I must be terribly deceived by sexworkers I have been with. They seemed to not hate their jobs.
Tracy Quan, prostitute's rights activist and author of "Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl";
Vs. Dr. Melissa Farley of the Prostitution Research & Education Network on KERA-90.1FM in Dallas
She obviously is only seeking the most messed up street hookers to support her conclusions of how terrible all sex work is. But she is getting airtime on public radio and other stations and is convincing to the average public about the only type of sexwork the public thinks of - the drugged out street hooker - not the professional sexworker with a very mature view and the positive aspects of sexwork.
TQ says:
After doing that thing with Farley, I went and got a shiatsu massage -- 1.5 hours, it was great! I feel detoxified. I also received various emails from listeners who were irate about Farley.
I think her work is heavily informed by a particular religion -- her extreme form of feminism -- and that all her work is in the cause of advancing her religion. The fact that her studies get published in journals with "feminism" in the title is already suspect. Nothing wrong with religion or feminism per se but I think Farley is someone who has nothing to offer the larger world -- her main contributions aren't to society but to her particular religious club. I know, she thinks she is doing something for the world at large but it seems to me she is reaching a very extreme community.
I also think that there are female prostitutes who hate/dislike/resent men *before* they get started in sex work. Farley might be tapping into the stories of those women. If you mistrust and dislike men, there is no telling what kind of lunacy you will attract when you consort with the male sex.
The good news is that she openly speaks of hating pimps and johns. She doesn't sugar coat the hate-component of her message at all. She says she doesn't hate men, just pimps and johns. Well, a vast number of the world's men are johns. And what kind of research can you be doing if you are so fueled by hatred?
Some brief comments of others:
And let's remember that the most common way of falsifying results in "research" is simply to ignore data which doesn't fit your preconceptions.
Dave in Phoenix (me) said:
Farley is convincing I fear to the average person that as she procliams that all prostitution is men abusing women, they are being raped, suffering huge emotional and Psy problems and prostitution is a violation of the human rights of women.
Sexworker replies:
The reason she would seem convincing, I feel moved to point out, is because the vast majority of people in modern (American) society (and probably several other places in the world) have been brought up to believe that sex is evil and dirty and if they DO enjoy it, they shouldn't, and that certainly, people who do it for a living SHOULD be abused and raped and suffer huge emotional problems -- but not TOO much, because, after all, we ARE good judeo-christians.
More on Farley http://www.mergemag.org/1998/farley.html
More of Dr. Farley's work: http://www.prostitutionresearch.com
Getting Real Facts About Prostitution - Farley says:
I never use the word 'sex work' because those words imply that it is legitimate work...
You're going to see a range of attitudes on how to help women get out of prostitution, but I don't want to spend any energy supporting an industry that essentially destroys women-emotionally, spiritually, and physically.
There are many, many lies about prostitution that are being pumped out by the mainstream media. One that women like it. Two, that they get rich in prostitution. Women in any type of prostitution, when they get out, have nothing. There's a huge amount of money that passes through their hands, but they do not keep it. There is no woman I've ever known who was in prostitution, who walked out and bought a house-it doesn't happen. Pimps get 90%-that's another lie that the media and COYOTE put out there, that prostitution is a fun activity that women in college can do once a week to pay for their tuition.
One of the lies I hear is that men go to strip clubs to 'admire' women-and I always say, 'no men go to strip clubs to get back at women.' And I think that is the same reason men go to prostitutes.
First of all, in order to continue in prostitution, you either have to be psychologically or chemically dissociated. You cannot do 15 blow jobs a night, or get fucked by 10 men and stay in your body- the human mind protects us from experiences like that. And if your can't dissociate, then you've got to have drugs. One woman told me her experience recently---she is still very dissociated even many years out of prostituting-but when she was in stripping, she described herself as very mentally disturbed and dissociated and she said she couldn't even hear what the men were saying to her, she tuned out so much.
Tracy Quan, prostitute's rights activist and author of "Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl";
Vs. Dr. Melissa Farley of the Prostitution Research & Education Network on KERA-90.1FM in Dallas
She obviously is only seeking the most messed up street hookers to support her conclusions of how terrible all sex work is. But she is getting airtime on public radio and other stations and is convincing to the average public about the only type of sexwork the public thinks of - the drugged out street hooker - not the professional sexworker with a very mature view and the positive aspects of sexwork.
TQ says:
After doing that thing with Farley, I went and got a shiatsu massage -- 1.5 hours, it was great! I feel detoxified. I also received various emails from listeners who were irate about Farley.
I think her work is heavily informed by a particular religion -- her extreme form of feminism -- and that all her work is in the cause of advancing her religion. The fact that her studies get published in journals with "feminism" in the title is already suspect. Nothing wrong with religion or feminism per se but I think Farley is someone who has nothing to offer the larger world -- her main contributions aren't to society but to her particular religious club. I know, she thinks she is doing something for the world at large but it seems to me she is reaching a very extreme community.
I also think that there are female prostitutes who hate/dislike/resent men *before* they get started in sex work. Farley might be tapping into the stories of those women. If you mistrust and dislike men, there is no telling what kind of lunacy you will attract when you consort with the male sex.
The good news is that she openly speaks of hating pimps and johns. She doesn't sugar coat the hate-component of her message at all. She says she doesn't hate men, just pimps and johns. Well, a vast number of the world's men are johns. And what kind of research can you be doing if you are so fueled by hatred?
Some brief comments of others:
And let's remember that the most common way of falsifying results in "research" is simply to ignore data which doesn't fit your preconceptions.
Dave in Phoenix (me) said:
Farley is convincing I fear to the average person that as she procliams that all prostitution is men abusing women, they are being raped, suffering huge emotional and Psy problems and prostitution is a violation of the human rights of women.
Sexworker replies:
The reason she would seem convincing, I feel moved to point out, is because the vast majority of people in modern (American) society (and probably several other places in the world) have been brought up to believe that sex is evil and dirty and if they DO enjoy it, they shouldn't, and that certainly, people who do it for a living SHOULD be abused and raped and suffer huge emotional problems -- but not TOO much, because, after all, we ARE good judeo-christians.
More on Farley http://www.mergemag.org/1998/farley.html
More of Dr. Farley's work: http://www.prostitutionresearch.com
Getting Real Facts About Prostitution - Farley says:
I never use the word 'sex work' because those words imply that it is legitimate work...
You're going to see a range of attitudes on how to help women get out of prostitution, but I don't want to spend any energy supporting an industry that essentially destroys women-emotionally, spiritually, and physically.
There are many, many lies about prostitution that are being pumped out by the mainstream media. One that women like it. Two, that they get rich in prostitution. Women in any type of prostitution, when they get out, have nothing. There's a huge amount of money that passes through their hands, but they do not keep it. There is no woman I've ever known who was in prostitution, who walked out and bought a house-it doesn't happen. Pimps get 90%-that's another lie that the media and COYOTE put out there, that prostitution is a fun activity that women in college can do once a week to pay for their tuition.
One of the lies I hear is that men go to strip clubs to 'admire' women-and I always say, 'no men go to strip clubs to get back at women.' And I think that is the same reason men go to prostitutes.
First of all, in order to continue in prostitution, you either have to be psychologically or chemically dissociated. You cannot do 15 blow jobs a night, or get fucked by 10 men and stay in your body- the human mind protects us from experiences like that. And if your can't dissociate, then you've got to have drugs. One woman told me her experience recently---she is still very dissociated even many years out of prostituting-but when she was in stripping, she described herself as very mentally disturbed and dissociated and she said she couldn't even hear what the men were saying to her, she tuned out so much.
