The Sex Myth begins with an anecdote. Dr Brooke Magnanti (aka Belle de Jour) describes a phase in her childhood when she and her friends were in competition to discover the ‘truth’ about the naked body of the opposite sex. The girls were particularly inventive, and would look under cubicle doors in the boys’ toilets, craning their necks to get a glimpse of a fleshy member (p1-3). I found this story engaging, fascinating and not a little Freudian. For, as Magnanti states, one of the ‘sex myths’ of our age is that children are innocent and sexuality only develops with the onset of puberty in our teens. But Magnanti uses her childhood investigations of how not to do sex research. Now she is a grown up, a doctor (PhD), a scientist, she knows the difference between ‘bad science’ and ‘good science’. Or does she? This is the main question I had whilst reading her book. And, unfortunately, I think the answer has to be ‘no’.
Worryingly, I don’t even think Bagnanti knows the difference between ‘science’ and ‘social science’. Right at the beginning of the book she writes:
‘In recent years a large number of researchers have looked into areas of human experience previously assumed to be untestable. Questions such as whether porn is harmful, or how childhood is affected by sexuality, can now be examined in a way that is consistent with evidence-based reasoning. Not only that, people who study different disciplines are starting to realise the advantages of interdisciplinary study, with social science enriching the finds of quantitative methods and vice versa. [emphasis mine]’ (p5).
This suggests that ‘social science’ does not include ‘quantitative methods’ when in fact a large section of sociological study is based on quantitative (numerical) data. I found this to be a glaring error and a sign that this is a book by an academic with little interest in the complexities and value of social science. My reaction is borne out by the lack of bibliography in the book. Magnanti includes her references in endnotes, which, on close examination, reveal that she uses very few social science/theory books in her work. Most of the references are from scientific academic journals and the popular media. This is a ‘bias’ that should be acknowledged I think. For one of the greatest myths I know of in sex research is that ‘science’ is objective, rigorous and the best way to get to the ‘truth’. My experience has shown otherwise.
The most obviously ‘bad’ science that Magnanti uses is in her chapter one, where she sets out to debunk the myth that ‘when it comes to sexual attraction, men are visually stimulated and always interested in sex – and women aren’t’ (p9). To do this she uses the scientific ‘experiments’ of a group of American researchers from Northwestern University. The most well known of these is J Michael Bailey. He found his way into the news last year when he included a live sex show in one of his lectures to students. The two adults involved were consenting, thankfully. Serious ethical questions were raised however, over whether the audience were consenting, the value of the results from such a sensationalist method, and the effects of the media reaction on everyone involved.
But my concerns about using Bailey’s work uncritically are not limited to that one incident. You only have to google his name to find a string of controversies relating to him and his research. The most famous relates to his book The Man Who Would Be Queen: ‘The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism’. Even the title sets off alarms, with its use of such loaded terms. Basically, in this book Bailey used his ‘sex science’ (which includes hooking people up to penile plesmographs to measure their sexual response to viewing pornography) to claim that gay men’s homosexuality is genetic. And that trans women are actually gay men. Nice. Bailey was investigated by his university, NorthWestern, and was demoted. But he remains an academic at that institution. Whatever one’s views, it seems irresponsible of Magnanti to completely ignore the furore surrounding Bailey’s research, and to present it as solid, reliable ‘science’.
Another point about Bailey that Magnanti failed to mention is that only last year, he and his colleagues had to revise their theories on bisexuality in men. They were commissioned to re-do their experiments which back in 2005 had shown that bisexual men don’t exist! The penis plesmograph never lies, except sometimes it does. This latest set of experiments, surprise surprise, showed that bisexual men do of course exist. And that even ‘science’ can be wrong sometimes. On reporting this news, [redacted] asked:
‘So why the turnaround by Bailey? Well, it seems the loud and angry protests from bisexual organisations that Bailey’s 2005 findings understandably aroused has taken its toll -– and indeed one bisexual organisation even funded this recent research.
They got the result they wanted, but I fear they’re wasting their money and merely encouraging more bad science. Some of course will hold these findings up as proof that this Heath Robinson kind of bio-mechanical sex research can correct itself. But they would have to be true believers to see it that way. All that has been proven is that measuring penile blood-flow in a laboratory is a highly reductive and highly abnormal measure of male sexuality. Men are not just penises. They are also prostate glands. Perineums. Earlobes. Inner thighs. Brains. Nipples.
It also shows that you get the result you’re looking for In 2005 Bailey wanted to prove that male bisexuality didn’t exist. In 2011 he didn’t. QED. Perhaps the worst thing about this new finding is that Bailey et al will now try to turn male bisexuals into a ‘species’ to be studied and dissected. Bisexual men may quickly come to the conclusion that they were much better off when they didn’t exist. Unless of course they themselves have a bit of a fetish for penile plethysmograph play.’
Could it be that Brooke just didn’t know about the controversy surrounding Bailey? Like I said if that is the case she failed in doing basic research, such as googling his name. But she blogged about his work in 2011, and both [redacted] and I tried to tell her about the problems with it. This is the reply I got from Dr Magnanti:
This is a sign that when ‘objective’ science that is not objective at all, is questioned, it and its ‘scientists’ do not stand up very well to scrutiny.
So the first chapter of The Sex Myth showed its methodology and ‘theoretical’ basis to be seriously lacking. I read the rest of it with a sceptical arched eyebrow. I also did not learn much that was new. As another reviewer, Heresiarch noted,
‘I find a lot of this yawningly familiar by now, but many people won’t and Magnanti’s book provides an entertaining compendium of tabloid myths, as well as a source of ammunition. Whether it can do much against the juggernaut of the Daily Mail, currently engaged in a crusade to introduce compulsory web-filtering, remains to be seen. ‘
The chapter on the false correlation between rape statistics and the increase in adult entertainment establishments was the best (p79-99). I had read some of it on Brooke’s blog before, but it stood up as a tight piece of research, in comparison to some of the less rigorous work in the rest of the book. However even in that chapter, and the one questioning the motives of people campaigning against the sex industry (p209-222), Magnanti was very vague about politics. An uninitiated reader of The Sex Myth might come away from it thinking Brooke was the first person to criticise ‘feminism’ and its views on sex/sex work. This is of course not the case.
Magnanti fails to acknowledge the politicisation of sex workers, who have been campaigning for years against anti-sex work feminists such as Julie Bindel. She also makes no reference to Sex Positive Feminism which has too been going for years, and has posed a direct challenge to draconian ‘conservative’ anti-sex feminism. And, even in the realm of science, Magnanti ignores the ‘skeptic’ movement and the critical approach to science and science reporting employed (often very selectively I might add) by people such as Ben Goldacre.
