Why Do Some Men Use Some Prostitutes?
I concluded from this that it’s not feminists such as Andrea Dworkin and myself who are responsible for the idea that all men are potential rapists – it’s sometimes men themselves.
Why men use prostitutes
There’s a lot wrong with that sentence. For a start, the fact that there’s no “just” in between “not” and “feminists” is telling.
It’s a peculiar sort of person who will take the words of obviously confused or disturbed individuals, and draw conclusions that pull in a whole gender. Or even a whole subset of a gender.
One can’t conclude from the words of a suicidal female office worker that all office workers are suicidal, let alone that all women are.
I’m getting a little bit tired of sex-negative writing at the moment. For sure, there is trafficking and abuse in the sex industry, and something should be done about it, but we – and certainly, The Guardian – should be at the point where the discussion is more insightful and specific, and less blunt and general.
Certainly, it may say something about how objective a writer wants to be when they are using data from a very limited survey, and not giving much away about how they came across the responders.
There are many erudite and pragmatic ex and current sex-workers writing on and off the internet. There’s really no excuse any more to use the word “prostitute” as short-hand for “trafficked” or “exploited”. Even if it’s the case that the majority of people in the industry are either one of those things, applying that sort of binary thinking to the issue isn’t moving discussion of it along at all.
I’ve realised today that my relationship with The Guardian is similar to the one I had with the NME – in that I started reading both at around the same point in my life, and allowed myself to identify with them a little – but for some reason I never grew out of the former the way I did the latter. Helpfully, the paper’s online provision is sorting that out.
(Cross-Posted from Tumblr)
Julian
I agree that there should be a “just” in that first sentence.
You seem more upset with writing than the fact that women and girls worldwide are being enslaved, trafficked, raped, pimped, procured, and exploited sexually. I draw this conclusion based on that “For sure… but…” sentence (fourth paragraph of your post). For as someone has pointed out, “ignore everything before the ‘but’” is what such sentences generally mean.
Is one or two or more articles written in such generalisations more offensive to you than, say, the mass rape of women? Or the global trafficking of women and girls?
Have you seen the video of “Maria” who, this past December, finally spoke out about all the missing girls of Juarez? Is that “sex-negative”? And what positive spin would you like to put on that?
Here it is:
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/world/americas/telling+mariaapos s+story+video+blog/3496637
And this?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6637396204037343133#
I am eager to know what you feel when you watch these. My experience is this: as a white man I can afford to “not know”, viscerally as well as intellectually, what is happening to poor girls and women of color globally. Also to poor boys and men of color. I can watch three minutes of the news of the catastrophe currently bleeding in Haiti and switch over to some racist, misogynist white dude on Comedy Central. (I don’t, but I could.) I can pretend what is happening in Haiti is all “natural”, as if NAFTA has nothing to do with it, or globalisation, or capitalism which requires poverty. I can pretend and not have ceilings crash down on my head to wake me up from this illusion.
I can be offended by those women who speak about men and sex negatively, without really considering how much “sex” that men perpetrate on children and women is, in fact, far more horrific than “negative”. The white man who sexually assaulted me when I was twelve, was he “sex-negative”?
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Nicolas Papaconstantinou
Ah, Julian…
You’ve completely misunderstood me. That’s okay – it’s your prerogative as a human, and specifically as a radical profeminist, to approach your reading with a view to pushing your own stance, and that fact does pretty much prove the point I was trying to make – but you’ve made some assumptions, here and at your own blog, where you’ve tried to tear me down to what I can assume is a pre-sympathetic audience, about me personally, which you don’t really have a right to do.
I didn’t have a problem with the sentence at all. My grammar and vocabulary varies wildly depending on my mood and energy levels, and as such I NEVER pick on people’s possible issues with literacy.
What I have a problem with is fuzzy communication, which I think is making our whole planet a more confusing, dangerous place to be, and which I’ve talked about before, in various places, if you care to look.
And I also have a problem with lazy journalism, or misinformation with an agenda, dressed up as journalism. And I have a serious problem with directed and ill-defined survey taking, when it’s then delivered as a fair and balanced, scientific study.
