politics of the rentboy raid

[+ Tom Isern]

a smart analysis of the politics of the rentboy raid—the changing perspective of mainstream media, lgbt vs. feminist responses to sex work, etc.

 

http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/09/11/sex-workers-rights-made-mainstream/

[+ SimplyAdam]

Thanks for sharing this, Tom. While of course worded legally, I'm not terribly "legally minded," and this contextualized the fiasco for me.

[+ stevenkesslar]

a smart analysis of the politics of the rentboy raid—the changing perspective of mainstream media, lgbt vs. feminist responses to sex work, etc.

 

http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/09/11/sex-workers-rights-made-mainstream/

 

Thanks Tom. The points in this article are really important. There's a whole bunch of things that seem to be divisive about this issue for women that just don't apply to Gay men. The main one is that a lot of liberal feminists see "prostitution" as another way that patriarchy governs society and some men take advantage of women. That's not an issue when its adult Gay men doing whatever they do among themselves. Even more so, as the NYT editorialized, when the whole thing has a "feel" of resurrecting all the old slurs used against Gays.

 

I won't repeat my long rant about Paul and Sheila Wellstone, but I will summarize some things as it relate to feminism. I knew Paul well, Sheila not so much. But I'm pretty sure she saw it through this lens: this is about women and kids being dehumanized, mostly at the hands of male sexual predators. When you take the women and children part out and just make it about Gay men, it changes the lens completely. To me the complaint reads like somebody went to watch the movie "Cruising," which was incredibly inflammatory, and now we're back to that stereotype - all Gay men are sick sexual predators. Of course the complaint didn't say that, literally, but a lot of Gays took it that way.

 

To me, this is both an opportunity and an obstacle. I actually personalize the issue. For Sheila to be right, Paul didn't have to be wrong, and he didn't have to be a sexual predator. More than anything, they were a powerful team. And for Paul to be right - that many women and kids are dehumanized at the hands of mostly male sexual predators - Gay male escorts like me don't have to be wrong. Paul was talking about and fiercely advocating LGBT rights back in the 80's, long before it was trendy or easy. He was a master at building coalitions and political alliances among the disempowered and dispossessed.

 

So on the one hand it feels patronizing to be claiming I know shit about what women or feminists think, but on the other hand, for a bunch of Gay men to think they are going to get anywhere on decriminalization without teaming up with a whole bunch of liberals and feminists, and understanding where they are coming from, is naive. Liberal feminists like Kamala Harris are going to tell us we are being "ridiculous," and a lot of liberal feminist voters will agree with her. It will be divisive in the way the news article you posted describes.

 

I posted it elsewhere, and I won't bother reposting it because it's old data anyway, like from the 90's. At that time, decriminalization was wildly unpopular among the entire public, but it was even more unpopular among women than men. And the other thing that was interesting is it was most unpopular among younger women. Again, at the risk of being patronizing, I have to assume that as much as they are totally cool with same sex marriage, they are totally uncool with the idea of legalized prostitution, because, again to quote Harris, it would throw down the "welcome mat" to male sexual predators.

 

Just to be 100 % clear, I'm not saying Kamala Harris is right. I am saying that she was very effective in blocking decriminalization in one of the most liberal cities in the US, San Francisco, where there are a whole bunch of community-based groups and a supportive Mayor who could probably build a model system for decriminalized sex work that also protected women and kids from trafficking. Gavin Newsom - who famously pushed the legal line on same sex marriage - also opposed decriminalization when it was on the ballot in 2008.

 

In the short term, I think we have to be very careful about making it clear that opposing the Rentboy raid and supporting "wholesale" decriminalization are two very different things. The New York Times basically opposed the Rentboy raid, while the Washington Post opposed "wholesale" decriminalization. In the long run, whatever they intended, I think DHS actually helped the cause of decriminalization, because throwing Gay men into it frames the issue differently. We can have a discussion about the rights of sex workers, and the logic of targeting what Gay adults do consensually and privately, without running smack dab into concerns about the victimization of women and kids.