It seems to me as if Magnanti is trying to reinvent the wheel. And to stand alone as a unique ‘sexpert’ in the field of sex, science and politics. Well she is actually one of many women (and men) who has staked a claim as having knowledge in this field. I was particularly disappointed in The Sex Myth because I actually think Magnanti is a very able writer. Of all the ‘sex bloggers’ and sex writers I have read including Zoe Margolis, Susie Bright, Bitchy Jones and Hugo Schwyzer I think Belle de Jour was one of the best. I would have been happy for Magnanti to have continued from her childhood anecdote that she began the book with, rather than promoting herself as a scientist as she did. Especially since she has relied upon and peddled such bad science.
Quiet Riot Girl 
It is definately true that Bailey et al does bad science. In this case bi-curiosity certainly kills the cat. Bisexuals don’t exist really because they are so diverse that the category itself is rather meaningless. It is everyone who can not fit themselves into straight or gay in any meaningful way. For me I am a man who always falls in love with women and yet has irrepressible sexual curiosities whether they be homo or trans or whatever. I have no idea if I am a heterosexual who likes having sex with men or a homosexual who likes having sex with women. Bisexuality is so subversive in it’s essence it must be destroyed and discounted one way or the other. But Transgender people also disrupt gender categories. Really together these two phenomenons are like a virus which disrupts our crisp clean notions of gender and sexual orientation. Sex is messy, and “gender” is untruth. So when you get people who disrupt gender and orientation we find ourselves in an undefinable disturbing reality, so foggy the only way children of the enlightenment can deal with it is kill it with “science”. This is the reality of all those LGBT phobias everyone goes on and on about. Gay was once a “disturbing reality” but now it is disturbed by what disrupts its own reality.
I believe the tirades against Bailey are overblown, and most of his detractors have been fooled. Way fooled. The science (not the psychological theorizing not based on any evidence except anecdotes and what the writer thinks) is surprisingly underdeveloped and underfunded. For some sense of Bailey and what the controversy is really about (heretofore not well recounted in this blog) see the video and downloadable pdf at www dot bibrain dot org . If anyone can absorb and consider what’s there, and still be interested in trashing the related science, I’ll be interested.
Hi I have watched the video and read the pdf and i still think his science is rubbish. I think that bi. org are proving what Mark Simpson said in his article, which is that this kind of research suggests bisexual people are a distinct, ‘genetically produced’ group that are now open to scrutiny and pathologisation as homosexuals were. And if you only read Matthew’s comment above, you will see how much more complex this is.
I agree Bailey was attacked very harshly. But he had the nerve, in 2005! to suggest bisexuals don’t exist. and before that he suggested trans women don’t exist.
Huh? In 2005 Bailey said “In terms of behavior and identity, bisexual men clearly exist.” That doesn’t suggest that bisexuals don’t exist. His book in part talks about trans women, which is not to suggest they don’t exist. I don’t think you understood the pdf you said you read. The pdf describes ways of thinking about sexual orientation including bisexuality that comprehend everything Matt commented upon and more. The media and competent authors run into the anti-Bailey sentiment, but then analyze it and figure out that the critics don’t really have anything that holds up, only biases and prejudices not rooted in fact but in derisive language like “rubbish” and “bad science” that they never really substantiate. I will be very interested if you have anything solid to back up the derision, and if you read the scientific articles or just parrot what you think you heard.
Hi Philo,
With regard to the Bailey study, a few thoughts.
1) If, as Bailey flatly states, “arousal is orientation,” what are we to make of the fact that over a third of the men in the study were not considered to be “aroused” at all by any of the films? Must we then conclude these men have no “sexual orientation” at all? As Rebecca Jordan-Young points out in her book Brainstorm, it would be a very serious problem for any study if such a large percentage of subjects produced no interpretable results. (I recommend her book by the way as an exceptionally comprehensive and very sophisticated presentation of what is wrong with the contemporary science-orientated view of gender and sexuality).
2) The films chosen were intentionally non-heterosexual, ie they either involved two men having sex or two women. The idea of course was that arousal to a heterosexual film would leave open the question of which person in it was specifically turning on the subject. However, consider a couple of the unquestioned assumptions in this strategy.
First of all, there is the implicit assumption that to be “gay” means you ought to be aroused by the sight of *any* two male bodies having *any* form of sex. In any scenario, filmed any which way. On any day. This is, of course, completely absurd. Doesn’t this in and of itself render the entire study design meaningless?
Secondly, the pathways of desire and arousal are simply enormously richer than this strategy could ever capture. When straight-identified men watch straight porn, are they completely indifferent to the men in them? If so, why is it called a money shot? Why do men need to see such a supposedly revolting thing in order for the movie to make “money”?
Just personally speaking, on any given day, my physiological readings could be anywhere on the map, *entirely* depending on the nature of the films shown. Very likely, I would be one of those roughly 35% who responded to none of them.
3) More generally, as Rebecca Jordan-Young puts it: “context and subjectivity matter to sexuality, and the attempt to get around subjectivity in order to ‘drill down’ to a more valid substrate is misguided.”
These are some – but definitely not all – of the problems I have with studies of this kind. (Just remembered that my letter about it when it came out – majorly shortened, but oh well – was published in the NY Times. A first! But I had to write, I was just so appalled by the appalling and inexcusable headline: “Straight, Gay, or Lying.” Incredible.)
I will trash the related science, because it is not “science”. It is methodological social research and called “science”. Foucault criticized this sort of “science” for several reasons. 1) the impetus behind the science is because certain sexualities problematizes hegemonic institutions. 2) Foucault asks why can we not have a “science” of pleasure and focus on bodies and pleasures instead. (Foucault focuses way too much on sex here and forgets that love and emotional needs are also part of the equation.)
3) Foucault also pointed out how this sort of “science” functions as “the grand inquisitor and believe me if you are out as bisexual you are subjected to an inquisition by both straights AND gays who think it is their business to define who you should partner with or sleep with – pretty ironic that gays care so much as they apply the same criticisms that conservatives apply to them and when “science” comes along they are the first to use it to condemn others.
4) I will conclude with Judith Butler’s idea that some sexual orientations and genders do not fit in a straight/gay or male/female binary. In fact “bisexual” is really the wrong word. What we should be striving for is ultimate freedom to discover who we are, what we like, and to find our very very specific and unique orientation and gender. Instead all those who don’t fit are subjected to interrogation and we use “science” to interrogate each other and police each others sexualities. In otherwords this sort of science works wonderfully as a form of control.
Um, Bailey and team measured physiological response patterns; it was not “social research.” The scholarly impetus behind the science (as at most good research universities) is to add to knowledge, not to suppress opponents of oppressors/hegemons (and as to “problematiz[ing] hegemonic institutions,'” I wish to point out that “verbing weirds language.”) I agree with Foucault wanting a science of pleasure, unless he argued it should be to the exclusion of the other kinds of sex science; and I think social and physical and decontructionist theories are all valuable if they can be falisified by testing, but haven’t been. I think the news that a physical bisexual arousal pattern exists in some men does more for acceptance and understanding than a boatload of people who denigrate real science out of fear of a grand inquisition. (Maybe the fear is really of hard scientific inquisition into areas they have built other identities around, like “postmodern theorist” or “Foucault-Mot spouter.”) I disagree that bisexual is the wrong word, even if a bisexual person doesn’t like it. Nothing about any research or using a word in order to discuss sexual orientation undermines anybody’s “striving for is ultimate freedom to discover who we are, what we like, and to find our very very specific and unique orientation and gender” in any way.
