[Inspired by Caroline's brilliant essay over at Uncool]

You know that I spend a lot of bandwidth here focused on exposing what I see are the lies and total wrongness of antiporn activism, especially from those pretending to be from the Left or the liberal perspective.

I’m sure that you have wondered out loud why I have such an obsession with these folks, and why shouldn’t I refocus this blog on more mundane matters, like, say, Obama’s historic candidacy or the upcoming hurricane season or the regular heat and humidity of South Louisiana??

Wehhheeelllll, Clones….if you really, really want to know, then I will amuse you with an answer.

It’s all about defending innocent people who do no harm to themselves or others against slander.

It’s all about defending the basic essential principle of social solidarity combined with respect for choice and diversity in all matters, from economics to sex.

It’s about debunking and demystifying all the rumors and memes put forth about not only the people who perform explicit sexual imagery and acts by their own choice, but those who actually enjoy the fruits of their labor.

But, mostly, because you can always count on the stupid, the insane, the totally whack, and the outright bigoted crackpot statement from the more strident of the “antipornradfems” which practically screams for a rebuttal.

Yes, I’m sure that the usual suspects do monitor and on occasion even will troll my blog so that they can fire their popguns at me for being such an evil defender of rape and murder.  I’m almost sure that Witchy-Woo, Maggie, Stormy, Sam Berg, Gooney Stan Goff, Bob Jensen, and all the rest of the AntiPorn Posse are already loading up their ammo to unload on me for  wanting to “increase men’s sexual access to women”; for being Renegade Evolution’s “pimp” (yeah, right, as if Ren Ev can’t make her own damn money on her own using her own damn talents; her use of sex being not even the best of these….and BTW, that is a high credit to her indeed, considering her sexual talents); and for basically being….well, a man who’s not afraid of either his dick or his brain and still willing to respect women for being human beings.

And that brings me to the final and ultimate reason why I will continue to bring the noise whenever it is needed; and to continue to tweak the noses of these bluenose pseudofeminists and their Christian Right allies in sexual reaction.  Actually, it’s more like several reasons, having mostly to do with some very intelligent, very talented, and very sexy women whom I have had the pleasure of meeting, debating, and even chatting with online. All of them have been associated in one way or another with performing or producing erotica/porn; and each have had their own unique experiences therein: the beautiful as well as the painful; the ecstasy as well as the agony. And yet, all of them have managed through their own ways to educate me more than any book or theory that sexual women can be as thoughtful, as passionate, and as human as any other woman or person on this earth.

Even if I never ever meet them face to face, they will have enriched my life and my brain (the big one between my shoulders as well as the little one between my legs) to my eternal benefit. And the best thing is….they still are.

Consider this collage of my inspirational erotic women my “Kiss my ass, suckas” tribute to the Antiporn Fascist League.

(Just a heads up: the pics are sexy yet safe; I can’t guarantee anything about either the women included therin or the embedded links; those specifically NSFW will be marked as such.)

Shauna O’Brien: Former Penthouse Pet/Softcore Erotica Super Diva/All-Around Baaaad-Asssss (Now Retired) Some background on her can be found here; see also this story on how Shauna dealt with a troll who questioned her abilities and profession.

Nina Hartley (Warning, link NSFW):  The one, the only, and the original…and the closest representative to Aphrodite we have on this earth. Enough. Freakin’. Said.

Vicky Vette (link NFSW): From corporate management to softcore modeling to hardcore porn to her own successful adult website: A bad girl done good.  Damn good.  And damn fine, too. (And her brains and heart are even bigger than her boobs, too.)

Keisha (another NSFW link): You do know that she’s pursuing a Masters’ Degree in Psychology, do you?? It should match her Doctorate in Sex pretty well, shouldn’t it??

Allie Chase (aka Naughty Allie): Computer geek by day; amateur swinging seductress by night…proof that you don’t have to be a professional porn actress to play the slut. Except…she does a lot more than just play.

Bridgett Lee (link NSFW. again): The Florida Sun Coast’s reigning hottest MILF…and a woman who has lived through one hell of a ride.

And, last only in this chronology, but never in rank, the Henchwoman/Roman God Emperor known as Renegade Evolution…..you think that I’d be “pimping” her for nothing??

For these fine ladies, I fight to my death.  Though, it’s so much better to stay alive to enjoy them.

Thems who hate on them and me for liking them as women: Just kiss it….then just SYAD and STFU.  And have a nice Fourth of July holiday, too.

As if there wasn’t enough reason to heart Renegade Evolution for being as brainy and passionate as she is sexy:

Gail Dines, Her Porn Training Program, and Me

It’s VERY long, but every word is worth the read….a total debunking of the antiporn “feminist” nonsense from pillar to post and back again.

This almost makes up for the passing of that bad-ass motherfucker George Carlin this morning….

I’m sure that you have heard of the Showtime original show Penn and Teller: BULLSHIT!, in which the legendary comedic/magic duo of Penn Gillette and Teller (don’t know his surname) basically exposes what they see as urban myths, rumors, and other assorted fictions.

Well…for the beginning of their sixth season, they decided to train their BS meters on The War on Porn, and all the myths from both Christian Right and radicalfeminist “Left” about the innate evil thereof. And lookee here….one of the skewered antiporn “experts” just so happened to be our dear friend Dr. Gail Dines; professor at Wheelock College and promoter of the usual “porn is racist/sexist/promotes degradation of women” meme.

Now, as you plainly know, Dr. Dines is well known for her habit of intimidating and refusing to debate women who don’t march in perfect step with her ideology; she has steadfastly refused to share even the hint of a microphone with the likes of Nina Hartley (except in venues where Dines could, in the typical Bill O’Reilly fashion, ambush and entrap women like Nina and distort their responses to their “inquiries”). Plus, she is legendary for her use of porn material without the permission of the actual models or performers featured to sell her beliefs about the innate evil of said expression. And, she is quite vocal about how she believes antiporn “feminist” voices are basically “shut out” and “censored” by the evol Male Liberal Patriarchial Media who simply doesn’t want to admit their sin of masturbating to the “death and destruction” of women and children.

