A sex worker shows how sex work destroys her.

Though the original purpose of this blog was to give voice to Donatien, it also is to seriously discuss my thoughts about sexuality, especially the darker forms of it. Usually, I'll be making these posts under "Charles." The "Donatien" identity is more of a license to be ruthlessly obnoxious, and that wasn't what I had in mind for this post. However, he'll pipe up occasionally even in this post.

"Cruel Bitch" on Livejournal: Jen is a Buzzkiller

Sometimes I let Donatien search the web for me, just to see what he comes up with. Tonight he felt like searching on "bitches choking on my cock," which is about par for the course for him. Anyway, I did find an interesting site called Gag on My Cock. Well, the first video you see is kind of interesting if you're into the sick shit that Donatien is into. Unfortunately, Donatien gets quickly bored with it, because as deranged as he is, he likes art and creativity as much as any other cultured guy, and the moron behind this site has a pretty jejune formula. The insults are all the same. The modus is always the same (strangle, slap, shove a cock in there). It's just...well, bland. But what did he expect from a site called "Gag On My Cock?"

Do I even need to mention how grotesquely horrifying this site is? I mean, I am sure there is sexual assault going on in these videos. In one, the "actress" even says "please, stop" and the "actor" says "you just don't get it do you?" Predictably, he grabs her by the hair and shoves his cock in her mouth. This is so not good.

Anyway, I took control back from Donatien and modified the search to: "gag on my cock" feminism. Donatien had a really good chuckle at that, and I told him to STFU. Anyway, I found this "cruelbitch" journal, written by someone calling herself "Jen." Holy crap, is this the most confusing thing ever, or what? Here we have someone identifying herself as lesbian but calling herself asexual. Yet she makes her money (or at least some of it, can't tell competely) as a stripper. She has pictures of herself posted there--yes, I can see how she makes pretty good money at it. But this is just WTF-level betwildering.

I suppose I support the right of anyone to self-identify however they want, even if it is maddeningly bewildering. She makes a few posts elsewhere in the journal trying to explain this inexplicable decision as if it should make perfect sense to someone who is the least bit intelligent. I don't identify at all--it would be if I self-identified as a fire truck and demanded to be taken seriously. I mean, OK, I guess, but good luck with that.

[Then again, here I am blogging about sharing my brain with a wannabe sexual predator, so it's not like I can be all high and mighty about it.]

The story she told in this post (now 2 years old) is horrifying. Yet, not all that unusual--it's my firm belief that at least 9 out of 10 sex workers are seriously harmed by their work. Jen is no exception, though it's curious to me that she soothes this pain by becoming lesbian and asexual rather than doing whatever it took to find another line of work and heal whatever semblance of sexual identity she has left. But, she's a big girl, I'm sure she knows what she's doing.

She gives a harrowing account of her encounter with a guy--an encounter amounting to sexual battery at the very least. Finally, the guy tries to strangle her. He leaves a big welt on her neck. She extorts $200 from him. He apologizes and begs her to make love to him. Yes, both Jen and I go WTFWTF to that, but it must have been six orders more WTF to actually be there.

She posits that pornography is behind this nonsense. This is a good guess, but I have a problem with her high-level analysis. Then again, she makes a number of well-thought-out points about the porn industry. I thought I'd step through a few of the with you.

(Before we begin, though--it's interesting she had to modify her rant by fending off charges of heteronormativity, of all the goddamned things. This just shows you how silly identity politics are. Of course, Jen seems to revel in it, so she accomodates this foolishness. It's really interesting to try to figure out the reasoning behind what she chooses to tolerate and what she does not.)

1. The blatantly simple-minded objectification of bodies set the precedent that the actors are carnal realdolls and nothing further. Essentially, this is true to the detached and uncreative viewer, but adamant knights for the exploitation industry tend to forget that these "fantasies", are in fact, happening to real people. The female body, the vehicle of receptivity, is a two-dimensional soul made flesh, possessing holes that can - and will - be entered. And reducing the male's presense to nothing but a cock attached to a mysterious alien pelvis. None of this.