It’s possible my poor and hurried attempt at writing didn’t make this point of view clear, so I will spell a couple of points out for you:
You can take my first sentence at face value. I don’t tend to fuck around with language, except for my own amusement. I have done before, and it’s normally obvious when I do. But in this case, no – the writer dropped the “just” because it was easier to lend weight to their point if they removed themselves from the suggestion entirely. I find that gutless, considering the statement they’re making.
And yes, you are right that the point of the “but” is to draw a line, but it isn’t to ignore what goes before – it’s to tell the reader that I am not ignorant of the issues, even though they aren’t what I’m talking about. Though I guess in some cases – by which I mean you – that concession hasn’t worked. I wasn’t being particularly disingenious with my language there, so you can look to the reader – by which I mean you – for the interpretation that you’ve found.
If I may, I’m going to clarify something that you wrote. I interpret, from your aggressive stance, that you aren’t really eager to know what I feel when I watch a video, or read a story. What you are eager for is for me to either concede and agree with your views, or – more likely – to expose myself further as… whatever it is you’ve decided I am.
We’re adults. We have complex thought processes. As such, I find your question about which I find more offensive out of two completely different things mind-boggling.
On the pages of a newspaper website, I find articles that profess to inform and actually miscommunicate about the most offensive thing there is.
In the real world, I’d have to say that any sort of non-consensual violence is pretty much equal first for most offensive – though I’d say one offends, the other sickens, actually.
Ask me to choose between the two, and I’ll tell you I don’t have to. The two arenas exist seperately from each other, except at one vital point – the point where the information distributor creates our sense of what is going on in the real world.
Bearing that in mind, an article that generalises to straining point, or paints a false picture of a situation where real, genuine people are being exploited or abused, isn’t acceptable – it’s practically exploitative and totally damaging itself.
When one approaches a subject like prostitution, genocide, child abuse or terrorism, and does anything to muddy or confuse the facts, they do the subject and the victims of those things a tremendous disservice, while at the same time lowering the quality of discourse for everyone else.
Or to put it another way, you ask me if lying about a problem is acceptable, when there is a real problem, and my response will always be that lying only serves to validate the liar’s ego, while distorting the shape of the problem makes it much more difficult to deal with.
Or to put it still another way: Are one or two articles that generalise about the threat of terrorism in a way that enhances the fear of the issue acceptable, if there genuinely are bombs going off around the world? Does lying about the danger in our own country, even with the best of intentions, help someone whose family has been shredded by an IUD in the Middle East?
If you genuinely believe that foreigners are a threat to your country, is it okay to bend the facts when you report on the subject to fit your fears?
Further to all that, you raise an interesting point: I didn’t qualify my use of the term “sex-positive”, and someone turning up pre-loaded with the notion that I might be an asshole could misinterpret that, too.
This was one of two articles in the last couple of days that aggravated me on this front, by using either unbalanced writing, sloppy journalism, or simply reporting on a messy situation, to push what I see as a sex-negative viewpoint.
The other story was this one: http://is.gd/6lSvd. My issue with it was that either the writer, the prosecutor, or the judge was comfortable with the idea that a woman who had voiced a group-sex fantasy somehow couldn’t be gang-raped, without further examining or discussing the case. Someone in that situation was pushing from a hetero-normative, monogamous and repressed point of view, and the end result was that a woman was penalised for expressing a fantasy, and her punishment was getting gang-raped without recourse to justice, or even recognition.
Now, I don’t know what your take on that is, but I think that it was the rape, and not the fact that she had a fantasy and was sex-positive enough to comfortably voice it, in a notionally safe environment, that was the reprehensible part. I know a lot of women who are sex-positive, and the thought that a sex-negative culture might allow dreadful things to happen to them, and them be held up as immoral into the bargain, I have problems with.
That is the issue I have with journalistic integrity and the lack thereof.
And though I don’t really know what you were expecting when you asked me to comment on your childhood rape, I’d have to say that he probably was sex-negative. I don’t know – is your life-experience of other men and women such that that man seemed particularly well-adjusted and sexually functional?
All this said, hopefully by now you’ve realised that I’m grateful for your comment, and that what I’m really concerned about is that we all try communicating frankly, in the hope of better exposing the places where our society, and that of others falls down. I’m interested in these things being fixed, not puffing myself up talking about how bad they are. It should, among reasonable people, go without saying that rape, trafficking and abuse is bad.
