative, then one can support or condone the violence that occurs. Whether this is forced rescue, forced health checks, taking children away from their parents, or rape and murder.

Paying the Psychic Tax

Although anti-sex work authors claim to condemn violence against sex workers, through their choice of words and phrases they actively promote and encourage acts, which, in some cases, may lead to the abuse and death of sex workers. On the one hand they say they support and care for women, on the other they depict these women in such a way that violence can be justified. Taken together, the consequences of this verbal violence by abolitionist groups makes a major contribution to the abuse of sex workers globally, who are paying the ‘psychic tax’. These people are no different from the client who does not want to pay, the corrupt police officer who rapes, or the members of the public who throw bottles and rotten eggs at street workers. In fact they are worse, because they justify their violence as an act of caring.

We must challenge them, their language, and their publications at every opportunity, reveal their language of hate for what it is, and counter them with evidence-based facts that prove their claims to be false.

[sam]

I did a search to find out who Feministing thinks said the sex industry is "an institution of male violence and racial and economic privilege."

Turns out it was prostitution survivor Chris Stark from the very first footnote in her essay "Girls to Boyz: Sex radical women promoting prostitution and pornography" in the Not For Sale book she co-edited:

"Much of feminist theory and activism against pornography and prostitution has been and continues to be developed by formerly prostituted women, who are not judging or otherwise maligning prostituted people but rather exposing pimps and tricks as rapists and the sex industry as an institution of male violence and racial and economic privilege."

[thebewilderness]

Definition of VIOLENCE
1
a : exertion of physical force so as to injure or abuse (as in warfare effecting illegal entry into a house) b : an instance of violent treatment or procedure
2
: injury by or as if by distortion, infringement, or profanation : outrage
3
a : intense, turbulent, or furious and often destructive action or force <the violence of the storm> b : vehement feeling or expression : fervor; also : an instance of such action or feeling c : a clashing or jarring quality : discordance
4
: undue alteration (as of wording or sense in editing a text)



Conflating being beaten to death with being spoken sharply to is just a ok with them but oh my dear paws and whiskers how very dare you " Thirdly, conflating sex work with trafficking and violence against women has affected the funding of sex worker groups."


The oddest thing about this article is to me the absence of women.

[rmott]

Wow, this is a disgusting and highly damaging piece of "journalism". I really don't where to start.

The claim that the words of abolitionists does as much damage as the physical and sexual violence as the johns and profiteers of the sex trade is just sick. To say we about prostituted women's vagina worse than mainstream just makes me furious. Yes, sometime I may write some graphic language, but only to show torture - but I thought for a second it was porn, than I for one would destroy my blog. I sure the vast majority of abolitionists feel the same way. As for, our deep desire is to rescue or punish "sex workers" - complete bullshit. We want the men to take responsibility for their actions - it is not about the women.

Well, though they being sadistic, it is true that the sex industry is founded on sexism, racism and all the bad side of masculities. But I hate the constant implying that we only care about trafficking, and that being only external trafficking. It is rubbish, and ignores internal trafficking as being too inconvenient.

Whether they like or not, most commercial sex is paid rape.

I find their defence of sex workers, by claiming we make them into hate figures is plainly ridiculous, especially much of the most brilliant anti-sex trade work is led exited prostituted women. Also, we mainly do not go on about the filthy vagina - though it is rare for long-term prostituted women not to have major issues with their vaginas - we not need to prove a point by just using shock tactics.

They then do the classic victim-blaming tactic of saying our language make them lose self-esteem, and then get a victim-mentality and more likely to get in the way of violence. No mention that johns make the choice to treat her like shit, no mention that the profiteers get more money by supplying sadistic sex.

That all I can muster about this rag.

[sam]

Wow, this is a disgusting and highly damaging piece of "journalism"

Disgusting yes, but I'm not so sure it's very damaging.

Many people, women, and feminists are reading that and asking like my sixth grade teacher, "Who said, and what did they say?"

Moderate, middle-minded people are trying to ask for proof of these outrageous claims and are being censored into silence.

Many, if not most, have heard about the Nordic model (not from Feministing, never from Feministing) and are questioning how "don't prosecute prostitutes, prosecute johns" fits with the accusation that abolitionists want to see prostituted people punished.

I believe such tumid, baseless vitriol followed with overzealous whacks from the banning stick serves the anti-john cause more than not.

[phio gistic]

On first read, my questions are:

Who are they talking about?
What are they reacting to? (Direct quotes would be helpful rather than the dishonest "They say...")
Who put them up to this?

and just a big WTF? Frankly, the entire article seems delusional.

