question: if a man pays a woman to have sex with him is she really consenting? How is it not rape??
you said in your tags that you really want an answer, so here you go:
we consent to sex for a variety of reasons, all of which are ultimately transactional in some way. i consent to sex with a partner because i think they have a nice butt and i want to touch it, because i think she’ll give me an orgasm, because i have a migraine and sex might help, because i love them and sex will cement or express that love. in all of these cases, i am consenting to sex because it will net me a particular benefit (or I predict that it will) – consenting to sex because it gets you something you want is not an inherently problematic thing. consenting to sex because the gain i hope to reap is specifically financial or material, is not ultimately different from consenting to sex because of a gain that is not those things.
when anti-sex work feminists make an equivalence between traded sex and rape, they are also showing a fundamental misunderstanding of what the trade of sex is like. just because i have “entered the state of being known as ‘prostitute’” does not mean that it is possible to simplistically buy my consent. if i’m sitting in a restaurant with my friends, or doing my grocery shopping, or sitting in a theater, you can’t walk up to me, throw an hour’s-rate’s worth of bills at me and expect me to bend over and drop my panties on command. the rate you pay me influences my decision to consent, but it does not purchase it – i consent for a nuanced spectrum of reasons: i consent to sex for x amount of money, with someone who has passed my screening, at a place and time when I decide I am working, with the methods of safer sex I prefer, the particular sex acts I am comfortable with, et cetera. The removal of any of these conditions negates my consent – someone who pays me but removes the condom is committing rape, someone who gives me money but accosts me when I’m not working is committing rape, someone who gives me money and then ignores my boundaries about what we do together is committing rape. This is because a client has not and can not buy my blanket consent – you can’t actually buy consent, ironically is the place where rad fems and I technically agree. Someone who is paying me is agreeing to one of the conditions I have set on my consent to sex (and all consent is of course conditional – blanket consent to sex is a contradiction in terms). The fact that one of my conditions is money doesn’t change anything about that.
And, it’s not in direct answer to your question, but it’s worth talking about when this conversation comes up – when anti sex work feminists talk about sex work as being inherently and always rape, they remove the ability of sex workers to talk about actual rape and assault they experience on the job. If all sex work is rape, then there’s no meaningful difference between my favorite client whose company I enjoy, who treats me with respect and kindness, who never goes near my boundaries, and always tips generously, and someone violently assaults me and takes my money. And some radical feminists might say that I’m the one who doesn’t get that there’s no difference between those two people, but from here, the gulf is huge.
Consent, to me, isn’t the ability to say yes but the ability to say no; my ‘yes’ is meaningless if it’s the only answer I could give. In my current working situation, I have the ability to say no to the next potential client who comes along, and that’s why it’s consensual. It hasn’t always been this way, though. Poverty absolutely constrains choices to the point that it makes consent impossible (which is, I should note, very different from negating *agency*). If an individual made me choose between having sex and being homeless, no one would hesitate to call that rape, because it’s a heavily constrained choice– it’s coercion. When I started doing survival sex work, this was essentially the scenario I was in. It was absolutely traumatic in a way consistent with past experiences of sexual abuse. I had to take every session that came to me. I quite literally could not afford to say ‘no’. Of course, there was no individual forcing me to choose between sex work and homelessness. I was raped, but there was no perpetrator, which is why it’s fair to say that no one should be criminalized. The closest there is to a ‘perpetrator’ here is our atomized neoliberal capitalist society, which is only strengthened by policing.
That’s the other thing. Even if you want to argue that all clients are morally responsible for abuse-by-poverty– which, I’d like to point out, means that all of us are responsible, since we all consume labor from coerced workers when we purchase things like t-shirts and coffee– that’s not automatically an argument for criminalization. The safety of victims and potential victims should be paramount when crafting laws, and there is overwhelming evidence that criminalization harms everyone trading sex. I’m against mandatory arrest laws for domestic violence for similar reasons: they cause more harm. Please move past this idea that policing and incarceration are the end-all-be-all when it comes to justice.
