Or: I finally fucking cracked

I'm a fairly polite person, on the internet. Oh, don't get me wrong, I swear like a fucking sailor, but I've always been of the opinion that if you're going to bother having a discussion or debate with someone, it's worth doing so with a modicum of courtesy. Sometimes I find it difficult to drop this standard.

That thread, at Heart's? The one with the... er... moderation issues? Right now I'm so fucking angry my hands are literally shaking, and I am done with polite.

First up, the trivial. Heart has apparently decided this comment is too dangerous to let out of mod, so I'm forced to address Maggie Hays here. Maggie, you seemed to feel a little harassed by my stating that I wasn't trying to speak for Ren when you'd already clarified yourself twice. Comment 76 on that thread is this:

76hexy
Your comment is awaiting moderation.

Maggie, in regards to this:

Hexy, as I’ve already said *twice* (look) above:

My comment has been stuck in mod for a while, and from what i can see still is (which confuses me, as you’ve replied to it).

When I made that comment, those comments from you weren’t visible.

I can't for the life of me think why your friend and ally would prevent a comment going through that states that you weren't actually being hounded, but hey. Since you managed to reply to a comment of mine that is apparently STILL in moderation, I'm willing to acknowledge that I have no freakin' idea what's going on behind the scenes of that "discussion". But there you go. Didn't mean to hound you, couldn't see those comments when I posted, apologies for the misunderstanding.

On to the less trivial bits.

Heart posted, as part of one comment, the following:

As one formerly prostituted woman wrote to me (about this thread) via e-mail, calling prostituted women “sex workers” and using terms like “harm reduction” and “non-forced prostitution” is deeply insulting to her because it makes johns invisible, it makes the reality of a lifetime of having been groomed for prostitution invisible, and it places the responsibility to “reduce harm” or work for “harm reduction” on the prostituted women, as though it is up to them to make sure they are not raped or beaten.

(emphasis mine)

I posted this in response:

I’ve never seen the term “harm reduction” used to imply that the onus to reduce harm is on the prostituted woman or sex worker, and I’ve been involved in several harm reduction movements covering everything from sex work to drug use/abuse. The sex industry harm reduction model covers things like decriminalisation and legal protection, free provision of barrier contraception and access to medical treatment and support services as determined by the needs and wants of the people in the industry.

While I certainly empathise with your contact-via-email’s concerns about being labelled with language that isn’t hers (see, oh, everything I’ve posted) her objection to harm reduction as phrased here is based on a miscomprehension.

This comment was let through moderation immediately, as Heart responded to it. Her comment is reproduced here in full:

Hexy, I don’t think my contact suffers form a “miscomprehension.” I think she is talking about her lived reality in which there is all of this lofty speech from sex workers about all kinds of harm reduction– everything, of course, but the kind of “harm reduction” that would have actually benefitted her and 90 percent of the women and girls in the world who are prostituted, i.e., NOT HAVING TO BE PROSTITUTED AT ALL, not having to be raped, not having to be battered, not having to disocciate, not having to self-medicate, not living in fear, not being treated like so much trash. When the focus is on the rights of those who identify as sex workers and when theirs is the public agenda, the 90 percent of those who are prostituted and do not identify as “sex workers”, who want out, become invisible– to everybody. Because patriarchy wants very badly to focus ON the sex workers, and on all of this great harm reduction, and on the fact that sex work can be made “safe” or “safer”, *that way the 90 percent of women and girls who are involuntarily prostituted and can never be made safe can be ignored*. Prostituted women do not think of themselves as “people in an ‘industry’” working for their “wants and needs.” They are prostituted, used and abused like kleenex, and they want OUT before someone kills them or they kill themselves. God, hexy, you SO talk out of both sides of your mouth. On the one hand you make this huge distinction between SEX WORKERS and PROSTITUTES and insist the two categories not be confused. On the other hand you talk about harm reduction, decriminalization, etc., as though ALL prostituted women are in fact “sex workers,” referring to them as people in the “industry” who are organizing around “needs and wants”. It’s exhibit A of what my contact is talking about. She didn’t care about harm reduction, she didn’t want to be called a sex worker, she wasn’t organizing around needs and wants, she just wanted to get OUT, as by far most prostituted women DO. You speak for a tiny minority internationally of women who say they have chosen. When you do that you *erase the realities of those who do not choose* and especially *in the eyes of the men who create and perpetuate the demand in whose best interests it is to view all prostitutes as “sex workers” and to pat themselves on the back for supporting “harm reduction.”

