#If prostitution is empowering why were the girls going to be forced into it? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

comrade-meow · 3 years

Link

“On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based? On capital, on private gain. In its completely developed form, this family exists only among the bourgeoisie. But this state of things finds its complement in the practical absence of the family among the proletarians, and in public prostitution.” —Marx and Engels, Communist Manifesto

“It is self-evident that the abolition of the present system of production must bring with it the abolition of the community of women springing from that system, i.e., of prostitution both public and private.” —Marx and Engels, Communist Manifesto

Introduction

“[…] the question of prostitutes will give rise to many serious problems here. Take them back to productive work, bring them into the social economy. That is what we must do. But it is difficult and a complicated task to carry out in the present conditions of our economic life and in all the prevailing circumstances. There you have one aspect of the women’s problem which, after the seizure of power by the proletariat, looms large before us and demands a practical solution.” —V. I. Lenin, Conversation with Clara Zetkin, 1920

The subject is endlessly debated on the internet—and terms like “sex work” are slipped in to distract would-be Marxists from examining the matter of prostitution. But we must begin by stating that the matter of prostitution for Marxists has been resolved for approaching 200 years, and there is no ambiguity on this. It is mentioned three times in the Communist Manifesto—the most basic introductory text to Communism that all Communists unite around. To be a Marxist is to oppose prostitution. More importantly, Marxism gives us the framework to analyze exactly why Marxists have historically come to this position, and why Marxists today reject terms like “sex worker” that seek to sanitize prostitution, which we understand as sexual violence, mainly against women.

It is trendy to compare prostitution to work—without ever delving into what Marxists even mean by “worker”—and to frame the most basic Marxist positions as “backward.” Without delving too far into the individual theorists behind the sanitation of sexual violence as “sex work,” it is enough to identify this tendency as the inheritance of third-wave feminism, which has overlapped with postmodern method of analysis. Engels himself likened prostitution to slavery, and for very precise political economic reasons. What brought Marx and Engels together to begin with were Engels’s astute observations on political economy. Suffice it to say, Engels is a great authority on the subject second only to Marx. Engels wrote,

“Wage labor appears sporadically, side by side with slave labor, and at the same time, as its necessary correlate, the professional prostitution of free women side by side with the forced surrender of the slave.”

Engels viewed these as a necessary correlate, meaning a unity of opposites, where the identity of each depends on the existence of the other.

When examining the trend of “sex worker advocacy” we see two things most often. The first is to totally hollow out the term “worker” of any of its political-economic definitions. The second is to lump various classes and strata together into a single category—this means even distinct trades undertaken by distinct classes are conflated and flattened into one singular “oppressed” group. By defect of the first error, which destroys the understanding of the economic identity of the worker, we arrive at the second, that porno movie performers, exotic dancers, street prostitutes, “cam girls,” and others are all one thing. Apologists maintain this as if the exchange of money for a sex service or sexualized service somehow, in and of itself, constitutes such an ultimate commonality among these “workers” that it obliterates the profound concrete differences in each case to their actual relationships to production. One of the most critical phenomena erased in their analysis is the profound stratification, which exists even within groupings that do have a similar relationship to production. Putting their position into practice entails forcing class collaboration between management, entertainer, and slave.

A brief history

Comrade Mary Inman, one of the staunchest antirevisionists in the CPUSA of the 1930s-40’s, whose contributions will be discussed more thoroughly later, offers the following powerful passage:

“Prostitution did not start with folk customs. It did not grow out of group marriages between free people, for pre-slavery tribes had no such institution. It did not grow out of mystic rites, nor sex worship. It was always a rape institution. Even in the earliest records of prostitution, the evidence shows that the people lived in terrible degradation rising from economic slavery, and did not have the freedom to decide such matters.”

We do not have any interest in going over the earth’s recorded history of prostitution, and will use this section only to establish some relevant facts pertaining to its history in the US.

In the war for control over the colonies that some call the “American Revolution,” as well as throughout the US Civil War, women were unofficially enlisted as prostitutes to follow the soldiers to “keep morale high.”[1] At this time, the ruling class found this a necessity in order to sustain the war. It is useful to understand the shifts and changes that the ruling class makes in terms of prostitution. In wartime, their puritanical Christian opposition vanishes in favor of the cold pragmatism of whatever they think it takes to win.

Prostitution, while technically illegal in the 19th century, was widespread, and brothels were commonplace. The laws were simply not enforced. This period was not without war, considering the increase in Native genocide carried out by the settlers during westward expansion. And this colonial expansion meant the expansion of brothels as well.

In the early 1900s, the precursor to the FBI, the Bureau of Investigations, cracked down on prostitution in earnest for the first time in US history.[2] Their reason, far from having anything to do with the rights of those experiencing sexual violence, was, as they put it, “to oppose white slavery.” In practice this effort constituted a political maneuver as well as a propaganda effort. In order to enforce social segregation and further consolidate settler-colonialism, the ruling class attempted to get white women out of brothels. This campaign has had long-lasting effects: even today the majority of prostitutes are not white. This is similar to the way the US imperialist ruling class carries out the “War on Drugs,” primarily to harm the oppressed nations of its population.

What we have attempted to sketch out here is that the question of prostitution in the US cannot be separated from the US history of settler-colonialism—that these things march in step as what Engels might call “necessary correlates.” Prostitution, like chattel slavery and settler-colonialism (genocide against the indigenous North Americans), was an ingredient in the US imperialist project, and it served its master well. This argument, that prostitution and colonialism in the US are necessary correlates of each other, deserves its own paper, but here we must move on from it.

In all of these instances, economic conditions provide the impulse for prostitution.

Some basic prostitution statistics

One of the strongest examples of the unbreakable link between, on the one hand, the fact that the US is a prisonhouse of nations, built up through settler-colonialism and slavery, and prostitution on the other hand, is the fact that 40% of prostitutes in the US are Black[3] (Black people constitute only 13.4% of the overall population), while the majority of johns are white.[4] And it is commonplace that many regular johns are police.[5]

According to Havocscope, a website dedicated to researching global black markets, the average cost of a trick in many places is £14–50, with minors earning less. Due to the constant conditions of national oppression in the US, Black people tend to earn less than others. This trend cannot be forgotten when we evaluate prostitution. This is yet one further way the stratification of the trade takes shape. While prostitutes earn twice as much as the average US worker and three times as much as the average woman in the US, much of this income is withheld by pimps.

The sex-positive apologists of prostitution will without fail argue that the trade somehow is or can be “empowering.” But statistically, the majority of prostitutes are victims of child abuse (one study found 73% were physically abused as children)[6], and there is evidence that they enter the trade at an average age of 15.[7] An average starting age of 15 or anywhere close all but eliminates the myth of the consenting prostitute. Underage prostitutes—which is what the majority of them start as— face physical violence, emotional manipulation, and other forms of gendered abuse to coerce them to start.

It is economic necessity that sets the conditions for prostitution—there are no exceptions. Sex that a woman would not otherwise engage except in exchange for money is no longer “sex” but rape, as the ability to consent is removed by economic coercion—and a prostitute is always coerced economically. Prostitution is most often rape.

Some men are prostitutes as well, but 69% of those arrested are women, including arrested johns and pimps.[8]

Atlanta, one of the US cities with a majority Black population, is home to the country’s highest-grossing pimps, who reap about £23614 a week on average.[9] Some of these pimps are women who maintain hierarchy and obedience among the prostitutes, another way stratification manifests. This also makes it obvious that prostitution is caused by economic conditions and is not just (as some maintain) a result of personal sexist attitudes.

For obvious reasons, the majority of assaults experienced by prostitutes go unreported. 89% of adult prostitutes want to quit, but due to economic coercion feel that they cannot.[10] Being in thrall to a pimp, who controls everything and deploys severe psychological and sometimes physical abuse, makes the victim of prostitution far less likely to admit to wanting to quit, which itself skews statistics. Understanding that many enthralled women cannot speak up about their abuse, we would do well to understand that things are far worse than the picture painted by what makes it into official reports.

Which prostitute?

Unlike workers and more specifically proletarians, prostitutes are not engaged in productive, socially-productive, or reproductive labor. They do not receive a wage in the proletarian sense (of receiving a portion of what they produce in a value form/money, with the bulk of their labor being exploited by the owner) and are not devoid of the tools of their occupation, which in this case are the bodies of the prostitutes themselves. To return to the question of stratification, we can observe that in terms of relationship to production, a woman engaged in street-level prostitution without a pimp is distinct from those with pimps, and both are distinct from women who work for escort services or through self-promotion on websites (past examples are Backpage and Craigslist).

For the majority of women trapped in prostitution, the reality of a pimp forces them to the lower strata (this is combined in many cases with national oppression). They have no financial independence from their boss/owner, who makes all or all major decisions regarding their activity: what they do and do not engage in, what subsistence is allowed, and what accommodations are awarded or denied. But those in this most common situation do not qualify in any sense as proletarian despite the pimp behaving like a boss or even like an owner, because he does not simply “own the business”—he owns the women. These women come far closer to being slaves than to being workers. The wage of a slave is nothing except subsistence; the owner of the slave, in our instance the pimp, is the chief executive of every aspect of life. That includes housing, food, clothing, tools, and everything else—provided by the pimp to subsidize the prostitute in order for her to live and continue earning them profit. This is one of the most extreme forms of exploitation, not to mention the most inhumane. Nonetheless, the degree of oppression and brutality one faces does not determine one’s relationship to production, nor does intense oppression alone place one in the social class of the proletariat. Further distancing the enthralled woman from the worker is the fact that she cannot just quit of her own accord; like the slave, she can only organize her escape.

The only method of organization for a slave is rebellion and escape; there are no such things as reformist options for the slave. These contradictions are part of why slavery as a widespread mode of production was replaced by feudalism (in turn replaced by capitalism), which was more manageable, and why capitalism itself is more profitable than slavery in terms of the performance and capacity of the productive forces.

This highlights the position that in the women’s struggle, the only Communist approach regarding the majority of women in prostitution is to organize them out of it, and that this is accomplished mainly through People’s War and socialist revolution. At some stage of revolutionary struggle, this means the use of revolutionary violence against lumpenproletarian gangs that back up the pimps in the military sense. Short of this option, the only acceptable tactic is to secure the transition of individual women into productive work and the opportunity to gain other skills, a total change of social environment, and continuous political education and thought reform. This can improve the conditions of some prostitutes and rehabilitate them into being proletarians, but it cannot emancipate them as women or end prostitution. Furthermore, it requires a high level or organization: it needs Party committees and mass organizations to lead the effort and a Red Army and militias to defend this work and protect the ex-prostitute, securing her escape from the trade, preventing retaliatory action from pimps, and so on.

Any effort to transpose the methods used in workers struggles’ into the realm of prostitution falls hopelessly short. A struggle against a pimp cannot be carried out in the same way as a struggle against a factory owner or regular boss. Arguing that it can and must be carried out the same way—viewing prostitutes as workers and pimps as bosses to be struggled against—really lacks all Marxist understanding of why workers can be organized against bosses and so lapses into a subjective moralist approach to combating oppression. People of this persuasion attempt to implement prostitute unions; like the syndicalist, they dream of a union for everything, and are under the delusion that slaves can unionize and struggle for reforms against their slave-master.

While the so-called Maoists who promote right-opportunism will admit that prostitution cannot persist under socialism, they often make concessions, by believing in and promoting the construction of prostitute trade unions.

Being under the control of a pimp prevents a prostitute from all independent activity and independent thinking. The woman chained by the pimp cannot be organized into a trade union. A union of prostitutes who through some unknown force have ceased to be enthralled to pimps, due to the inevitable emergence of leadership and people who professionally manage such a union, will inevitably just generate its own, internal pimps. This is true because if the union bureaucracy is not completely ineffective (that is, if the union actually exists and functions), they would find themselves enforcing payment from reneging johns, securing housing in times of income shortage, bribing or negotiating with police, and sustaining their professional organizers with dues: they would in essence be pimps with a more charitable subsidiary. The use of violent reprisal and or the lack thereof is not the decisive factor in determining a pimp’s relationship to production—what is principal is the fact of reproducing prostitutes. The likelihood of successfully organizing such a union— or even making a substantial attempt at doing so—is so slim that it hardly merits mention beyond the totally hypothetical. We give it attention here only to point out the utter ridiculousness of the right-opportunist line.

In the case of prostitutes without pimps (who are not being pimped upon the point of being organized), who basically take contracts independently and have full access to their own income, these are more or less the lumpenproletarian (declassed) version of the petty bourgeoisie who own their own means of production. For them the formation of a union is impossible. After all, a “union” of those who own their own means of production (lumpen or not) is actually called a cartel. Furthermore, the existence of a cartel gives impulse to the hiring of a general staff—plus, the stratification of prostitution would allow the cartel to employ other prostitutes under its protection—this again is a return to pimping. Prostitutes who become pimps are not unheard of, and some reports show that new pimps are drawn to the trade through familial connections with prostitutes.[11]

A free market always has a trajectory that can be scientifically understood and described. A free market that sees the formation of cartels to manage the market will in turn eventually see the formation of conglomerates and monopolies. For legal and illegal trade, this inevitably leads to war. It is much more difficult for illegal businesses to establish conglomerates and monopolies due to the nature of the competition in these markets. In this case, competition is for clients (market share), for slaves (“workers”), and for other resources. The organization of competition for illegal businesses brings war faster and more often than it does for legal business. This facet restricts growth—nonetheless, these prostitution cartels would be held to the same economic laws as drug cartels and would need the same level of maintenance (the protection of the business’s interests through violence).

The existence of all sexualized business further engenders pimping, by normalizing sexual performance for money. This is made worse with the line that sex is work.

“Sex work” as a catch-all term

Rarely is the word “worker” so arbitrarily attached to any trade (or multiple trades), without any regard to class as it is with sex trades. Yet the bourgeois feminists of the “sex positivist” variety will insist that “sex worker” is a legitimate and useful category, like “service industry worker.” While it is true that sexualized professions are organized along industrial lines (including aspects of reproductive labor), prostitution, sexual entertainment, and so on do not even constitute a single industry, and this fact certainly doesn’t qualify everyone in these industries as “workers.”

Attempts to treat “sex work” as a coherent scientific category run into trouble immediately. In the case of prostitutes, a slave is not a worker, and a small business venture does not make one a worker either. A stripper is ultimately a performer. No one would assert that a professional comedian or actor is a “worker,” just as professional athletes are not “workers” and so cannot be lumped into the category of “athletic worker.” A stripper, like all performers and entertainers, has a totally different relationship to production from a worker, given the category of workers as it is understood by Marxists. Even in instances where they do not own the venue or website, these professionals still mainly own their own means of production, making them part of the petty bourgeoisie and not part of the proletariat. In the instance of those carrying out their trade in strip clubs, the stripper most often tips out the staff and pays the club a portion of her earnings. For workers, this relationship is the other way around: a hostess at a club or restaurant, like the rest of the general staff, is paid a wage by the business itself (even if she is forced to rely on tips) and thus experiences exploitation of her labor power.

Like a craftsman or small merchant who rents a booth or a stand, the “cam girl,” like the stripper, is merely paying a rent or service fee to the club or website. Furthermore, unlike workers, these people are making a brand for themselves, cultivating a clientele that follows them from outlet to outlet.

Women in pornography in some cases are coerced or trafficked and therefore have a relationship to production more like that of a pimped prostitute. In other cases, the individual has an agent and is free to take contracts, as an actress would—and no professional actress can be classified as a worker. Therefore the overwhelming majority of people engaged in pornography in the US, who occupy one of these two relationships to production, cannot be scientifically understood as workers.

It is far more apt to say that, of those whom (apologists of sexism) call “sex workers” who aren’t engaged in prostitution, the majority are small-scale sex-capitalists of the petty-bourgeois class. The term does not hold the same appeal as “sex worker” for these apologists precisely because it does not serve the purpose of sanitizing sexual exploitation, violence, and rape. While there is much discussion about rape culture, there exists a massive blind spot in its organization through the sex trades.

