I’ve been a bit of a failure at guest blogging thus far: only three entries in a week. I’ll try and do better this week!
Via a few blogs, I came across this gem of a story last week:
Town manager fired over marriage to porn star
MIAMI – A town manager who married a porn star last year was fired at an emergency meeting after the mayor and council members learned about it.
Fort Myers Beach town council voted 5-0 to fire Scott Janke “without cause” after Mayor Larry Kiker called the Tuesday night meeting.
Kiker said he learned that afternoon that Janke’s wife is an adult film star, and the elected officials took the action a few hours later.
According to this article, Janke’s wife’s occupation raised concerns about whether he could “remain effective”. This line jumped out at me:
“When you become a public figure you are held to a different level of scrutiny and ethics,” Babcock said.
And, you know, that surprised me, because I don’t see any unusual ethics here. The Madonna/whore dichotomy, the whole idea that certain women are marked as OK to fuck, but not the type you take home? That’s a standard I see everywhere in day to day life.
This isn’t a post that comes from statistics and sources. It’s a post that comes from my anger at seeing this attitude, recognisable to any sex worker or porn performer, reflected at such a level. I’ve encountered it in a lot of places: in people who are happy to casually sleep with “women like me” (or use our services and products) but couldn’t bring themselves to have relationships with us, in the surprise when people find out that I or any other sex worker is in a secure and long term relationship, or in the inverse of that last one, the disapproval and scepticism aimed at our partners when people they know find out about our occupations. It’s there in jokes and stereotypes, in expectations, and even in the hang ups we are sometimes dismayed to discover in our own partners.
An Australian sex worker I’ve met through sex workers rights activism recently encountered problems with her partner’s attempt to immigrate. I won’t say too much about the details, as it’s not my story, but suffice to say the “confirm you are a genuine couple” process (exhausting at the best of times) was going swimmingly until someone took issue with this woman’s occupation. As she’s working under decriminalisation, there are no problems on the legal front, but it seems some have a problem accepting that a sex worker could be in a genuine relationship.
It enrages me, and it’s everywhere.
In the case of Janke and his wife, unless I’m misreading the article, two people who have been together long enough to have teenage children have had their relationship deemed an embarrassment. A woman’s job has been labelled evidence that her husband cannot be relied upon to do his job. Isn’t stigma grand?
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Well, you know you can’t trust a sex worker with . . . being the wife of a very minor politician? Really?
What gets me is that this defense, even if you accept the underlying belief that there is something so wrong with sex work that it taints a sex worker’s partner, is transparently ridiculous. Public officials aren’t held to a higher standard of ethics anywhere. They constantly get passes on behaviors and statements that would be fatal in any other line of work. They’re allowed to fuck up in spectacular ways and still rarely face losing their jobs because the entire system is designed to protect the interests and careers of incumbents. Even sex scandals are routinely weathered (often with a simple non-apology followed by some moral vomiting) by male politicians who made their careers by judging the sexual morality of others.
They couldn’t even be bothered to lie about what they were doing.
What everyone else here has said.
You also have to take a look at the political background in all of this. Fort Myers was until five or so years ago a much more relaxed and lassiez faire city regarding sexuality, until a group of fundamentalist Christians decided to build some mega churches there and proceeded to take over the town’s governing body. My guess is that the council who fired Janke is simply doing what most powerful right-wingers do when in power: using their political positions to impose their personal beliefs on others.
That they continue to apologize for, and even rally around, the likes of John Ensign, Mark Sanford or David Vitter merely because they project the proper “image” even as they violate their own policies in their personal lives is horrifying…..but typical.
But if your job can be threatened merely by ASSOCIATION with a sex worker, then it shows how fucked up we are concerning sex…STILL.
Anthony
What they really mean by “ethics” is “judgmental opinions that pass for morality, running along all the usual misogynist, racist, anti-sex, religious fundamentalits lines.” William is right though — the double standard that’s evolved for male politicians cheating and lying to their own wives vs. situations like this couple, who haven’t done anything wrong or even worth apologizing for, is depressing and depressingly predictable.
But that exposes the fundamental issue here, doesn’t it? You can’t separate the double standard from the standard itself. The problem this local council had didn’t have anything to do with sex, but rather the context around certain kinds of sexual activity. Its a about power and control. Even the double standard we see here serves to perpetuate the kind of power the council is imposing by removing voices which might be likely to disagree with future activities.
That, to me, is the real horror here. The nature of these judgments is to control who gets a say, to control who is able to influence policy. That is exactly the fear that the council expressed in it’s statement. What does it mean for a politician to “remain effective?” It means that they are able to enforce, that they are able to wield the coercive power of government. If a politician somehow finds themselves in a position where they might be sympathetic to the individual, rather than the mob, then how can they possibly be effective?
And now, not only do we get a new person in the position of power, but someone who will be that much more careful about their exposure to people who might sway their views.
In a just world, aspersions would be cast upon the porn star for marrying the politician.
Man, this stuff just makes me mad. It makes me want to try to take over local governments and indoctrinate them with my beliefs and make everything go the way I think it should. OH WAIT. Then I’d just be the religious right.
Heh, I was gonna blog on this, still might ya know!
My current partner was the first person I ever met who honestly saw sex work as not a big deal and not something to judge someone for. I now have a community of people who see that, but at the time it was such an amazing thing.
File this one under “nobody wins at Patriarchy.” This sort of thing is why feminism, beyond merely something I take an interest in because it’s the right thing to do, is something I take personally despite being on the ‘winning’ side of gender privilege. As long as society is fundamentally deranged we’re all f***ed.
My question: Does Janke have a legal case against the town? Call me naive, but I can’t accept the idea that being a sex worker’s spouse is sufficient grounds for termination of employment.
By the way, I wholeheartedly agree with Nentuaby. Patriarchy is a plague that annihilates everything in its path.
You know, marryig the “fallen” woman is what Jesus would probally do, or at least approve of. Why do these people hate Jesus and freedom?
Excellent point, William. And Tom, that made me giggle.
In a state full of plastic surgery, porn and strip clubs, the idea that having a wife who has appeared in an adult movie disqualifies you from public office is, at its best, hypocritical. When I first read this story (probably not the version posted), my first thought was “how did the mayor find out about her?” People are fine with using porn, but are terrified of actually meeting someone in the business.
And I think they’ve only been married about a year, so those aren’t children they’ve had together.
Exactly. When forced to view sex workers as actual PEOPLE, some people’s brains just explode.
Eh, they could be, they could not be. There’s nothing saying how long they were together before marriage. I know couples who married after tend years and a child or two. :)
Yolanda,
Since his employer was a government entity, it is possible that his termination could be said to have violated his first amendment right to freedom of association (i.e. to be married to whomever he wishes).
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