Anti-Harassment

I love this video. There are, of course, some complexities to calling other men out right-then-right-there: Can it be done in a way that doesn't perpetuate conflict and violence between men, for example? There are also complexities around race that need to be taken into account--as a white guy, calling out a black guy on street harassment means something different than if another black guy does it. And yet, despite all of the complexities, I can't help but think that the world would be better off if we just heard more men like the men in this video...

International Women's Day!

Whatcha waiting for? Go check some stuff out!

I Heart Kate Beaton...

...because she helps me spot feminists:

How to Spot a Feminist.

Men Doing Feminist Work: Si Spurrier and Paul Cornell

Seems there's a bit of a wave of allies in comics these days.  Recently, Paul Cornell, a celebrated comic (and television) writer, decided that he's not going to be on comic book panels that don't have some gender parity:

 If I'm on, at any convention this year, a panel that doesn't have a 50/50 gender split (I'll settle for two out of five), I'll hop off that panel, and find a woman to take my place.

Yay for Paul.

And now, Si Spurrier has followed Paul's example, and given up his seat on a panel to Tammy Taylor.  I hope this trend continues!

Feminist Reading: Battling Pornography

There is little that tends to polarize feminist communities more than discussions about pornography.  Carolyn Bronstein has written a fantastic book, Battling Pornography, which gives us an in-depth look at how various feminist movements in the 60's and 70's helped to move pornography "...to the forefront of the American women's movement in the 1980s, singled out by some leading feminists as a key agent of female oppression and celebrated by others as an essential ingredient of sexual liberation."  

My favorite part of Bronstein's book is that it doesn't shy away from the complexities of the issues.  It's a great read; I urge you to go buy it:

Bronstein was kind enough to do a pretty in-depth interview with me, below, about some of the issues that I thought would be of particular interest to readers of this blog.

FA:  First of all, thank you so much for doing this interview, and thank you for writing such a fascinating book. I've done a bit of reading about feminism and pornography, and I had no idea about a lot of the history involved.  Who is the intended audience for this book?

I hope that Battling Pornography will appeal to both academic and popular audiences.  Among academics, I think that American historians and sociologists, especially those specializing in women’s history, the history of gender and sexuality, social movements and popular culture will find the book useful and insightful, and will provide a new context for understanding anti-pornography organizing.  Media studies scholars are also a primary audience for the book, as it emphasizes the representation of women in advertising, television and film, and examines how radical feminists in the 1970s and 1980s tried to challenge the dominant constructions of femininity and masculinity created and reinforced by popular media.  Pornography is of interest to most academic disciplines: psychologists try to elucidate the potential for harmful effects on users; political scientists and legal scholars are interested in citizen and government attempts to restrict its free flow and the scope of the First Amendment in terms of protecting  this type of expression; philosophers debate the moral and ethical questions surrounding exploitation and consent among sex workers, which includes the live actors who appear in adult films and magazines, and on adult websites.  To the extent that pornography has implications for many academic disciplines, I hope that a wide range of scholars will find Battling Pornography to be an informative and engaging resource. 

In terms of a general audience, I expect that the book will draw readership from people with interests in feminism, sexuality, popular media and American history.  I hope that today’s young feminists—the third wavers—will pick up Battling Pornography and will come away with a deeper understanding of the unflagging campaign against sexism in media that the anti-pornography feminists led, and how hard they worked to illuminate and contest a culture of male violence against women, especially rape and battering.  Too many young women have been exposed to caricatures of anti-pornography feminists as anti-sexual manhaters who sought to eradicate all forms of sexual expression, and this stereotype has helped create barriers between older and younger feminists, with the latter coming to perceive themselves as rejecting and overthrowing the sexual puritanism of their foremothers.  One lesson that I hope that readers of Battling Pornography will learn is that the vast majority of anti-pornography feminists opposed violence, not sex.  They saw their work against sexualized media violence as a means of reducing women’s vulnerability to assault by eradicating gender stereotypes of woman as passive victim and man as lustful brute.  They did so in hopes that women might achieve the authentic sexual liberation that the sexual revolution had promised, but had failed to deliver. 

I also hope that feminists who were active in the debate, in either the anti-pornography or pro-sex camp, will read the book and perhaps come away with a better understanding of how those on the other side of the fence interpreted the pornography problem.  Some 30 years after the famous 1982 Barnard Conference that I discuss in the book, the mention of this event (famous for its bitter and public clash between anti-pornography and pro-sex feminists) continues to ignite passion, anger and resentment.  The writer Dorothy Allison has identified Barnard as the place where many feminists “lost our religion,” meaning that the women’s movement ceased to be a safe space where diverse voices and opinions could be heard and respected.  I suppose it’s too much to even hope that Battling Pornography could help heal some of those divisions by giving readers greater insight and context for understanding both sides of the movement, but somehow I do still wish that could happen. 

