The Illusion of Choice-
Many people when searching for an excuse to explain the behavior of women who have not been forced into the sex industry pull out the ole', 'But it's her choice' or 'She chose it'....therefore, what, we don't have to care anymore?
The very use of the idea and phrasing that these women have choices and therefore they made them with full cognizance, coming from a truly empowered place is delusional at best, ignorant and damaging at worst. It still stands that, despite manipulative propaganda, that most women who 'choose' being in the sex industry, have done so out of desperation, damage from previous abuse or sexual overexposure as a child, financial dire straights or emotional neediness that lands them smack dab in the middle of giving blow jobs to strangers and taking it up the ass for your weekly regular income; All because she 'chose' this.
Right. That makes sense.
When many who bemoan the sex industry argue with those who either don't care or think they're being radical by supporting it find themselves arguing with people who are better at rationalizing away those uncomfortable realities with excuses like, 'she chose it' and 'not everyone there has been abused or is forced' or 'some female porn stars make more money in that industry than any other'...and so on. It doesn't take much to pardon some people's lazy minds to get thwarted away from the dark realities of sexual commerce. What they're doing is writing off their need to actually think about and feel the baseline skin-crawling feeling of knowing these women are treated like down and outright objects, something you pick up at your local trashy sex store: A pussy, a mouth or an anus for rent.
By saying things like the above, it allows the speaker to disconnect from the awful and often degrading conditions and situations these women live through while 'working' in the sex industry. For many of us, it's a world that just cannot be looked at in the light of day, head on fearlessly but done through a sideways glance laden with politically charged rhetoric to dim the caustic light of their reality. It makes many wonder why women would do this to themselves?
By bringing up the choice thing, it allows people to stop caring because hey, if she chose it...then there's nothing I can do and it's not my problem. Even if she is abused or mistreated, it's no longer an issue...because she's chosen it.
Perhaps it means we don't have to bother with those women and girls anymore because she made the decision to enter into this industry on their own volition, she was not forced. Right?
Thing is...did they really have great choices to begin with?
Many if not most of the women in the sex industry, even the ones who want respect and laws to protect them, ultimately didn't have many choices when they chose to goto work fucking and sucking strange men for a living.
Most women and girls who end up doing this have been either groomed, which means they didn't have a choice and were manipulated as a child into this industry; Or they did so because they felt they had no other job or educational choices that would allow them to be fully supported and even support their family on out in the world. If women really had TRUE EQUALITY in the world, I mean real bonafide economic, political and social equality where they could walk down the street completely unharmed and unfettered by ANYONE regardless of how they dressed, if they could go into any profession or educational institution and just become a part of them because they had all the means and opportunities that most middle upper class white men have....then most women and girls would NOT enter into the sex industry. Period. Think about it.
Any argument saying the opposite is a lie meant to help sell the sex industry, to continue to numb people out of their own instincts to be repulsed by it because ultimately, many men profit from women living as weakened sex objects and not being equals in the world of business, politics and social development. (*Not all men but those that it applies).
And thanks to thousands of years of oppression and lack of options and opportunities (fact not opinion), women have become apart of the sex industry sometimes seemingly of their own choices, thus giving the illusion that they did so out of pure lust or confidence or empowerment when really, most did so because there was so little or no other choices for her to pursue making a living or they were genuinely damaged or weak people that led them to make that decision.
Think about it, until much of human history women couldn't own property much less be in full control over their own bodies or even their children until the 20th century. Even then many countries still don't allow women these seemingly innate rights. In the west, we take for granted how much freedom we have and sometimes, piss it away with frivolous antics and arguments for the continued objectification of our bodies thinking it's a freedom we've earned when really, it's the exact thing many of us have been fighting against since time immemorial: the exploitation of women in all forms, especially sexually.
So to excuse yourself from having to think about the awful reality of women being used for sex by saying 'she's chosen it', is downright lazy; Lazy, uncaring and a great way to avoid really dealing with the low hanging easy picking fruit of sexual exploitation as an industry that makes it's profit off the lifeblood of depravity and indifference.
Believe me, you're not alone. Many people use this excuse. It's how we sleep at night, free from the visions of women being pummeled by disgusting uncaring men using women and little girls day after day for their vaginas: rent of another kind taxing the world's dignity right out from underneath us.
If women had true equality and freedom, real empowerment in the face of social and economic control, most women wouldn't be whoring themselves. I'd bet my life on it. That is an illusion that has been sold to us by supposed feminist (faux) allies since the 1960's that has done as much damage to women as sexism itself has done. 'Liberated women have sex freely' and so on and other lies. Everyone has known women who slept around freely who weren't the least bit health or liberated, much less empowered and yet that is the lie that has been sold to women since the sex liberation hijacked feminism in the 1970's. It's not the same.
We should be able to have sex with whomever we want, but just because we are doing so, doesn't automatically mean we're doing so from a place of healthy decision making or empowerment and thus, tying in the idea that a sexually loose or open women is doing so out of empowerment therefore every decision a woman makes is done so out of empowerment and so we should support that is tantamount to supporting their demise in the world. That you are OK with them being used as sex objects. It's self-delusional. Or that pursuing a life as a sex worker is a sign of a woman's self-knowing empowerment and thus should be honored as that...that we should all jump on board and support this decision even if it kills them. It's like assuming that just because pork tastes good and pigs are lazy they want to be eaten. They don't, that's just our beliefs that WE impose on them so again, we don't have to think about what's actually happening or take responsibility.
For those remaining few women that did 'choose' this path, many are there out of addiction, attention-seeking, destructive behaviors that have more to do with their own personal history than human history. Then again, they're all connected.
For now, just realize that although it may seem like many women had a bounty of choices when making the one about having her vagina used and abused over and over and over again for money, they really didn't. Don't fool yourself just because it's uncomfortable. The world doesn't benefit from it.
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1/11/16©DM
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