A quick observation: ‘harm reduction’

The term ‘harm reduction’ as the following three implications:

1) That there is a level of harm inherent in prostitution
2) That that level can be reduced, but not eradicated
3) That there is an acceptable level of harm that can be maintained

‘Reducing’ harm is not good enough.
Prostitution is not worth another single woman’s life.
The only acceptable ‘reduction’ of harm is eradication- and that means the eradication of prostitution, the end to sexual slavery of women and girls.
Do not accept any less.

Read this now

If you care about women in the sex ‘industry’, read this now.

No hiding behind the ‘choices’ that you suppose other women make. Let’s make this about yours.
Make your own choice, you who have the time, the means, the privilege to choose – will you turn away or will you face this with courage?

Or will you turn to the superficially attractive, that which brings smiles, mocking laughter, blog hits, false friendship? That which graces the covers of the magazine, is celebrated in films and music? Because it is easier and it makes the world seem sunnier somehow?
The choice is yours, and it doesn’t effect only you. The libertarians lie.

Yes, I know. On this blog, I’m preaching to the choir.
But in case you are not one with this song, please: Make your choice. And make it well.
There can be no compromise on this. What could be more important?
Please.

Courage, again

I think a lot about courage, it consumes me. It is rather a life-long preoccupation.

In the last few weeks, in that weird and frankly scary place known as ‘irl’, I have been called a strong person twice. First time, I looked down uneasily and probably blushed. Second time, I burst into tears. The lovely person who had complimented me immediately then said that that was not the effect she was going for!

Being known as a strong or courageous person (are those words synonyms? They are in my head, I think) can be very difficult- it can mean (although does not always mean) that people expect you to be strong, and that you execrate yourself when you do not reach the overly-high expectations you (or others) have of yourself.

No-one should have to be strong/ courageous all the time.

But then again, courage doesn’t mean what people often think it means.

Courage is that strand of steel that holds you together. It is the inner voice that sees truth when others around you insist you are a liar. It is the refusal to compromise integrity, the demand to be considered as a human being, the acceptance of fear rather than the denial of it.

Unafraid people cannot be courageous. There is no courage without fear.

Courage is not aggression. It is not the condition of speaking deliberately to hurt, of trying to damage another human being. It may well involve speaking and knowing that what you are saying may hurt another’s feelings, but if that is the only aim of your speech, your speech does not come from courage. Sometimes the conscience will say You must speak. It will hurt some others, but it will be more damaging if you do not speak now. You must speak.

This is different. Acting in order to hurt, for no other reason, I firmly believe, comes from cowardice.

Courage knows that it must sometimes put itself first, before the sound and bluster of other people (their words or their unthinking unkindnesses, not their personal safety). It does not, however, deliberately harm others for its own sake.

Courage should be allowed to rest.

Courage does not mean the taking up of every challenge, responding to every snark, standing in the ring when there is nothing to be gained. It does not involve taking the bait each and every time. Courage does not feel compelled to play the rules of the game if that game is cruel, flawed and stagnant.

Courage does not act simply because others tell it to. If others taunt it, calling it cowardice, courage will withstand it. Courage’s responsibilities are to others who merit its care, not simply to the loudest voice. Remember, you are not at the beck and call of others. If someone wanting to humiliate you demands you meet them, you are under no constraint to do so. Courage avoids the pointless fight, scorns the vanity of the taunter.

Courage may make mistakes. However strong we are, we won’t always get it right. Courage can face errors, and make amends, but only apologises when it is the right thing to do.

Courage can be arrogant and say You are not worth my time. This is also okay. Courage picks its battles.

Courage obeys the conscience. To me, this is what it all comes back to. It risks sounding grandiose, arrogant, stubborn, wilful and single-minded. It risks being seen as one in the shadows, avoiding the open ring, one who agrees but does not add. It knows its own greatness through its knowledge of that which is greater than itself.

Courage is conscience.

Edited 30/08/09:    Please read Rebecca’s response It is Terrifying Having Courage.