Problem is, though, for someone who is so disgusted with the “male media,” Professor Dines also craves the media spotlight like any other demogague….which is why she agreed to appear on the aformentioned episode of P&T: BS! concerning porn.

Now, you would have guessed that knowing how Penn and Teller can be when it comes to driving their points home and being as agggressive as pit bulls when it comes to debunking their favored topics, Dines would have probably thought better of appearing knowing that their audience would probably not be accomodating to their views. And indeed, it wasn’t: the show basically debunked and smashed all of her mythologies about the dangers of porn and its impact on women and men….to the point that Dines and the other antiporn panelists who appeared were reduced to sputtering in anger when their talking points fell on deaf ears.

Funny how it feels to be on the other side of the rout…right, Professor Dines??

But, oh, Gail Dines is nothing if not perseverent…..she decided to take her case against Penn and Teller directly to the people, using an essay posted directly to CounterPunch this morning titled “Penn, Porn, and Me”…with the suggestive subtitle of: “How Some Men React When They Think You Want To Take Away Their Porn”. (As if Penn and Teller were themselves porn addicts for not totally buying into Dines’ ideology.)

Mostly, Dines’ rant is that Penn and Teller totally misinterpreted her stance about porn…namely, the kind of porn that men supposedly truely want to see; mistaking the soft core that is Showtime’s/Vivid’s fare for the real “Shock-n-Awe” gonzo that really rings up the registers and drives the degradation complex. Mostly, though, Penn’s just an angry, bitter man who just wants to keep on wanking to porn that damages women, according to Ms. Gail:

I have seen a lot of upset men, but few get close to the level of rage Penn exhibited on the show. As he yelled and screamed into the camera, I thought he was going to have a stroke. He was especially upset with me for suggesting that mainstream porn, which is increasingly cruel and degrading, has a real effect on the men who use it.

The interesting part of this story is not Penn’s out-of-control anger, but the way the show framed the story on porn. As was expected, the producers used the topic as an excuse to show lots of porn; a quick and cheap way to pull in the audience. But the porn they showed was the soft core kind that is mainly girl-on-girl sex, the type that is not the main moneymaker for the industry.

The porn that makes most of the money for the industry is actually the gonzo, body-punishing variety that shows women’s bodies being physically stretched to the limit, humiliated and degraded. Even porn industry people commented in a recent article in Adult Video News, that gonzo porn is taking its toll on the women, and the turnover is high because they can’t stand the brutal acts on the body for very long.

OK….so the fact that it’s mostly girl/girl sex and solo masturbation scenes and mostly “vanilla” hetero scenes found in most porn sites and movies which make up nearly 80 to 90 percent of the porn being viewed in the US means absolutely nothing to Professor Dines; it’s that nasty-ass gonzo and the circus-sex acts of facials and anals and gangbangs that really count…..and of course, we all know that women are leaving in droves due to the “abuse” of such acts. Ahhhh, Gail….would it be just a little effort to actually ask some female performers who have left the industry — well, at least those not already integrated with antiporn ideology like Shelley Lubben — if they felt “degraded” or “humiliated” by the experience of doing porn?? But oh, nooooos….that would mean actually accepting the social agency of such women as actual human beings rather than just plain suckers for Teh Patriarchy, or just mindless sluts needing reeducation or redemption for their sin of liking cock or twat..or both at the same time. We “leftist” feminists can’t be having that, can’t we???

Ahh, but Professor Dines has more to bitch about….

While I doubt that Penn is any stranger to this type of porn, I know for sure that the lead producer is aware of it. In preparation for the show, he spent several hours with me as I carefully explained the different genres of porn, and he also came to one of my lectures, where he saw in clear and sharp focus just what happens to women in the industry. He himself expressed shock and anger as we talked, yet when it came down to it, he ended up just like the rest of media producers: cowardly and untruthful. The story they told about soft-core porn is only part of the story, as what really needs to be explained is why men are, according to the industry, seeking out harder and harder porn.

Oh, yeah…..”according to the industry”….not according to her biased opinions, you see.

I initially declined to do the show, as I had no faith in Penn and Teller doing anything that remotely looked like serious journalism. In the end I agreed because they promised to give me some serious time to talk about porn. They also promised not to edit me to look like a fool. They kept their first promise and reneged on the second. They introduced the three anti-porn activists as the “Three Stooges”, setting us up as idiots before we had said a word. Of course, every time one of us said anything, they cut back to some soft porn and Penn, who was at times having a hysterical fit. It was both scary and comical, his red face contorted with rage as he yelled at the camera that porn doesn’t cause men to be violent!

Now..the fact that maybe the reason why Penn was going off on Dr. Dines and the other antiporn panelists (no doubt including a more traditional Christian Rightist, I’ll bet) might have something to do with countering her own beliefs that men who jerk off to porn inevitably move on to doing all sort of nasty things like bestiality and rape and pissing on women and pedophilia and all other such depravities..but then again, I’m not a regular view of that particular show. But never mind that, it just proves Dines’ point that porn must be censored for the good of all men!

Yeah. Right. Really,

The show is scheduled to air as a repeat tonight at midnight Eastern Time (check your local listings for exact time in your area); so you can see for yourself whether Gail was indeed ambushed or whether she just got owned by superior talent. Given her history, I’m vouching for the latter.

P.S.: The Renegade Henchwoman (aka Maximus Sexeeemus AssKickumus, Grand Emperess of Modern Rome) is a HUGE P&T fan, and she had a word or five hundred to say about Gail Dines and the show today at her blog, too.