Sanitization of rape and sexual violence through terminology

“To describe prostitution as sex work and a prostitute as a sex worker means to give legitimacy to sexual exploitation of helpless women and children. It means ignoring the basic factors, which push women and children into prostitution such as poverty, violence and inequalities. It tries to make the profession look dignified and as a ‘job like any other job’.”

—New Vistas Publications, originally printed in People’s March, an organ of the Communist Party of India (Maoist)

The term “sex work” was coined in the 1970s by Carol Leigh, for exactly the purpose identified and criticized in the above quotation. Leigh heads an NGO called BAYSWAN (Bay Area Sex Worker Advocacy Network). A large part of the financing for this organization comes from its collaboration with law enforcement.

As with all efforts to sanitize rape and other violence against women with the term “sex work,” BAYSWAN uses the term as a catch-all to include anyone in the “adult entertainment” industries, as well as street prostitutes. Its ambiguous inclusion of “massage parlor employees” is just an obscurantist way of providing ideological legitimization to brothels, most typically attached to human trafficking and the sexual abuse of undocumented women. While BAYSWAN claims to provide social benefits and other types of help to these women, their liaison work with the police speaks the loudest to their actual class position. The police are nothing more than the strong arm of the bourgeois state. Typical of NGOs in imperialist countries, BAYSWAN serves as a managerial department delegating scraps from the master’s table to some of the most destitute. This is not undertaken in the interests of the people but in the interest of maintaining and reproducing the rule of the imperialist class at home. It is important to state that the main purpose of BAYSWAN, and other NGOs like it, is not to rehabilitate women out of prostitution but instead to normalize the abuse they face, so that their trade is seen as comparable to any normal job, and accepted like any other.

The typical liberal and postmodernist analyses of the oppression faced by prostitutes hold that its roots lie in socially imposed “stigma” rather than in the exploitive nature of capitalism—as if workers who were proud of their assembly-line jobs would be any less abused and exploited. Even proletarian jobs under capitalism that maintain some shoddy “integrity” in the social sense or at least lack “stigma” are still alienating for the worker and operate on exploitation of the workers’ labor. But again, prostitution is unlike any proletarian job, as nothing is produced or reproduced, and the “labor” itself is not socially necessary. In fact, for women as a whole and particularly for women of the proletariat, it is socially destructive.

For the Marxist, not recognizing prostitutes and entertainers as proletarians is a matter of political economy and not of any kind of outdated moralism. Marxism does not blame the victims, in this case women forced into sexual violence and exploitation due to economic hardships.

Marxists have never evaluated prostitution in moral terms but instead have insisted on examining it in political-economic terms and, as always, with a class analysis. This is why Lenin considered bourgeois women to be engaged in prostitution. Lenin also grasped the progressive aspect of those would-be defenders of prostitutes, but he drew the line at defending prostitution itself. In his conversations with Clara Zetkin in 1920, he explained how this moral impulse can turn into a backward idea:

“I have heard some peculiar things on this matter from Russian and German comrades. I must tell you. I was told that a talented woman communist in Hamburg is publishing a paper for prostitutes and that she wants to organize them for the revolutionary fight. Rosa acted and felt as a communist when in an article she championed the cause of the prostitutes who were imprisoned for any transgression of police regulations in carrying on their dreary trade. They are, unfortunately, doubly sacrificed by bourgeois society. First, by its accursed property system, and, secondly, by its accursed moral hypocrisy. That is obvious. Only he who is brutal or short-sighted can forget it. But still, that is not at all the same thing as considering prostitutes—how shall I put it?—to be a special revolutionary militant section, as organizing them and publishing a factory paper for them. Aren’t there really any other working women in Germany to organize, for whom a paper can be issued, who must be drawn into your struggles? The other is only a diseased excrescence. It reminds me of the literary fashion of painting every prostitute as a sweet Madonna. The origin of that was healthy, too: social sympathy, rebellion against the virtuous hypocrisy of the respectable bourgeois. But the healthy part became corrupted and degenerate.”

While addressing the means that bourgeois forces use to “combat” prostitution (or, in reality, to maintain it in whatever form they need it to take in a given historical circumstance), Lenin was equally critical: “What means of struggle were proposed by the elegant bourgeois delegates to the congress? Mainly two methods—religion and police. They are, it appears, the valid and reliable methods of combating prostitution.”

Lenin did not argue for the legal recognition of prostitution to combat social stigma, but for its end, through socialist revolution, which destroys the root economic causes of it. We must understand that even after socialist revolution, exploitation does not vanish overnight; it is done away with in the processes of the dictatorship of the proletariat and, critically, with cultural revolution. Marxists, while insisting that prostitution is not “sex work,” still stand firm against the hypocritical moralization of the bourgeoisie, who create and preserve the very conditions that force women into prostitution.

What is crucial to understand in the position of the great Lenin is that he simultaneously opposed the organizing of prostitutes as prostitutes for the revolution while at the same time condemning the bourgeois moralism that helps reproduce prostitution and deepens the oppression of prostitutes. After the revolution, Lenin and those who held the revolutionary line after his premature death worked tirelessly to abolish prostitution. We will get more into the experience of the socialist projects’ approaches to prostitution in later sections.

Arguments for legalization

Those most committed to the sanitization of rape and sexual violence are the most vocal advocates for the legalization of prostitution, which Marxists emphatically oppose. Legalization, far from securing “workers’ rights” in the instance of prostitution, only opens the floodgates for major investment of capital on the part of imperialists. With legalization, the pimp becomes protected by law—taking on a new form, and the prostitute legally owes and pays him a portion of her earnings. With legalization come legal recruitment and the widespread indoctrination of women and girls to prepare them for the trade.

Arguments that legal recognition protects the employee are based on bourgeois moralism and not Marxist political economy—and profound naiveté or ignorance of the actual workings of capitalism. Miners, factory workers, and fast food workers all have laws that are in place (usually hard-won through class struggle) that are supposed to protect them, yet as long as capitalism persists they are hounded, worked to death, and exploited without mercy. The legal recognition of these trades has not stopped the boss from stepping on our necks.

The idea that legal recognition will somehow limit the use of trafficked girls and women is also absurd. Pornography has been legal for decades, and the flow of black-market pornography and coerced women has not gone away. For that matter, many workers are hired illegally for all sorts of trades, hyper-exploited, and then discarded like old shoes. This would be magnified with legal prostitution. Countries with legal recognition of prostitution can and do see an increase in sex tourism;[12] people from all over the world can go exploit and dominate women in these countries, the only difference being that in these places the bourgeois State can tax it officially rather than unofficially through payoffs.

“Prostitution Is Sexual Violence,” first printed in People’s March, an organ of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), explains the global forces behind prostitution in this way:

“Firstly, the sex trade is now organized on a global basis just as any other multinational enterprise. It has become a transnational industry. It is one of the most developed and specialized industries [and] offers a wide range of services to the customers, and has most innovative market strategies to attract clients all over the world. The principal players and beneficiaries of the sex industry are cohesive and organized. The intricate web of actors involved in the sex trade today includes not just the prostitutes and the client, but an entire syndicate consisting of the pimps, the brothel owners, the police, the politicians and the local doctors. The principal actors connected to the sex trade are not confined by narrow national or territorial boundaries in the context of a globalized world. They operate both legally as well as clandestinely and it is believed that the profits … to the organizations of [the] sex-industry currently equal those flowing out of the global illegal trade in arms and narcotics. Moreover [it is] like any [of the] other multinational enterprises, such as the tourism industry, entertainment industry, travel and transportation industry, international media industry, underground narcotics and crime industry and so on.”

From this they draw the following conclusion:

“Thus the magnitude, expanse, organization, role of capital accumulation and range of market strategies employed to sell sexual services make the contemporary global sex industry qualitatively different from the old practice of prostitution and sex trade.”

Suffice it to say that genuine Marxists must insist that any legalization in the US would be the further bane of women in the nations oppressed by US imperialism. As “Prostitution is Sexual Violence” puts it,

“in fact this argument [for legalization] is being promoted to make it easy to legalize the import of prostitutes to the imperialist countries and other centers of tourism.”

They highlight the dialectical relationship between the sex trades of the imperialist and oppressed nations. We will quote the pamphlet at length:

“As Engels succinctly put it, it is ‘the absolute domination of the male over the female sex as the fundamental law of society.’ She is a victim of patriarchal oppression within the profession. Once a woman enters the trade, there is no way out. She is completely at the mercy of the sex-starved customer, the pimp and the police. Physical assaults and rapes are a daily occurrence. More than half of the prostituted women in the Third World countries had contracted HIV/AIDs. A 1985 Canadian report on the sex industry reported that the women in prostitution in that country suffer [a] mortality rate 40 times the national average. It could be even worse in countries like India. All this proves that the argument that once prostitution is legalized it can be more effectively regulated[,] making it safe for all those involved, that the spread of HIV can be slowed, that sex workers can have access to health and so on, are sheer fraud. The fact is that all forms of sexual commodification, whether legalized or not, lead to an increase in the level of abusive and exploitative activity.

The interest of the State in permitting legalization is not the prostitute and her rights but to check the spread of sexually transmitted deceases. It involves heavy regulation of prostitution through a whole host of zoning and licensing laws. Zoning segregates the prostitutes into a separate locality and their civil liberties are restricted outside the specified zone. Licensing means issue of licenses, registration and the disbursement of health cards to the women. Legalization makes it mandatory for the women to undergo medical check-ups regularly or face imprisonment.

Legalizing prostitution is legalizing violence.”

We must look beyond the ideological sanitizers of sexual violence, who speak loudly from academic, activist, and “harm reduction” circles and look closer at the actual economic forces behind these advocates. It is the commercial sex industry that stands to benefit the most from legalized prostitution, and so they are its biggest backers. Legalization is just a moral shield to protect and secure greater profits from the continued sexual abuse of women. With legalization, small brothels can become big chains, and whole corporations can be built up; those involved legally and illegally in the sex industry who possess the most capital are in the best position to reap the profits. The same issue exists with the legalization of the recreational use of marijuana: the small-time grower/dealer gets swallowed up by the white corporate elite, while oppressed-nations people remain incarcerated for their role in the trade. Legalization, in the final instance, benefits only the ruling class.

The Indian Maoists address the question of legalization succinctly:

“Legalization of prostitution is not a solution because legalization implies men’s self-evident right to be customers. Accepting services offered through a normal job is neither violent nor abusive. Legalizing it as a normal occupation would be an acceptance of the division of labor, which men have created, a division, where women’s real occupational choices are far narrower than men’s. Legalization will not remove the harmful effects suffered by the women. Women will still be forced to protect themselves against a massive invasion of strange men, as well as the physical violence.

Legalization means [the imposition] of regulation by the State to ensure the continuation and perpetuation of prostitution. It implies that they have to pay taxes, i.e., the prostitute needs to serve more customers to get the money needed. Legalization means that more men will become customers, and more women are needed as prostitutes, and more women, especially women in poverty, will be forced into prostitution. Legalizing prostitution will only increase the chances of exploitation. The experiences of the countries where prostitution was legalized also show how this [has] given [a] big boost to the trade and [has] increased sexual abuse. For instance, in Australia and in some states in the US where legalization was implemented, it was found that there was an alarming increase in the number of illegal brothels too along with an increase in the legal trade.”

Prostitution, through allowing the purchase of access to women’s bodies, harms all women, and not just those in the trade—legalization, far from being harm reduction, just increases social harm for all women. Recruitment is one of the cornerstones of pimping. With legalization, the horrors of recruitment and the pressure to be recruited take on dystopian proportions.

American exceptionalism: The legacies of revisionism and settler-colonialism

The women’s struggle was going strong in the Communist Party of the USA—up until Earl Browder became general secretary of the Party and began implementing his arch-revisionist line. The revisionist ideology that overtook the CPUSA—Browderism and then William Z. Foster’s continuation of it—was like a prototype of the revisionism that would take hold in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Even though the latter would completely consume the former, the former was in many ways its forerunner. Foster, like Brezhnev, would come out against his predecessor—and just as it was with Brezhnev’s condemnations, this was only superficial politicking that still carried forward, and in fact fortified, the revisionist position. This revisionism brought deep harm to the women’s movement, with a lasting stain on the US left today that extends far beyond the husk that calls itself the CPUSA.

Browderism successfully liquidated not only the program of the Party but the Party itself in 1944. It comes as no shock that Browder’s wife led the liquidation of the women’s struggle against antirevisionist women in the Party like Mary Inman. Inman wrote a great deal on the question of prostitution, devoting three chapters to it in her book In Woman’s Defense. To understand the question of prostitution today, it is important to grasp the reverberating effects of Browderism. Rightist lines that seek to either sanitize prostitution by dressing it up as “sex work” or misconstrue prostitutes as a revolutionary subject all result in part from a faith in American exceptionalism—first, in that they all seek to establish a reformist, class-collaborationist approach to prostitution; and second and more importantly, because they divorce the phenomenon from imperialism. It is important to remember that the bourgeois definition of “work” is anything you do for money. In this way they can frame owners and bosses as workers alongside those they exploit, since any job (legal or illegal) can therefore be misconstrued as work.

Many of these rightists (who are abundant in progressive struggles as well as in every revisionist organization) will concede that sex-based tourism in the Third World and human trafficking are, in principle at least, something to be opposed. They take no major issue with the writings on the subject from the Maoists in India, including the text “Prostitution Is Sexual Violence.” But when it comes to applying these universal principles at home in their imperialist country, they stir up the ghost of American exceptionalism. For reasons they cannot explain without their belief in this exceptionalism. They impose an artificial disconnect: here in the First World (not just in the US but clearly in Canada also, with the opportunists in the fake PCR-RCP), prostitutes are now workers, and furthermore an important part of the proletariat!—and to hell with actually studying nearly 200 years of Communist agitation and propaganda on the matter! They charge those who do assert the correct historical position with being outdated dogmatists. To oppose prostitution from the Marxist position, just as Marxists have always opposed it, earns one a volley of buzzwords and condemnation as a SWERF (that is, “sex worker exclusionary radical feminist”)—even while (a) “sex work” is a made-up term that runs counter to Marxist political economy and (b) Marxists explicitly reject radical feminism on a fundamental level. Without any economic analysis, the American exceptionalists have made defending prostitution a prerequisite for being a leftist, not only defending it from a moral standpoint but even going so far as to frame degradation and abuse as empowering. Revisionism still plays its part in turning a thing into its opposite.

Mary Inman described the continuum of revisionism aptly:

“Furthermore, wrecking on the Woman Question has not only continued since the ousting of Browder, but has even been accelerated under the leadership of Dennis (ably abetted by Foster, who warned against an ‘over correction of errors’ at a time when nothing had been done to stop their liquidatory practices affecting Communist work amongst women).” (13 Years of CPUSA Misleadership on the Woman Question)

The liquidation of Communist work among women today is assisted tremendously by postmodernism, which has practically been established as “common sense” for the left and occupies a near-hegemonic position in mainstream US activist movements. And of course, postmodernist cretins agree with Browder that the class struggle itself is mitigated in a country like the US, where “free women” can “freely choose” prostitution and it is backward to pass critical judgment on the trade of women.

Inman referred to this thinking as the “culture of prostitution”:

“Prostitution has been laid at women’s door, and it is said that she enters the practice from choice because it suits her nature, and is one of the attributes of Eve. Nor is this all. Prostitution has created its own degenerate philosophy, which has penetrated into circles not directly affected by it.” (In Woman’s Defense)

The contemporary apologists still maintain that prostitution is a choice, by insisting they are workers like any other who are free to choose a career (within the confines of their class and circumstance). Even though they do not resort to Scripture to justify their views, the same metaphysics finds traction.

Inman contributes valuable criticism of bourgeois culture’s portrayal of prostitutes in films as free-spirited travelers who select their own johns. Writing in the 1930s and 40s, Inman portrays this superstructural device, which has remained in currency since the time of her writing:

“Persons who acquired their opinions about prostitution from such as Mae West pictures, wherein the talented star portrayed the woman of questionable character who went freely about the country having adventures, knowing romance, wearing swell clothes and dominating the situation in which she found herself, selecting carefully her lovers and avoiding those men who did not appeal to her esthetic tastes, in fact roving, wise-cracking, free-lance, exploited by no one, will have the wrong picture of the real lives of such women.” (In Woman’s Defense)

We can cite obvious examples like the film Pretty Woman, but the message is driven home in the more up-to-date postmodern approaches in films and television shows, where the term “sex worker” has fully replaced the term “prostitute,” and “prostitute” is now viewed as nothing more than a sexist slur. The culture of prostitution still exists, finding its niche in the phony progressivism of postmodernism, which tirelessly seeks to pass off a fanciful illusion as the truth.

