Salvation Army attacks sex-positive activist through its human trafficking email list
2010 3 Apr
Sometimes people try to tell me that no one has a problem with S&M; that all stigma against S&M is in our heads and that if we BDSMers would just get over our victim complex, we’d discover that society has no real problem with us. I’ve got tons of counterexamples, but today I’m only going to talk about one: my friend maymay, a sex-positive activist and kinkster who has now been painted as a child molester, starting with an attack from the Salvation Army (specifically, two women named Margaret Brooks and Donna M. Hughes).
I admire maymay; he’s done some incredible sex-positive activism. He created the sex-positive unconference model KinkForAll, which swiftly went viral, and co-created Kink On Tap, a smart sexuality netcast with tons of audience participation. Maymay is also out of the closet under his real name, which is an incredibly ballsy and badass move on his part, but one that puts him in all the more danger when absurd and libelous personal attacks like these are launched.
What I find most notable about the Salvation Army attack is that — although maymay’s events and activism focus on general sex-positivity more than BDSM in particular — it’s BDSM that got up their noses. When the Salvation Army’s Initiative Against Sexual Trafficking jumped on maymay, they implied that the “The specific goal of the event [KinkForAll] was to foster an acceptance of bondage, discipline and sadomasochism.” Well, I attended and presented at the first KinkForAll in New York City, and while a lot of BDSM information was shared, the specific goal of the event was definitely to be generally sex-positive.
So why is BDSM the centerpiece of Salvation Army’s little freakout? One might say that it’s because maymay identifies as a submissive, and frequently blogs about BDSM; or perhaps it’s because KinkForAll attracted a large BDSM community contingent, probably because we’re very accustomed to talking and trading information about sex in a KinkForAll-compatible style. BDSM thus becomes the lightning rod. But it couldn’t function as such if BDSM weren’t seen as deviant, sick, unacceptable, and disgusting. If society really had no problem with BDSM, then why would the Salvation Army be sending messages to a sex trafficking listhost attacking a BDSM-associated event?
(Tangentially, it’s worth noting that talking about sex trafficking — which is a genuine and serious problem in many places — has been used throughout history as a tactic to attack, shut down, criminalize or control various forms of consensual sexuality. If you’d like to learn more about this, I strongly recommend the brilliant blog Border Thinking on Migration, Trafficking and Commercial Sex by Laura Agustín. Start with “What’s Wrong With the Trafficking Crusade“. If you don’t mind academic writing, Agustín’s paper on the history of sex worker “rescue” initiatives is also particularly good.)
The other thing that really gets me about maymay’s attackers — in his post, he engages one one blogger in particular — is the assertion that sex-positive activism leads to “doing whatever” with no regard to the emotional consequences. In her argument with maymay, the blogger states that:
all the things I’d been told about sex – again, on whatever end of the spectrum – had quite clearly missed the point. “Don’t do it” with not explanation leads to rebellion or shaming. “Do whatever” leads to heartbreak. That has been my experience.
I think that we are sexual beings, yes. This means that our sexuality is part of everything – body, mind, heart, soul. I don’t think we can separate, hard as we might try, the one from the other.
Wow, hey, that sounds just like what I’ve been saying for years! In fact, it almost exactly mirrors some things I said in my landmark post Liberal, Sex-Positive Sex Education: What’s Missing. I wrote:
I think that there are lots of people out there who feel as though the sexual liberation movement “failed” or “betrayed them”, because they convinced themselves that sex is value-neutral and then got hurt. … We need to start talking about sex as something that is not mostly mechanical — as something that, yes, can be “a private sphere for the creation of human meaning”.
So what’s with this assumption that sex-positive activists have no clue about social issues of sexuality, or matters of the heart? Working to destigmatize sexuality is in no way incompatible with working towards better, more consensual, more meaningful relationships; in fact, I’ll be bound that sex-positive activists do a much better job of this than these “anti-trafficking” folks do. As maymay wrote in a recent email:
Protecting people of every gender and age from falling victim to sexual abuse requires that each person — including every man, woman, and child on Earth — has the right and freedom to learn about sexuality in a non-judgmental environment.
Predictably, Donna M. Hughes and Margaret Brooks are refusing to engage maymay directly. (That’s a typical sex-negative tactic; as I recall, the makers of the appallingly biased anti-porn documentary “The Price of Pleasure” have refused to publicly engage with actual porn actresses as well. Funny how most sex-negative arguments collapse when faced with those of us who freely and consensually choose to do Whatever It Is That We Do.) That leaves the sex-positive community to back up maymay on our blogs, podcasts, and Twitter accounts; and from what I’ve been seeing, we’re doing a good job. We can’t erase Hughes’ and Brooks’ harmful accusations, but we can damn well expose them for the absurdities they are.
Some back story on Donna Hughes, for a similar attack on Natalie Wood (sexinthepublicsquare.org):
http://renegadeevolution.blogspot.com/2009/08/donna-hughes-war-against-whores.html
Her alignment with the right:
http://old.nationalreview.com/interrogatory/hughes200601260824.asp
and a response:
http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=160594876&blogID=299956590&Mytoken=E86C7D01-B387-401A-98D002DC0C6EE704102065766
Som more on her position re: Rhode Island prostitution
http://bppa.blogspot.com/2009/08/when-right-wing-feminists-attack.html
It looks like Donna M. Hughes and Citizens Against Trafficking are yet another organisation that use rhetoric about protecting sex workers whilst really being about protecting good, decent women from the corrupting influence of said sex workers. No surprises there.
