Jeez, you guys are tearing up the comments. These days, my readership (ahem: you) so rarely comments or sends emails that sometimes I wonder if you’re there. Most of my correspondence these days is writing and business-related, so its kind of nice to get a little feedback from everyone else. You should do that more often, or if I’m not writing stuff you find all that intriguing, or have questions you’d like me to address, email me and I’ll do my best to move that stuff to the top of the pile. It feels weird that as I get more (in)famous or whatever, I’m getting less correspondence (though I know I’ve been shitty about returning emails over the past five weeks or so). Anyway, less whining about that, and more comments to your comments from the last post.
First of all, there are many different ways I could have handled a professor saying mean and ignorant things about the capacity of sex workers to complete graduate degrees at fancy universities: I could have ranted and outed myself, I could have called her on it without outing myself, I could’ve sat in somewhat stunned and saddened silence – I did the last one. Boisterous as I can be in my own element, I tend to be very cautious when dealing with potential enemy combatants, especially ones that can affect whether or not I have a master’s degree in my hand in May. Also, though I highly value being argumentative, not-what-I-appear, and all that, there is a time and a place, and I’m a huge fan of quiet infiltration. My prof’s ability to see me as a full person and intellectually capable human being who happens to have been a sex worker increases as she gets to know me, but would sharply decrease to nothing if I got loud about it on day one.
A reader sent me this image this afternoon, and of course (like everything) I took it all seriously and shit. The thing is, sex work has enabled me to opt out of other jobs over the past few years, and instead of enabling me to say “fuck reading, I’ve got boobs” its allowed me to say “fuck 9-5, I’ve got boobs.” And then I can read, study, write and forge my own path more – and I have. This is a bit of an oversimplification, because sex work is hard and often unfun and isolating and sometimes kind of weird and gross, but for me it was the right choice at that time, though I no longer make the choice to do it. But indeed:
Josh said:
Sex work pays a shitload better than college “work study” programs. Hell, I made more as just a nude artist’s model than I ever made with standard campus jobs.
I know this is a class thing – I was able to choose to get into sex work and then choose to get out, unlike many people. I know I am unlike many other sex workers, but there are also more and more like me, and its a phenomenon worth noting, even if there is some snark and sex worker hierarchy about being “sex worker lite,” which many nude artist’s models and, yes, alt porn models fall into.
Amber said:
One example won’t suffice? Really? Even when that “one example” is the person STANDING RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU after you’ve just denied that such a person can exist? (”You” in this poorly-constructed sentence referring to the asshat professor, of course.) On the contrary – one is all you need in that case.
One example really isn’t enough – especially in this context, there’s always an exception. Ever been in a Women’s Studies 101 class? Then you’ll know that anecdotal evidence used to prove points is both academically insufficient and utterly boorish and presumptive. To get anecdotal in this context, in that moment, wouldn’t do much of anything, except show that I have a bias. And that’s something else to consider – writing this thing as an academic but also as an insider is a challenge, and something that I’ll talk about a lot more with my good advisor.
Mario said:
Is your professor some kind of Bible-thumping, intolerant conservative? What other possible explanation could there be?
Sigh. Unfortunately, no, she isn’t. And that’s the thing about this topic: it brings out the intolerance and judgment in everyone. There is a lot of othering that happens in academia, and especially if there are no visual characteristics that people in the room have that identify them as this or that, a high level of sameness is assumed.
At $pread, we have an internal document that contains suggestions about how to present the issues we deal with to different audiences – one category is “Enemy Combatants,” and it includes the Bible-thumping, intolerant conservatives as well as many kinds of left-leaning folks. Of course they require different approaches, but often both of their oppositions not just to sex work, but to our work helping sex workers represent themselves and advocate for their rights is harsh and negative in a stomach-churning way. But one way to deal with the lefty enemies is through appeals to sameness, such as:
That is simplifying it a bit, but also boils it down to simple commonalities. Ok, enough rambling, time to write more thesis-y stuff.
8:13 am
No, one isn’t enough for an academic paper, certainly. (As Belledame recently said: “The plural of anecdote is not data.”) My point was that the professor made a sweeping generalization that categorically dismissed the possibility of a sex worker writing a thesis at Columbia. She was effectively saying, “It’s not possible for this type of person to exist.” And yet, there you were, right in front of her. In THAT type of situation? One example is all you need to disprove the ignorant, dismissive generalizing statement. That was my point.
