International Whore’s Day – Scarlett Alliance Red Umbrella March

So Hexy, cross posting at Hoyden About Town, brought this to my attention yesterday.

June 2nd, 1975. Lyon, France. A bunch of sex workers occupied a church in an act of protest against discrimination and failure by police to investigate or prosecute crimes against them. The cops responded by threatening to take their children away if they did not vacate the church.

Once this threat was uttered, the situation changed dramatically. Non sex working women from the town were shocked from their complacency, and joined the sex workers in the church, rendering the police unable to tell who was and wasn’t a sex worker. Bit of an “I am Spartacus” moment, that.

International Whore’s Day is held every June 2nd, to commemorate this action. It is considered to be one of the formative moments of what we now know as the sex worker’s rights movement. This year, Scarlet Alliance is holding a Red Umbrella protest march.

So very many things I love about that story. I love the womens’ initial willingness to stand up to the police in defence of their own rights, which were clearly being completely disregarded for no better reason than that ‘who cares what happens to a whore’?. I admire the courage involved in that as they would have known in advance the power imbalance and that it could end badly for them.

I love the fact that the other women in the town were moved by empathy and came into the church to support other women against the police. I love the statement of solidarity that results. First that women who are not directly affected by the situation protested about are willing to intervene in that secondary injustice, (the threats of the police during the protest) and second that (and perhaps I’m reading too far into it) there seems to me to be a larger shift from a complacent acceptance of the misogyny behind the word whore – rather than engage in that day to day dodging of the consequences of misogyny, and a pushing away of its effects by disavowing the label whore, pretending it’s not there, or doesn’t apply to ‘you’, there was a willingness to stand in solidarity with women who more directly bear the brunt of the incredible violence of misogyny.

When I spoke of this in the office, my boss was confused. He was flappy and shocked. “WHY would they use the word WHORE?? Isn’t that an insult? “. Well I would think that it’s deliberate and for many complicated reasons. Yes. It’s a word deployed to label negatively  a woman who engages in sex work. And there is massive amounts of damaging violence behind it. And it is also a word used against women who do not engage in sex work. It is a word that is deployed against women all the time to spit misogyny to insinuate that women who have sex are worthless/non people/can be treated like shit with no consequences. And we have seen historically that there is truth in this, in the reluctance to investigate and prosecute rapes of women generally, and against sex workers specifically.

There is something lovely about standing together and instead of disavowing whore as a label for ’someone else’ and trying to obtain the (conditional and always uncertain) societal approval from maintaining a self definition as a ‘good girl’ and continuing to uphold that stupid and ridiculous and incredibly damaging and violent binary of ‘damned whores and god’s police’, of madonnas and whores, instead of pretending that there is something “about” a woman who is a sex worker, standing and saying it’s fucking ridiculous that a woman’s rights to bodily autonomy, respect, protection from the law and financial independance can be threatened by virtue of their occupation, and/or their perceived sexuality and at its root it’s ugly agrressive misogyny and we’ll stand together and reclaim the word whore and support all women rather than accept the bullshit discrimination and violence.

Anyway:

Sex workers at the Sydney demonstration will be wearing red and carrying red umbrellas in solidarity with sex workers around the world & to fight discrimination.

Meet Outside Parliament House, Sydney
Wear Red, Bring a Red Umbrella
THIS Tuesday 2nd June, 12:30pm

Sex workers are demanding protection under anti-discrimination and equal opportunity laws in response to unfair bias from financial institutions, lenders, Local Councils and in advertising. Supporters are invited to join us.

I can’t make the protest, but I’m hoping to pick up a red umbrella and to discuss International Whore’s Day with everyone in the lead up to Tuesday. I don’t see how a society that has a demand for sex work can then treat sex workers like shit and get away with it – at bottom, when pushed it is clear that it is because society still thinks any woman with a sexual appetite, any woman who engages with sex on her terms, any woman who does not manage to maintain society’s view of her as a ‘pure and chaste’  girl (and society will take it away on its own terms) is less than, is a certain ‘kind’ of person, does not deserve the same rights and protection as ‘other people’, deserves any vigilante violence and/or discrimination that comes her way and with no other basis than misogynist aggression and a punishment of women, particularly women who work in the sex industry.

