this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2020

151 points (94% insightful | 6% fun)

GenderCritical

3,478 readers

~1 user here now

Mods will remove opposing opinions that are high on the pyramid of debate in accordance of rule 4b. Such comments may result in a ban. Notes on conduct: no slurs, that includes the T-slur. Acceptable terms are: Trans-identified Male (TiM), transwomen/woman, Trans-identified Female (TiF), transmen/man. Misogynistic slurs like c*nt will be removed regardless of context.

this is not a debate sub! We will get around to making the debate sub for anyone with questions about gender critical ideas or radical feminism. We are migrating over from Reddit after the bannings.

Female is Not a Feeling. We won't go down quietly.

Re-forming wherever we can: Spinster.xyz

Feminism is the movement to liberate women from patriarchy. We stand up for the rights of women to control our own bodies as individuals and to control women-only spaces as a class.

Women are adult human females. We do not believe that men can become women by 'feeling' like women. We do not condone the erasure of females and female-only spaces, the silencing of critical thinking, the denial of biological reality and of sex-based oppression. We oppose the 'cotton ceiling' and the pressure on lesbians to have sex with men. We resist efforts to limit women's reproductive autonomy. We condemn the men who exploit and abuse women in prostitution and pornography.

"Women do not decide at some point in adulthood that they would like other people to understand them to be women, because being a woman is not an ‘identity.’ Women’s experience does not resemble that of men who adopt the ‘gender identity’ of being female or being women in any respect. The idea of ‘gender identity’ disappears biology and all the experiences that those with female biology have of being reared in a caste system based on sex." - Sheila Jeffreys, Gender Hurts

created by gparmesana community for 3 years

message the moderators

MODERATORS

Really sick of porn/sex work apologizers

submitted 3 years ago * by PurpleAmathea from self.GenderCritical

Libfem spaces are just infested with porn and pimp apologetics.

Of all my disagreements with libfems, this is the one that disgusts me the most. You want to turn a blind eye to a "few bad egg" TRAs in the interest of helping the "most oppressed" minority of trans people? I don't agree with eroding women's rights for that, but I also don't find you morally revolting, it's just a difference of perspective on the facts.

But porn and prostitution are full of rampant abuse, trafficking, assault, child molestation and rape. And instead of taking a stance against these horrors libfems fall over themselves to claim that its empowering and virtuous and anyone who disagrees is an evil prudish swerf.

It makes me sick. Its like, women's pain really doesn't matter to these men/handmaidens, not so long as itb makes a man's penis happy.

17 comments

all 17 comments

new insightful fun

[–]jkfinn 31 insightful - 3 fun31 insightful - 2 fun32 insightful - 2 fun32 insightful - 3 fun - 3 years ago (1 child)

[–]VioletRemi 23 insightful - 3 fun23 insightful - 2 fun24 insightful - 2 fun24 insightful - 3 fun - 3 years ago (0 children)

[–]Fraeulein 23 insightful - 2 fun23 insightful - 1 fun24 insightful - 1 fun24 insightful - 2 fun - 3 years ago (0 children)

[–]Spikygrasspod 19 insightful - 2 fun19 insightful - 1 fun20 insightful - 1 fun20 insightful - 2 fun - 3 years ago (0 children)

[–]JoeDzhugashvili 14 insightful - 2 fun14 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 2 fun - 3 years ago (1 child)

[–]LushCanopy 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun - 3 years ago (0 children)

[–]Complicated-Spirit 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun - 3 years ago (1 child)

I’ve been criticized for not supporting the legalization of prostitution. Keep in mind, I’ve never had prostitution defended to me by anyone who has ever actually done sex work or expressed any interest whatsoever in doing so.

The assumption is that we hate women who perform sex work, for the same reason conservative right-wingers do: they’re s***s, nasty, doing a thing women aren’t supposed to do (sex).

In fact, we do not hate women who perform sex work. I would venture to say that we are deeply upset by the fact that where prostitution is illegal, it is by and large the prostitutes who face prosecution, whereas their clients and even their pimps get off scot-free.

I believe that prostitution should remain illegal, but that no woman should be prosecuted for it, because - get this, libfems: look inside yourselves. Just like you don’t want to sell your body for sex, no one else does, either. No woman becomes a prostitute because she wants to. Anyone who exploits a woman in that way deserves punishment, not the woman herself.

[–]Realwoman 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun - 3 years ago (0 children)

[–]luckystar 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun - 3 years ago (0 children)

[+][deleted] 3 years ago (7 children)

[removed]

[–]PurpleAmathea[S] 9 insightful - 3 fun9 insightful - 2 fun10 insightful - 2 fun10 insightful - 3 fun - 3 years ago (3 children)

Pimp apologetics aren't welcome in GC but I'll engage for the sake of other readers.

As an industry, there is some terrible shit out there.

"some" - minimization. Actually, it is almost entirely terrible shit.

But, if the work can be done in a safe manner, then it should be viewed as just work. Putting an adult selling selfies on the same stage as trafficking and molestation is disingenuous.

You start with an if (if it can be done...) and then proceed as if the if is a fact (that it can be done).

What the actual facts on the ground demonstrate is that the field is full of exploitation, that not just a majority but an overwhelming majority (90+) of those who participate in it regret it, that even the big names speaking out for it (eg stoya) will admit to having been raped and abused in a porn context.

But here's the other if.

