Tag Archives: Slutwalk

Why Leftist Progressive Sex-Positive Men Like Me Support Slutwalk, Part 1 (Hint: Because We Are NOT "Sexual Predators" And "Slutty" Women NOT Our Concubines)

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I am going to do my damnest to keep this from becoming another Gail Dines fisking this time.

Not because I tire of debunking her bullshit, and pissing off the antis and sex fascists….but because I want to give a much more broad and personal message about why I support and endorse this growing Slutwalk movement.

The inspiration was Hugo Schwyzer’s brilliant post where he eloquently explains why he’s helping to organize the Los Angeles version of Slutwalk, which will be held this Saturday (June 4th).

Now Schwyzer’s motivation as a male feminist sympathizer and recovering alcoholic/drug abuser who admitted to using his former position as a teacher to take advantage of some of his young adult students by sleeping with them, before he was able to check himself and save his life, is a bit different from my own. His perspective is of a male who uses his own experiences as a means of educating other men about how they can overcome their own abusive and destructive behavior and respect women as human beings. His conversion is pretty much similar to other male feminists such as Robert Jensen and Michael Kimmel, who are also known for their analysis and critique of male sexual behavior. (Jensen, of course, is far more into the antiporn radicalfeminist cloak than Schwyzer is; of course; Bob the Guilt Tripper would never be caught anywhere near defending a movement like Slutwalk, since he is more into the Dines  “abolitionist” school of thought.)

My perspective, though, is a bit different..as a non-drinking, non-smoking, single working class Black man whom respects women’s right of free choice and who rejects wholeheartedly the idea that somehow women should be held responsible for their own abuse. Thankfully, I’ve never had to face down drug or alcohol abuse or have never had the power or the will to abuse other people….and my personal morality of respecting women as full human beings enables me to temper my own urges and feelings. Plus, my current position as a supervisor puts me in a position of overseeing and being overseen by women who can more than defend themselves.

But, mostly, my defense of Slutwalk’s basic principles that women do NOT deserve to be raped AND that women should be free to wear whatever they damn well please without fear of being blamed for the acts of rapists and abusers, is fundamentally based on the belief that a woman has a right to determine for herself her sexuality, and that she — not the State, not organized religion, not self-styled “feminists”, and most definitely NOT self-appointed commisars of judgment — is best able to say for herself how to defend herself.

It also goes into the basic principle that the majority of men are indeed capable of treating women as full human beings worthy of respect and dignity, even as they follow the natural urges and desires of seeing women as openly sexual beings worthy of desire and lust.

And that may be the fundamental difference between those of us who are “sex-positive” and those who follow the sex-hating, male-bashing, erotophobic, restrictive, and reactionary ideology that reinforces “slut-shaming” and suggests that women who dress skimpily deserve to be abused and raped.

I’ve followed the vocal criticisms lobbed toward the global Slutwalk movement; some are more thoughtful and concise than others. There is a legitimate debate over whether or not it is useful to rehabilitate the old “slut” term as a badge of resistance, or whether or not it remains too contaminated by its use as a broad slur against women not conforming to conservative sexual identity standards. There is just as legitimate a debate over whether women of color or women without economic privilege are adequetely represented in the global Slutwalk protests, and how best to confront issues of sexual harrassment while maintaining as wide a popular front as possible. All of this needs to be hashed out and discussed in an open forum of discussion, and I have absolutely no problem with that.

Problem is, though, some particular elements of “radical feminism” — especially the antiporn/anti-sexwork wing — are more interested with their usual silencing and shaming and smearing and intimidating of Slutwalk proponents, using all the usual libels and slanders.

One example: a post by long time antiporn radfem Aura Bogado, who went to the trouble of even calling Slutwalk a “White supremacist” group that cared not a whit about how people lof color were being abused by the “patriarchial” system. Bogado is not new to the politics of smear and intimidation; back in 2005, she successfully intimidated the antiwar group Not In Our Name to return an attempted financial contribution from HUSTLER CEO Larry Flynt, and she was one of the founding lights of the HustlingTheLeft.com site that precluded all of Gail Dines’ “antiporn Left” positions and activism today.

In this recent essay, Bogado attempts to smear Slutwalk with the old and tired “elitist” slur by attempting to prove their supposed lack of concern with efforts of people of color. Here, she uses the recent attempt of sex workers in New Orleans to challenge Lousisana’s “Crimes Against Nature” statute criminalizing some adult sexual behavior, which was charged with being used disproportionally against poor women of color.