On the website Mel Magazine we find articles like “The Most Realistic Sex-Worker Portrayals in Pop Culture, According to Sex Workers.” In this article we find such gems as the following: “The Deuce is a sweaty buffet of debauchery calling back to the kind of heroin-soaked freedom Janis Joplin sang about.” Only the most profoundly deluded petty-bourgeois dilettante would conflate heroin with freedom, as it exists mainly as a weapon to keep the lower classes enchained, robbing them of even the most basic freedoms.

The author continues, “The protagonist is Candy, a clever veteran escort played by the excellent, but oddly cast Maggie Gyllenhaal, who walks the tracks, pimp-free. Unfazed and visibly bored, Candy works alone while her cohorts — mostly large and lovely black women — get smacked around by their white regulars and bullied by their pimps. She says to one fast-talking hopeful, ‘No one makes money off this pussy but me.’ Candy’s optimism in this regard is admirable but naïve (capitalism, for instance); still, she has more agency than most of the show’s other characters.”

The tokenization and abuse of Black women is merely unpleasant background noise for the free-spirited “Candy,” whom the author finds immediately relatable. No mention is made of the fact this devil-may-care character rises throughout the series to become a well-paid pornographer and exploiter of other women. The only real criticism of the show put forward by the article is on the basis of crude identity politics—they complain that the show was written by men and not co-written by “sex workers.” This is the best they can come up with when parroting the culture of prostitution today.

For the petty-bourgeois dilettante, “sex workers” are often imagined as struggling heroines, usually white women who choose prostitution as a clever way of bucking the system, and thus they view it as a rebellious act against capitalism itself. They are far removed from the mass tragedy and genocide that the women of the Third World face. Nor can they fathom the anguish of the people of the internal colonies in the US, where prostitution is the most prevalent.

The “sex worker” image constructed by bourgeois intellectuals has a special allure for the petty bourgeoisie: it evokes the myth of class ascension (like that of the fictional Candy mentioned above). With this myth we find a girl—most likely from a troubled background—who grinds her way toward becoming a small business proprietor. Maybe she becomes a pornographer producing the films after starring in them. For the identity politics crowd, this is thrilling because now exploited women are the ones exploiting women. They are not at all concerned that exploitation remains intact and has now simply found a better way to apologize for itself. This rags-to-riches story so often told is a powerful device in the service of ruling-class management of class relationships under capitalism. After all, their argument goes, this is just the unchained agency of free modern women.

In the following passage, Inman might as well be writing in the present day on the question of those who argue for the existence of agency in prostitution by rebranding it “sex work”:

“There is a noticeable tendency in much of the literature on prostitution to confuse a wanted sex act with prostitution, and efforts are made to show by indirection, or otherwise, that they are either the same or that the former leads into the later.” (In Woman’s Defense)

Of course, she also recognized that the phenomenon is not exclusive to women from the working class:

“The scope of prostitution is wider than the working-class women, for by no means are all the daughters of the middle-class families secure, nor, for that matter, are daughters from professional and upper-class families where fortunes were affected by economic breakdown.” (In Woman’s Defense)

Anyone “freely choosing” “sex work” without the pressure of economic conditions is not experiencing the reality of the declassed women Inman is writing about, or of the majority of women trapped in prostitution in the US for that matter.

Browderism did not limit its assaults only to the women’s struggle. It also directed attacks against the national liberation struggles of the internal colonies, and a major casualty of this time was the Communist work among the Black Nation. The work among the Black Nation was more or less eroded by the Popular Front period of the Communist International, and it was none other than Popular Frontism that gave powerful impulse to the rightists in the Party, led by Browder and then Foster.

The national question has all but gone from the program of the CPUSA and only a few of the revisionist relics of the New Communist Movement still uphold it even superficially. And even given their acknowledgment of the necessity of this work, no meaningful struggles are led to conquer the power of self-determination for the internal colonies. And it is perfectly natural for these types who insist on delinking prostitution from colonialism to be seduced into the quagmire of prostitution apologia. No honest study of colonialism can go without mentioning the settlers breaking the colonized into prostitution, through direct violent coercion as well as the violence of economic coercion, both equal in their atrocity.

Even cursory examinations of the real conditions faced by indigenous people in the US and people in the internal colonies—even studies carried out by bourgeois researchers—can highlight the way settler-colonialism manifests in prostitution, as the following passage reveals:

“Many AI/AN [American Indian and Alaskan Native] people live in adverse social and physical environments that place them at high risk of exposure to traumatic events with rates of violent victimization more than twice the national average. High rates of poverty, homelessness, and chronic health problems in AI/AN communities create vulnerability to prostitution and trafficking among AI/AN women by increasing economic stress and decreasing the ability to resist predators. AI/AN women are subject to high rates of childhood sexual assaults, domestic violence, and rape both on and off reservations. The vast majority of prostituted women were sexually assaulted as children, usually by multiple perpetrators, and were revictimized as adults in prostitution as they experienced being hunted, dominated, harassed, pimped, assaulted, battered, and sometimes murdered by sex buyers, pimps, and traffickers.” (Farley, Deer, Golding, et al., Prostitution and Trafficking of American/Indian Alaska Native Women in Minnesota; citations removed from quotation for brevity)

The argument that prostitution is a free choice, combined with the disproportionately high representation of Black and native women in prostitution, is nothing short of the thinly veiled racism of the petty bourgeoisie.

It is as absurd and cruel to divorce these facts from the US settler-colonial project as it would be to pretend that South African apartheid had nothing to do with prostitution in that country, as elaborated on here:

“Indigenous South African women are at great risk for all of the factors that increase vulnerability to prostitution: family and community violence including an epidemic of sexual violence, life-threatening poverty, lack of educational and job opportunities, lack of health services throughout their lifetimes, and lack of culturally appropriate social services that would help them escape prostitution. When alternatives to prostitution are not available—although it can appear to be a choice—prostitution is coerced by social harms such as child abuse, racism, sexism, and poverty. All of these forms of violence against women, including prostitution, are related.” (Madlala-Routledge, Farley, Barengayabo, et al., “‘I feel like I’m still living under apartheid’: Racialized Sexual Exploitation of 100 Women in South African Prostitution”)

While bourgeois feminist researchers can come up with no actual method of abolishing prostitution, they can be useful insofar as their data can be verified. Socialism, meanwhile, has direct means of both fighting and abolishing prostitution successfully.

According to Lenin, “no amount of ‘moral indignation’ (hypocritical in 99 cases out of 100) about prostitution can do anything against this trade in female flesh; so long as wage-slavery exists, inevitably prostitution too will exist. All the oppressed and exploited classes throughout the history of human societies have always been forced (and it is in this that their exploitation consists) to give up to their oppressors, first, their unpaid labor and, second, their women as concubines for the ‘masters.’”

The great socialist projects’ approaches to combating and abolishing prostitution

“We are now approaching a social revolution in which the economic foundations of monogamy as they have existed hitherto will disappear just as surely as those of its complement—prostitution.”

—Engels, Origin of the Family

“Not only have the people in the Soviet Union abolished prostitution, but wherever the people have become the dominant economic power, even in part of the country, they have abolished prostitution, for example in the districts in China controlled by the people’s movements.”

—Mary Inman, In Woman’s Defense

Engels was speaking of a hypothetical socialist revolution, but one that would inevitably take place based on a concrete analysis of concrete conditions. This social revolution would erupt in Russia in 1917 and have world-changing consequence:

“The workers’ revolution in Russia has shattered the basis of capitalism and has struck a blow at the former dependence of women upon men. All citizens are equal before the work collective. They are equally obliged to work for the common good and are equally eligible to the support of the collective when they need it. A woman provides for herself not by marriage but by the part she plays in production and the contribution she makes to the people’s wealth.” (Kollontai, “Prostitution and Ways of Fighting It”)

Kollontai—understanding that society maintained much of its old superstructure post-revolution as well as widespread conditions of economic hardship, low productive capacity, and other difficulties resulting from the still-developing economic base—firmly grasped that the revolution, while having abolished the main causes of these things (private property, etc.) still had much to do in the struggle against prostitution that persisted in these conditions.

She took up the charge to lead the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in this effort:

“Some people might say that since prostitution will have no place once the power of the workers and the basis of communism are strengthened, no special campaign is necessary. This type of argument fails to take into account the harmful and disuniting effect that prostitution has on the construction of a new communist society.”

The above quotation should be particularly salient for Maoists who grasp that revolution must continue under the dictatorship of the proletariat to align society with the new socialist base.

She further insisted that the prostitution that persisted under the proletarian dictatorship posed a great risk to social unity, to class unity, and to the economic construction of the Soviet Union. Her position was that prostitution was a private enterprise running counter to the workers’ republic and hence had to be abolished.

And great changes had indeed begun to take place in the workers’ republic, revolutionizing both the base and the superstructure. Merchants of any sort were now considered speculators, and all citizens were to be involved in productive labor. Kollontai writes,

“We do not, therefore, condemn prostitution and fight against it as a special category but as an aspect of labor desertion. To us in the workers’ republic it is not important whether a woman sells herself to one man or to many, whether she is classed as a professional prostitute selling her favors to a succession of clients or as a wife selling herself to her husband. All women who avoid work and do not take part in production or in caring for children are liable, on the same basis as prostitutes, to be forced to work.”

In the period of tsarist Russia, just prior to the revolution, prostitution was regulated but not illegal. There was punishment for procuring and pimping but not for prostitution. The revolution stepped in to shake the world and change everything. This included the lives of women in prostitution, who were now to be provided productive jobs.

Given that the conditions which give rise to prostitution were being combated, and that former prostitutes were undergoing political education and engaged in labor, prostitution could not remain the force that it had been in tsarist Russia. Women were mobilized in Soviet society, and prostitution did not come back in force until capitalist restoration post-Khrushchev.

China, having the oldest brothels in the world, surpassing even those of the Netherlands, had much to accomplish after Liberation in 1949, approaches developed in the liberated areas, where prostitution had been abolished must now be applied country wide. Pre-revolutionary China, like tsarist Russia, had only regulated prostitution rather than legally banning it. In pre-revolutionary China there were “licensed prostitutes,” who were some of the worst victims of social oppression. These were called “mist and flower maidens.” After the victory of the revolution, these women were provided lodging and education in socialist reformatories. Most crucially, these women were liberated and taught the differences between the old and new societies.

One of the first acts of the socialist State in the People’s Republic of China was the abolition of old marriage laws that treated women as the property of their husbands. The overthrow of these laws benefited the former prostitutes, many of whom were women and children sold into lives of sexual slavery by husbands or fathers trying to avoid starvation. The liberation of China from the yoke of imperialist and colonial domination reverberated through all of Chinese society (and in fact throughout the whole world), with Mao’s great declaration that “women hold up half the sky” signaling a new age where women would come to carry out half of production.

The women’s movement found its continuation and further flourished in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, when Jiang Qing helped to lead an assault on the old culture, which at best portrayed women as little more than accomplices to male revolutionaries—and at worst as property. Notably, this can be seen in the remake of the Chinese classic “The Bride with White Hair,” wherein the heroine, instead of relying on a male soldier as in the original, sees to her own liberation. And the old society’s conceptions of prostitution came under similar attack.

With the persecution of Comrade Jiang and her three comrades, who represented the Communist line against the reactionary line of Deng Xiaoping and his clique, came an assault on the women’s movement of an even greater magnitude than the one that occurred in the US.

Among many other comparable measures, Deng removed women from such jobs as factory worker and train driver and threw them into office administrator positions.[13] Gendered labor that had been combated during the Cultural Revolution found its full expression in the Deng years.[14] Sex-based advertising and prostitution made a big comeback.[15] Female stereotyping made a return even in children’s books, training a new generation for the restored capitalist mode of production.[16] The Japanese film Yearning for Home that depicted prostitutes was aired on state TV and defended by the Dengite-run Beijing Review against critics who insisted that the film harmed young women and ran counter to the revolution. The old operas that had been banned—ones like “The Drunken Beauty,” about an emperor and his concubines—were performed at the Peking Opera. Pornography and prostitution were restored with capitalism.

Of course, the existing People’s Wars in Peru, Turkey, India, and the Philippines provide living examples of how to regard prostitution, how to end it in Communist-controlled base areas, and how to organize women out of the trade and into the People’s Army. Unlike bourgeois or imperialist armies, People’s Armies have no need for prostitution in “boosting the morale” of male troops, and so bands of prostitutes do not follow the soldiers. People’s soldiers are upstanding and fortified against such low behavior.

Before becoming a full-blown revisionist, Parvati described the effect of People’s War on the women peasants of Nepal:

“People’s War has given a revolutionary alternative life to young aspiring men and women. Women’s lives, particularly in rural areas, are so monotonous, set in a repeated pattern of reproductive activities. [With] marriage being arranged at much younger age[s], they have no way of escaping from this beaten track life cycle. For aspiring women to venture out of village means almost getting trapped into prostitution or being trafficked to India (it is estimated that about 150,000 women from Nepal are trafficked to urban centers of India!) or are trapped to [low-paying] sweat shops where sexual harassment is rampant. Thus for such aspiring women, the People’s War offers them [a] challenging opportunity to work side by side with men on equal term[s] and to prove their worth mentally and physically.” (“Women’s Participation in People’s War in Nepal”)

Conclusion

Many apologists for prostitution refuse to hear analysis on the question from anyone who is not “a sex worker.” Others still will claim that they are or have been “sex workers” themselves, and are therefore beyond the need for an objective class analysis. Few have actually studied the economic forces behind prostitution, getting deeper into what is actually being bought and sold, who owns the business, what class forces are in contradiction, and so on. Many still refuse to explore prostitution as an economic phenomenon—one occurring in a world in the thrall of imperialism at that. They have (likely before even reading this article) come to the conclusion that the only possible criticisms of prostitution are moral ones, ones that intend to stigmatize the prostitute for daring to defy the chastity sometimes imposed on women. Like the bourgeois religious hypocrite, they cannot fathom prostitution beyond moral objection—morality is the only framework they can find.

As discussed above, Marxists, unlike any of the above-mentioned camps, do not view prostitution (or almost anything else) in terms of morality, but in terms of class struggle—this means we criticize on the basis of an economic analysis. It is, after all, economic conditions that provide impulse to the trade in the first place. Moral objection does not rate here.

There are those who will say they are Marxists, but that they are “not dogmatists”—thereby justifying their clean break with 200 years of analysis on the matter. They may not be dogmatic Marxists, but they are dogmatists nonetheless: dogmatists of postmodernism, of identity politics, of third-wave feminism, and other degenerate bourgeois ideology. They do not so much object to the conclusions of Marxism (at least not most of the time), and they may even have a strong dislike of capitalism. What they oppose is the Marxist method—the same method that is universal and ever-improving, which has led comrades throughout history to develop clear lines on the matter of prostitution. This method and framework for analysis has been sharpened through discovery and mainly through violent class struggle. It has made new discoveries (a scientific analysis of modern imperialism, an understanding of the necessity and forms of proletarian dictatorship, cultural revolution, etc.) along the way. None of the apologists of prostitution can offer a single development, discovery, or condition that fundamentally alters the historic Marxist analysis of prostitution.

Marxists have never understood prostitution as simply the plight of “fallen women” who were just “raised wrong” in slums or other harmful conditions. Marxism has never sought to blame women for the conditions that force them into prostitution. Yet accusing all critics of prostitution of this thinking is the knee-jerk reaction of the apologist. This is the only response they can imagine from those who do not see the trade as “empowering” or “a job like any other.” No job, legal or illegal in the capitalist system, is empowering; all jobs without exception are alienating.