How to discredit a survivor

I have decided not to be sarcastic in this post, because it comes from a place of sorrow and I think some things need to be stated very bluntly and openly. Much of this material comes from Rebecca, who of course has had these tactics used on her again and again. My reason for writing this is that I have seen so many times on the blogosphere, in real life, on television, in the written media very nasty tactics used to silence those who have suffered sexual violence, particularly in the sex ‘industry’. So I would ask readers to take note of what is down here, and refuse to be taken in by the following tricks. We always demand that survivors are brave, let us be brave and not allow survivors to be bullied and suppressed by those who benefit from the industry that tried to destroy them.

The parts in italics are Rebecca’s words. The pro-porner is referred to as ‘the writer’ throughout.

The Tactics

1: The Opening
The rebuttal to the survivor will often begin with a sentence or sentiment such as ‘X’s voice is important’, ‘We must listen to X’. The purpose of this seemingly innocuous beginning is, to be blunt, to make the writer sound like less of a jerk. It is a rhetorical trick, so that when questioned on their callousness, the writer can wail ‘I said she was important! I said her voice was important! I said we should listen’. One method that bullies often use is to alternate niceness with nastiness. That way, their victim thinks ‘but they were nice to me before, so they must be right when they say I’m wrong’. It functions to confuse and wear down the abuse victim.
So begin with ‘X’s voice is important’, and then proceed to tell X why she should shut up. Note that the very assertion implies that the writer him/herself is setting him/herself up as the true judge of what is ‘important’.

2: The writer has the full story
The best way to undermined a survivor is to say “your ’story’ is sad, horrible, terrible etc – but it is only your story”. This is usually placed alongside other truths/stories that are seen to be more worthy – such as the happy hooker, the porn star who is rich and in control of her career, the women who loved to read porn. Their stories are vital to know, their stories are more important that survivor’s stories – especially survivors of prostitution who speak of sexual torture, rape and mental, or women who were in porn and have diseases and were sexually tortured, or women who were raped by men copying porn. This works on the false assumption that those who enjoy a practice should have the same time allotted to them in a discussion of the practice as those who have been tortured by it. And this assumption ignores the fact that those who have suffered will, by the nature of their suffering and the violence committed against them, have less access to speech and reasons why they might not feel it safe to speak. I think of it as the Fox News syndrome: Fox News claims it splits its time 50/50 between one argument and the other. This, even if it were true, is besides the point, not taking into account how they treat the less favoured 50, and how they present their views.
Say if she is speaking the truth it is only a tiny aspect of the sex trade. Say that most of the sex trade does respect, care for and give great conditions for the women that they “employed”.
This is usually back up with the language of “sex workers” and concepts of unions or co-operatives. All this to show that it the prostituted woman who hold the power, not the men, especially not the pimps/managers or johns
In this world-view, any violence that the prostitute or porn actress is on the receiving end of is her own fault, because she is weak, mentally ill, or just stupid. We must never blame the men.

The writer claims that s/he has access to the full truth, while the survivor does not.

3: She is mentally ill, or biased (or both!)
It must be remember that the word of a survivor of pornstitution is unreliable. Her word that there was extreme violence, both mental and physical, cannot never be proved – for it may she that is lying or mentally ill. Whilst the other side always speak the truth, and never have motives for backing the sex trade. The demand for proof comes up again and again; if she is believed (and truly believed, not just lip-service ‘otherwise-I-look-like-the-jerk-I-am believed) her trauma will be used as proof she cannot be trusted on the issue.
It may be insinuated that she enjoyed it.

4: Minimise the problem; personalise it
If there is violence, it is just a few men that are bad apples.
Strange how these bloody bad apples go into their millions when it comes to the sex trade and it’s consumers. Insinuate that if she knew better about judging ‘clients’, if she knew what the signs were, she may have avoided the bad apples.

5: Say she doesn’t get the rules
That many survivors have come from other forms of male violence, such as rape or child abuse, and may be confused or misread the normal sexual exchanges that make up the sex trade as violence.
Like being told not understanding the rules of rough sex or s/m, like being told that when shooting porn it is ok to have sex that may disgust you it just pushing boundaries.
Sometimes, it is told to survivors that porn/violent sex may cure them of their past abuses. That is a lie that can draw many women/girls in. The survivor’s very experience of sexual violence can be used against her. Because of her experiences, the survivor is told that she cannot understand what consensual sex is- and that she has been having it all this time. The only cure, they will say, is to live it over, again and again and again. Until she is deadened, hardened, more than she thought possible, until she denies her own right to bodily intregrity. Yeah, a ‘cure’ alright!

