Poor, poor, johns

I swear. Most of the “sex worker” activists I have met constantly talk about how we shouldn’t “demonize” the johns, because they’re usually married/partnered*, etc, and they are simply seeking understanding for a sexual act that their steady partner cannot or will not provide.  Men aren’t just looking to “bust a nut,” they’re seeking the love and understanding every human wants.  Or that some people are just “incapable” of relationships with the opposite sex.  And they’re normal men just like your coworkers and friends. So they need an outlet.

If I don’t have, or can’t have a relationship, I don’t feel like I should have the right to exchange money for sex. I don’t. Especially since there would be no way for me to know if they had “chosen” sex work, or had only chosen it from a range of other shitty options (minimum wage jobs, etc, etc). Essentially, no one has the right to buy sex or sexual acts-we know that a great amount of abuse exists in this industry, and anyone who risks the chance of raping someone so that they can “get some” is sick.  No one has the right to sex, period.

However pitiful some women are, however lonely they feel, I don’t see them thinking they have a right to sex.  Women want love and understanding just as everyone does, but we never get it.  Yet somehow, we don’t use prostitutes.  Women, FOR SOME REASON, generally don’t purchase sex; women represent sex, thus they are usually sellers.   Why are the roles in prostitution so gendered?   Who has the resources and the money?  Men.  Who has the prestige?  Men.  Who has the power?  Men.  Who represents sex?  Women.   Most men believe they are entitled to sex, and as a result they make up most rapists and most johns.  Women are not raised to think of themselves as “entitled” to sex- sex is something women give and men take.

Wanting love and understanding does not make johns understandable or sympathetic, unless you’re the type who “understands” MRAs.  Yeah, they’re human, but so are rapists.   Wanting love and understanding means get a goddamn therapist, or failing that, talk to people.  Hell, you could even just talk to the prostitute, and not fuck her.  It does not mean you should fuck women.  The fact that people say johns are just seeking understanding and love is disgusting.  If they were, they wouldn’t have the sex, they wouldn’t need it, they wouldn’t demand it, and they wouldn’t be violent, they wouldn’t ask for unprotected sex.

These men aren’t seeking understanding: they are seeking the image of it.  A woman, nurturing like a mother, but also a whore, who will nurture the man through whatever sick fetish he’s developed.  A yes-woman, who will agree that his wife is a bitch, frigid, stupid, whatever.  Consequently, the image for a “sex worker” is that of a college-educated middle class white woman (preferably aryan) who drops every career opportunity and hobby to fuck men for money.  Her image is no different from that of “good mom,” who leaves her potential career behind “by choice,” because she wuves her kids so much and wishes them to have the best.

But, here are a few large differences:  children have a need for someone to care for them, men, on the other hand, and specifically johns, have jobs and the full development necessary to take care of themselves.  No one needs to take care of grown men. However much they seem or act as helpless as babies, they aren’t.  It’s an act.

This whole outlet thing is the same bullshit that says men’s sex drives are natural and unstoppable;  therefore they have a right to an outlet.  God forbid we raise men to NOT feel entitled to sex, so that they will not rape or purchase “sex.”

No one has ever died from lack of sex.   Ever.

So can it about men’s sexual and emotional “needs.”  Women’s right to not be raped and used sexually is more important than some douchebag’s orgasm.

*So are most child molesters, rapists and serial killers.  I doubt this is a coincidence.

Rape Fantasies & Why We Have Them

Much to the delight of men, women have rape fantasies.     In evo psych arguments it comes up as evidence that rape is natural and women are naturally submissive.  When it comes up in more liberal and feminist circles, it’s in defense of BDSM, pornography, or “roleplaying.”  The explanations of why women have these fantasies are male-centric, and usually just amount to some kind of justification for men’s messed up sexuality.  I haven’t seen women’s rape fantasies taken on from a radical feminist perspective, so I’m going to do that.

To start, we have to look at how rape (and sex, for that matter) is framed in our culture.   Some examples: “He couldn’t control himself”, “he couldn’t help himself”, “he was just so horny”, “she provoked him wearing that skirt/top/sweater.”  There’s always disbelievers when an attractive woman says she has been raped, but people will disbelieve an unattractive woman even more.  In the popular narrative, rape is about sex and desire, and an act of passion.  It happens when a man wants to fuck a woman and she doesn’t want to let him.

