Pro, Anti, and WAM anxiety

I think it definitely says something about the state of feminism and my personal relationship to feminism that the speaking engagement I’m getting most stressed about this spring is my workshop at the Women, Action and the Media conference in Boston at the end of this month. I’m doing a 90 minute workshop called “Sex Workers and Media Representation” on Saturday, March 29th from 4:00pm to 5:30pm. And I just know it’s gonna be stressful, and that the possibility of being slammed with criticism from the anti-porn radical feminists is fairly high.

There’s a Ning social network for WAM and the folks attending it, and there’s a group on it called “Anti-Porn Feminists.” After seeing that, one of my pals at $pread created a group called “Sex Work & Media.”

There’s a post in the anti-porn group that says

I think that feminists who are on either side of the debate should start coming together to discuss this issue. We should all start a discussion about this and get past the polarizing views of the past because it is important that we see exactly where the other side is coming from.

I totally agree with this, but I think the language approach to each side is part of the problem, and it pits people against each other. Once you go “pro” or “anti” it really shuts down the conversation. There’s no middle ground between those positions, there’s no way people who are self-avowed pros or antis can have a civil conversation. Those positions are absurdly simplistic and inflexible.

I’m a pornographer, I’m a former sex worker, I’m very much professionally devoted to working in the adult industry. However, I wince when people describe me as “pro-porn.” It’s just too simplistic, sounds too blindly supportive of the industry. I work in an industry that is very problematic. Sometimes I hate it, sometimes I wonder what the fuck I’m doing in this business, sometimes I love it - and the vast majority of the time I couldn’t picture myself working in another industry. I don’t, to borrow a phrase from Chelsea Summers, wave the big foam finger for the porn industry. But I also don’t buy into the idea that is held by so many anti’s that the industry is a monolith. It isn’t - I and many other people who work in this business are living, working proof of that fact.

But if I’m not “pro” am I “anti”? Not really. And I wouldn’t say I’m middle of the road in any way on this issue.

What I AM pro about is the issue of people’s self-actualization and choices about what to do with their bodies and their careers. This means yay for choices around reproductive health and abortion and yay for choices about whether to work as an auto mechanic or a business executive. And yay for women having the choice to be porn performers or not - and yay for women to choose whether or not they want to consume porn.

And for those who choose to enter the industry but would like to see improvements, that’s what I’m focused on, and I’m doing it by encouraging sex workers to speak up, by trying to be the most ethical pornographer I can, and by creating positive sex culture. So there.