As Trymaine Lee has reported, black, poor and transgender women are being disproportionately and systematically branded as criminal “sex offenders” on an online database for engaging in “survival sex” in New Orleans. Under the cover of an obscure, slave-era legal term called “crimes against nature,” police officers target those who engage in oral or anal sex-for-money. Those targeted for a second time are charged as felons (vaginal sex-for-money, meanwhile, is considered misdemeanor prostitution). 40 percent of those who appear on the sexual predator database are there because they were accused of committing a “crime against nature;” more than 80 percent of those are black women.

If SlutWalk truly wanted to bring attention to the systematic ways in which women are harmed by regressive and misogynistic thinking, they could have done the heavy lifting of reaching out and supporting black, poor and transgender women in New Orleans, for whom the word “slut” carries a criminal sex offender record. Instead, they force us to keep bearing the multiple burdens that come with not only being a woman, but also being a working class woman of color. Had SlutWalk organizers considered New Orleans – or perhaps any city in the Northern Hemisphere where undocumented women possess a very real fear that a call to the police for any reason will result in her own deportation – they might have thought twice about sinking so much time and energy into their event. They might have had to listen to women of color, and actually involve them in visioning for what an equitable future would look like. Instead, they decided to celebrate a term not everyone is comfortable even saying. While I will not pretend to speak for women targeted in New Orleans, I doubt that the mere idea of naming themselves “sluts” would be welcomed. SlutWalk has proven itself to be a maddening distraction from the systematic and interpersonal violence that women of color face daily.

Problem is, though, no one organizer at Slutwalk has ever even inferred as Bogado charges that they speak for anyone other than themselves; or that the concerns of poor women or women of color are any less legitimate; their focus has been keyed on resisting and repudiating the notion that women’s clothing is responsible for women being raped.

Bogado also ignores the essential fact that the “crimes against nature” statute has also fundamentally served as the main base for criminalizing other kinds of sexual behavior, including heterosexual sex outside of reproductive marriage and homosexual sex (and that would include gay men as well as lesbians and the transgendered). Indeed, prior to the US Supreme Court’s landmark Lawrence vs. Texas ruling declaring laws against consensual gay sex unconstitutional, the CAN statute was Louisiana’s primary means of criminalizing gay sex as well. That it remains on the books today is more the aftereffect of the power of the fundamentalist Christian Tea Party/Republican majority power structure in Louisiana imposing their morality through fiat.

Note also the inferrence by Bogado that because the Slutwalks don’t openly address the issues of “undocumented” and poor women, they are prima facie “White supremacist” due to nothing more than her belief that anything other than her brand of antiporn/anti-sexwork brand of Swedish Model radicalfeminism amounts to “White privileging” against ALL women of color. Never mind that many supporters of Slutwalk have indeed been open to addressing those issues through other channels. And, never mind that even activist sex worker groups like the founders of the blog Bound, Not Gagged, have reported favorably on Trymaine Lee’s article and given broad support to their efforts. Many more need to do so, of course….but to use that as a wedge to slander Slutwalk merely as a “White supemacist” organization is a massive distortion.

Of course, Bogado’s real problem with Slutwalk has less to do with their composition, and much more to do with their core ideology. She concludes her essay with this:

Whether white supremacist hegemony was SlutWalk’s intent or not is beyond my concern – because it has certainly been so in effect. This event will not stop the criminalization of black women in New Orleans, nor will it stop one woman from being potentially deported after she calls the police subsequent to being raped. SlutWalk completely ignores the way institutional violence is leveled against women of color. The event highlights its origins from a privileged position of relative power, replete with an entitlement of assumed safety that women of color would never even dream of. We do not come from communities in which it feels at all harmless to call ourselves “sluts.” Aside from that, our skin color, not our style of dress, often signifies slut-hood to the white gaze.

If SlutWalk has proven anything, it is that liberal white women are perfectly comfortable parading their privilege, absorbing every speck of airtime celebrating their audacity, and ignoring women of color. Despite decades of work from women of color on the margins to assert an equitable space, SlutWalk has grown into an international movement that has effectively silenced the voices of women of color and re-centered the conversation to consist of a topic by, of, and for white women only. More than 30 years ago, Gloria Anzaldúa wrote, “I write to record what others erase when I speak.” Unfortunately, SlutWalk’s leadership obliterated Anzaldúa’s voice, and the marvelous work she produced theorizing what it means to be a queer woman of color. They might do us all a favor now and stop erasing the rest of us for once.

Right…..I’m betting if this was a movement closer to Bogado’s antiporn ideology, she would be beyond praising it as the next great Fourth Wave of feminism. But because the organizers and participants of Slutwalk don’t go all in on the antiporn radfem hivemind that only men using porn and having erections are responsible for all the rape and murder and oppression of women worldwide, it automatically becomes, in her mind, mere “White liberal privilege” attempting not only “silencing”, but sheer genocide of women of color.