The measure of force a man is willing to take in pursing a woman is said to be a direct measure of how much he loves and desires her.  Following this worldview to its logical endpoint, rape becomes the ultimate expression of desire and attraction.

Is it any wonder, then, that so many women have rape fantasies?  Who doesn’t want to be incredibly desirable?

This is only amplified by the effect of the media, which tells us that we’re ugly and undesirable, especially when compared to that girl.  Most women feel hideous, and are expected (and do) to appreciate any attention from men, with more appreciation being required the less conventionally attractive we are.  I suspect that the less conventionally attractive a woman is, or the uglier she feels, the more likely she is to have rape fantasies.  With nearly all of us having some insecurity about our bodies and our desirability, its no wonder lots of us fantasize about being raped-which in our culture, means being desired by men.

I have to credit Twilight with me putting the pieces together.  (I know, what the hell?)  It’s always seemed there are more fans of Jacob than Edward, for whatever reason.  My lover wondered frequently why Jacob’s fans say that he “loves Bella more,” when he clearly is manipulative creep with a rapist mentality, and thought liking someone so obviously dangerous was stupid.   I got quite pissed, because he essentially was calling women “stupid” for feeling insecure and wanting to be wanted, which is completely understandable.

On a personal note, I used to have them myself, and even though I only let myself think of healthier things now, I can’t deny that sometimes they seem more appealing than my partner always asking what I’d like.  The thing is, even though I hated being touched without asking or after I said no, it still made me feel desired.  I think I would feel more desired if control were taken from me, even knowing what it means.  A part of me simply doesn’t care if I’m objectified, because I want to be wanted.

Stating the Obvious: I don’t blame women who have rape fantasies at all, even if they  seek to “roleplay” them with their partner or feed them privately with romance novels.  I do, however, blame anyone who goes along with “roleplaying” as a rapist.

Women = Holes

After FCMs post on neovaginas, I feel more horrified than ever at what men think of women. Even more so after doing some research of my own, in an attempt to find a least one medical diagram that shows the vagina as closed. (I couldn’t find one.) But the more I think about it, the more it all fits together.  There are so many things that reflect the belief of vaginas as holes, and I’m slowly putting the pieces together from everything.

Tampons

I always thought I was a freak, because I couldn’t get a tampon in or even a finger. I imagined that normal vaginas (not mine) were essentially gaping holes in women’s crotches. That women just walked around with them open, 24/7.  Well, I looked up some advice given to women who have trouble using tampons-and the girls were just told to keep trying, squat, or that they just aren’t used to it yet.

Now, I think the difference might not be my vagina, but my determination to use a tampon-which is nil.  My theory is that the reason most women use tampons, instead of pads, is because menstrual blood is considered yucky (this way you don’t have to see it till you pull the tampon out), because you can still wear thongs, and it hides a bodily function.  It’s possible my vagina is just more anti-penetration than other women’s (or it’s genetic, my mom can’t use them either), but considering I’ve never had difficulty with nigel fingering me when I’m aroused, if I wanted to, I kinda doubt this is the case.  Tampons desensitize and train women for dealing with the discomfort and pain that comes with pleasing of men and being feminine.

Fingering, Men’s Ideas about Women’s Sexuality & Porn

Speaking of penetration-how many women really masturbate using dick-like objects?  I’ve always just touched my clit, and nothing more.  But of course, dudes fantasize about women fucking themselves with their fingers or whatever objects are around.  My ex-boyfriend always used to say, “It’s okay to enjoy sex, clits are the only organ humans have that are purely for sexual pleasure.”  But did he ever touch it, for anything other than “foreplay”?  Fuck no he didn’t.  Touching my clit was just leading up to the “main act”-since we weren’t having intercourse, this was fingering me.   And when I say fingering me, I don’t mean he touched my clit too during it or used his whole hand against my vulva.  Nope, just the ol’ in-and-out of fucking.  Needless to say I never had an orgasm with him (although that would be news to him).

His terrible bedroom skills aside, this situation still seemed so weird to me.  He clearly knows that the clitoris exists, and he touched it, so he clearly knew where it was and that it feels good for me to be touched there.  And yet, he never touched it except in the foreplay before fingering me.  Why?  Because women have holes that need to be stretched and filled by dicks. The vagina is the central part of our sexuality, as men see it. (And because we’re taught the male perspective, women see it this way too.)  I’ve never even heard of a man touching a woman’s bits without fingering her.  If a man doesn’t have intercourse with a girl, or she doesn’t want to go that far and the dude is a Nice Guy™, it’s blowjobs and fingering.  I mean, even gay men get that just being fucked is boring-that’s why they have reach arounds.

