“There is a global trafficking in women; as long as women are being bought and sold in a global slave traffic we are not free.
There is a pornography crisis in the United States. Women in the United States live in a society saturated with sexually brutal, exploitative material that says: rape her, beat her, hurt her, she will like it, it is fun for her.
We need to put women first.
Surely the freedom of women must mean more to us than the freedom of pimps.
We need to do anything that will interrupt the colonizing of the female body.
We need to refuse to accept the givens.
We need to ask ourselves what political rights we need as women.
Do not assume that in the eighteenth century male political thinkers answered that question and do not assume that when your own Charter was rewritten in the twentieth century the question was answered.
The question has not been answered.
What laws do we need?
What would freedom be for us?
What principles are necessary for our well-being?
Why are women being sold on street corners and tortured in their homes, in societies that.claim to be based on freedom and justice?
What actions must be taken?
What will it cost us and why are we too afraid to pay and are the women who have gotten a little from the women’s movement afraid that resistance or rebellion or even political inquiry will cost them the little they have gotten?
Why are we still making deals with men one by one instead of collectively demanding what we need?
I am going to ask you to remember that as long as a woman is being bought and sold anywhere in the world, you are not free, nor are you safe.
You too have a number; some day your turn will come.
I’m going to ask you to remember
the prostituted,
the homeless,
the battered,
the raped,
the tortured,
the murdered,
the raped-then-murdered,
the murdered-then-raped;
and I am going to ask you to remember the photographed, the ones that any or all of the above happened to and it was photographed and now the photographs are for sale in our free countries.
I want you to think about those
who have been hurt for the fun, the entertainment, the so-called speech of others;
those who have been hurt for profit, for the financial benefit of pimps and entrepreneurs.
I want you to remember the perpetrator and I am going to ask you to remember the victims: not just tonight but tomorrow and the next day.
I want you to find a way to include them – the perpetrators and the victims – in what you do, how you think, how you act, what you care about, what your life means to you.
Now, I know, in this room, some of you are the women I have been talking about.
I know that. People around you may not.
I am going to ask you to use every single thing you can remember about what was done to you –
how it was done,
where,
by whom,
when,
and, if you know, why –
to begin to tear male dominance to pieces, to pull it apart, to vandalize it, to destabilize it, to mess it up, to get in its way, to fuck it up.
I have to ask you to resist, not to comply, to destroy the power men have over women, to refuse to accept it, to abhor it and to do whatever is necessary despite its cost to you to change it.”
– Andrea Dworkin, Remember; resist; do not comply.
The reasons why many men pay for sex are revealed in the interviews that make up a major new piece of research
But another of the interviewees left me feeling concerned. Darren was young, good-looking and bright; I asked him how often he thought the women he paid enjoyed the sex. “I don’t want them to get any pleasure,” he told me. “I am paying for it and it is her job to give me pleasure. If she enjoys it I would feel cheated.” I asked if he felt prostitutes were different to other women. “The fact that they’re prepared to do that job where others won’t, even when they’re skint, means there’s some capability inside them that permits them to do it and not be disgusted,” he said. He seemed full of a festering, potentially explosive misogyny.
When asked what would end prostitution, one interviewee laughed and said, “Kill all the girls.” Paul told me that it would take “all the men to be locked up”. But most of them told the researchers that they would be easily deterred if the current laws were implemented. Fines, public exposure, employers being informed, being issued with an Asbo or the risk of a criminal record would stop most of the men from continuing to pay for sex. Discovering the women were trafficked, pimped or otherwise coerced would appear not to be so effective. Almost half said they believed that most women in prostitution are victims of pimps (“the pimp does the psychological raping of the woman,” explained one). But they still continued to visit them.
This is the reason that people focus on the “agency” of prostitutes rather than the actions of men. This is the ugliness they don’t want you to see. Nobody wants you to ask why men pay women for sex, because the answer is frightening. So instead, they force us to keep asking why women become prostitutes. Men’s anonymity and freedom from judgement in this situation is the real problem, not women’s choices. Open your eyes, name the problem. Men hate women.