For those of you who think that you are an ally of sex workers, here’s a reality checklist from Renegade Evolution that you might want to read up on. There will be a quiz later on on this.

Some of them aren’t big names. There are writers, bloggers, so on, out there who like to say or think they are allies, but they aren’t. Being an ally has some guidelines, after all. I mean, let us look at this logically and such:

-If you support anything that might endanger the health of a sex worker, you are not an ally.
-If you support anything which might affect the legal standing, legal rights, and legal recourses of a sex worker, you are not an ally.
-If you actively seek to silence the words of sex workers, you are not an ally.
-If you advocate anything that impedes progress for sex workers rights, you are not an ally.
-If you support anything that keeps sex workers engaging in business in unsafe, criminalized, unregulated conditions, you are not an ally.
-If you infringe upon or disrupt a sex worker’s ability to earn a living, you are not an ally.
-If you patronize, mock, insult, judge, presume to speak for, speak over, lie about, threaten, slander, hack, make assumptions about, or belittle sex workers, you are not an ally.
-If you refuse to alter your terminology to suit terms sex workers prefer, you are not an ally.
-If you refuse to recognize sex work extends beyond street prostitution, you are not an ally.
-If you refuse to recognize the humanity of sex workers, you are not an ally.
-If you refuse to recognize many sex works are adults with a level of autonomy, you are not an ally.
-If you refuse to recognize that many people in sex work would choose other options if they were available, you are not an ally.
-If you actually do nothing to help sex workers in the here and now, you are not an ally.
-If you take on a savior, superior attitude towards sex workers, you are not an ally.
-If you use sex workers words, images, ideas, writings, or experiences without their consent or knowledge, you are not an ally.
-If you use sex workers to further your wider agenda or goal without their consent, you are not an ally.

Got it? Hey, you might pass the “you’re not a feminist if” tests, but if you fail here, you are no fucking ally to sex workers.

Excerpted from here.

I have mentioned how much she kicks serious ASS, haven’t I?? And her’s isn’t half bad, either….

Nina Hartley’s site got seriously hacked last week, and the resulting consequences are as severe as the attack.

Ernest Greene has the update and the repercussions here.

To put it simply….I am numb today.

Speechless. Stunned.

Horrified.

The way I was on September 11, 2001.

The target may have been one woman, but the repercussions affect us all. Especially those of us who believe in more open sexual expression.

And the worst thing is…they could hit your favorite site next.

It’s not just about 2257 or the DoJ’s obscenity unit anymore…..what the government cannot do to censor and silence women like Nina, the cyber-terrorists will. And they won’t stop with Nina, either.

Are you going to do something about it??? It’s your freedoms, after all.

Oh, but this is getting really precious:

So, Luckynickl, fearless GenderBorgian and defender of Womyn Warriors everywhere against the evol male erections and transsexuals stalking women’s restrooms, decides to do an attempt at drive-by smack at Ren Ev’s place regarding Ren’s most recent post whacking the hypocrisy of certain “radical femininsts” on porn and sex work.

The resulting lunacy is an instant classic study on how Lucky has totally lost it.

Ren’s already done her own deconstructive fisking of Lucky at her place; but I thought that this deserved a special SmackDog touch as well. So, once more, into the breach, my friends, we go…and let rip the ‘Dog of Rebuttal:

Using Ren’s fisking as the template, of course (Ren’s excerpts in pink, Lucky’s rebuttal in blue):

Certain Feminists: Porn presents unrealistic images of women’s bodies and portrays all women as objects. It defines them solely as things to be used for male pleasure.

True.

Uhhh….not really, Lucky….and how in the hell can porn be both “unrealistic” in terms of body images (and apparently, she hasn’t been anywhere near the Internet often, or she would see a much more wide range of body type diversity); while at the same time deem it totally believable in defining women as “objects to be used for male pleasure”??? As if women didn’t watch porn for their own pleasure?? (Oh, I forgot….women aren’t even SUPPOSED to even HAVE sex with men or even experience sexual pleasure with men; that is SOOOOOO…well, PATRICHIAL and MALE-identified!!! That has to be reserved exclusively for political lesbian separatists like you, right, Lucky???

These same feminists spend a whole lot of time judging women for any action or alterations they make with their bodies, outright insulting people’s appearances, and mocking rituals/styles of dress they don’t approve of.

Personally, I could care less what you wear. Hey, run through the streets naked if that’s what pulls your trigger! I certainly would if I could get away with it! However, we don’t live in that kind of world. You know it and I know it so let’s cut the crap. In lieu of this, it’s a bit absurd to intentionally wave a red flag at a bull and then start whining that you got the attention you were looking for and the bull attacked you.

Ahhh, I see, Lucky…so if any woman wears a bikini to the beach or skin tight blue jeans and a midriff-baring halter top out on the town, and then is approached by a man who proceeds to molest or even rape her, then it must be HER fault for dressing that way and inciting the supposed natural male lust to rape any woman showing a hint of skin. And ANY and ALL women who dress the same way and DON’T get molested or even touched by the majority of men are still responsible for that rape happening…because even though they were never touched and may actually be respected by most men, they still should be blamed for enticing and fueling male erections…which, according to Lucky and the rest of the GenderBorg, are the sole and exclusive source of male oppression of women worldwide.

I know Islamic fundamentalists and Christian fanatics who aren’t even that up front with that kind of antifeminist “cover yourself up” crap.

Oh…and if you have actually been to a bullfight, you would know that it is actually the BULL, not the matador, who gets beat down and killed in the end.

Certain Feminists: Porn degrades women.

True.

Speak for yourself, Lucky….there are plenty of women and men, both in and out of porn, who believe otherwise.

And notice that Lucky doesn’t argue that porn degrades MEN…that would actually be an attempt to humanize them, and we just can’t have that, now can we???

Certain Feminists: Porn propagates lies about women.