Finally, I think that the book covers significant ground for anyone who is interested in understanding the contemporary pornography scene, and how and why pornography has become a ubiquitous feature of modern life.  When attempts to control its spread through public education and consciousness raising and new legal approaches failed in the mid-1980s, at the same moment that changes in technology made it possible to pipe unlimited adult material into American homes through video and cable television, the stage was set for a seemingly unstoppable proliferation of pornography in American life.   

Battling Pornography takes a nuanced, complex look at the history of anti-pornography movements, indicating a progression of ideas and how those movements and ideas have led us to the places we are today regarding pornography, popular culture, and feminism.  I take a lot of what you wrote partly as a response to overly-simple critiques on all sides of the issue.  Why do you think we keep finding ourselves continually coming back to critiques that (to oversimplify!) complain that anti-porn folks are prudes and pro-porn folks are pimps/sluts/etc.?  Can knowledge of the history of progression of feminist thought and movements around porn help?

Binary categories are appealing.  They provide a mental shortcut that enables us to organize our thoughts about the social world in predictable and easily accessible ways:  Male or female.  Democrat or Republican.  Anti-porn or pro-sex.  A fellow academic demanded just the other day that I identify myself as one or the other: stand and shoot!  This made me realize how badly we need some new terminology to describe feminists like me who see value in both sets of arguments, and would prefer to weave the positions together in ways that encourage and embrace sexual freedom and pleasure while recognizing that not every sexual act or exchange is transgressive or liberatory just because someone insists that it is.  There is always potential for exploitation in human relationships, and the feminist anti-pornography analysis has much to offer in terms of thinking through global problems like sex trafficking.  I do believe that new histories of anti-pornography and pro-sex organizing like Battling Pornography will reveal the existence of more complex issue positions among feminists, and will point us toward new ways of critiquing sexual harm without abandoning the right of individuals to pursue a diverse, satisfying and unfettered sexual life.

The tone of the book is one of neutrality on the issues, to some extent.  As a feminist, is it harder to be a sociologist/historicist around these issues than it would be around any others?  Did you have any concerns around the "objective" framework, given that there are numerous feminist critiques of such frameworks as patriarchal?

When I began researching the history of the grassroots feminist groups that the book discusses—WAVAW, WAVPM, and WAP—I was surprised at how little had been published about their origins, members and campaigns.  The majority of what I found dealt with WAP from about 1982 onward, and with the MacKinnon-Dworkin anti-pornography ordinances.  So, one purpose in writing Battling Pornography was to document the extraordinary work that these groups did around media violence in the late 1970s and early 1980s, to preserve their achievements and enrich the history of late twentieth century American feminism.  But, I wouldn’t necessarily agree that the framework is objective because the very nature of my reading and interpreting the groups’ unpublished manuscript collections transforms it into a subjective account.  I  had to make decisions about what events to describe, which activists to highlight, and which ideas to foreground, and in so doing, I brought my own biases and beliefs to the table.  recognize that it was not possible to create an objective account. 

As one reads deeper into the book, I do let my position on the issues be known.  In short, I think that WAVAW had it right:  focus on popular media; subsume pornography under violence, not the other way around; recognize that men and women are both victims of gender stereotypes that glamorize violence, and above all, stick with public education, consciousness raising and consumer action techniques rather than seeking protection from the state.  I write in the book that the movement only became controversial when feminists began emphasizing pornography as the target and started to look at creating new laws.  Countering fierce opposition from free speech advocates, liberals and pro-sex feminists drained movement energy and resources, and hampered activists’ ability to achieve concrete goals. 

Although I periodically introduce my opinion, I purposefully did not make it a central feature of the book.  Most of what is published on the anti-pornography movement has been written by participants or their pro-sex challengers, and takes an explicit position with regard to the correctness (or not) of anti-pornography theory and politics.  I thought the greatest contribution I could make at this time would be to use my critical distance as a non-participant to offer a factual, insightful and empathic account of the movement that shows how the grassroots groups formed and changed over time, why they made certain strategic decisions that led to the anti-pornography emphasis, and how external political, cultural and social factors affected their trajectories.  There is no other book available at this time that gives you a thorough view of the development of the feminist anti-pornography movement.  Given the movement’s lasting impact on American society and American feminism, I thought such a book needed to be written. 

Since this is an "ally" site, I also want to ask: Is there anything in particular that you think men ought to get out of this book, in addition to or different from what women will get out of it?