So how do the sanitizers of anti-woman violence come to their distorted views? Well, when an adventurous and impulsive petty-bourgeois dilettante, like one of Mae West’s characters, willingly chooses “sex work” (as a growing number of petty-bourgeois people are claiming) and finds the “stigma” to be the only uncomfortable part, all while never experiencing the raw and inhuman degradation that is imposed on most women in these trades—her goal can only be to sanitize the whole thing. In their attempts to be seen as better than the majority, they work to rebrand any trade that has to do with sex or that has been sexualized—now framing entertainers and performers and even enslaved women as “workers,” now not only defending prostitution as a trade but even preaching its virtue to anyone they can guilt into listening. Some of them will even insist against all reason that these trades must be allowed to continue under the socialist system. But, of course, a socialist society cannot “legalize” or “nationalize” prostitution without the state becoming a pimp. These women who claim that “sex work” empowers them, at the same time, are acknowledging that regular working-class jobs are disempowering. This speaks volumes about their class stand and ambitions, and their detestation of the working class. They would rather be sexually exploited than engage in production alongside the proletariat—these can only be considered sham Marxists, and likened to compradors among women. For these it is not economic poverty or low social status or colonialism that drives them to the trade—it is the mere threat, faced by all petty bourgeoisie, of forced integration into the proletariat. They are in solidarity with the rest of their class in labor desertion.

Feminism emerged with dual aspects of progress and reaction. It has existed with these contradictions ever since and has principally become a tool of the bourgeoisie, in a buffet of bourgeois feminisms. The worst of these take facets of women’s oppression and simply re-dress them as their opposites, women’s empowerment. Now the most degrading trades imposed upon women are the most championed. The petty-bourgeois sex adventurist will brag about making more than the stupid women at work in maid service, food service, transportation, and factory work. She will say that she is smarter and has managed to get out of the rat race. She identifies her trade as labor desertion, and she is correct. But she is incorrect that this somehow makes her choice the correct one while the women of the proletariat are just sheep. It is one thing to have an incorrect idea—it is another to spread it like gospel.

The petty-bourgeois sex-capitalist has nothing in common with working women. She lives a life of bourgeois decadence and is a commercial for misogyny. She insists that it is a good and normal thing for women to be able to be rented. She gives men a fair price, so as to reproduce the idea within themselves and among men broadly, that women are a commodity. All the women who struggle against this collectively form a sort of picket line, and the petty-bourgeois sex-capitalist gleefully crosses it. She is uninhibited.

For the Communist in the women’s struggle, the line is perfectly clear: we must serve the people. Inman writes,

“The struggle against prostitution is the struggle against the capitalist class. Since prostitution has an economic basis and the woman enters it because of economic insecurity, one form of the struggle must be economic: demands for a living wage for all women who work.

And for those denied a role in industry or social production, either directly or indirectly in legitimate service, demands must be raised that they be given compensation. Social production in general must be made to bear the responsibility of their support until such a time as they can be given a part in such work.

But an effective struggle against prostitution must also attack and expose the whole cynical, decadent moral structure that supports sex-subjugation, and the role of sex vigilantes who then dog the footsteps of subject women.” (Inman, In Woman’s Defense)

Thus our aim is not to stigmatize the women forced into prostitution but to justify their liberation from slavery with a Marxist class analysis.

Article by Kavga

Notes

Sarah Handley-Cousins, “Prostitutes!” National Museum of Civil War Medicine website.

Melissa Gira Grant, “When Prostitution Wasn’t a Crime,” AlterNet.

rights4girls.org, “Racial & Gender Disparities in the Sex Trade.”

Devon D. Brewer, John J. Potterat, and Stephen Q. Muth, “Clients of Prostitute Women.”

Matthias Gafni, “Oakland Police Scandal: How Often Are Cops Having Sex with Prostitutes?” Mercury News (Bay Area).

Jo-Anne Madeleine Stoltz, Kate Shannon, Thomas Kerr, et al., “Associations between Childhood Maltreatment and Sex Work in a Cohort of Drug-Using Youth,” Social Science & Medicine 65, no. 6, 1214–21.

Janie Har, “Is the Average Age of Entry into Sex Trafficking between 12 and 14 Years Old?” PolitiFact; Emi Koyama, “The Average Age of Entry into Prostitution Is NOT 13,” eminism.com.

Howard N. Snyder, “Arrest in the United States, 1990-2010,” U.S. Dept. of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Erin Fuchs, “Atlanta’s Underground Sex Trade Is Booming,” Business Insider.

Melissa Farley, “Risks of Prostitution,” Journal of the Association for Consumer Research 3, no. 1, 97–108.

Meredith Dank, Bilal Khan, P. Mitchell Downey, et al. “Estimating the Size and Structure of the Underground Commercial Sex Economy in Eight Major US Cities,” Urban Institute.

Barbara Kavemann, “Findings of a Study on the Impact of the German Prostitution Act,” Social Science Women’s Research Institute at the Protestant University of Applied Sciences Freiburg.

Hong Guo, “The Impacts of Economic Reform on Women in China,” MA thesis, University of Regina, 1997.

New Vistas Publications, Women in the Chinese Revolution (1921–1950).

Elaine Jeffreys, China, Sex and Prostitution.

New Vistas Publications, Women in the Chinese Revolution.

43 notes · View notes

sapphicmsmarvel · 4 years

Text

“That’s my wife”

Carol:

Carol, your beautiful, amazing, powerful wife, asked you to pick up some papers from the Avengers Tower, you had never been to the city so you were eager to leave as quickly as possible.

Tony's A.I. (whatever the hell that was) took you up to the floor they were on, he apparently he told her you were coming and she did some facial recognition to let you into the building.

When you walked into the floor the avengers were around the corner in some room, before you walked in you scanned the room with your X-Ray vision through the wall. In the room was Peter Parker, Tony Stark, Wanda Maximoff, Clint, Steve Rogers and James Buchanan Barnes. You recalled their names from the file that you had read on them, you wanted to know names when meeting them for the first time.

You heard Clint ask, "why are you cleaning?" It was Tony's voice you heard next, "because Carols wife is coming by to pick up some documents. And I enjoy Carols company and I'm excited to meet her wife so don't be an ass." Tony scolded. "Ugh, thank god its not Carol." Your blood sizzled, what was that in his tone. The little incompetent ass.

You heard Clint huff, "Carols such a show off."

You rolled your eyes, of course, when a woman does it, she's a show off but you don't say him saying that about any of the guys.

"She's not that much of one." Wanda said, folding her arms, her eyes becoming a steel gaze on Clint. Tony was just giving him a look. The rest of them all looked annoyed.

"Yeah, what's your deal?" Peter asked getting defensive. You rose your brows in surprise, Carol mentioned Peter Parker, the timid 16 year old who never "fought back". Your heart warmed at the idea of him sticking up for her.

She told you he was a good kid, and she was right.

"I don't care, it's annoying." He sighed. Hearing enough of the woman you were lucky enough to call your wife.

You stepped around the corner, "yet if she was a man, you'd say she was a powerful badass." You glared, holding your powers back from hurting someone.

"And who are you?" He snapped, not liking being called out for his bullshit. You smiled, "her wife. Y/N L/N-Danvers. I would say it was nice to meet you but I was raised not to lie."

You saw Tony look at you with a look of approval, the rest of them laughed and you asked, "papers?" He gestured to Steve who handed you the thick folder. Steve asked you, "you staying for a while?" You shook your head, "nah, I have a beautiful wife at home. But I promise we'll stop by in the future." With one warning glance at Clint who was sitting wordlessly, jaw slightly dropped. You said your goodbyes, spun on your heel and walked out. You were stiff as a board, head held high and heeled boots clicking you exited the room.

With your super-hearing you heard someone smack something, "nice going dumbass, way to make a first person." The voice was husky and not filled with laughter.

You grinned to yourself and flew home to your wife.

Wanda: Amica mia= my love

Being on missions with Wanda was both a blessing and a curse. There were times where one of you had to be the "catfish" or "slut" in order to get answers, usually you were the one who volunteered, much to Wanda's dismay.

"You give the signal when you need it, don't hesitate, please amica mia." "I know what to do Wanda, this isn't my first time." You smiled gently, kissing her head.

As the others set up, Bucky and Sam were your escorts into the club. Bucky's arm was hidden within his suit and his droid thing was waiting in the shadows for an attack.

Bucky elbowed you, "Wanda doesn't like this." He told you in russian.

You shrugged gently, "I'd rather be out here than her. Besides, I have my wife and my friends looking out for me, I'm not too bothered." You responded back, you smiled a pearly white look at the guard. As three walked by, he stopped your guards.

"Please sir," you said in a russian accent, "I'm new, and these are my guides, surely... you don't mind." You angled your body so your cleavage was on display and you gave him a hundred dollars.

He let you three in without another word. As you two walked away, Wanda's voice was in your head, I want to hurt him.

Oh relax, you said back, all in a days work my love.

You didn't mind doing this, it saved lives, you being the bait. You would rather be out there than Wanda, but you knew exactly where she was in the bar. She was by the bar, keeping an eye out. You didn't find any shame in being the bait, in fact it was empowering in a way. You knew exactly what you were supposed to do and you were good at what you did.

Bucky and Sam went to their corners to watch and wait for the bait. All you were to the "client" was a prostitute who had information, Stark managed to sell your profile as a valuable person who slept with his enemy. The clients, not Stark.

You felt a hand brush your shoulder, and it took everything in your power to not tense up.

That's him. Wanda said to you, you forced yourself to become neutral as the asshole walked and sat next to you.

"Hi, beautiful." He was slimy and gross.

You forced your sweet girl smile, "hello."

You two talked and talked so much that you felt like you were losing brain cells, listening to this pathetic man drone on and on about how hard his life was. You were patiently nodding your head and then suggested to go to the back room.

He anxiously followed, you ignored the fact that he popped a viagra, you tried not to roll your eyes again.

Men like this, liked dominance, you pinned him against the wall and let your thigh rub against his crotch. "I just have a few questions, sweetheart."

"I have the answers." He moaned out, his vodka breath making you wince.

Of course your technique revolved around getting him to talk about his kinks and make him vulnerable. You held a knife up against his throat, "now tell me where the bombs are?" You hissed.

He popped his eyes open to find the knife against his throat, "what- You bitch." He pushed you away, he was a lot stronger and a lot less drunk than you anticipated. He managed to get a knife out and slice your face which caused you to cry out. Luckily, your wife wasn't too far away.

You saw a blur of red come between you and him, Bucky and Sam followed in suit. They knew not to help you or check to see if you were okay, then let the asshole know about vulnerabilities.

"That bitch." Wanda hissed, "is my wife, and you will treat her with respect." Red flared around her arms, and you felt a kernel of her power rest around your waist. Not demanding you to be near her, but more like a warning, marking her territory.

Which you weren't gonna lie, you loved.

You four managed to get him into a quinjet and brought him to Fury.

Eventually you got him to talk about bombs and all the plans for future attacks, you two retired to your quarters and you looked in the mirror. The jagged red line was flaring down your face. She walked up behind you, "sit down." You leaned against the counter, she wet a cloth and grabbed the antiseptic, something that works fast that Banner came up with it.

You tried not to flinch as she rubbed the wound clean. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine, just a scratch." You said.

"It's not fine, he should be in pain for laying a hand on you."

"Imagine the other girls he did this to. We know he hurt others."

"Exactly, they didn't have a team." She put a bandage on the cut. "I know better than telling you to not do it anymore just..." she put her forehead on yours, "I love you very much."

"I love you too." You smiled and kissed her.

Maria:

Nobody except Fury knew you existed. They had worked hard to make sure you and Maria's home was off the of SHIELDS grid.

Then one day, you decided to surprise her at work, you were tired of being the secret wife, even though you didn't mind it at first. But, you wanted to meet the Avengers and help them out every once and a while or just be their friend.

It got lonely.

You showed up with a bunch of freshly baked cookies to a meeting, you greeted the other agents with a smile even though they didn't know who you were.

"Hiya!" "Y/N, what're you....what're you doing here?" Maria asked, panic evident in her voice. "I wanted to visit you and Nick, the farm gets lonely." You shrugged and set cookies down on the table, "feel free to grab any!"

Of course they all went for your homemade snickerdoodles. Your smile was so bright as you talked to them that Maria couldn't even be mad.

"Who is she?" Banner asked her. "That's my wife." Maria said smiling as she ignored his look while she walked up to you and kissed you full on the lips.

She tasted the cinnamon sugar from your lips and felt your soft hands on her cheeks. You guys pulled away, you blushed at the attention from the Avengers while she smiled proudly, pulling you by the waist closer to her.

"Everybody, this is my wife, Y/N."

Natasha: This mission scared you, Nat had gotten shot a few months back, nearly lost her life and now she was back in the field with you. You felt better that you were with her but it was still scary.

You honestly should be used to it by now.

You two were with a group of people who refused to do the dirty work themselves and saying how you and Nat "had to" because you were more experienced.

"Here's the thing, dumbass," you said, "to get more experienced you have to actually do stuff and not let anyone do anything for you. I know you're used to mommy and daddy handing you everything but that isn't how this shit works." You hissed.

You didn't have to look at Natasha to know she was biting back a smile. She loved when you got feisty and you really took the point home with him.

"You can't talk to me like that you bitch." "Hey, that's my wife you're talking about," Natasha snapped, "and she can talk to you however she damn well pleases." Natasha snapped.

They all went quiet, "yeah you see how its quiet?" She asked, "I want that same reaction when she talks. Understood?"

It was quiet so she repeated, "I said, understood?"

They all nodded and she looked at you, "great." You clapped, "go get your gear! Now!"

They scattered and she looked at you, "sexy L/N." She said wrapping her arms around your waist, "I like when you get in charge." She said kissing your cheek.

You shrugged, "you're welcome I guess." You laughed.

Shuri: (Shuri is 23)

Shuri and you had been married for six months, yet the Royal Council didn't see your advice fit in situations, despite the fact that both King T'challa and Princess Shuri vouched for you.

You said how people in Wakanda needed more same-sex education when it came to sex because you had to go on YouTube to find out how to practice safe sex. They got all upset because A. you said sex and B. they didn't wanna listen.

They kept blowing you off and you just sighed sitting in your seat, Shuri noticed this and held your hand.

One of the Elders had asked, "any more comments?" "Yes, actually." Shuri said standing up, "when my wife says something, you listen , understood?"

They nodded, afraid of Shuri for once because they had never seen the young queen mad, Shuri looked at you, "my love?"

You smiled, and continued with what you were trying to say, the Elders hanging on your every word.

Sorry shuri's is so short! I lost momentum.

852 notes · View notes

tricky-ghoul · 3 years

Text

Why is “peeking at his first playboy” and “watching his first porn”, objectifying women and frat boy culture “railing as many girls as possible”, so celebrated by men as “teen boys crossing over to manhood” or “rite of passage”?

Why is “manhood” defined as getting lots of sex and male r@peyness so celebrated, then the society expect women and teen girls to “not be coerced or r-ped” and luckily stay virgins even though guys can force themselves on women and bully them for prudishness if the girls they want to hit on aren’t “sluts for male attention”?!

And they expect their crap to work out? Male logic and double standards are so destructive. Serious q, why

The only explanation I can come up with for why sexual prowess and promiscuity is praised in men by men, is that innate mammal need to spread their seed. Despite realizing the consequences (unwanted pregnancy, STDs etc), I think men still have a built in desire to copulate as much as possible just to propagate the species, which has snowballed into the mess we deal with today. That innate desire never went away, we’re animals, society fed it through the decades, we revolutionized sex, made it “empowering” to be overtly sexual, and now the monster has more fuel than it could ever need. Porn is a drug. The things it does to our psyche, especially the male psyche, is exactly like a drug. Men on porn are fiendish in the same way a heroin addict would do anything for the next hit. A lot of boys and men are getting sucked into abusing that drug in the exact same ways someone gets hooked on harsh chemicals. Porn is doing just as much silent insidious damage as it’s doing obvious damage through things like prostitution and trafficking.