I find it awfully funny how Bogado positions herself and the APRF anti-Slutwalk critics as the sole representatives of “women of color” (Bogado is Latina), and essentially promotes her brand of radicalfeminism as the universal truth of women of color. So, does that mean that activist sex workers of color like, say, Divinity33372, are chopped liver?? Or…are they just really paid agents of “the patriarchy”, “niggers/Cholas who side with the masters”, stupid “cumdumpsters” who slavishly serve The Penis??. Who exactly is silencing who, ma’am??

This is NOT to deny that institutional racism and capitalism and State power to enforce such should be ignored or that anyone worthy of being a progressive must challenge fully the abuse of power against all human beings, especially those without the economic or social privileges to fight back on their own. But, that’s a fundamentally different venue and fight than merely condemning women who want to reclaim the term “slut” as a resistance against rape and sexual assault as “privileged”.

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Granted, folk like Aura Bogado, while still blinded by their obsession with hating on women who don’t quite agree with her brand of sexual conservatism revamped as “radical feminism”, are still capable of actually making some attempt at reasonable debate. There is a special breed of APRF, though, who simply can’t help themselves into going straight into the personal gutter attacks more worthy of Andrew Breitbart.

Which brings us back to Hugo Schwyzer and his sponsorship of SlutwalkLA, which has generated plenty of controversy.

Remember that essay Schwyzer pinned where he reset his previous issues as an alcoholic and drug abuser, and how he used his power as a teacher to bed down his female students? The whole point of those revelations was for Schwyzer to point out how he was able to check himself and notice what harm he was doing, and make the necessary adjustments to get his life back on track…and how feminism was the key to getting him off the wagon.

And, do note that Hugo Schwyzer is no libertine feminist, either. He is pretty much a strong critic against porn, though unlike Bob Jensen, he does acknowledge the right of women and men to create and consume sexually explicit material. He is an unabashed monogamist, who believes and preaches strongly the blessings of personal intimacy and self-control. And he minces no words on his belief that men should take collective responsibility for the actions of the few who are unable to control their urges.

Problem is, for some, that isn’t quite enough…and his leading of SlutwalkLA has unleashed a furious campaign against both him personally and the entire Slutwalk movement in general, using the usual “just another excuse for men to degrade and abuse women” meme.

A particulaly virulent ad hominen attack can be found at the Radfem Hub Blog, where blogger Factcheckme (FCM) waylays Schwyzer and SlutwalkLA with all the usual vivid and lurid male baiting, sex-hating slanders you’ve come to expect from the “GenderBorg”* hivemind. Observe, if you dare, some snippage:

meanwhile, old hugo prefers to debate the “ethics” of the professor-student “relationship” as if the tangible harms to women that directly and significantly affect their performance as students, isnt a good enough reason for male educators to stop sticking their dicks into female students.  and for anyone who thinks that “just have an abortion!” is a reasonable solution to the problem that hugo and men like him are creating, by having PIV with female college students…well rest assured that hugo himself is pro-choice!  thats right, hugo schwyzer fully supports all womens right to become impregnated by him (and other men), and to not carry the pregnancy to term.  except when hes pro-life.  its a male womens-history professors perogative to serially fuck students, and then repeatedly change his mind as to what the consequences of his and all mens actions will be for the women they are fucking, afterall.

he also calls all women who eschew PIV entirely sex-negative “prudes” comparable to conservative christians and the ”enemies of eros” (bahahaha!) which i think rounds out the picture nicely.

so.  this is the background we are dealing with, and hugo makes no bones about any of it: i have provided links to his own words, on his own blog, and he is unapologetic (if allegedly ”repentant”) about all of it.  enter SlutWalk, and hugos involvement in it, as an organizer on the steering committee.

in his own words, hugo believes that he and the rest of the SlutWalkers are marching for womens rights to “dignity and respect,” whomever they sleep with.  hugo does not appear to be as supportive of womens right to not engage in PIV at all, or to criticise PIV or PIV-centric sexuality, or to criticize him or his behavior regarding PIV over the years.  or to believe that those women who are rightly PIV-critical are deserving of “dignity and respect” especially us nasty old radfems, who are old and experienced enough to know better, and to recall womens actual history, where mens sexual entitlement to womens bodies features prominently and has proven absolutely disastrous to all women, billions of us, across time and place.

who is marching for us, or for any womans right to not engage in PIV, and to not participate in our own destruction through trauma-bonding, medical events and pregnancy, which are objectively and demonstrably harmful to women, and where PIV is utilized deliberately as a weapon, by men, to cause female-specific harm?  not professor hugo schwyzer, thats for sure.  not the SlutWalkers either, although obviously i blame them less, and prefer to believe that somewhere deep inside, they recognize their own right not to be fucking vaginally-probed by some dood, and call it sex.  i hope! as it is, SlutWalk seems to be an unabashed PIV-pozzie-palooza, where women (and men!11!1) are standing together in solidarity to support womens unconditional right to let men fuck us, and for neither party to feel “guilt” or “shame” about it.  as if womens or mens subjective “feelings” about PIV is the real problem here, and not the objective, identifiable and demonstrable female-specific harms of PIV.  and PS.  men should feel fucking guilty, for subjecting women to PIV-centric sex.