Thought experiment: suppose a person passionately believes he has a divine spiritual essence as well as a physical body existence. And, he is militant that the word human doesn’t capture all the complexity of who he really is. And he insists, therefore, that he is not human. Moreover, he wants everybody else to stop using the word human, because it “is really the wrong word.” Would we give this a moment’s consideration?
If your real beef is with the idea of a gender binary, that’s another discussion that can involve very personal-issue-based agendas, and where feelings can run high to the point of hysteria that makes discussion difficult.
Finally, as to Bailey’s about-face, that is the essence of and celebrated by good science. It’s exciting to add to and correct knowledge, especially when old science falls when new data are discovered. (Not that there are many open or scientific minds here truly willing to reconsider what they “know.”)
Bailey set himself up to be attacked by indulging in pseudo-science to promote his prejudices — though my main area of concern here is over his AGP “theories”, rather than anything he wrote subsequently about whatever (which I’ve just assumed would similarly be total rubbish).
Anyway, if Magnanti is relying on Bailey’s work at all, I’m already seriously sceptical about what she might have to say. But I’ll hold off judgment until I’ve actually read her book myself.
I am also more aware of the writing than you are (not to one up) but I have talked to Alan Rosenthal about the current research and, they do not dispute the identities, they are trying to figure out how people arrive at that identity. But I still seriously question the cultural motivations and assumptions at work. What was yesterGAY and toGAY are very different. I have personally concluded that straight people were having homosexual sex long before gay people ever “invented” it!
It’s ALLEN Rosenthal. I have talked to him too. I would offer that the scientists who approach based on what they can physically measure are not as biased by “cultural motivations and assumptions” as people who suspect and infer hegemonies, inquisitions, pigeonholing by third parties, interrogations and policing of sexualities. Without getting into all the politics, those scientists just measure things. It’s people who are all into politics and intrigue who bring that postmodern content to the party, not the psychosexual physiology researchers they project it onto (though those who hate them for other reasons want you to think otherwise.) I do agree the invention of heterosexuality, bisexuality and homosexuality is quite recent in historical terms.
I don’t think Bailey or Rosenthal have some nefarious plot etc. nor do I think that it is totally useless, but ALL of this is produced as you mention within an historical framework. To give you a better idea of where I am coming from I took this from Wikipedia under Karl Popper:
Popper coined the term “critical rationalism” to describe his philosophy. The term indicates his rejection of classical empiricism, and the classical observationalist-inductivist account of science that had grown out of it. Popper argued strongly against the latter, holding that scientific theories are abstract in nature, and can be tested only indirectly, by reference to their implications. He also held that scientific theory, and human knowledge generally, is irreducibly conjectural or hypothetical, and is generated by the creative imagination in order to solve problems that have arisen in specific historio-cultural settings.
Michel Foucault had a similar perspective “the order of things”. If Bisexuality or Transgenderism disrupts the order of things then let’s fit them into the current order so logic and rationality of that current order is not disrupted. You see my point is I believe this IS what Is going on.
What is necessarily preserved in our current historical setting is the notion of “Gay” and the notion of “Straight”. As well as our idea of “man” and “woman”. So what if a “Gay” man found he enjoyed having sex with women. Should he prevent himself from doing so because he does not fit the catagory? What if he took a Plesthmograph test and he found out he just didn’t have those wonderful bisexual arousal patterns. Should he prevent himself from marrying the woman he fell in love with? Or a straight man who realizes he can love a gay man just as much as woman? I have actually in real life witnessed men in both of those delimnas. The conclusions being made by this sort of science is once again the “born this way” fixed immutable perspective. Rosenthal wrote it can switch back and forth over time. But what about “gay” men who suddenly fall in love with women were they “straight all along”? Or “straight” men at age 40 “go gay”. This scares people, and it scares the pants off Gay born this way essentialists because their arguements for their own existence is built on very shaky ground. When they could just simply grow a pair of balls and say “I CHOOSE TO LOVE WHOMEVER I WANT!”
Matthew, I only just caught up with this thread and wanted to send out a general “right on” to what you’ve been saying.
Can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this before here (apologies if so and please ignore!) but not long ago I came across an interesting piece on the novelist Michael Chabon, whose honesty in this regard I really admire. I also can only hope it points the way towards a saner future. He is married, with four children I believe, and his experience has been very largely – maybe even almost exclusively – heterosexual. But this is from a recent interview (http://www.vulture.com/2012/09/michael-chabon-telegraph-avenue.html), which I think I’ll just quote at length since I find it so remarkable:
““The men in Chabon’s books all come in pairs … in every possible permutation: fathers and sons, business partners, collaborators, lovers…. These permutations interest him mostly because, in real life, men have so few options for how to relate to one another. ‘It’s your buddy or your business partner or your romantic partner,’ Chabon says. ‘Or your enemy. That’s it. That’s all we’ve got.’
“Chabon envies women’s relatively greater emotional freedom, he says. And he believes that ‘a lot of the things men feel in terms of confusion and frustration and lack of emotional connection and fulfillment is because the accepted possibilities are so paltry.’ With his books, he says, ‘ultimately the question I’m asking is: What does it mean for two men to love each other? Do male friends love each other? And if they do love each other, what kind of love is it? Do they say they love each other? Do they even know they love each other?’
“Chabon does love men. He has written, in his nonfiction, about sleeping with one man and falling in love with another, and although he’s close to many women, he says his mental category of ‘best friend’ is, by default, male. (‘If I were casting the part, I’d call in men.’) But he is profoundly frustrated by how men behave, or rather by how they misbehave, a problem he sums up as ‘dickishness.’”
I’d only add that one of the newer main reasons for the “paltry accepted possibilities” he mentions is precisely this fixation on (dichotomous) taxonomy, which has the effect of actually heightening anxiety. “Sexuality” is so much vaster than our cultural moment is capable of recognizing. But there we are.
Of course what the press in all their liberal sensationalism has completely overlooked is the influence that brooke could have. I have experienced this personally and posted it anon for the protection of my ex girlfriend, a young bioscience student who decided to follow brookes path, and of course its gone badly. Sure it was great to start with, but this girl although of very high function has slight ASD spectrum such that she can over-rationalise the situation (almost able to rationalize anything !) and then takes brookes stance of saying “its all our moral stupidity and throwback instinct to blame”, type of blah.
I am hesitant to call her by academic credentials after reading some of her twisted diatribes of information. When i listen to brookes lectures, all i hear is her all over the place flowing presentation showing just how easy it is for the academically articulate to twist whatever they like as they please. Over intellectualism losing sight of common sense is really what we are talking about here.
