Brooke Magnanti: ‘Prostitution was empowering’
The BBC bravely, and rather surprisingly, broadcasts an interview with Brooke Magnanti – the former prostitute behind the famous Belle de Jour blog – in which she calls for sex work to be decriminalized. Thanks to loyal and esteemed reader Jack for notifying us of the link :
The full interview will be broadcast on BBC World News on Thursday 11 October at 04:30, 09:30, 15:30 and 21:30 GMT and on the BBC News Channel on Monday 19 March at 04:30 GMT and Tuesday 20 March at 00:30 GMT.
There is a new and rather interesting post over at The Spearhead on that favourite old conservative fathers of daughters chapter of mRA’s topic: older female school teachers seducing, or what they would prefer to describe as ‘molesting’, their male charges.
What’s even more interesting is the response by such father’s rights socon mRA’s to this comment by Arpagus, aka Eivind Berge.
Note how his comment is not upvoted at all by any commentators. However it’s even better following his next reply, a little later…
I don’t understand why Eivind doesn’t want to comment on this blog, but maybe it’s because he knows we would almost always agree with him on most topics, thus there would be no debate resulting from any ideas he might run by us?
Alan Vaughn
9 Oct 12 at 10:18 am
I presume that’s so Alan, as I’m 2nd on his blogroll, and Human-Stupidity is 1st (and he doesn’t seem to comment there either).
He’d be more than welcome here of course….as long as he doesn’t mention cops!
theantifeminist
9 Oct 12 at 10:23 am
Let’s not rejoice too soon about this kind of news. We are told prostitution can be “empowering”. We aren’t told sex is a private matter. We aren’t told anything about sexual freedom, a sexual free market or any constitutional or human right.
Prostitution would only be OK as long as it was “empowering” (empowering to women, that is, not to men). Women are obsessed with power (remember women want rape to be understood in terms of men exercising “power” over women, not in terms of horny, powerless men seeking sexual contact at the risk of spending the rest of their lives behind bars).
I bet the BBC debate will conclude that prostitution can, indeed, be empowering, provided:
- it is adequately prices (only “escort rates”, £500/h etc.)
- women should are indeed “in power” —> old enough not to be exploited (no younger women allowed to prostitute, only emotionally mature women, preferably 35+)
- no foreign women allowed, for these will be victims per se and not “empowered”
- foreign women in their home countries are protected from sex tourists by ad hoc legislation
- …..
jack
9 Oct 12 at 2:11 pm
@alan good points by Eivind, and not a single upvote! Zed’s comment was quite reasonable, but still Spearheaders won’t admit the obvious – both feminists and father’s rights activists have a shared motive in going along with the vicitimisation of female child ‘rapists’ : it validates feminist age of consent laws that target men, and that will always harm far more men than women, but which do ‘protect’ a father’s control over his daughter (in theory). Also, Eivind doesn’t spell out that not only are these laws harmful to boys in denying them the opportunity of sex with older women (if they can’t get it from their peers), but we are participating in the damaging of young boys through forcing them to accept the lable of ‘victims’. Not only are lot’s of boys left frustrated by not having the opportunity to have sex with a kind, older woman, when they do ‘get lucky’ they risk being forced into therapy and told over and over again that they will be damaged for life and left ‘unable to maintain relationships’ etc.etc.
Feminists are entirely happy to see the odd female pervert (and that’s what they are , women, when they fuck teenage boys) punished harshly. They couldn’t care less. The average woman doesn’t want to fuck teenage boys, 90% of men (if they are honest) do.
Having said all this, I still think on balance the right policy is to demand women are punished as harshly as men, however, I doubt both the effectiveness, and I’m troubled by the boy ‘victims’ whose forced victimisation at the hands of the child abuse industry we are encouraging.
theantifeminist
9 Oct 12 at 8:38 pm
Yes I also agreed with Zed’s ideas there, but did you see the comments from Alex? I think (and I hope) it’s the same Alex who comments here…
Such as this little beauty in reply to ‘Avenger’:
That last sentence was because Avenger said this:
“And btw honey, I’m not a MRA or woman hater.”
Alan Vaughn
10 Oct 12 at 4:45 am
Another postive note (for those who read and understand French), prostitutes in the city of Lyon are protesting against the penalisation of males clients:
http://www.rue89lyon.fr/2012/07/07/premiere-manif-a-lyon-de-prostituees-contre-la-penalisation-des-clients/
Jack
18 Oct 12 at 3:41 pm
Feminists are entirely happy to see the odd female pervert (and that’s what they are , women, when they fuck teenage boys) punished harshly.
“Pervert”? What? Where did that come from?
” They couldn’t care less. The average woman doesn’t want to fuck teenage boys,
Really? You sure about that? Are we to presume that the few who act on this are aberrant? Why?
I was going to leave the comment at that, but I’m going to risk answering what I think you think that would explain this attitude. I’m pretty sure (I do apologise for this if I am wrong) that I’ve read you basically asserting that women have no sex drive and are simply looking for high status males for other (i.e. selfish) reasons. That would certainly support the idea that women seeking boys for sex are aberrant (“perverts”) and that “women don’t want to fuck teenage boys”.