Let’s simply flip aside for the moment that nowhere has Hugo Schwyzer ever accused critics of Slutwalk to be “prudes”, nor has he even remotely claimed to have impregnated any of his students. And let us bypass the stupidity of FCM channeling her inner Andrea Dworkin in claiming that ALL “PIV” (penis in vagina) sex is inherently evil and the essence of rape, or her lunacy in representing her brand of extremist Flat Earth, No Men Involved brand of “feminism” as representative of ALL women. (Or, to paraphrase Chaka Khan’s hit single: “I’m Every Woman, it’s all in me.” Really???)

Oh…and also choose to ignore the basic fact that college students are indeed ADULTS, and female professors have been known to have an affair or two or five with their students on occasion. Sometimes, even with their FEMALE students, too…though I probably wouldn’t think that that would fall under the hateful gaze of FCM since no male penises are involved.

And that was the least virulent of that stinkbomb. I didn’t repost the beginning, where FCM goes particularly Brietbarfian and all but calls Schwyzer a sexual predator and a rapist due to his admittance of sleeping with his students during his darkest days as a drug abuser.

Funny, but I don’t see these folk jumping on Bob Jensen for his past…but probably because Bob the Guilt Tripper is much more all in as their favorite antiporn male feminist??

It also led  yet another male APRF groupie, a lad named MaoistRebel, to post at his own blog an explictly lurid post explicily calling Schwyzer “a rapist” who only wants to organize SlutWalk as a means of getting more pussy…..errrrrr….more victims. That actual post has since been removed by MaoistRebel’s webhost due to threats of legal action by Schwyzer, but MR did manage to post a video at his YouTube channel resetting the whole libelous claim. (Divinity has a succcinct response to MR’s lunacy here.) He has since reposted an only slightly revised version merely singing Schwyzer as a “sexual predator”.

In addition, other radical feminists have taken to a Twitter campaign attempting to smear Schwyzer as a “sexual predator” who’s attempting as a man to give himself the right to “redefine feminism”. As if Slutwalk wasn’t about women at all. As if the organizers of the original Slutwalk in Toronto weren’t women. As if women aren’t capable of defining feminism for themselves. As if any man who marchs with women in solidarity with Slutwalk prinicples are simply their to gawk at skimpy clothing and get laid.

And of course, any attempt to respond to such criticism and slander is met with the timeless cry of “You’re trying to SILENCE and CENSOR women!!!!!!!!” Yeah, because no one has the right to point out the flaws or the hysterics of their arguments.

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Why is all of this important, you ask?? Because it goes to the heart of the issue of not only redefining the meaning of the term “slut” but also the fundamental issue of how we treat women who partake in sexual activity outside of the traditional realms of marriage and reproduction. Mostly, though, it’s an issue of plain old fashioned sex-hate.

I’ll expound on that in Part 2 of this post. Stay tuned….

 

* “GenderBorg” is a colloquialism of mine used to describe a particularly virulent strain of antiporn/anti-sexwork radical “feminism” that is most gifted in the art of smearing and intimidating its critics. It comes from the conflation of the notorious Borg Collective from Star Trek: The Next Generation with Samatha Berg’s online APRF forum The Genderberg Forums. Background on them can be found through this search.

[Addendum: Edited by me to add new information on Factcheckme, who isn't new to the art of shit-smearing (ask Renegade Evolution and Genderbitch)}.

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Best. Gail. Dines. Rebunk. EVER!!! From. Thomas. Roche. (via TinyNibbles/Our Porn, Ourselves)

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Thomas Roche (@ThomasRoche) just used the pages of TinyNibbles.com (where he now shares co-contributor status with Violet Blue (The Sex Blogger)), and also the pages of Our Porn, Ourselves (OurPornOurselves.org), to issue the absolute best refutation of the Radical “Feminist” wingnut that is Gail Dines….especially targeting her recent steaming pile of hot mess she posted posted to the Austrailian Sydney Morning Herakl.