So thanks Hexy for posting this, and for making me think through my alliance to sex workers. I like the notion of reclaiming the word whore and using it to fight with. I like the way deploying the word can force a reconsideration of stupid assumptions about the ‘kinds’ of women who engage in sex work as opposed to the ‘kinds’ of women who “would never”. I like the symbolism of the colour red, and the inability of the public to distinguish who is an who isn’t a sex worker to drive home the point that of course you cannot ‘tell’ just by looking at someone. I like the discussions this sort of demonstration can spark, and I like reading your posts. And I love the notion of a red umbrella and a day to proudly proclaim that I am a whore and I am proud, and there is nothing negative about it and to stand in solidarity with women the world over whose rights are imperilled by virtue of their employment.

This just in: the whole madonnas/whores thing? Like, SO last season

Fucking WHY? I’m an intelligent woman. WHY did I in my browsing time at work click on the FUCKING link for “Ask Sam”?

Oh BLAH ALL women are SO ALL ABOUT THE DATING that they ALL read every schlocky self-help-how-to-ensnare-a-man-and-find-the-bliss-of-marriage book ever released spending all their money (leftover from expensive grooming products) from their frivolous girl-jobs which they will promptly quit to live in marital bliss BLAH.

So today she’s interviewing the comedian who wrote a book on how women ought to take full responsibility for the health of relationships by virtue of NOT SHAGGING any man they’re interested in for 90 days. Makes it sound a little like a commercial transaction tp purchase a flat screen tv (90 days interest free – and you know what if it’s a new relationship I might in deed be ‘interest free’ by the end of no sex for 90 days, not because you *can’t have a connection without sex* but because I fucking LIKE it and don’t buy the ‘not having sex means something special’ horseshit) to me, but these two are *taking it serious-like*.

In the following excerpt, see how he goes from ‘men have it their way too much’, to we get the sex (gift from you cos obv YOU don’t get anything from sex) without having to *give* women anything (women being less sexual beings who need gifts to want to put out),  to don’t be a raging whore (ie/ have sex) because *raging whores* are not to be taken home to meet the ma/are not fully human:

Me (Sam): You say women need to wait 90 days from the time they meet a guy till they sleep with them. These days, with one-night stands being so prevalent, are guys really going to wait around for 90 days?

Steve: Guys who really want you will wait 90 days. They do it all the time. Too many women have given up the power over the years because men have created the terms. We keep doing what we want and keep being able to get what we want without having to give you women anything. But here’s what’s happening in the 90-day period – you are spending time with the guy, holding hands, meeting the guy’s parents, going to church together, meeting his kids and his ex-girlfriend.You’re getting to know him before becoming emotionally or sexually involved.

Me (Sam): Won’t they just go ahead and date someone else who will sleep with them sooner?

Steve: Very few men are going to take the stripper home to meet our mothers. So if you are going to act like a stripper, we’re not going to take you home. We want someone who we can introduce to our mothers and who we can call our own. Anyone can sleep with a guy in 24-48 hours, but you’re sending the wrong signal to the guy if you do that.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!

Ok. Let’s get this straight. Women do not fall into two neat categories:

A/ Like sex – stripper – worthless whore – hot sex but never trust them/take them home to mum/treat them as fully human and/or ‘girlfriend material’

b/ “Nice girl” – Doles out sex as a favour but is *naive* and *sweet* and *kind* and all the things that you think ‘whores’ can’t be and you think she thinks sex is kind of icky – ding ding, keeper – take them home, put them on a pedestal, worship them (til you get bored/they put on weight/you get married and can only think of her as ‘the ball and chain’ then bin her as sexless nagging wife and spend your nights wanking to porn and telling her you’re too tired for sex cos you’ve got the whole fucked up wife= nice girl/sex=NAUGHTY ooh naughty, can’t do that with a ‘nice’ girl shit going on)

Fucking GET OVER IT already. There are no fucking rules, there is no fucking ‘game plan’. This is a dumb ploy to make a buck from a book which promises you something that it cannot guarantee to deliver, and what’s more the PREMISE is fucked up: Men uniformly suck: they allegedly ‘know what they want’ but can’t do anything about it themselves for reasons unexplained, and are so totally and utterly driven by their cocks that they cannot possibly be expected to think straight/make a sound decision about what they want/treat you well without being trapped into it/treat women with respect, and need to be manipulated into any form of commitment that they allegedly knew they wanted anyway (marriage obviously being the ‘best’ even though we know from society that they’ll be encouraged to inevitably resent their wives and their ‘loss of freedom’ cos women are always such a burden, but shh) and it’s YOUR JOB to teach them how to be a good human being and work around their emotional problems and the way to do it is MANIPULATION and most importantly celibacy you whore bag.

