NPN’s Jendi Reiter reviews an essay by Christine Stark, “Girls to boyz: Sex radical women promoting pornography and prostitution”. This essay is published in Christine Stark & Rebecca Whisnant, eds., Not for Sale: Feminists Resisting Prostitution and Pornography (North Melbourne, Australia: Spinifex Press, 2004, pp. 278-91).
This is the sixth in a series of reviews of the essays in this book. For earlier reviews, please see our Anti-Pornographers Bookshelf.
Stark, a Native American feminist writer and activist against sexual violence, criticizes self-styled “sex radicals” like former prostitute Carol Queen, who defend porn and prostitution as forms of feminist rebellion against a repressive culture. Sex radicals actually replicate patriarchal society’s division of women into Madonnas and whores. The only difference is that “bad” is the new good. “Good girls”, who prefer egalitarian, non-commercialized sexual relationships, are mocked as repressed and obedient. Bad girls–“women who use pornography, women who sexualize children, and women who buy prostituted women”–are considered heroes and rebels. (p. 278)
Stark considers sex-radicalism to be a form of female self-hatred, replicating male abuse of women even within all-female contexts such as lesbian relationships. Carol Queen claims to be on the side of all sexual minorities, but given the magnitude and pervasiveness of the sex industry and its role in subordinating women, siding with pornographers and pimps is not exactly an underdog role. (p.279) True “radical” feminism is radical not because it takes the most extreme positions on the issues, but because it looks at the roots of inequality and demands structural changes as well as personal ones. Stark observes:
Queen and other sex radicals have a rebellious, adolescent-style reaction to sex: what they perceive as being ‘different’ or rebellious is good, period… They channel women’s vaild anger and desire to rebel against patriarchy into their political camp by misrepresenting the term sex radical. True sex radicalism would mean recognizing structures of inequality and oppression, working toward egalitarian relationships, and aligning with those (whether minorities or majorities) who do not have social or political power–such as women and children hurt in pornography and prostitution or lesbians against lesbian pornography. (p.280)Because they are women and/or homosexuals, sex radicals who enjoy sadomasochism and purchasing prostitutes get away with claiming to undermine patriarchal norms, while in fact they are perpetuating other women’s subordination. Sex radical Veronica Monet, in a 1997 essay, wrote about hiring a prostitute in Nevada because she believed women had a right to do anything men could do. According to Stark’s own research on Nevada’s legalized brothels, the owners routinely groom underage runaways to enter prostitution when they turn 18, then virtually imprison them in the houses, with no money and no way to communicate privately with the outside world (pp.283-85). In a remarkable display of callousness, sex radical Donna Minkowitz has bragged about masturbating to news stories about the 1992 Glen Ridge, NJ case in which teenage boys gang-raped a retarded girl with a baseball bat. (p.286) Female-to-male transsexual sex radical Pat Califia writes articles glorifying pedophilia and incest. (p.286) How exactly does this challenge the dominant power structure?
Stark is disturbed by how lesbian pornography replicates the same master-slave dynamic of heterosexual porn, only with “butch” women instead of men as the ones who abuse the weaker, more feminine sexual partner. Just as in the girl-on-girl sex scenes in porn aimed at straight men, lesbian porn often portrays sex as women being cruel to one another:
[W]omen put other women into bondage using handcuffs, masks, ropes and chains. A chain saw as phallus is next to a breast….Lesbian pornography carries articles and advertises books that detail torture methods for women to use on other women, including how to set one’s partner on fire. (p.288)Stark suggests that misogynist porn appeals to lesbians because it lets them escape their feelings of vulnerability as women and sexual minorities, and identify with the powerful oppressors. This is not a new, radical vision of sex and society–it’s an unhealthy coping mechanism that leaves the power structure intact. (p.289) Meanwhile, potential abusers take women’s acceptance of rape and incest fantasies as proof that sexual violence is natural, consensual or even invited by the victims.
Coming tomorrow: Our review of Sherry Lee Short, “Making hay while the sun shines: The dynamics of rural strip clubs in the American Upper Midwest, and the community response”