      One of the most surprising aspects of my research was the discovery that members of the earliest grassroots anti-media violence group, WAVAW, were critically concerned about the well-being of men.  They argued that the glorified images of sexual violence presented in popular media taught men that women secretly liked to be raped, and instilled in them the dangerous idea that a real man was a brute.  Instead of vilifying men, which is something that anti-pornography feminists are uniformly charged with, members of WAVAW believed that men were victims too, systematically warped by media images of maleness.  They decried such images as “crippling” and “maiming” and insisted that they were devastating for both sexes.  This belief in the artificial nature of gender was consistent with radical feminism and the belief that heterosexuality was an institution designed to ensure the continued subordination of women.  Nonetheless, I was surprised by the empathy that members of WAVAW showed for men and the pressure they face even today to conform to social expectations for traditionally masculine behavior.  I think that men who read Battling Pornography might realize that many of these feminists were not anti-male at all.  They opposed depictions of men that normalized violent behavior as expected and desirable. 

Do you have any plans to do another book that leads us up to the present day around these movements, or even makes more analysis of what should/will come next?

This question brought to mind an experience I had in 2004 when I heard John D’Emilio, an outstanding historian of sexuality, give a talk about his book Lost Prophet: Bayard Rustin and the Quest for Peace and Justice in America, which had been published the year prior.  When he finished his talk, he opened the floor for Q&A, and as it was ending I asked him to tell us what his next book project might cover.  He gave me a quizzical look and responded that he was still working on Lost Prophet, and that he was not ready to think beyond the book because there was still so much that remained to be done with it.  It is only now, years later, having finished Battling Pornography, that I truly understand what he meant.  Will I write a subsequent book that deals with the pornography problem from 1986 to the present?  Maybe.  First, I have to see where this book takes me.  I won’t know for sure what is next until I see how Battling Pornography is received, how it factors into both academic and popular discussions of the pornography problem, and whether it raises a new set of questions about pornography and society that I had not previously considered.  I can tell you that questions around media representation and women are an enduring intellectual interest for me, and the issue of pornography will remain central to that subject.  

How have pro-porn (or pro-sex-work) feminist folks responded to the book?

The feedback I have had thus far has primarily been from the women’s history and gender studies communities, and has been quite positive.  The book is so new that word is just getting out about its publication, and I might have a more interesting answer for you several months from now.  I think that I make a good case for the pro-sex feminists in Battling Pornography and offer a fair account of their intent to challenge the unremitting focus on sexual danger that they saw in the anti-pornography movement, and their wish to speak about sexuality as a positive force for women in terms of pleasure, agency and self-discovery. 

I hope that feminists who support pornography and sex work will come to understand that the core movement objection was to violence, not sexuality.  I think that some of the modern day adult entertainment that is created with a feminist sensibility in mind would not raise the same set of concerns as mass market male-oriented pornography that is said to exploit women’s bodies and dehumanize both actor and viewer. 

One of the interesting things about the book is that I can see various "sides" choosing to cherry pick from the histories of the movements in order to bolster their causes (I'm thinking here of a thread you point out describing how anti-violence-against-women leaders decided that being anti-porn would help get the word out, for instance--a move that might be characterized by some as taking a cue from Mad Men style of advertising).

Well, I expect that’s always the case with a book published on a hotly contested topic, and pornography certainly qualifies as such.  As an author, I think that you have to write a narrative that makes the best possible case for your point of view, present your evidence clearly, offer what you see as the most logical and persuasive conclusions…and then understand that no two people are going to interpret your text or use it for their own purposes in exactly the same way.  I assume that some readers will come away from Battling Pornography thinking that I am a staunch anti-pornography feminist and that the book proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that we need to mobilize new efforts to pass legislation.  Others will read it and determine that I am a card-carrying member of Samois, a Bay Area lesbian feminist S/M rights organization active in the late 1970s and early 1980s which was a major foe of anti-porn groups.  Given how strongly people feel about the topic, it’s fair to predict that the evidence and arguments in the book may get misrepresented at times to serve other people’s academic or political purposes.  But, if you choose to write a book about pornography, you have to be prepared to enter the fray and live with the consequences.  It’s not a neutral issue.  

Allies?

For folks who read Feministe, Alas or Hugo Schwyzer's blog, it's been a kind of trying time. (I'm not going to replay the entire situation--some handy links are at the bottom of this post, for those unfamiliar with the situation.) Even though I haven't been posting much lately, I thought it is perhaps appropriate for me to say something, given this blog is still called Feminist Allies and all. But, while the whole thing has mostly got me thinking about survivors of violence, the nature of the problem also includes reviewing men's place in feminism(s), as well as my own place in feminism(s).  So, it's sort of an open question (for me) as to how I should write about all of this.  So my thoughts are still forming, and I'm trying to listen, and reflect.