When johns pay to have access to women who don’t actually want anything to do with them and need money to survive and feed their families. They are basically pulling a real life scarpia ultimatum. When johns do the real life equivalent to what rapey villians do they don’t have much of a defence for their actions.
“It’s like she’s not really there.”
– Study participant who bought sex
Men who buy sex have less empathy for women in prostitution than men who don’t buy sex, according to a study published online Aug. 31
in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence. The research, co-authored by
UCLA professor Neil Malamuth, also found that men who buy sex are more
likely to report having committed rape and other aggressive sexual acts.
The study of 101 men in the Boston area who buy sex and 101 men who
do not indicates that sex buyers’ perspectives are similar to those of
sexually coercive men.
“Our findings indicate that men who buy sex share certain key
characteristics with men who are at risk for committing sexual
aggression,” said Malamuth, a professor of communications studies and
psychology. “Both groups tend to have a preference for impersonal sex, a
fear of rejection by women, a history of having committed sexually
aggressive acts and a hostile masculine self-identification. Those who
buy sex, on average, have less empathy for women in prostitution and
view them as intrinsically different from other women.”
the sex industry doesn’t exist because someone made the choice to sell
it exists because others made the choice to BUY
I don’t like this. I also don’t believe this. I also feel like it’s making it seem like those who buy sex are bad when they’re not.
then tell me what kind of person wants to bypass the process of enthusiastic consent with money?
gothicstripper The men who buy sex are bad they are trying to buy access to a woman who doesn’t actually want to have sex with him and is using money (which men still make more of) to push himself onto an unwilling woman. I don’t feel empathy for men who want to oblige women to have sex with them.
Let’s change the scenario up a bit with a loose analogy. What would you think of someone who pays people (especially poorer people) to be their ‘friends’. You know paying someone pretend to like them, hang out with them, stroke their ego, comfort them and listen to them without a real bond, make them look and feel important without reciprocation just compensation.
Now you might say well they get paid what’s wrong? Well this guy want his friends to absorb his abuse, to tolerate him yelling at them, being emotionally abusive and even tolerate psychical abuse. This has psychological effects on the hired ‘friends’ and if they speak out plenty of people will dismiss their concerns because they got paid.
What would you think of the guy who hires ‘friends’. Would you sympathise with him even though he has enough time and money to pay for the illusion or would you think he is power tripping? Would you think he’s using people even if he throws money at them?
timemagazine documents real sex stings in Chicago. “When someone says, ‘It’s my first time,’ that’s not true. I’d say about 99% of the people are lying.”
WATCH this inside look into “john stings” and the positive steps being taken to support survivors.
“Oh no, I could never tell my girlfriend/wife what I’m into sexually or she’d leave me! So I’m sneaking around spending our money on other women to get me off instead.”
Oh yea. Much better plan. Why do I hear that so often and guys ACTUALLY think it makes sense.
Because the alternative would involve too much self-analysis and responsibility for them.
Sadly resigned to the fact that a significant proportion of men have absolutely no interest in having genuine, healthy, honest relationships with women.
There is a lot of wrong going on here.
1. Why does @love-and-bdsm think they know a man’s girlfriend or wife better than he does? If a dude says his wife would not be into it he is probably correct. Most women find doing pornography inspired sexual acts to be unfulfilling.
2. Why do they think johns are being honest? Maybe they did try to add whatever to their sex lives and the women did not enjoy it. Maybe they are just making shit up because they don’t want to have to explain at all.
3. Or maybe the john has no interest in bringing their wives/girlfriends into it because they see the sex they are engaging in as disgusting, and believe only prostituted women are suitable candidates for it. A belief that prostitutes are distinct and disgusting as a class of women is common among johns.
4. Its not about getting off, I am sure these guys get off with their partners. They want to buy and fuck women as a hobby that makes them feel powerful and reinforces their sexist ideas about women.
Its not like johns are a mystery, there are a fair amount of studies about them. They aren’t guys that have trouble communicating with their partners or who cannot otherwise obtain sex (or satisfying sex), they are guys who like to buy people because they can. They know exactly what they are doing and why.
Anyone who suggests that a class of females should exist to absorb male sexual aggression is, by definition, expressing a misogynistic view.
Celtyradfem 