What $56 billion industry goes ignored by globalization critics?

[redqueen]

The sex industry.

Larry Flynt's corporate-pimp speech is spoken with a patriarchal accent, somehow through a vagina. Exactly how is it that a woman's open vulva became his mouthpiece?--Julian Real

We are using our First Amendment right to expose and critique hate speech. We are focusing here on corporate pimp and pornographer Larry Flynt because so many politicos and pundits from the Left have failed to comment on, much less confront Flynt’s hate speech. While Flynt's censored speech has been celebrated in mainstream film, the multibillion dollar sexxxism industry is mimicked in commercial advertising and pornography's themes and aesthetics are commonplace on TV shows. The sexual exploitation, violence, and degradation that previously were only found in pornography and other real-life sexual exploitation, violence, and degradation--is no longer only a staple in the centerfolds of a few adult magazines, but is, rather, a staple of corporate-owned media.

The omnipresence of this particular form of speech is responded to in two ways by the increasingly impotent press: wide-ranging apologetics or an utter lack of critical attention. We contend that the sexxxism industry's systematic human rights abuses are atrocious and the Left must speak to the atrocious harm of the overlapping sexxxism industries: pornography, prostitution, trafficking, sex tourism, and sexual slavery.

Flynt has engaged for some time in a battle for social prominence and power. What is largely unnoticed, or, if noticed, unchallenged by anyone, is his war against those who speak out against him. We think the contents of this site will reveal what he wishes to keep under wraps: Larry Flynt is a hostile, misogynist, racist, power-hungry corporate pimp rather than a poor, besieged, free speech hero.

...

Many of the people putting together this site have been longtime supporters of Amy Goodman, Democracy Now, and Free Speech TV. ..My last publicly supportive comment of Free Speech TV is documented on May 26 2005 where I wrote this note to Stan Goff's blog...I say my last public support was published May 26, 2005 because on June 5, 2005 I received Aura Bogado's article "Hustling the Left." Amy Goodman's issue was still on the stands when I wrote those supportive words. This is a flagrant example of political irresponsibility that is deeply insulting to feminists and to the Left. I, and others involved with this website, expect these acts of egregious political callousness to be owned and apologized for by the involved parties and that sufficient signs of accountability and responsibility will be shown. --Nikki Craft


http://www.hustlingtheleft.com/

18+ site, due to linked reference material.

[markiv]

1. all politics is local, as a globalization critic myself,

I am not doing it for a doctoral thesis on globalization, I'm doing it in response to being pushed out of tech by the H-1b visa.

If globalization critics are ignoring this issue, it's because they dont know about it, it's not because they are 'ok' with it. Most globalization critics became so because the issue came to them, they criticize what they see

All I know about Larry Flynt, is that he is and has always been, a low life

[redqueen]

2. People are missing the mark on this one. They criticize symptoms,

such as women and even girls wearing booty shorts to school or to the gym... yet ignore the cause.

This is a result of the normalization of porn / the pornification of society.

Thanks for sharing that you see through Flynt's schtick.

[ismnotwasm]

3. Yeah there sure wasn't an "Occupy the corrupt sex industry" movement was there?

A diverse, multi-billion dollar industry with a difficult to follow trail in some cases, but having sticky little cooperate fingerprints all over the place.

[redqueen]

4. Nope!

I hope more people will stop ignoring this stuff but I'm sure we'll continue to see more 'I love Larry Flynt! He's so great!' shit for a good while.

