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Naked Truths
To the Editor,
Yet your article on cybersex proves an example, case-in-point, of the ways in which women in the sex industry are consistently silenced and laid flat as the pages or screens upon which they appear. Not once did Richter's article quote from any of the six women who appear in the CD ROM video, yet their picture appears above the article with the title, "Cybersex, Tucson-Style," with the subtitle, "Here's a little something for your hard drive." This is the same technique used by the pornography industry in order to create distance between the reader/viewer and the sex objects/women they portray. By silencing the women involved, consumers are protected from perceiving them as real people--and yet the women receive no protection in return. If confidentiality or the protection of these particular women were of concern, then undoubtedly neither this picture nor the article itself should have appeared as such. In contrast, Richter quotes from pornographer Mike Warhurst, whose comments served as fluff material to support what is essentially an advertisement for the CD-ROM and Temptations Showclub. Further, she manages to perpetuate the harms of pornography--reducing women to sex, i.e., cunts, pussies or whores--without really saying those words. She doesn't have to, as this is the implicit view of the article. Instead she lets the content of her article emphasize how cybersex isn't really pornography--because it's only R rated, because it's only "routine sexiness," because the women don't get fully undressed, and best of all, because Warhurst says it isn't. Not only is this depiction harmful to women, it's also poor and unoriginal journalism. If this is not considered pornography by the women who appear in this particular program, then let us hear the information come from their own mouths.
After reading both articles, I can only conclude that the Tucson
Weekly has little interest in the First Amendment as the promotion
and protection of human rights, and much interest in it as an
avenue for self-promotion and those business interests which continue
to keep it alive.
Miss Stacey responds: Like Ms. Berger, I'm also concerned about the representation of women in the media. However, unlike Ms. Berger, I don't consider pornography a violation of women's human rights or even an especially potent source of commodification or debasement. To do so would be to consider workers in the sex industry childlike and incapable of formulating opinions or making choices about their occupation; victims preyed upon by unscrupulous (and more intelligent) men. On the contrary, I've known quite a few sex workers and read the critical writings of others; by all accounts they're sentient, adult women capable of speaking for themselves and making their own decisions. Many of them regarded their jobs as just that--a job--quite separate from their sense of self. If anything, they report feeling a sense of power over the men who pay to watch them perform. I agree it would have been interesting to hear the comments of the dancers in the Temptations Showclub CD-ROM. I did try to interview some of them, but they never called me back. Since I didn't speak to them, I don't know the reason for this, but considering that they're adults, I assume it was by choice. Rather than being silenced by me or the Tucson Weekly, these women chose to be silent themselves. Ms. Berger equates the depiction of naked women with prostitution and scolds The Weekly for supporting such institutions. To my mind, there's nothing especially corrosive or damaging to womankind about sex work. I believe it's the shame surrounding sex and sexuality that's so corrosive. Ms. Berger describes prostitution as the ultimate, shameful degradation of women. The fact that women, even feminists, still hold on to the sense of there being "fallen women"--one last, bottom-of-the-barrel category that no nice lady would ever want to be sullied by (i.e. whores)--goes a long way towards perpetuating the stereotypes which tap into the fear and hatred of women's sexuality. I don't think pornography is like prostitution, but so what if it were? Isn't the challenge to change the stigma attached to the category of whore? Yes, prostitutes often have hard lives, but if feminists could overcome fear and shame and do real-world work to make prostitution legal, perhaps prostitutes could live with more safety and self-respect. Instead, prostitution remains a rhetorical category certain feminists vigorously defend themselves against. Ms. Berger argues that The Weekly and my article perpetuate the harms of pornography, but, aside from other problems with this argument, the definition of pornography itself is extremely difficult to agree on. I watched the CD-ROM in question and rather than take the word of its creator, Mike Warhurst, I decided myself that it did not fall into the category of pornography. The idea that any image that may titillate someone is "pornographic" is a dangerous one that has led to the persecution of artists like Robert Mapplethorp and, locally, Robyn Stoutenburg. Furthermore, such blanket definitions have the potential to silence many voices. If the legislation in question in Chris McLaughlin's article ("Smut Shutdown," Tucson Weekly, December 21) is enacted, not only will we not be able to look at dirty pictures on the Internet, we won't be able to read Ms. Berger's letter there either, since she uses the words cunt, pussy and whore. It's not only perverts who lose out when censorship is enacted--critical discourse is also in danger. Finally, if I had categorized the CD-ROM pornographic, I would have had no qualms about writing about it, as I have no qualms writing about movies that depict women in various ways. I don't believe there's anything inescapably evil or toxic about pornography (except that it's usually boring). I do think Ms. Berger is right, however, to express alarm about the ways women are depicted in the media, though it seems naive to place the weight of the damage on a single category. A far greater force and mass of information is presented about the way women should look, work, love and behave in television, advertisements and movies than could ever be covered by the much smaller category of "pornography." To me, a far more debilitating picture of womanhood is imagined in a film like The American President--where a strong, intelligent woman is stripped of her intellectual and professional power to stand behind her man--than could ever be conveyed by a CD-ROM of topless dancers.
Praise Be
To the Editor,
We Want Letters! Thrilled by our brilliant insights? Sick of our mean-spirited attacks? Need to make something perfectly clear? Write: tucsonweekly@tucsonweekly.com
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Traditionally, prostitution and its graphic depiction through
pornography silences women through the commodification and debasement
of their bodies into sex objects. In an industrialized society,
strip club owners and pornographers capitalize off of women's
marginalized class status under the guise that because these forms
of prostitution are legal, they are not in violation of
women's human rights.