The entire article stands on its own, and I strongly suggest you go to either TinyNibbles (be warned, though, contains NSFW content and links) or OPO and read through it. But, for inspiration’s sake, here’s some snippage of how absolutely on point Roche demysitfies the true nature of Dines’ sex hating foundation (stronger points by Roche emphasized by me in bold):

To Dines, “culturally imposed myths about their sexuality” means specifically the myth that women like sex, or, to meeet Dines and Murphy much more than halfway, the myth that women like the kind of sex specifically portrayed in pornography, since the sum total of Dines’ and Murphy’s “case studies” in the Guardian article are that they hear from women who feel  pressured for sex. “They have been told over and over that in order to be valued in such a culture, they must look and act like sluts, while not being labeled slut because the label has dire consequences including being blamed for rape, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and self-mutilation.”

But who’s doing the blaming here? Dines and Murphy are the ones who just blamed sluts for eating disorders and self-mutilation! I’m slut-positive — and, just speaking for myself, I blame eating disorders and self-mutilation on a sick, diseased Patriarchal society, dysfunctional mental health and health insurance systems, rampant soulless Capitalism, sex-phobic family interactions, sex-silencing religious structures, a culture that teaches girls they are less than boys…need I go on?

[...]

I would assert that one of the most dominant and pervasive myths about female sexuality is the idea that women don’t like sex. Its close corollaries are “good girls don’t like sex” and “normal women don’t like sex,” and “women don’t like abnormal sex.” Whether that is one of the chief myths that creates gendered violence, I don’t know, but it’s certainly true that what follows close on that myth’s heels is the idea that, by liking sex, by liking “abnormal” sex, or by liking “normal” sex but liking it an “abnormal” amount, women abdicate their right to physical sanctity. For a women’s studies professor, Dines sure seems to blame the victim a lot. Is this woman friends with Camile Paglia?

Or, to see it another way, women abdicate their right to physical sanctity for liking sex without it being the kind of sex that “normal” women like. Women place themselves in jeopardy, says Dines, by being “sluts,” which to Dines means that their sex is not about, or not just about, “connection, empathy, tenderness, caring, affection.” That is to say, the crime of sluts is by liking sex without letting Gail Dines decide what kind of sex they have.

In Dines’ view, Women who choose to be “sluts,” especially proud sluts, are partly responsible for rape — not just their own, but all rape.

Because they like sex differently than Dines’ so-called “normal” women, “sluts” undermine their right not only to their own physical sanctity, but the sanctity of all women, in Dines’ view. That sounds like a pretty narrow definition of “normal,” and one that Dines has single-handedly decided on.

But how normal is normal, Gail? In case you haven’t noticed, “normal” sexual relationships are very often royally fucked up! Did Dines burst forth from Zeus’s skull the same year as AOL, or does she honestly not remember that sexual relationships were fucked up before the internet — even, believe it or not, before commercial porn?

And this is even before Roche debunks Dines’ cracked and burnt beyond recognition slander of the term “gonzo”…but I don’t want to give too much away.

Just go there and read for yourself.

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Why SlutWalk Is More Feminist Than Most Feminists Could Even Dream Of (Or, Reason #5,876 Why Gail Dines Is The Bill O'Reilly Of Radical Feminists)

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Most of you know me as a fierce defender of and even sometimes worshipper of sexually assertive women.

It’s not because I aim to get into every one of their panties, either.

(Though, admittedly, the thought has crossed my mind a time or two. A day. OK, OK, an hour a day. Oh, all right…plenty of hours a day.  Hey, I’m an average man with feelings and working sex organs; can’t deny that.)

On the other hand, though, that desire for women who aren’t afraid to “play the slut”, if not even “BE the slut”, comes with an ethic and a responsibility to respect them as full human beings not reduced to the size of their chests, butts, or clits.

Even when they fully choose to show themselves off or put themselves out for their own sexual pleasure, it is fundamental that anyone worthy of having a human conscience remember that just because they put out does not make them your very personal sex doll or vibrator; and that outside of the fantasies they provide, they are and should be respected and given all the privileges of privacy that all women deserve.

Needles to say, that also includes the right NOT to be sexually assaulted, or to be catcalled against their will or consent, or to be judged by their style of dress.

Actually, that goes for all women in general, whether they choose to dress in a burqa, a business suit, or a tank top and miniskirt. Whatever they decide to put on (or take off) is inmaterial to whether or not they are available to you. If she wants you, she will say so; otherwise, just assume the default position of NO and move on. (And no, “maybe next time” does not mean “Yes” either…it means just what is says.)

It is depressing to actually have to type this in the second week of the fifth month of the year 2011, because the idea that a woman’s choice of clothing determing her supposed sexual availability and giving a green light to any rapist or other sexual assailant to ignore her stated rejections should have been put to permanent rest a long time ago.

What turns this into an even greater travesty is when the voices for “modesty” and forced chastity and browbeating women for their choices happen to call themselves “feminists”.  Nay…”RADICAL feminists”.