[rmott]

Sam, you are right - I was just somewhat triggered by the mental abuse of this article. For, I do believe that more and more people are realising that punishing the men is the only real solution to violence against women and girls in the sex trade. I was rather over-wrought.

[berryblade]

considering they published an article basically saying assange is my hero, those lying bitchez, it doesn't surprise me.

fuck feminising.

[pisaquari]

It has been my hunch for many years that the major LibFem Bloggers have never really worked with female victims in ANY capacity that actually recognizes them as victims--shelters, counseling, exit programs etc (and no, I don't count organizing happy hour for the staff). Their minimal, obligatory nod in countless lines as "yeah, there are, like, victims and stuff BUT" litters their pro-pornstitution articles. The "Yes Means Yes" fiasco was very telling.
And then, they actually rear their logic in fine form:

First, sex workers who are confronted with these opinions are likely to doubt their self-worth and their self-agency, and may put themselves in the position of victim,....

This is ManSpeak. Total ManSpeak. They PUT themselves in the position of a victim--ooohhhh riiiight. Quoting one Twisty: "One cannot volunteer their oppression." Victim-hood requires a perpetrator. This is sequential thinking 101. Men are famous for these lines. This is right up there with "Well, how short was her skirt?" shit. Women cannot PLACE THEMSELVES as true victims.

...thus making it more likely they will become victims of violence.

"And, see, what women do next is they go and get themselves killed and shit after they go volunteering their second class citizenship." Mmmhmm.
So we should really be studying a causal relationship between anti-sex-work activists and violence against, ahem, "sex workers".
Would they dare suggest such things for domestic violence situations?
Lots of women choose to stay in abusive relationships. If I speak out against domestic violence am I also giving those women a black eye?
Would they dare suggest such things for rape cases?
Lots of women are groomed by their rapist to accept and/or "want" his behavior. Am I now forcefully penetrating a woman?

No they wouldn't suggest anything like this. We've got feminist solidarity on domestic violence. We've got feminist solidarity on proper blame for rape.

This ("sex industry" riff) is the Final Frontier for Feminist Solidarity.

Tangent Warning.
I think we may have gotten as far as we have/did with domestic violence and rape (though, still, not far enough) because men have known they could displace the behavior.
I can't hit her when I'm pissed she burnt dinner? Well, I'll slap her during sex and call her empowered.
I can't rape her?
Well, I'll put an ad out for a woman who likes to be submissive sexually and get off on her struggle against me.
I realize this may seem like a long shot but I truly think we are looking at a heaped mound of under-the-rug-sweeping for the things we thought we had down. The Sex Industry has been the dumping ground for keeping all those things men really aren't willing to give up.
And that's why this Final Frontier, as I'm calling it, is so difficult. Because, really, we're having to go backwards. And we're taking away the last place men can *acceptably* hit and rape women. They never really wanted it gone in the first place. Women don't want to find out how far we haven't come. We're still sleeping with men, we're still working with men, we're still in the room with men cheering over these victories.

I hope you're right sam. I hope people are turning to the Nordic model.
All I can see from my perch are men manipulating women. And now they've got feminists convinced that it's feminists doing the hitting and raping. I'm just ill with this shit.

[MGO]

I think we may have gotten as far as we have/did with domestic violence and rape (though, still, not far enough) because men have known they could displace the behavior.

And that's why this Final Frontier, as I'm calling it, is so difficult. Because, really, we're having to go backwards. And we're taking away the last place men can *acceptably* hit and rape women. They never really wanted it gone in the first place.

I have to disagree. Don't lose sight of the Big Picture.

We have NOT held ground on rape and domestic violence - FFS, since the 1970s/1980s, rape conviction rates have gone from 30+% to a lowly 6%. Detractors may write this off to increased reporting or the old favourite of 'all women are lying whores', but all of it still denies the fact that very few adult women report rape. As for domestic violence (as with rape) there are copious amounts of victim-blame going on.

Within prostitution rape and violence does get obscured with 'financial transaction', however, similar exists for domestic violence and spousal/date rape - women were there "by choice".

The common denominator here is the "choice" rhetoric. Whilst the "choice" argument is still on the table, all female victims will be held with at least some culpability to their circumstances of male violence. Does not matter if there is money exchanged or not. The only real difference between prostituted and non-prostituted women is the number of dangerous men they are exposed to.

