Being Amber Rhea

I felt like writing about a few things that I think were missing from Monday’s post, related to blogging, bottom lines, media (new, traditional, and otherwise) and WHAT IT ALL MEANS.

First of all:

I loathe the idea that if you make money from something, then it’s “selling out” and somehow less valuable to your audience and/or community. I love what Kevin Barnes had to say about this. And here’s an appropriate cartoon from Gaping Void:

Do I think it’s important to question a writer’s motivations? Well, yes, obviously. But this isn’t brain surgery; it’s all part of the general practice of media literacy and analysis that a lot of us do reflexively at this point, on a daily basis. What’s the NY Times’ motivation for leading with an inflammatory headline and putting someone’s life in danger? To make more money, of course. And is that problematic? YES, of course. (If you don’t know my answer to that question, then you haven’t been reading my blog for very long!) But what I’m saying is that this is an entirely different thing from making a generalization that anyone who makes money as a writer automatically, without consideration, has bad motives - and that people who do something “for the love of it” or whatever, and don’t make money doing it, are automatically better or more respectable. That’s some bullshit.

Now - to use a phrase my mom hates - with all that being said, I’ll go on and say a bunch of stuff that might appear, to the casual reader, to contradict the above two paragraphs:

Regina and Dacia and others have talked about how it sucks that, basically, the mainstream media* wants to use their writing when it’s convenient, as a way to make a buck, but doesn’t want to associate themselves with them too much; and/or wants them to do the work for free and then loosely cover it under the umbrella of “covering blogs.” And they’re right, it does suck!

But I know they would all agree with me, too, that this is where new media comes in and fills the void. No use waiting for mainstream media to get on the bandwagon and catch up; we all know how long THAT takes, if it ever happens at all. Instead, we can use the tools that are now available to us to get accurate information out there quickly, in our own voices, unpolluted by editors who are “uncomfortable” with certain topics or downright ignorant, and reach people who otherwise might not be reached (and they will have a voice, as well!). Sexuality can be discussed with the full level of nuance and intelligence it deserves, not merely used as a titillating eye-catcher; the voices of individuals can be respected rather than tokenized and used for cheap shots. No need to wait for MSM to get their shit together with how they cover sex work, for example - because sex workers are speaking for themselves (and even reaching out to try to educate the media) and slowly but surely, people are paying attention. People are going directly to the people who are experts in their own lived experiences, not to the MSM as a filter or, as one manager at the media company where I used to work said, “gate-keepers of the news.” No more letting them decide what’s important and relevant. We create the content and we foster a dialogue about it within our communities in a way that MSM just does not get yet. Hopefully they will catch up eventually, but if they don’t, that’s okay, because we’re doing just fine ourselves, and we have a drive and a passion that isn’t dependent on advertiser dollars.

* Let’s just use a rather loose definition of what that means; or maybe I should say corporate media? But I don’t think that’s exactly right either. Hmmm.

So by now you’ve probably heard about seemingly everyone in the freakin’ world getting canned (or voluntarily leaving due to “circumstances”).

Dacia wrote about it the other day and included a master list of sorts. Let us also not forget Regina Lynn leaving Wired, and Playboy Radio putting the kibosh on her Sex in the News segment. And you could really say it all started nearly two years ago, when the Village Voice killed Rachel Kramer Bussel’s “Lusty Lady” column.

In particular, it was really bizarre to hear about Melissa being laid off from Valleywag, because just a day or two before that, I’d heard about Tristan’s Village Voice column being axed, and as Rusty and I were walking from the MARTA station to work, I said something like, “It seems like the only one who still has a job is Melissa, at Valleywag.” Then Rusty said something about all of us starting a site together and how awesome that would be.

Ahem.

Dacia isn’t so worked up about the idea of starting a new site - and neither am I, honestly. Admittedly, after hearing about all the latest news, I did say this on Twitter (tweets listed in reverse chronological order, for those not on the bandwagon):
Read the full post »

This is so perfect I can hardly stand it:

I’m tangling hard with this notion of public persona. That for whatever reason, writing about sex gives some people the idea that you are available sexually to them (this is not new, this is something I’ve noticed a long time ago). But this being commonly understood as a consumable girl is hitting a breaking point for me. Does it mean I can’t flirt-for-real in public spaces without being perceived as buying into a role, without agreeing with that being pegged as The Sex Girl?