I dont see brooke citing the actual real history of prostitution, where almost everywhere in the world it sprung up to be legalized as a solution it failed and later had to be closed down as crime and social problems increased. Why ? Make the immoral easy, word will get round and men will be men. Its better that this business is closed off, except perhaps to the disabled or by qualified sex therapists for people with deep emotional issues.
Then the most important point i will make here. For every one like brooke there will be a hundred who mess up their lives and dont get it right. So this is my statement regarding Brookes influence on the impressionable current generation. A real story, a single case study, sure, but a prospective young PhD student who wanted the high life easy (she could have managed on her grant if she had to) and is now suffering the aftermath of it going wrong. Wow, what a legacy Brooke is leaving, AND her academic work is no more than average, although I have to grant her, Brooke is a VERY engaging presenter. Which is why she has at least in my knowledge created one copycat, who didnt quite have what it takes to be a Brooke, and is not doing too great right now.
http://brooke-magnanti.blogspot.co.uk/
POSTNOTE: Since I wrote the above I found some older blog posts by my ex-girlfriend, written before i met her, where as a late teenager she writes at being frustrated with her call center job and quoting brookes bella blog as ideal. Eases my mind in terms of responsibility, as the seed was clearly planted by brooke right from that start.
I have sent a copy of my statement to where ever brooke looks for academic work. Brooke has no right to gain research work, as this sets a bad example, not a “fine example” as some of press articles out there propose.
That’s not a particularly cogently written bundle of paragraphs, but you appear to be saying that Magnanti, because she was a whore who did well, encourages young women to be whores, and this causes problems because whores are bad and most women who are whores get what’s coming to them.
The “actual real history of prostitution” is certainly much more interesting and complex than your amusingly wrong summary of it “springing up” – spontaneously, from nowhere, like dandelions! – being made legal as an experiment and then having to be shut down because of “social problems”. I think you’ve probably half-heard some stories about the Netherlands and have decided to abstract your misunderstandings to “everywhere”, which is a fun game but not really a new or clever way to criticise sex workers. You probably need to spend some time over at the PLRI looking at actual research. Or, really, *you* don’t, since I get the impression that you’ve already come to your conclusions and aren’t really looking for information that might change your opinion.
OK what have we here.
“mcduff says: That’s not a particularly cogently written bundle of paragraphs, but you appear to be saying that Magnanti, because she was a whore who did well, encourages young women to be whores, “
yes well done, good interpretation.
“mcduff says: and this causes problems because whores are bad and most women who are whores get what’s coming to them “
Ok first sentence you completely took this off the rails. Where in my text do I say anything with even this slightest hint at this. Come on ? Well if that’s sentence one, what the rest of this going to go.
“mcduff says: The “actual real history of prostitution” is certainly much more interesting and complex than your amusingly wrong summary of it “springing up” – spontaneously, from nowhere, like dandelions! – “
Ok again where did I say that, are we a projecting type personality here ? but yes you do find prostitution arising periodically where moral standards slip and poverty is high.
“mcduff says: being made legal as an experiment and then having to be shut down because of “social problems”. I think you’ve probably half-heard some stories about the Netherlands and have decided to abstract your misunderstandings to “everywhere”
No I looked at every example of legalized prostitution across this planet.
“mcduff says “which is a fun game but not really a new or clever way to criticise sex workers. You probably need to spend some time over at the PLRI looking at actual research. Or, really, *you* don’t, since I get the impression that you’ve already come to your conclusions and aren’t really looking for information that might change your opinion.”
I don’t see much on that site except 4 pages of handpicked papers that don’t actually add up to a coherent picture.
Perhaps you need to read a good review.
Click to access Pros+article+Raymond.pdf
Now lets get back from junk reactions, to sense here. The reason parts of prostitution have been legalized is not because its becoming acceptable, but a minimum strategy to reduce social damage limitation..i.e. to get it of peoples streets, and reduce crime/murder rates without clogging up the jails with women selling themselves which does not wreak the more in your face havoc that other low moral behaviours do. Thats why you can still get arrested for buying sex. Just as its not illegal to sell certain weapons, but it is to buy them. Its to give the law a usable mechanism they can recruit ad hoc in an area where there is a history of known trouble, if and when that trouble arises.
Read the history on it. Everywhere in the world there is prostitution there is trouble. It attracts people with low moral values, ruins the fabric of relationships and spreads disease not to mention all the other crime. Whenever it was legalized it had to be closed down later again, and this occurred all over the world at various times in history. Thats quite unusual in the history of laws, usually a law works to stabilize and solve a problem quite consistently. This says something deeper about humans, on the nature of prostitution bringing out trouble.
The issue is not about the charging money for sex, its about women being part of a business that attracts trouble whether legal or not.
Further point, aside from people with particular health problems which require a professional approach, there is no need in society for more prostitution. No problem to be solved at the highest levels. Having a sex worker is not a high function. It transforms women into human toilets.
Now we got that out the way, lets take a look at Brooke Magnanti (who I refuse to describe as doctor) Brilliant new scientific idea.
Her latest book, quote mines and miss lots of important data in desperate attempt to academically justify the enlightened idea that prostitution is marginalized like skin colour or homosexuality and we must proceed to open our minds.
Complete rubbish, read the data anywhere on this planet, and we find its marginalized because it leads to an increase in depraved behaviour and crime wherever its legalized because particular types of men tend to converge to prostitutes. Ok that’s right you weren’t buying that, well how about this ?
Presuming we are liberal, would you be happy if it is proposed your daughter (if you don’t have one imagine to see if it rings true) being allowed to be a prostitute would benefit to some similar enlightenment to being openly gay or not judged by race ? Are you capable of answering that honestly ?
If Brookes scientific logic is sound, that would then mean like race or sexual preference, being a prostitute is now proposed as a particular female phenotype does it not ? Its got nothing to do with the flipside of societal segment of mens behaviour after all.
How stupid of me, the science went completely over my head. I just thought these girls suffered from poverty as most seemed to magically lose their proposed genetic pre-disposition to being a prostitute when they don’t need to do it for money.
Anon (for good reason).
in regards to some of these people out there who over-intellectualize like brooke, I think they are sick in the head or playing game.
just wait till its somebody you care about that buys into these ideas and whose life is degraded and ruined as a result. I can only guess that not many of these people have daughters, vulnerable friends or partners, or if they do and they still want to log on and deny, then what can i say. Its either a front game of bullshit, some type of mild psychopathy or a real deep mental disorder.
Have either of these “anon”s ever met an actual sex worker, I wonder?
The number of unions worldwide advocating for legalisation/decriminalisation (and that’s unions, made up of sex workers, run by sex workers) is myriad and a mere google away. The APNSW marched on the streets to advocate for legalisation. In India the unions have fought for rights and justice for SWs. New Zealand and Australia have annual conferences organised and attended by sex workers.