Furthermore, YYYYYYYYYAK (vomiting noise):

Me: You say there are three things that women need to give men: loyalty, support and cookie. What’s the cookie?

Steve: The cookie is the critical part. It’s a word I created for sex and you’ve got to give a man all three things. If you miss one out, he is going to find it somewhere else.

Oh. Ok, he’s going to find it elsewhere AFTER the magic ninety days in which you ensure he LOVES you and CHERISHES you and will ONLY BE YOURS FOREVER AMEN. Before that ninety days he won’t go get it elsewhere, only AFTER he’s solidly committed to you as a couple.That makes sense…

And fucking COOKIES! “It’s a word I created for sex”?? (Vomits loudly). I do not *give* sex out like a cookie to a child who has just had a tetanus shot. Ok? It is not an act of kindness I bestow, a favour I do, it is not something I *allow* to happen on me out of kindness all the while wishing I was an elsewhere, it is not a chore I engage in for the benefit of a man (cos only MEN need sex and the only sex that counts is het sex) and the health of the relationship it is something I DO WITH PEOPLE because I fucking well WANT to, because I love it, I enjoy it, I am a woman, and I have a sexual appetitie, and varied desires that enjoy to be met you fucking puritanical fucked up douchehound!

Furthermore, I think you should be beaten about the head with your own book for suggesting that strippers are not women you could ‘take home to your mother’ (ie/ are the wrong ‘kind’ of girl). So it’s ok for men to go *see* strippers (and APPARENTLY you assume that they’re then going to jump you because your cock is irresistible/they’re raging *sluts* who jump men indiscriminately rather than say they have a job as a stripper and still get to choose when and where and how and with whom and on what terms they have sex), but OBVIOUSLY they are some WHOLE distinct category of women and should never have your respect? Fuck you, misogynist.

Me: What do you say to people who criticise you for being too traditional and say that your methods would never work for modern dating?

Steve: That’s a bunch of crap. Love is never going to go out of style, A man is always going to want to have the love of a woman. She just needs a game plan to work out how to get his love.

Aw, ain’t that romantic? It’s like one big Sinatra song. Boy meets girl, girl meets boy. Girl must immediately and shrewdly form a game plan to ensnare him in her web. And then he’s HERS…so long as she isn’t some slutty stripper and gives him virginal LOVE and SUPPORT and doles out cookies like dog biscuits. Mmm nummy treats. Blowjobs on birthdays? FUCK. THIS. SHIT.

Commenting? Please be aware…

I will not be publishing any comments by commentors who do not leave a valid email address, much as I would not be having a telephone conversation with a caller who did not identify themselves.

OW

So I intended to do some study tonight and here I am at eleven fucking thirty. I’ve been sick, I’m lacking sleep, I have a rather horrid work day to look forward to and I’m sitting here stiff of back from typing notes. It’s taken hours and I’m…hmm…let’s see here. I’d guess about a TENTH OF THE WAY THROUGH THE WEEK’S READINGS! Fuck this law study shit!

A little shout out to my laptop who tried valiantly to save me

A little shout out to my laptop who attempted to save me from a terrible fate this morning. High in the right hand corner of today’s SMH I noticed the Devinely Bigoted Ms M was issuing a rallying call to all men: it said something like “It’s time for men to come to the defence of violent sport and the men who play it”…or something even similarly testosterone worshipping and bizarre.

I knew it would seriously “damage my calm”, but I held my breath and went to click and…my laptop battery died so the computer shut down and I was prevented from foolishly giving in to my curiousity on impulse and ruining my own day.

Of course, when I got to work and powered up I read the fucking thing.

Apparently Miranda feels that Johns lost his job because the feminists are in control of the media, and they (feminist media controllers) believe in gender as a construct which is obviously a far more dangerous notion than ‘boys will be boys’ and will lead to pissing in public being remarked upon and that is OBVIOUSLY far more dangerous than girls getting gang raped.

It’s an utterly bizarre article in terms of its logic and consistency (I’m sorry computer, you tried valiantly to save me but I have a self destructive streak).