Boy, that sure does capture "Gag on My Cock" pretty well, doesn't it?

From Donatien: I think she confuses cause and effect. Objectification certainly helps the average non-introspective moron engage in this sort of fun, but simply banning objectification isn't going to protect the world from people like me. I am turned off by ojectification. It actually undermines her suffering. Though the process of objectification itself might be fun to watch, of course, but once she's there, well what the hell fun is that? Please.

2. Body punishing sex scenes, let's address those. This includes anal penetration of a woman (the primary thrill emphasized in these videos is that, in fact, that it hurts her and she hates it - so this is especially highlighted as horrific). Very frequently, indications of her pain are not edited out. Surely you can guess why. In a culture that is appalled by real-life sexual abuse, I find it very curious that many videos marketing "consensual" punishment go out of their way to make it appear nonconsensual. Acknowledge the tragedy in the actress tensing her body up against the slamming, rigid as a board, not limber and supple with pleasure as she moans artificially.

Yes, and this is where exploitation comes in. A good working definition of exploitation is "getting consent to harm someone by fulfilling one of their basic needs." Since we need money to survive in this fucked-up society, providing a huge chunk of cash to a late teen with no education or job skills probably gives her some desperately-needed financial relief. It's exploitation. Of course, if she blows it on meth or clothes or whatever....well, never mind, this gets too hard to discuss without going on for pages, and this post is going to be tl;dr as it is.

In my own play, I make sure the women involved get something out of it other than having a basic need met. Affirmative desire is required--this removes exploitation from the equation.

5. Throat-gagging, or any of the principles of "gonzo" porn that is florid with the undeniably sadistic hatred of the reciever, capitalizing on ruining her emotionally and physically. A lot of emphasis they place on gag factor websites is that the messier and sloppier the blowjob, the better. The more her face contorts as they ram their misshapen penises down her throat, the more she chokes on resists with panicked reflexes and the more her trachea ruptures, the hotter it is. The males in the films always, without fail, encourage their victim to cough up her viscious saliva, to drool up unto her own lipsticked face, to vomit. One ten minute amatuer video I watched featured an infantilized young girl saying "I'm going to make this cock grow with the love of a woman", followed by the guy immediately thrusting his pelvis up into her face, shoving her head down and violently forcing her to puke up for ten minutes while his friend took pictures. And they do, in fact, proudly label it as "abuse". In the video mentioned, the subtext is "the way for a woman to show her love is to endure physical agony, primarily for the sole pleasure of the reciever". I think most of us non-sociopaths are all set with that shit.

From Donatien: A delightful image, yes. However, as I said earlier, dehumanizing is cheating. These guys are pussies. Do this to a self-confident woman who has some presence about her, and then I'll be impressed. Turned on, even.

6. With all this established thus far, I believe firmly in taking what you're dishing out, my friend. If a man is pressuring a woman into such acts of dominance like receiving his cock up her ass, he must be prepared to take the same type of "pleasure". What's funny is how very unsusceptible men are to being penetrated in sharp contrast to their desire to penetrate. The solidifies the subliminal gender roles, the eroticization solely placed on female subordination. The fact that it not-so-subtly mirrors gender roles that already exist in society, presently and historically, is the very thing that alarms me and fills me with an unnameable disgust. In a society that presently permeates inequality, how does the pornography exist in a vacuum? It is simply another way of keeping an entire gender of people down, down, down, similiar to the way women are catcalled and harassed while walking down the street, entering the public. To be shoved back into their place - their place is to be sexualized, to be scrutinized, not as an individual human - but because is female, because she is.

This is why I insist that the very little porn I pay for comes from enthusiasts. Yes, it tends to be BDSM-oriented, but that's really the only way you can tell it comes from enthusiasts. I wouldn't say "amateur", because these are often professional operations, but the models usually practice BDSM in their personal lives and also are not generally acting when they are filmed. Thus, Jen might want to check in to sites like Men In Pain and InsexM.