Saying “what if it was your daughter” is a silly, puritanical and privileged bit of sophistry. It is people’s daughters, and people’s wives, and people’s mothers. Pretending it isn’t real doesn’t make it go away. Claiming that legalising it brings “immoral behaviour” kinda ignores all the immoral behaviour that happens where it’s illegal too. The major difference is that when it’s illegal, more women die.
By far the biggest change that happens, in every country, when sex work is made legal is that fewer prostitutes get raped by police officers. But hey, you never hear about those things on the news because they’re only whores, so who cares?
If my daughter ever took up that life, I’d want her to do it in a safe environment. Apparently that makes me responsible for immorality according to all the prissy prudes out there who can’t get their heads around the fact that prostitution always happens. It’s happening now, somewhere near you. Someone you know, in fact, is probably engaging in it or thinking about it.
I’d rather listen to the voices of the thousands of sex workers out there writing and agitating about their own lives than a bunch of anonymous people who’d rather pretend the world is different and put up their blinkers.
Jeeze, listening to the two of you would make you think that boys and men are never prostitutes.
In fact they comprise a rather large portion of those who sell their bodies for money.
I get it coming and going…
Most sex workers unions are open to men and TG people, and yes, they get an equal share of the problems as well. I totally appreciate that. I apologise for not making it clear in my comments. It’s hard to respond to every point and make sure that all bases are covered all the time, but you’re right, they’re an oft overlooked segment and I did my part in overlooking them here.
McDuff said “Have either of these “anon”s ever met an actual sex worker, I wonder?”
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We are all one “anon” for good reason, but from now on “the anon” so its clearer. Legal and other battles with brooke underway right now and shes a fighter suffering from a major dose of malignant NPD projection so only Gawd knows what it will require to make her finally break down. reckon relentless academic decimation of her future product might be one potential target.
To your question, yes in my stupid days. I wouldnt touch one right now, i can afford it and I am single and dating (which ups the frustration more..but thats healthy) I find the whole process (even when done nicely) a bit sordid, but even if its all OK and easy going, it feels like an emotionally backwards step and empty after. Like i just used somebody to piss in. Plus its a hassle, and it makes one lazy and addicted, drawing the mind away from focussing on finding real relationships. Its induces degenerate thinking if over-done so intellectualize all you like. i cant even be bothered with free casual sex when its offerered. And my sex drive be fine you know.
Life is short, I dont wish to waste it with such shallow interactions, but i sure do know a lot of emotionally regressed people who do. Maybe I just became grown up and wise inside. The only sex workers i respect are those who actually try to work themselves out of a job. One i used to frequent had a service where she tried to train men to get back into a relationship, such that she would go out with you on a date, talk to women and try to match make, as women trust other womens judgement.
That i can respect, and the facilities for disabled people, those with deep emotional blockage etc etc. But the flipside of legalizing for as trivial reasons as easy fun like gambling just tap into lower parts of the human psyche that should remain undeveloped. It results in a growth of emotional degeneracy that destroys something in the social fabric and emotionall stunts people to a shallow level. The only variation really in regards to how well legalized it is, is the form of emotional degeneracy. My opinion of many well to do germans even when the sex scene is as well organized and safe as a typical german company is not great, but I dont want to incur the wrath of an entire nation. I just based it on the germans i know that are sexually ambivlant. They seem to become “too” hippy, like, not enough moral grunt. Harmless sure, but its like meeting 30 somethings with an emotional profile that got stuck at age 21.
McDuff said ” The number of unions worldwide advocating for legalisation/decriminalisation (and that’s unions, made up of sex workers, run by sex workers) is myriad and a mere google away. The APNSW marched on the streets to advocate for legalisation. In India the unions have fought for rights and justice for SWs. New Zealand and Australia have annual conferences organised and attended by sex workers.”
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And your point please ? there doesnt appear to be one here. Had one too many hookers, lacking in moral focus or something ?
McDuff said ” Saying “what if it was your daughter” is a silly, puritanical and privileged bit of sophistry. It is people’s daughters, and people’s wives, and people’s mothers. Pretending it isn’t real doesn’t make it go away. Claiming that legalising it brings “immoral behaviour” kinda ignores all the immoral behaviour that happens where it’s illegal too. The major difference is that when it’s illegal, more women die.
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silly, puritanical and privileged bit of sophistry ? doesnt even make sense as a coherent phrase. But what you did just there was interesting, little jab, step to the side, defer to legalization, appeal to a strawman of “death”. When its legal demand increses on so many other levels of degeneracy that deaths increase through the lowlifes that are attracted to create the industry, because sex on the brain degenerated them. Perhaps we should discuss the neuroscience of this, but ill get into that later, there are lots of papers on orgasm and mental states, physical health… i.e. too much, too little effects on memory, motivation etc etc.
Back to this. No matter how much regulation you have the diseases will blossom. Recent stats on the porn scene are 7% with Hiv, and most with other infections dormant or not. Even with constant screening and plenty of money splashing aroundto keep happy all that partake. legalising increases demand, and so the points on degeneracy growing increase (presuming you accept that which would guess you will not), and who becomes degenerate ? Your daughters ? So answer again.
If its all legalized would you want that for your own family ?
Oh hang on looks like you answered that one.
McDuff said “If my daughter ever took up that life, I’d want her to do it in a safe environment.Apparently that makes me responsible for immorality”
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Correct it does, i suspect you have degenerated. If you have a normal moral compass you want it illegal, so you can do what a father should do. Get mad as hell and find her, have the backing of law officials to get her out the situation. With it legalized, youre stuffed. The law will shoot you for trying. I guess you never been in this situtation or if so, didnt give a shit in your liberalism gone to venus haze. Well i have, its a headfuck to somebody with any normal semblance of man in there if its legal.
So for now what the responsible should do is hound brooke and decimate her works if she has the tenacity to persist. but as we can see its just pseudo-intellectual arguments and others did well without me even trying. The worst thing possible is these books that try to straddle science method and popular reading. Every parargaph should have the references in that paragraph. The authour should get copies of the papers referenced and put them on a server somewhere so we can check if they are not misrepresented. I see from a reviewer of brookes book, that if you read the papers brooke has not dug hard and the stats are wrong. Only those with journal access, science background and/or are willing to pay 20 times the price of the book (to buy the papers) can do that.
.McDuff said ” according to all the prissy prudes out there who can’t get their heads around the fact that prostitution always happens. It’s happening now, somewhere near youSomeone you know, in fact, is probably engaging in it or thinking about it”
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Ok not a lot to say to that, but it does have a strangely brainwashed tinge to it. Kind of like when you smoke dope, you think every other person is taking it effect. you wouldnt happen to be brookes partner would you ?
McDuff said “I’d rather listen to the voices of the thousands of sex workers out there writing and agitating about their own lives than a bunch of anonymous people who’d rather pretend the world is different and put up their blinkers”
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I rather work to build a society where there dont have to be sex workers at all…there are lots of places in the world where there are none, and things …work…. strange that.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/9202285/Brooke-Magnanti-Sex-for-money-why-not.html
Heres more wonderful insight from somebody with a PhD in pathology.