6: The evil feminists have manipulated her!
Saying that the survivor has influenced by others to say her “lies” about the sex trade. This could be radical feminists, religious groups, wanting to hide the truth from new friends that she was “happy”. She will painted as right-wing, a rabid feminist, a prude, can’t get a man too ugly, mentally unstable, does it for fame.
She cannot have a mind of her own.

7: Deliberately remain ignorant
A survivor must never believed unless she give complete and irrefutable evidence of what she says.
Nothing is said that it almost impossible to have have evidence, when all the rapes and violence are made invisible by force of the sex trade.
It is made invisible and made into just “part of the job” – so must women would not think or dare to complain. Make it part of her contract; she has to do it. If she doesn’t have the court papers to prove the abuse, it didn’t happen. Violence becomes normalised, it’s what she’s there to suffer, it’s part of the job. We all have parts of our jobs we don’t like. Why are you complaining?
Demand the evidence that she will never be able to supply.

8: Make it all about you
The writer will make sure the survivor knows that whatever she says, it’s always really a personal insult to the writer. Everything the survivor comments on, every little negative detail is designed to ruin the writer’s life, destroy his/her sexual pleasure, stop him/her doing whatsoever s/he wants. The writer takes it personally, demands the survivor’s space, time and sympathy. The writer will shout and scream and yell about how unfair it all is, demand equal space in the discussion. The writer demands attention, demands precedence, demands the survivor to concede.

9: Inviting allies to join the party
After making it all about themselves, the writer may appeal to others, to make it all about them as well. The selfish bitch is trying to ruin everything! Make sure they know they can tear her down too. The writer will gleefully allow abusive men to publish their nasty comments under the everlasting aegis of ‘free speech’, which the writer holds above human dignity and the physical and mental integrity of women. The men will put her in her place, even if you can’t. Encourage your friends to comment, invite them to insult, deride and torment the survivor; allow them to do the dirty work for you.
When the survivor refuses to give in to the writer’s more subtle abuse, the writer will go in for the direct attack. They will insinuate that the survivor has asked for it, for she has not answered the writer’s supposedly valid criticisms, has not provided proof (or anything the writer will condescend to accept as proof), has not responded, is rude, has not given the writer exactly what s/he wants. Then, the writer will smirk, the gloves are off, and she totally asked for whatever abuse comes her way.

10: War without end
The writer will continue 1-9 over and over and over again. Neither decency nor self-respect will stop him/her. S/he will make sure it never ends, will bully and torment until s/he identifies another enemy.

Just a few bad apples

Rebecca wrote on this already, so please read her first. I have been thinking of writing on this phrase because I have heard it so much lately.

The complete phrase is, I believe, ‘a few bad apples don’t ruin the crop’. Rapists and abusers of prostitutes are just ‘bad apples’, we hear. The rape of women in pornography is also the result of a few ‘bad apples’. The use of pornography by an abuser- he is a ‘bad apple’. The rapist who enacts porn on his girlfriend? A ‘bad apple’. They are sour, bitter, poisonous. We can chuck them aside and concentrate on the appley goodness emenating from the rest of the tree.

But what we mustn’t do, of course, is look at the roots. We mustn’t question why the apples are rotten. We are to accept it as a fact of life, an unavoidable accident of nature. Some apples are bad. What can we do?

We could, of course, always look at the ‘good apples’- they are, after all, what we are comparing the ‘bad apples’ to. What about the man who emotionally blackmails his girlfriend into becoming pornography for him? Is he a ‘good’ apple? ‘Bad’? Indifferent? Just how do we define the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ apples? How high or low are our standards? Or, to put it more bluntly, How low are the standards that defenders of pornography set for women, particularly for those who have survived pornstitution?

