Why does Belle Knox consider herself a feminist?

[BainsBane]

181. How could I possibly give a response that is not gender-biased?

Last edited Mon Aug 18, 2014, 11:14 PM - Edit history (1)

What a ridiculous notion. I'm a woman. I can't speak from any other position. Bias exists. It can't be wished away.
If you think I only make that point about male entitlement to men, you are mistaken.

I didn't address most of your post because I didn't read most of it. You began with an insult. What do you expect? You are entitled to agree or disagree with anyone you choose. You are not entitled to label me or insist that I have an obligation to heed those you happen to agree with. You also entered a discussion by lecturing me without actually bothering to read the posts in the subthread where I laid out my actual concerns. That you hurl second-wave as a pejorative. You ignored entirely that the principal basis of my argument was class-exploitation, not gender, which you did because you were arguing with second-wave strawwoman and not me.

I see the heteronormative charge regularly used as way to dismiss the voices of women. I linked directly to a post discussing prostitution of men, a post you ignored. You accuse me of ignoring evidence and you have done just that. The fact is the vast majority of Johns are male. Whether they hire women, men, or very often underage teens and children, they are still men. Moreover, the entire notion of rights as vested in the individual rather than the common good is gender- (along with class- and race-) based. It is at once about class, race, and gender. Poor neighborhoods where prostitution is located are largely, though certainly not exclusively, populated by people of color. White men from middle- and upper-middle class areas come into those neighborhoods to hire prostitutes and along the way prey on little girls and likely boys, as I mentioned in my OP on the subject. I can not speak from the perspective of a little boy being hit on by Johns because that way not my experience. I have always been in a female body. That is the only experience I know. Your very use of the term heteronormative imagines that means only men, which is just about always the case when people use it as a way to delegitimize women's perspectives (and yes, I know I am not all women, just as when I mention I had peaches for breakfast that doesn't imply I ate every peach in creation).

Your objection to a study of inflows is problematic. You first insisted researches look only look at countries where it was legalized. Clearly the linked study shows that isn't true. Inflows means increased trafficking into the country, which makes sense given the fact there is increased demand with legalization. So what is your point? The same traffickers would have simply sent them elsewhere if not for legalization so those people enslaved aren't relevant?

It does not increase trafficking.

At best you have no evidence for this point. You also ask for evidence that is difficult if not possible to attain, which is the sort of thing people who have never conducted research don't bother to think about. The only way in which slaves become visible to researchers is through law enforcement or participant observation of their places of labor. You expect researchers to access data from the point at which slaves are captured? How? Do you think immigration officials are they meticulously counting illegally trafficked human beings? Do you think traffickers turn over customs invoices with precise counts of their cargo? Have you given any thought whatsoever to how such data might be acquired? Or do you, as it appears, simply want to dismiss studies you find inconvenient to your own agenda?

As to the other evidence, my life and that of Ism's, you clearly found it too insignificant to comment on. You accuse me of dismissing someone who you insist should be heeded because she shares your views, while dismissing the real life experiences of people who have lived among the sex trade. You can't bother to comment on the fact an entire population of young people is now through prostitution--murder, drug overdose, suicide, and even serial killers-- and that I grew up being preyed upon from a very young age by adult men. That you refuse to consider the lives of people with actual experience on the matter does indeed make me angry. You ignore that and then lecture me for not falling in line with neoliberal theories that ignore the reality of my community? No. I won't do that. I have a right to care about the well-being of my neighbors and the children in my community over capitalist profits, and I will continue to do so until the day I die. I will under no circumstances become an apologist for commodification of human beings. My soul is not for sale. If you find that so objectionable, don't read my posts.