Respect Vs. Sex Industry
I was contacted by a local reporter today for an interview about two local sex industry businesses applying for a business permit. Check it out here.
I had planned to spend my day reporting on a Dating Respect Conference for my empowering girl website. I had invited three teenage girls to go with me. My daughter got sick so I had to cancel.
Then the local news station called me for my feminist, empowering women and girls, Christian perspective. I asked them to meet me at the conference I had planned to attend.
The reporter that interviewed me said he had attempted to do a story about the Dating Respect Conference and the producers didn’t go for it. So, by my suggesting the conference as an interview location it was, at least, briefly mentioned.
What gets me is that news producers don’t understand their audience at all. In my opinion, they are completely out of touch. I know most people want a tangible way to effect a solution that will empower rather than exploit girls. I just KNOW it.
For more about what I said about the sex industry and the exploitation of women and girls check out So Sioux Me.
Related Stories
POSTED IN: Fabulous Body Image, Fabulous Culture, Fabulous Politics
2 opinions for Respect Vs. Sex Industry
Dominatrix
Sep 2, 2007 at 11:29 am
I do hate to be rude, but the fact is there are men who pose for the sex industry, and women who view and produce materials for it. Is this exploiting men?
Moreover, many women enter the sex industry, each for different reasons, and to assume that they are all beaten girls with low self-esteem who think the sex industry is their only hope is, at best, inaccurate, and at worst offensive. I know of a woman who chose to be a prostitute at a legalized brothel in Las Vegas, and this was a woman witht a college education and credentials in child development. For whatever reason she chose to be a prostitute, I do not know, but nethier does anyone else except for her. I know of two other women who produce pornography and that is their main source of income. Why? Only they can tell us, but I do not see exploitation here.
Oh, and I do hope that you do not believe a word of what Mary Bray Pipher writes about teenage girls today. According to statistics on every measure of well-being we collect statistics on, from drug use to crime to reported happiness to education, and survey s form the girls themselves, girls today are happier and more successful than they have ever been.
People like Pipher are looking to profit from a rampant fear of young people who are sympbols of radical social and racial/ethnic evolution.
Just for the record I realize that there are some in the industry that are unscrupulous and actually do enslave their workers. But if the sex industry was less mariginalized, I think that could help, because more oversight would be conducted, and fewer people who were in the industry would get sucked into unscrupulous hands. This is wrong, but not representative of every corner of the industry.
Note that I do not cast doubt on your intentions. Note that I am *very* feminist, but it is because I am feminist that I think both men and women should not be judged or patronized or stereotyped for using their bodies as they see fit.
What is so bad about the sex industry anyway? It sure beats doing manual labor for a crap minimum wage. At least in the sex industry, you get paid well for your labor, and you have a lot more options.
Tracee
Sep 3, 2007 at 10:59 am
By your comments and the identifier you chose to use I can see that you are exploring finding empowerment through sex. I think many, maybe even most women, experiment with finding their power through sexuality. I don’t want to cast judgement on that. I certainly was not above it. I’m not going to rule out finding any power at all in sexuality. Sometimes it seems like the most easily accessible power we have historically had access too.
I would like to know what kind of girl research you are reading so I can check it out. What you’re saying about girls may be true for some, and I certainly hope that it is, but it’s inconsistent with what the teen girls I know are saying about themselves.
The sex industry is a complicated feminist issue. First, I’ll never deny or attempt to deny the right of women to participation in it. As an adult you have a right to sell your self.
However, I don’t think it’s a healthy form of empowerment. In pornography or stripping or prostitution the woman is the object. An object of desire? Maybe sometimes. But, an object none the less. There is a great deal of power exchanging that goes on in the sex industry and I don’t think any amount of money can compensate what the woman sells. A woman can try to think of her body as an object or invite others to treat her body as an object, but I don’t think an object can have any real power because she’s selling a spiritual part of the self too.
A gun is an object. But, the gun has no power unless a person uses it. The person using the gun has power, not the gun. The same would be true, in my opinion, of the sex industry - the producer of porn has the power, the night club manager has the power, the publisher of magazines has the power.
Can a woman be the publisher, madame or producer? Sure, women can exploit other women to achieve power.
Yes, men pose for pornography or have sex in films. Some men are exploited in the sex industry. But, the men are generally “the conquerers” rather than the object. The men are showing off their virile manhood by conquering the woman. The woman is usually the object.
Even with dominatrix forms of sexual power play I would say the power is the medium being exchanged. If a man is paying a woman to make him feel powerless, he’s still the one holding the gun. He’s just asking the gun to make him feel afraid because that’s what turns him on.
Thank God our choices as women are not fast, food service industry or sex worker. We have all kinds of professional options now. They are not limited, except by our own self worth. If girls feel they are only worth being a sex worker that is tragic, in my opinion.
If my daughter answered “prostitute, stripper or porn star” to “what do you want to be when you grow up?” I would consider myself a terrible failure at motherhood.
Have an opinion? Leave a comment: