Comments on: Poetry is nice. Prostitution is not.

By: Lisa Marie Basile

Lisa Marie Basile — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 19:31:14 +0000

Hello everyone:

I appreciate the above sentiments and can see where everyone is coming from.

As a feminist and poet — as well as an active member in the Poetry Brothel — I would invite you to email me any time with questions or comments as I am interested in your ideas.

It is Lisamarie.basile@gmail.com

Thanks,
Lisa

By: Mackey

Mackey — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 06:02:42 +0000

i understand denounce means to condemn, often vehemently.

I think there maybe definitional problems between people’s understanding of what it means to denounce something.

Going by what I understand denounce to mean i still don’t see how that can be levelled against any of the posters or commentors, coz only the institution of prostitution has been condemned.

By: LoriA

LoriA — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 20:37:17 +0000

@Mackey
Becky denounced sex workers when she waived away the opinions of women who enjoy the work. And I don’t know how to make any clearer to everyone here that ‘sex work’ as a whole isn’t what she’s really trying to make this post about. Is this post about women like me who enjoy what they do? Is it about porn performers and strippers and phone sex operators? No. So why does the language include us? And then why are we dismissed?

@PhDork
See above. And I fail to see how I haven’t been civil. You’re right, though, I think I’m done here.

By: PhDork

PhDork — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 19:26:57 +0000

Thank you Mackey, for pointing that out.

Nowhere have Becky or I said a word against sex workers, LoriA. You can’t agree to disagree, you can’t be civil, and apparently you can’t be bothered to read with care. You’re done.

By: BeckySharper

BeckySharper — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 17:19:56 +0000

*You keep making my point for me*:

Likewise. So this has been useful for us both!

By: Mackey

Mackey — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 06:53:37 +0000

I can’t see where anyone has denounced sex workers.
Instead there has been a particular judgments made on the issue and more broadly the institution of sex work.
These are 2 very different things.

By: LoriA

LoriA — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 04:27:04 +0000

@BeckSharper
*You keep making my point for me*: some of us are more privileged than others, some of us freely choose what we do. So don’t lump us in together with the vast majority of sex workers, who are coerced into it by circumstance, and don’t lump any kind of sex worker in with sex trafficking victims.

I know I don’t have to explain this to you, but I will anyway: I clearly care about women who are coerced or forced into the business of selling sex, which is a huge part of the reason I even bothered responding. My existence is not stopping them from speaking out. In fact, by being vocal, I’ll eventually have a platform I can share with others who are less privileged. But, again, I think you do know this. Telling me to shut up and go away is only about silencing someone who is ideologically inconvenient for you.

@PhDork
I’m not pulling you into anything. You’re free to not respond to me. But please stop being disingenuous: when you denounce ‘sex workers,’ you’re denouncing me. And it’s very clear that I don’t think my personal experience is the only thing that matters. I just think it matters, and I think other women matter too. I can’t believe I’m even bothering to state that for you.

By: baraqiel

baraqiel — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 01:50:41 +0000

@LoriA – Nah, I’m cool. But thanks anyway!

By: PhDork

PhDork — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 21:50:57 +0000

Please, LoriA, I’m not going to get pulled into this debate. I say “you do you” as way of acknowledging that my saying “prostitution is not [nice]” does* exactly nothing* to stop you from thinking what you think or doing what you do, and you twist that to be some kind of insult. YOU DO YOU means only that. You have your opinions, and you go with that. I doesn’t bother me in the least what you do. I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT YOU.

You and I have different opinions on sex work. You think mine sucks because it doesn’t take your personal experience into account. I’m okay with that. I think yours is problematic because it’s based on your personal experience and seems to ignore the experience of so many others who are suffering and dying at the hands of (mostly) men. We can disagree. There is no more discussion to be had here.

By: BeckySharper

BeckySharper — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 20:56:19 +0000

we’re the ones you’re most likely to run into online .

Yes, that’s true. Because you’re the ones who have the privilege of literacy, computer literacy, computer access, free time to engage in on-line debates, etc. It’s not that your viewpoints don’t deserve to be honored, but it shows remarkable lack of perspective when extremely privileged sex workers like you try to correct feminists when we make statements like “prostitution isn’t nice”, as though you are the norm and we’re just ruining your good time.

I wasn’t implying that you were on drugs so much as using slang to say “if you think that your experience as an empowered, sexually gratified sex worker is the norm, you’re missing the whole fucking point…and living in fantasyland.”

I’ll hold back my ad hominems if you’ll hold back on yours about how we’re “snarking” on sex workers and just not educated enough about the nature of sex work. Neither is true.