Hustling the Left by Aura Bogado June 05, 2005 Originally published by ZNET

In August of last year, just days before the Republican National Convention in New York, I received an email from a local (Los Angeles) chapter of Not In Our Name (NION). The group, which I have never been a member of, had been organizing a letter-writing campaign with hopes of pressuring Mayor Michael Bloomberg to grant permits to protest on the streets of New York against the Convention. NION's email proclaimed enthusiastically how Larry Flynt had endorsed their letter-writing campaign. As a woman of color who opposes the type of violence that Hustler Magazine* *celebrates in their publication, I was dismayed that NION chose to align themselves with Flynt. For that reason, I sent a personal email back to NION, asking to be removed from the list. Los Angeles NION organizer Robert Corsini not only responded to me, but also forwarded his response, along with my original personal email, to both of my bosses at the local community radio station I work with, and to Larry Flynt Publishing. Because he violated my trust and attempted to ridicule me, I responded to Robert Corsini and the entire email list to explain my disgust with Hustler. A flame war quickly erupted, with people on all sides of the issue exchanging emails. What has followed is an interesting example of power politics, the most recent round ending in Hustler publishing several extremely offensive articles and cartoons condemning me as a 'femi fascist' for having the courage to speak out against their brand of pornography as a form of institutionalized gender and racial violence. The experience has led me to examine the greater umbrella of the so-called 'left', and to scrutinize the conditions under which a Goliath like Flynt is sanctioned by it.

Read more http://www.hustlingtheleft.com/bogado1.html

[CrispyQ]

5. That was an outstanding commentary!

snip...

Flynt's myopic view of the world makes him blind to the work that so many others do. And, because he controls a tremendous amount of capital, he is able to dodge criticisms against his degradation of women while legitimizing himself to the popular left by publishing progressive journalists. Flynt has become sophisticated at amplifying his voice through his enormous means of production to avoid any real concerns about his product.

more...

While attempting to position his magazine as a progressive publication, Flynt is using the tactics of reactionary conservatives such as Michael Savage and Rush Limbaugh to attack women who stand against violence degradation.

and this...

In this horrendous era of the Bush administration, the left has grown- people are finding reasons to join it daily; but is this so-called movement better off defining itself purely by numbers, or do the ideas that inform our movement still matter? If Flynt is truly bringing a new audience and activists to this movement, we cannot forget who they are. They are people who support the degradation of women for capital. They are people who support the notion of women as objects for amusement, hence 'male entertainment'. While social movement theorists cite that electoral politics serve only to co-opt our work, we must ask ourselves if publications like Hustler Magazine don't do the same. As the left continues to grow, our broader ideas about liberation should grow as well. We cannot forget that if we build bridges with racists and sexists, we will burn bridges with women of color and others who oppose oppression at every level of class, race and gender.

[redqueen]

7. Did you see the descriptions of the cartoons they published about her?

For daring to ask her to remove her name from a mailing list, and stating her reasons why.

The significance of that is surely not lost on me.

Flynt is using the tactics of reactionary conservatives such as Michael Savage and Rush Limbaugh to attack women who stand against violence degradation

And still we see this filth treated like some kind of hero.

[CrispyQ]

10. He's disgusting & a bully. She is so brave to stand up to him.

I remember the first time I came across a Playboy magazine. I was about 9 or 10. It was at my older male cousin's apartment. My mother & two aunts were painting the interior & I milled about doing whatever. I found a stack of magazines & was my ten year old mind shocked when I opened the centerfold. I remember thinking, "Why would girls do this?" Then one of my aunts came into the room & said something like, "Oh my, this is not for young ladies," & took the magazine from my hand & ushered me out of the room. I thought of that centerfold all day & could not believe that girls would do that. Later, being a kid I had to check, the magazines had been moved. That initial reaction always stuck with me, though.

This is so important:

do the ideas that inform our movement still matter? If Flynt is truly bringing a new audience and activists to this movement, we cannot forget who they are. They are people who support the degradation of women for capital. They are people who support the notion of women as objects for amusement, hence 'male entertainment'.

[redqueen]

11. I wonder about women's first exposure to and reaction to porn.

There is no doubt that most of it sends an unmistakable message about women.

I agree, she is incredibly brave.

[redqueen]

8. Oops, yes of course you did :)

...

