When Right-Wing Feminists Attack

The fight in Rhode Island over keeping indoor prostitution legal has descended into some decidedly muddier territory recently. First, a couple months ago, arch-prostitution foe Donna Hughes weighed in with an editorial in the Providence Journal basically calling the pro-sex work people who testified against the legislation a bunch of stinky tattooed freaks. Next, the ever-charming Judith Reisman weighed in a couple of weeks ago calling academics supporting prostitution decriminalization "The Academic Pedophiles and Perverts Party". (This was followed by another lovely missive a few days later.)

Not to be outdone, Hughes recently added a blog post to the Citizens Against Trafficking website, in which she launches into a McCarthyist tirade against the "sex radical" cabal (notably Ronald Weitzer and Elizabeth Wood) opposed to criminalizing legislation, even going so far as to use out-of-context statements to paint Elizabeth Wood as a "sex offender". The title says it all – "International Sex Radicals Campaign to Keep Prostitution Decriminalized in Rhode Island". Subtitled "Part 1", which I guess means one tirade won't be enough.

Renegade Evolution reposts Hughes rant and adds her own commentary here. Snowdrop Explodes gives Hughes a good fisking and says pretty much everything I'd have to say about it. Michael Goodyear gives a more formal response, taking down Hughes with a simple dose of facts and a clear appeal to ethics. Elizabeth Wood councils staying on the high road and focusing on opposing criminalizing legislation rather than mudslinging with Hughes. I second that and those of who are motivated to action by this incident would be well advised to take Woods advice and focus on joining the fight against the Rhode Island legislation rather than getting sidetracked into a pissing contest with Hughes.

At the risk of mudslinging myself, I think some background on Hughes and Reisman is called for, for those who may not be familiar with them –

Donna Hughes is a University of Rhode Island women's studies prof and "anti-trafficking" activist who pretty much erases the line between the radfem section of the anti-porn and prostitution movement and the far-right, religiously-based one. She has the dubious distinction of probably being the only person who has been published in both Rain and Thunder and National Review. Unlike other radfems, who hold to some pretense of being more or less leftists or progressives, she quite openly professes her alignment with conservatism and the Republican Party. (Albeit, the recent PUMA/New Agenda movement has raised the visibility of openly right-wing feminists.) She's was a big fan of GW Bush, and goes so far as to state, "by supporting the abolitionist work against the global sex trade, he has done more for women and girls than any one other president I can think of." Along with fellow right-wing radfem Phyllis Chesler, Hughes wrote a Washington Post editorial calling on feminists to realign with conservatives, including the Christian Right, against the sex industry and Islamism. (Which I guess amount to some kind of twin patriarchal hydra in their estimation.)

Judith Reisman is a right-wing sex researcher who's relationship with mainstream scientific sex research is analogous to the relationship of "creation science" to evolutionary biology. She has a special obsession with Alfred Kinsey, who she accuses of being, of course, a pervert and a pedophile, and father to a vast sexologist/pervert/queer/pedophile conspiracy to destroy America's moral fiber. Alternet published a good expose on her 5 years back. (This being in the days before Alternet started publishing articles that were actively praised by Reisman.) Reisman is one of the main proponents of the fringe idea that pornography stimulates the brain to produce "erototoxins" that lead to addiction and general degeneracy. Although Reisman has spent the last 25 years working the far-right side of the political street, in her early years she did outreach to feminist anti-porn groups (under her pre-married name, Judith Bat-Ada), and was well-received in spite of using many of the same "family values" and domesticity arguments she uses today. She occasionally is still positively cited by that crowd.

The interesting thing is, Hughes and Reisman go out of their way to paint their opponents as sexual extremists and beyond the pale of normal behavior, stooping to out-of-context statements to cast aspersions on their sexual practices. The saying about glass houses and throwing stones comes to mind, however, because a lot of the attitudes about sex coming from their side of the "sex wars" battle lines looks pretty extreme from where I'm standing. I've already noted where Judith Reisman is coming from. Another big name in the "prostitution abolitionist" movement is Sheila Jeffreys, who holds what can only be describes as some very anti-male and anti-sex views. I just recently came across a BBC program on Jeffreys ideological roots, which for the most part are motivations that largely drive her to this day. I've been meaning to post a pointer to it as its a very interesting and informative program, and since the topic of "extremism" has come up, the timing is perfect. (The video is divided into 6 parts – part 1 is here, the rest can be found here.)