Mostly I'm just sad about it all--people have suffered a lot of emotional pain, in addition to any physical pain, around all of this. 

Some things I'm pretty sure of:

• One silver lining will be that The Revolution Starts at Home will sell a bazillion more copies, as some of us try to fill in huge gaps in our worldviews (thanks, privilege!).  
• A lot of us will have a better understanding of how centering survivors of violence can be done.
• Survivors will be centered more often when talking about violence. 
• I will be more careful when talking about personal experiences, in all kinds of ways.
• Some feminist and pro-feminist men will rethink what they ought to be contributing to feminism.
• Some folks will stop reading Feministe, Alas, and/or Hugo's blog.
• Suspicions around feminist and pro-feminist men, already pretty high (often justifiably) will increase.
• Feministe, one of the feminist blogs that kept the ideas of how feminism also helps men in the mix, will likely do less of that.

Some questions I'm struggling with:

• How can I center survivors when discussing violence?
• When is it ok to call out violent words when they're used against men who have done violence, if ever?
• What happens when perpetrators of violence are also survivors of violence?
• If men shouldn't be "leaders" in feminist movement, what practical roles ought they take on? 
• Is having an "ally" blog (like Feminist Allies!) harmful? Is it helpful?
• Men are socialized to be sexist; this includes being socialized toward thinking violence is ok, or that certain kinds of violence aren't violent at all, etc. Any men who are doing feminist work have had to work to recognize and begin to overcome that socialization--I do worry that we can all be thought of as "former abusers" by some folks, and as such our voices don't matter, or aren't welcome, in any feminist spaces.  

Hopefully more later, as things evolve.  I'm going to work on reading The Revolution Begins at Home, and some other works...

The original interview:  http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2011/12/17/sex-drugs-theology-men-feminism-interview-with-hugo-schwyzer/

Thorn's response post: http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2011/12/23/on-change-and-accountability/

Feministe's Apology Post: http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2011/12/24/a-different-take-on-accountability/

Response to Thorn, on Feministe: http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2011/12/31/on-change-and-accountability-a-response-to-clarisse-thorn/

Response to Thorn, on Alas: http://www.amptoons.com/blog/2011/12/28/on-change-and-accountability-a-response-to-clarisse-thorn/#comments

Douchebag Alert

So, yeah. Steven Greenstreet is a douchebag.

Confronting Sexim...Women's Work?

Finding it fascinating that a recent study on how men react to being called out on certain types of sexism only included women calling out the men, instead of other men calling out the men. While it's good information to learn that, in certain situations, calling out men on sexism may have some positive effects and seems to have no negative effects, I'd also like to know how men react to men calling them out on their sexism--because calling out sexism is something that men ought to be doing to other men, as well.

Forbes article on the study here.
Actual study here.

Yes Means Yes.

So, yeah, anybody who tells ya that rape culture isn't a thing, should check out this video of a guy telling a "funny" story about how he raped somebody, as if it wasn't something heinous. Attitudes around rape, including so-called date rape, are so often misguided in this way that it makes me wish Yes Means Yes were required reading for folks in public schools. So: Men, let's call out men who tell stories like this, and perpetuate these wrong-headed ideas about what "no" means.

Why Intersectionality Matters, and Why I Am Frustrated With (Some) Social-Justice Xians

This morning I watched with rapt attention the press conference given by Nafissatou Diallo, the person who is risking so much to continue to speak out about the violence that she endured from Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and I'm saddened by her plight, yet inspired to see somebody fighting back against the powerfully corrupt. Volumes have already been written about the violence that happened to her, and I'm not here to discuss the veracity of Dominique Strauss-Kahn's side of the story. It's clear to me that this woman is not in a power position, Dominique Strauss-Kahn is (in *so many* ways), and, because I can't know exactly what happened in that hotel room (though I can make an educated guess), I want at the very least for Diallo to be able to safely tell her side of the story, without being maligned at every turn, and without any additional physical or emotional harm coming to her or her daughter.

Watch the press conference and try to imagine that Dominique Strauss-Kahn isn't a lying douchebag.

And yet, to add to the misery of the situation, Diallo holds the press conference at the Christian Cultural Center, and is introduced by A.R. Bernard, pastor of that church. Unfortunately, Bernard and his church are the types of Xians who think they need to fight a "gay agenda"--and that being gay is like being a thief, or an adulterer. It's the same old love-the-sinner-hate-the-sin bullshit that is hatred masked as love. Jesus, who said not a word about homosexuality, though he did talk about stealing and adultery, would smack these folks silly:

"So, I make a distinction between the lifestyle that the person has chosen, and the person himself. God loves the person, but He rejects the lifestyle, just like He rejects adultery or sex outside the context of marriage." Nor does Bernard elevate homosexuality as a unique or higher degree of sin. "We condemn it just as we condemn lying or cheating," he says. "Our society has elevated the issue because that segment is trying to gain moral acceptance. But that is contrary to the biblical, moral code that we live by. [Because] they can't get moral acceptance, they are trying to earn acceptance through legislation."

