While I don’t have sex for a living, mostly a hobby on those lucky nights. I can’t say, that I view women as a commodity, I take some satisfaction that they also have mutually enjoyed the experience. I also think, I do not know not being in the industry, but I imagine porn and prostitution is a very different life style, for in porn at least the person on the other end is a professional as well, and less likely to do some crazy thing in mid act. We are all human, mostly deeply flawed. So if you f***k for a living, are reasonable moral, well I don’t see why you should be thrown into some metaphorical leper colony with con artists and small time thieves.

Also, how does it inspire rape. I mean you are a normal fellow one moment, then you watch porn allot and become a rapist. Some one break out there copy of reefer madness whilst we are at it. Rapist are rapist, because they are mostly deranged control freaks. It doesn’t encourage rape, or discourage rape, show me some evidence to the contrary. Not some “I believe it does” B.S.

As for why I am commenting on this blog, insomnia as well. That and a Google search of “what ever happened to misanthropy”, why I am searching that, because people on the straight and narrow, who live life like Mormons are so very rarely interesting. I can see from this article at least Ren seems interesting, with that I wish all good luck.

Please. PLEASE. PLEASE!!!! don’t spoil your beautiful SNEAR. A smile just isn’t worth it.

:-P

Gah, sorry, I wasn’t clear enough. “Have access to” includes, in my mind, the ability to pay for.

What I’m trying to say is something along these lines, although this probably still isn’t quite it:
Among a lot of groups, though not all (“have access to” applies throughout this paragraph), braces are a Thing You Do, a rite of passage that nearly everyone goes through. If you don’t get them, chances are your teeth are pretty much perfect anyway. Here, getting braces is ordinary. It doesn’t affect the median, or make someone stand out, or assert that she or he becomes better than others by changing her/his body. The societal norm of straight teeth is still present, but it is obtainable to and likely to be obtained by everyone within the group.

This is NOT true, however, of cosmetic plastic surgery, and laser hair removal, and so forth. Undergoing one of these procedures sets a person apart and above. I’m not saying that every individual person naturally envies everyone who is better than them in some way. But if the attitude is generally present, the consequences will also be generally present in the cultural atmosphere. “We” attack the people “we” envy because they threaten our sense of self; the thing that makes them different/better is the target of the envy and thus the negative emotions focus on it. Part two of the equation: someone who has cosmetic plastic surgery is modifying her/his natural body, making it, in a sense, un-natural, hence fake. As you pointed out, there is no inherent goodness or badness attached to non-natural; it’s a neutral term. But if you consider that the negative emotions focus on the thing about a body that was changed to make it better, and having changed something makes it go from natural to not-natural, then negative connotations will be attached to non-natural/fake. Not by any one person, but in the general cultural hive mind.

Actually, if you’re updating blogroll, could you add some more blogs about Disability? I notice you have FRIDA and Amandaw, but your link to Miss Crip Chick is out-dated. Adding Hoyden about Town would be nice, too. (It might be there, but the way blogrolls are set up hurts my eyes.)

Accessibility Fail and Disability are two communities on Dreamwidth that are also of interest.

I’ve only started reading ‘feminist’ literature and blogs very recently, partly because of the whole ‘feminists are man haters, butch and wear flannel’ stereotype I had shoved down my throat as a kid and adolescent, and I still don’t feel comfortable identifying as a feminist. But I have to admit how surprised I was at the way some women seem to be left out of ‘mainstream feminism’. Particularly trans women and sex workers. I know I need more education on the subject(s), and I’m working on that (I am! Really! I promise!) but I cannot understand how mainstream feminism became rights for some women, but not ‘those’ women.

And I am willing to admit that my assessment may be wrong, I am a n00b after all. Maybe it’s not mainstream feminism excluding these women; maybe I just happened to find a lot of information that doesn’t truly represent the majority. I don’t think that’s the case, but I’ll be happy to be proved wrong.

Asafoetida, it’s entirely possible to criticise and critique beauty standards both in general and in specific slices of society, without criticising the actual women’s bodies and dehumanising the actual women who fit those standards. Criticising narrow definitions of acceptable beauty and sexuality is a feminist act, and one I’m quite intent on continuing to do myself. Criticising actual women’s bodies? Not OK. At all.

I agree that feminists need to work to include sex workers under their umbrella,

We’re already here. That’s the bit some people seem intent on ignoring.

I had, incidentally, presumed the stacking of Dacia, Ren and myself was an amusing coincidence. I’m pleased to have that confirmed, Jill… to me, at least, it means a lot more to hear “we picked out these people we’d like to blog here this week. Oh, look, three of them are sex workers! Neat!” than to hear “We wanted some sex worker bloggers, so we invited the ones we know.”

I’m sure it will lead to criticism from certain quarters anyway.