All the pozzies can do is try to throw the focus on 'anything but' where the problem lies - with Johns, with men. Hence we have radfems being blamed for violence against prostituted women, pathetic "choice" arguments, lack of vocational opportunities if women aren't able to be prostituted, etc etc etc.

[pisaquari]

I may not have been clear enough MGO.

My main point was *feminist solidarity*. I don't see feminists arguing over victim status and onus for DV or rape situations the way we do wrt the "sex industry." Not that it doesn't happen but I do see this "sex industry" divide as one, if not The, biggest (and last). The Choice rhetoric, as you say, is not (in my experience) reared by feminists for DV or rape. Men say it, yes.
I'm saying where feminists join the Choice Chorus is in conversations on women in the "sex industry".

The number of women I know with husbands, boyfriends, partners, SO's who say they would "never hit a woman" but like to jerk them around in bed is startling. I don't think, 50 years ago, these same men would have given two shits about naming themselves as Nice Guys. If a guy hits a woman during sex I call it DV. If a guy enjoys forceful, power play shit during "sex" I still call him a rapist. That's what I mean by displaced behavior. Obviously, then, I'm suggesting that the violence has shifted (not completely) contexts. I'm not saying the current numbers on DV or rape in *traditional* contexts (non-sexual) are in any way acceptable or low. But I do think there has been a perceptual change in where we (basically, women) will accept the occurrence of these behaviors.
I am going off on an unstudied, not particularly thought-out, whim so there's a good chance you can shoot it all to hell.

[sam]

It has been my hunch for many years that the major LibFem Bloggers have never really worked with female victims in ANY capacity that actually recognizes them as victims--shelters, counseling, exit programs etc (and no, I don't count organizing happy hour for the staff).

I started yesterday reading about how I am raping and murdering prostituted women with my words, and ended yesterday at the holiday fundraiser for the Council for Prostitution Alternatives.

A formerly prostituted woman told us how she had been stabbed over a hundred times, how men would throw her out of cars. She told of having seizures and how men would leave her naked and shoeless at bus stops. She told of how cops picked her up, beat her up, then dropped her in a graveyard.

She told us, "I have a rape child."

I sat at my table thinking if only Samhita Mukhopadhyay, Jessica Valenti, Vanessa Valenti, Miriam Perez, Courtney Martin, and Ann Friedman could have heard her story they wouldn't blame CPA for men's violence.

If only they could hear how CPA helped her get off drugs, on the Oregon Health Plan, and back in school to become a substance abuse counselor they wouldn't have attached their editorial reputations to an essay saying abolitionists are worse than rapists.

But they weren't at my table, they were at a bar drinking cocktails in the name of feminism.

I find solace in the fact that the worldwide anti-trafficking movement is a thousand times bigger, better funded, more credible, and more collaborative with international feminisms than the painted face of American feminism.

[MGO]

I don't see feminists arguing over victim status and onus for DV or rape situations the way we do wrt the "sex industry"

OK, sorry pisaquari. It may just have been the way you said it, not meaning the way it came across. Stuff like "final frontier" makes it sound like female-directed violence is 'all sorted'. Possibly this is my individual interpretation as a radfem, who just does not think that way? It's my knee-jerk reaction of not wanting to throw any one group of women under a bus.

The sex-pozzies are fond of throwing other women under a bus with their shit like "we NEED to have prostitutes to serve as an outlet for men's sexuality!!!" (as a way to 'end rape' ... of non-prostituted women).

[rmott]

I find it very hard when I think I safe with "feminists", and then say amazing words and plans of actions about violence against women, only to continually send into PTSD by realising that in their view, women in the sex trade are excluded from their changes.
This is because they have decided that women in the sex trade have chosen their lifestyle, and refuse to see outside that box. In that surreal world, rape is work or a form of leisure, battery is kinky sex or extras, murder is an unfortunate accident - and being made into a fuckable commodity is a free choice.
This often make me and many exited women feel excluded from feminism.
If I had not discover the amazing work of the abolitionists, especially those that are feminists, give me hope and the the strength to keep fighting back.

[miska]

I can't hit her when I'm pissed she burnt dinner? Well, I'll slap her during sex and call her empowered.
I can't rape her?
Well, I'll put an ad out for a woman who likes to be submissive sexually and get off on her struggle against me.
I realize this may seem like a long shot but I truly think we are looking at a heaped mound of under-the-rug-sweeping for the things we thought we had down. The Sex Industry has been the dumping ground for keeping all those things men really aren't willing to give up.
And that's why this Final Frontier, as I'm calling it, is so difficult. Because, really, we're having to go backwards. And we're taking away the last place men can *acceptably* hit and rape women. They never really wanted it gone in the first place. Women don't want to find out how far we haven't come. We're still sleeping with men, we're still working with men, we're still in the room with men cheering over these victories.