I also think women are expected to cater to men, care for them, mother them, feed their every desire. It’s what society created, but I think a lot of women have their own built in need to just care, way too hard. I know I do. Sometimes it’s hard to realize you’re going out of your way to care for someone’s “needs” more than your own. We often want to keep the peace, can end up stuck in something toxic, give him what he wants cause it’s often safer and easier than standing up. Being expected to care at such a level creates an expectation that we’re responsible in a similar way to how a parent is responsible for the behavior of their child. To the extent that we’re responsible for their crimes when they’re committed against us, on every level. The victim could have prevented the rape. According to my ex-husband, it was my fault that he continued to use porn. I was too skinny, didn’t show enough skin, didn’t give enough head, didn’t cater to his every whim. So it was my fault. 🙄

I think the things you’ve mentioned are some of the reasons why radical feminism is so important. There’s a lot of ideas humans have had for so long about what it means to be a male or female, what is expected of you, what you should do if you want to be desirable or a good girlfriend or wife. Feminism has tried to fight back and say, no, we’re capable of a lot more than that and were not interested in catering to your sexual needs. The exploitation happens in slight, and it happens on a grand scale, and everything in between. All we can do is keep speaking up in every way possible, fight in all the ways we can safely fight, keep defending our boundaries, support each other and look out for the safety of our fellow women. Educating women and girls, especially younger girls that are just entering the age of dating, is sooo vital. How many girls would refuse a guy that enjoys porn if they realized what it would mean for their relationship? It’s so rare to find someone who hasn’t been brainwashed by porn! The more we draw lines, the more likely things can change, and that’s all I can really hope for.

#submission

5 notes · View notes

scarmander · 5 years

Text

Women, power and anger

An analysis of Game of Throne’s misogyny regarding Daenerys Targaryen in the last two seasons.

This is a very long rant. It’s over 4000 words. I needed to get this off my chest because it helps with my grieving process.

A quick summary: I try to figure out when the show decided they wanted to go with the ‘Mad Queen’ bullshit theory. I try to undertand why they’ve done her so dirty lately. Spoiler alert. It’s not pretty.

So, if you want to know

Game of Thrones has been known for its brutality, its shocking twists and deaths and ruthless scriptwriting. It is also known for having ‘strong’ female characters amidst broken journeys and fallen heroes. In a sea of raped, enslaved, prostituted and belittled women our female protagonists were born. From those patriarchaly imposed positions of subordination Daenerys Stormborn, Yara Greyjoy, Missandei of Naath, Brienne of Tarth, Sansa Stark and Arya Stark were hatched from the fossilized shells of the broken bodies and souls the male characters had made of them. They rose from their own ashes, time and time again, made themselves stronger with every blow men would throw their way. We watched them grow, evolve, fear, feel, fail and win for years, watched them become more than what their society wanted them to be, more than what they were allowed to be. They became rule-breakers, game changers, rulers and warriors. But that was until the show had decided that the end was coming and everything ought to be put back into order. The patriarchal one, that is.

It is my belief that everything changed the moment when Daenerys Targaryen, undoubtedly the most empowered and powerful woman on this show, decided to sail for Westeros with her fleet, three female allies (Yara Greyjoy, Ellaria Sand, Olenna Tyrell), the three dragons she had given birth to and the ‘largest army the world had ever seen’. Imagine the audacity of a woman accomplishing all of that. So, it is on this character that I will put my focus on, I’m also super fucking biased, but whatever, I would gladly do an entire essay on how they’re ruining every female character in this show. Anyway, back to Dany T. main female protagonist, the woman with the most amount of screen time (behind the two male protagonists Jon and Tyrion).

Let’s talk about the audience’s opinion of Daenerys. Truth be told, Daenerys’ influence and might as a character has already greatly surpassed the show’s realm, and that for a very long time. Even in the first seasons where she didn’t actually get that much screen time, she made a mark. And she has grown increasingly more so over the years. She has become an icon of pop culture to the point where people who are unfamiliar with the show recognize her. Now, this might have in part been facilitated by her peculiar looks and strange-sounding name, but Daenerys Targaryen is known worldwide for having power. She is primarily known for one thing: she has dragons. She’s the Dragon Queen, the Mother of Dragons. And those dragons are the physical representation of her inner strength. The only reason she has those dragons is because she walked into her husband’s funeral pyre and hatched them from stone like she hatched herself out of the stony shell of a weary, fearful teenage girl the world had forced her into being. And out of that pyre came out dragons and a woman with so much might the world watched in awe. Some people may call her Khaleesi, an unusual title which has stuck into people’s minds to the point where non-watchers recognize the title as her name. She is the most recognizable character in the show to the point where her hair colour has been a trend that has become every hair stylist’s worst nightmare, where people have named their children and pets after her and her title. She is also noticeably the show’s best marketing strategy, she is the one with the most personally dedicated amount of merchandising, and is relentlessly used by HBO’s marketing team to promote the show. But I digress. Sort of. The amount of power her character has both on and off-screen is indisputable and is probably what led us to the gigantic mess that has been season 8. She has too much power. Even away from the show’s narrative. She has had an impact on women. She has marked us, branded us with her might. And the show does not know how to handle this.

So, Daenerys, one of the most iconic female characters of this generation goes to Westeros. Unluckily for her, her arrival into Westeros also coincided into her arriving into the male protagonist’s territory. And that was the show’s last straw in deciding to let women have that much power. This is her fatal flaw, existing in the same realm as the male protagonist. The writers realized right then and there that they had greatly miscalculated. Because of how much power they had let Daenerys accumulate over the years she had spent far far away from the male protagonist’s character arc, she had become a threat to the sacred male character’s hero journey. See, that��s the issue with having a strong female character that you let grow into her own power for 7 seasons, where she is free to go into conflict with men after men after men who all share the same unlucky traits: they are all both non-white and not the main male protagonist. So, Daenerys brings them all to their doom, they try to tackle her, try to diminish her, take her power away. They try, all of them, so many times. And they all inevitably fail. Because she is powerful. And men and women alike bow to her when they realize her might and her power. She is a goddess incarnate, dragons or not. She is so powerful fire dares not harm her. She is unique, mystical, mythical and strong. And not only is she powerful and strong, she is beloved by her people, her own soldiers follow her not out of fear but out of complete devotion, because she frees them, gives them the freedom she had wished someone would give her and finally realized she had to give to herself. She is a woman. She is their mother. She has power. She frees people, loves them, inspires them and has so much power the world shakes beneath her feet and fire fears her wrath.

And then comes season 7, along with Jon Snow, D&D, and Tyrion’s shitty battle plans. Whatever, it’s all one and the same. It’s all there to take her out piece by piece. That’s it, that’s been the show for two seasons now and I wish I had realized it earlier. I mean, I had my moments of realization here and there, but damn was I severely unprepared.

In Season 7 episode 2, Daenerys has a council made up of 4 women (Olenna, Ellaria, Yara, Missandei) and 3 men (Varys, Tyrion, Theon – and I’m only including Theon out of pity). By episode 3, Daenerys has 1 woman – Missandei, who unlike the other women does not advise her on military tactics – left in her council, and just as many men. Hell, by episode 5, she has gained three more men who ‘advise’, or more accurately question her every move. Jorah (I mean not you bby, come back to us), Jon and Davos, who is more of a comic relief personal pep-talker than anything else. But Varys and Tyrion’s advice grows like ivy and tries to strangle Daenerys from every angle. They try to control her more and more with every episode.

How the hell did I not notice right there and then where this was going? I don’t know, call me blinded by love.

How the hell did Daenerys end up with so few women left in her council? Men happened. The writers, the characters, all of them. That is literally the first thing they did to her storyline in season 7. It went something like this:

1) Get Daenerys to Dragonstone.

2) Get Ellaria and Yara out and destroy some of those ships, she has too many ships, that’s bad, can’t have her be too powerful.

3) Get Olenna out, but like, not at the exact same time because that would be too conspicuous, let’s wait another episode or two. Oh, and take out some of those Unsullied soldiers and even more of her fleet.

4) After one fucking badass battle let’s kill two random traitor assholes who have sided with the queen who murdered their former queen and daughter of their liege lord, their liege lord, their liege lord’s son and a good chunk of King’s Landing’s population on the field of battle who have refused her generous offer to get their titles and lands back if they just join her against the murderous queen. And also that one offer of going to the wall to protect the realm. They refuse. She kills them. Tough luck, bitch. Bad choice, should have probably offered them a cup of tea and a warm blanket instead as they went back to King’s Landing to fight you and kill your army at their nearest convenience. You fucked up because idk, Dickon was kinda hot I guess. Yeah and also they have names and one relative people know on the show, so that’s bad for you. Randyll and Dickon Tarly. You don’t know it yet, but this one is gonna be bad for you because you are now evil and your hand and his shitty bff are now saying you are mad. Maybe you should have been, maybe you should have killed them both too. If only. Sigh.

5) Have her lose a dragon. Give it to the Night King instead, she is too powerful.

6) Have her fall in love with the man who would bring her doom. Have her save his life. Have her think that maybe she deserves something good as she grieves her child’s death. They decide he’s the one who is going to kill her. Because having her become mad isn’t bad enough. She has to be killed by the one man she has let herself love not out of obligation but out of mutual admiration.

7) Make her promise to help defeat the Night King and go North to fight him.

Now, they take all that away from her. But they give her a love story with Jon Snow in return. And you think, alright, at least she’s not alone in this world.

And then we move on to season 8. The ultimate acceleration of events because they realized that they needed to wrap this shit up and that people didn’t hate her enough. So, Season 8 is where you learn that the plot twist to end them all was that Jon Snow was going to be the one who destroyed everything Daenerys has and is and will be the death of her. Groundbreaking work there. I wonder if GRRM has the same ending planned. So here’s the plan in Season 8:

1) Get Daenerys to WinterHell. Everyone is behaving like assholes. Bran is a cold little bitch who’s like “remember your dragon? Your dead dragon? He’s back and now he wants us all dead yayyy” and she has like zero seconds to process it because ‘we don’t have time for all this’. But you know what we have time for? Sansa hating her. The xenophobic MAGAs hating her. That’s valuable screentime. Sansa hates her for daring to bring her SoLdIeRs to her HoUsE and her DrAgOnS who she can’t believe are there to fight. Sansa brings up food issues when she knows the wall has been breached and the Night King is bound to arrive very shortly. She knows Daenerys isn’t going to stay here very long. Doesn’t matter. She (the writers) wants to be angry and petty and so she is. Because we couldn’t possibly have women collaborating on this show. Not after last season! Notice how they left out every single woman in Dany’s circle? Cause who would want THAT. Am I right MEN? I hope the meninists are having a good time.

2) Jon doesn’t comfort her much, doesn’t defend her much. He’s there. Like, he’s a physical man who barely says anything and is there. His purpose is to be… There, I guess. Good for him. He has everyone’s support anyway. He’s a man and he’s there. That’s all they ask of him. He’s not formally the King but he is the King anyway. He has the power. He makes the decisions. He’s a man.

3) Daenerys gives Jon access to her dragon. The one she gave metaphorical birth to. The one she walked into a pyre for. He has it. He has access to her power.

4) Jon now knows who he is. The man who tells him is that one relative of the family that Daenerys killed last season. He hates her. He tells Jon to take her throne, that it’s his anyway because he’s a man. He says that Daenerys is evil and should bend the knee to him. Jon then ignores Daenerys for at least an entire day while she has to face the man who killed her father, made her a homeless orphan on the run who lived on the streets, in fear, running away from assassins. She is angry but listens to a woman’s tale about him, asks for Jon’s opinion on the matter. She lets him have the decision.

5) The Night King comes. Daenerys’ armies are first in line and defend WinterHell with everything they have. Daenerys herself is first in line. Jon Snow wants to wait around. Daenerys has a sudden jolt of independence run through her spine, claims back her own authority and climbs on her dragon, burns as many wights as she can. Jon Snow follows her mechanically, like a lost puppy, gets attacked by the Night King and Viserion. This injures Rhaegal. Daenerys knocks evil Mr. Freeze down from HER precious bby boy and tries to burn him. It doesn’t work. She saves Jon’s life a second time in the process. And then a third, risking her and her dragon’s life for him. She ends up on the ground, with her oldest friend with a sword made of dragonglass and fights for her life. Her oldest friend dies in her arms.

6) And so it goes down from here.

This is the moment you’d think SOMEONE somewhere would show the tiniest fucking bit of sympathy, of gratitude. And they don’t.

What we got instead in Episode 4 was Daenerys being alone as Jon was being praised for her accomplishments. Jon falls upward as Daenerys faces consequences for her actions, good or bad, it doesn’t matter. Daenerys faces consequences because the show wants her to. She is alone. She begs Jon not to tell anyone about his ‘rightful claim’. He betrays her and tells his family. She has warned him Sansa can’t be trusted. Turns out Sansa can’t be trusted. And on it goes as Sansa, Tyrion and Varys plot behind her back to make sure that Jon falls upward for the uptenth time, Varys even going as far as to suggest killing her. His reason is that she is a woman and he can’t control her. That is Daenerys’ biggest crime on this show. And it won’t let her live it down. Hell, they’ll kill her for it. There is talk of a wedding between Jon and Daenerys. Somehow this is a bad idea because she is too strong and cannot be controlled.

She is too strong. Too much. Too powerful. That is Daenerys’ problem. She is too much and too much of a she. She is a dragon they cannot tame.

7) And just because she hasn’t had enough already they kill another one of her dragons for shock value, out of nowhere, with no purpose whatsoever but to show that they could. That she would be ‘mad’. That this somehow was the point of her character. It feels gross and unjustified.

8) And then, because why the fuck not at this point, fam, they go and execute Missandei. It has no purpose other than to show us that they put a former slave back into chains to kill her, to make Daenerys and Greyworm angry. That is what her life is worth. Her value will be the sum of two other character’s madness level.

And the countdown accelerates.

Let’s go back to when everything changed for Daenerys Targaryen. Let’s go back to Season 7, Episode 3. The moment where Daenerys Targaryen met with Jon Snow, hero extraordinaire, broody, rugged, manly and characteristically lacking of ambition. Jon Snow is a Bildungsroman’s wetdream of a protagonist. A poor little bastard boy hated and mistreated by his (semi-evil) stepmother who somehow rises to great heights despite everything adversity has thrown his way and who somehow ends up being the Chosen One to lead them all out of the darkness and to fight evil. Like Harry Potter, Frodo Baggins, King Arthur and countless other Christ-like figures before him, Jon Snow is good. That’s it, that’s all there is. That’s all you need to know about him, that’s all the story wants you to know about him. He is good. Sure he makes mistakes, but he’s good. He’s killed a child but he had his reasons, he killed a man begging for his life, but he had disobeyed him. He is good. And to top it all off, the lucky bastard just might happen to be a man. He is therefore the Chosen One. He is thus because he is He.

In Season 7, Episode 2 when Melisandre introduced to the audience the show’s own version of an Arthurian prophecy – Azor Ahai or: ‘the prince that was promised will bring the dawn’ – the show had its last inkling of an ability to pretend that they could somehow have a woman be a hero. Daenerys’ only female adviser and personal translator Missandei of Naath (a former slave they had captured and chained last episode just to kill her, in case you’d ever think the only woman of color in this show could die as a free woman) pointed out that that the High Valyrian word for ‘prince’ is genderless and that it could mean that Daenerys might also fit that prophecy. They also introduced the idea that BOTH Daenerys and Jon would play a role in this. I was fine with this. I thought all of their parallels from previous seasons meant that their fates were linked and that they would be two sides of the same coin.

If only the show had stopped right there. If only they hadn’t even tried to bring that up when they didn’t need to, when they didn’t even need to pretend to care. I’m wondering what the purpose of this line was. What was the meaning? A red herring? A last sliver of hope? Their last attempt at trying to pretend women mattered as more than canon fodder to further narratives, as more than bodies to be used and killed for entertainment’s purposes? It doesn’t matter. The very next episode sent off the ticking time bomb on Daenerys’ life.

In Season 7 Episode 3, Daenerys Targaryen met Jon Snow. The writers called it “A meeting of Ice and Fire” continuing on their claim that this is what the entire show had been leading up to, that even in Season 1, GRRM had told them that this was important, that the story was about these two characters coming together. I was pumped. I was rejoicing. The whole meaning of the show was right in front of me. And here’s how it happened: they made Daenerys look smug and entitled, having Jon Snow look humble and measured in comparison and when I watched it, I was taken aback, I didn’t understand what they were doing. I remember thinking that the way they were framing it looked weird because she was just as much of a protagonist as he was. I had been stupid enough to think the show could have a female protagonist when they already had a male protagonist.

