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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
I read the article you reference and you have completely mischaracterized the article in an effort to create furry over nothing. The advice offered in this article is simplistic and naive but it the advice was overall sound and as a women, I found it in no way offensive. I noticed you didn’t bother to mention all of the advice offered such as “If this doesn't work, and you're up for it, plan an evening during which you will cater to her every whim. Cook or order in her favorite meal, give her a massage, and let her have her way with you. That ought to show her that you don't think a woman's place is under a man's thumb. “
Shame on you Broadsheet. You should just change your name to Broadflame, since you seem to thrive on trying to create controversy in effort to cynically rack up the clicks for your advertisers.
...that only women feel insecure about the physiques of porn actors. 'Cause lord knows, men don't.
Thank you for a well-reasoned response to the 'advice column' a reader sent your way. It was refreshing to read a balanced, mature column with the philosophical foundation that respect and understanding matters in a relationship.
I have been one of the folks who previously commented on some of your writing as occasionally shrill or humorless. It's not that people who spew sexist claptrap shouldn't be taken to task, it's all in how we choose to do it. I think you really hit a happy medium between righteous outrage and under-the-radar snark that served to make your point and put the faux advice columnist in 'her' place. (You know those columns are written by guys pretending.....)
I suppose you could get really crazy, pretend to be a journalist and call them.
Dear Dude,
First, if you're going to pretend you're a woman, use your spell-check. I don't always like Ms. Traister's writing either, but as far as I know she's never tried to create a "furry" over nothing. And if you had any empathy, you'd realize having the woman (singular) 'get to do whatever she wants' for one night is hardly an excuse for disrespecting her the rest of the week. Love isn't about mutual abuse, you moron.
...Merely watching porn is not, in itself, abusive.
Wow. Who would have guessed that in my haste to post, forgetting to do a cut and paste into Word to do a spell-check, would have clued you into my true gender. I hate to break it to you, but your clever sleuth work is a complete failure, because surprise, I am a women. A women, I might add who was and is so completely disgusted with the sexist regressive tripe that is Broadsheet that I recently let my premium membership go, in protest. I came to check it out and give it another chance but it is the same as it ever was, an embarrassment to everything I have fought against. Don't bother responding, because I don't plan on returning. Please continue ranting against men from your pink playpen, while I continue to push for women’s issue to become human issues instead of being regulated to the Women’s Room.
Gotta love the snarky comeback about not spellchecking...and then the assertion, again, that he is "a women." Thanks for the laugh, man.
...as long as you ALSO say that you are perfectly willing - happy even - for your mother, sister, wife and/or daughter to be a porn star. If you aren't comfortable with that, then what you are essentially saying is that some women are just born to be objectified and victimized (maybe you'd even go so far as to say it's their 'choice') and as long as me and mine aren't among them, that's fine by me, please pass the peanuts. If attitudes can be termed abusive, this would be one that fits the bill.
You can point to the undeniable commercial success and notoriety of the Jenna Jamiesons and Tracy Lords and Annabel Chong, but nevertheless, my guess is there isn't a porn star alive that any man would want his wife or daughter to swap places with.
I have nothing against sex workers. In fact I think porn and prostitution should be legal and aboveboard, so that the women who find they have little or no choice but to exploit their bodies for pay can do so with minimum negative repercussions to their sexual and physical health/longevity. But let's not pretend that being even a well-paid porn star or hooker is anything to strive for -- unless you're a woman with really limited options and/or already hit rock bottom, porn and prostitution aren't upwardly mobile professions, ya know?
Using someone as a receptacle for your fantasies, paying your 2.29 for a video and then letting her go back to her miserable existence while you and your nice suburban wife plan your daughter's Sweet Sixteen party...well, mabye 'abuse' isn't the right word, but "sucks" and "see ya, wouldn't want to BE ya" fit the bill pretty well. If you don't want that for yourself and your loved ones, well, why is it OK to perpetuate it for someone else?
It's not acceptable to me that my daughter flip burgers, but that doesn't mean that I think it's inherently abusive to eat fast food.
It's not acceptable to me that my daughter becomes a hairdresser, but that doesn't mean I feel I'm being abusive when I go get a haircut.
There are lots of jobs in the world that suck, and I want better than that for my daughter. She's smart and motivated and she can do better.
I'm pretty sure there are jobs in the world *I* would rather be a porn star than do (coal mining, among them), but is it abusive to use coal?
So the argument "You can only enjoy porn if you'd be okay if your sister or daughter was doing it" is fallacious, as it's tantamount to saying "You can only enjoy the warmth of a coal stove if you'd be okay with your sister, daughter, son or brother being a coal miner." Personally I don't like porn, I find it vapid, visual images don't turn me on a great deal and I'm aware that most people who choose to work in the sex industry have chosen it because they suffered abuse in their past, which makes it somewhat exploitative. But I'm not going to say that because it's somewhat exploitative (unlike, say, prostitution, which, being illegal, is *incredibly* exploitative) no one is allowed to enjoy it, because I'm pretty sure migrant workers are exploited worse and yet no one has advised me to stop enjoying fruit.
Unfortunately this world is full of exploitative jobs and unless you're going to go live off the land and grow all your own food, you cannot be a 21st century Westerner without enjoying what comes from the exploitation of others. Factory work in third world countries pays less well and is more dangerous than porn work in the US. But all the stuff we buy is manufactured in the third world by exploited poor workers. Singling out sex work as worse is making a value judgement on sex workers that I'm not prepared to make. If they freely choose to do that work rather than flipping burgers or becoming hairdressers, well, I'm not going to say that those who enjoy their efforts are morally inferior, because I like my computer and I'm sure it was put together by people paid substandard wages in a sweatshop somewhere, so I don't really have a moral high ground. And I doubt any of us do.
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