More Hot Air from the Windy City

So last month I posted about the meeting between Robert Jensen and Tom Dart, the Chicago-area sheriff and anti-prostitution crusader. This grandstanding prick is now making headlines suing Craigslist in federal court in an attempt to force them to drop its "erotic services" section entirely. Story here and here. Bound, Not Gagged posts a response from SWOP Chicago here.

His argument is that advertising prostitution online is promoting a "public nuisance" and should be banned on that basis. Evidently driving more prostitution back out onto the streets (which is what is likely to happen if internet prostitution is curbed) doesn't come under this guy's idea of "nuisance".

I also notice from one of the videos of Dart's press conference that the anti-prostitution group CAASE was part of it. And CAASE, in turn, is a group that has worked quite closely with Melissa Farley in the last few years and who's "Alliances" page is pretty much a laundry list of the usual suspects from the "progressive" anti-porn and anti-prostitution milieu.

I point to the latter, because I'm so sick of hearing how anti-porn radical feminists are a marginalized group that doesn't exercise real political power. Once again, very real links to powerful players in politics and law enforcement who are doing their bidding is revealed here. The antis, both Right and "Left", have real power in the real world (power that in the opinion of those of us here at least, does real harm to real people). Its about fucking time they owned up to that power.

sex workers- once again, what's best for us:

As you may or not may be aware, under the auspices of a woman named Jacqui Smith, the UK is considering a law that will criminalize the purchase of sexual services, namely, men who participate in, as they call it in the UK, “kerb crawling” (street based work). As usual, the evidence Smith is basing her proposal off of is questionable, but the proposed law is there none the less.

A blogger and ally Caroline, who is in the UK, has written extensively about the downsides of this law, and what very real consequences and potential consequences it has on sex workers of all kinds within the UK, she was even given quest posts at the UK based the F-Word and a US blog, Feministe!

The responses to her posts were, how shall I say, typical, and the reaction to her stance on the matter, equally so. Both Caroline and sex workers who bothered to participate were bogged down by generally radical leaning feminists with countless issues not necessarily germane to the legal issue at hand, shouted down as “unthinking”, “idiots”, or “happy hookers”…

I have to ask, to those of you who have met me and what not, do I generally come across as Teeheeeheee I can by Prada woo-hoo happy? Do most sex workers? Umm, no. Yet this is, consistently, how any who disagree with the pervading theme of repression of sex workers are written off and thusly discounted.

But as usual, those of us who oppose Swedish-like models, even considering the troublesome evidence that has shown such models to be far from perfect and the words of actual sex workers, as is typical, we are a tiny minority who truly know nothing about our business and do not care about all the poor trafficked women and girls. Which is bullshit, and I note, these people so concerned, from feminist anti sex work people to world governments, find it far more easy to criminalize the people who buy sex and attempt to play (often unwanted) savior to the people who sell it than to actually go after criminal organizations that deal in trafficking or take on the underlying causes, such as lack of education, poverty, drug abused, and lack of other job opportunities that face people who are unwillingly involved in prostitution…but apparently that is too hard and too messy…it’s easier to play Capitan save a ho.

I’ve also noted, in this particular latest round and in countless others, the apparent need of these people to demonize any and all sex worker outreach/activist programs which do not tout a 100% exit / prohibition stance. Currently, the English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP) and International Union of Sexworkers (IUSW) are under attack by supporters of the proposed UK law. The same sorts of tactics have been used against SWOP, COYOTE, the Scarlet Alliance, and countless other Sex Worker Organizations in the past.

And while all the smoke and mud about happy hookers and how sex worker orgs don’t really care about sex workers and what about the poor trafficked women and girls (no mention of the transwomen, men and boys, for that matter) rages on one simple thing remains fact: a law which will affect countless sex workers adversely is poised to go on the books in the UK, with, best as I can tell, no input from any sex workers and no real ear to the objections of any sex workers…So once again, we have people building law and political prestige on our backs.

Now, I am not in the UK, nor are most of you, but that doesn’t mean this should not matter to us. Sex Workers in the UK are sex workers, just like us, and just as the UK looked to Sweden for inspiration, there is no guarantee where ever you are might not look to the UK for the same thing…

So yes, if you find this as annoying and patronizing and seriously ill advised as I do?

Say something, because if we don’t, nobody else will.

I’ve already said a few things…

And why yes, please feel free to redistribute at will...