The show wanted you to side with Jon Snow. The show wanted to make it clear that if you had to choose between Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow, you would choose Jon Snow. Humble, measured, naïve, male Jon Snow.

The ‘General Audience’ caught onto that. The moment Daenerys’ set her eyes on Jon Snow, she had lost. You should go and have a look on the comments of the Youtube videos of their first meeting. On that day, Daenerys was the villain. She lost that day, because she was in the man’s way. Because she spoke to him and didn’t bow. Because she stood there, fire and might, and didn’t let him take everything from her right on the spot. He was asking her to lay her entire life’s goals aside to help him with nothing in return. She was painted as arrogant for not bending to him and his will on the spot.

If only things had stayed that way. If only she’d stayed ‘arrogant’ and hadn’t let him close. Would she still become ‘mad’? Would she still lose it all anyway to make sure he would get it all in the end? Probably. Because why not? Why would the show give the most powerful woman any other outcome?

I guess the moral of this story is that women are only allowed to have power as long as it doesn’t interfere with a man’s ability to have more power than they do. And isn’t that what Varys has been telling us in the latest episode? That Daenerys and Jon would never be able to rule together because she was too strong for him and would bend him to her will? Because what could be worse than a strong woman having power? A strong woman potentially having power over a man. And so the ticking clock went off on Daenerys’ life. Her time has run out, because the show needs to have the male hero to win over everything, and if he can’t because a woman is in the way of the inherent inevitable male-centric greatness he will stumble and fall into reaching... Well then, it’s the woman’s fault and she angry and mad. So Daenerys will be mad and angry and hysterical and evil and he will kill her. Take that, woman she show tells you. Take that and die. We don’t need you when we have a male protagonist.

In a way, this show will end quite like the fairy tales warned us it would. The white knight, the Chosen One, the Prince that was promised, in his shining armour of goodness will swoop in and kill the evil dragon(Queen) to save the realm. And if this is a fairy tale then the dragon had it coming for daring to stand in the hero’s way. Perhaps the dragon ought to have apologized and stepped aside, perhaps the dragon ought to have known its place. Perhaps the fairy tale’s magic kingdom should have stopped the dragon’s rise before. And they did try. All of those men are knights, even the worst slavers of them all. Knights because they fought the dragon. They died trying to take her down. Perhaps they were right, then to try and defeat her. Perhaps it is sad, after all that the dragon took those poor men down. But it’s alright, the male protagonist will win. Because that’s what he does.

But if this is winning then why does it feel like rage and fire?

Because somehow the dragon is every woman. “You are a dragon” is what this show is telling me, as if that was a bad thing. “You are a dragon. You are too much. You ask too much. We will not bow to you, begone, be slain, you are in the man’s way. You are a hiccup in his rise to greatness. You will be killed prophetically and be swept aside and the hero, the man – the words somehow become synonymous – will inevitably win. And down you will go, defeated and broken. You and your might. You and your will. You and your power. Bow to us, woman, to our will, wishes, words and actions. Bow to us.”

The show wants me and you to know that. The show wants you to see what happens to women who stand in the way of men’s ascension to power, who are too powerful, who are too much for the story to handle. You are a dragon and you will die.

But dragons are fire made flesh risen from the ashes and dragons do not go down without a fight.

In a show that wants women to gaze adoringly at the male protagonists, women like Daenerys Targaryen have no place. They have no place because the show cannot fathom how someone could take her seriously, could value her efforts and her strengths when men are… There. That’s all they need to be.

And from that same patriarchal cesspool of a show/fictional society was also born Cersei Lannister, evil queen incarnate. She was the protagonists’ – male and female – foil, their enemy, and she still is somehow, but she is also apparently doomed to be the female protagonist’s future. Cersei is evil because she has power. Cersei is bad because she is a madwoman. Cersei is all of your fairy tale’s evil spinsters. Cersei is in the way of a man’s greatness. And Cersei is Daenerys’ future as much as she is Sansa’s, or mine or yours. Bow down, women. Or be villains.

And so, in Season 8 Episode 4, as they tried to tear down at the last piece’s of the main female protagonist’s might they ignited the enraged fire that women try to swallow back down with every breath, for fear of being slain for having shown too much power and might. And the audience has never loved Daenerys more than it does now. The audience has done the unexpected. People who hated her now want her to burn the world down. People who already loved her have never wanted her to use her might as much as they do now.

“Dracarys” was Missandei’s last word. The show didn’t seem to realize it was a call to arms. “Women everywhere, join her and burn it down” seems to be the meaning the audience got from Missandei. I wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment.

The show wants me to think that ‘Dracarys’ was meant to take down the Cerseis of the world. It didn’t realize it made me want to take it down.

Maybe the show is right, maybe I, too, am a dragon ready to be slain. But if that’s the case I’m not going down without burning everything to the ground. Try and take me down, assholes.

#daenerys targaryen #a long ass meta #game of thrones #got #anti got #i can't believe i wrote all of that #god where was that person when i was in school and needed to write papers #feminism #pro daenerys

704 notes · View notes

megashadowdragon · 5 years

Text

salems semblance is to drain aura which she can imbue on grimm and a possible evolution for jaunes semblance

salems semblance is how cinders grimm bug/arm can drain the maidens power for the maidens powers are tied to the persons soul/aura which is why oz who would know how the process worked more than anyone thought using the aura transfer machine would work. salem used her semblance to drain aura and gave cinders grimm bug/arm the ability

and she was the one who created the apathy not the god of darkness who created grimm based off the animals the light god made. and they were formed thanks to a combination of salem manipulating the grimm pools and combining it with her semblance ability to drain aura to grant them their ability after all our souls feel and emit emotions so it fits for her to be able to drain emotions/induce apathy along aura after she trains with it

so its a combination of magic and her semblance since if magic allowed her to drain aura then oz should be able to do that as well unless its a result of the grimm pools but if thats the case then wouldnt grimm in general have that ability and she probably cant just grant her grimm any kind of ability she can create new grimm like the flying monkey grimm which are beringels with nevermore wings but she cant give them powers out of nowhere like with her magic and ability with grimm she made some grimm with the ability to breathe fire for she herself is able to use fire magic but the grimm she creates ability to send out a blast of fire can be even greater than her own the leviathan grimm depending on how much she works on creating it with her grimm powers

and salem being able to drain aura also adds to her being jaunes evil counterpart

megashadowdragon . tumblr . com/post/152357996242/salem-is-jaunes-evil-counterpart/embed

for while he can amplify aura she drains it and may foreshadow

jaunes semblance evolving so he can induce emotion to the people around him. He can make people feel anger, rage, hatred, greed, fear, terror, dread, courage, hope, compassion , love, lust, envy, lazy, sad, excited, happy, anxious, confident, grief, etc. He’d terrify his enemies into terrified submission and give immense hope to the masses. or amplify emotions

This makes sense since the historical figure Joan of Arc did rally a lot of the french armies and cleaned up their acts. Once she was given the permission to enter the battle and lead, the French army started becoming victorious

joan of arc had a charismartic personality where she was able to easily raise the morale (and a synonym of morale is spirits) of her soldiers so she was able to raise their spirits

and jaunes semblance is perfect for support and he would help support and empower the people sort of giving them morale

www . stjoan-center . com/military/stephenr . html

“The firsthand sources make clear that the most obvious and stunning impact of Joan’s leadership was the way in which her charismatic personality hauled the morale of the often-defeated French army up from the pit of cynicism and despair to a fevered high of renewed enthusiasm and collective ardor for battle. Conversely, once her reputation for bringing victory to the French became established, her presence infected the heretofore invincible English with doubt and fear. Dunois testified as follows about Joan’s impact from the moment she delivered her ultimatum to the English army besieging Orleans:

… and I swear that the English, two hundred of whom had previously been sufficient to rout eight hundred or a thousand of the royal army, from that moment became so powerless that four or five hundred soldiers and men at arms could fight against what seemed to be the whole force of England.7

However, she immediately set about making the force of her personality felt throughout the army in terms of both morals and morale. She continued to stress the importance of righteous conduct of the soldiers throughout her career. As Pasquerel, de Coutes, d’Alençon and others testified, she exhorted the soldiers to become faithful in making confession and attending mass, she drove prostitutes from camp brandishing her sword, and she fiercely scolded both common soldiers and great nobles for their foul language. To their own amazement, hardened warriors of all ranks meekly submitted to her will in these matters.11 George Bernard Shaw was correct when he wrote in the preface to his play Saint Joan that what may seem to be nothing more than mere prudery on Joan’s part was in fact a vital component of restoring the ability of the French army to fight well. Soldiers of all ranks had become so cynical, so demoralized by alternating periods of defeat and inaction, that they were ready to accept any measures that would restore a modicum of their self-respect. Joan’s exhortations on little points such as attending mass and not blaspheming were the necessary first steps in rebuilding the men’s spirits.12

From the moment she first rode onto a battlefield, Joan went far beyond being merely the tireless good conscience of the army. From the moment she first laid eyes on her country’s English enemies, she aroused the will of her soldiers to fight. Joan was a fine and forceful speaker but her ability to inspire the French soldiers stemmed from her leading them into battle in the most literal sense possible.

″

Jean Dunois the Bastard of Orleans later described how much Joan boosted the moral of the city when she arrived:

“Then Joan came with me, carrying her banner, which was white and on which was the figure of our Lord holding a fleur-de-lis in His hand. And she crossed the river Loire with La Hire and myself, and we entered all together the town of Orleans. These are the reasons why I think that Joan, and all her deeds in war and in battle, were rather God’s work than man’s: the sudden changing of the wind, I mean, after she had spoken, which gave hope of aid, and the bringing in of the provisions in spite of the English, who were much stronger than the royal army, and the fact, furthermore, that this young girl swore that she had had a vision in which Saint Louis and Saint Charlemagne prayed to God for the safety of the King and of this city.”

A merchant in Orleans who witnessed Joan’s arrival later stated that she “was received with such great joy by all the inhabitants of both sexes, great and small, that it seemed she was an angel of God. By means of the Maid, they said, we are going at last to escape our enemies.” The Journal of the Siege of Orleans (Journal du siege d'Orleans) further describes the great scene of Joan’s entry:

“Thus at eight o'clock in the evening, notwithstanding all the English, who in nowise prevented it, she entered fully armed, mounted on a white horse; and borne before her her standard, which was likewise white, and which had two angels holding each a lily flower in her hand; and on the pennon was painted the Annunciation. She, thus entering into Orleans, had at her left side the Bastard of Orleans, armed and mounted most richly. And after her came several other nobles and valiant lords, squires, captains, and soldiers…Elsewhere she was received by other soldiers and burghers and burgesses of Orleans carrying torches in great number, and making such joy as if they saw God descend among them; and not without cause, for they had many weariness, hardships, and trials; and what was worse; great doubt of succor, and fear to lose body and goods. But they felt wholly comforted, and as if freed from siege by the divine virtue which they had been told was in the simple Maid, whom they regarded most affectionately; men, women, and little children. And there was a most marvelous pressing of the crowd to touch her or the horse on which se was, so much so that one of those who carried the torches approached so near her banner that it caught fire. Whereupon she touché her horse with the spurs , and turned him as gracefully to the banner, of which she extinguished the fire, as if she had long followed the wars. And the soldiers held this in great wonder, and the burghers of Orleans also; who accompanied her the length of their town, making a great welcome, and in very great honor conducting her almost to the Regnart gate, to the home of Jacques Boucher, then treasurer of the Duke of Orleans, where she was welcomed with great joy.”

www . maidofheaven . com/joanofarc_orleans . asp

not to mention how jaune managed to resolve Neptune’s insecurities after he turned down Weiss at the dance. Let’s point out that this was meant to be Neptune’s secret, Jaune convinced Neptune to confess his problems to him and then encouraged Neptune in overcoming his insecurities

@the-kiwi-is-not-a-pewee @fandomsallaroundme

#rwby #rwby theories #rwby theory #rwby theorys #rwby meta #rwby jaune #jaune rwby #Jaune Arc #salem rwby #rwby salem #SALEM (RWBY)#rwby jaune arc #jaune arc theories #jaune arc rwby

8 notes · View notes

newphfaslila1972-blog · 5 years

Text

One of the things that caught my attention and was emphasized on, but never openly explained, is the theme of Mick and clothes. In one scene, Charlie catches him sniffing a sweater he was given, and later in the movie, there is a brief focus on Mick reaction surrounded by Leo (?) clothing, as if it were empowering him, when he has sex with Mary in a closet. At first, I thought that there would be some kind of homosexuality reference, but I think that it can be concluded that he wanted to be part of this richesse. BG are just entitled. Even sam said in her last video that she knows no other job would give her this kind of freedom and money and she stays a BG even though she is not satisfied. Some like Jaclyn hill release 1 to 2 videos a month and makes more money than I would ever be able to make as a freaking engineering with higher education.. Think holding my ground was really important, she said. Think the Sharks could see 양구출장샵 that, and it made them believe in myself and the product as well. The show, Ms Smit has left her part time job to focus on The Quick Flick full time. Heck, I married to a man I adore and let face it, the empty nest changes the dynamics once again. Spread that out among four women. The other still have kids to deal with but Meri doesn So, she alone a LOT. It seems to me he did the opposite, and chastised Tyrion for his debauchery.Tysha was never a prostitute. She was just an orphaned crofter daughter, and she and Tyrion felt genuine love for each other. Tywin was just a monster (may the soil lie light upon him) and had the girl repeatedly raped in front of Tyrion, forcing Tyrion to go last, and claimed she was a prostitute to punish her for thinking she a commoner could marry a Lannister while also making Tyrion think she only showed him interest for the money.Jaime kept this lie up to not break Tyrion heart, and I guessing his character won progress until season 8, when Jaime finally tells Tyrion the truth of the past.I also don recall Tyrion ever being scared of Tywin. I got 175,000 miles on my car and recently it has been acting funny. I have a misfire due to a broken spark plug, and it has caused cylinder damage. Turns out customer for life means engine for life too. A lot of people don't seem to give a shit about things that are important to me like littering, recycling, 양구출장샵 ect. I'm also confused why a lot of born and bred Tampanians (?) don't seem to have seen much of the states outside of FL. Even people that live in St Pete don't seem to know basic stuff about Tampa (that there's a river taxi, what Curtis Hixon Park is). I just purchased TO Azelaic Acid Suspension 10% and TO Lactic Acid 10% + HA 2%. I want to slowly incorporate these into my routine but I need help figuring out in which order I should use them and how often. I thinking that I start with the azelaic acid every third night and the lactic acid once a week, but I still don know if I should apply either before/after moisturizer.. The Mainlanders are not cattle nor are they children. Most of them have eyes that can see and a brain that can think. They are not hermetically sealed like the North Koreans do and they are exposed to a lot of western ideas and culture. So what the keys on my keyboard really do, you never know. After all, it MY keyboard. Don get fooled by what visible in the photo.