Oh, and her big success appears to be criminalizing indoor prostitutes in Rhode Island. Because what women who’re supposedly victims really need is a prison sentence and a criminal record. (Her second biggest success is presumably blocking the Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health in Rhode Island from opening. Again, no surprise)
This kind of crap is reason #50 bazillion I’m rather reluctant to identify as a feminist.
I didn’t realize that Hughes had been one of the driving forces behind the recriminalization in RI, though I should have, since I did a fundraiser for the Sex Workers Outreach Project that featured “Happy Endings” the documentary about RI Asian massage parlors. (Not the best documentary, by the way, but commendable for the subject matter.) I did hear about the Center for Sexual Pleasure. But you know that the Center was able to open after all, right?
As for being reluctant to ID as a feminist, heh … my reaction is the exact opposite: I just become more determined to ID that way, and to throw it in the face of small-minded bigots like Hughes, and to take back the word, damn it.
I got one thing to say: Ew. Just… Ew. I think you know what I mean.
Anyway, this shit seems to happen again and again; sex negative agitators make Ad Hominem attacks using the worst stigma they can get their filthy paws on (pedophilia, etc.) and refuse to engage directly with either those they attack or the people they ostensibly protect. It’s corrosive and damages any sense of safety that the stigmatized group may have achieved.
But it is an effective way to control the terms of debate. Think about it: if these people never have to directly talk to Maymay, they never have to be exposed as the idiots they are- and they can continue to say whatever they want.
One of the best public smackdowns I’ve ever seen was a 60 minutes story an author who claimed the Memphis chief of police had ordered Martin Luther King’s assassination. Only problem: The police chief of Memphis circa 1968 is still alive, and was also invited onto the show. The author was completely discredited. His arguments fell apart.
Should Maymay seek out and directly confront these people? That’s up to him, and it could honestly go either way. But it is relevant that these Salvation Army assholes are primarily interested in control over sexual expression as a goal, and also maintain a cast-iron control over the terms of the debate.
On the other hand, Maymay (and all of us, really) are interested in dialogue, and that’s the form that his action takes: posting, letters, exchanges- but it won’t amount to more than the equivocated, half-assed apology that he’s already gotten, because they will refuse to directly speak to him- the moment they do, they have to acknowledge him as a human being. Which is kind of antithetical to their whole agenda.
Clarisse: as I’m male, trying to redefine feminism is not exactly an option – and I’m not sure it should be.
Besides, the feminist community here in the UK is rather interesting. As far as I can tell, the anti-sex trafficking movement basically is feminism here, or at least the public and politically influential part of it.
They tend to do things like calling for laws that actual sex workers feel will endanger them, whilst making sure that said sex workers get as little political and media say as possible and slandering academics that do actually listen to sex workers as pimps. (Oh, and these organizations’ standard of research is absolutely awful, which is partly why academics are so unhappy with them – it marginalizes better-conducted research with less shocking results.)
I wonder if it would be possible to ally yourself with a more liberal feminist group? I can’t say that I know much about UK feminism, so I really have no idea.
Very sad. Thanks for letting us know about this.
“Sometimes people try to tell me that no one has a problem with S&M; that all stigma against S&M is in our heads and that if we BDSMers would just get over our victim complex, we’d discover that society has no real problem with us.”
Lemme guess, they’re thinking of patriarchial societies and of the variety of S&M in which a woman happily submits to her husband?
“(Tangentially, it’s worth noting that talking about sex trafficking — which is a genuine and serious problem in many places — has been used throughout history as a tactic to attack, shut down, criminalize or control various forms of consensual sexuality. If you’d like to learn more about this, I strongly recommend the brilliant blog Border Thinking on Migration, Trafficking and Commercial Sex by Laura Agustín. Start with “What’s Wrong With the Trafficking Crusade“. If you don’t mind academic writing, Agustín’s paper on the history of sex worker “rescue” initiatives is also particularly good.)”
Also see http://www.freetheslaves.net/Page.aspx?pid=284
“…Free the Slaves is a not for profit organization made up of people who don’t want to live in a world with slavery. And they’re willing to do something about it.
“We don’t waste time debating which kind of slavery is worse — brick kilns or carpet looms, sex or domestic, new or old — it’s all horrible. Slavery is a dark slash across the heart of all humanity.
“We believe there are no easy answers to eradicating slavery. But there are answers from the people who are enslaved and those helping them to freedom. There is no single path to liberation – the paths are many – we will tread them all before our job is done…”
I am not a religious person. I don’t live in the USA, and i am not part of this organization you speak of.
But i live in a country where children and young women have been tricked and kidnapped by human traffickers, which used gang rape, cutting them, burning them, cutting off their noses, ears, starving them , sleep depriving them, tied them up (bondage), they even shot another girl in front of them to brake their minds and sell them off as sex slaves. These human beings did not have a “safe word”.
I heard this first hand from the few victims that were rescued at the sheltered i am working.
The main demand is in western countries , including USA.
Now please tell me would you like to trade places with them, if you like this sort of thing.
I think being able to walk freely outside, breathe the air, see the sky, is much more important than sexual gratification.
Please don’t belittle human sex exploitation.
Elena, my intent is not to belittle human sex exploitation. In fact, I believe that the people who belittle human sex exploitation are the ones who attempt to label consensual activities among adults as “trafficking”, and who pursue consenting adults for their activities rather than concentrating on actual trafficking like what you’re talking about.