I welcome your further contributions, with a caveat: I’m not interested in people coming onto the comments for the sake of stirring up an argument, or levelling ill-thought out judgements or personal slurs against me that don’t bear relation to what I have said. Your comment stands because I’m assuming your tone grew out of not properly understanding my point of view. From here-on in, I expect a more moderate tone, and you should take this as fair warning that future lectures will be moderated.
Your intensity may serve you well in the outside world, but online, on other people’s web-spaces, it only serves to make you look aggressive, and truly, if your underlying agenda is the protection of the abused, you may want to look to managing that behaviour.
Unsolicited aggression is not the path to understanding. Everybody learns that eventually.
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J
Julian,
Or you could just get laid, you poor dear.
Reply
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A Radical Profeminist: To The White Men Who Are "Tired" of Women Speaking Negatively about "Men and Sex"
Julian Real
Hi Nick,
First, to “J”: with all due respect, go fuck yourself.
Back to you, Nick.
You’ve completely misunderstood me.
I’m open to hearing how I have done so.
That’s okay – it’s your prerogative as a human, and specifically as a radical profeminist, to approach your reading with a view to pushing your own stance,
As we all do, whether we own doing so or not.
and that fact does pretty much prove the point I was trying to make – but you’ve made some assumptions, here and at your own blog, where you’ve tried to tear me down to what I can assume is a pre-sympathetic audience, about me personally, which you don’t really have a right to do.
I’m attempting to reveal a level of callousness toward the issue of women being used by men and/or a series of maneuvers that try and deflect attention away from “the misogynist men behind the patriarchal curtain” (my language, not yours). If that’s not in you, then I’ll need you to explain why it is in your writing.
I didn’t have a problem with the sentence at all. My grammar and vocabulary varies wildly depending on my mood and energy levels, and as such I NEVER pick on people’s possible issues with literacy.
I own that as very poor form on my part. I sincerely apologise.
What I have a problem with is fuzzy communication, which I think is making our whole planet a more confusing, dangerous place to be, and which I’ve talked about before, in various places, if you care to look.
After rereading your piece, I guess my chief complaint, beyond those already articulated, is that the political meaning of it is fuzzy. (I like that word!)
And I also have a problem with lazy journalism, or misinformation with an agenda, dressed up as journalism.
And I don’t feel you’ve made a case, at all, for how Julie Bindel’s article for the Guardian is fuzzy or lazy.
And I have a serious problem with directed and ill-defined survey taking,
I’ve asked you before, elsewhere, and I’ll ask you again here: have you read the entirety of the study, its research methodologies, etc.? Please answer this question. And then we can move forward.
when it’s then delivered as a fair and balanced, scientific study.
How can you conclude it’s not? Based on what?
It’s possible my poor and hurried attempt at writing didn’t make this point of view clear, so I will spell a couple of points out for you:
You can take my first sentence at face value. I don’t tend to fuck around with language, except for my own amusement.
I like doing that as well!
I have done before, and it’s normally obvious when I do. But in this case, no – the writer dropped the “just” because it was easier to lend weight to their point if they removed themselves from the suggestion entirely. I find that gutless, considering the statement they’re making.
I would call that a very emotionally loaded interpretation of what she did. Have you written to ask her about it? Do you know what she did that for?
I have an entirely different interpretation of why she left out the “just” but did agree with you that it would be better if it were in there.
And yes, you are right that the point of the “but” is to draw a line, but it isn’t to ignore what goes before – it’s to tell the reader that I am not ignorant of the issues, even though they aren’t what I’m talking about.
You obviously get to discuss what you want here, Nick.
Though I guess in some cases – by which I mean you – that concession hasn’t worked. I wasn’t being particularly disingenious with my language there, so you can look to the reader – by which I mean you – for the interpretation that you’ve found.
Fair enough. That was my misread. And I think you have misread why the word “just” was left out. This is easy to do. Communication is clearer, potentially, with people facing each other in non-cyber spaces.
If I may, I’m going to clarify something that you wrote. I interpret, from your aggressive stance, that you aren’t really eager to know what I feel when I watch a video, or read a story. What you are eager for is for me to either concede and agree with your views, or – more likely – to expose myself further as… whatever it is you’ve decided I am.