Really interesting observations. This may also be tied into the phenomenon of mainstream porn becoming more brutal/degrading as women's status has increased.

Sex (both within relationships and the industry) has indeed become the place for men to displace their brutality towards women. And this is actually really crafty on behalf of men, because sex is a liberal sacred cow. Whatever we do we must not apply a class analysis to someone's kink or sexual proclivities. It's off limits to feminist critique.

The only way feminism can get around this that I can see is for feminism to break away from queer politics and the broader (ie. male centered) liberal movement. I know a similar thing has happened in the past when women got fed up with the misogyny of the anti-war movement and decided to go off and do their own thing, thus birthing the second wave. So if it has happened once I guess it can happen again.

btw I came across the feministing article via a link dropped at ND's the other day and have just written a grouchy post in response, in case anyone is interested.

http://scumorama.wordpress.com/2011/01/ ... ng-to-say/

[sam]

The F Word has joined in the eternally popular game of blaming radical feminists for the misogynistic harms men commit.

Those of us who work with survivors while advocating to prevent the pornstitution industries from making thousands of new victims every year are supposedly the problem. So says this article that mentions neither the word "pimp" nor "john".

Again with the gaping holes where quotes to prove their accusations should be. Were there antiporn radical feminists working at the school Ms. Myers was fired from, and did she/they instigate or cooperate with her firing?



http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2011/03 ... a#comments

This is a guest blog post by Jennifer Krase, who you can find on twitter at @krasejc.

I always read questions like Charlie Glickman’s ‘Where are the anti-porn folks?’ as ‘Where are the feminists?’. Rather than a call to arms, it’s a calling-out of the hypocrisy of being anti-porn and seeking to end the sex industry, while being totally absent from the defence of women who have voluntarily left the industry when they later face repercussions. Women’s sexual history is not allowed, in Society, to be their professional history. Women are apparently expected (regardless of circumstance or personal ambition) to forever set up camp on a bourgeois moral high ground which is utterly disconnected from the price tags attached to pursuing dreams, goals, financial independence, or sustenance, shelter or income.

I hail from a generation that takes for granted its ability to access all kinds of porn online, for free; that grew up thinking Playboy was first and foremost a girls’ clothing brand; that enjoys an individual sense of equality among peers despite the jaw-dropping numbers I quote regularly at workshops and presentations. I welcome some of these changes. The slow but what feels to me sure change in thinking around sexual practices (kink especially), and the growing acceptance and normalisation of some LGBT identities for another tell me the world, and therefore the fight, has changed.

Still, there seems to be no room for acknowledging the role of anti-porn campaigning in the continued social punishment of women in and around the sex industry. No room for sex workers and pornographers in our efforts to rehabilitate feminism. No room for defending women who eventually buy into our definition of liberation - a life free from the sex industry - only to find themselves turfed out from work as well as feminism’s protective umbrella, once again alongside the teeming masses of other people Society and anti-porn have deemed unfit for service.

So still, in 2011, when the debate for how to ‘deal with’ prostitution and the ‘sex industry’ has supposedly become so nuanced that we now have two possible ‘models’ to choose from: “Nordic” and “New Zealand” (regardless, of course, of what sex workers have to say about what affects them); and we can agree that lads’ mags should be on the top shelf, behind a placard because of their pornographic content (but not because of their violent misogynist recommendations to cut women’s faces up, which is a mere afterthought to the oppression women face whilst standing about in their knickers). In 2011, when we celebrate the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day as if anyone has any idea it’s a political day of resistance and action instead of a thank you note to women, and on the very same day a black trans woman in an Arkansas town named after a KKK leader is misgendered by the media and police who are publicising and investigating her brutal murder. Still we’re led, by some, to emphasise the fundamental culpability of the sex industry rather than patriarchy, misogyny, transphobia, whorephobia, white privilege, racism, or any oppression we know full well women face every day worldwide.

