aka The Sunshine state aka A Sunny Place for Shady People aka Redneck Vacation Land aka America’s Wang….
I’ll prolly post while down there, but hell, 12 hours in a car wipes even me out….
Archive for April, 2011
Oddly enough, several years back I did a post of the same dang title on the same dang issue…had I not nuked the old joint I could just link the fucker, but alas, the Empire got sacked…I could dig it up and paste it here, but meh, not feelin’ like it…so, you know, I am gonna go with a condensed version with the same sorta feel…less wordy, more basic, but hell, I reckon the points will be made all the same.
So let’s jump into that shit, shall we?
The Main Difference between a Harm Reduction Stance and an Abolitionist Stance Re: Sexwork (or my opinion on the matter anyway)
It really is a pretty simple but HUGE thing, really. Abolitionists seek to end the sex industry, and end the conditions and factors which cause it- everything from poverty to the idea that its okay for men to purchase sex from women. Harm Reductionists seek to, well, reduce the harm done to those who are currently working in the Sex Industry. Because of this Abolitionists are dealing with the future, looking towards a future in which there is no sex industry and no situations or factors which would lead to their being one. Their end game, as it were, is not something that can or will be accomplished in the here and now- it is a goal for the future. Harm Reductionists? Well, they are dealing in the here and now, where there is a sex industry and ALL the situations and factors that lend themselves to it’s existance. There you have it. Main difference, right there: Future vs. Now. Pretty basic, yeah?
And because of that main difference, the Future vs. Now thing, it can be very, very hard for people of the two different camps to be on the same page on pretty much anything. Group A wants a world where sex is not for sale and is working towards that end, Group B realizes that in the here and now people are selling sex and thusly want to make it as safe for those whom are doing so as possible. Because amid these two groups the desired result of action is seriously different- destruction of vs. safety in- well shit, no wonder these two camps seem to be at one another’s throats all the time, yeah?
And I can tell ya flat out why I am firmly planted in Group B, the harm reduction camp. For one, to me it is far more practical and logical. I’m not gonna take a piss all over what Group A wants, but I do tend to think it is a serious pipe-dream, and if not that, an end goal which is so far in the future, and one that is not even necessarily wanted by a whole lot of folk, women included, that well….fuck it, I will be blunt…I think its a waste of time. Especially when there are sex workers in the here and now and eliminating anything and everything that would lead people to be on either side of the sex biz, things like capitalism, the current social order, poverty, drug addiction, folk wanting to live off the grid, so on, so forth- could take eons…well, it makes no logical sense to me, and I figure my efforts are better spent dealing with the here and now and not on some future possibility that may or may not ever happen….after all, there are a lot of folk in the sex biz in the here and now who could sure as shit stand with their lives being safer, more respected, and a shit ton less complicated. I mean, I ain’t gonna spin out my brain trying to imagine a world with no sex industry when sex workers are doing their thing right now…at this second…and well, shit, maybe the help or effort I can put forth in the here and now will be of some use to them.
Hell, I bet you were expecting this to be some seriously long and drawn out shit, yeah? Shrug. No need for that, because when you cut right down to it, the shit is pretty basic.
If you wanna see more about Harm Reduction & Other Stuff and my Writings On It, well…
Here…check it…
Problems with Creating a Monolith
But ya know, just not feelin’ it at the moment. SO yesterdays medical shit: The MRI was a total cake walk. It’s not all that difficult to lay still for 20 minutes and ignore the loud clanging when you have earphones blasting classic rock on. Needles in the neck, however, was…special. See, my doc, she does real good work- for awhile there, I did not feel the shots at all because my scars were all thick and twisted and full of …well, no nerves I guess. Not so anymore, they are flat and while still scars…baby butt smooth…which means, I can totally feel the shots again. She did about 8 yesterday, felt 4 or so very nominally, the other 4? Yeah, totally aware of the fact she was shoving a dang needle into my neck…and boy, do those fuckers BLEED (I learned Looooong ago to wear black shirts to needle in the neck appointments). So, yeah, today I kinda look like someone punched me in the throat-bruises and all.