And this is why I once again have to drop another Gail Dines Stupid Radfem Right update on you. Not that I likeusing up valuable pixel space ripping on the Wheelock College professor/antiporn “leftist” activist/faux feminist, but when she goes like Bill O’Reilly and says something more astonishingly, breathtakingly, viciously boneheaded than her usual mimes about porn being the Great Male Patriarchial Capitalist Menace, I feel the need to write something before my blood pressure bursts.

This time, the “good” Professor has decided to sink her teeth into the unwilling neck of an emerging movement known as SlutWalk, which was designed to defend the right of women to wear whatever the fuck they wanted and resist rape and sexual assault in their own way.

SlutWalk originally started out in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, by a feisty group of feminists who got seriously pissed off when a Toronto policeman named Michael Sanguinetti decided to shoot his mouth off about rape prevention. Problem was, he blamed the victims of rape for their own accounts, directly implying that they wouldn’t be raped if they had just been a bit more selective with their style of clothing.  The direct quote from Sanguinetti (courtesy of The Guardian UK):

“You know, I think we’re beating around the bush here,” Michael Sanguinetti began, blandly enough, as he addressed the 10 students who turned up for the pep talk. Then he said: “I’ve been told I’m not supposed to say this – however, women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimised.”

Ahhh, yeah. Because the many women who didn’t dress “like sluts” and still managed to get sexually assaulted don’t quite matter, right?? And, of course, the men who do in fact attack women only attack women who dress like “sluts”, thusly, they should be given the benefit of the doubt that they are motivated solely by rampant lust rather than anger and violence and rage vented through sex…ahhh, really???

It was in anger of a different kind that some feminists in Toronto decided to directly take on Sanguinetti’s bullshit straight on and defend the notion of female sexual self-determination against such slut shaming and rape ideology. Thusly, Slutwalk Toronto was born online (and on Facebook), and a protest march organized..which has basically exploded and metasized into a worldwide movement against the mythology and etology of slut shaming.

Their manifesto released at the time of the original protests in Toronto speaks for itself; so I will simply reprint it in its entirity.

BECAUSE WE’VE HAD ENOUGH!

On January 24th, 2011, a representative of the Toronto Police gave shocking insight into the Force’s view of sexual assault by stating: “women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized”.

As the city’s major protective service, the Toronto Police have perpetuated the myth and stereotype of ‘the slut’, and in doing so have failed us. With sexual assault already a significantly under-reported crime, survivors have now been given even less of a reason to go to the Police, for fear that they could be blamed. Being assaulted isn’t about what you wear; it’s not even about sex; but using a pejorative term to rationalize inexcusable behaviour creates an environment in which it’s okay to blame the victim.

Historically, the term ‘slut’ has carried a predominantly negative connotation. Aimed at those who are sexually promiscuous, be it for work or pleasure, it has primarily been women who have suffered under the burden of this label. And whether dished out as a serious indictment of one’s character or merely as a flippant insult, the intent behind the word is always to wound, so we’re taking it back. “Slut” is being re-appropriated.

We are tired of being oppressed by slut-shaming; of being judged by our sexuality and feeling unsafe as a result. Being in charge of our sexual lives should not mean that we are opening ourselves to an expectation of violence, regardless if we participate in sex for pleasure or work. No one should equate enjoying sex with attracting sexual assault.

We are a movement demanding that our voices be heard. We are here to call foul on our Police Force and demand change. We want Toronto Police Services to take serious steps to regain our trust. We want to feel that we will be respected and protected should we ever need them, but more importantly be certain that those charged with our safety have a true understanding of what it is to be a survivor of sexual assault — slut or otherwise.

We are tired of speeches filled with lip service and the apologies that accompany them. What we want is meaningful dialogue and we are doing something about it: WE ARE COMING TOGETHER. Not only as women, but as people from all gender expressions and orientations, all walks of life, levels of employment and education, all races, ages, abilities, and backgrounds, from all points of this city and elsewhere.

We are asking you to join us for SlutWalk, to make a unified statement about sexual assault and victims’ rights and to demand respect for all. Whether a fellow slut or simply an ally, you don’t have to wear your sexual proclivities on your sleeve, we just ask that you come. Come walk or roll or strut or holler or stomp with us.

Join us in our mission to spread the word that those those who experience sexual assault are not the ones at fault, without exception.

“No one should equate enjoying sex with attracting sexual assault.” Isn’t simplicity wonderful??

