Great post by Ozymandias on her blog on the subject of “Who cares about men’s rights?” (Answer, Ozymandias, for one.) She offers a devastating critique of the Men’s Rights Movement and a critique of feminism I think I half-agree with as well. (She critiques feminists for not caring enough about men’s issues and responding to them with “but what about the menz” mockery; I think she’s got a point, but the fact is that lots of feminists do in fact work on behalf of men and men’s issues, from feminists involved in fighting for men and women falsely accused of sex crimes to feminist shelter workers who work on a regular basis to help male victims of abuse.)
Anyway, you should pop on over and read it.
It’s being discussed all over Reddit as well.
The post also inspired a debate on the old “chicks only want to date jerks” thing, which she’s broken out into a separate post.
EDITED TO ADD: And now The Spearhead has noticed the post.
Have you heard of how radfems speak of third wavers? “Fun-fems who want to help “the enemy” and who are not helping women in any way at all.”
Because yeah, much of society will view sex workers with contempt for many varied reasons, including paternalistic attitudes (I know better than you), white knight attitudes (I’m going to save you) and the likes.
Also criminalizing clients is very unlikely to help sex workers. They need the clients and all. Legalize the work so that they can make complaints legally, without being charged for offering illegal services – but if clients are illegal, it will become underground, thus hard or impossible to report bad stuff.
The pro sex worker side seems to be made partly out of porn performers and sex workers themselves, with first hand information. Some have quit feminism because of how attacked they felt by radfems.
Like Renegade Evolution and Maggie.
“The “fallen” woman, the “filthy slut”, the “ruined woman”, to be “despoiled”, “pure virgin”, “sexual purity”-sexuality outside of restrictive traditional hetero marriage is seen as dirtying and corrupt only for feminine sexualities, not masculine ones. It is because gay men and trans women’s sexualities are seen as not masculine that their promiscuity is seen as dirtying them, as “turning them into whores”.”
That doesn’t make sense to me.
To him, they *already are whores, by default, an accident of birth*, either biological or social, he believes it is an inevitability (much like radfems) that male-assigned at birth people end up having a masculine sexuality that wants sex like a beast. He uses it as proof that they are not ‘real’ women.
Much like Blanchard, who invented the term autogynephilia to refer to a made up fetish of sexualizing your body or hypothetical ideal or future body, as if it was THE cause for trans women not attracted to men transitioning. Something he says “obviously does not affect ‘real’ women” – something he never tested or sought to know, also.
It’s quite evident to me, that finding your female body (even an hypothetical female body of yours) sexy when you’re lesbian is easier. But he uses it as a proof that they’re really paraphilic men, since women don’t have paraphilias according to him.
@Schala, what I am saying is that sentiments like this “already are whores, by default, an accident of birth” are not ones often made about cis hetero men’s sexuality, even by those who push the myth of the insatiable/always willing male. Masculine promiscuity is not seen as whorish or as dirtying, feminine promiscuity is. Phrases like “filthy whore” are not seriously directed at cis hetero men. Being the receptive partner in anal or vaginal sex is perceived socially as feminine, and gay men and women (cis and trans) are seen as receptive partners. Consider how femme gay men are presumed to be the receptive partner, because it is treated as if feminine=receptive partner in intercourse, and how femme gay men are slut shamed far more often than their butcher gay male counterparts. So, while the stereotype of men as having extreme sex drives does play into notions of gay males(and, for some transphobes, trans women) as wanting lots of sex, the reason this is seen as demeaning, whorish, and dirty is largely because they are seen as taking the “feminine” role of being the receptive partner.
I am not sure you are misreading the claims this author is trying to make, bigots like that are often self contradictory, I am saying that some the apparent premises are based on certain types of longstanding sexism and homophobia which directly contradict the end claim.
Also, Blanchard, ugh. And he is up to no good again, trying to expand and continue the “transvestic disorder” diagnosis in the DSM 5, once again pushing his homophobic transphobic autogynephila notion (he also made up one for trans guys too now-autoandrophilia). I don’t think any of us are half as much in love with ourselves as Blanchard is with himself. Also, people think of these things more often than he gives them credit for, if the variety of terms for having sex with your own clone over at urban dictionary is any indication…http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=clone%20sex (and we don’t even have human cloning technology yet…)
@klopbop ty! 😀 You are rly awesome too :] and rly cool :] if you want to IM or something drop me a line on my blog :3 (in my name link)
@darksidecat you are awesome (and v knowledgable and smart) also 🙂 and my invitation extends to you too :3 if that’s ok… i just like meeting new cool ppl online :3
@Schala I think you’re (not deliberately) rly conflating some things in order to see a certain conclusion : And yus Blanchard’s an asshole -_-;; I rant about him allll the time >:| In fact I just ranted about him to a friend last night xD