Today is also not a good back day. Well, in truth, with the back, I have some days are worse than others says…today is a worse than others day. However, when I have those days, I tend to setup shop on my couch in front of the TV, and, well, as I was of the same mind yesterday and since it is finally on the Netflix insta watch thingy, I am deep, deep, deep into season one of “Sons of Anarchy”….and can I tell you how much I am loving this show? Oh my, I am loving this show…
And yes, I even hear you now… “But Ren, how in the hell did you, of all people, not manage to catch Sons of Anarchy prior to now?” Answer is…well, you know, when I watch TV, I really am sorta a Discovery Channel/History Channel kinda gal. And well, South Park. I’d wanted to watch SOA, but never managed to get in front of the TV on the right night at the right time or have my DVR ready to go, and even when I had a ton of people who know me in RL saying “Dammit Ren, you gotta watch SOA, this show screams You!” I just never managed to get it pegged down. By the time I did it was about half way through season 2 and I’d missed so much I felt kinda lost. So I figured Net Flix (but I had ordered and just finished watching Rome & MASH, and I don’t like to have too much stuff out at once), and then yesterday, low and behold, seasons one and two in the new arrivals on the instant TV stuff. Score! So yes, finally getting my SOA watching in…and my RL friends are right: Thus far, I love this freakin’ show, and I gotta say, Katie Segal is flat out awesome in it…perfect casting right there.
So, I am afraid posts of actual substance willbe sidetracked by a bad back and Sons of Anarchy.
Have I mentioned how much I am loving this show?
or at least its starting off that way…never can tell how these things will go…
So, here in about, oh, five hours or so, I shall begin my day of Doctor Madness. Nine am is the appointed hour for the next installment of needles in my neck scars, then long about 11:30, it will be MRI time. I’ve never had an MRI. A lot of folk are freaking out because I am not freaking out. I seriously cannot imagine it is that bad. I mean, come on, I have been set on fire….shit’s gotta be pretty horrible to rate as scary for me nowadays. I guess I can let ya know how it goes after it goes, yeah?
I realize I still owe y’all a post on the Super Main Difference between a Harm Reduction and an Abolition Stance…and I will prolly get to it this weekend. Heck, I might even knock out some more tweeker humor and that epic thesis on sexism in gaming..
But before I head out for now, I gotta ask…
Y’all have heard about the Government Shut Down Right? If not, and for my non-American readers…well, yeah, they are prolly gonna shut down the Government. Gov. employees will not be working, folk won’t be gettin’ paid (including Active Duty Military personel…WTF??? SERIOUSLY?!??!) and pretty much all other non-essential personel- oh, and essential personel….they will still be working- but may not be getting PAID for it…until, well, later…whenever… and you wanna know what chaps my ass about THIS shit????
Fucking Congress, who, oh, utterly FAILED to set out a budget at ALL last year? Those dickweeds? THEY ARE STILL GETTING PAID….now really, ask me who deserves their paycheck more? Some fucking politician, or some person with a significant other and kids to feed who is over in Iraq right now, you know, in a war? Tough call there, eh? I feel like since freakin’ congress were the ones who screwed the pooch and did not do their fucking jobs and make a budget, they are the assholes who shouldn’t get paid. And I wanna kick the shit out of the morons who are trying to drag all their political agendas into all this shit when, oh, the people who inspect our meat, or defend our country, or oh, run our historical landmarks, national museums and parks, and oh, actually keep shit running are getting sent home and not paid…or still working and not getting paid. Such a load of horsehit really, complete with flies.
To address something. I was out poking around in blog land and saw one of those things that a few years ago might have sent me flying into one of my notorious Ranty McBallistic tirades, but hey, I’m too busy putting mattresses in front of the windows and setting up trip wire shotguns for that shit (joke, people, it was a joke)…but anyway, I thought about replying all civil like over there, but then saw who else was replying over there and said fuck that noise…so, I’m gonna address it here, and hell, maybe it will get seen, maybe not, but what the hell else am I gonna do at 1:40 in the morning without tools or cleaning supplies, right?