Oppressions intersect. Women are oppressed. Queer folks are oppressed. These are related. Patriarchy (or kyriarchy, if you prefer), ties them together, and the more we recognize this, the more feminist work we can do--the more social justice work in general we can do. Standing up for women in a space that hates on gay people is a Bad Plan.

Interview with Muslim Feminists

The F Word podcast has a great (though short!) interview with the folks who started AQSAzine. What is AQSAzine? From their page:

AQSAzine (est. 2007) is a Toronto-based grassroots arts collective by and for young women and trans people who self-identify as Muslim. Our main project is the creation of a biannual zine of our writing, art, activism entitled AQSAzine. This zine is a creative avenue for young Muslim women and trans people to express ourselves, share our experiences and connect with others. We strive to work from an explicit anti oppressive, pro-choice, queer positive & trans positive framework.

In Arabic, “aqsa” implies the furthermost, as in reaching out to the furthest possible point. This zine aims to motivate the utmost resistance to oppression in all its forms. 16 year-old Aqsa Parvez, whose life was taken on December 10, 2007 also inspires this zine. It is to honour her and other Muslim women and trans people who experience and resist structural and physical violence.

Jerusalem’s Masjid A-Aqsa in Palestine is also an inspiration to us due to its associations with Prophet Muhammad (SBUH)’s ascension, also known as the “night of Isra and Miraj”. To us, the belief in this event represents unwavering faith and an ultimate assurance of justice.

So if you’re tired of feeling alone or fragmented…If you get spoken to slowly because you’re wearing a hijab…If you get asked why how you could be Muslim and NOT wear a hijab…If you’re a steady victim of racial profiling, harassment by police, or “random checks” at airports…If you’re constantly having to repeat your name because no one can pronounce it…If you’re sick of being told “surely you can’t be Muslim AND gay!” We’re here for you, and we’re LOUD. Intellectual, scandalous, curious, hijab wearing, non-hijab wearing, immigrant, sexual, honest, queer, heterosexual all of it MUSLIM: United by our cause and in our diversity. Join us, won’t you?

The interview made me want to find out all I could about AQSAzine, and I'm learning a lot about how Islam and feminism can intersect.

Pro-Porn AND Pro-Reality: Cindy Gallop

I appreciate the nuanced take that Cindy Gallop has on how the ubiquity of porn may be affecting our sex lives, especially for those folks who have grown up with the internet.


I do have a couple of problems with her take on things: One, she seems to have ignored, at least for purposes of her presentation, that it's not only young boys who have easy access to porn, but folks of all genders. Secondly, I'd like to see some science done around what folks of all genders and ages really think sex should be like--I suspect many more of them understand that porn represents a few kinds of sex, most of which are pure fantasy. From Gallop's point of view, I'm overly optimistic about how easily people distinguish fantasy from reality.

I'd also love it if the myriad kinds of porn were at least recognized--there is queer porn, gay male porn, bdsm porn, fetish porn, etc. (and I do mean ETC.!)--so, while distinguishing between what happens on screen and what happens in folks' day-to-day sex lives is important, it's also important to recognize that what happens in all of those places has near-infinite variations, for those who want them!

Bonus video: Robin Williams responding directly to Cindy Gallop's talk:

Porn Conversations

I've wanted to write about Robert Jensen's book, Getting Off: The End of Masculinity, ever since it came out, way back in 2007. The book is an anti-porn manifesto, but it also attempts to be a critique of traditional masculinity as well, advocating, as it says in its title, an end to masculinity. For such a slim tome, this is quite a goal, and it falls short.

One of the reasons I've been hesitant to take on Jensen's book in any substantial way has to do with the difficult, vitriolic "discussion" of pornography and sex work both within feminist communities and in the world at large. These are emotional issues (as they should be), and there is an understandable tendency toward oversimplification and over-generalization on all sides of the issue. As with many other issues, especially when they're discussed on the internet, the idea of giving a charitable reading to something sort of goes out the window--and I totally get that, since aspects of Jensen's book make me want to claw my eyes out in frustration, rather than "read charitably".

Which is why I have actually enjoyed the recent discussions between Meghan Murphy and Hugo Schwyzer, which were an attempt to have a conversation about "pornstitution" that would help everybody better understand at least some of the disagreements between (some) sex positive feminists and (some) anti-sex-work feminists (it is difficult to use neutral terms here). Just the attempt to have the discussion was refreshing, and I commend both Megan and Hugo for making the attempt; that said, most of what was clarified for me was the problems with the arguments (and attitudes) of the anti-sex-work folks. Which has led me back to re-reading the Jensen book, and working on some posts about the book, and about the anti-sex-work positions in general.

