But it can be done.
Porn stars should not be able to have children...
Rantage here, here, and here, so far...
to say this shit angers me would be an understatement.
A sanctuary for supporters of sexual free expression and the adult sexual media.
Well, so much for my pledge to cut back on blogging. Thank god I don't smoke!
ReplyDeleteBut this...THIS ... this shall not pass. No it cannot. I don't know who this ... person ... is or how she came to your attention, and I doubt she wields much influence in the world. But unfortunately, I suspect she utters aloud the unspoken bigotry of many, many others. That is what must be addressed. She's insignificant, but her toxic opinions must be challenged.
First they must be challenged in the specific as regards Jenna Jameson. Why? Because Jenna and I have been friends since she was 19 and while I know she fronts a pretty tough public persona, she's really quite sensitive to exactly this sort of personal viciousness, of which she's had to deal with more than her fair share.
So, Jenna as potential mother? Solid qualifications. Unlike so many children in this world, hers will always know they're wanted. Jenna has desired motherhood far more ardently than any of her accomplishments in life and will love those kids with the ferocity of will that is one of her signature characteristics. Kids can deal with a lot of trouble growing up pretty handily if they're secure in the awareness of parental love.
Jenna is also smart and worldly. Her children will have the benefit of her experience in life and of her intelligence and insight. She was extremely sharp and observant when I met her and has only gotten more so over the years, as her ambitions and inner conflicts have been tempered in the forge of a very public, and often extremely difficult life and career. Whatever problems her children may face, you can bet she'll see those problems coming and step up to them the same way she's stepped up to dealing with every other hardship this world has thrown at her.
As for how she'll handle it when the inevitable day comes upon which some fool hassles them over their mother's former profession, well, all I can say about that is some fool will be lucky if Tito gets to him before Jenna does. She has a surprisingly sweet and tender side but man, you don't want to see the other one.
Moreover, Jenna's kids will start life with material advantages. They will want for nothing that wealth can provide, including the best schools, the confidence that comes with economic security, the opportunities to travel, the exposure to every kind of cultural diversity, the knowledge that any kind of help they might ever need is ready to hand, the entre into whatever life courses they may choose that only the resources Jenna worked so hard to assemble can provide, in short, everything she built through a struggle no one who didn't witness it up close can truly imagine. All that will be theirs, along with the awareness that their mother did all that primarily for them.
Let's not forget that this pregnancy - and i pray it goes smoothly - was achieved with great difficulty after many previous attempts. Is Jenna qualified to be a mother? Fuck yeah. She put herself through hell for the chance. That should weigh heavily in any sound judgment of her fitness.
But that brings us round to the much larger question of who is qualified to judge and on what basis. How dare anyone suggest that because of a woman's occupation she should not be ALLOWED to have children.
This ... individual ... didn't couch her comments in the form of advice, or in the context of raising a questions, however rude and inappropriate, of what the possible consequences of a porn performer having children might be.
Oh no, she went straight to her proposed "solution." Porn performers should be ... what - legally forbidden to procreate? Physically sterilized by court order? Fuck it. Why not just kill them to make sure they can't reproduce by some freak accident? Godwin's Law be damned, that's straight Nazi eugenics. It's nauseating and the self-righteousness with which it's offered up makes it all the more so. If anyone should have cause for shame here, it's not Jenna or Jenna's children, it's anyone capable of committing such vile ideas to words.
The fact of the matter is that most sex workers, including porn performers, do have children. And here's a big surprise for those who think they somehow live in a better class of society than ours: those kids seem to turn out just about as well as any other kids. Some have tough issues to work through. Some get a fairly easy ride in life. But most understand that whatever mommy does for a living, she does so they will have food, shelter and the hope of some kind of a good future.
Porn has now been around long enough for a goodly number of porn performers' kids to have grown up, and I find them to be neither more nor less troubled as any other group of young adults I know. There is no evidence at all to suggest that their maternal parents' occupations significantly handicapped their prospects on this planet.
Among the other things betrayed by this vile blood-libel against all of us - not just porn performers but their spouses as well - is an utter and complete ignorance of what our lives are really like. Does this ... person ... think that porn performers live lives of wild debauchery that would endanger their children? Off the job, most of them are shockingly normal and in many ways surprisingly conventional. They don't bring their kids to work and they don't bring their work home to their kids. Any suggestion to the contrary is simply too repugnant to discuss.
Well, I guess I've made myself pretty clear on this one. But before I go, I have to say in all honesty that while the ... person ... who posted this sickening slam did get a few amens from other commenters, most of what I read on the comment thread was harshly critical of what she had to say. And in all fairness, some of the most outspoken critics identified as anti-porn. It would appear that at least some anti-porn feminists still understand that reproductive justice might be just a tad bit more important than even their holy crusade against the evil of porn. So two cheers for them.
Now, if they would only go the next step of recognizing sex workers of all types as fully human, they might be quite surprised at how many other concerns they have in common with those they spend so much time denouncing.
Okay, that's as much energy as I can expend on this particular outrage. There are too many like it to beat them all down and I'll just let this one sink under the weight of it's own hideousness.
hey, I ranted too, link me as well!
ReplyDeletegah.
Here you go, Trin:
ReplyDeleteThe Strangest Alchemy: Christ on a Cracker!!
And, hey...how about this one, too??
The SmackDog Chronicles: Why Porn Stars Having Children Beat Right-Wing Asshats Having Children...
Anthony
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