So, you were close, OP. It might very well be rape for someone to exchange money for sex, depending on the circumstances of the person receiving. But it’s not the individual paying who’s at fault; the system is at fault. Get rid of male demand and you will still have female poverty, you will have homelessness and starvation, which is absolutely abuse because we have the resources to avoid it. We just refuse to distribute resources evenly. That’s where you should be expending your energy, on changing our abusive economic system. Because all. survival. work. is. abusive.
This:
when anti sex work feminists talk about sex work as being inherently and always rape, they remove the ability of sex workers to talk about actual rape and assault they experience on the job. If all sex work is rape, then there’s no meaningful difference between my favorite client whose company I enjoy, who treats me with respect and kindness, who never goes near my boundaries, and always tips generously, and someone violently assaults me and takes my money. And some radical feminists might say that I’m the one who doesn’t get that there’s no difference between those two people, but from here, the gulf is huge.
Excellent description of a truly as yet unexplored aspect of women, any type of sexual expression and actual contemporary life.
BRAVA 👏🏽💌👏🏽!
Woah. This made me think!
So, I’ve been pulled over a few times in my life. Not many, but a few. And I’ve also been in a couple of cars that got pulled over. And let me tell you, if you were actually doing something wrong, the officer doesn’t make any small talk, just straight into “I clocked you doing 70 in a 55.” The only time I’ve ever gotten the “do you know why I pulled you over?” was the time when I wasn’t doing anything wrong, and I got let go even though he insisted to the end that I was doing 87 in a 70 (white privilege at work).
“Do you know why I pulled you over?” is a trap. It means there’s a good chance the officer doesn’t actually have a good reason to ticket you, and is trying to get you to waive your 5th Amendment rights and incriminate yourself. If you make a guess, that’s a confession of guilt.
But there’s another trap, that I’ve heard of but haven’t yet experienced. It’s “do you know how fast you were going?” With that one, they’re hoping you’ll say no, because then they can name whatever speed they want – you just said you didn’t know how fast you were going, if you deny the speed they name then you’re lying to them.
Oh, I’ve had that one. Go with “yes.” Don’t give them a number, just say “Yes.” Then they still have to offer a number and you can deny it without contradicting yourself. They could just ask you, at that point, but that’s suspiciously similar to saying they don’t know, and they tend to avoid doing that.
imagine a rosario vampire kind of setting, where a human winds up at a monster school. except the monsters all know they’re a human. maybe they’re part of a new “monster/human friendly relations” project. everyone is pretty cautious about causing an incident, so they’re treading lightly around the human. but the human doesn’t even bat an eye at the strange stuff that goes on, so the monster kids gradually become more relaxed around them.
here’s the thing. the human doesn’t actually realize they’re at a monster school. they’re basically the living embodiment of “staying in their lane”. they see strange monster things happening and they’re like “huh. well that’s none of my business” and just go about their day
so the monsters think the human knows what’s up and doesn’t care. the human thinks they’re at a weird but ultimately normal human school. then the human sees something so explicit that they can’t help but connect the dots, like a werewolf transforming right in front of them. the human screams, the werewolf yelps, everyone else starts screaming too. there’s lots of confusion all around.
eventually they all figure out what happened. then the human’s friends start quizzing them on how the hell they never noticed.
“the werewolves literally walk around with their ears and tails out.” “I thought they were just furries okay?!”
“but the vampires drink blood at lunch! only blood! they don’t eat!” “listen, even goths can be insecure about their weight. it’s not my business if they want to go on a weird tomato juice diet.” “I guess that explains why you hugged Travis and told him he was beautiful the way he is that one time.”
“there are fairies in our math class. they have wings.” “*shrug* theater kids are weird.”
“Ynolk’ku is the offspring of an eldritch abomination. the whispers of the dead follow xem wherever xe go. are you saying you never heard that?” “I figured it was just really loud creepy music playing from xer headphones.”
“centaurs. harpies. nagas.” “okay I know I already said furries, but really committed furries.”
“Cindy is a sasquatch and she’s covered in fur.” “who am I to tell a girl to shave?”
“the dryads wear clothes made out of living plants.” “aesthetic or death.”