Somehow feminists are to blame for raunch culture and getting girls to value their hotness and appeal to men over their own sexual fulfilment (um…what?), for de-manning the men (cos again, there’s so MUCH evidence that mens power and machoness has disappeared) the medias tendency to a good old fashioned lynching (cos we control it – SEE how feminist mainstream media is??), the decisions of football clubs (cos the feminists control sports and sports clubs too dontcha know?) and Willie Mason’s inability to take a piss in a back alley without condemnation (I’m actually *not kidding*). In the land according to Miranda a feminist STORM erupted over Willie Masons urinary habits and we DEMANDED his career in payment for the greivous insult to feminism his public pissing represented.

In the world according to Miranda, if feminism were truly about equality we’d have let that mother who pinched a beer mat rot in jail in a foreign country, because THAT is the same as 12 grown men taking advantage of a 19 year old girl – and THEY are in jail now so…oh…wait, where was I? Oh yeah, it’s all feminists fault.

Killing off rugby league isn’t going to stop men being aggressive and sexually motivated.

Well it’s lucky for the feminists that their main argument is not Stop Football Stop Rape isn’t it?

In fact, such games are the few outlets boys have left for excess physical energy.

Ah yes, the old pop-psych ‘boys are more physical and need to run around more and damned feminised society asks that they not rape and murder when they’re not allowed a quick jog in the office or star jumps in the classroom’ chestnut.

In sanctioned team violence on the football field, young men can test their courage and express what it feels to be male, to have testosterone surging through young bodies, building huge muscles and attack instincts for which society has little use any more.

Does anyone else have an urge to vomit heartily at this drippingly romanticised idealisation of maleness? PLEASE! A question for the science folk. Does testosterone build muscles? And now you’re telling us it DOES produce attack instincts thus making an argument that sport *is* potentially a problem in producing instincts for aggression and violence? Immediately before you tell us that sport DOESN’T make boys violent but teaches them to control that violence:

It is teaching them, not to be violent but how to control their violent urges.

Ah, but then, see we have that pesky FACTUAL problem of a serious and ongoing culture of aggression and violence and disrespect of women that has led to rape and glassings and other forms of violence.

That makes your bar mat stealing comparison seem a wee bit fucking silly doesn’t it?

She’s then on to the whole ‘ADD is not real, kids just need to kick the shit out each other’ lies.

Feminism is also responsible for popular culture, which is wierd when you think about it, since feminists spend so much time examining popular culture and discussing all the problems with it, all the ways in which it is anti feminist. You’d think we’d set it up more to our liking wouldn’t you? But in the deranged conspiracy theorist’s mind I guess it just makes sense – after all feminists like to be miserable!

Popular culture today presents a narrative in which the liberalisation of sex has travelled on an inevitable continuum from the 1960s to some Brave New World free-for-all where Huxleyan teens engage in clinical couplings in which the only things to be negotiated are safety and consent.

What? And I…wait, WHAT??? Clearly safety and consent is NOT being negotiated, and we weren’t talking about mutual teen activity there we were talking a large group of fully grown MEN who FAILED UTTERLY to engage with safety and consent (safety and consent being from the feminist perspective a bare fucking MINIMUM for sex – for good sex we require more, and if you think that needs to be clinical to happen then that’s your own lack of imagination).

Where once girls were told that sex without emotional attachment would leave them feeling hurt and used, now such ideas are regarded as judgmental and moralistic. Instead girls are taught the most anti-woman thing of all – to judge their worth and the worth of others by “hotness” – that is, how sexually desirable they are, even if they are only 12.

You cannot be even remotely SERIOUS in trying to pin that shit on feminists for fuck’s sake. The fetishisation of young women’s bodies? Yeah masculine culture has NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT! It appears from the stats that men, and not feminists, are the ones having difficulty accepting that adults fucking twelve year olds is rape and that their porn appetites for pre teen porn is an indulgence of THEIR obsession with young girls bodies rather than women’s.

Feminism doesn’t teach girls that they are moralistic and judgmental if they want an emotional connection as part of sex at all and you know it. It teaches them to be aware of their own bodies and pleasures, to have sex when and how they want to – to not feel like ’sluts’ if they *want* sex which is motivated from lust, boredom, desire, curiosity or many other factors even if it is not seen as ‘aprropriate nice girl within-hetero-monogamous-relationship sex’. There’s a radical difference between the two.

The ensuing chaos in the mating world stems from this disconnect between what popular culture tells girls and boys they should want and how it really makes them feel.