1 note · View note

whensoulspeaks-blog · 5 years

Text

PINK Hello, when we talk about PINK, a woman or a girl or a so called ‘sunflower’ comes in the mind? PINK in color embarks being delicate & dainty. Pink is not rigid neither universal, so as today 24th January every year is celebrated as ‘National Girl Child day’. A girl in general is part of the nature & nature is beautiful & so is every girl but sometimes we forget that. This beautiful creature is tortured, tormented, tamed, dealt with cruelty, beaten, sacrificed, taken for granted & why not! Raped! Her faith is decided by the time she has stepped in this world & she hasn’t spoken a single word but she is killed for what!? She is hiding in fear, she is burnt alive, she has limitations, cannot dress like this & that, cannot speak with the opposite sex, cannot work and cannot go out. She is starred left & right, down & up. She is tagged as a slut, brat, useless & impure because she thinks beyond this sickening society. First question asked when two people make their family meet up for their message is “is the girl pure?” which means asking about her virginity. Has she done it? Do these questions imply only for girls & their character is judged. Hence to back answer & speak on the behalf of the girls & women facing such problems this day has been brought up. But not everyone is aware about it. They do know what women are facing. This day observes creating new opportunities & supporting girls in the country. It is celebrated to increase the awareness among people about all the inequalities faced by the girl child in the society. The day in 2019 was celebrated with theme of “Empowering Girls for a Brighter Tomorrow”. Focusses the awareness campaign on save girl child, child sex ratios and creating a healthy and safe environment for a girl child. When asked common citizens about this day & it’s significance, I was actually shocked to know that about 50% didn’t know this day actually existed. According to Mrs.Neema Malhotra, she did know about this day & emphasised that it brings factors like equality & rights for women, discriminating factor of our society, While Mrs.ELSA had no idea about it. She says “no need for ‘national boys day’ too. She says men had enough; this is the era of equality. Some faculties of my college, Pearl academy, Mumbai, Mrs.Rikkimi was aware of this day & believes that it shouldn’t just be a day but should be celebrated throughout the years. This day brings confidence, self-reliance & support to the women. Our librarian, Mrs.Jayshree Mahajan says she didn’t know about it & now that she knows & believes this is merely for the awareness of the situation like declining sex ratio, discrimination against women, forced prostitution in this gender & male dominant society. She had her personal experiences & not only her; I had some experiences which were so traumatizing & not at all accepted. Now let’s hear what men think about the day too. So I spoke to a male faculty & likewise he had no clue about such day too. He believes when spoken about equality men should be given reservation too. Crimes are higher on the gender aspects but talent & reservations cost lives. Male do feel inferior of the missed opportunities. Men of the country want to change but no by bribing women with reservations or easily getting what they want situation. They want betterment for women in aspects of crime, prostitution, work agenda with hard work & education. Women should not be confused with feminist when it comes to rights & reservations. Until & unless all the women of this country are on same page, there would be no change at all. Factors like age difference, culture, looks, money, caste etc. play role in the lives of women. Until women believe that different minded world can be there other than theirs, everything would remain same. As a woman if I see somewhere that a women is not being treated properly or being forced into something she doesn’t want to be part of or being killed just because she is a ‘woman’ then I would definitely help her out. These agendas remain a taboo in this country to talk about but now it is the time where we can speak up & call out the wrongs. Get them to their wrong beings, teach them a lesson. Enough is enough. You go girl!

#girls #india #nationalgirlchildday #24thjanuary #pearlacademy #mumbai #vlogger #equal rights #crime #rapes

1 note · View note

gutterballgt · 6 years

Text

I feel like we all need to watch 2004′s Stepford Wives again and marvel at how much more relevant it becomes with each passing year. I mean, it is a comical, existentially terrifying meta on toxic masculinity and how mediocre a man can be and still be considered the hero of a story, worthy of the heroine’s devotion.

Loooooong post. I got a lot to say on this subject.

It starts out with a few clips from a new season of TV shows, each with a feminist thrust about empowering women while men stew about being left in the dust without them actually doing anything to warrant keeping up. In the last of these promos, a married couple are separated on a tropical island and housed with professional prostitutes to see if they can be tempted away from their marriage vows.

The man, surprisingly, turns down his hot prostitute to stay “in Omaha with my Barbara”. It’s supposed to be this sweet moment of love and loyalty. Of sacrifice, because his wife is so homely while the prostitute was gorgeous and seemed devoted to his pleasure. Awwww.

The woman, who has been bombarded by multiple hot people who want her and who has only ever been with her husband, says she does love him, then jilts him for all the people responsible for what could only be a sexual awakening for her. We’re supposed to see her as a disloyal slut, turning her back on her sensitive, caring husband to have hot, dirty sex with the entire cast of a porno and a ridiculously built Hawaiian dude. How dare she, right? The Jezebel!

Then, we go back to the main studio where the heroine, Joanna, is clearly selling the new season with verve and all the confidence of a woman who knows she’s hit a hot button, and the jilted husband from the promo shows up and, instead of continuing the “sensitive, loyal man with a broken heart” shtick, he pulls out a gun, proposes a show called “let’s kill all the women!”, and tries to shoot Joanna.

We find out later that he’s already shot his wife and several of her new lovers.

I’m sorry, but we see that entirely too much in real life when women say no, when women try to leave, when women try to move on. Men become violent, even murderous, and wreak devastation on FAR more than the so-called source of their “broken heart”. At this late date, it’s too true-to-life to be as funny as it used to be.

There are too many so-called sensitive guys who feel entitled to a woman and think she has no say in the matter.

And that action -- that sudden, shocking violence by a jilted, shamed man -- is at the heart of literally everything else that happens in the movie. It’s the toxic masculinity we’re finally at least battling in public these days. The “if I can’t have you, no one can, and I’ll kill anyone who says otherwise and tries to help you” attitude.

Enter Walter, Joanna’s long-suffering husband. When she’s fired -- BECAUSE SHE WAS SHOT AT BY A VIOLENT JILTED MAN, not because she was bad at her job, her career and sanity sacrificed to some random asshole’s incoherent rage -- he quits his (lesser) job at the same company in a grand gesture of solidarity. Of course, they’re both ludicrously loaded (he states later that she’s always made 6 figures more than he could ever dream of, so it’s more like she’s loaded and he’s married to her), so it’s a largely empty gesture that costs him nothing. But it’s presented as oh, so romantic.

They proceed to move away after a short stint in a mental health facility for Joanna, who was understandably traumatized by her entire career and sense of place being yanked out from under her in addition to being shot, and again, Walter is portrayed as the supportive, caring husband, where Joanna is self-absorbed (ie., RECOVERING FROM TRAUMA) and snide to all their new neighbors (who are kind but empty behind their plastic smiles and kinda weird her out and are politely disdainful of her).

Everything about the set-up puts Joanna in the wrong to the point that she, herself, decides she’s a bad woman, a terrible mother and wife, and that she should literally change her entire self to be more like these false-smiled, plastic bimbos who are so objectified by their “drooling nerd” husbands. She even tries to recruit her friends -- Bobbie and Roger, the only two people she can connect with because they’re just as free-thinking and independent as Joanna has always been and were big names in their industries, just like her -- to buy into the Stepford way of life, though it goes so far against their grain that they can’t help but laugh about their attempts to fit in.

And Walter is thrilled. Here, he finally has the doting, stay-at-home wife and mother he always pictured for himself. He describes Stepford to the other men as “it’s like the way life is meant to be”. And, in a man’s mind, it sure is: he’s living the no-work life on his wife’s money, and he’s finally convinced her to be subservient to him. Why wouldn’t he be happy?

Isn’t that what every man wants?

So, with the dream in his hands, why wouldn’t he be insecure when Joanna starts to point out all the craziness around them, all the inconsistencies? Why wouldn’t he realize that she ISN’T really subservient to him? Not really? That she’s only doing so of her own volition and he has no real way to keep her acting that way if she chooses to take the kids and leave, as she’s threatened to when he refuses to listen to her?

This... is when his own toxic masculinity starts to grow.

Because he could have stopped the whole show when Roger was turned into a Stepford husband. He clearly knew what had happened, but he defended the whole thing 100%, arguing with Joanna about stereotyping Roger as a flaming gay instead of letting him be gay his own way, telling her that people change and she was being hysterical and selfish to find fault with Roger’s newfound “happiness”.

And he didn’t lift a finger to stop Bobbie’s transformation, even knowing she and Joanna had become best friends who were clinging to each other even harder with Roger’s sudden off-putting falseness. Even then, he was already planning Joanna’s transformation, as exemplified by the remote control she found in her house.

He’d already bought in. He was already willing to trade Joanna’s humanity for empty-eyed smiles, for sex with a subservient robot who could only praise him even if she felt nothing, for a tidy house and plenty of baked goods (which, may I remind you, Joanna was already doing while she tried so hard to be what he wanted her to be).

Then, when Joanna finally figures out the whole story -- because OF COURSE she did all the hard work to figure out who these poor women really were and what had been done to them -- and confronts him about it, what does he do? Ignore her entirely and start listing his grievances against her with his man friends cheering him on. And all his grievances are simply that she’s better at everything than him.

And she is. She’s a remarkably intelligent, talented, driven woman who had great success until a man tried to kill her and ruined her career, making her doubt herself.

She IS better than him. And that’s what he can’t stand.

That’s what none of them can stand.

And instead of feeling lucky that he got her, that she chose him even despite his obvious mediocrity, he’s furious and petulant and whines, “No! I got to hold your purse!” All the assholes chime in with “yeah, we’re the girl! and we don’t like it!”, etc., with no sense of irony that they’re demanding their wives “be the girl” because that would be okay somehow. Because women are supposed to wait on them hand and foot, raise the children out of sight and out of mind, keep the house spotless, present their perfect bodies for fucking whenever it’s wanted, and be silent and supportive whenever they’re NOT wanted.

So, it comes down to Walter’s big “hero” moment, where Joanna makes a passionate plea to save her humanity and he, at the last moment (and, more notably, out of sight of the other men), decides he can’t do that to her. Can’t turn her into an automated sex toy.

And we’re supposed to cheer.

For this minimal, absolute-least-he-could-do gesture. He just... didn’t erase his wife’s individuality when he had the chance, because he couldn’t look her in the eye and effectively kill her.

So heroic. Such a fucking sacrifice.

In reality, Joanna did all the fucking work, and all while having to convince the man she loved, who supposedly loved her, that she’s a goddamn human being that shouldn’t be turned into a goddamn robot just because he felt insecure about being a mediocre nobody.

She’s the one who had to pretend to be a perfect, subservient robot for who knows how long to fool the whole town until they could get back into the transformation facility to free all the other women. She’s the one who distracted Mike so Walter could get away and sneak into the facility.

He doesn’t even have, like, mad hacking skills. He’s allowed into the secret lab because he’s a man. And even then, he just pushes buttons randomly on the first screen he sees until the file corrupts itself and the programming breaks down. He doesn’t even know he hasn’t KILLED the first woman before he’s slapping at all the screens without rhyme or reason until all the programs stop.

And Joanna, bless her heart, gives him the credit for it. “No, that’s a man,” she says admiringly.

And then she proceeds to save Walter (again, because she’s already saved him from himself) by knocking Mike’s head off and exposing him for the robot he is, revealing the twist that Claire, Mike’s wife, was the actual neurosurgeon mastermind behind the entire plot.

And, lo and behold, her insanity sprung from her husband, the real Mike, cheating on her. From her catching them in the act and being so stressed out from overwork and trying to live up to expectations that she snapped and killed them both.

Of course, the whole plot is undone now -- thanks to Joanna -- and all the men get their house arrest in Stepford, forced to live the roles they forced on their wives (without the loss of their will, of course, so it’s not anywhere near a comparable sentence)... except Walter.

Because he’s supposed to be the hero.

I just....

Don’t get me wrong. I love the movie. It’s entertaining, and it does a masterful job of slipping in the little micro-aggressions that women deal with daily -- my favorite little stiletto through the ribs is when New Roger calls on Joanna at the assembly, but instead of calling her by her name, Joanna Eberhart, he calls her “Mrs. Walter Kresby”, completely erasing her from the address; it’s funny but also infuriating because it’s, again, too true to life -- and it’s just so well done. Stepford looks like a dream and feels like a nightmare, and it is masterful moviemaking.

But it still pisses me off because, for all its feminist edge, for all its warnings about the dangers of toxic masculinity, it still treats Walter as the hero and makes Joanna grateful to him, his doting wife who’s so proud of him.

Walter.

Who, during that last interview, is very distinctly not carrying her purse.

#toxic masculinity #male entitlement #stepford wives #I've watched the flick a hundred times easily #and I love it #but I love it because it's almost too possible #if we had the technology #every bullshit entitled male in the universe would do it #without a second thought #as long as they thought they could get away with it

95 notes · View notes

tessatechaitea · 4 years

Text

Black Canary #2

Black Canary and Deathstroke shop at the same footwear store.

I don't have any more issues of Black Canary after this so maybe I should discuss how confusing her history was in the DC Universe. Or maybe I'm just not that type of writer. You know, one who researches things and acts as a facts middleman. The things I know, I simply assume other people know. I begin with the assumption that anybody reading a review of a Black Canary comic book comes to it with the knowledge of her confusing Earth One and Earth Two background which forced DC to create a mother/daughter situation that only makes sense if you squint just right after slamming your head in a car door four times. The Non-Certified Spouse says I'm too willing to give people the benefit of the doubt. But no matter how cynical I might seem, I truly believe everybody I meet is my equal until they prove that they're not. Obviously I never assume anybody is more than equal to me! That would be crazy! But I don't meet people and begin with suspicion and doubt. The problem with that is that I generally find I don't have as much to write about. A good portion of intellectual reviewing of art comes down to people quoting more important thinkers and philosophers. But who needs that? I don't want a lesson on some art critic I didn't choose to read or some critic's mathematical proof (using quotes from other critics and philosophers instead of theorems) on how they came to their opinion of some piece of art. I want to hear each individual person's response to the piece. I want to hear something new and unique. Also, it's hard to remember all the literary theorist's names and what each one's philosophy and arguments were! At 48, I don't have time to re-remember all that crap! Plus at 48, I don't have the 20-or-30-something need to prove my intelligence to everybody who comes along. If you think fart and dick and exploding vagina jokes can't be smart and satirical, what do I care?! I've been away from reading comic books for the last week or so because my brain chemistry might be fucked up. I only say this because one time in my life, I was beyond despair and found myself kneeling in front of a beaded curtain with the image of Ganesha on it, crying and asking for the obstacles in my life to be removed. The next day, my Xbox broke down. If I were into religion, I'd definitely be Hindu. But I'm more into playing Xbox games so instead I just thought, "Ha ha! Good one, Ganesha!" Then I decided I didn't mind feeling like lying in a mud puddle until I drowned if the cure was not playing Halo. What I'm saying is that I'm not spending any time researching the details of the Black Canary mother/daughter relationship because it might cut into my Apex play time and hating myself.

Remember when stopping villains from robbing banks and enacting strange world domination schemes was fun? But holy gee whiz doody farts, it sure sucks now that they sometimes cut people's heads off and fuck the neck holes.

Previously in this comic book (you know, in issue one!), we learned that a politician was paying people to get homeless people drunk so that they wouldn't put up much of a fuss when they were forced to the polls to vote for the politician. Unfortunately, some of the homeless people died from tainted alcohol which might have simply been formaldehyde. Black Canary remembered how this same scheme was pulled when she was young which caused her to go fight crime for the first time in her mother's costume. I don't think I commented on it in my last review because I didn't know how old she was supposed to be and whether I should say she looked fuckable. One of the people paid to get homeless people drunk was a punk named Sally. The guy she gave alcohol to died so now she's scared and on the run. Black Canary has decided to help her because who else is going to help her? Green Arrow?! Don't make me laugh until I puke out of my nose and consequently shit myself. I don't know if I used the word "consequently" correctly there but based on past experience, those things totally go together.

I guess a nuclear bomb just went off because Seattle never gets this much sun.

That girl with the mohawk and the hangover is Sally. She disappears after this but Black Canary is on her trail! She's working with the police but since she's not a police, she can do illegal things like break into a crime scene and remove evidence. The police chief just says things like, "Knock that off!" and "Stop giving me all this illegal evidence!" and "You're not real police or else you'd know that you're not doing anything we don't do all the time anyway, young lady!" Black Canary goes undercover as a prostitute by simply going out in the day in her Black Canary outfit. I bet Nightwing could manage the same thing with those dick huggers he wears. If I didn't think that, I'd have to write a few paragraphs on sexism and how I'm totally against it. Unless the sexism is really feminism and women posing naked for me to jerk off to is empowering. Oops, that was a typo. I meant "for men to jerk off to." The story flips back and forth between the present and the first time Dinah put on the Black Canary outfit. I think. It's hard to follow the story since it's two similar stories intertwined and I really don't remember the names of the bad guys from the first book. I think Black Canary stops the bad guys in the past and this issue ends with her confronting the politician's muscle as he's about to kill Sally. It ends with a "To Be Concluded" tag but I guess I didn't care enough about the story to go one more issue back in 1993. Even though I liked the mini-series and I enjoyed the first issue! But this issue was just a bit too convoluted so I can see why I either gave Issue #3 a pass or simply forgot I was collecting it. That sometimes used to happen if a story didn't grip me so that it stuck around in my head for a week or two after reading it. A month would pass and I'd simply forget to look for the next issue of a comic I was reading because it just didn't do anything for me. I think that's what happened here. Black Canary #2 Rating: C. And that was it for my foray into being a Black Canary reader. I think six comics might be more of a chance than I've ever given to Green Arrow so I'd call it a bit of a success on Sarah Byam's part.