11:00 pm
I would be cautious about revealing that you were a sex worker in class. Your professor might have some reservations about your objectivity when writing an academic paper about a subject that your also an advocate. Your professor might think that it was a bit like RJ Reynolds researching causes of lung cancer.
9:57 am
The thing to do when a professor makes such a sweeping generalization is to ask for the source. It is always academically and intellectually appropriate to seek the evidence for a generalization you don’t believe. Challenges to conventional wisdom sometimes prove it to be true, but that is the way we have gotten to our present level of knowledge. Alternatively, quote Gilbert and Sullivan (HMS Pinafore) What never? No Never! What Never? Well, hardly ever!
9:57 am
I know this is a terrible, horrible fate to consider, but I think that at some point, your studies may require a trip to Amsterdam, and possibly Australia to do research on sex workers in countries where it’s legal, and visit universities where student-sex workers are attending.
World travel to exotic locations is a grim fate, but it may be necessary that you shoulder this burden, so you can shove some hard data up that ignorant professor’s limousine liberal ass.
But it’s an expensive thing to consider. If Bi Apple is enough to spawn other movies, perhaps more could fund your research. Actually, that’s something you didn’t blog too much about. I know that Bi Apple was a stressful time for you, but I don’t remember if you were turned off of making porn because of it, or if you’d consider making another movie.
Also, I think that as far as academic researchers go, it’s an incredible rarity to have someone who’s been ‘in the trenches’ so to speak. My favorite sex writer, Susie Bright, is actually fairly shy about writing about *her* sex life. I don’t know. It might be wild, it might be mild. But she’s frequently engaging in journalism and commentary from a distance. You being in the middle of it is important.
Looking at the adult industry, media and prostitution, it’s insane that so little actual academic research is done by people who make an effort to understand what life is like inside. Sure, numbers get bandied around, but who’s actually talking to individuals?
Your professor is a double idiot for not being supportive of your research. If no one has done real study of a topic, there are no answers that should be acceptable to academics. Academics should just be brave enough to admit that they have no idea what’s going on in a vast section of the economy, no idea what life is like for those who work in it, and no idea how to find out.
You are a ground-breaker. You deserve serious attention. But unfortunately, you’re probably going to have to bust some heads to get it. I have faith that you’re up to the challenge.
5:02 pm
it is so completely weird for me to read this. i was in a grad dept in sociology that did a lot of qualitative work. the idea that it would be necess. to keep secret one’s involvement in the social group (whatever) being studied is… weird to me. i realize that not all disciplines ‘get it’ and i know even in sociology there is a huge dispute. but there are established where of laying down the groundwork to make it so you’ve got “objectivity street cred” depending on what tradition you’re working out of. There’s everything from the methods people who insist on using lots of mechanistic devices to ensure objectivity to someone like Judith Stacey who brings her research subjects into reading of a draft of her work, engaging in one of the better defenses of a postmodern approach to ethnography.
ANYWAY, with out spilling too many beans, I know someone at who Dacia could go hit up, sitting in a high position of authority who did work with a woman who did her thesis on stripping.
Now said high placed person did not engage in the stripping. Said high placed person only worked with said student on her ethnography of stripping in which, after exploring said stripping, said student BECAME a stripper. And not coz she needed money, but coz she liked it. That was early 1990s. So way before the vogue (supposed) of well-to-do white women becoming strippers after college. (MadeforMetal writes about it that way at any rate.)
10:40 am
Oh hell. I’ve seen that same pic on MySpace. Someone left it in my comments, and I found it so offensive I deleted it!
On the same note, my parents bought my husband the most retarded shirt ever. It has “I’m a computer programmer” misspelled over and over again and scratched out, then finally at the bottom it says, “I write code.” When he opened it up at Christmas I was damn glad they weren’t there to see the looks on both of our faces. What a fucking insult! So, we use it as a cum rag. Touche.
5:55 pm
[...] Here’s a wrap-up of my best posts here on Waking Vixen: Sex worker, other and More thoughts on sex worker/other The State of Alt according to Vegas Serious Hunk of Man, and the Shades of Gray – includes a pic of me at 19, with short green hair and a leather jacket How to be an ally to sex workers Authenticity Sex workers, class divides and fun with empowerment and degradation As it turns out, the Internet isn’t the answer to everything Book vs. blog: where to stick all the juicy details How the media is more exploitative than the sex industry Creepy dudes The internet is not a virtual streetcorner Anniversaries: The Museum of Sex Seeing straight ahead: the porn industry’s sexuality blinders [...]