Four decades of feminism later I am reading the comedian Angela Barnes’ blog. “I am ugly, and I am proud,” she writes. She goes on to say: “The fact is I don’t see people in magazines who look like me. I don’t see people like me playing the romantic lead or having a romantic life.”
At the top of the blog is a picture of Barnes. And the thing is, she isn’t ugly. Neither is she beautiful. She’s normal looking. She’s somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, just like lots of women you see every day in real life.
It made me think of this year’s Wimbledon ladies’ final between Sabine Lisicki and Marion Bartoli. When Bartoli won, the BBC commentator John Inverdale infamously said, “Do you think Bartoli’s dad told her when she was little, ‘You’re never going to be a looker, you’re never going to be a Sharapova, so you have to be scrappy and fight’?”
The first thing I thought was: this woman has just won a tennis tournament! And she’s being judged on her looks! And then I thought: but Bartoli is attractive. Sure, she’s not at the very highest point on the scale – she doesn’t look like a top model. But she’s pretty. And, in any case, why should it matter? She’s a top athlete. Surely that’s what counts.
A sports commentator refers to a pretty woman as “not a looker”. A normal-looking woman thinks she’s ugly. Why?
Because, even though the world is full of normal and pretty women, the world we see – the world of television, films, magazines and websites – is full of women who are top-of-the-scale beauties.
And right now, in the second decade of the 21st century, the situation is more extreme than ever. If you’re a woman, a huge proportion of your role models are beautiful. So if you’re normal looking, you feel ugly. And if you’re merely pretty, men feel free to comment on how un-beautiful you are.
As a normal-looking man, I find myself in a completely different position. Being normal makes me feel, well, normal. Absolutely fine. As if the way I look is not an issue. That’s because it’s not an issue.
As a normal-looking man, I’m in good company. Sure, some male actors and celebrities are very good looking. Brad Pitt. George Clooney. Russell Brand.
But many of Hollywood’s leading men, like me, look like the sort of blokes you see every day, in real life. Russell Crowe, Kevin Spacey, Bruce Willis, Jack Black, Seth Rogen, Martin Freeman, Tom Hanks, Steve Carell, Jim Carrey, Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn, Brendan Fraser… In fact, you might almost say that most leading men are normal-looking blokes.
It’s true of television, too. Bryan Cranston, who plays the lead in Breaking Bad – he’s a normal. James Gandolfini – he was a normal. And chubby too. Kevin Whately – normal. Ben Miller – normal. TV cops all look normal. Ray Winstone looks normal. Tim Roth looks normal. They portray people who are interesting for what they do, not what they look like.
Oh, and think of sitcoms. The Big Bang Theory features four normal-looking blokes and a stunningly beautiful woman. New Girl is about two normal blokes, a guy who’s quite good looking, and two women who are… yes, strikingly beautiful.
When I watch the news, on whatever channel, it’s presented by the classic partnership of an ordinary-looking guy and a gorgeous woman. After the news, I watch the weather. Male weather presenters look like standard males. Female weather presenters look like models.
Footballers look normal. Footballers’ wives and girlfriends look stunning. Daytime television presenters: men look like Phillip Schofield; women look like Holly Willoughby.
A typical Saturday-night judges’ panel consists of two types of people – middle-aged blokes and young, stunning women. Sometimes a normal-looking or ageing woman slips through the net – but then, like Arlene Phillips, her days are soon numbered.
Countdown had an attractive woman and an ageing bloke; when the attractive woman began to show signs of ageing, she was axed – replaced by a woman who was, of course, strikingly beautiful.
Who presents historical documentaries? Guys like David Starkey. Normals. And what happened when a normal-looking woman, Mary Beard, presented a series about the ancient world? She was mocked for not being attractive enough.
In a recent interview Dustin Hoffman, another normal, made a revealing comment. Remember when he dressed up as a woman in Tootsie? “I went home and started crying,” he said. Why?
“Because I think I am an interesting woman when I look at myself on screen. And I know that if I met myself at a party, I would never talk to that character. Because she doesn’t fulfil physically the demands that we’re brought up to think women have to have in order to ask them out… I have been brainwashed.”
