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George Will, Take Note: “There is No Survivor Privilege, Only Survivors”

By Chris Hall
June 16, 2014
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There's something about George Will that just screams "asshole," even when he's not saying anything.

There’s something about George Will that just screams “asshole,” even when he’s not saying anything.

I learned to loathe George Will very early in my political consciousness. That means sometime back when Reagan was president. It’s not that he’s more contemptible than all the other conservatives, but my dislike for him is unique in its quality, if not necessarily its quantity. His entire image, his entire career, is based on projecting a certain patrician condescension that makes my skin itch. In some ways he’s more a true conservative than any of the neo-Fascists that dominate right-wing commentary these days, like John Derbyshire, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, or Glenn Beck. He truly is a conservative in his longing to return to the old days; his writing drips with a barely-concealed loathing for the working classes and brown people, and I can easily imagine that he looks back nostalgically for the times of child labor. Given a TARDIS, I imagine that he would immediately zip back to London, circa 1820, and establish himself as an industrial baron of some kind, perhaps investing in a plantation in Jamaica or something. He’s not the kind that I can imagine ever getting his own hands dirty with slave-owning or labor exploitation. Will is much more the kind who likes to enjoy quiet, dignified luxury while allowing other people to spill blood for him.

I could go on for pages and pages about my pet loathing for George F. Will, and it might even be entertaining before it ultimately became tedious. But the point is this: his recent column about rape, where he posited that being a rape victim is what all the cool girls want, just kind of cranked my loathing up to 12. It was already at 11, so he practically shattered the meter with this one.

Rape is mostly an abstract evil to me: I know and have known many people who have been raped, but it’s not something that I’ve had to experience myself. Even with my friends, it’s been something that happened to them in the past, not something I went through with them. But at least I can see it as an evil; Will treats it as a fashion statement.

Dr. Jen Gunter: Occupy Healthcare

Dr. Jen Gunter: Occupy Healthcare

Rape is a much more concrete evil to women like Dr. Jen Gunter, an OB/GYN who wrote an open letter responding to Will in today’s Talking Points Memo. It’s not an abstraction to her: She talks, very clearly and explicitly about her own rape and its consequences:

I was specifically moved to write to you because the rape scenario that you describe somewhat incredulously is not unfamiliar to me. Not because I’ve heard it in many different iterations (I have sadly done many rape kits), but because it was not unlike my own rape. The lead up was slightly different, but I too was raped by someone I knew and did not emerge with any obvious physical evidence that a crime had been committed. I tried to push him away, I said “No!” and “Get off” multiple times,” but he was much stronger and suddenly I found my hands pinned behind my back and a forearm crushing my neck and for a few minutes I found it hard to breathe. I was 22, far from home, scared, and shocked and so at some point I just stopped kicking and let him finish. Sound familiar? For several weeks I didn’t even think about it as a rape because that was easier than admitting the truth. Again, sound familiar?

[…]

You labor under the fear (as some men do) that there is an epidemic of false rape. That good young men will go to jail for consent withdrawn after the fact. And while false accusations likely do happen (the Duke Lacrosse case is a recent, well-known example) these are the exception and not the rule and each time a male with a platform spouts off about a false epidemic of rape it only makes it harder for women who have been violated to come forward.

And your confusion about the under reporting statistics? First a woman has to get over her fear of her assailant and the shame imparted by society and then she has to deal with the police. There are no Special Victims Units like you see on T.V. protectively shepherding women through the process of facing assailants. And if fear and shame and being disbelieved by law enforcement were not enough of a deterrent think about having your pubic hair combed for your rapist’s DNA while you are dripping with his ejaculate. And you have the gall to wonder why some women might not immediately (if ever) report a rape? I am a 47 year-old financially and professionally secure woman in a stable, loving relationship and it took 25 years and your jackass column to get me to speak up about my rape. How easy do you think it is for a scared 20 year-old to call 911 or walk into a police station and say, “I was just raped?”

The last line, which is the title of this post, is the perfect response to Will and all the people who think like him. Surviving isn’t a privilege, it isn’t a fashion statement; it’s a right, the first and last one that any person has. If you look at Will’s record, though, it’s one that he’s long been unwilling to grant to those who are less privileged than he.