Before I begin with the book though, a preview of some of the ideas I want to examine, starting with just a little piece of the conversation that Meghan and Hugo had, because I think it highlights a particular theme that the anti-sex-work folks just get wrong.

Can People Choose Sex Work?
Meghan is frustrated with actual sex workers who put themselves forward as examples of people who have chosen to do that kind of work, and who don't consider themselves particularly oppressed. She says:

“Re: the teeny minority of self defined “sex workers” who enjoy it. Since when is enjoyment or pleasure or *feelings* of empowerment–*feelings* in and of themselves- the same as truth or reality? What sort of argument is being made here? Feelings are also socially constructed in a capitalist/patriarchal society: think of mania for commodities; see the mobs going crazy after sports events (like in Vancouver now?). Lots of feeling there: does it mean consumerism and mob-violence is ok? Men feel empowered by raping: so, do we validate rape? Abolitionists of slavery didn’t care what made a few slaves content–slavery is wrong. Selling people is wrong, no matter how content someone is to sell themselves. These ideas about individual empowerment and pleasure are all part of the way we are bamboozled in neoliberalism. Since when has being content with one’s lot stood as an argument that one’s lot is therefore just and right? We don’t have to tell an individual woman “porn star” about what her “experience” is in order to critique the prostitution of women as a societal institution–to critique the demand by men that women’s bodies are for sale.”

But of course people who want their voices heard aren't speaking up because they think their choice means that everybody has the same choice that they do. Instead, some folks who do/did this kind of work offer themselves up as counterexamples to the claims that some radical feminists make that sex-work can't even exist as work, because one can never, ever choose it without being in some sense coerced. Murphy chooses to place the term sex work in scare quotes when talking with Hugo, which follows suit with the idea that there just is no such thing as sex work, because all sex work is coercive. A sex worker who wants Meghan to listen and acknowledge that some porn work is chosen freely isn't asking Meghan to then never critique porn as a larger industry; she (or he, or zie) is asking Meghan to ditch the claim that doing porn can never be a choice.

And clearly there are lots of folks who don't have a free choice--sex trafficking, for instance, is a clear case of coercion (and, because it's obvious coercion, we shouldn't call it sex work. And clearly there are huge problems with the production of pornography--but that still doesn't mean it is the case that folks can never choose to do sex work. Some anti-porn folks acknowledge this, but when they continue to use scare quotes around the phrase sex work, I'm not sure why they don't understand that folks who do sex work feel silenced by that.

Red Without Blue

I haven't seen the whole film yet, but this documentary about a pair of twins, one of whom is a trans gal, is fascinating, including lots of good insight into issues of traditional masculinity. Here's the preview:

Watch more free documentaries

The film is available in full at snagfilms here.

No, Seriously: Another Space for Feminist Men

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

On Sex Addiction and Compulsive Sexual Behavior

A recent discussion on The Good Men Project with Tom Matlack and Amanda Marcotte caught my attention. In the wake of the so-called scandal around Anthony Weiner, Matlack and Marcotte give their ideas regarding some pertinent questions. Among other questions, they are asked:

Is rehab appropriate or just a way to gloss over the crime?

Seems to me that this question promotes a false dichotomy--it may very well be that rehab can help Weiner shift his behavior, but at the same time it could also be a delaying tactic, distracting all of us from the shiny object of the scandal. The way the question is posed, there is a not-so-subtle implication that either Weiner needs rehab, and is therefore somehow less culpable, or he doesn't need rehab, in which case we can more easily hold him accountable.  Whether or not one agrees with that framework, it's better to have it explicitly laid out, rather than in the background, in part because both Matlack and Marcotte are working within this framework. Matlack answers the question:

Tom: I do believe sex addiction is a real disease, not different from reliance on drugs or alcohol. It involves a complete lack of honesty and being willing to put sexual interactions above all else in your life with no regard to reason or self-preservation. I would think that Weiner fits that definition. I have no idea if rehab is the answer but the way he has been living his life sure doesn’t look like it is working out so well right now.

Why the concern about whether or not sex addiction is "a real disease"? Again, I think the implication is this: If it is somehow a real disease, then we can less easily judge Weiner for his actions, or we should at least keep in mind that there is some sense in which we might mitigate his responsibility because some of the factors regarding it are deeply physiological, and therefore very difficult for him to control. We see this sort of reasoning regarding addictions like alcohol:  Our culture has a different take on alcoholism (at times) than it did 100 years ago--we still hold drunk drivers responsible for what harm they cause while driving drunk, but we now see alcoholism as a deeper physiological problem, not simply a result of a "weak will" (at least, many of us see it that way).