True. And tells the truth about men.

Oh, yeah, right. More men read religious texts than they do porn; there are far more sources of non-sexual imagery than there are sexual media; and we have had over 1,000+ years of organized religion and culture imposing gender inequality while opposing even the most minimal sexual expression for women….and yet, it’s porn only produced in the past 30 or so years that exposes the ultimate “truth” about men. Riiiight, Lucky…and I guess that Birth of a Nation says all there is to know about Black folk, too??

Certain Feminists: We have the concerns of women at heart.

Whose best interests and benefit do you work for? Women’s? Why would you imagine that being a penis accessory benefits women as a class?

Oh, nice…and what better way to express the concerns of women at heart than to denigrate a real live woman as “a penis accessory”. I guess that “cumdumpster” or “sexbot” were already used up, then??

Besides, doesn’t Lucky know that a lot of supporters of the GenderBorg happen to be…you know, married to MEN??? Or, happen to be MEN themselves?? I don’t know if she would be calling out John Stoltenberg or Bob Jensen for having such “accessories”, ‘ya think??

Certain Feminists: We care about sex workers.
You care about sex workers so much that you oppose them having legal rights, better working conditions, access to condoms, equal treatment under the law, and actively decry anyone who works for these things as pimps, liars, or enablers. Oh, and you care about the ones who say what you want to hear, until they stop, then, you toss them aside and slander them. Hell, most of you won’t even call them sex workers even if they repeatedly say that is what they prefer to be called!

Well, we also don’t support drug dealers, bank robbery, embezzlement, arson, murder and a host of other things even tho women do them. Oh! How rude of feminists not to support all the choices of women!

So…having consensual sex with willing men and women with compensation, and actively being concerned about their well being and protection, is now on the same plane with murder, arson, and “drug dealing”. How very feminist of you, Lucky.

Actually, I’d say that Lucky would consider sex work to be WORSE than arson or murder or even drug dealing, because of its explicitly sexual nature, and because it encourages the EVOL MALE GAZE and THE COCK, which, if I catch her meaning, is the main source of women’s oppression. Thusly, even arson (directed at adult bookstores) and murder (disguised as state sanctioned “death penalty” toward “porn users”) would be justified as a means of the elimination of said oppression. (And need I reset Lucky’s previous positions on how men should be basically reduced in population directly??)

The next one is Lucky freeballing it alone:

BTW, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a man refer to sex workers as sex workers. Shall I repeat what men refer to sex workers as? Hmmm… how comes you’re not pissing and moaning about that? You don’t have double standards, do you?

P.S. It’s only slander if it’s not true.

Oh, let me have this this one, Ren….here’s a quote from an actual WOMAN who uses one such term derided by Lucky…but in a much different context:

If these activists truly wanted to improve the lot of sex workers (which, of course, they don’t; they merely want to do away with the sex industry), they would insist upon thorough and nonjudgmental sex information for clients as well as whores. One basic piece of information would be that women – and whores – do not exist to be sexually used by men, but that any sexual interaction, including a paid one, benefits from negotiation. This would facilitate the climate of respect that anti-sex work demagogues claim is absent in a paid act of sexual entertainment or gratification. The paucity of sex-positive discussion about what is possible in a commodified context often negatively affects sex workers themselves.

In fact, when we whores see a client or when a peepshow worker or stripper interacts with a customer, the presence or absence of respect has much to do with how sex-positive the client or customer is – and something to do with our own sex-positivity. It also depends upon each person’s degree of self respect and presence or absence of sexual shame. Men who have taken (and internalized) the most damaging blows around their right to sexual pleasure are among the most unpleasant clients to deal with. Unfortunately, the well-publicized opinions of the anti-sex work crowd are highly judgmental about the motives of those who pay for sexual pleasure and entertainment. I have encountered many men whose self-acceptance – and social skills – have been impaired by hearing too much media credence given to the opinions of people who are in no position to make even an educated guess about what friendly relations between whores and their clients would be like. Sex-positive feminists are only now beginning to get enough media attention that their message can trickle down to these men and to other women.

The author of that quote: Dr. Carol Queen, former whore…..ahhhh, I mean, sex worker, sex positive activist, and founder of the Center for Sex and Culture. Is that what you mean by “what men refer to sex workers as”, Lucky???

And BTW….I refer to sex workers as “sex workers” all the time….and plenty of other men do, too.

Certain Feminists: Porn & Sex Work Stereotype women and make all women seem available or useable, willingly and eagerly, for sex.Humm, so…all men hate women, all men are entitled assholes, all men are scum, all men are stupid, so on, are not stereotypes?

Well, yeah, I think that about sums men up. But add to the list lying, thieving, cowardly bullies and by jove, I think you’ve got it!

Yeah…now, does that mean that Sam Berg, Stormcloud, and the rest of the GenderBorg are hiding their “penis accessories”?? BTW…still waiting for that apology to “The Other Miriam” for mistaking her for Ren… *crickets*

Certain Feminists: We speak on behalf of women.
Did the entire female populace of the world have an election and give you that honor and duty? Humm, never got my ballot.

Maybe it’s because felons aren’t allowed to vote?

Oh, but I thought that “radical feminism” was supposed to represent ALL women, not just those who passed the loyalty test and paid the poll tax. Silly me.

And last time I checked, Ren was a fully-abled citizen with no criminal record.

Certain Feminists: Porn Causes Rape No, rapists cause rape.

Well, no, porn is not the cause. Men are the cause. But porn most certainly does contribute to rape. Just consider it gas being poured on an already raging fire. Serial killers have admitted that porn played a major role in their rape, torture and murder of women. But you’re going to deny it? So I’m curious. How do you manage to breathe with your head so far up your ass? Scuba gear?