I was never that girl. I never played against my own intelligence to make men comfortable around me. I come on strong by being open, not teasing. I don’t look for strength in men’s eyes that way. As temporarily delightful as cocktail conversation may be — until our cabs come — I get my real and lasting courage from my own vulnerability. I can only trust my sense of worth to be safe with those unafraid to love me, not someone who finds me amusing five minutes at a time.

It kind of gives me déjà vu because it’s everything I’ve been thinking but, as usual, Melissa puts it into words so much better than I could hope to. (That sounds kind of assholish, doesn’t it? Argh…)

On Twitter I said: “This is what I would’ve talked about at BlogHer ATL” and “I’ll mention this at @blogorlando, too; I won’t have a prepared presentation but it’ll be a ‘talking point.’ We’ll see where *that* goes.”

I HATE it. I hate this stupid, asinine, absurd, insipid idea that if a woman writes about sex then she is The Sex Girl (as Melissa puts it). This pigeon-holing, it’s… well, there just aren’t enough adjectives for “ridiculous” to convey it!

I was never That Girl either - I wouldn’t even know how to be - and this is why, for instance, it makes me absolutely livid to see sex-positivity so COMPLETELY misrepresented by people who obviously have NO FUCKING CLUE what they are talking about. I’m staying out of blog wars with “radfems” for good - it’s just a waste of time - but occasionally I see them quoted on Ren’s blog or Caroline’s blog, prattling on about how “sex-pozzies” (yes, they really say that; can you believe it?) are all about pleasing men and the men love us because we do what they want and blah blah blah and I’m like, okay, this is the part where it is GLARINGLY obvious that you have absolutely NO GRASP of my life, my experience, my reality, and holy hell could your head possibly be FURTHER up your ass? I mean it’s kind of funny in a way, but it still just infuriates me. I cannot even convey to you how totally absurd it is.

Oh, and as for people assuming that because you write about sex, you obviously want to have sex WITH THEM - well, that’s nothing new, either. It’s as old as the hills and it, too, is a jaw-droppingly ridiculous depth of stupidity.

And, too, let’s revisit this.

So, real quick, regarding my post from last night - the part where I talked about being frustrated w/ a lot of the “privilege” talk and how it’s come to be used as a barb to throw at someone - today I came upon some posts by Renee at Womanist Musings that deal w/ privilege, and while I don’t agree entirely w/ all her points in these posts, I think her points about privilege are right on and do a good job of describing what it IS and what it ISN’T. </stupidly_long_sentence> Hence:

Not exploiting or oppressing is what each person should actively be engaged in, and to think that abstaining from using your available power for personal gain is worthy of special recognition is once again an exercise of privilege. A man that does the dishes does not deserve praise because he is a man doing the dishes. A person that eliminates racial slurs from their daily vocabulary does not deserve praise for recognizing that this language is hurtful.

Honouring each person despite the “isms” attached to their body is part of human responsibility, and part of owning personal privilege. To say that I deserve a reward or recognition is akin to belittling the people on whose behalf you labour. It keeps hierarchy in the relationship in that you are positioning yourself as good because you have lowered yourself to help and this undoes any progress that your personal labours have made.

(from Allies, Privileges and Pats On The Back)

It is not acceptable to say, I am not racist, sexist, homophobic etc and therefore any accusation of privilege is misplaced. These privileges are encoded to the body before birth simply because of the society we are all born into. We do not live outside of socialization we are the product of it.

To become defensive and immediately stammer, oh no not me, is a clear indicator of denial. It is this very state of denial that allows privilege to maintain its insidious grip on society. One cannot actively fight against interlocking isms while continuing to deny the effect that they personally have on you. How are you to convince anyone that inequality is systemic, if you as an individual continue to benefit without acknowledgement? It is dishonest and begins ally work from a false groundwork. It’s like saying I’m not racist because my best friend as a kid was black. People see that kind of commentary for exactly what it is.