The man who choses not to be overtly violent while using prostitutes? Is he a good apple? The man who shows his girlfriend pornography but kindly doesn’t force her into acts which appal her- is he good apple too? A respectful one? Are these the pinnacle of male achievement? Is this what we are to say is acceptable? If the good apples tut tut tut the bad ones, does that make them good?

Survivors of pornstitution are seldom full of stories about all the good apples they encountered during their ordeals. The rapist ‘bad apple’ does not tend to stand out as one among many ‘good apples’, the rotten, stinking core which is thrown out with the rubbish. The ‘bad apple’ the ‘good apples’ reject. Usually, the story of a survivor isn’t of the wonderful times she had punctuated by the horrific action of one bad apple. In fact she might wonder, in the isolated world she is compelled to occupy by porn’s defenders, the world in which her experiences are purely ‘personal’ and should not be allowed to rend apart the complacency of others, she might wonder indeed- why did she get so many bad apples? How can one person be so unlucky?

How can millions of women, worldwide, be so unlucky?

How many ‘bad’ apples are we willing to make the vulnerable endure before we say that the crop is foul? How many bad apples must they endure so that pornsick gents can get their kicks? What makes these men so important?

Are they the ‘good’ apples?

‘I’ve never hit a woman’, Pornsick Random Male I says proudly, waiting for his medal, demanding a prize for not being a batterer. ‘I’ve never raped anybody’, says Pornsick Random Male II, equally proudly (I’m sure his knighthood is in the post).

We all understand how calling a rapist or a child abuser a ‘monster’ functions to separate him from other men so that those men do not have to look at their own actions, so that women do not have to face the fact that rapists don’t have ‘rapist’ (or ‘bad apple’) tattooed on their foreheads. We know how that works. ‘Bad apple’ works the same way.

If there are just a couple of ‘bad apples’, then we can ignore the crop, the tree, the grower, the soil of misogyny and contempt for human dignity in which they grow.

What we need to ask, and urgently, is ‘how good are the good apples’? And what on earth is it that we are accepting as ‘good’?

The Bleeding Obvious

I suppose this post does not have the most diplomatic title of all time, but lately my niceness has somewhat evaporated. The alternative title for this post was the more important sounding ‘General Principles’, but as I have only one things to say at this moment, it would come across as grandiose.

Vested interests: if you are a consumer of pornography, you have a vested interest in it, you benefit from it, and therefore your word on how wonderful and harmless it is is seriously compromised.

This seems fairly basic to me. We accept (usually) that, say, the West was a vested interest in the Middle East because it is dependent upon the oil from that region. Thus when western governments spout on about freedom and how it can only be attained by bombing civilians in the ME, we take their claims with a pinch of salt (or, at least, we should).*

The ‘porn is fine because I like it’ defence is widely accepted, unfortunately, despite its blatant weakness. Whether you like it or not is irrelevent to its harm. If you benefit from it, do not expect your word on its benign nature to be taken as Gospel. What seems to protect the porn consumer is the highly faulty idea of public/ private split that pertains in western culture. What goes on in one’s private life, so the reasoning goes, has nothing to do with anyone else and thus is not to be enquired into. So far as it goes, this is fine. How I am brushing my teeth, laughing, weeping, or reading is none of anyone else’s business. But the public/ private ideology was derived by men to benefit men. Abusive men have a vested interest in this ideology as it hides the harm they cause to women. No-one will intervene in the wife-beating going on next door because it is ‘none of their business’. In the same way, the porn consumer is shielded from taking personal responsibility for his participation in an exploitative and abusive industry by saying ‘I like it, it’s fine, it’s private, and none of your business’.

The private/ public ideology is used to invisibilise harm. The abuse of women overwelmingly takes place in private by men who rely on the silence of their victims, whose potential defenders refuse to intervene. Abusers benefit from this ideology. Porn consumers benefit from porn. Thus, they consume it and defend it, hiding behind the impregnable walls of their privacy. They say, since I like it, it is good. At any rate, it is none of your business. Get out of my bedroom, bitch.

Survivors of sexual violence have a vested interest in opposing pornography. Without it, they would benefit from not having their abuse shown over and over and over again for the joy of the self-obsessed. They would not be humiliated. They would see their rights and integrity as individuals respected. They would not be made to relive their abuse by outside agents who get off on it.