I think I’ve said this before, but I think there are a lot of wrong ideas floating around in Mens’ Rights and paticularly regarding sexuality. You’ve rightly pointed out that the “conservative MRA” faction- who think fancying teenage girls is perverted- are wrong. But I also think we need to get rid of this idea that women don’t seek sexual gratification for its own sake, but by implication simply use sex to gain access to alpha male resources. This is just a mirror image of the incorret Feminist belief that marriage is a trap set by men for women, turning it around into a trap set by women for men. Neither view is correct or useful.
It seems to me that the female sexual physiology evolved to test the virility of her partners; virile partners (large and strong erection, general physical strength, etc) reward her with an orgasm; she is thus motivated to repeat copulation with the most virile males and avoid repeating copulation with the less virile ones. Her emotions in seeking high status males evolved to direct her towards which males to try to attract; the actual act itself tells her which ones to repeat sex with, in other words after she has moved on from the “trying to attract a male” phase to the “having attracted a male” phase.
In ancient times, physical and social male status were largely the same thing. The alpha males were also likely to be the healthiest (and thus most virile, virility being a proxy for general health) since their physical prowess was the primary means of gaining social status. The mightiest warrior in the village, and all that.
However, as civilisation developed, the two things cleaved. The highest social status male might be a weedy king, on the throne beause his grandfather was the mightiest warrior, not because he is. Or, he might be some wily and cunning politician, or a priest. Look at the current world- very few of the “social alphas”- top politicians, or Bill Gates for heaven’s sake- are physical alphas, because they’re no longer using physical strength to fight their way to the top. So, the two things have split apart- the thing which gains a woman’s attention- “social alpha status”- is no longer a proxy for the thing which will gratify her sexually- “physical alpha status”.
Which leads us to the stereotype of the trophy wife married to a weedy and sexually incompetent old man, who fucks the hunk who comes to clean out the swimming pool (and who has little social alpha status).
So back to the original point, what does this mean? It means that women are going to find teenage boys attractive, if they’re a bit hunky. They are at their physical prime, full of vim and vigour, no “I’ll just go get the Viagra darling” from a teenage lad who gets a stiffie at the sight of anything vaguely female shaped and whose primary hobby, in lieu of real women to have sex with, is wanking.
Thus, there is no reason to think a woman going after a young lad is in any way aberrant or perverse. She is seeking a physical alpha, just like guys going after young women.
Ian B
18 Oct 12 at 7:05 pm
I just typed a long comment and it vanished when I posted it. Has it been trapped as spam or something? (fingers crossed!)
Ian B
18 Oct 12 at 7:07 pm
Interesting points Ian, but I disagree that teenage boys are at their ‘physical peak’. I don’t think I’m going out on a limb by suggesting that women do in general prefer the qualities of physical and mental strength in mates, and teenage boys are simply not at their physical peak in their teen years in that way of defining ‘physical peak’. In very physical sporting events such as powerlifting, wrestling, and even (especially) boxing and mixed martial arts it is now increasingly common to see men in their 40′s compete for the titles. The youngest UFC champion in history (an utter physical freak) – Jon Jones – won the title at 23, and was recently due to defend it against a 42 year old man – Dan Henderson – who is at the absolute peak of his power and strength.
I personally don’t judge anyone sexually, and wouldn’t tend to use the word ‘pervert’ for a woman who fucks teenage boys, but let’s just say that men are much more attracted to girls than women are to boys. I use the word ‘pervert’ because that’s the way women are regarded in society and that’s why they get away with it. That was my point. Men are not perverts for finding girls attractive, everybody knows this, that’s why WE DON@T GET AWAY WITH IT. This is my point. Husbands and fathers do not feel threatened when they read of such woman chasing teenage boys because they know they are a small minority. When a woman, any woman on Earth, even Michell fucking Pfifer, reads of a middle-aged man getting caught banging a 15 year old girl, she thinks of her neighbours cute daughter and looks in the mirror to check for wrinkles. That’s the difference, and that’s the context I use the word ‘pervert’. To explain why a near genocide is going on regarding ordinary male sexuality. Personally I dont have anything against women who fucks boys, it’s just about personally avoiding being put in a gas chamber 20 years down the road because I might glance at a 15 year old with her tits, fanny, and ass hanging out in the same tube carriage as me.