On the contrary. I’d very much like to know exactly what you feel and think. I’m concluding that the piece above didn’t do a very good job of letting me know that. I’m listening.
We’re adults. We have complex thought processes. As such, I find your question about which I find more offensive out of two completely different things mind-boggling.
I find the sexual abuse of women more offensive than anything that has transpired between us.
On the pages of a newspaper website, I find articles that profess to inform and actually miscommunicate about the most offensive thing there is.
I guess I’m asking you to not put that forth as fact, but rather as your perception. Because you are alone in that perception, among anyone I know who has read that piece. And that doesn’t make you wrong in your assessment. But you haven’t made a strong case for your position, in my view.
In the real world, I’d have to say that any sort of non-consensual violence is pretty much equal first for most offensive – though I’d say one offends, the other sickens, actually.
Ok. I also feel sickened by non-consensual sexual expression, regardless of the degrees of physical force used. (So, for example, a man drugging a woman and raping her may not use much physical force, but it is sickening. And it happened to a friend of mine, and almost happened to two other women I know.)
Ask me to choose between the two, and I’ll tell you I don’t have to. The two arenas exist seperately from each other,
In whose reality, Nick?
except at one vital point – the point where the information distributor creates our sense of what is going on in the real world.
I feel the men do a great job of letting me know what is going on in the world of men’s minds. The piece focuses on that, leading to how what men think and feel relates to how they treat actual women in systems of prostitution. The study goes into that quite a bit, actually. Bindel’s article is just an intro piece to the study.
Bearing that in mind, an article that generalises to straining point, or paints a false picture of a situation where real, genuine people are being exploited or abused, isn’t acceptable – it’s practically exploitative and totally damaging itself.
I honestly, sincerely, don’t know what you are addressing. I didn’t have that experience of reading her article at all. So I guess we can agree to disagree.
When one approaches a subject like prostitution, genocide, child abuse or terrorism, and does anything to muddy or confuse the facts, they do the subject and the victims of those things a tremendous disservice, while at the same time lowering the quality of discourse for everyone else.
How does she muddy the facts? I guess that’s the part I don’t feel you’ve explained. I agree that doing that can be egregious, but you haven’t pointed out to me how she does that.
Or to put it another way, you ask me if lying about a problem is acceptable, when there is a real problem, and my response will always be that lying only serves to validate the liar’s ego, while distorting the shape of the problem makes it much more difficult to deal with.
So where’s the distortion?
Or to put it still another way: Are one or two articles that generalise about the threat of terrorism in a way that enhances the fear of the issue acceptable, if there genuinely are bombs going off around the world? Does lying about the danger in our own country, even with the best of intentions, help someone whose family has been shredded by an IUD in the Middle East?
Ok. I’m at least beginning to understand where you are coming from. I was genuinely lost before this moment.
So it seems you are saying–correct me if I’m wrong or off–that Julie’s piece is overly dramatic about the danger of men to women in systems of prostitution. Is that it? If not, I’m still lost.
If you genuinely believe that foreigners are a threat to your country, is it okay to bend the facts when you report on the subject to fit your fears?
No, not in my view. But it also depends on the context. Is the society an oppressor society? Is it an imperialist, colonising force, globally? Or is the nation xenophobically portrayed by said nation to be “as much of a threat” as, say, the UK is to many “Third World” nations?
Further to all that, you raise an interesting point: I didn’t qualify my use of the term “sex-positive”, and someone turning up pre-loaded with the notion that I might be an asshole could misinterpret that, too.
I’m informing you that in many intellectual environments, the use of the terms “sex-positive” and “sex-negative” have specific political meaning and intent, and that is overwhelmingly to minimise the harm of pornography and prostitution. Overwhelmingly.
This was one of two articles in the last couple of days that aggravated me on this front, by using either unbalanced writing, sloppy journalism, or simply reporting on a messy situation, to push what I see as a sex-negative viewpoint.
I’ll have to read the other one to know how the two relate, and to better understand the mindset reading both put you in.
The other story was this one: http://is.gd/6lSvd.
Thanks for that link. I’ll read it soon. I’ll pause now, as I haven’t yet read it. And I’ll reply to the rest after I do.
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Julian Real
I submitted a lengthy reply, Nick. I hope you got it.
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