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Filed Under: Etc., Featured Tagged With: conservatives, gender, George Will, Jen Gunter, Politics, rape, rape culture

Poe’s Law, As Applied to Breastfeeding

By Chris Hall
June 15, 2014
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Woman Breastfeeding Baby. Her breast is pixellated with a giant caption: Bottle Not Boobs

Bottles Not Boobs

It actually did take me a few minutes to figure out whether this was real or fake, which shows you just how solid Poe’s Law really is, when you apply it to real life. For the record, it is a parody, taken from the Facebook page of a group called Christians for Michele Bachmann. Naturally, that’s another factor against me: Bachmann herself has intentionally taken enough stands that were totally out there that it’s not entirely beyond the scope of reason that this might actually be from her, or a group supporting her.

However, Christians for Michele Bachmann is way too honest about the things that she’s actually said in real life. For instance:

Transcript
“Fred Phelps was hated for saying the truth about the militant homosexual. The militant homosexual is no friend of God, and no friend of America. I’m not saying I agreed with Fred’s methods, I’m just saying that I agreed with Fred.” –Michele Bachmann, Fox News, March 20, 2014
There are also quiet a few people, left and right, who have really weird obsessions about women who breast-feed in public. All that said, I’m relieved that it’s a parody, although I do kinda love the term “sinbags.”

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Filed Under: Featured, Humor, Politics Tagged With: Humor, Michele Bachmann, Politics

New Post at Slixa: Decriminalization Isn’t Enough

By Chris Hall
September 17, 2013
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"Belle" -- Statue in honor of sex workers in Amsterdam.Although I shamefully neglected to mention it in the actual piece, my most recent post at Slixa was done as part of Maggie McNeill’s Friday the 13th event, in which she encourage non-sex workers who are allies to write about the decriminalization of sex work. Mine talks not only about decriminalization, but about how we have to destigmatize it as well. Tolerating sex work with a distasteful grimace is little better than calling for its prohibition:

But ironically, decriminalization is as inadequate as it is radical. The stigma around sex work is at least as damaging as the laws. Stigma adheres to all branches of sex work, whether legally or not. It might be perfectly legal to make, market, and sell Lesbian Spank Inferno, Vol. 17, but having it on your résumé will guarantee you don’t get a job teaching grade school. The idea of sex workers as “fallen,” broken, or amoral is the soil in which the laws grow. The State of California was able to enact a regulation denying aid to victims of rape because stigma allows people like Ms. R to be considered disposable.

In the end, decriminalization isn’t enough: we have to say that sex workers — like any other legitimate work — can be a positive thing, not an inevitable blight that has to be tolerated. That’s not just radical in the current climate, but unspeakable. Right now, it’s hard enough to get people to use the phrase sex work  without a lewd, patronizing grin.

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Filed Under: Politics, Sex Work, Writing Tagged With: activism, decriminalization, Politics, Sex Work, slixa

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Red Equals Signs

By Chris Hall
April 4, 2013
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Clockwise from upper left: Atheists; Sex Workers; Queers; Undocumented Immigrants

Clockwise from upper left: Atheists; Sex Workers; Queers; Undocumented Immigrants

I have to admit, at first the little red squares on people’s Facebook profiles made me cringe. There were two reasons: first, this sort of thing has always triggered my most cynical side. Even in the 1990s, when people started wearing red ribbons to express solidarity with HIV/AIDS patients, I had really complicated, ambivalent feelings. On the one hand, it was a definite improvement over the dominant attitudes of the 1980s, which ranged between malign neglect and homicidal scapegoating. But on the other, the red ribbons seemed to quickly become more of a fashion accessory than an active political statement. Sometimes they seemed to be more about the person wearing them than the people who were at risk. It was even worse when Lance Armstrong’s “Livestrong” bracelets hit the scene. Imitators hit the scene before everyone had completely absorbed the idea of the originals. Even more than the red ribbons, they came to represent marketing more than social justice.