Now, I will ignore the “men are the cause” smack (and the not-so-thin implication that all men who have erections at the sight of scantily clad or naked women willingly performing consensual sex acts for or with them is the equivalent to rape), and go straight to the attempt by Lucky to play the “Ted Bundy” card from the bottom of her stacked deck. First off, most serial killers tend to be masters of manipulation and deception in the first place (that’s why they become “serial” killers to begin with). Secondly, they tend to be pretty much deeply sexually repressed people who act out their rages at those whom they are attracted to. And finally, they tend to target people in already stigmatized groups which do not have the cultural or political power to defend themselves….that would usually mean, they target prostitutes, sex workers, and those who fit the “slut” stereotype. You know…THE VERY DAMN PEOPLE THAT LUCKY WOULD THROW UNDER THE BUS AS INSUFFICIENTLY “FEMINIST”.

Oh…and not even Ted Bundy, for all his manipulation, even came close to outrightly blaming porn for his rages; it was that great radical feminist sympathizer Rev. James Dobson (who just so happened to interview Bundy at his Death Row cell) who egged Bundy to the “porn caused his killings” theory…..and we all know that Jim Dobson has really no hidden agendas, right??

Certain Feminists: We listen to the needs of women/sex workers.

Depends on what the needs are. See above about drug dealing, bank robbery, arson, etc.

Another reminder of the Maxwell Taylor doctrine: “We are all for self-determination….as long as they deternine OUR way.

(Maxwell Taylor, BTW, was a former US Army General who organized a large part of the Vietnam War strategy.)

Certain Feminists: Well, you can’t count on the word of women with a vested interest in the sex industry!

Well, that’s a little like asking an alcoholic why he drinks.

Yeah..because anyone who doesn’t fall head first into Lucky’s ideology is automatically spit out as either an ignorant “sex bot”/”cumdumpster” or a “paid agent of the patriarchy”…besides, we know that the real motive is to shame the alcoholic/sex worker into quitting for his/her own good and that of society. But, please, we won’t put her in jail….that’s just reserved for the “johns” and “pimps” who “use” her.

It also sets you up nicely to play a patronizing game of Mother Knows Best, by your own rules of course…

As opposed to what you advocate? Father knows best? Hey, do you think if you kiss daddy’s ass enough, he’ll save yours? So what do you think you’ll be doing in a couple of years when men consider you an old, haggard, washed up, used up has-been, and toss you to the side of the road like a used up rag doll? Or do you think with enough plastic surgery maybe men won’t notice and you can pretend you’re 18 forever?

Oh, Lucky, Lucky, Lucky…why did you have to go THERE??? For the record, Ren Ev is in her middle 30s, and is long past the usual age of which it is assumed that porn girls and prostitutes are “washed up.” Plus, she has DEGREES and stuff, which means that she will probably find a way to expand her already copious brain cells. Not to mention, she saves her money for the future.

Also..considering the most recent trending of most popular porn towards the “MILF/Cougar” brand of more mature, experienced, and assertive women, I’m guessing that Ren and other middle-aged women will not be trolling for work any time soon. Ask Nina Hartley….or Vanessa del Rio.

Me thinks that Lucky should be a bit more concerned with what will happen when most women see her ideology for the sexist, erotophobic, rancid bullshit that it is, and begin abandoning HER and her “sisters” in droves.

P.S. Stop calling yourself a feminist. You’re about as feminist as my brother’s left nut. I mean, you could sit in a garage and call yourself a car and all, but that doesn’t make you one, now does it?

Trust me on this. No one will mistake you for a feminist. You can bullshit your parents, you can bullshit your friends, you can bullshit the world. But do yourself a favor and stop bullshitting yourself, ok?

Ahhh, but how soon you forget, Lucky: Ren never considered herself a “feminist”, in fact, she’s pretty much written off the word as describing herself (that what “expatriarte” means, you know).

The real issue here, though, is how LUCKY not only considers herself a “feminist”, but decides all for herself to rid all other women who don’t follow the GenderBorg party line should not be considered to be “feminists”. Considering the kind of “feminism” that Lucky sells, I’d say that Ren’s on the right track.

And we all know from her previous smack how much of an expert on bullshit Lucky is…now do we???

Luckynickl is a feminist the way David Duke is a civil rights activist. Enough said on her.

‘Ya think that all it takes to succeed as a male porn performer is merely to show off photos of your erection to every porn girl message board or adult social website or blog??

Well, buddy…you need to get your ass over to Renegade Evolution’s blog RIGHT FREAKING NOW and read Ernest Greene’s guest entry on the realities of being a male sex performer.  It’s long, but it is worth the time.

And when you are done, please try to tell me that the men who do sex work aren’t any less WORKERS who deserve as much respect and support as any coal miner, any domestic worker, any construction worker…indeed, ANY working man.  That they use their penises as much as their hands and other muscles of their bodies makes no difference.

That we supposedly workers’ right activists exclude female sex workers from our progressive working-class movements is criminal.  That we exclude the men who work with them is downright freakin’ INSANE…and absolutely SUICIDAL.

Just another reason why sex-negativity and not including sex radicalism KILLS the Left.

I am currently in the process of reviving and retrieving all of my files from my former Red Garter Club website, which has been kinda in some funky limbo for the past couple of years while I was searching for a new domain host.

I do plan on reviving the site soon with new articles…but while retrieving some of the older articles, I came upon an old essay that sexologist Dr. Carol Queen had written for a sex work anthology that was quite an influence on my developing (at least, it was back then) sex radical philosophy.

In the midst of the Deborah Jeane Palfrey “suicide” and all the discussion about sex work in general, it certainly livens up the debate.

Some excerpts below, followed by a link to the full text:

As we will see, sex radical thought is both deeply feminist and also profoundly challenging to many attitudes and assumptions promoted by contemporary mainstream feminism.  While I continue to identify with feminism, I also regard it with some disappointment: though I feel that most of its core principles go without saying, I certainly do not feel their unmodified relevance to all areas of my life, particularly to sex.

