The three quotes below are the comments from knzn, Venus Cassandra and Angrycoffeeman. I post them here to remind readers what we are talking about. My opinion is below. This is the last time I will post about this since it is a never ending debate. There seems to be too many factors and my site is not the place to argue them. I have erotica to write and people to fuck. But this was very fun for me. It is a reason to have a forum for sure.
knzn says:
I think the story about Zoe Zane shows something that is an interesting problem with the way people think about sex. At least this is my theory. People want sex to be “naughty” or “dirty” because that makes it more fun. (Who wants to have nice, clean sex, after all?) For example, in your train masturbation videos (which I loved BTW), you add an element of naughtiness by doing it in a place where you’re not supposed to. It works out well if people can keep a kind of doublethink where an emotional part of you thinks something is naughty and dirty but there’s also a rational part that thinks it’s OK. But some people take the naughty and dirty aspect too seriously and project it onto the objects of their sexual attention. And then in a way the love and hate (e.g. for Zoe) are part of the same thing. Because she represents naughtiness, dirtiness, that’s why they love her, and that’s also why they hate her.
Anyhow, the idea of a community of people coming together under the general heading of “Sex Workers” is not something I have a problem with. Where I have a problem is in using the terminology to gloss over (or pretend to gloss over) the diversity of occupations within that community. It would be as if the Teamster’s Union wanted everybody in the union to refer to their occupation as “teamster” or something like that, when they really represent a diversity of occupations.
I think it would be great if people could use the phrase “sex worker” in its general sense without being afraid also to use words like “prostitute.” As it is now, nobody will object if you use a phrase like “adult entertainer” to refer to an adult entertainer, but if you say “prostitute” to refer to a prostitute, people often think there’s an inherent hostility to it, and they want you to say “sex worker” instead. Under these circumstances it’s kind of inevitable that people come to associate the phrase “sex worker” with prostitutes (which, as Angrycoffeeman points out, can cause it to end up misrepresenting people like you).
In another post he says this in regards to drug dealers:
As I said, I don’t really hold it against them (prostitutes) that they break the law, but I’m kind of conflicted about this, because I totally hold it against drug dealers, since I think what they do is inherently immoral, but some people don’t think so, and I want to say, “But in any case, it’s against the law” with reference to drug dealers but not particularly with reference to underground sex workers.)
Angrycoffeeman says:
Just to add my 2 cents:
One of the difficulties in using the “sex worker” title is its vagueness that plays into the view of the general public that “sex work = prostitution”.
Used in the context of the previous posts “sex worker” would include prostitutes, escorts, and all stripes of porn performers (softcore/hardcore, webcam, contract stars, etc.). Now, I am not an expert about prostitution, escort services or adult/porn performers (referred to as “P.E.P.” from now on) and, as will be evident shortly, I certainly do not think they are “all the same”. For the general public, however, the only major common denominator linking these groups is offering sexual services for a price (forgive the antiseptic & academic sounding “sexual services”).
I’d like to think that I understand not only the desire, but the need of P.E.P. to band together and lobby for their interests. I fully support them. Yet I can also see the term “sex worker” also working against Alix and other adult/porn performers since it carries the connotation of being a prostitute and, therefore, misrepresents their position. I’d be willing to go into more depth and discuss this – I just don’t want to bore anyone! 
Regarding Venus’ comments: You are right on the money. There is, I think, little doubt that the U.S. is one of the most “religious” countries in the industrialized West – at least by way of paying lip service to what might be considered “fundamental” Christian principles. In SO many ways the view of sex in the U.S. is still that of the Puritan colonists of the North East (if only it was that of the hard drinking, lascivious colonists of the South East!). The denigration of the human body – and almost all things sexual – makes anything related to the body and sex taboo. Which, of course, also makes it very attractive (Georges Bataille’s “Eroticism” has some really good stuff about taboo and transgression).I’m also pretty disrespectful/distrusting of authority myself
Regarding Zoey Zane: This was the first time I heard about this (like I said, I’m no expert). Hearing about how her fans demonized her after death just absolutely disgusts me. Unfortunately, I think some “fans” fit the stereotype of the “objectifying porn consumer” and this means that they cannot or simply choose not to understand that each of these stars/performers is a person and not a fleshy automaton whose sole purpose is to fuck and allow others to experience vicarious pleasure.
Venus Cassandra Says:
Knzn,
I disagree that “drug dealers” (what about people who sell alcohol or over the counter drugs?) are always immoral. The classification of some chemical substances as illicit by the U.S. government doesn’t always have any relation to the reality of their danger — marijuana is one good example. It seems to me that the term “drug dealer” merely legally refers to someone who passes on illicit substances to others, but the cultural connotations of it have become:
1. A person who sells an illicit chemical substance to someone in an unethical fashion.
2. A person who tries to drive out their competitors via violence.
I have known or heard of more than a few people who could be legally classfied as drug dealers, and I don’t hold it against them. My main concern is with the manner in which chemical substances are sold and whether there is violence directed at competitors. As a political libertarian, I believe we can peacefully trade in and consume the substances we want — though, this doesn’t mean I see benefits to every chemical substance out there, and I support decriminalizing prostitution for the same reason.
As for law and order, I don’t hold obeying the law as a moral ideal to aim for. And I certainly don’t think there’s anything wrong with you employing the services of an “undocumented alien”. I like “civil order” if it means that we aren’t all joining armed gangs or tribes that contiunally kill each other, but I don’t have any problem with a society that treats prostitutes as members deserving of respect. I don’t want an “ordered society” in the sense of everyone staying in their place and never changing or making independent value judgments.
“(Thinking about what I mean by “civil order” above, I would say that we expect the law to protect us, and that gives us an obligation to obey the law. Granted, underground sex workers don’t get much direct protection from the law, but they get indirect protection in that the law provides them with a reasonably peaceful environment.”