I have more examples of that sort of thing than I care to think. Every other day, it seems like we’re being asked to tweet a hashtag, recolor our avatars, or buy a special product to show what good people we are. We do it, and nothing changes, because we’re not really doing anything. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: Activism, Pop Culture, Queer Politics Tagged With: gay-marriage, lgbt, Politics

Faith No More, Pt. 2: Genocide is Not Justice

By Chris Hall
December 31, 2012
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If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can’t be taken on its own merits. It is intellectual bankruptcy. With faith, you don’t have to put any work into proving your case. You can “just believe.” —Dan Barker, Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist

Blind Faith

Read Faith No More Part 1

The extent to which faith compels progressive believers to blind themselves injustice so they can pretend their own ethics are backed up by divine authority is illustrated beautifully by Nahida herself, in the article that originally started my Twitter war:

[Nahida] interprets the condemnation of Sodom through a pro-queer, feminist lens as well: “My interpretation is that it was because they were rapists, not because the people they raped where of the same sex.” The book’s message, to her, is that “even when you don’t agree with someone’s decisions, you have no right to suppress the free will that was given to them by God.” Therefore, she says, Muslim law is inherently pro-choice, and inherently against imposing one’s religious beliefs on other people.

Whether the crime of Sodom was homosexuality, rape, or mere blasphemy, there is no way to tell that story without showing up god as a malignant, unjust thug. Nahida’s supposedly pro-queer and feminist interpretation of Sodom and Gomorrah conveniently glides past the fact that according to the story, two entire cities were massacred by her god because of an attempted rape.

[Read more…]

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Filed Under: Atheism, Politics, Religion Tagged With: Atheism, feminism, Politics, Religion, social justice

Faith No More, Part 1: Why Religion is a Poor Tool for Justice

By Chris Hall
December 30, 2012
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As soon as we abandon our own reason, and are content to rely upon authority, there is no end to our troubles.—Bertrand Russell

I believe, without reservation, that secularism is a far superior way to build a fair and just society than religious or spiritual thinking, no matter how well-intentioned.

Faith No More: We Care A Lot (Album Cover)That catches some people by surprise. When you’re out and open about being an atheist, they naturally think that the religious people you’re against are the cartoonish fundamentalist preachers on TV, the middle eastern theocrats that spray women in the face with acid for some crime or another against “modesty,” or child raping priests. And it’s true; I am against all of those people with a feverish passion. What catches people by surprise though, is that I’m also critical of the nice, liberal theists, the ones that I mostly agree with on issues of queer rights, feminism, poverty, racism, the environment, and so on.

And it’s true that I’m not against progressive theists in the same way that I am the fundamentalists. They are largely tolerant and decent people, and we can work together, at least in the short term. But in the long term, I think that using faith as a foundation for social justice is rot at the heart of the apple. What someone believes is important in determining what kind of person they are, but why they believe it is just as important, if not more so.

This has been sitting in my brain for a long time; it’s something that I wrestle with a lot, because criticizing religious progressives in some ways feels like kicking puppies. They are, after all, the good guys, as far as I’m concerned. I want more people in our society who support the rights of queers and women, who want people to have free medical care and free speech, and who are willing to stand up against poverty and racism.

But ultimately, I think that we’re a lot more likely to get those things if we stop trying to justify through the will of spirits and deities and prophets, and talk instead about the needs of ourselves and our communities, right here in the real world. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: Atheism, Politics, Religion Tagged With: Atheism, feminism, Politics, Religion, social justice

Rick Santorum Doesn’t Want You to Get Laid

By Chris Hall
January 7, 2012
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Despite how obviously desperate the Republicans are to find anyone—ANYONE—who’s not Romney to nominate as their Presidential candidate, I never thought that they’d scrape the bottom of the barrel so much that Santorum would wind up in second place. And in second place by a mere eight votes, too.

santorum (san-TOR-um) n. 1. The frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the by-product of anal sex

As Paul Krugman notes, the fun part about the constant rotation of Republican Number Twos is that it brings all of their skeletons screaming out of the closet into the unforgiving glare of the media spotlight. In Santorum’s case, the more media coverage he gets, the more his name becomes synonymous with “the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the by-product of anal sex.” Used to be that was a well-known joke only among readers of Dan Savage, who helped come up with it after Senator Santorum compared consensual homosexuality to fucking dogs. (To be fair, he did allow that gay sex wasn’t quite as bad as fucking children or dogs, but that it was still pretty damn icky.)

Now, even Rachel Maddow and the New York Times make sly reference to it. Next thing you know, “santorum” will make it into the OED, and not as a proper noun.