Right here in this thread we’ve got Ren defending a pornmaker/star/prostituted woman, Nina Hartley, who is an icon, who publicly rejects the use of condoms in het porn because it’s “boring” and inefficient. (Hartley is also a nurse!) When I challenge what that models to basically the entire porn-watching population (who begin at a young age these days), Ren’s answer is that she wrote a blog post once about what bad sex ed porn is, like that’s some answer. I don’t care how many condoms get handed out in the Third World somewhere (as someone commented proudly in a post I haven’t approved yet), what about fracking highly privileged sex workers married to publishers of Hustler’s fetish porn modeling random, highly dangerous, het sex practices with many partners, without condoms? How is handing out condoms in Chile addressing the tremendous harm that particular modeling does, in terms not only of what is imitated by young people, but what is demanded (and taken) from prostituted women by johns? Hell, Nina Hartley does it without condoms, everybody in porn does it without condoms, why shouldn’t he be able to go without condoms?

Maybe the onus is not on prostituted women to prevent harm yet, but if the prostituting of women is framed as an “industry” where those in the “industry” are working towards getting their “needs and wants” met, then ultimately, the onus WILL be on prostituted women, because if all of these “sex workers” are doing all of this great stuff for themselves, what’s prostituted women’s problem? Shouldn’t they get off the dime and organize for harm reduction between getting raped and beaten by johns, pimps and who knows who all? These women’s struggle to just live through another day is being ERASED by a few very privileged people who on the one hand other them relentlessly and on the other hand presume to speak for them.

Right about there, dear readers, is where I fucking lost it. My comment, at this point still in mod, says this:

Heart:


God, hexy, you SO talk out of both sides of your mouth. On the one hand you make this huge distinction between SEX WORKERS and PROSTITUTES and insist the two categories not be confused. On the other hand you talk about harm reduction, decriminalization, etc., as though ALL prostituted women are in fact “sex workers,” referring to them as people in the “industry” who are organizing around “needs and wants”.


I'm afraid I don't see the contradiction. I do think the needs of sex workers and prostituted people are wildly different, and I think you just affirmed that by stating that the things I mentioned (all of which are clamoured for by sex workers around the world) do no good for prostituted people. I'm agreeing with you! Sex worker's rights are rubbish for people who don't want to be sex workers in the first place, and I've never said otherwise.


But I'm not going to say that women like me, sex workers, women in the sex industry who don't consider themselves to be prostituted people, should therefore NOT have human and industrial rights. We want to be able to do our work safely and legally. That's important. Prostituted women want out of the industry, they want support to be safe from those victimising them, and they want other options. That's important too. Since when does feminism require that we choose some women to have rights and options and others to not matter enough?


It’s exhibit A of what my contact is talking about. She didn’t care about harm reduction, she didn’t want to be called a sex worker, she wasn’t organizing around needs and wants, she just wanted to get OUT, as by far most prostituted women DO.


And she is equally as important as women who say we DO want to be called sex workers and given safe working conditions, no more and no less! Her "needs and wants", be they exit strategies or anything else, are important. Why is this so hard to grasp? If sex workers can pour so much of our incredibly limited resources and activism into helping women who don't want to be sex workers, why can we not even get a nod and the right to name ourselves from those who devote their entire activism to these ends?


You speak for a tiny minority internationally of women who say they have chosen.

No, I don't. I speak for myself. I happen to agree with a hell of a lot of women who stand behind sex worker's rights, across the world, in a huge variety of privilege and economic conditions.


I don’t care how many condoms get handed out in the Third World somewhere (as someone commented proudly in a post I haven’t approved yet), what about fracking highly privileged sex workers married to publishers of Hustler’s fetish porn modeling random, highly dangerous, het sex practices with many partners, without condoms?

Heart, I'm completely stunned that you just posted that. Are you honestly saying that you think Nina Hartley not using condoms in a commercial pornography context is more important than the fact that women are DYING because they can't get their hands on a life saving piece of latex? You honestly feel that the message sent to Western porn consumers by Nina Hartley's work is more deserving of attention than impoverished third world sex workers not being able to access the condoms they have demanded from international health support services?

How is handing out condoms in Chile addressing the tremendous harm that particular modeling does, in terms not only of what is imitated by young people, but what is demanded (and taken) from prostituted women by johns?

