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Noah -> RE: Question (10/20/2006 6:42:12 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: toservez
Why? Because we must always be judging others to feel good about ourselves and especially if something is directly affecting us and Pro Dommes are an easy moral target.
Personally as long as they are up front and honest about it, more power to them.
Lin
Yes. And how refreshing it is when we see a professional dominatrix be up front and honest about it. Oh there are plenty who do and they have my respect for it. What we see more often, though, is along these lines, from the OP
quote:
We are not whores We are Professional Women
who can run Our own business doing something We like to do.
First of all it denies the truth. Yes you are professional; a professional sex worker. A prostitute. A whore. I don't have a problem with that but I presume based on a the original poster's self-denial that she herself has problems with what she does for a living.
And then there is the whole "tribute" thing.
I can claim that the people I build houses for are not "paying" me but rather offering me "tribute" because I am not a carpenter but rather a Domestic Architectrist--or some such preposterous crap. Or I can be honest and up front about what I do--which is how I choose to conduct myself because I feel no shame regarding the work I have chosen.
I don't think the term "tribute" has no place. If one person chooses to honor another with money or gifts, and the offering and receiving are in just that spirit then perhaps the word gets some traction. But if you are a self-proclaimed professional, if this is what you do for a living, you aren't being "tributed." You are being paid. You are working for the person signing the checks. That's what the word professional indicates. If you want the lovely patina of the word--which is fine by me--then take what comes in the package with it.
By deciding to support yourself by performing these services for pay you can claim the right to call this your profession. Rock on and take what is your due. But accordingly you are fooling no-one if you refuse to admit that your wages are your wages. You are being paid for a job of work just like the guy in the cafeteria dish room or the cancer researcher in her lab. No better and no worse. Get the fuck over yourself.
Beyond serving as a vain denial of the patently obvious reality of her life the OP can be seen to be putting herself above other sex workers. If you just blow guys for money you're low, a Whore. If you spank them with or without the blowjob you're exalted, a Professional. What a load of crap.
This setting apart of one group of female sex workers over and against the others just strikes me as one more instance of the sadly too prevalent tendency of some groups of women to be the worst enemies of their own gender. So it isn't just lame as hell. It is harmful to women and therefore to the community generally.
Who needs an entrenched patriarchy to oppress women when so many career women are so willing to denigrate the efforts and accomplishments of housewives? When so many housewives are so willing to denigrate the efforts and accomplishments of career women? When one group of sex workers are so willing to denigrate the work of those who are for all intents working in the cubicle next door? And not only denigrate their work but suggest that the non-kinky sex workers (whores, prostitutes, use the synonym of your choice) are somehow lesser beings.
'We aren't whores." Indeed. How awful would that be?
Does the word "whore" have a sting that you don't like? Well take it away from those who use it as a weapon against women who choose this work. Say it with pride.
Punk used to be an insult. Now those in the punk culture wear it with pride. Gays have made a lot of progress in the battle to make descriptors of their gender preference just that, neutral descriptors, rather than generic insults. "Pig" used to be a piece of powerful invective thrown at cops. Now the local police softball team has cartoon pigs on their team t-shirts and some wear cute little "porky" pins on their uniforms. If a word like "Pig" (in just this context) can be re-appropriated then certainly a much more straightforward term like prostitute or whore can be re-appropriated.
But if you don't, can't or won't take the word back and honor it and what it signifies and instead you use it as a weapon against other women then you are therefore complicit in the oppression you share with them. If you do this while vainly attempting to deny your own reality then you are pathetic.
Like toservez I'm cool with pro dommes. I'm not cool with grandiose self-delusion and bullshitting the public.
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