Wednesday, September 10, 2008 | 9:19 am
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“The most notable, even distracting, aspect of the article is that it’s written by a man. Susannah Breslin has written about the challenges male journalists face when writing about sex workers, and although I would never want to say men shouldn’t write about sex work, I might venture to say that they don’t seem to be very good at it. (When the subject is foreign sex working women, that is.) I’m sure this is not true in all cases, but I keep getting the impression that, in addition to being a white Westerner, this other layer of removal from their subject—i.e. they are not women—makes it difficult to successfully engage with their subjects, and also makes them sort of….dumb, about particular compromises that women the world over are familiar with.”
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“I don’t know what type of -ism this qualifies as (classism?) but it makes me furious, and it’s way too common among porn consumers. ‘Sure, I’ll habitually consume the product you create for me, but I’m still going to denigrate you as a whore, mock your attempts at having a normal life [see: Jenna Jamesons's pregnancy], and generally try to shame you out of the public sphere.’ If you’re not mature enough to treat the workers who create your porn like actual human beings, you’re not mature enough to watch porn.”
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“Sometimes when I present the idea that its not the aggressive anal/choking/cum splattering that makes porn unethical or unfeminist, but the conditions under which the performers are doing said acts, people say things like, ‘its impossible to know what the working conditions are.’ It isn’t impossible - it just requires some research. Just as people research textile factory conditions and then put pressure on corporations to have better practices - the same could happen with porn.”
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“I worry about how you’re going to infect what is really a two-person thing that happens to be shared publicly because that’s the world we’re living in. I worry I’m going to have to manage your feelings, your investment, your expectations.”
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