[...]

Sex radicalism means to me that I am automatically on the side of the minority sexual viewpoint or behavior; because our culture carefully and narrowly circumscribes what is acceptable, much of the sexual world gets left on the wrong side of the fence.  Sex radicalism also means that when I hear the voices of those who have been left out of the discussion, I choose to believe what they tell me about their own lives, even if it contradicts some “expert’s” opinion; it also means that I maintain my own sexual integrity, if not cultural popularity, when I follow my own desires and trust where they lead.

Sex radicalism is also profoundly feminist, and with good reason.  While many men are oppressed (in reality or potentially) for their sexual desires and practices, women are encouraged to never explore or experience sexual feelings in the first place.  We are supposed to exist sexually within a (married, monogamous) relationship with a man, or else not at all. When we do step across the boundaries of compulsory heterosexuality and “good girl” propriety, we are often treated viciously.  Women need each other’s support (although we do not always get it) to navigate the rough waters of living nontraditional sexual lives.  Mainstream feminists learned this lesson from lesbians, who would not withdraw their demand for support from feminist organizations and institutions; it has not, however, extrapolated what it has learned to women elsewhere on the sexual fringe.

[....]

Upon further exploring sex radical thought, I learned the concept of “sex-negativity”, which most of us in this erotically benighted culture drink in along with our mother’s milk.  I learned that there is indeed a community of people who are sex-positive, who don’t denigrate, medicalize, or demonize any form of sexual expression that is not nonconsensual.  In our general society – where sex is sniggered at, commodified, and guiltily, surreptitiously engaged in – being outspokenly sex-positive is sex radical indeed; for even those of us who love sex are usually encouraged to find someone else’s preferred sexual expression abhorrent.

I discovered sex-positive thought in various places: through my study of sexology; through my friendships with sexually adventurous others, especially gay men; in the leather community; and, perhaps most importantly, through meeting women who were both outspokenly sexual and feminist and who refused to let one quality cancel out the other.  These “sex-positive feminists,” as many of us have taken to call ourselves, embrace the feminist analysis of gender inequality, but challenge the silence or conservative positions of Dworkin- and MacKinnon-influenced feminism on sexual issues.  Many sex positive feminists are veterans of the feminist sex ward over pornography and S/M; and many are current or former sex workers.  Coming to a radical sexual world view, especially through my contacts with women who could relate to and who could mentor me through my confusion about sex and feminism, actually proved to be excellent preparation for becoming a whore.  When I did so, I discovered a world very different from the one for which the vague warnings of mainstream feminists had prepared me.  My comments are sourced in the whores’ world I have known; I do not intend to encompass the experience of those whores who do not work voluntarily, who are underage, and who act out the negative expectations imposed on them by a sexist and sex-negative culture.

[...]

As an activist in the sex-positive community, I have met well over a hundred prostitutes, a few dozen dominatrices, and a number of models and porn actresses – far more than have most anti-sex work activists and even most sex researchers.  Just one factor stands out to distinguish those who live well, with no loss of self-esteem, from those who may find sex work a difficult or even damaging career choice.  Most of the former have sufficient sex information and are sex-positive.  Most, too, are staunchly feminist, even though some of them refuse to embrace the term, associating it with women who do not understand their circumstances and who do not support their right to work and control their own bodies.  Most of the latter have internalized negative attitudes about sex, especially divergent sexual behavior, and certainly about sex work itself.

In this respect, the latter are no different from those who have devoted their lives to agitating against sex work.  None of these crusaders, whether they emerge from the Religious Right or the feminist Left, voices respect for sexuality.  (Rubin, in fact, calls mainstream feminism a “system of sexual judgment”(2) — an accusation its adherents have not yet managed to disprove.

If these activists truly wanted to improve the lot of sex workers (which, of course, they don’t; they merely want to do away with the sex industry), they would insist upon thorough and nonjudgmental sex information for clients as well as whores.  One basic piece of information would be that women – and whores – do not exist to be sexually used by men, but that any sexual interaction, including a paid one, benefits from negotiation.  This would facilitate the climate of respect that anti-sex work demagogues claim is absent in a paid act of sexual entertainment or gratification.  The paucity of sex-positive discussion about what is possible in a commodified context often negatively affects sex workers themselves.

In fact, when we whores see a client or when a peepshow worker or stripper interacts with a customer, the presence or absence of respect has much to do with how sex-positive the client or customer is – and something to do with our own sex-positivity. It also depends upon each person’s degree of self respect and presence or absence of sexual shame.  Men who have taken (and internalized) the most damaging blows around their right to sexual pleasure are among the most unpleasant clients to deal with.  Unfortunately, the well-publicized opinions of the anti-sex work crowd are highly judgmental about the motives of those who pay for sexual pleasure and entertainment.  I have encountered many men whose self-acceptance – and social skills – have been impaired by hearing too much media credence given to the opinions of people who are in no position to make even an educated guess about what friendly relations between whores and their clients would be like.  Sex-positive feminists are only now beginning to get enough media attention that their message can trickle down to these men and to other women.

Combined with our treatment by a sex-negative law enforcement and legal system and the notorious tendency of the police to think of aggressions against us as something other than crimes, many of us are routinely victimized – by police if not by our clients and customers.  Meanwhile, most of society looks the other way, including many feminists who are quick to point out how egregiously our clients are “abusing” us simply by giving us money for sex of erotic entertainment.  Feminists should be among the first to clamor for decriminalized prostitution, yet many remain silent and even vigilant in the fight to further criminalize prostitution.  Feminists should raise their voices in protest when police abuse whores or ignore our need for police protection.  Yet too often these voices are silent, even though these socially sanctioned abuses fall disproportionally on those most lacking feminist and other support: women of color, poor women, transgendered women.