I think it's good to spell some of this stuff out, even though it's probably ridiculous on some level for any of us to guess whether or not Weiner needs professional help. Matlack thinks it's clear from Weiner's poor risk assessment that he needs some sort of professional help, and I'm inclined to agree, with the caveat that it's difficult to tell.

Marcotte's take on this is more troublesome, for me. She begins her answer with:

Amanda: I don’t believe sex addiction is a real disease. I think some people might need psychological interventions for compulsive sexual behavior, but characterizing sex as addictive troubles me.

What does Marcotte's distinction between "sex addiction" and "compulsive sexual behavior" amount to? If Weiner's behavior is the result of compulsive sexual behavior, and not sex addiction, what does that mean for how we judge his behavior? What does it mean for what sort of treatment he may or may not need? Turns out, in professional circles, the jury is still very out on the whole addiction/compulsion question. Some folks think all addictions are based in compulsion, some think that there are similar mechanisms in the brain for both, and some folks think they're very different. But why is Marcotte troubled by labeling behavior as a result of addiction, rather than compulsion? She goes on to say:

Will we start calling overeaters “food addicts”? People who sleep in on Sundays “sleep addicts”?

 Well, it turns out that overeaters may well be food addicts, or at least some scientists think it's worth investigating whether or not "addiction" could be a framework for overeating.  Here's part of an abstract from a scientific paper that comes from a cursory google search:

Is it more than a linguistic accident that the same term, craving, is used to describe intense desires for both foods and for a variety of drugs of abuse? There is strong evidence for common pathways that are affected by most addictive drugs. As the other contributors to this volume will indicate, a strong case can also be made for some shared substrates for food and drug rewards in animals. There has been less explicit work on this topic in humans but many lines of evidence support the common mechanism view: Opioid peptides seem to influence food palatability for humans.

As for "sleep addiction" and "sleeping in on Sundays"--it would seem laughable to call somebody who sleeps in on Sundays a sleep addict, but what's going on in the brain of a person who sleeps 12 hours a day? How would, say, depression and anxiety relate to that person--and how is depression similar to and/or different from addiction? How is it different from or similar to compulsion? My point is that, while Marcotte's "sleeping in on Sunday" idea is made to point out the possible slippery slope of calling anything an addiction, it's also ignoring the complexities that underlie our behavior.

She continues:

At what point are we willing to say that someone is having “too many” orgasms? 

Of course, sexual addiction and/or compulsion isn't about having too many orgasms--though one can imagine, in our sex-negative culture, using the addiction/compulsion models in order to call somebody out as "sick" simply because they are having more orgasms than somebody else is comfortable with! But sexual compulsion/addiction has to do with privileging sexual arousal in a way such that the rest of one's life suffers, as Matlack notes, not about how many orgasms one has. And implying that sexual addiction/compulsion is just about having "too many orgasms" is pretty dismissive of the many folks who feel they are struggling with something serious, as well as folks who feel they have suffered because of the sexual compulsions and addictions of others.

On another point I agree a bit more with Marcotte, however.  She says:

It seems to me that we’re overrating Weiner’s willingness to put his sex life above other things. He didn’t actually have sex with these women. He mostly seemed to be sexting with them to amuse himself while working and traveling, and if he hadn’t slipped up, it seems like he would have gotten away with it.

Leaving aside for a moment the idea that sexting isn't sex (is phone sex sex? is mutual masturbation in the same bed as a partner sex? Seems to me a continuum conception is more helpful here than a binary conception), it seems possible to me that Weiner was simply doing something that lots of people do, amusing (and arousing) himself (and, possibly, others).  Leaving aside any infidelity for a moment, he may have just been having a bit of fun. I'm suspicious of that framing, however, because it ignores that Weiner was taking great risks in order to have a bit of fun, given that he is (was?) a high-profile politician. And it could be that he simply didn't think enough about the technology he was using (once you put a picture out there, it's out there forever, and traceable), but it seems more likely that he was engaging in what even he would have called risky behavior, given his job. If somebody shares my naughty sexting with the world, I might suffer for it, but most people wouldn't care. Seems to me that Weiner had to have known that this was a possible outcome, and did it anyway, which is how addictive and compulsive behaviors work, sometimes. But again: It's hard to tell, from this distance.

Finally, Marcotte notes:

 If that’s addiction, then our nation should be deeply worried about the epidemic of Angry Birds addiction.

 Well, yes. Some people are!