Court Upholds "Porn is Not Prostitution" Principle

Via The Legal Satyricon, The Volokh Conspiracy, Polymorphous Perversity, and the Concord Monitor comes news of one of the few triumphs for the much-beseiged right of sexual expression. In this case, the legal principle distinguishing porn production from prostitution has once again been upheld in, of all places, New Hampshire. This legal principle is enshrined in the case of California v. Freeman and, although this case is not binding in any state other than California, the distinction it makes between paying somebody to have sex with you versus paying for a sexual performance has been largely upheld elsewhere in the US. It was most recently challenged in New Hampshire in the case of State v. Theriault, with the final result that New Hampshire Supreme Court upheld the Freeman principle.

Who the hell makes porn in New Hampshire you might ask? In this case the old maxim about "hard cases make bad law" seems to have been reversed, with some good law being harvested out of a dodgy case. Apparently, the defendent, Robert Theriault, was a county court baliff who approached a couple (while still in uniform, apparently) who had just paid a traffic ticket and offered them money to make a "fuck flick". According to an earlier article, this was accompanied by a story about how he was "an investigator" testing different kinds of condoms, as well as the ability of different electric blankets to increase sperm count. (You can't make this stuff up.) The couple actually went through with a sexual performance for this guy, but later had a change of heart about the whole thing. Eventually, the incident was reported to the police and the fool was quite rightly releived of his job as baliff. However, he was also arrested and charged with soliciting prostitution, something he was successfully convicted of in lower courts.

Ultimately, the State Supreme Court did what it was supposed to do, and didn't allow the urge to punish one person's sketchy activities to impinge on everybody's rights. Its unfortunate the court in the Max Hardcore case wasn't operating on the same principle.

And around the blogs today....

The big sex work news of the day was, of course, anti-vice New York Governor Elliot Spitzer being caught with his hand in the very same honey-pot he crusaded so publicly to keep a lid on. Of course, Bound, Not Gagged is all over it, and providing some excellent coverage and commentary. Also with spot-on commentary is this post from our own founding henchwoman Renegade Evolution, and this from Susie Bright.

Since this scandal hit the news, the media has been all over contacting high-profile sex workers for their perspective on the sex industry, especially the high-end call-girl/powerful client end of it. There was a very good interview with Audacia Ray on the New York City public radio Brian Lehrer Show. (I also have quite a bit to say in the commentary thread following the audio of the post – shameless self-plug.) However, much of the desired level of conversation by members of the mainstream media hasn't exactly been so high-minded, and in at least a few cases, the interviewers have essentially played the role of cheap johns, wanting simply some salacious statements to sell copy, and barring in advance any discussion of the bigger issues. (Readers of this and other porn and sex work blogs may recognize a pattern at work here when it comes to the relationship between sex workers and the larger media and entertainment industry.) In a rather exemplary display of principle over publicity, Audacia Ray writes that she turned down an interview with MSNBC for this very reason. Audacia, you rock!

On another topic, "Thomas", a guest blogger on Feministe has just posted on the death of Shannon Wilsey, aka Savannah. (No, its not an anniversary of any kind, just a subject he felt like talking about.) On one hand, he's pretty right on the money with his pointing out that a lot of the male celebs who she played around with couldn't be bothered with her when she was in need during her life, nor even bother to show up for her funeral after her death. (Exception: Pauly Shore, of all people – otherwise, a variation on the same pattern of behavior toward sex workers as I was talking about earlier.) The flip side of the piece is a certain moralistic tone the piece takes "These were young women with few prospects. The patriarchy dangled a wad of bills in front of them if they would put on sexual performances for men. Then it treated them like shit when they took it. Sex objects, objects of curiosity, objects of scorn. To which I would add, "objects of pity and condescension for feminists".

First, she was not completely alone toward the end of her life – she was actually pretty close to a number of other porn performers and people in the industry. (Albeit, quite a few others despised her as a prima donna.) The Feministe piece ignores this in favor of the "exploited by the porn industry she hated" angle. Second, for all of the very real demons Shannon Wilsey clearly had, the whole passive victim of The Patriarchy script we see at work here really doesn't do her story any justice. For better or worse, Shannon Wilsey played a very active role in remaking herself into Savannah, first as a celebrity groupie, then as a top porn star. Shannon/Savannah was someone with great sexual charisma, an exceptional "hottie", and like anybody with an exceptional ability or gift, had a lot of her self-image wrapped up in that. In the end, probably too much, but nonetheless, she was who she was, and those who dismiss her as a mere victim of male objectification or empty hedonism and little more do nothing to honor her memory.