(from Shall We Talk About Privilege)

As for not wanting to advance in the corporate world; what must be factored in is that women manage the majority of domestic duties, childcare and elder care, exactly how do you expect them to compete in professions that demand 100% commitment. It is not like the male run government has socialized daycare, or organized communal kitchens, or a form of exchange for housekeeping. The doting husbands that we are all supposed to worship are still not doing 50%, and men wonder why it is that women have difficulty managing career and family. Here is a tip, there are 24 hours in a day and no matter how amazing your wife or partner is, eventually she has to sleep. Apparently God rested on the seventh day so get off our collective backs, and do some damn laundry.

(from Ssssh Male Privilege Is Meant To Be A Secret)

I am the first to admit that social construction is damaging to both sexes but I must question why it is necessary to continually make this an issue on women’s blogs? There are so many aspects of sexism that go unchallenged in our society because we have normalized the marginalization of women. Feminists have had to fight, and claw to get the smallest of validation for the difficulties of living life as a woman in this phalocentric world, and yet even in these small spaces, men have managed to continually interject themselves into the debate.

(from Men In Womens Spaces, Dear God What About The Men?)

If you haven’t read Amanda’s series of posts chronicling her now-completed stint at Bella’s, you are really missing out on some of the best, most insightful writing in a long time. So get on over there and read it. I’ll wait.

Tonight as I was trying to catch up on my almost 300 unread posts in Bloglines (I’ve been on a self-mandated break from reading many blogs other than a select few; this crap really made me feel down in the dumps about blogging for a while), I noticed that someone else, heretofore unknown-to-me blogger Mariko Passion, has now started a journal of her experiences at Bella’s. Cool! Maybe Amanda has started a trend.

Recently I had dinner w/ Lia of Star Light Ministries. And, no surprise, she is awesome. At one point during our extended dinner conversation, we were talking about all the assumptions that are made about women in sex work, and the problem of assuming that the goal of a ministry for sex workers is for the workers to “get out” of sex work. Because as Lia said, that’s judging the work they do and therefore judging them. Plus it’s just the same old stereotypes - obviously no woman would want to be in sex work, obviously they would all do something else if only they had the chance, etc. ad nauseum. I said that even though I feel like it’s not a popular thing to say in activist communities, because I feel like it makes me look like I’m being selfish (ah, that old meme in my head) or shifting the focus, the truth is that beyond just being irritated w/ these assumptions on general principles, I also take them personally. Sex work is something I’ve been drawn to for a long time - at least 10 years - and although as of now I haven’t actually done anything about it, I do take offense to the notion that there must be some pathological explanation for my interest in sex work. I know myself, I know how I feel, and I know that I feel that sex work is something that is interesting/appealing to me. You don’t have to understand it, but hey, I don’t understand why some people want to become lawyers or sales reps or flight attendants, so there you go. I’m smart, responsible, self-aware, capable - and I shouldn’t have to go into this defensive mode of justifying myself, but that’s how it always happens.

Lia asked why I hadn’t tried sex work. With stripping, my answer used to be* that I couldn’t walk in heels, much less dance (with or without heels). That’s obviously no longer a problem, but my issues with it now are:

• I don’t know of any non-smoking strip clubs in Atlanta. Being around cigarette smoke for extended periods of time, especially in poorly-ventilated areas, gives me a pounding headache and makes me feel generally like shit.
• I hate approaching strangers. I really just can’t do it; I get panicky about it. So obviously a job where I have to hustle for lap dances isn’t a good fit for me.
• The bullshit. We’ll come back to this in a minute.

As for escorting or even stuff like FBSM, when Lia asked why I’d never done it, my answer was much shorter: “I’m afraid of getting arrested.” That’s it, plain and simple. And more specifically, I’m afraid of getting arrested and being victimized by the cops. Insert here yet another diatribe about the importance of decriminalization of prostitution.

(To be fair, there are other issues w/ escorting in particular, like the fact that it seems like you have to pretend to give a shit about what the clients are talking about, really really enjoy their company and hang on their every fascinating word… and as Dacia has said about herself, I, too, have no poker face. I have tons of respect for people who can do it, but I just can’t. But that’s not really relevant, because there are many other kinds of sex work that are vaguely escort-like but not as focused on being a companion.)

Lia said she thought I should (only if I wanted to, of course) do what Amanda was doing: try a brief stint at a legal brothel and just see how it goes. I told her there’s no way I would do that. Why? Because of the bullshit.