EDIT : In the context of the article in which I used the term ‘pervert’, the main point I was making was that ordinary women will not be threatened either by the sight of women being locked up for having sex with teenage boys. It’s not likely to happen to them, because they’re not likely to ever fuck a teenage boy, even mistakenly. But even if the fact that most men are attracted to jailbait is disputed, most men are attracted to young women, and jailbait can easily pass themselves off as being over 18 in nightclubs. Statutory rape laws, especially with strict liability (which feminists insist upon) do threaten just about every man who goes clubbing and chases females. Of course, men don’t react in the way women would – forming a sexual trade union to defend their rights. Most simply either keep quiet or become vocal paedocrites.
theantifeminist
19 Oct 12 at 4:15 am
Here’s a little anecdote; an ex girlfriend (we were a “couple” living together) was a publishing editor, 32, working with similar aged women (mostly). One evening she went for a “girls do” at one of her colleagues’ houses, wine and girlie chat, that kind of thing. At one point during the evening, her colleague’s son came in to say he was off out for the evening, and as my ex described it, you could have heard a pin drop as all these older women (including my girlfriend) went weak at the knees. He was fifteen.
She told me this to compare to her sister’s fifteen year old son, who was still a child by comparison; the conversation just drifted that way. Her point being that her colleague’s son was quite the hunk in his leather jacket and spkey hair and broad shouldered physique.
Teens do mature at different rates. Some of the girls we are discussing at 14 or 15 may be still quite childlike, and others very sexily developed. Likewise, boys. I have no doubt that the (presumed) physical prowess of a hunky lad like my ex described would be just what many women would love to have the pleasure of.
And, of course, women don’t find their own fantasies or indeed behaviours threatening, but that’s an inevitable class bias. Which I agree with you is important for us to understand, but I don’t actually agree that this thing is “all men against all women” in some inevitable struggle to the death. I think it is very much a “sex war” instigated by particular agitators (the feminists), in the same way as, say, 1970s trades union agitators tried to start a cviil war between labour and capital. The mass of the workers followed them because they thought it was in their class interest to do so, just as most women are to some degree following the Feminists for the same reason.
I’m not putting this very well. What I’m trying to get at is that this sex war is a deliberate creation rather than an inevitable consequence of biology or psychology or what have you. I’d even go so far as to say that had a few key radical feminists in the late 60s all died in a plane crash or something it might never have happened at all!
Ian B
19 Oct 12 at 5:17 am
Well I don’t know, you may want to dispute also the widely accepted fact that teenage boys mature later than girls, but living in the center of London as I do, walking past groups of 14 year old German, French school groups nearly every day, the difference in development between the genders is often staggering. The girls mostly look like young women, whereas most of the boys are still evidently children. Sometimes the girls tower over the boys, have large boobs, wheras the boys haven’t even shaved yet.
When I’m on the tube and a group of good looking 15 year old teens are in the carriage, I notice the men giving furtive glances, hoping nobody notices and accuses them of being paedophiles. I very rarely notice women checking out the boys, even though they could probaby do so openly and not be accused of being a paedophile by either other passengers or the boys themselves.
It’s also a widely accepted fact that even teenage girls tend to date boys older than themselves (even in places like the USA where a 17 year old boy can be jailed for having sex with a 15 year old).
Personally, I’d like to believe that women are as attracted to teenage boys as men are to girls, but I just don’t see it around me. I think there’s a good chance within a few decades that men and women will be able to look exactly how they want to look (and this of course will largely be determined by the forces of the sexual market – what the opposite sex will find attractive). I can see that most 40 year old women will choose to look like 16 year old girls (no more need for feminism), but my worry is that men will turn into muscle bound apes, and a huge sexual dimorphism result. I’d prefer to look like a 16 or 17 year old boy to attract the females in the year 2050.
Perhaps the Twilight phenomenon is some evidence that women find teenage boys attractive, but as we discussed with regard to Carolina Courtland, it seems to me more case of mature women fantasising about being young teenage virgins again – the 16 year old lovers of these girls are really 200 year old vampires, after all.
theantifeminist
19 Oct 12 at 12:23 pm
I’ve just come across an article in the May 2012 edition of New Scientist about this remarkable woman (Brooke Magnanti aka Belle de Jour). I have a good mind to order her book, *The Sex Myth*, on my next Amazon visit. The Wikipedia article about her is worth reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_de_Jour_%28writer%29
Magnanti has a science (not a “social science”!) degree. I suspect all things equal, women with a science degree are less likely to be full of shit than other women. Is the voodoo science of feminism is too much for them to stomach? An name that comes to mind is Germany’s Angela Merkel who, unlike other female political figures, has not misused her time at the top for promoting anti-sex, anti-male legislation. Merkel is a physics graduate. Of course her time may be so taken up with saving the euro that she hasn’t yet had time to do her bit for the STU.
jack
26 Mar 13 at 7:58 am
@Jack I agree 100% with what your comment on Brooke Magnanti, but I’m not so sure about Angela Merkel. Under her (female) ‘Justice’ minister, they even tried to make it a criminal offence for two 17 year olds to kiss each other. Inclined Reader will have an opinion I’m sure.
One of the leading popular ‘scientists’ in the UK is Susan Greenfield. She’s also one of the worst femi-nazis I’ve read. Also loves to dress like a teenager and then bitch how perverted men are for prefering younger women. She attempted to sue the Royal Society for ‘sexism’ because they refused to grant her membership.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2004/apr/30/science.highereducation
theantifeminist
26 Mar 13 at 8:10 am