Prosti-tuition

Thanks to the Internet, I now know exactly how to tell my mother that I’m a prostitute, after I make that eventual career choice, just like my middle school assumed I would.

I think it was a Thursday (because if any day of the week was a douche with a neck tattoo, raccoon eyes, and bad tan that day would be Thursday). Regardless, we walk into the cafeteria and on the stage is the large projection screen. The principal tells us we were going to have a special treat. This only means one thing—a movie.

Or, it could mean that the school has decided to bring in a bunch of former prostitutes to show us pictures of their venereal diseases like old people show off pictures of their grandchildren. They tell us, “you are not Pretty Woman. No handsome man is going to ride in on a white horse and save you.” Well clutch my pearls, I’ve always been more a Cadillac fan myself. They tell us that we shouldn’t be prostitutes because we will be abused and beaten. They tell us that being a prostitute robbed them of their self-confidence. Now, I don’t know about my peers, but thank god for that wonderful intervention. I was totes planning on becoming a prostitute boo.

Yet, this narrative is the dominant narrative in society. One that premises prostitutes as inherently powerless, who either need to be saved by some douche bag on a white horse or need to be liberated by the powers that be. When in actuality, this hardly accounts for the reality of what happens. For instance, the whole ohemgee diseases part of the narrative. Factually, this is just wrong. Yeah, some prostitutes do pick-up diseases, but the HIV infection rate for women who work as prostitutes is lower than for women who do not work as prostitutes. Former and current prostitutes have called the experience “empowering.” The violence that occurs is predominantly caused by the criminalization of prostitution, not by the profession itself.

            The conflict between these two narratives forms the nexus of one of the most contentious debates within feminism. The anti-prostitution feminist narrative is rooted in an understanding of prostitution as a coercive act that discriminates based on race and class. The economic exchange is seen as an abstraction of the woman into a product, a thing to be used. It’s interesting that the women in the red light district work behind glass that looks like store windows. On just a visual level, this seems to be turning the person into a product. The very existence of such a system is patriarchal and exploitive.

            The sex-positive side of feminism has a very different view of feminism. The sex-positive view of feminism comes as a direct response to what the movements originators felt was the patriarchal control of sex, through the promotion of sexual freedom. This view tends to hold that sex workers are in prostitution more often than not because they want to be. Thus, the act of being a prostitute is nothing more than an expression of their sexual freedom.

            Whatever the case may be, the fact remains that prostitution is a business. And like any business, these days, the average American prostitute looks very different from what we would expect. Thanks to the internet sex work is easier, safer, and more cost effective than ever. Websites like Backpage.com have hundreds of listings for when you’re lonely. One guide on how to get into the business advises, “you should take advantage of the many blacklists, whitelists, and background checks that are available.” It’s also a lucrative business. One San Francisco based sex-worker, Jolene Parton, reports making several hundred dollars an hour and works less than ten-hours a week, while staying squarely in the middle class.            

            Of course, it’s not all rainbows and puppies, before you all run off to become prostitutes, like I know you will. There’s the constant stigmatization of sex work in society. The demonization of the world’s oldest profession. There are lots of reasons to be a prostitute.  

On Obama

People are always surprised to find out that I abhor Barack Obama. I think it's my skin color. They assume that all of us brown people stick together. Or maybe the fact that I'm from Hawaii. Since all of the Hawaiians stick together too, bunch of savages, with their tribe mindset. The only logical answer to this conundrum is that I must be a Republican. They make the accusation, as if I came in riding a white horse, wearing a robe, and carrying Anne Coulter's How to Talk to a Liberal (if you must). I respond to them politely lips closed, "I am not a republican." This scandalizes them, as if by not being a Republican I am suddenly obligated to vote for Obama or the progressive police will come over and revoke my open mindedness card.

I have nothing against Obama the human. He seems like a chill dude. I think that if we had a beer together it would be fun. I imagine us talking about hip-hop and literature. Flitting back and forth between subjects, like a pair of butterflies. Then we'd hug and tell each other how much we valued each other as human beings.  We might even cry a little, as progressives are wont to do, with our secret desire to promote the gay agenda. That being said, I really hate the guy as a politician.

There seems to be this weird double reality between what Obama says and what Obama does. For instance, I've always thought that the Nobel Peace Prize had something to do with peace. So I guess, that drone striking the shit out of innocent people is somehow peaceful. We call the missiles used by drones Hellfire missiles, but I always thought the whole peace and Hellfire mercy mine God and sinner reconciled, was a christmas carol/Christian thing and from what I've heard Obama used to be a pot smoking hippy. I don't think he was very good at that though.

Just imagine, the current president sitting in a circle with other flower children talking about peace. The talking stick comes to Barack and he says, "gee guys you know what I think is peaceful? Killing terrorizers." The horrified circle of hippys drop the bong and it shatters on the floor. Moonbeam cries a tear, as she realizes that there is no hope in the world. They put on suits and go to law school.