From Donatien: Eh, Charles is a pussy. But I go along, because the stuff Charles buys is at least somewhat interesting. What would really thrill me is probably illegal. Which doesn't stop it from thrilling me, but a man's got to know his limitations.

11. Suggestions of child-fucking. I do not give the slightest of shit that you consider it roleplay. The same way the modeling industry is promoting shapeless, infantilized forms is dangerous (and telling) of society's expectations of what is romanticized, likewise is pornography's depiction of "amateurs". Speaking of which, as this gets mentioned often here: having your body is a personal choice; some prefer it, others don't, but the point is there shouldn't be pressure to succumb to removal of it for the sake of some bullshit pre-determined expectation of "hygeine". The over-glorifying of small, breakable, hipless childlike frames sends a vile message. And before you proclaim that's discrimination against naturally petite girls, let me just say this: I'm naturally skinny, and it's fine to be that way, but don't capitalize on your very own anatomy to promote pedophilia. You heard me: Pigtails, braces, schoolgirls, ruffly babydoll outfits, sucking demurely on lollipops while you are being fucked on Care Bear bedsheets. "Barely Legal" should be ignited and charred into the ground. The fact that it's illegal to perform these acts on a child but perfectly legal to impose the same acts on an adult imitating a child for the pedophile's benefit shows how much we desire to shelter ourselves from the cinematic disgraces that socialize and normalize the fact that 3 out of 4 girls is sexually molested before the age of 18. Are these videos making a joke out of this reality, or are they providing fucking intructional tapes for their perpetrators?

I have to agree 100% with this. Fanciers of Barely Legal porn and "Daddy/Little Girl" fetishists are fucking pedophiles, and women who go along with it are enabling pedophiles. There's no two ways about it.

From Donatien: You're not going to believe this, but I agree with Charles on this. Of course, the nature of what I am means that I wouldn't feel bad about being attracted to children if I were. But fortunately, I am not in the least. If I feel like it, I'll explain why at some other point--it has to do with the day I was born, which was when Charles was 14. I am about as heterosexual as they come, but if I ever got curious about what it would be like to sexually torture a man, I would choose a pedophile.

16. Cherry-popping, "first time" videos are particularly loathesome. The propagated myth used to bait people into consent is that it is "empowering" and intimate to have your first experience occur on video; it's exciting, fun. However, let's debunk this with the unfortunate reality: if this is your first time, you have no concepts of your boundaries and borders, so this can be very damaging both physically and psychologically. Also, the main reason is that the exploitations of a girl's demure innocence, the art of her virginity, is not that you're out for her sexual freedom or liberation - but because viewers want to watch the debasement and dominance implied in deflowering her. Turning her out into a whore, so to speak. Another problem is that in many "first time" videos, it shows the woman trying to dispel or reject the penis that is hurting her, but she is pushed through it because the first time is "supposed to hurt", and also because the pleasure of it is that she has to learn to accomadate the girth despite her protests. The subtext? "Keep hurting her until she likes it."

Donatien has a confused idea of the notion of innocence. Because of the way he was created, he would generally view this sort of nonsense with equal disdain. Then again, he fantasizes about sexually torturing random women he sees on the streets.

From Donatien: I have to wonder about the premise that constant exposure to the "keep hurting her until she likes it" idea has any impact on a man who didn't start out believing that. I mean, I felt this way from day one. I didn't need any help from porn.

So, she makes a number of good points and a number of not-so-good points, but closes with a bewildering piece-de-WTF:

If you blame it on the industry I'm involved in, I'll laugh in your face. There are plenty of decent, civil men who come into my job and do not inflict their psychopathic mommy issues upon me. Imagine that!

Go ahead and laugh, Jen. Your very trade reduces sexuality to a parody of itself that is commoditized and sold very cheaply. And you have the gall to say that it is not interrelated with the things you point out above? This is what we call "denial," honey.