So, lemmie offer some insight on this:
The reason these conversations get so hard is not even the difference in opinion half the time. Sure enough, there is a vast mess of differences of opinions between those who are harm reductionist and those who go for an absolute end o’ the sex industry. And sure enough, this is just one person who has some involvement and ties both in the industry and in the harm reduction camps opinion, but what the heck, gonna say ’em anyway. It is my belief that sex workers dislike being endlessly speculated upon, dehumanized, objectified, and treated as less than. Now, sure enough, those with the hardline anti stance are gonna say that “well, that’s all that stuff that happens to women IN the sex industry, at the hands of men, that’s how they get treated!” And sure enough, in enough cases to take note, that is true….but it also happens outside of it…flat out, my friends, EVERYONE, even those with the best intentions and true goodness in heart and mind and shit, do this to sex workers and prostituted women (there is a difference IMHO). Any person in the sex industry- willingly, unwillingly, whatever, will at least once, but more often every five seconds, be lumped into one stereotypical group, or have some serious as shit assumptions made about them, and be made into some sort of object above and beyond a sex object. They’ll be made a victim object, or a wanton, fallen woman object, or an eeevvvvillll sadistic misogynist object, or some other shit that utterly fails to recognize them as a whole person who is more than the sum of their job (sex workers), or seriously unfortunate and fucked up predicament (prostituted person). Hell, I know this one from experience….even in my time on the net here, I have had a whooooolllllleee lot of flat out false shit assumed and spread around about me: I was sexually molested (untrue), I’d been raped (untrue), I was being paid off by the porn industry to write my (previous) blog (untrue), I was some silver spoon pampered chick who was slumming it being a sex worker (untrue), my man was a suitcase pimp (untrue), I was uneducated (untrue), I’d been beaten had my face rearranged by men I stripped for (untrue), I was a hopeless cocaine addict & alcoholic (untrue), I never did any real world activism on behalf of sex workers (untrue), I instigated a massive coordinated attack against radical bloggers (untrue), I was actually a man (untrue), that I had no other choices but to be in said industry (not true)…hell, I could go on all day. And sure enough, as a veteran of lots of blog wars, I can say this with certainty…I was without a doubt a stone cold brass blazoned hardass nasty piece of work when the blog wars were a flamin’. Mean, angry, sarcastic, cut throat take no prisoners old school beat down style vicious. Why? Well, one, you never take a knife to a gun fight, two, I got as good as I gave, and three….there was a whole lot of utter fail when it came to recognizing the remote possibility that some women could actually choose to do that and did not get forced into it, and a whole lot of utter fail when it came to seeing sex workers (and just that term identified people) and their advocates as Actual Human Beings. I mean hell, I may dig cyborgs, but I’m not one….nor is any other person on my side of the fence, but often we ended up just as badly objectified or dehumanized or whatever else by the anti side as we ever ended up in a work related situation. And that shit gets real old, real quick. A lot of us, hell, we were made to feel unsafe, up and to actually being threatened. SO that is what makes it so hard, and why often, you do not find people willing to engage, even if in some places, heck, we might even BE on the same page. If people feel like they have been kicked in the face just one too many times, well, they stop doing what it is that was gettin’ em kicked.
And on that note, night y’all. I’ll catch ya after you’ve gotten some sleep and I’ve finished with these dang shotguns….
I am like this when I am STONE COLD SOBER:
If you’re vacuuming at 6am, you might be a tweaker
If you have more than one disabled vehicle in your yard, you might be a tweaker
If your desk drawer has not one intact Bic pen in it, you might be a tweaker
If you buy Reynolds wrap in bulk, you might be a tweaker
If people love your goth eyemake up, and you’re not wearing any, you might be a tweaker
If you are asked to pick up ice for the BBQ and you have to make phone calls, you might be a tweaker
If someone says “paranoid” and you get defensive, you might be a tweaker
If your 4 main food groups are nothing, nothing, nothing, and Snickers, you might be a tweaker
If you wax and then spend hours using tweezers on the missed spots, until you realize have no body hair left, you might be a tweaker
If you make fun of people for sleeping, you might be a tweaker
If you have ever spraypainted anything, ever, because, you might be a tweaker
If you like bad dreams like a good scary movie, you might be a tweaker
If you think a good friday night out is a home depot run, you might be a tweaker.
If you are amazed at all the “good %+!%” people throw away, you might be a tweaker
If you shop at Wal-Mart at 3 AM because “it is less crowded”, you might be a tweaker
If it takes you three hours to get somewhere it should have taken 10 minutes to reach, you might be a tweaker
If you go to a friend’s house and start washing their dishes, you might be a tweaker
If you think going hunting at 3 am is a great idea, you might be a tweaker
If you have a tackle box full of beads and %+!% to dig around in, and you never leave home without it, you might be a tweaker.
If you stay up all night gettin spun and you are still late for events of the next day, you might be a tweaker
If the first thing you do when you get into your hotel room is take apart the bed and put the matress over the window and the springs infront of the door, you might be a tweaker
If you say that nothing good happens after midnight, yet you are still out and about, you might be a tweaker
If you wake up in your car in the middle of nowhere and think “how long have I been asleep?”, you might be a tweaker
If your porn is alphabetically organized and sorted by genre, you might be a tweaker
If you can’t remember for the life of you what day it is, you might be a tweaker
If your house is cleaner than you are, you might be a tweaker.
If you watch t.v. and start to pick out the people that you JUST KNOW do dope, you might be a tweaker
If you know how to rig a trip wire to a shotgun, and think its a good idea to have one on every door in your house, you might be a tweaker
If you’re the one in the store with the cart upside down fixing the wheels, you might be a tweaker.
If your freinds know giving you a line and a bottle of 409 is cheaper than hiring a maid service, you might be a tweaker.
+if you are reading this on a four way split screen so you can also see the security monitors you have pointed on your door, your back yard, and your neighbors house? You might be a tweaker….
Friday is the day of doctors: 9pm trip to the neck doc for shots, then a lunch date with an MRI machine. Woohoo, medical shit!
Renegade Evolution 