[...]

Some of us want out of the business, but many of us want to see conditions improve, with everybody else out of the way.  All of us would be served by a dose of sex-positive thought, which might allow us – many for the first time – to think of what we do as a professional service, not demeaning, on-the-fringe behavior.  An ever-increasing number of us want our sexually schizophrenic culture to look at the realities, not the lurid myths, of what we do; and to see that when sexual pleasure is seen as positive and honorable goal, much of the negative fruit of the sex industry is deprived of soil in which to grow.

[....]

One often frequently hears that whores are sought by kinky clients whose desires are unacceptable  to other people.  This, I think, is the source of part of the contention that clients want to abuse us; in spite of the fact that all over the country women are slurping on their partners’ cocks for free, experimenting with bondage, and arranging or at least fantasizing about threesomes, a large percentage of the U.S. population still considers activities like these beyond the pale, degrading, and abusive, even when consensually performed.  In fact many clients bring socially unacceptable desires to sex workers – or at least desires that are unacceptable in their own bedrooms. And until the climates in their bedrooms change, sex professionals will be among  their only outlets.  The anti-whore sentiment that grows out of the conviction that there is only one kind of appropriate sex and that all others are sinful and/or abusive (depending on the sort of morality embraced by the critic) is precisely the cultural norm in opposition to which sex radical politics grew.

Sex radicals see as a problem – and a source of oppression – in any one’s conviction that their own sexual patterns are right while someone else’s are wrong. Getting between the lines of the anti-sex-work ideologues’ reasoning, we find various concerns embedded but not often articulated: a married man is wrong to take his sexual desires to anyone but his wife; a married man is wrong to have sexual desires if his wife isn’t comfortable with them; oral sex is depraved; giving men an outlet for blowjobs will just make the man want them at home, and blowjobs are demeaning to women; sex is demeaning unless a romantic bond (or a Christian bond) exist between a couple; giving a man an outlet for any kind of sex, including sexual looking [voyeurism], will make him want more sex/kinkier sex, if a prostitute isn’t immediately available, he will harass/rape other women; getting sex from a professional is the same as infidelity; men should not have access to sexual variety; prostitutes carry HIV (to “innocent victims”).  (This says nothing of the numerous married men who actually patronize male whores; but again, this common situation is scarcely ever recognized and commented on by sex-work abolitionists, especially feminist ones.)

[....]

Viewed from a sex radical lens, whore stigma derives from whores’ sexual availability and presumes copious sexual activity.  From a sex-positive feminist perspective, most whores are available and sexually active on their own terms. It’s no wonder that whore stigma attaches itself more viciously to women than to men, for in this society a sexually emancipated woman is threatening and despised; neither “slut” or “whore” is a name most women want to wear.  Sex workers cross this line, either proudly or not, for money, adventure, or rebellion.  Would our client’s wives – or even many mainstream feminists – be willing to brave that stigma for a chance at sexual agency?  What about for the promise of greater solidarity among all women?  Early feminism tried to erase the whore stigma for just that reason; today’s feminist orthodoxy would often rather do away with whores.  Any issues that divides women – and this is one of the most potent divisions of all – is crucial for feminists to consider and resolve.

Other whores won’t necessarily agree with me, but I’d be glad to see sex work wither away because everyone became so sex-positive that a market for our services no longer existed. Perhaps then we could become the sexual healers and sex educators that many of us believe we (potentially or already) are.  Of course, we’re nowhere close to that utopia; in the meantime sex workers can help facilitate gratification for those who wouldn’t ordinarily get it, and we can all – whores, sex radicals, sex-positive feminists, and critics alike – continue to ask questions whose answers point to an increasing level of comfort and safety for sex workers (as well as, incidentally, for our clients).

[....]

The stereotype about sex workers that says we are driven to this demeaning lifestyle by a damaged history must be exposed as the sex-negative and, yes, sexist crap that it so often is. (How eerily this parallels what used to be said about lesbians?)  This image is neither universally truthful nor even helpful for analyzing the situations of those whores whom it describes, unless the question is also asked: What separates those sex workers who experience their lives negatively from those who do not?  Abolitionists won’t ask this question, because it implies that there might be a strategy for creating a positive sex industry, but we whores and all our supporters, including sex-positive feminists, must ask it continually.  Abundant and accurate sex information, as I noted above, is a key determinant.

And while I maintain that it should be everyone’s right to do sex work, I hope people will consider their motives for it whether they are thinking about entering the sex industry or are already a veteran.  It is never too late for anyone to begin to root out his or her sex-negativity, and the whores who haven’t done so – those whose damaged lives and horror stories are so eagerly pointed to by the anti-sex-work activists, and even those who disrespect their clients’ desires – may lack the most important qualifications for the job. It is the responsibility of the culture to work on its negative attitudes about sex and us and our work; but it is whores’ responsibility to work on our negative attitudes about ourselves.

Women and men who do sex and sexual entertainment for a living are targeted by laws as well as social opprobrium, and so are our clients and customers – though the latter form a shadowy, hard-to-recognize army. We are regarded more as outlaws than they are, and this can be one of our strengths: seeing, often with the support of other sex workers, that we constitute a group with different sexual norms, oppressed because of these differences, is the first step toward embracing radical politics and understanding that we are only one group out of many that have been culturally labeled and mistreated. A feminist analysis, too, helps us see ourselves as a group with shared circumstances, one for whom gender is by no means irrelevant. Certainly, we should have pride in ourselves and hopefully in what we do, and sex radical politics, along with a sex-positive belief system and a sex-positive feminist analysis, can go a long way toward ensuring that we develop that pride.

[...]