The ugly, unfair truth about looking beautiful
(via fucknosexistcostumes)
This is why I get infuriated whenever men talk about how they’re held to unrealistic beauty standards too, because it really doesn’t even compare. Men who aren’t attractive simply aren’t attractive and maybe that’s rough for them, but women who aren’t attractive are barely even people.
(via escapingtoxicjustice)
i think we all have that one piece of media we like that’s basically “i love this thing, but i dont think everyone should watch this thing and would not categorically recommend it to other people i know, this thing has a lot of problems and i am the first person you should ask if you want to know a long list of criticisms, but i REALLY ENJOY THIS THING” its like holding up a can of trash to everyone else and saying “you are a reasonable person and you would not enjoy touching this garbage and i value that about you” and then pouring it out on the ground and rolling around in it yourself
Mine is a book called Santa Steps Out and I buy every copy I find, partially to protect the world’s innocence, but really so I can build myself a fort of filth.
Does anybody else remember a time, long long ago, when you could just enjoy things?
You could watch a movie and just appreciate it instead of over analyzing every single scene to make sure there’s nothing remotely offensive about it.
You could have a favorite character and just like them and appreciate how great they were written and portrayed, without being told you’re terrible because they’re a villain. Even though they’re FICTIONAL and most likely were deliberately written to be likable. (Even if they were written as an evil character, I still think you have a right to like them, but maybe that’s just me)
You could love and be a fan of the actors without having to go full on FBI agent, looking into their backgrounds to make sure they are 100% perfect and had never made a mistake ever.
You could post about said actor without some busybody little fandom cop, slithering into your inbox to tell you(all too happily) that your fave is “problematic” (god, I fucking hate that word), and you’re disgusting if you still like them.
I’m in my 30’s so I remember those good ole days and it’s kind of sad to know, that most of you will never truly know how great that was. That’s a time long since forgotten. Bummer.
Yes, I remember that.
You know what I also remember?
How one of my friends was always awkwardly quiet after the rest of his friends group laughed at a ‘no homo’ set up joke. How he never laughed along when someone used ‘gay’ to describe something. I remember telling people who didn’t laugh that “it’s a joke, what’s wrong with you?”
I also remember, almost a decade after, crying happily as he married the love of his life who happened to be a man.
I remember laughing at a racist joke in a movie with my cousins, and her one black friend, her best friend, up and leaving because of it. I remember nodding along as she said “ugh, she can never take a joke”.
I remember asking my cousin about her years later and learning they never spoke after that. Ten years of friendship lost that night.
I remember sitting in a room filled with guy friends, making sexist jokes and being told I was so cool for not being as uptight as “other girls”. I remember that slowly losing its shine, and wondering why I felt more and more uncomfortable hearing that.
And then I remember who I was back then, and how I am so glad I am no longer that person.
I remember the first time I apologized to my gay friends for the jokes I used to make. I remember the first time I didn’t try to defend how I “didn’t mean to be racist”. I remember the first time I asked a guy just what is wrong with “other girls”, and how I lost some friends that day who I realized were never really my friends.
You know what changed? I changed. Through listening and understanding and admitting my privileges and faults, I changed. Now even if I try, I can’t just enjoy something that jokes at the expense of others. I cant watch someone who is unapologetically problematic in media.
I can’t enjoy these things because I realize now that their very existence hurts. That the very existence of this type of media perpetuates behaviors and ideologies that can lead to people being abused, harassed, and murdered.
And you know what? That’s a good thing. Because the more people who refuse to ingest this type of media, the less audience it has, and the stronger the message becomes that these things – racism, homophobia, sexism, transphobia, etc. – are not things to be waved off. You’re not edgy or cool for ignoring them. You’re not “uptight” by being upset by them. These are real things with very real social impact.
The reality is, there was never a time when everyone could just enjoy things. To be able to say you had that time is to admit the privilege you had at not having to think about problematic behavior because it didn’t negatively affect your life.
I don’t remember a time where I could “just enjoy things”. What I remember is a time where I was able to enjoy something by throwing everyone who could be hurt by or suffer from it under the bus.
I remember those times in MY life. And I am so fucking grateful they are in the past.