“there’s a lot of similarity between being a sex worker now and being gay 20 years ago. …And what really changed that was family, friends, members of the public coming to know people who were gay…………..If you want to identify a population that has been consistently discriminated against, it is up there with racism, with religion. “
people do not think about prostitution as they do xenophobia, homophobia and islamophobia etc. Prostitution is not for the most part like Race, sex orientation or religion where the issue is a deep part of your identity and the fight is against the hate of others who wish to fight your identity. It is primarily associated with drug addiction, psychological problems or crime, desperation and usually poverty.
Sure there are a minority of sex workers who might enjoy doing it, regardless of money. They may have an overwhelming need to have sex several times a day so they may as well get paid. These are a minority perhaps nymphomaniac due to some chemical imbalance or altered hypothalamic function.
“Some commentators have exhibited a curious disappointment that Magnanti has not been damaged by her experience.”
That pretty much sums up the “anon” responses here. Sex work should be vicious and damaging and terrible and harm you as a person, and if it doesn’t we’ll condemn you because IT SHOULD HURT.
How dare you not be damaged by your life outside our provincial little norms?!
McDuff…totally off base as usual.
if i want to learn the technique of putting the wrong words into peoples intentions.. I guess i know where to find an expert on that.. You are projecting or just taking wild guesses it seems. Not sure why if its the latter.
Keep plugging, but i see you fail to address the points.. perhaps just picking out the first easy accusation is an avoidance technique, or you dont have time, or its that I cant really think deeply about the topic but i want to pull out a stock answer so i have something to say type of thing ?
All you have to do is ask …i.e. “do you want sex workers to suffer”
actually ill challenge you again McDuff, previously you blasted out these one line accusations from my posts, and i asked you to quote where in the post I had hinted or made such statements you could take that position from. Go up… a few here.
You never replied.
Again… you are at this technique or problem with projecting your internal process onto strangers you know little about.
where in my posts have i made such statements that hints at the idea even slightly I should want sex workers to suffer ?
Because you have expressed no interest in sex workers as people in even the slightest, most roundabout way. The idea that they may be human beings with complex motivations and needs and desires figures not at all in your analysis. You present them as either a social problem or the kind of person who dares to get a PhD and tell the world that it’s not a social problem.
I sincerely doubt you have had any conversations with any sex workers, let alone know anything about the life sufficient to make any kind of informed judgement on it, and believe you to be preaching entirely ex recta from a position of absurd ignorance. As someone who not only knows sex workers but who is actually involved in the rights activism side of it and has read the literature that *isn’t* published by the same old moralising “feminists,” asking me to quote you back the chapter and verse where you get it wrong is like Ken Ham asking people to point out where exactly his assertion that dinosaurs lived 4000 year ago is incorrect – you’re operating on such a fundamentally flawed framework that any attempt to correct the details of your posts would be a waste of both our time and energy.
Ho, i missed that one you actually answered the question and illustrate even more clearly I am correct you are projecting constantly.
Check it out.
ME: where in my posts have i made such statements that hints at the idea even slightly I should want sex workers to suffer ?
McDuff “Because you have expressed no interest in sex workers as people in even the slightest, most roundabout way. The idea that they may be human beings with complex motivations and needs and desires figures not at all in your analysis.”
Ok…lets untangle this web well its a nonsense statement, most humans and animals have complex motivations, needs and desires so thats just a complete strawman. BUT Back to the point… So from everything i DONT say you spin out what I AM saying ? Thats called projection McDuff and you keep doing it, in almost every other sentence. You my friend have got some major issues, but ill give you the benefit of the doubt that these are not all pervading through your psyche, and perhaps this issue discussed here is just your issue for whatever reason.
But at least an actual valid statement from yourself, even if paranoia tinged.
“I sincerely doubt you have had any conversations with any sex workers, let alone know anything about the life sufficient to make any kind of informed judgement on it, and believe you to be preaching entirely ex recta from a position of absurd ignorance. As someone who not only knows sex workers but who is actually involved in the rights activism side of it and has read the literature that *isn’t* published by the same old moralising “feminists,” asking me to quote you back the chapter and verse where you get it wrong is like Ken Ham asking people to point out where exactly his assertion that dinosaurs lived 4000 year ago is incorrect – you’re operating on such a fundamentally flawed framework that any attempt to correct the details of your posts would be a waste of both our time and energy.?
you are correct, Only those i mentioned above but yes thats highly limited sample in comparison to what you are talking about. What i found was the idea of bothering with prostitutes became unappealing after i grew up. Also the concept of creating a demand for it also irked me at a moral level, even if the pros were happy enough. Its creating a demand to fuel dysfunction in younger ladies that they should really sort out, not find a place for in that profession. I also know some sex workers socially not through using that scene, as I come from a rough background, so can gauge a bit of the wider picture. But still its not adding up to a lot in total. Perhaps 12 is my sample in total, but quality of interaction not quantity is useful.
In regards to their personalities, they just seemed like any other mix of people except at extreme ends. sure of course there are those who are a bit psycho due to drugs or whatever, and those who werent and had gone all career about it had stressed personal relationships or were single (or single mothers) and moved around a lot. They seemed stronger than average in personality.
Some of these sex workers (women) I notice are really stimulation hungry or over materialistic and not easily content. Perhaps thats why they do that type of work, when they are past needing the cash. Their values got screwed up. They seem cutoff from regular emotions. Many times their reasons for doing it are frivilous and they expect close ones to bow to their unreasonable or overtly demanding position and needs.
So there you go, If you are some kind of male sychophant for female sex workers, who think they are wonderful. I think there is something wrong with you. I didnt find it all brilliant. A lot of thm need sorting out. There was one i really respected, who tried to provide a therapy for clients. i.e. Sort out the males emotional problems that drives them to use her. That means she cared about men (which a lot in this business do not). Problems i think these women have aside, the work makes them very capable and independent women, stronger than most and they would find men sychophanting over them rather repulsive (but they might like to play with you and/or use while your useful). They dont really respect men very often i noticed, and are adept at manipulating them. There is some issue about men that other women dont have. Again they would find any mans interest in their problem repulsive, as thats a matter between them and other women or a professional psychologist.
Ok lets get to a point here, you know them so well McDuff, answer this…..how many would want their occupation for their daughters, even if society accepted it ?
So the one sex worker you liked was the one who tried to “provide therapy” for men. The others (again, all women) that you don’t like were just shallow and materialistic and “needed sorting out”, especially as they didn’t respect men very much. Can’t help but notice that you’re judging the women sex workers you know in terms of their relationships to men. Or, working backwards, I suspect you’re judging them in terms of their relationships to you.
I dunno, anon. Maybe they don’t just respect you? Maybe your tendency to judge the fuck out of them made them cold to your moralising ass? Maybe that’s what’s going on in your fucking issues-laden city here?