Remember, Clones, these are NOT porn performers or exhibitionists insisting on their right to walk the public streets naked at rush hour, nor are they sex workers calling for their right to walk the streets in front of the local high school. These are basically your mothers, your daughters, your girlfriends, your friends….in short, average women insisting that they, not some asshole policeman, can determine for themselves when to attract wanted sexual attention and when not to….as well as restating the essential truth that no woman should ever be blamed for being the victim of sexual assault, and that no man should be allowed to use the excuse of a woman’s state of dress as a “Get Out Of Jail Free” card or to ever justify sexual assault or battery.

Sounds like progressive feminism to me. Who would ever oppose that kind of movement against sexual assault, other than holy roller fundamentalists who insist on forcing chadors, burqas, and veils on women as a means of “protecting” them from the evil “male” desires??

Who, you ask?

Cueth the Professor from Wheelock College and antiporn activist named Gail Dines.

Of course, she was too chickenshit to post her observations from her home base in the US, so she (and another professor/rape “expert”, Wendy Murphy), decided to use the friendly pages of the Guardian UK to vent her spleen as to why SlutWalk is BAAAAAAAD for women and feminists, if not fundamentally antifeminist.

At least, anti- the kind of sexually restrictive, reactionary, closed-minded, fear-mongering “feminism” that Dines love to waddle in.

Most of her rant focuses on the stigma that the broader culture still attaches to the word “slut”…which she so lovingly not only approves of, but even uses as a wedge against those women stupid enough to accept their right to sexual self-determination not redeemed by her own radical feminist values. Some snippage follows:

It wasn’t long ago that being called a “slut” meant social death. No “nice” boy would take you home to meet his parents and no “good” girl would ever be your friend. At the same time, refusing to submit to sex meant you were a “prude” or “frigid”. In short, there was no right way to be. Things have improved a bit in that young women are more insistent on their right to sexual autonomy, but sexually active women remain vulnerable to harsh social judgments even as the mass media celebrate and encourage such behaviour. And research shows that the label “slut” still has long-term negative consequences, especially for younger girls.

Now, I’m not denying that such attitudes about women being “prudes” and “frigid” don’t exist among select few people….but notice how Dines turns it against women who do resist the stigma and who do declare themselves to be sexually assertive…as if they are the cause of the “negative consequenses” of rape. Of course, you will remember that the meme of “We’re just ‘prudes’ because we resist evil male sexuality!!” is a classic projection of Dines used to ward off charges that she indeed wants to censor sexualiy of women. To which the proper answer should be: “Well, if the shoe fits….”

The fact that more than 2,000 turned out to march around Boston Common suggests that women are, indeed, hungry for sexual autonomy. But something else was at work here: many of the banners protested the ubiquity of sexual violence in the lives of women. Signs made by protesters showed that women are angry with being blamed for male violence and fed up with the failure of the culture to hold men accountable. Clearly the theme of the SlutWalk has struck a nerve, with similar events being planned around the world, including one in London in June.

The organisers claim that celebrating the word “slut”, and promoting sluttishness in general, will help women achieve full autonomy over their sexuality. But the focus on “reclaiming” the word slut fails to address the real issue. The term slut is so deeply rooted in the patriarchal “madonna/whore” view of women’s sexuality that it is beyond redemption. The word is so saturated with the ideology that female sexual energy deserves punishment that trying to change its meaning is a waste of precious feminist resources.

So now, Dines and Murphy are attempting to steal the thunder of SlutWalk by claiming that their motives are not what they have explicitly stated themselves…and also attempting to undermind them by telling them that their mission is a failure because….the word “slut” is simply beyond redemption as a bludgeon of “patriarchy”.

You may note the thinly veiled implication that as a result, any woman who attempts to claim usage of the term as a symbol of sexual self-assertiveness and autonomy is, by Dines’ edict, a mere pawn of, if not a direct agent of, said “patriarchy”, and a useful idiot of “male sexuality” in opposition to “female sexual agency”. In other words, Dines simply paraphrases the long lived dictum of her predecessor and mentor, Catherine MacKinnon: “If ‘slutdom’ is a part of your sexuality, then you have no right to your sexuality.”

Oh, did I say “thinly veiled”??? The next few paragraphs state it far more explicitly:

Advocates would be better off exposing the myriad ways in which the law and the culture enable myths about all types of women – sexually active or “chaste” alike. These myths facilitate sexual violence by undermining women’s credibility when they report sex crimes. Whether we blame victims by calling them “sluts” (who thus asked to be raped), or by calling them “frigid” (who thus secretly want to be overpowered), the problem is that we’re blaming them for their own victimisation no matter what they do. Encouraging women to be even more “sluttish” will not change this ugly reality.

As teachers who travel around the country speaking about sexual violence, pornography and feminism, we hear stories from women students who feel intense pressure to be sexually available “on demand”. These students have grown up in a culture in which hypersexualized images of young women are commonplace and where hardcore porn is the major form of sex education for young men. They have been told over and over that in order to be valued in such a culture, they must look and act like sluts, while not being labeled slut because the label has dire consequences including being blamed for rape, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and self-mutilation.