Just read Amanda’s posts and you’ll see what I’m talking about. The nickel-and-diming with all kinds of fees. The customers trying to lowball you all the time. The cabin fever. Having to do shifts on the damn CB radio.

And the stuff that’s not just annoying, but potentially dangerous: The lack of adequate security. The creepy (yet required by law - ’cause prostitution is legal and therefore the girls are safe, see!) doctor. The drunkenness of customers, and of people to whom you’re entrusting your safety. The lack of easy access to an exit in case of an emergency. The pressure to potentially put one’s health at risk for the sake of not letting “money” walk out the door.

Obviously all jobs have their annoyances. But these are above and beyond what I could put up with. The second set, the ones that are downright dangerous, are obviously conditions that no job should have, ever. The first set, the “annoyances,” all exemplify a huge pet peeve of mine, something that just drives me up a wall: micromanagement by people on little power trips.

It seems to me that that’s what’s behind a lot of this stuff. It’s the same at strip clubs, with the house fees and drink quotas and tipping every damn person on staff… on and on… to me it reeks of people trying to control things and make themselves feel like Oooh Big Important People in whatever tiny way possible. Insecurity. Bred out of a stigmatized industry, not surprisingly. It seems like a vicious cycle.

Major respect to Amanda for doing this and documenting it. What she’s doing is extremely important, and she is an amazing person to have the patience to deal with it at all. I really can’t convey how much respect I have for her w/ this series.

One thing’s sure, her posts have confirmed what I’d suspected for a long time: if I were to be an escort (or whatever), I’d be independent, no doubt about it. Of course I have plenty of issues w/ freelancing in general, but in this case it is definitely the way to go, no question.

* And just look at the comments on that thread for a perfect example of the “explanations on demand” thing. It’s crazy-making, I tell you.

I’ve lost what little patience I had left.

The following words and phrases, as so often tossed about in the blogosphere, mainstream media - hell, most anywhere - by people sitting up on their high horses feeling so proud of themselves, get me steaming; and with rare exception (as I will always reiterate that context matters), are cues for me to stop listening, because I’ve better things to do than hop aboard the Bullshit Train for another trip round the Armchair Psych Ward.

• Can’t take a joke
• Credibility
• Criticism
• Critique
• Defensive
• Ethics
• Humorless
• Integrity
• Just disagreeing
• Race card
• Satire
• Sensitive
• 4:38 p.m., ETA: Thin-skinned
• Whiners

Congratulations, you’ve got a non-argument. How about a little originality, for once?

Everybody’s a damn expert. I’m sick of it.

12:16 p.m.: Edited to put in alpha order.

Via Melissa (I would never read Gawker Media blogs if it weren’t for her!), powerful words from someone called Slut Machine, on Jezebel:

I’m pissed. It’s an anger that’s been on a slow boil that’s beginning to bubble over, and at this point, there’s no putting a lid on it. I’ve been writing about sex on a pretty public platform for some time now, at first anonymously, and then under my real name. I’ve had to endure ignorant assumptions and cheap shots made about my looks, my weight, my vagina, my tits, my sexual health, my mental health, my morality, my character — and all for what? Being honest? For liking sex? I’ve poured my guts out all over my keyboard, and I’m well aware that that invites criticism, particularly on the internet, where people think they can say whatever the fuck they please — in the most offensive manner possible that they would never employ in real life — with impunity because they’re protected behind a shroud of anonymity. It’s frustrating. And lemme tell you, I am so sick of people telling me, “You write about sex and personal issues. You have to accept that people will sling insults.” Fuck. That. Shit. I don’t have to accept it. I refuse to accept it. Mostly because I know that this wouldn’t happen if I were a man.

Rock on, lady! I can relate. (Today’s understatement.)

And yeah, this is related to the last post because it’s yet another manifestation of the sexual double standard and bullshit sexism in our society. (I kind of hate whenever I type “in our society,” because it reminds me of freshman year of college when my friend Kira and I used to hang out in Washington Square Park between classes with this very disaffected emo guy who was in a punk band, and one time Kira and I went to see them play and their music was all screaming commentary, and one song was just repeating “society” and “brutality” over and over, and Kira said, “I can’t listen to songs with the word ’society’ in them.” But really, there’s no other way to put it that I can think of.)