” If you are some kind of male sychophant for female sex workers, who think they are wonderful. I think there is something wrong with you.”
You don’t have to believe that everything in a given industry is 100% wonderful in order to believe that people in that industry should have rights to organise and operate in safe working conditions. Your personal distaste for prostitution is, frankly, completely fucking irrelevant.
“Ok lets get to a point here, you know them so well McDuff, answer this…..how many would want their occupation for their daughters, even if society accepted it ?”
A point? From you? Heaven forfuckingfend.
Dunno, why is that relevant? Maybe that question will be answered in this doco? I imagine the answer is that some wouldn’t mind, if that’s what they wanted, and some would actively discourage it. But that doesn’t mean that *their* choices to do what they personally believe is economically right for *themselves* should be negated, or that their rights should be curtailed. I don’t want my daughter to grow up to be someone who cleans toilets all day, but that doesn’t mean I want the rights of people who do that job to be removed or the conditions they work in to be made even worse in order to discourage them from doing it. I mean, why would you even think that would work? You don’t stop people going into bad jobs (even assuming that prostitution is somehow worse than other careers, which for most it really isn’t, which is why they are sex workers rather than in those other careers) by making bad jobs illegal. You stop people going into bad jobs by tackling poverty.
He will not reply to that one of course. If McDuff returns here it will be slithering off to some other of his stock accusations he seems to have an arsenal off.
Perhaps you should come clean and explain a bit about yourself, your motivations etc ?
From an “anon” poster, this is an entirely ridiculous thing.
If you want to know about my motivations you can find them out. I don’t hide them.
Who the fuck are you, might I enquire, and what are your reasons for pushing your drivel about sex work being a social ill that requires the firm authoritarian hand of the law to control it? What precisely is your skin in this game, “anon”?
well since you bring it up, one of the primary problems with Magnanti is her outright selfishness (the number of levels she is selfish is so astounding i would require a list).
She has the “i can do this, I can be OK, I can get a PhD, hey i can thrive at the highest levels of society, and deal with all adversity…not give a shit… look im alrite jack” attitude. Now ill advocate, I am an example… and by implication as a peer with status then other young ladies think they can too.
Well all that tells you is that this is a resilient person. She may be messed up inside, but nobody except her partner may ever get to see that. Her resilience and desire to stimulate herself to make a lemon out of a controversial life is a different matter. Not everybody is cutout to be a cage fighter, there is a known genetic predispostion for that, as there is to be a shamless pseudo-intellectual I can try anything and come out smelling of roses semi-psychopathic NPD smartass like brooke.
Why do we want to import such people in the UK ? Let all that borderline disorder stay in america. We have enough problems dealing with our own. She should leave the country. If she wants to have children she will have to anyway as she already knows. Is that our fault for being morally backward or was it forward, that they would get a hard time ? sorry her reasons are so incoherent i dont even understand her position this week.
Back to the point, her so called academic justification turned out to be not very good, so unless she can produce something better snowed up in the highlands this winter, Germany would be a better place for her to go, but something tells me, she likes being the lone ranger in the hills. She sure picked a big challenge for middle age. They are ultra-conservative in the highlands.
Ah at last a bit of spirit. My beef McDuff is those young and impressionable who are starstruck and “radicalised” by brooke enough to becomes copycats.
However do you think all these girls posses brookes full borderline personality/social smarts/high IQ I want to challenge everything for the thrill of it cocktail of traits ? You think they can easily pull off the same tricks ?
why breed a new segment of society/hookers with borderline personality disorders and endless pathological smart-assery as a result ? What problem does that solve ?
I was just about to finish up here, and i noticed McDUFF (emphasis on duff !) did it again. Hat trick
Mcduff said “might I enquire, and what are your reasons for pushing your drivel about sex work being a social ill that requires the firm authoritarian hand of the law to control it? What precisely is your skin in this game, “anon”?”
WTF…. are you drunk or something. Thats the 3rd time you are saying i said something i didnt.
AGAIN… where go on just quote… did I even hint at that idea ?
You are just at it, i think. Ive seen people use that trick, where they pretend they think you are saying things you didnt to annoy somebody. Well for your sake I hope thats what it is, because if it isnt you must have some form of schizoid disorder !
or perhaps smoking one too many spliffs can explain that ?
So we add jingoism (“why would we want to import bad people to the UK, leave them in the USA where bad people come from”) and accusations of mental illness on the part of everybody who disagrees with you to your incredible arsenal or argumentative techniques. Be they nymphomaniacs, sociopaths, or schizophrenics, or on drugs, or just being too young and impressionable to know better, nobody gets to disagree with you without it being a sign of a fundamental character flaw.
Let us all disregard the arguments of those people who, from their lofty ivory towers in Middle England, can’t pass forth judgement and opprobrium on those who they have never met or interacted with in any way because they just KNOW they’re right, OK? They don’t need experience, or knowledge, because everyone with a differing opinion, be they Laura Agustin or Jill Brenneman or the sex workers in Empower have something wrong with them and their opinions can therefore be summarily dismissed.
Only the anonymous commenter on this blog knows the truth about sex work and the young and impressionable girls who are so weak willed that they can be led astray by reading a single book. A sign that we should prevent people with opinions from writing books, or possibly that we should revert back to the good old days and prevent women from reading books at all, lest their delicate and sensitive souls become tainted with too many raucous ideas.
Sex workers, of course, don’t know a fucking thing about sex work, and should be ignored at all costs. Because if you listened to sex workers talk about sex work, you might get the impression that it’s not made up of destitute drug addicts and naive young girls who were tempted into a life of vice because they read a fucking blog, and that CLEARLY can’t be true because our anonymous commenter has asserted it to be true many times. We all know that the more you repeat something, the more true it becomes.
McDuff (projecting again) said “Or, working backwards, I suspect you’re judging them in terms of their relationships to you.”
Projection after projection, I cant even waste time with all this except to point out that’s not working backwards, working backwards would be logic based on previous information. This is more projection, unfounded statements based not on whats written here, but by your own agenda. You just cant help yourself on this issue it seems or maybe it’s a general trait you have. One thing that’s fruitless to solve problems, is debating with people who insist in projecting their issues where they try and put words, intentions and agendas into the mouths of people they don’t even know anything about. You cant solve problems by projecting, because you aren’t dealing with real information.
McDUFF said “Only the anonymous commenter on this blog knows the truth about sex work and the young and impressionable girls who are so weak willed that they can be led astray by reading a single book. A sign that we should prevent people with opinions from writing books, or possibly that we should revert back to the good old days and prevent women from reading books at all, lest their delicate and sensitive souls become tainted with too many raucous ideas.”