So we hear yet another report on “the plight of the ruined woman” in the recent reporting on Tera Myers, a high school science teacher lately of St. Louis, Missouri, who has resigned. This is the second teaching job she’s been forced to leave - and I do think there are social and professional forces at work here - because of her past in adult film. She characterises her own porn experiences as the biggest mistake and worst choice she ever made. But nowhere in any media report does anyone propose an alternative, that perhaps the worst choice a person could make is to murder sex workers, or perhaps to suggest that a solution to jealousy is to slash the face of your ex-girlfriend, or that to cut women out of further education by simultaneously chipping away at support for every possible co morbidity of being a woman - poverty, disability, rurality, parenthood - is an immoral decision taken by a government of privileged liars. No. Instead, according to at least one person interviewed, we should generously allow the Tera Myerses of the world to continue teaching (and presumably live in society near children and pets) if and only if they disavow their terrible choices and hasten to chasten us about the negative influence of pornography in their lives, how porn derailed them and ruined them and they were only redeemed by a post-military education, finding God, and changing their name.

Never mind that the negative influences in Tera Myers’ life were poverty, homelessness, and possibly untreated bipolar disorder. Never mind that this is a woman who had to change her name in order to restart her career. Worry not that the school that fired her in 2006 was worried about the distraction she might cause in the classroom. By all accounts she was a popular and dedicated teacher of science, a post schools struggle to fill effectively, not to mention with women teachers. No, what she should do is apologise for having been poor, in need, ill, and a mother. Now I’m left wondering if Charlie Glickman’s question will go unanswered. Where are the anti-porn campaigners on defending women who buy into their definition of liberation and get screwed? Too busy delivering conferences against porn at Wheelock College and debating Cambridge University students on the merits of anti-pornography work?

[phio gistic]

Where are the anti-porn campaigners on defending women who buy into their definition of liberation and get screwed?

What does that even mean? If we are anti-porn we have to be pro-porn and change the focus of our work to eradicating the social stigma associated with being in porn? The spiral logic of it makes my head spin.


Anyway, this teacher quit her latest job when someone found out her porn past, I don't think they would have fired her. I don't think it would be legal to fire her since porn is legal in the US.

St. Louis science teacher Tera Myers stepped down Friday after a student confronted her about her past working as an actress in X-rated films.

http://www.aolnews.com/2011/03/09/st-lo ... s-out-abo/

[sam]

You're right, she wasn't fired. The F Word made it seem like she was pressured to leave and was permitted to resign rather than be fired, but we don't actually know if there was top-down pressure or what the officials at the school think about the situation.

What does that even mean? If we are anti-porn we have to be pro-porn and change the focus of our work to eradicating the social stigma associated with being in porn?

That's what it always means. Every one of their "How to be an ally to sex workers" lists starts and ends with us giving up our political beliefs and anti-exploitation activism to accept that prostitute is a sometimes great and empowering job for poverty-stricken young women.

Industry advocates wearing "Be nice to sex workers" shirts at feminist marches and feminist art exhibits aren't telling the men who abuse prostituted women to stop, but wearing those shirts in strip clubs or brothels where they might do some good could get them attacked with deadly force. It's easier to tell us to give up and accept the brothel of a world men have made for themselves.

The bottom line is we're easier to attack than Larry Flynt and Hugh Hefner, and we're easier to attack than their husbands, fathers, brothers and friends who masturbate to woman-hating pornography. Asking wealthy men to stop making millions off of prostituted women is inconceivable to them, and asking the men they know to change their habits is (if my experience rings true for others) asking for a lifetime of passive aggressive abuse and lingering resentments for daring to bring up the subject of their prostitute-use at all.

[delphyne]

I posted about this in another section.

It feels like the F-word gives a warm welcome to these people. They want to see anti-porn feminists attacked even if they don't do it directly themselves.

I mean good grief, basing your criticisms on anti-porn campaigners on another blog post from a whiney bloke who works as a sex educator(!)/sales associate at Good Vibrations. Pathetic. And the actual charge, that anti-porn feminists haven't been able to help a woman who had to leave her job in St Louis because a student found out she was in porn. What exactly are we supposed to do? Since when did we have the power to help people keep their jobs? I don't think she should have lost her job, but I'm not aware that we have any power that extends much further than saying that.

[thebewilderness]

...only to find themselves turfed out from work as well as feminism’s protective umbrella,...

Where can we get us some of those "feminism's protective umbrellas", do you suppose?
The ones without the target painted on them, if you please.

This is yet another violation of first principles of feminism.
Women are NOT responsible for what men do to women! NOT NOT NOT!
In addition it strikes me as bullshit to piss and moan that those women over there aren't doing what I'm sitting here on my ass not doing, or am I missing something?