Melissa Farley's latest + Bound Not Gagged blog-in, 9/17

We only occasionally blog about non-porn sex work topics here, but this is simply a matter of focus on issues around porn. Other issues around sex work are important to pay attention to as well, though, and the issue of whether its OK to produce commercial porn using real human beings ultimately rests on the issue of whether its OK to pay for sex at all. The latter is coming under increasing attack, as illustrated by the publicity surrounding the release of a new report on Nevada prostitution.

Melissa Farley, Nevada Brothels, and the effect on the legal sex work debate

Recently, radical feminist anti-prostitution activist Melissa Farley published a report called "Prostitution and trafficking in Nevada: making the connections". Many readers are probably familiar with Farley's "research", since it is often used as a stick to beat proponents of any kind of legal sex work over the head with, whether that's legal prostitution, stripping, or porn modeling. The story goes that sex work is inherently a horrible form of abuse and that "90%" of all sex workers show symptoms of post-traumatic stress, want to leave prostitution, but are prevented from doing so by drug addiction, economic desperation, or some pimp basically keeping them as a coerced sex slave. These data were gathered mainly from urban street prostitutes and from very marginalized prostitutes in developing countries, but the findings are generalized to be applicable to women in any and all situations of sex work.

Farley's study of Nevada brothel prostitutes claims similar findings as for her earlier findings about street prostitutes, this time claiming a figure of "81%" (of a total sample of 45 brothel prostitutes) who want to leave prostitution, most of whom are supposedly prevented from doing so. This has been quite a coup for Farley, because she now has been able to claim that even in a controlled, legal setting, she still has been able to find damning evidence against the effects of prostitution. The report has gotten an enormous amount of attention in the press, most notably in a series of op-eds by New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, who seems to have bought completely into Farley's views on sex work. (Herbert's columns get a much-needed fisking in this post at Sexinthepublicsquare.) These columns, as well as a similar op-ed by Guardian columnist and dyed-in-the-wool radfem Julie Bindel, have gotten a lot of circulation around the liberal and feminist blogosphere, and a lot of people who were more or less on the fence on the issue have now come out against legalization of prostitution, for greater enforcement and penalties against customers, in other words, for the so-called "Swedish Model" of prostitution law. In an ironic turn, Bitch PhD even came out for the Swedish Model in a column on none other than Suicide Girls, a site that, while not exactly entailing prostitution, does entail a mild form of sex work that radfems like Farley would ultimately like to see penalized as employing prostitution. (Not to mention the exploitative reputation of SuicideGirls even among many of us on the pro-porn side.)

As the above example illustrates, I have yet to see many liberals or moderate feminists fully advocate the criminalization of strip-club customers or porn producers, or even make the connections about how their newly hardline stance on prostitution might ultimately implicate areas of sex work they consume or are otherwise involved in. Such implications are quite clearly on the long term agenda of anti-porn abolitionists, however, as the Captive Daughters report I blogged about last month makes clear. The fact that many of the leading sex work abolitionist individuals and organizations have their roots in the 1980s feminist anti-porn movement is no coincidence. The prostitution anti-legalization argument is getting some support now even among relative "liberals", and its only a matter of time before such arguments will be employed against porn and stripping.

Farley's methods

Just how reliable Farley's findings actually are is an open question. Admittedly, I have not seen a copy of Farley's Nevada prostitution report. (Basically, its a self-published thing by Farley – there is no electronic copy to download and an OCLC search does not show it to be deposited in any libraries. One has to buy a hard copy from her in order to even see the thing.) Farley states (in a September 7th TV interview on the LV news program "Face to Face") that she uses the same methodology as she did for her earlier studies, so presumably, many of the same criticisms of her methodology in those studies applies here. To quote from the Ronald Weitzer (2005) critique of Farley's methodology:

What about Farley’s own research procedures? Much is left opaque. In one study, Farley and Barkan (1998) interviewed street prostitutes in San Francisco. No indication is given of the breadth or diversity of their sample, or the method of approaching people on the street....No information is provided as to how these locations were selected, or whether alternative locations were rejected for some reason....Finally, though Farley lists the topics covered in the interviews, none of the actual questions is presented. It is especially important to know the exact wording of questions, especially on this topic, because question wording may skew the answers.