Yes that’s right, books are powerful and brooke just taps into the lowest common instincts our society tries to wrestle with. Notice how it is youth appeal Brooke has and for a while (thankfully short) enticed young women in the media, dazzling them with her quick fire intelligence and academic status. Her techniques are intellectually aggressive.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/9518777.stm
i.e. Check out some of brookes techniques she used on newsnight, trying to constantly interrupt Kat Banyard who disagrees with her, trying to asset her PhD authority and when failing condescending her opponent as a type of inferior minor for being 10 years younger. This is just some of brookes many smart strategies (not really that smart as she has failed over the long run), she seeks out young success hungry career women in the media and smartly manipulates them to do her bidding. Thankfully Brooke does not have a reach to the mature and media academics who are able to rip apart her latest book for the scientific rubbish it is.
McDUFF posted this about born to porn.
http://jizlee.com/wordpress/born-into-porn-kickstarter-documentary-about-pornstars-children/
Yes at least you provided something valuable to this debate (at last). this link gets to the point I made earlier. There ARE a small number of people for whom, a life in porn/sex may be suitable. I don’t like to say that, I would rather they sought other channels or treatments but it may not be practical right now.
I know a cage fighter (did hes dead now) AND have been part of violent sports and dangerous activity in my past, thankfully not now. Its become clear looking at my family some of us are born with a genetic predisposition to be on the boil (MAO strong allele) 24/7 and go even crazier than we are without conflict, so stick us all in an arena somewhere we can bash each other up and stay happy. Other people will have “nymphomaniac” genes (hope you don’t get both types of problem like brooke has !). Perhaps the sexually dimorphic area of the hypothalamus has altered function and so women end up with incredible sex drive that science is not able to switch off right now without bad side effects. In men such a problem (in conjunction with poor impulse control) often leads them to be rapists and they would be jailed or chemically castrated, but women wanting to have sex several times a day… Well they aren’t exactly invasive law breakers are they ? they are likely to be your porn stars or out and out born to be prostitutes
Should we look at this as the predisposition to drug abuse or crime, channelled well or should somebody with genes for lots of sex and/or violence be declared so dysfunctional they are genetically screened from reproduction? Ill deal with that point last.
For now we live in a world still with borders and so armies provide an acceptable occupation for soldiers who can be ordered to kill strangers on the other side of the border, without questioning political rationale and suing them for PTSD afterwards. There are also of course the hordes of successful men that have crazy sex drives or go a little nuts without the security of knowing there isn’t a women they can dial up for sex when their wife isn’t up for it, or even just because they are bored. But then there are also many other idiotic instincts in humans that just wont go away (ingroup/outgroup, status seeking, homophobia etc etc) that cause us nothing but problems, but they are deep ingrained in our brains so until the day neuroscience can remove entire chunks of engrained primate maladaption from our minds safely for now that’s that.
In regards to extreme sex and violence drives, none of this is really functionally adaptable for the future of this mad thing called life ? Lets face it these behaviours are a throwback relic of the genes that led to humans populating the world rapidly, setting up nations and military borders everywhere. i.e. That’s all a done deal. Weve populated the planet and set up enough infrastructure, too much in fact. Why then do we need more violent and or sex crazed people in the future ? We don’t we need less of this. they will have to go the way of the Neanderthal. Sure, we need to be humane and allow them to be porn stars and wrestlers etc to keep them from being jailed from rape/violence and other problems as this fizzles out of the gene pool.
NO !, they cannot be welcomed into the higher part of society which Brooke Magnanti seeks to propose would be a next stage in our so called enlightenment. There is no parallel (as brooke proposes) with racism or homophobia where we need to look at a new kind of world and thinking opened up for these people. This genetic type (the sex and violence crazy) have already had a rampant time in the past and now they are a detrimental throwback to the future of humanity.
McDUFF said projecting slightly again, but not completely so I will quote…
“Sex workers, of course, don’t know a fucking thing about sex work, and should be ignored at all costs. Because if you listened to sex workers talk about sex work, you might get the impression that it’s not made up of destitute drug addicts and naive young girls who were tempted into a life of vice because they read a fucking blog, and that CLEARLY can’t be true because our anonymous commenter has asserted it to be true many times.”
Ok what can I say, just ridiculous statement. Nobody is saying that its all those extremes so simplified. I have read the literature on this subject. What we don’t want is to have people with academic position influencing such girls, because they do, its occurred and is part of my real life, hence I am on this issue. No other reason, ive seen it happen. Academics have a lot of peer power so they have to be screened to make sure they don’t encourage regressive and troublesome behaviours. What we do need is more academics like Chomsky who have the balls to challenge government policy when we are clearly being regressive. i.e. ingroup/outgroup instincts that lead to Iraq, which was fuelled by greed, religion and nationalism lets pick a fight against muslims revenge trip. A majority of the US public voted that was a valid war to go for (unlike UK) so yes back to my point on not importing Brooke to the UK, there is definitely something gone deeply wrong with that country, which we don’t want to import here. I stand by that, we should send Brooke packing back to the US rather than allow her to be backpacking, peddling twisted pseudo-intellectual garbage from the UK highlands.
McDuff is just being repetitive or making irrelevant points so unless there is anybody else that has something cogent to say, I am pretty well done here in regards to this subject
THE ANON
[…] use is often very poor. But here are a couple of recent examples:In her recently published book, The Sex Myth, Brooke Magnanti, more famously known as Belle de Jour, showed how anti-sex industry feminists use […]
[…] RSS – PostsRSS – Comments Top PostsBad Science: A Review of The Sex Myth By Brooke Magnanti […]
Bailey never said transsexuals didn’t exist, or that they are just gay men. The book he wrote on transsexuality was a pop science book putting a spotlight on the theories of Blanchard, who concluded that the two types of transsexuals (formerly referred to as primary and secondary) were biologically homosexual and nonhomosexual (straight/bi/non), the latter who live as typical straight males (getting married, having kids, joining the milityary, taking engineering careers) before transitioning later in life, while homosexual transsexuals transition earlier in life. The NHT also have a history of errotic cross dressing while the HT do not. This was the real reason for the backlash against Bailey, which was the result of trans activists, all of whom were NHT, not wanting Blanchard’s theories to be known to the public. They even posted pictures of Baileys kids online and called them necrophiliacs. Immature smear tactics tell us nothing about Bailey’s credibilty.
The closest he may have come to saying transsexuals are just gay men are when he brought up the fact that most children with gender identity disorder grow up to be gay men, not transsexuals. And this is true.
Agreeing with operatoroscillation, and agreeing with Paul (january 6, 20013) that it is inaccurate and oversimplified to say “arousal is orientation,” which depends on an untested view that some basic physiological body impulse to have sex or get ready for sex is the starting point for everything that comprises orientation. This is most probably not true, and misses the the probable importance of feedback loops, learned and/or conditioned responses and social and affectional factors.
That said, I don’t think one wrong-headed argument in a paper negates empirical experiments; nor does it mean the paranoia about being turned into an [other] “species” to be “dissected” is warranted.
[…] sin nyligen publicerade bok, The Sex Myth, visade Brooke Magnanti, mer känd som Belle de Jour, hur feminister som är anti-sexindustri […]