Watch yourself Miranda, you’re almost making feminist arguments there. And again I take the time to point out – popular culture and its messages? Feminists aren’t controlling it or profiting from it are they?

In the end, men’s drives aren’t all violent and predatory [that's right - again, lucky that is not a tenet of feminism nincompoop]. Most have a deep, possibly hard-wired, desire to be noble and chivalrous [oh...ok - from whence to you produce this assumption? And what do noble and chivalrous mean?]. That’s why in situations such as the Port Arthur massacre, so many men died shielding their wives or women around them [really? Or is it love? The same love that makes women shield their lovers/children/friends?].

Chivalry was once the province of the fighting man – the knight in shining armour who behaved with gallantry, honour and courtesy on the battlefield and off [except all that pesky raping] and was always proud to help the weak and defenceless [again the urge to vomit - are you basing your arguments here on history or Mills and Boon novels]. But decades of androgynous feminism have stamped on chivalry, deriding men who opened doors or stood back for women as being sexist and patronising [way to have a nuanced and sophisticated analysis].

It would have been better for women if feminism had appealed to men’s better natures.

You mean like treating them as fully human? As capable of great decency as well as depravity? Of urging them to be well rounded humans because we know they can be? Or expecting them not to rape and beat because we *don’t* think men are all the same and biologically driven but can make choices? You mean like what feminism ACTUALLY does rather than your sick caricature of a straw feminist?

Dude. When Peter Fitzsimons can both love competitive football and clearly state that the culture in Australia is rife with misogyny and violence and you can only blame feminists for the unfairness of it all, you really know the problem is well and truly YOURS.

Sam in the city’s confused take on feminism

It’s here, it’s there, it’s everywhere. Feminists and pole dancing, feminists and ugly bores, feminists neutering our manly men, feminists having changed society into one where the men are weak, meek, utterly unmanly. (Hi, has SHE been reading the news recently?)

She gives one example of one strong woman she knows who also wants the man to pay for dinner – not in reflection that men earn more than women and might care to recognise that occassionally by way of being a little generous at times – but cos she wants a ‘real man’ (and real men apparently foot the bills for food/wine/jewellery). Therefore it is proved: all feminists everywhere demand their men pay for dinners and are therefore hypocrites who deserve to be ignored (and are ruining men, sex and society).

Sam gives us some pearls of wisdom, telling us sadly that some feminists indeed bring their feminism from the boardroom to the bedroom (oh, holy end of the good sex life Batman! Except lookie here: it seems that feminists experienced more equality in relationships and that partners of feminists experienced greater relationship stability and greater sexual satisfaction than with non feminist partners – hat tip Rachel) and then:

Yet the biological truth is that in order for a relationship to have the necessary spark, sexual chemistry and va va voom, there needs to be masculine-feminine polarity – a balance whereby the man exudes masculinity and the woman femininity.

So same sex relationships don’t have that ‘necessary spark, sexual chemistry and va va voom’? Lesbians would be happier with men, gay men with women?

You wouldn’t know your biological arse from your biological elbow Sam.

So being a feminist means being masculine? Having any awareness of your own self worth is akin to having a great big cock? Insisting on decent treatment and noticing inequalities gives you chest hair? If you’re a feminist in a heterosexual relationship does that by Sam’s logic there are therefore two men in your bed, one in a woman’s body? Or that the feminist’s male partner is so ‘pussywhipped’ and ceaselessly ‘meek’ that he becomes the ‘feminine’ one (but that that polarity – of the ‘manly’ woman and the ‘womanly man’ is strictly of the NOOOOO BINGO variety for Sam). Please, your bigotry, lack of logic and bad writing is bumming me.

Masculinity and femininity as traditionally done equals good sex? The bedrock of a healthy happy society? Happy men, happy women, peace and calm across the land? Take a fucking look around. Think about last week’s news.

So far as I can see the majority of men defend their rights to ‘be men’ which rougly translates into being an overpriviledged thuggish arsehole to the death. They bitch and moan about the loss of traditional masculinity – usually in columns to FHM and Zoo. (Do you see where I’m going here). They bitch about it in workplaces with female employees (very few at senior management levels) treating their female coworkers as non people, of *course* their feminine brains accept their superior masculine logic, and their lack of acceptance would mean little seeing as how they have no penis and are therefore illogical beings. They bitch about it at family gatherings – goddamn it those FEMINISTS are ruining my fun – why CAN’T I holler out the side of my car at thirteen year old girls…look how they dress.