We can’t really take an abstract deductive approach to this issue, because it’s an empirical question. I can merely look at the police department in this locality or that locality and see whether or not it’s doing things I find worthwhile (and whether it’s actually creating a more peaceful environment or just being abusive/causing instability). If it is, then I’ll give my spiritual support to individual police when they do worthwhile things, and I’ll tell people to ignore them when they do unworthwhile things.
In other words: I disagree with the idea that we have an obligation to obey the “law” (too abstract: which law and which concrete enforcers?)in an abstract general sense. The police do go after “bad guys” sometimes — though, we probably have different notions of who the “bad guys” are. I am primarily thinking of rapists, serial killers, and other people engaged in horrific violence against others.
Yet, it doesn’t necessarily follow that we have an obligation to obey “the law”, because “the law” does include rules against murder or rape. And I’d argue that we don’t even need to reference “the law” to have a reason not to rape or kill someone. Instead of an appeal to authority, we can state why murder or rape is immoral, or illogical, or too emotionally distressful or whatever our individual reason happens to be.
When people ask you why you think drug dealers are immoral, then you can just tell them without needing to think about the abstract notion of needing to obey the law — unless you have good reason to do so.
Venus Cassandra supports a long time opinion of mine about drug trafficking. In college I changed my minor from fashion merchandising to poly-sci concentrating on women and feminism. I only stayed at the minor for one year and returned to merchandising since I was required to take the classes anyway. I know huge jump to the other spectrum but I really felt something when I took my first social science class. Our instructor was a civil rights lawyer who claimed she was on a list of anarchists at the CIA and the FBI. I laughed that off to paranoia but she was very persuasive and at the end of the semester I believed her. I thought the class would be fun and an easy A. I did indeed ace the class but I also spent the entire semester depressed and angry. I learned that the government was not protector as much as I thought and that politicians were corrupt. I had an idea, of course, but I never really fully understood how corrupt our government was
Several times our instructor told us that the CIA trafficked drugs and dispersed them into the ghettos and poorer neighborhoods. She accused them of genocide, trying to wipe out minorities. It made total sense and she was very good at persuading us to believe her. But she was also a lawyer and persuasion is her job.
I believe that the punishment for possessing or selling illegal drugs is far too high and sometimes even more than murder or rape. I don’t think marijuana should be illegal at all. This opinion that pot leads to harder drugs is laughable. All my smoking friends don’t do hard drugs, some barely even drink. And yes some drug dealers are immoral but not as many as the government claims.
The fact that the government can’t control drug traffic (anymore?) proves that we need reform. That does not include tougher punishment, it means more leniency. I believe if there are more lenient laws and some drugs made legal we wouldn’t have as much gang violence. There would be less of a reason to fight about crossing territorial lines. I’m not sure why the government see that especially since the president has experience with drugs.
Back to sex work. I have to agree with Angrycoffeeman and knzn on this one. This week I have gone to several sex work blogs and sites and most, except for this one and it’s links, only talked about prostitution when it came to sex work. I know that this concentration is due to the Eliot Spitzer scandal and they all rally to support Kristen. Kristen, a high priced call girl who is making millions off this publicity, selling her single at $.34 a pop, and being offered countless deals from people like Trump who will probably dump Melaina for her.
I do agree that prostitution needs extra support but I have to wonder if adult entertainers will not get the support they need unless porn is criminalized again. I suffer from exploitation. I get far less money, a mere fraction of the money earned from my videos. I don’t get any royalties and I am harassed left an right by people like Spitzer and right wing conservatives that spend a great deal of time looking at me and jerking off to me. When knzn talked about how people want their porn stars to be naughty and dirty, I think those people trying to make porn illegal are the dirtiest of all. If porn was illegal then the naughty and dirty factors explode through the roof. The lawmakers will get off by merely buying the porn illegally. It looks as if that is what they truly want.
Both knzn and Angrycoffeeman are right about the popular thought behind the term “sex worker”, I identify as one but I call myself an adult performer. If I called my self a “sex worker” most would assume I was a prostitute and I would have several offers in my inbox to buy time from me. I’ve already had that happen. I am not a prostitute and I don’t want to become one. I will stand up for prostitutes which I think I have proven over and over again. Prostitution is just not for me.
I read something interesting yesterday in my study of sex worker sites and blogs. The blogger called williamrockwell in his blog Sex! Work? claims that “The publication of academic work on prostitution is an industry in itself, an obscenely wealthy competitor of the ’sex sector.’ He goes on to quote an article about Ronald Weitzer who basically says that street prostitution should be criminal while indoor prostitution should be decriminalized.
I consider people who write about sex and study sex work to be part of the industry and can be defined as “sex workers”. I doubt any of these men would agree and call themselves “sex workers”. According to Weitzer street prostitutes are diseased and call girls are pure? He’s living in a fantasy world. The women on the street are the same as the call girls they just don’t charge as much. If a call girl also walks the streets when she don’t have any appointments. Does that mean she is a criminal to Weitzer?
Whatever the answers to any of the questions of decriminalizing prostitution are, I think that the people who make those decisions are not qualified to. And this Weitzer character has not researched prostitution, I don’t know what he studied but it wasn’t about prostitution that’s for sure. The man is off his rocker and obviously thinks the rich are allowed to do anything they want legal or not.
As far as making prostitution legal I have issues with that too. Right now women make lots of money and having it legal will give rights to compete and advertise which will be a step down for a lot of these girls. They will be just as exploited as I am making a fraction of what they are now. At the same time I think it should be legal.
Lastly, religion should not be part of law making. We have in our constitution separation of church and tate. What ever happened to that?
I admit I don’t know the answers either.