YES. Thank you for spelling this out.
Humans Are Weird
So there has been a bit of “what if humans were the weird ones?” going around tumblr at the moment and Earth Day got me thinking. Earth is a wonky place, the axis tilts, the orbit wobbles, and the ground spews molten rock for goodness sakes. What if what makes humans weird is just our capacity to survive? What if all the other life bearing planets are these mild, Mediterranean climates with no seasons, no tectonic plates, and no intense weather?
What if several species (including humans) land on a world and the humans are all “SCORE! Earth like world! Let’s get exploring before we get out competed!” And the planet starts offing the other aliens right and left, electric storms, hypothermia, tornadoes and the humans are just … there… counting seconds between flashes, having snowball fights, and just surviving.
To paraphrase one of my favorite bits of a ‘humans are awesome’ fiction megapost: “you don’t know you’re from a Death World until you leave it.” For a ton of reasons, I really like the idea of Earth being Space Australia.
Earth being Space Australia
Words cannot express how much I love these posts
Alien: “I’m sorry, what did you just say your comfortable temperature range is?”
Human: “Honestly we can tolerate anywhere from -40 to 50 Celcius, but we prefer the 0 to 30 range.”
Alien: “……. I’m sorry, did you just list temperatures below freezing?”
Human: “Yeah, but most of us prefer to throw on scarves or jackets at those temperatures it can be a bit nippy.”
Other human: “Nah mate, I knew this guy in college who refused to wear anything past his knees and elbows until it was -20 at least.”
Human: “Heh. Yeah everybody knows someone like that.”
Alien: “……. And did you also say 50 Celcius? As in, half way to boiling?”
Human: “Eugh. Yes. It sucks, we sweat everywhere, and god help you if you touch a seatbelt buckle, but yes.”
Alien: “……. We’ve got like 50 uninhabitable planets we think you might enjoy.”
“You’re telling me that you have… settlements. On islands with active volcanism?”
“Well, yeah. I’m not about to tell Iceland and Hawaii how to live their lives. Actually, it’s kind of a tourist attraction.”
“What, the molten rock?”
“Well, yeah! It’s not every day you see a mountain spew out liquid rocks! The best one is Yellowstone, though. All these hot springs and geysers from the supervolcano–”
“You ACTIVELY SEEK OUT ACTIVE SUPERVOLCANOES?”
“Shit, man, we swim in the groundwater near them.”
Sounds like the “Damned” trilogy by Alan Dean Foster.
“And you say the poles of your world would get as low as negative one hundred with wind chill?”
“Yup, with blizzards you cant see through every other day just about.”
“Amazing! when did you manage to send drones that could survive such temperatures?”
“… well, actually…”
“… what?”
“…we kinda……. sent……….. people…..”
“…”
“…”
“…what?”
“we sent-”
“no yeah I heard you I just- what? You sent… HUMANS… to a place one hundred degrees below freezing?”
“y-yeah”
“and they didn’t… die?”
“Well the first few did”
“PEOPLE DIED OF THE COLD AND YOUR SOLUTION WAS TO SEND MORE PEOPLE???!?!?!?”
My new favorite Humans are Weird quote
“PEOPLE DIED OF THE COLD AND YOUR SOLUTION WAS TO SEND MORE PEOPLE?”
aka The History of Russia
aka Arctic Exploration
aka The History of Alaska
‘But surely you have records of volcanic activity doing tremendous damage to human settlements.’
‘Yep. Pompeii is legendary. Entire cities went. Towns buried under lava, peoples’ brains boiled in the first rush of heat, loads more killed by falling pumice.’
‘ah, good, they learned their lesson and didn’t build there again.’
‘…well…’
‘Are you seriously telling me this volcano is legendary for killing several urban conurbations and you built on top of it AGAIN?’
‘In our defence it hasn’t actually done it since.’
‘What about earthquake-prone areas? Tell me you’re at least vaguely sensible about those.’
‘Oh yeah. After the first major earthquake that flattens a city, we build them better.’
And then the aliens learn what it means to “facepalm” despite not having palms per se….
It got better.
As small as the world 