And yet…and yet rape stats, domestic violence stats, stalking stats, the amount of gendered abuse online, the male gaze in cinema, mens mags, jokes about fat chicks and feminists and wives are still in fucking GLORIOUS abundance are they not? What MARKERS of traditional masculinity are allegedly gone?

Men are still pushed in to competitive sports, ogling women in ways that objectify and demean them in order to bond with their mates, jokes about women and swallowing their feelings (which leak out in outraged screeching over The Big Nasty Feminists Are Trying To Take My Pee Pee Away) to be more stoic and manly. They’re still encouraged to look at their female partners as their ball and chain, still monitor each other with names like ‘pussy’ and ‘bitch’, still think they earn more because they’re better, still full of unexamined privilege and assumptions.

Women are still pushed into concerns over diets and makeup and hair and clothes and accessories, are still reading ‘The Rules’ and ‘He’s just not that into you’ (how IS that a feminist text Sam). We’re still in lower paid jobs, we’re still at risk of assualt from men we know and love, we still have to listen to sexist jokes in the workplace and watch the poor male host of a major show to examine ad culture can’t quite make the connections (oh, right, damn, fat chick jokes out the window – he actually asked for the list of people he could still make fun of…how’s about get some fucking comedy material?), we’re still emotionally battered with ‘if you don’t have a man, what have you got’, we’re still taught to smile when we’re angry, to laugh when we’re offended, to be nicey-nice-nice and to emotionally care take men.

Where exactly is the evidence of the feminists taking over? Of snivelling emasculated men slavering to gain the favour of the whip holding feminists? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Shut up.

Please just read this

Mental illness, medicationm and the spiralling cost of being well by Hexy at Hexpletive and cross posted at Hoyden About Town.

Just phenomenally well written, and flooring in the exposure of just how little people without direct experience of mental illness understand the costs (of all kinds) involved in medicating.

Well, Lars, I don’t know what to *do* with that sentence

(Linked article contains major *spoiler* warnings – and also should come with TRIGGER warnings -  for new Lars Von Trier movie):

Von Trier insists he is not a misogynist, but that he finds female sexuality “frightening”.

Drive through posting – girls ‘resisting’ sex

There’s an article in the paper about girls not being taught skills to resist sex they’re not ready for.

I’m all for equipping girls to resist peer pressure to do anything they’re uncomfortable with, just not interested in or don’t what.

I’m a little concerned however that at the very least the reporting of the paediatricians paper at least comes off moralistic (I am at work and don’t have the time to follow up on the paper or paediatrician in question):

Being drunk or tipsy at the time was also common. But losing their virginity while intoxicated, which conflicted with expectations of sex being “special the first time”, left some regretting their actions.

Surely just as much of the battle in ensuring girls have sex they want, have sex when and how they want (including NOT having any form of sex that they don’t want) and don’t end up regretting it is teaching girls about pleasure and their bodies?

Sex ed focuses on pregnancy, biology, sexually transmitted diseases. Certain cold ‘facts’ about “sex”.

I use scare quotes there because it teaches them facts ONLY about hetero sex, ONLY about sex with another person (always of the opposite sex sending the message that sex is not something for you to enjoy alone, or that it is so unthinkable that you might be attracted to someone of the same sex as to reinforce the idea that there’s some perversion to same sex desire/same sex sex/masturbation), almost solely about penis-in-vagina sex, though with some embellishments as to boys/men and their sexual pleasure. It presents the cock as the thing with the desire and the womans body as the thing equipped to make that happen with a vague ‘nod’ to the idea that it will be pleasurable for both (not TOO pleasurable thanks).

If girls were taught about their bodies not as something secret and shameful, or as an object of desire and pleasure FOR boys/men, but as instruments of their own pleasure, if girls were taught about the clitoris and its potential wonders (that it’s there not for biology but for your very own pleasure), if masturbation was not spoken of as some biological imperative of the cock, a quick jerk to relax, a boy thing, a ‘healthy red blooded males response to chicks tits’, but as a healthy and wonderful thing that people can do to learn about and experience their own bodies, in safety and comfort, to experiment with what they like/what they don’t, if girls were taught that it was a vital thing to learn early about pleasuring themselves, about whether they feel pleasure around ideas of sex, about what they want, what to ask for, if girls were taught that it’s not their role to be the moral guardians of society, that they are allowed to want sex, to desire it, to have it when and how they want, to think about all the scenarios in which they would like to engage and those in which they would not, who they might be willing to share sexual experiences with and who not, then I think a lot of regret would be lost.