I would like also to note that Marcotte has a great article on Pandagon about (among other things) how condemning Weiner, in some ways, is really a kind of conservative, sex-negative, "schoolmarm" approach to sex and gender, and I agree with her wholeheartedly.  She says:

But still, this entire piece bothered me because once again it upholds an extremely conservative view of gender, where men are naughty little boys with overactive libidos and women are scolding schoolmarms whose trustworthiness is assured because we're practically asexual.  )

So: What does all of this have to do with feminism, exactly, and pro-feminist men? Well, a lot, because it is through feminist lenses that men can examine their sexuality, and hopefully develop a more positive male sexuality--one that includes all of the intricacies of our complex human sexuality, which also includes a framework for better understanding sexual addiction and/or sexual compulsion.  I think that Matlack and Marcotte's quick analysis leaves so much to the side in this regard so as to be more harmful than not offering up an opinion on Weiner at all. And I think if we go with some feminist traditions of avoiding dichotomies and examining closely the grey areas, we get a lot more insight into all of this than we do by simply guessing whether or not Weiner is a sex addict.

The Myth of Male Weakness

UPDATE:  Schwyzer has shown himself to be a complete jerk. Leaving this post here, however, so as not to erase the fact that I was yet one more person he fooled. 

From his speech at Slutwalk LA, Hugo provides a great overview of the myth of male weakness:

Male Sexuality, Continued

A while back I asked folks to chime in about positive male sexuality (and it sounded like crickets, incidentally). Here's a site that is doing some exploring of male sexuality, and it's "positive" in that questions about what is missing from male sexuality are being explicitly addressed. Check it out!

The Man Project crossposted at The Good Men Project.

Men Doing Feminist Work: Yolo Akili

It's been a while since I did a post on men doing feminist work, but when I came across Yolo Akili, there was no question that I had to let folks know about him. (As with many of the men in these posts, I'm sure lots of y'all know about Yolo already, and I'm late to the game!) I was given a link to a new blog series he is working on about "queering the cause" regarding work around men's violence against women that, while probably controversial to some folks in a lot of ways, is nuanced and complex. And in a world (and blogosphere) where we don't often enough hear the voices of black, queer people, I hope his ideas get discussed and expanded upon. Please read his whole series, but here is a tidbit:

As a very visible and vocal queer man my very presence has often been disruptive in these spaces. It has been disruptive because, among many other things, the “violence against women” dialogue is intrinsically heterosexist and homophobic, not to mention virulently sexist. Through my work with numerous organizations that fall under this canon “of violence against women” I have been taken aback at how the generational analysis coupled with a “second wave” narrative of power and gender have produced an enviroment that does very little to acknowledge the deeply rooted relationship between heterosexism, homophobia and sexism. It has also been intriguing to me how many of the organizations who cling to this ideological perspective claim to be unaware of or are dissonant from organizations like Incite who have explored the complexities of these challenges in detail

.

There's not a whole lot that Yolo doesn't do. Here's just a little bit from his "about" page:

He is a graduate of Georgia State University, where he earned his B.A in Women’s & African American Studies. He is a licensed 200 level Iyengar Yoga teacher (RYT), with Yoga Alliance having studied and graduated from Yoga of India Yoga School, in Sandy Springs Georgia. He has been awarded the Creative Leadership Award by the Feminist Women’s Health Center , A ZAMI award and the “Unity In Community Award” from Unity in Christ Fellowship Church.

Through his gender & sexuality activism, he has been an organizer with United 4 Safety (LGBTQ Domestic Violence Organization), Spark! Reproductive Justice and the Atlanta Queer Literary Festival. He worked as the Regional training coordinator for Men Stopping Violence where he organized the mentor program, taught men’s education classes (commonly called batterer’s intervention courses) trained and educated organizations and individuals on gender based violence and was the lead architect and designer of “Mercury” An online training for men on gender based violence. Yolo currently manages the operations of Akili inc, providing provocative trainings, education, yoga classes and spiritual consultations to groups and individuals across the world.

Oh, and he's a poet who produced this short documentary around his poem: "Are We the Kind of Boys We Want?"

What Men Can Do: Refuse to Be on All-Male Panels

Of course, it’s not a problem confined to media, and it’s not just panels. The pattern extends to “trend” stories like The New York Times’ “Washington’s New Brat Pack” article, a profile of a few young white men atop D.C.’s pundit class; a widely lambasted story about “dude-itors” in WWD; and, back at the Times, the “Room for Debate” roundtable about wealth inequality that sought the opinions of only well-educated white people.

After watching this happen again and again, something occurred to me: Why don’t the white men who are asked to engage in this nonsense simply stop doing it? The boycott is a protest with a long history of success. If white, male elites started saying, “I will not participate in your panel, event, or article if it is all about white men,” chances are these panels and articles would quickly dry up—or become more diverse.