[Read more…]

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Filed Under: Politics, Sex and Gender, Uncategorized Tagged With: abortion, contraception, misogyny, Politics

Celebrate the Living While Mourning the Dead

By Chris Hall
December 16, 2011
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Shannan Gilbert

Picture of Shannan Gilbert, a 24-year-old sex worker who disappeared in 2010

The news sites are ablaze this week with stories about the discovery of human remains on Long Island that may turn out to belong to Shannan Gilbert, a 24-year-old sex worker whose disappearance last year triggered a search that turned up the bodies of nine other sex workers who advertised on Craig’s List. Gilbert showed up at the house of Gustav Coletti at 5 AM last year, panicked and begging for help: [Read more…]

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Filed Under: Sex Work Tagged With: activism, Politics, Sex Work

A Goodbye to Deborah Jeane Palfrey

By Chris Hall
May 6, 2008
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As is true of a lot of people in the sex-positive community, I’ve been thinking a lot about Deborah Jean Palfrey’s death this past week. I didn’t know her personally, and never met her in person, so I can’t speak of her death in terms of personal tragedy or grief. But grief and anger are what I’m feeling, because Deborah Jeane Palfrey’s fate could have been written onto the lives of so many women and men. And the anger comes from the fact that it has, and it will be.

The real tragedy of her death, from where I’m standing, is not anything extraordinary about her story, but how common and familiar it is, to the point of being cliché. If the story of Deborah Jean Palfrey had been laid out in a novel or play or screenplay, I would be angry at having my time wasted by a writer who was unable or unwilling to rise above cheap hackery that was old and worn out in the days of the Victorian penny dreadfuls. But Palfrey was a real person, and it makes me sick and angry to think how often the lives of people who should live peaceful, untroubled lives are forced into old patterns.

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Filed Under: Politics, Sex Work Tagged With: Deborah Jeane Palfrey, Politics, Sex Work, sex workers' rights

Online Forum at Sex in the Public Square

By Chris Hall
February 23, 2008

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SitPS Forum on Sex Work, Trafficking, and Human RightsNext week is going to be an exciting one, online and off. First of all, Tuesday is the kickoff for Cinekink 2008. Cinekink LogoCinekink is always good — far better than it has a right to be, in fact, given that sex often just gives indie filmmakers one reason to ramp their egos and pretensions up to eleven and beyond. I shudder to imagine what reams of crap Lisa Vandever has to comb through just to get quality programming for one week together. The GF always work the events as volunteers, and it’s a great time for anyone with a dirty mind and an artistic bent.

On a more personal level, though, we have a really important event of our own starting up at Sex in the Public Square. My partner and co-conspirator, Elizabeth Wood, is always looking for ways to come up with ways that we can take the pro-sex dialogue from spinning our wheels in the mud, and this time she came up with a brilliant one: rather than play the same old game of sex-work bingo with the cast of usual suspects, she’s assembled a bunch of the smartest activists and writers in the blogosphere today and invited them to participate in week-long online discussion on the themes of sex work, trafficking (and “trafficking”) and human rights. I’m all cranked up like a kid waiting for Santa Claus, except that in this case, Santa isn’t just my parents making shit up. It’s actually going to happen, and we’ve really got some great people who have committed to making it happen. There are so many things to say on these subjects, and so little of it ever gets said because we on the sex-poz side are busy just trying to hold ground from people who want to demonize us as haters of women, rapists, or just sling shit at us in childish ways by calling us “sex-poxes” or some other ridiculous thing. It’s going to be public, but that doesn’t mean it’s an open forum; comments are going to be strictly moderated, and people who want to play games like that don’t get to have their say this time around. That means we don’t have to reinvent the wheel once more by making the case that no, not all sex workers are victimized, trafficked, or acting out toxic scripts left over from childhood sexual abuse. Sex worker bingo is not allowed. I highly recommend everyone who’s interested check it out, especially if you want to contribute in a courteous, meaningful manner. Everything kicks off on Monday the 25th. The formal press release, complete with our contributor list, is below the fold.

[Read more…]

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Filed Under: Activism, Sex in the Public Square, Sex Work Tagged With: Elizabeth-Wood, forum, Politics, Sex Work, trafficking

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