Perhaps taking its lead from Democracy Now, the February issue of Hustler featured an interview with Susie Bright. Besides several incorrect assumptions she makes about me, I was surprised to learn that Bright believes that Hustler is a 'deliberately proletariat' publication, with a 'working-class Southern flavor'. A white feminist who conveniently avoids the issues of racism in Hustler raised by women of color, Bright attempts to rely on an inconsistent class analysis and connects what are 'disgusting' and 'icky' images with that which she deems to be 'working-class', claiming that it makes the publication easier to attack. Rather than aligning herself with the real struggles of working women, Bright has chosen to align herself to millionaire Larry Flynt. Towards the end of the interview published by Hustler, Bright begins to critique the publication itself, alluding to 'disrespectful agreements' between herself and Hustler. At this point, Hustler cuts off the interview entirely, slashing any agency she may have thought she would have had in the interview. When I first read the Bright interview, I was hurt but only slightly surprised that a white feminist would allow Hustler to use her for their own ends. I have never met or spoken with Bright, but it saddens me that someone who calls herself a feminist could say that because of my critique of Hustler, I would wind up 'in a room all by [my]self.' I would not be alone in Bright's imaginary room if she had reached out to me, a working class woman, before postulating fallacies in a publication that serves to physically (and in the case of Bright, intellectually) use women for their immediate gratification.

In the same issue, Hustler attempts to enlist another white woman, Amy Alkon, to attack me. Alkon questions my commitment to free speech, yet fails to realize that it was Hustler Editors Mark Cromer and Bruce David who first attacked me for using free speech in my simple request to be removed from an email list. Alkon unsuccessfully attempts to compare me to white supremacist David Duke making no genuine connection for her comparison. In a separate yet similarly incoherent argument, Alkon asks, 'Aura, what's the answer? Should we all go around in burkhas? Isn't that the oppression you're professing to want to prevent ' in between your position to work out your jealous rage against rich old Larry Flynt?' Obviously Alkon, like Bright, has not taken the time to inform herself on my positions, and her suggestion that I am jealous of Flynt is nothing short of ludicrous.

In another edition of Hustler, the magazine goes far beyond words and uses caricatures of me in a desperate attempt to further vilify me. I have not made any public statements regarding Hustler or anyone related to its publication since August 2004, yet after half-a-year of me remaining silent on the issue, Hustler continues to attack me, featuring horrific images of me: in some, I read a poem a Valentine's Day poem, 'Roses are red, Violets are blue, If you're a white male, I'm gonna kill you'; another has me smashing a microphone because, in the cartoon, a caller into the station I work at sends an email suggesting that I like 'having (my) mouth near a microphone because it reminds (me) of a white male's cock.'; yet another cartoon includes a line of 'Aura Bogado Jewelry'- in it, I have a penis pierced through my tongue.

[geek tragedy]

6. Economic and social justice are great and everything, but

the boner must be served.

[redqueen]

9. Depressing that so many women are so caught up in the popularity of it that they'll pull shit

like they did against Aura Bogado.

Because she asked to be removed from a mailing list. And stated why.

[geek tragedy]

12. Although, didn't she pretty much win that battle, to the extent

it could be won?

[redqueen]

13. How?

Most people don't know who she is, or how badly she was treated by flynt and his feminist fans or why.

But go start a YAY LARRY FLYNT circle jerk in GD and watch the recs pile up.

[geek tragedy]

14. Larry Flynt has no feminist fans.

There are a few fauxminists who are really mascots for the MRA movement that backed him up in that fight, but NION was forced to apologize.

Flynt's popularity amongst certain leftish men just proves the point of this thread--that a crass, bloated plutocrat can buy support on the left by peddling the right 'product.'

[redqueen]

15. Yeah, in that respect you're right.

But in day-to-day dealings with other feminists, unless I stick to radical circles, I find more are fans of porn than not. Or if not fans, they treat it like abortion. Like their personal dislike has nothing to do with objectification or social effects... its just a choice like any other and they won't criticize porn at all. Well, maybe rape porn. Maybe

Don't want to end up in a lonely room all by ourselves now, do we.

[geek tragedy]

16. Part of it is that those on the right who object to porn

dont' do so out of concerns for the status of women, but rather as their attempt to roll back sexual freedoms generally, starting with porn and on to abortion and then birth control. And, of course, teh gay.

So, there's a natural reluctance to form any common cause with them, even in the abstract.