Listen to the women who tell you how they were abused in the making of pornography, to those on whom pornographic scripts were acted out, to those who were shown it as children by their rapists, to those coerced, emotionally or physically, into following its prescriptions.

Listen to the survivors of prostitution who were made into living pornography.

Public realm or private sanctuary, you have responsibilities. Understand the bleeding obvious. It is a matter of life and death, of civil rights, of human dignity.

* This is an analogy, and thus by its nature imperfect; I have covered this here.

Inactive, but still here

How has it happened that the UK has suddenly turned into the Med? It’s boiling here, and I am sitting in a sticky stupor instead of writing my thesis, or any blog posts whatsoever.

Hmmm, I’m not really what you’d call a prolific author, am I? I suppose part of the reason for that is that there are only a limited number of topics I choose to write about, and also that I shiver with dread at the thought of putting things up here that are not close to perfect. I over-explain things to make them clear- I hate being misunderstood. It is one of my worst fears.

I am tempted to wield all my sarcasm in one go and write ‘How to discredit a survivor’, analysing methods used online and off- to minimise, mock, disregard and invisibilise the words of female survivors of pornstitution when those words threaten the enjoyments and self-image of others.

I’d be grateful for feedback on that idea- and for guidance on whether is appropriate for me as I am to write such a piece.

I would like a big bowl of cookie dough ice cream right about now. And a freezer that works, to house it in.

And here the ramble doth end.

Update

The Rules have been updated. If you’re reading and boiling with rage at something I have said or that you think I have said or will say, read before commenting. The writing’s on the wall, chaps.

In depressing news, the British National Party win two seats in the European Parliament. Make no mistake about it, these guys are fascists, with links to Combat 18 and the National Front. Some people who voted for them claimed it was a ‘protest vote’. Just what precisely were you protesting against? The rights of ethnic minorities in this country? That rape is considered to be a violent crime and an outrage against the integrity of women?

The turnout was a mere 35% in the UK. This news alone should give people a reason to vote- vote if only to vote against the far right. A higher turnout could have stopped the election of these fascists.

Comments in support of the BNP will not be published. See above, re: The Rules.

Read this

This is what we all must read, what we all must hear, if we dare to claim to care about women:

Rebecca Mott’s Say What I Can’t Say

The demand for proof

‘Prove it! Prove porn is harmful!’
This is a demand for proof, or rather for what the speaker considers to be proof, that I have seen on sex ‘positive’ and anti-feminist sites in the blogosphere. I always find myself imagining the blogger sitting on a throne, decreeing authoritatively to their subjects. I imagine them pointing out, singling out the dissenter, saying Prove thyself.

The pictures in the pornographic magazines lying all around, of the systematic dehumanisation of women, are not proof, according to the blogger. Photographic evidence of abuse is not proof. If you show them an image that even they have to concede is misogynistic, they tell you it is not run of the mill, it is exceptional, just as every rapist is a monster, every misfortune is just bad luck. A bad apple doesn’t ruin the crop, they say, despite the fact the crop is bitter to the taste. Or it is her choice. Notice how it is always her choice.

Prove it, they say. This is not proof.

Survivors are meant to take this opportunity gladly in both hands, seeking the chance to parade themselves before the demanding, disbelieving blogger. They should be happy about this, they should march up and present their case. Better have signed affidavits from your abusers. Better show how you fought. Better show proof. Prepare for cross-examination in the kangaroo court. The blogger insists that the survivor is to prove her case, she is to present herself for judgement, provide the paperwork, the cast-iron evidence for the veracity of her statements. She must not get angry with her questioners; she must visit the worst moments of her life for judgement. She must accept that they will attempt to tear her to pieces, intimidate her and then claim innocence of intent.

No matter that a survivor may have severe PTSD, and not be able to retrace her steps through hell to prove her virtue to the blogger. What weaklings you are, say the bullies contemptuously. Prove it. Afraid for your life, fearful of consequences in the everyday world in which we all live and breathe? You still better prove it.

A woman’s word has never been proof.

As the trial continues, the abusers flee into the background, unnoticed.