Because, you see, according to Gail Dines and Wendy Murphy, calling yourself a “slut” simply enables men to think of ALL women as “sluts” in the negative “I want to rape them with impunity” way. In fact, the mere calling of oneself a “slut” engaging men to mere erections and sexual arousal is more than enough in this evil “porn culture” to encourage violence and degradation of women.

Naturally, Dines and Murphy are far too sophisicated as “radical feminists” to come out and say that maybe Officer Sanguinetti was right all along and that women who dress “sluttily” are to blame for their own violence  And, quite naturally, they are quick to place the fundamental blame on the rapists themselves and give the women a break as the ultimate victims of male assault.

The problem is, though, that their core ideology of laying the fundamental blame on “male rape culture”, fueled by porn, capitalism, and mere male erections, doesn’t really allow for women fighting for themselves to reclaim their own individual right to be safely sexually assertive, or to even dress the way they want. Indeed, in a back-door kind of way, they actually give plenty of tribute to the fundamentally repressive, conservative meme of “she asked for it” by basically accepting carte blanche without any proof of evidence the fact that men are at root evil rapists led by their erections to brutalize women.

It’s as if the fundamental fact that the overwhelming majority of men do in fact respect women enough to not assault them even if they are dressed in a way that sexually arouses them doesn’t even register with Dines or Murphy. Or, that most women are more than capable of negotiating with men the acceptable boundaries of consent and what is and isn’t acceptable behavior or contact based on time and place…and, more importantly, that women and men are able to have those boundaries enforced through mutual trust, consent, mutal pleasure, and, if needed, the power of the state.

Besides all that, Dines and Murphy conveniently gloss over the far more powerful institutions of society that do NOT reward women for “slutdom”, but in fact punishes them profusely through loss of respect, loss of self-esteem, and even loss of social and economic privileges, if not actual physical punishment. Porn performers may get paid a decent amount of money, but they don’t compare to Hollywood movie actresses or politicians or even CEO’s…and I’ll bet ‘ya not many of those are self-identified “sluts”. For every Cameron Diaz there are at least five Demi Moores; and Sarah Palin still makes more money than Lisa Ann could ever dream of. (Unfortunately, since Lisa Ann’s a lot more moral and accomplished than the Half-Governor ever will be. Even fully clothed.)

Of course, Dines and Murphy do have an alternative to promoting “slut” theology….unfortunately it’s the same old tired “authentic female sexuality” divorced from real fact or experience or orgasm, rooted in the usual radfem notion of “radical female sexuality” (or, what the old heads would call “radicallesbianism”) freed from the bounds of male dictums and demands…and of male erections, too.

Women need to find ways to create their own authentic sexuality, outside of male-defined terms like slut. The recent TubeCrush phenomenon, where young women take pictures of men they find attractive on the London tube and post them to a website, illustrates how easily women copy dominant societal norms of sexual objectification rather than exploring something new and creative. And it’s telling that while these pictures are themselves innocent and largely free of sexual innuendo, one can only imagine the sexually aggressive language that would accompany a site dedicated to secret photos of women.

While the organisers of the SlutWalk might think that proudly calling themselves “sluts” is a way to empower women, they are in fact making life harder for girls who are trying to navigate their way through the tricky terrain of adolescence.

Women need to take to the streets – but not for the right to be called “slut”. Women should be fighting for liberation from culturally imposed myths about their sexuality that encourage gendered violence. Our daughters – and our sons – have the right to live in a world that celebrates equally women’s sexual freedom and bodily integrity.

How nice that two women who  have no problem sharing the dais with such prominent progressive “feminists” as Patrick Trueman, Shelley Lubben, and Judith Reisman, can lecture other feminists on what they should represent as “authentic female sexuality”. And how even nicer that they can promote their version of “It’s not your fault, but close your damn legs and cover yourselves up anyway, because you are enabling the men to leer and that’s raping us anyway” as a means of “sexual freedom” and “women’s autonomy”.

I’ll take Susie Bright and Nina Hartley’s brand of feminism over this crap any day of the week.

And I’ll STILL respect a woman’s right to say “HELL NO” and mean it, and still say “YES” and mean that, too.  Whatever she chooses to wear.

I love and worship sluts — the real ones and the wannabes just playing for fun — just too damn much to degrade and disrespect them as much as “feminists” like Gail Dines do.

But, she wouldn’t be the Bill O’Reilly of radicalfeminists otherwise.

And Slutwalk wouldn’t be the best of legitimate progressive feminism if they didn’t incur her wrath. All the better for them, I say.

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