And I think that Barack (can I call you that bro?) is a testament to the benefits of law school. In 2010, America had a landmark year of finally exceeding human rights requirements under international law, or, basically, not being really shitty to people that aren't white and live somewhere far away. The reason? Our ground troops had implemented standards for monitoring each other and ensuring compliance. Rather than continue this Barack O. B. decided to start drone striking the people.

The international community was horrified. They thought that turning murder into a video game was awful. The Obama administration assured them that they mos defs weren't killing any innocent civilians. And after a few months of data, everyone shrugged their shoulders and assumed that he was obviously right. What really happened, was the Obama administration decided to re-define "enemy combatant" as any person of combat age within a strike zone. Or as I like to say everyone in the Middle East.

Yet, nobody has talked about this. Nor the fact that while Obama has called for transparency, he has enforced the Espionage Act more than any other president, which is framed in a way to punish whistleblowers. As a nation, we still love Obama and praise him for his progressive politics and forward thinking vision. We ignore the drone strikes and the political opportunism and the exploitation of the Gay community. We ignore the fact that yuppy white guilt is probably clouding our collective vision. We don't want to be the one to say, "holy motherfucker this dude is really not doing what he's saying."

At the same time, republican shaming is such a big deal amongst the youth. It is associated with bigotry, stupidity, and being uneducated. We talk so much about republican rage, but what about liberals? The recent racially based attacks on Mitch McConnel's wife led by liberal commentators reeks of the exact thing they are supposedly rallying against. We cannot critique ourselves to the point where we truly understand our own bias and as a result we prop up Obama and celebrate him violence, war crimes, and all.

The Obama love will end when America finally asks itself: what do we stand for? What did we vote for? Why don't the two mesh? And maybe, just maybe, we'll start asking the hard questions like how big is his penis.

On Porn

The first time, I saw porn. I was really freaked out by it. Of course, it was anime porn and I hadn’t intended on watching it. I was just talking to this girl I liked and she sent me this internet game and I played it and I finished it. And then, bang, animated tits and cocks are all over each other like football players in a locker room or wrestlers or syrup on pancakes. I immediately closed the window.

I do not know how to bring this up, so I stare at my keyboard, until I see the perfect thing to say, “ummmmmmmmmmm.”

My computer emits an irritating mechanical beep, “Yes?” she replies.

“Did you just see that?” I ask. I do not know what is going on.

Ping. “You mean the hentai?” she asks.

The people who watch porn are never the people that look like they watch porn. Every month, over thirteen million American Women and basically every American man watches porn. In terms of search volume (the number of times a term is Googled), porn is searched 21.3333 times for everyone search for “Obama” the president of the fucking United States. It doesn’t take a math major to understand that porn has a statistically significant viewership in America. Yet, we don’t discuss it like we discuss other statistically significant programming like The Oscars or Girls or Blues Clues. This is a discussion that we need to have.

The first time, I watch porn. It’s out of an academic curiosity fostered by McSweeney’s recent column “Conflicted Existence of a Female Porn Writer” by Lynsey G. It is during my early experiments with feminism, which entered my life shortly after I gave the finger to Jesus. These events comingled to form a hella judgmental attitude towards porn: it was exploitive and subjugating and immoral. (Yeah, it was a very second wave view of feminism, in retrospect, but everyone’s got to start somewhere).

In the first column, Lynsey writes, “Women in porn were making a shrewd decision about their options in life—which were limited for many of them—and often they were getting rich and famous. What kind of judgmental princess was I to think they weren’t feminists in their own right?” 

There are many benefits to watching porn. A recent study found that the amount of porn men watch is positively correlated towards attitudes regarding gay marriage. The researchers think that this occurs for one of two reasons: first, porn makes people more excepting of alternative sexual experiences or second, they just aren’t as freaked out by other penises.

Porn was also vital in the development of the home video player. The movie industry hated the concept of videos, as they felt like this would cut into their in theater revenue. On the other hand, the porn industry had nothing to lose in the theater business, so they invested in the home video player. So all those childhood memories of Bambi’s mom and Hercules? Thank porn for them.

That night, I sit at my computer. I try to remember the names of the websites my friends mention jokingly. The splash page immediately assaults me with a plethora of appendages and positions I’ve only ever read about in Stephen Elliot novels or short stories from McSweeney’s. I click on the one that looks simplest. It’s called “Jewel Masturbation.” The video begins and she is sitting on a couch. The cameraman talks to her they make small talk about her “life.” Then dirty, sexy, things start happening.

I think she is the most beautiful girl in the world. I start Googling her. According to her website she is an “all American girl going to college.” According to her Twitter she is from Canada. She has never been older than 19. It’s as if for those lucky people they are never allowed to age.

Aging is a major problem for female porn stars. Joanna Angel, a porn star, said in an interview, “men can keep doing this forever, but women can’t. I want to get into directing.” Porn films made by women for women are becoming increasingly prominent. Last year, Mexico had the first by women for women porn festival. This shift has had a very real impact on the industry. According to Oprah last year one in three online porn viewers were women.

The thing is, porn is far more instrumental than we give it credit for. It’s not just something that people jack off to. It’s an industry that helps move American culture forward and redefine the dominant paradigm.