Can you tell which are medical models and which are sex toys?*

But of course, men’s asses are closed.  Gay men who bottom are not asked to have their asses pryed open annually to ensure their health.  Men are also not paid $450 in exchange for medical students getting to use their asses to practice prostate exams on.**  I couldn’t even find a model dummy that helped students learn how to perform prostate exams or STD tests for men.  (Someone should alert the MRAs of this reverse sexism.)

Women’s asses, on the other hand, are now just as open as  our vaginas.  In porn, men will repeatedly pull out of vaginas and asses, and the camera will focus on the “gaping” of it.  How it remains open because of being fucked repeatedly.  The man will enter again, fuck, and then pull out.  Or just keep entering and exiting.  And just leave their dick outside of the “hole.”  I’ve seen quite a bit of both gay and straight porn, and I rarely saw this in the gay stuff, and if it was there, it was in the more BDSM kinda shit.  For facials, women often leave their mouths open as well.  Our vaginas aren’t the only holes we have any more—now we have three.

Another common thing in porn is inserting various objects into a woman-not just dildos, but coke bottles, pool cues, and entire fists.   For my FTM ex, before he got a strap on dick, the goal of sex was basically to see how many fingers he could fit inside of my vagina or my ass.  Now, I’m horrified that my body could adapt to that-because even just two fingers feel uncomfortable, and anything back there is a hell no.  I don’t understand how I possibly survived his fist being in there.

Our Personalities & Socialization

The entire construction of woman, as men have created it, is based on vaginas being holes, and women being only vaginas.  This is sorta like what Dworkin addressed in “The Root Cause,” but if I think the idea of male as the positive and female as the negative needs to be connected to how men see sex.  Women are gaps, spaces, and some sort of abyss.  Our entire personalities and lives are constructed around this.  Without PIV, or without a man, women often feel empty and pointless.  And we’re told our lives are pointless without men, thanks to fairytales, porn, and the comments of others about lesbians, and celibate or single women.  Our vaginas and lives must be filled by man.  Or at least other people, and never ourselves.

I wish I could say more about this, but I’m having a lot of trouble finding the words to express what I mean by this.  Hopefully I’ve gotten it across even though I’m lacking on detail and clarity.

Rape

Everytime I think of how men see vaginas, and by extention women, I get an image in my head I just can’t get rid of.  A woman, just sleeping. And a dude thinking that her vagina is gaping. So he does what all dudes do to any hole, gay or straight-he sticks his dick in it. And it’s not rape to him or anyone else, because she has a hole.  And vaginas are always open and ready for sex.  Women are always open.  We’re always “consenting” because our sex organs are always open for fucking.  Men have to get hard.  But women don’t necessarily have to get wet for intercourse to happen.  Men invented lubrication for this purpose.

I’m sure my experience is a common one.  A man is attempting to fuck, or finger, a woman.  When it doesn’t go in easily, what do men do?  They keep pushing, or they tell the woman to just relax.  Or, if they have a condition such as vaginismus, the woman receives “treatment,” where she dilates her vagina using dildos until it can accommodate a penis.  Or the most recent method-botox.  If you’re born without a vagina, or with one too short for a dick, doctors can make one.  (More fucked up: In the FAQ, pretty much every question is asked about creating one with surgery, except can I orgasm with this vagina?)  Or if you’re having a kid, you can have a c-section for “vaginal preservation,” so your hole isn’t too big for him to fuck anymore.

Well lookie here, that cervix thing was pretty easy to find, wasn't it? Fyi, this is a medical model. That students use to learn how to give gyno exams. Yikes.

*I made it black and white to emphasize that they have the same fucking structure.  The only real difference is the porn tan and color detail given to the sex toy one.  Color is available here.

**Credit for the inspiration for this sentence goes to the quote in the article about modeling for medical students, from sex educator/female-empowerer: “I  provide a vagina and breasts to medical students learning to do their first pelvic and breast exams.”  She doesn’t provide feedback so doctors can know when something hurts a patient or how to make them comfortable—she just provides a vagina and breasts.

Also I hate the Vagina Monologues, seriously.  Because really, the idea that vaginas are the essence of women is so very cliché.