It's not. Women in third world countries aren't getting HIV because "johns" have seen condom free sex in porn, they're getting HIV because they don't have access to the condoms they want and need. It's not all one issue.

Maybe the onus is not on prostituted women to prevent harm yet, but if the prostituting of women is framed as an “industry” where those in the “industry” are working towards getting their “needs and wants”


Exit strategies ARE a want and need that has been addressed by sex worker's rights groups, amongst other groups. This has been pointed out repeatedly. You continue to ignore it.

These women’s struggle to just live through another day is being ERASED by a few very privileged people who on the one hand other them relentlessly and on the other hand presume to speak for them.


You know, I'm pretty sure that this comment already won't be published, as not only have my previous comments been moderated out, but I've well and truly lost my temper a few paragraphs ago. So to hell with being polite for this bit: Heart, you do NOT get to talk to me about privilege. There are a hell of a lot of women in worse circumstances than me, and I try to do the best with what limited privilege I have, but I am DONE with having heterosexual, able-mind-and-bodied, white American non-whores try to tell me that I'M the one with unchecked privilege in a conversation because I have the audacity to insist that disability, race, and past trauma doesn't completely negate my agency, and to have the crazy idea that ALL women involved in any way in commercial sex and prostitution have the right to decide for themselves (OURselves) what will make our individual and group situations better.

I've always thought you're an important feminist voice, Heart, even when I've personally disagreed with particular politics of yours. This isn't a political disagreement. This is you, personally, telling women in the sex industry to STFU and insisting that women with far fewer options than yourself are too privileged to be part of a discussion.

FOR FUCK'S SAKE. Even reading through that again to put the HTML tags in has filled me with blinding rage, starting from the assumption that Heart's email contacts with women involved in prostitution trump the rest of ours (and putting aside that unfortunate and infamous fact that sex workers tend to do most of their support and networking with, oh, other sex workers... I guess those sex worker only email lists we all keep mentioning just don't count) through to the bit where the impact American women's porn has on American women is clearly more significant than non-Western sex workers having access to life-saving condoms, and right up to the bit at the end...

Yeah. The bit at the end. Where Cheryl Lindsay Seelhoff calls me privileged.

The required reading starts here. It extends through the Disability Rights and Mad Pride movements, through the status of Indigenous Australians in Australia today and at least a basic reader on colonialism and disenfranchisement of colonised people (Hint: I do not think that word means what you think it means) and the history of the Stolen Generation (hint: MY FUCKING FAMILY). I'd suggest GLBTQ reading, but I've watched and read as that's been dismissed on that same blog over the last few years. My biggest suggestion? Heart, put down that fucking "choice" club you keep using to insist that actual sex workers who disagree with you are posting from penthouses with multiple degrees on the wall and, oh I don't know, big piles of money instead of beds. Hell, I wrote this post from the inside of a brothel on a day where I earned exactly zero dollars. For the third day in a row. When some of us say we own our choice to work in the sex industry and that we're in charge of our own lives, that doesn't mean everything's peachy wonderful. We are still women, working women, disabled women, queer women, women of colour and other non-white women, non-neurotypical women, women with and without kids and partners, women with drug habits, old women, young women, women with and without histories of rape and domestic violence, fat women, modified women... the list goes on. You do not get to stick us all in some bullshit category of luxury and privilege just because we dare to say we chose the best option we had.



I'm not surprised. I am a bit genuinely disillusioned: I've been criticised and mocked quite a bit for the idea that feminism not only has a place for all women but NEEDS us. I think we need radical feminism, liberal feminism, socialist feminism, ecofeminism, sex-positive feminism, anarchofeminism. We need academic feminists and working class feminists. We need feminists who have the economic privilege to speak with their buying power and feminists who speak from experience of hardship and poverty. We need WOMEN, all women, because if feminism is any fucking good at all it represents all of us, not just those who fit the right narrative.

What feminism doesn't fucking need is this bullshit. It doesn't need women and sex worker voices being silenced because some woman privileged enough to purport to run for president of the USA has decided that one class of women she isn't part of it should be heard more than another class of women she isn't part of.

I've defended Heart in the past, and I'll probably do it again in the future. As I said, I think she's important. But that line, there? This queer, Indigenous, non-neurotypical sex working feminist isn't going to be polite when that one's trodden on, and that conversation shot right over it with that wonderful obliviousness to its own fuck up that is the one privilege I envy.

Fuck that shit.