Farley reports (in the "Methods" sections of her various papers, for example, here) that she uses a combination of "structured interviews" and questionnaires to elicit information from her subjects. However, the raw findings are not reported, but rather, Farley distillation of those findings. Thus, when we are confronted with statements like "92 percent stated that they wanted to leave prostitution" (an answer that's open to some interpretation, in any event), we have no idea exactly what question or questions were asked and whether there this was subject to interpretation by Farley. Nor do we have any idea as to how Farley chooses her interview subjects. The findings may or may not be valid, but there's a lack of transparency in her methods that casts doubt upon them. And in the case of Farley's Nevada report, the fact that the thing is self-published would seem to indicate that there's been no independent peer-review of this study, a fact that does not speak well for it.

(I also recommend having a look at this recent comment (scroll down) by Jill Brenneman regarding her experiences with Farley back when she was still in the radical feminist camp. The comments on how Farley would elicit information and coach ex-prostitutes on their statements are very illuminating.)

One method of evaluating Farley's findings is simply to compare them to the findings of other researchers who have done similar work. As it happens, other researchers have had entry into Nevada's legal brothels and paint a picture a much more nuanced (if not entirely rosy) picture of Nevada brothel work. Notably, Kate Hausbeck and Barbara Brents have published a number of journal on the topic and are in the process of coming out with a book of their own on the topic, "The State of Sex: The Nevada Brothel Industry". (Brents also states in the above-mentioned "Face to Face" program that she strongly disagrees with Farley's conclusions, based on her own 10 years of research in Nevada borthels. The full interview with Brents from September 5th is no longer up on the Face to Face site, unfortuntately.) Also, Alexa Albert, who recently published an ethnography titled "Brothel: Mustang Ranch and Its Women".

That Farley seems to have a knack for coming up with a litany of horrors not reported by other researchers, combined with the lack of transparency in her methodology raises questions as to how much Farley's findings represent the ugly truth about prostitution and how much, as has been shttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifaid about Margaret Mead, is a talent for finding what she wants to find.

(Update, 9/17: Barabara Brents, one of the above-mentioned authors, has reviewed Farley's book here. Sure enough, it suffers from the same lack of methodological transparency as her earlier papers, and "presents none of the elements contained in social scientific peer reviewed research.")

Some responses

The "Nevada Model" of legal, controlled brothels has never been a popular one among sex worker's rights activists, as it places far to much power in the hands of brothel owners and corrupt local law enforcement, provides only limited protections for sex workers while limiting their freedom of movement and disempowering them in other ways. According to Alexa Albert, the brothel system has not succeeded in getting pimps out of the equation, and in the past, the brothels even required the women to have pimps as a condition of employment. (Farley's accusations go beyond anything claimed to date by other authors, however, claiming that brothel prostitutes are literally prevented from quitting and leaving if they so choose.) And, in any event, the legal brothel system is largely irrelevant in the larger context of Nevada prostitution, since it in no way legalizes prostitution where it actually takes place, namely, in Nevada's cities, particularly Las Vegas.

Nonetheless, Farley's study is being used as propaganda not for reforming the Nevada system and other poorly regulated forms of legal prostitution, but for paternalistic Swedish-style laws, that, while in theory decriminalizing sex work, nonetheless make it much more difficult for sex workers who are there by choice to actually make a living and at the same time, increasingly criminalizes sex industry customers, even those involved in entirely non-violent, consensual transactions.

So where are the voices of sex workers, especially Nevada ones, in this debate? Largely shut out of it, except as reported by academics and social workers who claim to speak for them. However, the sex worker blog Bound Not Gagged is planning a response this coming Monday evening, 9/17, starting at 6PM EST, which will be a response to Farley and the abolitionists in general. I encourage everybody to check it out, and contribute information if you have it.

Also, Ronald Weitzer came out with an absolutely excellent paper this month in the journal "Politics & Society". The paper is called "The Social Construction of Sex Trafficking: Ideology and Institutionalization of a Moral Crusade". It describes the sex trafficking issue as one that, while having a basis in reality, clearly has all the hallmarks of a moral panic. The extent of sex trafficking is exaggerated and sex work as a whole is conflated with it. Sex workers are being cast universally as unmitigated victims, while customers are entirely demonized, and all of this being done to advance the political agenda of a particular set of moral entrepreneurs, in this case an alliance of religious conservatives and radical feminists. The paper also exposes many of the myths and exaggerated claims of the prostitution abolitionist movement. Highly recommended, needless to say.