July 25th, 2006
A Radical Feminist Gets Her Wish
I was reading over at Twisty’s place the other day and followed her link to an absolutely disgusting and appalling Village Voice article about “fucking” that had me screeching incoherently at the top of my lungs. I ranted to K, “I wish somebody smart and incisive would take that on.” Next click was to Mad Sheila** where, lo and behold, she writes great stuff like:
Once our hypothetical young feminist realises that pole-dancing, wet t-shirt competitions and faux-lesbo smooching while plastered ain’t the saucy subversion of archaic male morality she thought they were, if she ever works up the nerve to voice her objections beyond the verbal equivalent of an unfazed shoulder-shrug, accusations of prudery will fly thick and fast. She’ll be told she’s a man-hater, a blue-nose, In Bed With The Right, a (gasp!) political lesbian, a MacDworkinite, an uncool prude and—if our hypothetical hairy bitch gets too uppity—A Feminist Policewoman set to outlaw straight sex and all orgasms derived therefrom.
Well, spank my arse and call me a feminist!
Oh my god I almost peed my pants. I don’t think alyx is responding directly to Twisty’s critiquer, but she may as well be! (I’m not linking to the obnoxious Village Voice article but you can find the link over at Twisty’s if you want.)
In the middle of the night on Saturday I woke up to tell Kya that all the women who talk about how great prostitution is ought to go down to the street corner and tell the woman there to take the night off, they’ll cover for her–and next day, what do I find but witchy-woo’s great post on, well, women who think pornstitution is so liberating and empowering putting their money where their mouth is! And where I only dared suggest one day, witchy dreams big, recommending a six-month stint on the streets at least. I daresay the tune would change after that to sound more like my friend who recently returned from Asia with the clarity of knowledge that westerners who defend porn and prostitution are globally, racially, and class-wise on the wrong side.
Combine that with YL’s daring post on defining feminism and BB’s courageous and principled public admission of her experience as a prostituted woman, and, well, it was a fine, fine weekend in the radical feminist blogosphere. I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for doing so much great work so I don’t have to! You leave me completely free to post such drivel as my Photoshop homework:
_______________
**Mad Sheila stopped blogging and her site was taken over by pornographers. All links have been removed.