If we taught girls to really focus on their own pleasure in their own time, while discussing with them the ways in which society will want them to perform a constructed femininity, that they have choices about that to some extent, if we discussed with them the heady intoxicating realisation of a sudden ‘power’ of a kind (girls bodies are worshipped in society and one minute you’re just a kid, the next you’re suddenly this ‘object of desire’ ) and her choices in how the experiments with that while protecting her desires, her body, her choices, and discussions of the sad but real violence directed at girls around sex I think we’d have a much better chance of ensuring girls did not have sex they’d regret than if we only focus on ways to say no.

I don’t like the idea of pushing on teenage girls already being dazzled by hormones and puberty, society’s strange quiet around healthy discussions of sex and desire (and the simultaneous worship of it in tedious cliched ways that enforce the idea that CHICKS ARE HOT and BOYS ARE HORNY and WOMEN ARE FUCKHOLES and THAT’S JUST HOW IT GOES and all the virgin/whore stuff that goes along with that), the societal pressure to be one of the ‘good girls’ and the silently absorbed lessons of how ‘bad girls’ get treated and talked about that the solution to being upset by the ways they’re treated during sex is that they just need to be morally stronger and ‘just say no’.

Because what if the girl DESIRED sex, but regretted it because it became apparent that the guy had no regard for her DURING that sex? Should she wear the blame – is it because she had sex too early, or because boys are taught it’s all about them? Because what if the girl WANTS to be equipped to have sex? What if she doesn’t quite KNOW, if she has sex because she’s NOT been taught to experiment and to pleasure herself and so gets swept up in the power of arousal and has sex because she didn’t know she could feel like that, but then realises she wasn’t ready, or he’s a prick, or it wasn’t ultimately satisfying? If she had experienced those feelings alone, earlier, then perhaps they wouldn’t have the power they do?

Anyway, enough pondering, I have work to do.

[Eta: Helen has more at Hoyden About Town - her post being about the frustration of seeing more papers on how to teach girls to *resist* pressure from boys rather than teaching *boys* to behave ethicially]

Mother FUCKER

So for the last couple of days I’ve been watching men ASSERT themselves over this Matthew Johns thing, and for real? Their arguments come down to

IT WASN’T RAPE YOU FUCKING IDIOT FEMINIST BITCH – IT WASN’T, IT WASN’T, IT WASN’T, IT WASN’T’

closely linked to

WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU *TALKING ABOUT* – CULTURE OF DISRESPECT FOR WOMEN YOU FUCKING SLUT HO FEMINIST BITCH SHEEP IDIOT!!!

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IT WAS NOT RAPE! (What bitch, do you think you’re PSYCHIC??? HOW DARE YOU think you know what might have happened) IT WASN’T RAPE, SHE ASKED FOR IT [Eds note...THINK about it kids...thiiiink...that's it...yes, I DIDN'T say I knew what happened, and you DID...funny that]

Then there are the meta comments

How sad I am for you and all your kind. So hate-filled, so empty, such hollow SHELLS of people (my kind don’t hate like this, they just think you need to be anally raped and all women who say they were raped are lying slut whores who should be publicly stoned for their lying whore ways destroying perfectly angelic men’s careers for their vicious female desires to destroy)

and

Hey babes, don’t WORRY about it, I mean shit! What’s the diff right? None of our business amirite? So MAYBE he raped her, maybe it was sex, does it MATTER? You just need a hug (or a shag) cos you are PMS TRIPPING dear!

Can I just say that the thing that links these is that not ONE of them attempted to discuss the situation with any seriousness, not ONE engaged with culture and society, not ONE offered any substantive challenges to feminist arguments, not ONE had any meaningful thing to say except you’re wrong because I SAID so and I have the cock, so that ends it.

Then if you say ‘EXCUSE ME?’ and start to argue or have a go they dismiss THAT – not cos they can shoot down your initial or subsequent arguments, simply by virtue of only ever casting your words as hate, hysteria, and evidence they ‘got under your skin’ when EVIDENCE SAYS it’s because they’re fucking idiots with no arguments or logic to speak of and you’re pissed at their dickswinging.

I now see how throughout history men have been able to claim raionality and superior intellect for themselves as an inherently masculine trait!