I created this a while ago and looked to see people have joined.
My latest little rant is that Gloria Steinem came out in opposition to decriminalization of prostitution, endorsing the opposition to our Berkeley campaign. Angela Davis endorsed decrim and our resolution...
So I ask folks:
"Are you an Angela Davis feminist or a Gloria Steinem feminist?"
People are shocked that Gloria is against decrim...
My latest little rant is that Gloria Steinem came out in opposition to decriminalization of prostitution, endorsing the opposition to our Berkeley campaign. Angela Davis endorsed decrim and our resolution...
So I ask folks:
"Are you an Angela Davis feminist or a Gloria Steinem feminist?"
People are shocked that Gloria is against decrim...
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gloria got old, got married & lost it??
i mean "old" in the metaphorical sense; i dont care how old she is.
she is reacting to her fauxbunny past??
the only thing i can really think of is that once one gets past the blue =areas= (not even the blue -states-), other than directly in the brothel friendly nevada, one is finding some real white straight suprem terrorists. perhaps she is thinking that if a single breast of janet jackson could have slightly swayed over (no pun intended, sort of) the election, the more wack the blue areas get, the more the real Red Menace (oh how words have changed their meanings) will go into action (no pun intended, sort of, redux)??
i dont know the answer. &, you know, even andrea dworkin should know better. perhaps -especially- andrea dworkin. there is a real issue about who has ultimate control over ones own body-- i think that this -is- the issue that swung the election, which is so utterly frightening that i cannot believe people outside of san francisco (i am in l.a., please help me) are not RIDICULOUSLY up in arms about it.
now me, i always like angela y.d. better anyway, but that was once just personal preference..... (then again, remember the trouble between gloria & shulamith, that marvellous, lost shulamith) -
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Are there still a lot of Andrea Dworkin / Catharine MacKinnon chicks out there, do you think? I've been wondering.
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Unsu...
yes, there are plenty of Dworkin/MacKinnon folks out there. and in light of all the trafficking talk, plenty of newer theorists/activists who operate from the same platform as these two -
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I guess the trafficking issue has brought that thinking back into vogue? Seemed we'd moved past that pretty solidly over the last 10 years or so. (Or maybe I'm just floating through life in my sex positive San Fran bubble as usual.)
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Unsu...
trafficking
02/14Well the trafficking comes out the Asian massage parlors, mostly. Oakland just put a moritorium on massage licensing because too many ladies were coming into get one, sporting black eyes, speaking no english and acompanied by a male "interpreter."
The decrim issue suffers from one size fits all. The street and parlor girls are often the victims of others. We independents usually don't experience what they do.
In fact, if a new client calls and talks a lot about AMPs, I won't see him. I find they have boring expectations of how to spend their time with me......... -
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Re: trafficking
02/15i have to say that when i read "AMP" it took me a while to realize you werent speaking about a -very- specialized corner of the fetish community, such as it is.
the even funnier part of my story is that i know of an AMP (the kind you meant) in a -----mini-mall----- in santa monica, ca. just like a drugstore. or an eyeglasses store. or a vacuum repair shop. or a taco stand. i think these are all in the same mall.
you are right though, there -is- a problem w/ one size fits all (as you say) decriminalization. one of the weirdest things is just how very "decriminalized" these AMPs are. i mean, one would expect a crackdown (no pun intended) in a -very- family oriented area in the middle of the yuppiest beach town between venice & zuma.
but nope, it's been there for years. cops dont care, they are too busy pestering the boys of santa monica & selma (i believe they are still there) & the girls of wherever they may be now. sunset, i think.
then, of course, are the ads in the back of the l.a. weekly, et al. -what- does law enforcement think they are up to, precisely?? selling photographs??
i think the issue, once again, is one of economics-- who controls the most money can have the massage parlor in the middle of urburbia. she who spends a lot on dope & does not remain hidden must be jailed.
it is a problem, in general, w/ society, i think.
& dont even start me on the current cuteness of "i'll show you my tattooed tits online until i become a soccer mom who bought my car b/c i heard some song i didnt recognize but thought was punk in a mitsubishi commercial & then renounced my past" present currency.
as someone who has known -way- too many really good, really smart people who died after, during living the life as opposed to living the sign of the life, i dont want to hear about that at all.
of course, rich kids are always completely decriminalized. dont even need to know a person who knows a person who knows a lawyer to know -that-.
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Whenever I talk to feminists, as a whole I find most of them anti-decrim..castigating all sex workers as victims....& the bullshit about not knowing we are victims...I just refuse to talk to them now, they are so lost in their own issues mainly.
I preferred reading about Tracey Quan & Camille Paglia than seeing myself as a feminists...I`d rather be identifies, if I must be, with humanist....Damn all this `ists` & `isms`they just distract from real issues & the individuals right to different opinions & lifestyles....instead they plug into peoples insecurities & inner turmoils, in an attempt to label & identify even...instead of just accepting that life is a roller-coaster of varying beliefs & indentitites...just depends where & what you are at any given time...we evolve
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Scarlot, have you posted this rant somewhere?
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I haven't read Gloria's reasoning... though I do feel that the trailblazing for decriminalizing Prostitution needs to happen somewhere OTHER than Berkeley, and feel strongly in that conviction.
Berkeley is the capital of fruity hippies and radical/idiotic thinking, to 99% of America. San Francisco at least has credibility as a city influenced more by business, then by academia. Any town other than Berkeley, as the trailblazer, is my $.02.
It's similar to the fair-trade coffee fight. My family in Oaklahoma read about that, rolled their eyes, and asked when Berkeley would just shut-up and leave well enough alone. In a more annonymous town, or a municipality not defined by progressive thinking (because thinking, in general, isn't done in most places), I do think it could have an influential ripple effect... versus the stone-wall of eye rolling that Berkeley will command. -
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Believe me, some people will roll their eyes no matter where it first gets decriminalized...because they don't understand the issues. One big disadvantage to Berkeley is that the mayor there is pro-legalization (which of course means additional licensing and taxation and possibly mandatory health checks) and he came out as such during the meetings on all of this.
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Give me Angela Davis, she's been a pretty right-on kind of woman, from what I've read about her.
I think discussion about decrim-ing is important no matter where it happens, so long as it happens. There was an Oklahoman in this thread that gave off the impression that by the Bay Area entering into such a discussion is just another bunch of hippy free-thinkers from Berkeley out to conquer their cause while the rest of the work-a-day folk grind themselves down in a job they wish they didn't have. Seems like the mistake was made on the side of sell-your-soul corporate american slave-wagers. The route in life to carve out your own niche in the world was passed up for a smoothly paved cement walkway that lead straight to the heart of sleepwalking through life without a purpose.
I'm glad someone is just using her Goddess-given brain to make the world safer for women. Working women don't become such if there isn't a demand out in the world; since there is such a high number of women working in the Bay Area, it makes sense to be such a politically active party. The squeaky wheel gets greased!
Madeliene