There is no sexual majority, although the whole society conspires to behave as though there were. Our clients – mostly married heterosexual men who show an illusory exterior of “normalcy” (whatever that useless concept means) – are also cross-dressers, anally erotic, bisexual, fetishistic, wrapped up in wild fantasies no traditional heterosexual marriage could ever contain. And what the “poor abused whores” lobby will never tell you is that many sex workers, too, are fetishistic, sexually curious, nonmonogamous by nature, and exhibitionistic, delighting in the secret proof our profession provides us that restrictive sexual mores are rupturing everywhere.

No one should ever, by economic constraint or any kind of interpersonal force, have to do sex work who does not like sex, who is not cut out for a life of sexual generosity (however high the fee charged for it). Wanting to make a lot of money should not be the only qualification for becoming a whore. We in this profession swim against the tide of our culture’s inability to come to terms with human sexual variety and desire, its very fear of communicating about sex in an honest and nonjudgemental way. We need special qualities, or at the very least we need a way of thinking that lets us retain our self-esteem when everyone else, especially do-gooders, would like to undermine it.

Activist whores teach, among other things, a view of our culture’s sexual profile that differs from traditional normative sexuality. Every whore embodies this difference each time s/he works. It is time for all whores to embrace this difference, to become ambassadors for sex and gratification. The politics of being a whore do not differ markedly from the politics of any other sexually despised group. We must include radical sexual politics in our agenda, becoming defenders of sex itself. Our well being and our defense depend on it.

— Carol Queen: Sex Radical Thought. Sex-Positive Thought, and Whore Stigma (from Jill Nagle’s Whores and Other Feminists, via here)

Seems like some pretty sound advise to me.

Update: Susie Bright has just posted her tribute of sorts to Deborah Palfrey at her blog; also, see Audacia Ray’s snippet at her new Village Voice blog, The Naked Truth. Amber Rhea has just posted her reaction as well.

Original post:

In case you haven’t heard the news of late, Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the so-called “DC Madam”, was found dead at her mother’s home in Florida today.

Right now, they are calling it a suicide; but with these things you never know.

Palfrey had just been convicted of prostitution and bank fraud charges in running an escort service out of Washington, DC….the same service that ultimately claimed now former New York governor Eliot Spitzer and (still) Louisiana US Senator David Vitter as its clients. She had been threatening to reveal the names of her clients, which apparently included some heavy-hitting political figures, but had been denied at every turn by the court system.

I would like to say that I’m surprised…but I’m not…because this is the ultimate (if to the extreme) means to which our sex-negative society deals with women who challenge the status quo when it comes to our hypocritical sexual mores. It’s much easier to drive the woman to suicide or simply murder her than it is to take a realistic look at how our laws and social mores against consensual adult sex (for free or for pay) do far more destruction and degradation than the actual sex acts and services that are bought and sold.

(That’s right, GenderBorgians, I said “acts” and “services”. not “bodies”; women who do sex work are not comparable to slaves, and they still own their own bodies, regardless of whether you like what they do with them.)

Like the Duke University rape accuser who gets slimed and virtually raped over and over again in the media because she dared to even make the claim that she was raped (and NO, MRA jackals and all other “White pity” fools, this is NOT permission to send me your half-baked comments on that case, either).

Like the rape crisis center owner who decided that a woman like Renegade Evolution should be denied the right to even counsel women who have suffered from abuse….merely because she might defile the center with her clients.

Like the cops in LA who mocked and laughed at and dehumanized an arrested street hooker into wetting her pants because they could only see her as an “object” to be used and manipulated for their benefit. (But I guess that since they were trying to get prostitution off the streets, that makes it OK for some so-called radicalfeminists, right???)

Like every Goddess-damn porn starlet, sex worker, adult model, and merely overtly sexual woman who has to face the full stigma of “slut-baiting” for simply not being as “pure” or “chaste” or “decent” for the public taste. Not even a young adolescent like Hannah Montana is immune from the anti-sex gaze; lest even sweet virginhood is defiled by her actress character flashing a bra for her boyfriend.

And all this done in the name of “protecting women and children”, no less.

But let us ban Playboy and Penthouse from military bases; let’s ban all “violent porn” and jail anyone with possession of such; let’s jail all the men “johns” and stick them in reeducation camps “john’s schools” so that they learn that thinking about women as sexual beings is a sin, that touching your genitals to the thought of women pleasuring themselves and other people is such an evil threat; that your very erection can only be a weapon that kills and maims and you should be shamed to have sexual feelings.

And we say that we are better than the fundamentalist Muslims because we don’t do clitorectomies or burqas???

Goddess Damn America, indeed. (At least, until we get some freakin’ common sense about consensual sex and the limits of government intervention in such matters.)

In the meantime….may you finally find peace, Ms. Palfrey. And may not another woman have to suffer your fate merely for being a sexual being…and respecting the sexual side of others.

[As usual, Bound, Not Gagged has much more as the story develops...and see also Ren Ev (who's been on freakin' FIRE of late).]

Well, now….guess who finally came out and gave her accounting of the whole matter??

Yup, that would be “The Other Miriam”…the one that Sam Berg THOUGH was the one who hacked the Genderberg forums a year ago..the one whom Sam sent that nasty email calling her a “lying shitbag” and accusing her of being Renegade Evolution, who also used to go by the handle of “Miriam”….the one who was threatened with everything from legal action to revenge hacking…for something she didn’t do.  All because of her name.

Well…”The Other Miriam” allowed her friend Kim (over at Bastante Already) permission to post a message publically recounting her role in the matter.  It turns out that it was Kim who wrote the email to Sam Berg in response to the skullduggery….and it was Kim that got the flip of the hand response of “If you are not the Miriam I was talking about, then I apologize; warmest wishes”. (Gee, Sam, could you have actually read the freakin’ header and known whom you were talking to??)

Out of respect of Miriam and Kim, I will simply offer the link. Just go there and read it in full, and feel what it really feels to be victimized. As opposed to using “victimization” as an excuse to bully others.