Posts tagged sex
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Protest pics - ”50 Shades of Grey: BAD FOR WOMEN! BAD FOR SEX!”
An Open Letter on Sexual Subjugation and Intellectual Rationalization
Some people say that it is wrong to call for the abolition of pornography, prostitution and the entire global sex industry. They claim that doing so only further stigmatizes the women—and very young girls—who are bought and sold and denies these women—and these very young girls—their “agency.” Instead of abolishing the sex industry, these people insist, we should be “empowering” women and girls to “reclaim sex work” and we should be fighting the sense of shame that is imposed on these women and girls for the “work” that they do.
Outrageously, a great many of those making this argument are concentrated in the “Gender Studies” departments at universities and colleges throughout this country and therefore have disproportionate influence over the thinking of young people who are concerned about the oppressed conditions of women throughout the world.
To those who make this argument, and to all those influenced by it, I pose the following:
During the many long and bitter years of outright chattel slavery in the history of the United States, did Black people suffer not only physical brutality, cruelty and disfigurement on a mass scale, but also tremendous psychological trauma, shame, and humiliation as a major part of that experience?
Undoubtedly!
But, does that mean that those generations of enslaved people needed to be “empowered” to make the most of their situation within the confines of slavery? Did they need to be counseled and told not to feel so ashamed or devalued just because they were enslaved?
Or did they need people, millions and millions of people, to fight and to sacrifice to put an end to the back-breaking, spirit-crushing crime against humanity of slavery and, in that process, to repudiate the ideology and culture of white supremacy and Black inferiority which was not only promoted by the U.S. ruling class but which also inflicted deep scars on the psyches of the oppressed themselves?
For anyone with any sense of history and a conscience, the question answers itself.
Applying the same basic standard today, it is simply immoral to refuse to stand up against and demand the abolition of the global sex industry which dehumanizes, degrades, tortures, exploits, traumatizes and brutalizes millions of women and very young girls each year—and which fosters a culture where all women are demeaned, degraded, devalued and endangered. Beyond that, it is impossible to conceive of putting an end to the stigma and the shame that is heaped on women who are used and degraded in the sex industry while simultaneously rationalizing and defending this very industry as it daily treats these women (and very young girls) as nothing more than human chattel.
End Pornography and Patriarchy: The Enslavement and Degradation of Women!
(Source: revcom.us)
We are told that “equality for women has been won” and that “there are no limits to what girls can achieve.” BULLSHIT!
Every 15 seconds a woman is beaten. Every day three to four women are killed by their partners. One out of four female college students will be raped or sexually assaulted while in college.
In recent years, pornography has become increasingly violent, cruel, degrading towards women; women are referred to as “cumdumpsters” and “fuckbuckets,” the “money shot” (ejaculation in a women’s face) is standard, humiliating cruelty – like violent “ass-to-mouth” penetration – is normalized, and racist bigotry is sexualized. Meanwhile, the broader culture has been pornified; pole-dancing is taught at gyms, “sexting” is a national phenomenon among teens, and the strip club is the accepted backdrop to male-bonding. All this is tied in with, and reinforces, the trafficking of millions of women as literal chattel in the international sex industry.
This is NOT society becoming more comfortable with sex. This is society becoming saturated with the sexualized degradation of women. If you can’t imagine sex without porn, you’re fucked.
At the same time, a Christian fundamentalist-driven assault is imperiling abortion, birth control, real sex education and women’s lives. Doctors are killed. Women who seek abortion – or even birth control – are stigmatized. 2011 has seen the largest spate of legal restrictions on abortion since Roe V. Wade in 1973. Women who are not virgins or who do not choose to become mothers are shamed.
ALL THIS MUST BE STOPPED!
Women are not objects. Women are not things to be used for the sexual pleasure of men NOR are they breeders of children. WOMEN ARE HUMAN BEINGS CAPABLE OF FULL EQUALITY IN EVERY REALM!
It is long past time that this new generation stand up, reject, and RESIST this culture of rape and pornography, this culture that reduces women and girls to sexualized objects while denying their full multi-dimensional humanity (including their right— as one essential part of this—to explore and experience mutually respectful and fulfilling sexuality without shame or stigma), this culture that labels women “selfish” if they choose not to become mothers and stigmatizes them for having abortions.
Contact stoppatriarchy@gmail.com with your questions, comments, ideas, and interest in getting involved. Get flyers to hand out, bring a speaker to your campus, ask your toughest questions. The future of women depends on YOU!
Our purpose is NOT to lobby for new legislation to ban pornography (“decency laws” have always served to further repress homosexuality, boundary-challenging art, and scientific sex education). We oppose the criminalization of women in the sex industry. Our mission is to challenge the new generation in particular to reject this culture of rape and pornography, to resist the shaming of women who have sex and/or abortions, to wage fierce cultural and political resistance to wake others up, and to bring forward a liberating culture that celebrates the full equality and liberation of women.
stoppatriarchy.tumblr.com
check out the conversation going on on Sunsara Taylor’s blog at
http://sunsara.blogspot.com/2011/09/sasha-grey-on-tyra-banks.html
inspired by the work of SAUL BASS, ART GOODMAN and DAVE NAGATA.
hitchcock typeface by MATT TERICH. tumblr theme by MATTHEW BUCHANAN.