IF there's some small number of wealthy privileged women who enjoy selling their selfies for fun, the fact that this minority enjoys it does not make what they are doing (providing cover for widespread abuse, trafficking, and exploitation) OK. Of course pimps love Jenny with low self esteem who likes to make a quick buck off of a nude photo (although, should she ever regret that choice, she has no recourse), because Jenny is then the cover story for multiple women who claim to be doing this consensually (and by claim, I mean, that's what their pimps post on their behalf).

Every one of the handful of women so-called "consensually" engaged in sex work provides cover for the pimps who will claim that all of their abuse victims fall into the same category.

Its like how until recently there was a risky sex defense for men murdering their wives. Its cover. It is used as cover. And engaging in it is enabling that cover, and saying that because 10% of sex workers who are particularly privileged enjoy it, we throw the 90% who are exploited into the trash because, going back to my main point, heaven forbid we ever make a man's peepee unhappy, oh noes.

(and that's not even getting into the widespread degradation, violence, and misogyny of the content.)

[–]YoutiaoLover 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun - 3 years ago (0 children)

[–]Anonimouse 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun - 3 years ago (1 child)

I feel like you missed my point. Is the problem the fact that women are being paid for sex, or the abuse? If hypothetical world allows for safe sex work (maybe decrimalise, regulate, make it easier to NOT have a pimp for sales and "protection"), would the idea of women using sex appeal for capitalistic ends still be a problem? Also, you do know women look at porn, so it's not all about poor peepee.

Fuck, there is an entire subset of sex work that is devoted to people with physical disabilities that cannot get anything even approaching intimacy otherwise. Is that as bad as a queensnake video?

The general concept of consent not actually being consent within the radfem discourse is probably the thing that I found difficult with the group. Consent is always questioned, with the radical and of radfem saying all hetero sex is rape because women can never truly consent away from social pressures/.

[–]PurpleAmathea[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun - 3 years ago (0 children)

I feel like you missed my point. Is the problem the fact that women are being paid for sex, or the abuse?

The being paid is a cover for the abuse. That the payment is used to legitmize things payment should not make legitimate.

I pay you 10,000 dollars to chop off your arm. Is that consensual? Maybe you're desperate for money, maybe you're mentally ill, maybe you're very, very insecure and needy for validation. Does that make my behavior less evil?

Obviously not all porn is equivalent to chopping off an arm. The massive spread of STDs, the risk of anal prolapse, the bdsm porn with choking and beating, are not all porn. The scenes being changed without the actresses consent (aka rape) are not all porn. Not being able to stop midway (aka rape) is not all porn. But in every single one of those situations, the money is supposed to magically make it better and OK. The problem is the abuse, but the money is the cover for the abuse. As if women's pain is a commodity that can be bought and sold.

If hypothetical world allows for safe sex work (maybe decrimalise, regulate, make it easier to NOT have a pimp for sales and "protection"), would the idea of women using sex appeal for capitalistic ends still be a problem?

In a hypothetical world where misogyny did not exist most of radical feminism would cease to be relevant. We do not live in that hypothetical world and appeals to that hypothetical world, which we have zero evidence is possible to create and which certainly does not exist now or in the near future of this time line in which women's rights are being actively eroded, is a derail.

Nor is prostitution/pornography equivalent to "using sex appeal", you are again minimizing what is actually happening.

Also, you do know women look at porn, so it's not all about poor peepee.

People care about legalising porn because of the 95% of men watching 99% of porn, not because of the 20% of women watching some much smaller percentage of porn.

Fuck, there is an entire subset of sex work that is devoted to people with physical disabilities that cannot get anything even approaching intimacy otherwise. Is that as bad as a queensnake video?

Its interesting that you think being disabled makes it OK to rape someone. If someone with physical disabilities is paying a trafficking victim's pimp to have sex with her that is precisely as evil as someone without disabilities doing so. Same for someone with disabilities paying the producer of a video in which a woman is raped on screen.

If the disabled person is "incapable of getting anything approaching intimacy otherwise" that presupposes no one would willingly consent to be in ntimate with them (otherwise they would be capable). So your very formulation of the question requires the sex work victim only be consenting under duress.

The general concept of consent not actually being consent within the radfem discourse is probably the thing that I found difficult with the group. Consent is always questioned, with the radical and of radfem saying all hetero sex is rape because women can never truly consent away from social pressures/.

Again, in the real world of actual statistics about sex work, the 90% who said they weren't able to consent get more weight than the 10% who felt it was consensual. I'm not denying that 10% exist. I am saying they give cover to what is happening to the other 90. Their airbrushed accounts of sex work exist to legitimise the exploitation and abuse of the vast, overwhelming majority of sex workers, who don't have the privilege and platforms that minority do.

I don't think women are incapable of consenting. I also absolutely do not buy into consent-obsessed culture, as if the only thing that matters is whether the woman consents. Not whether she didn't enjoy it, not whether it traumatised her, not whether it was then used as leverage to control and humiliate her. None of that matters as long as she consented! And maybe that's fine as a legal standard for convicting people. But as an ethical standard for assessing an industry, its not OK. People consenting to being harmed is not sufficient. We prosecute people selling heroin even though every one of their customers was 100 percent willingly consenting because they ruin lives.

(really consent obsession is just back to the same sick misogynist model of sex where the man is the consumer and the woman is the product. The only thing we care about is if the product "consents". The whole sex work industry is just further reinforcing women as sex dispensers, not people. And you can literally just look at the titles of porn to see this, its not like they bother hiding it)

[–]TeaAndCigarettes 9 insightful - 2 fun9 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 2 fun - 3 years ago (2 children)

[–]Anonimouse 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun - 3 years ago (1 child)

[–]TeaAndCigarettes 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun - 3 years ago (0 children)