#Black Canary #DC Comics #DC #Trevor Von Eeden #Sarah Byam #Bob Smith

0 notes

kootenaygoon · 4 years

Photo

So,

It took me three days to paint Natalya.

At times I couldn’t believe that I’d been engaging with this woman for over a year, particularly because she’d proven to be completely bonkers. Even though she was holding down her job as a teacher, and successfully raising her two kids, there were times when I couldn’t believe the shit coming out of her mouth. She was into every conceivable pyramid scheme, it seemed, and posted constantly on Facebook about conspiracy theories like chem trails and the Bilderberg Group. When she first asked me to paint her, she wanted to pose topless while holding a gun and smoking a cigar.

“I don’t want to do something that obvious. I want to be a little more subtle,” I said, noting that she’d already purchased all the necessary art supplies. She was serious about making this happen. “Why do you have a gun, anyway?”

She laughed. “My hubby bought it for protection. You want to hold it?”

By this point I’d told the Breakfast Club about my entanglement with Natalya, and Brendan, Lyra and Steph had been all been in consensus: that chick was a nightmare waiting to happen. According to them I wasn’t the first younger guy that she’d picked up, and things hadn’t ended well for my predecessors. Regardless, her place in Rosemont had become my refuge. When I walked through those doors I received home-cooked meals, outrageous sexual acrobatics and the occasional line of blow. The only thing keeping me half-committed was a persistent quiet voice telling me: she’s too old to have your kids. She’s married to somebody else.

“Okay, so I’m thinking cross-legged like that but I want you to lean away from me and sort of throw your hair backwards,” I said, as I arranged her on the floor of the living room. She was wearing nothing but a pair of tiny black panties that I was planning to delete from the image. “The main thing is I want you to jut out your chest, all proud.”

“Okay, but you have to make my tits perkier than they are. The years haven’t been kind,” she said, showing an unusual hint of insecurity.

“Natalya,” I said. “You’re fucking perfect.”

I’d heard an apocryphal story about an art teacher in town, that decades ago he’d sent out for a prostitute to pose nude for his art class at the local college. Apparently he grabbed a student and gave him directions to the nearby bar, with instructions on where to find a willing subject. Apparently it only took half an hour. Women in the Kootenays are not reluctant to take their clothes off, as I’d learned from Charlotte Coco Orchid and her burlesque crowd. From the doukhobors on down to the Shambhala girls, they were a proud and empowered bunch with no use for Christian guilt. I’d seen that with Blayne, how she’d shared her body with me like it was a titillating secret she’d been dying to tell. She wasn’t afraid, or shy.

And neither was Natalya.

“How’re you going to explain this?” I asked, as she held herself rigid. “I mean, having this painting around the house?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, when I’m finished the painting. You can’t exactly put it up in your living room, right? How will you explain it to your dude?”

She laughed, and broke the pose for a moment to light a joint. “I could probably hang it at the front entrance and that ignorant asshole wouldn’t even notice.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“Oh, shit. It’s been three or four months now. He’s lucky I don’t just serve him with papers. He just leaves me here to rot with no explanation. Thinks he can throw his money around and I’ll just sit here, waiting.”

For some reason, that moment made me think of Bethany. She was the first woman I ever slept with, a decade before. We had fooled around a few days before our mission trip to Mexico in 2005, and my youth pastor Trent had found out through the grape vine. I anticipated a scolding, and was ready to confess everything, when he was arrested. Since my mushroom trip at Kamp I’d been thinking about Trent, about how he was finally out of jail now and living in Lethbridge with his adopted son. Part of me never wanted to never see him again, while another part of me wanted to climb in my car and drive to Lethbridge that night. I was afraid of what I’d find there, what answers I would hear to my questions. Who knows, maybe he was still waiting to give me shit? He would be horrified to see what a desperate slut I’d become, anchoring my ship in whatever harbour would have me. He’d ask me what was happening with my relationship with God.

I returned my focus to the painting. What I appreciated most about painting was the way that I could exaggerate certain elements, how I could invent rainbow bursts of energy flowing from Natalya’s chest or change her skin colour from green to light blue. Once I nailed the exquisite shape of her breasts and the delicious slope of her spine, the rest was just layering quixotic colours into star clusters of revelation. In the moments of pure inspiration I had to admit that Natalya had provided me with the type of sexual catharsis I’d never found with Paisley, or anyone. She was wrong for me in about a million ways, but as a sexual force she had a power over me that other women couldn’t match. I felt like if I died on the spot, I would die whispering my thanks to the God who had allowed me to meet her.

“If you don’t stop moving around, I’m going to have to come over there and fuck you on the floor,” I told her. “And that will interrupt everything.”

She took a small hoot off her joint, and smiled.

“That’s some big talk.”

The Kootenay Goon

0 notes

carterhaughs · 7 years

Text

Harlots Ep 4 Spoilers

alright I’m still trying to process this episode and am going to watch again and surely find more things to examine and analyze but here’s what I’ve got atm. feel free to reblog and discuss with me @customerservicebotdolores @gulbaharsultan and anyone else who’d like to!

Charlotte feels like nothing in the world she cares about or desires is secure, and in spite of the particular sphere of authority her position gives her, it doesn’t allow her to influence the outcome of anything she truly cares about above all else - namely, her sister’s safety and her relationship with Daniel. her family and her tentative relationship with Daniel matter more to her than material wealth and comfort, but she cannot effectively safeguard either, and in trying to, she endangers all of them and her social and economic security on top of that. I think this is what leads to that frustrated and self-destructive encounter upon her return to Sir Howard’s townhouse at the end of the episode. Haxby tells her she cannot command him, but there is one thing she can do, as she demonstrated earlier when she tried to help Lucy work through her difficulties servicing clients - she can make a man who she accused of lacking the organ to respond to a woman of doing just that, and that’s exactly what happens. who knows what the fallout from that will be? she slept with the help and should sir howard, who already showed himself to be borderline physically abusive this episode, find out...the consequences couldn’t be anything but dire. (I always thought there was a weird tension between Charlotte and Haxby actually - the way he had to follow her around and see how she might end up had she not made her way into Sir Howard’s household with Mary as an example was something I thought might melt his ill will a bit and she’s undeniably charming and beautiful and willful so I thought he’d end up with a weird crush on her and maybe keep her secrets from Sir Howard...but instead we got angry sex which I was not expecting)

there’s an interesting parallel in this episode between Margaret’s relationship with Lucy and Lydia’s relationship with Charles. both mother-child relationships are warped in some ways bc these are women who brought their children into the trade with them out of necessity, but they’re fundamentally different in so many ways. Margaret knows Lucy is having trouble pleasing her clients and instead of haranguing her about it, she keeps encouraging her and checking up on her to see if she’s ok - Lucy hasn’t told her or anyone else about what Repton did to her yet but it’s easy to see that her mother would certainly be receptive to her struggles if she did. Lucy, however, becomes freshly determined to ignore her trauma when she overhears Will and Margaret discussing their finances - something that Margaret keeps from Lucy who she still thinks of as a child - which she is. Margaret sold Lucy’s virginity and threw up after she did it - no matter how much she rationalizes doing so to herself, the softer part of her has compunctions about doing so. Unlike Charlotte (12) and Margaret (10), Lucy entered the trade when she was technically “of age” (as she sings hauntingly at the end of the episode, “a virgin of 15″) but there is no doubt that her mother knows she is still a child. It’s a moral quandary she is hyperaware of. Then there is the relationship between Charles and Lydia. Charles has been pampered and hemmed in by his mother to the point that he knows little of life beyond the brothel and prior to his feelings for Emily, has thought nothing of it and didn’t question his mother’s authority. Unlike Margaret’s sensitive concern for Lucy’s apparent difficulties (even though she’s not explicitly aware of her trauma, she senses something is wrong), Lydia’s affection for him disappears in this episode the minute he does anything remotely independent and contrary to her liking, or fails her in any way - and she outright tells him she wishes she had kept a girl instead of him and that he was “unfit for purpose,” implying she’s had other children (meanwhile, Margaret has kept all of hers and wishes for boys instead bc the daughters of prostitutes and bawds almost always end up in the trade themselves out of necessity bc they’re not seen as respectable...but that doesn’t seem like it would bother Quigley, although she still has pangs of conscience about procuring virgin young women for “the Beast” as Cunliffe notes this episode). He trembles when he defies her and flinches when she shuts the door as she leaves after he defies Mr. Osborne. Charles, meanwhile, is trying to be his own man for the first time in his life in order to protect Emily how he can, and for the first time has become aware of how his mother treats him “like a boy” - his lack of self-awareness prior to his attempt to protect Emily from Mr. Osborne is painfully apparent in his gift of sweets to her, as if that would actually make things better. We will see how he may be able to help her in future and if he can understand her need to flee.

Speaking of Emily, once again the show does not force us to witness a man physically abusing a woman. Instead we see how Marie-Louise cares for her in the aftermath, and we see how Emily deals with her trauma. This show always focuses on the only narratively-relevant part of abuse - how the character subjected to it deals with it. Marie-Louise has similarly suffered, and she is also given a voice. I’m glad she escaped Quigley’s, and I hope Emily will soon follow!

Harriet sees how these other women support themselves as best they can through sex work - financially, Kitty specifically is able to support her daughter, and moreover, Harriet seems to decide that she wants to empower herself through it - she is accused by Lennox’s white son of having always been a whore, but as she puts it, at least now she is paid for it. I just hope Repton remains entertained by her domination of him and that his fetishization of her will protect her from his dark side that no one but Lucy seems to be aware of.

Amelia and Violet become closer and share a sweet kiss this episode and it becomes clear that Amelia’s morals are very different from her mother’s - far more open-minded and compassionate to the point that she doesn’t think it’s right for her to judge Violet being a thief in order to support herself. How will she handle the kiss she shared with Violet? And what of the complication between her mother and Lydia - the fact that she knows Florence (Amelia’s mother) was once a prostitute herself? We see some tenderness between Florence and Amelia this episode as well - how she kisses Amelia’s hand before she begins one of her fiery sermons outside of the Wells brothel. That was just after the opening shot, which opens on the contrast between Florence’s predominately black gown and her daughter’s predominately white one - a reflection of the moral system she prescribes to?

We got to see a bit more of Prince, the molly boy who spies for Lydia, this episode as well - he made an excellent faux curate! He’s so clever; I hope we get to see more of him.

Lord Fallon is apparently one of the men for whom Cunliffe has been procuring virgins...which makes me very worried for Lucy.

This show’s soundtrack is incredible - I hope they release it and all the excellent credits songs ASAP!

THERE WERE SO MANY GOOD NORTHWELLS MOMENTS THIS EPISODE KEEP EM COMING also AW little Jacob wore a little red suit for the party he is the most adorable

the transformation of the Wells brothel into the underworld with Margaret and Will as King and Queen added 10 years to my lifespan - way to own your notoriety and supposed moral depravity and turn it into your strength! the dark, libertine aesthetic of the masquerade and all its revels was inspired and allowed people like Amelia the liberty of anonymity to explore passions they normally wouldn’t.

I wonder if Lady Caroline is actually barren, or if it’s actually Sir Howard shooting blanks?

“Miss Pettifer” - another one of the Quigley girls - seems to have fallen into the trade via running off with a “rake” according to Emily. Presumably he ruined her and deserted her which is why she works for Quigley now but still “pretends” to be a lady. Everyone has a backstory on this show and I love it - every one of these women is deserving of a narrative

#harlots #my harlots meta

70 notes · View notes

sinjaangels · 7 years

Text

My Hero Academia - Fighting Dogs

When quirks started to appear, governments were quick to regulate over quirk-users. Certain branches of government are not allowed to have quirks, for example, the police force. The use of quirks in public is against the law. One of the exceptions to this law are children who are unable to control their powers when they are first acquired. To aid in their learning, children go to quirk counseling. Another exception, is in self-defense or protecting orders. Licenses had to be acquired for quirks to be used in certain workplaces. A license to be a hero is required where one’s quirk can be used freely in the apprehending of villains. This system was created so quickly that the public didn’t fight for their rights to use their quirks, whenever or wherever they wanted. There are people who ignore the rules, regulations and laws of quirks. They feel that their quirks are their natural right to use just as breathing and walking. Many find their quirks empowering making them feel invincible. They felt challenged by the law for restricting them from using their abilities. Individuals that disregarded the laws are villains according to the public and are the targets for the ever-righteous heroes. There are many powerful heroes, the number one hero, the Symbol of Peace All-Might. A place to use their quirks and strengthen them is hard to find without alerting the public and the police. Using quirks on the people is out of the question. People who had used their quirks for murder are caught eventually due to the unique nature and being found through the quirk registry.

During between the first and second generation of quirk-users, Oshiro Masuyo was the boss of the Tosa-gumi. The Tosa-gumi were yakuza that had been around for decades before World War II. Yakuza are known to fund themselves through many illegal avenues from drugs, prostitution and many forms of gambling. The Tosa-gumi’s main source of income was through gambling, particularly in fighting from dog-fights to sumo-wrestling. Masuyo was quick to start a ring with quirk using-fighters. He started the ring from scratch on paper. He organized everything, from mapping out several locations for fights to be held, enlisting fight enthusiasts and hiring doctors. Most important was the acquiring of fighters. Masuyo didn’t just want any quirk-user. Usually the gathering of fighters is invited by word of mouth. Masuyo found that it was a risky way to organize fights. He wanted absolute complete control over the fighters. Masuyo wanted to own the fighters himself, train them and have them fight for entertainment and to be available for others to use them as some sort of punching bag. One’s quirk mostly manifest when or a little after a child turns four-years old. Kidnapping is risky, but done carefully children can easily disappear. Children were impressionable and quickly conform to the demands of an adult. These children become Masuyo’s fighters and they became known as Masuyo’s Dogs. His fighting dogs. Masuyo took good care of his dogs. Made sure they were fed, well-trained, received medical attention and made sure that each “dog” knew who he was and were made to respect him. Masuyo treated each of his “dogs” with strange affection. Some of his top dogs were rewarded with praises and gifts to make their lives slightly comfortable. Masuyo’s quirk-using rings continues into the present…

A young girl’s wailing fills the playground. The crying came from a girl of four-years old. Fat, round tears soak over her freckled cheeks. She sat on the ground in a pretty, white sun dress with sunflowers soiled with dirt smudges. Her little knees were red and cover in small scrapes and cuts. Her short curly green hair was a dirty nest. Standing in front of her was another four-year old. A boy with wild blond hair. His red eyes were hard piercing with ferocity that was alarming to come from a small boy. They were pinning down another pair of children. Both boys were sweating nervously. The boy glaring at them was their friend. A friend that was known all through their neighborhood and from their school as the boy with the most amazing quirk. His quirk was being displayed…smoke and flashing puffs of flame coming from hands.

“E-eh? Katsuki-kun? What’s up?”

The boy grinds his teeth. “Why are you getting so mad, Katsuki?! Mad over Quirkless Izuna? You were teasing too!”

“I’VE NEVER HURT HER!”

The boys flinch away as greater burst of explosions erupted from the boy’s hands.

“Deku-chan only gets picked on when I say so and you little pebbles only need to follow my lead! I didn’t give you permission to push her around when I’m not around! Nobody touches Deku-chan!”

The boy, Katsuki, punches a fist into hand creating a smothered blast of smoke. The boys tremble as a horrifying grin appears on his face. Slowly, their quirks activate as they ready to defend themselves; bat-like wings unfurled and the other’s fingers stretch across his face as a shield. In a single breath, the boy charges at them and the boys shriek. In minutes, both boys were on the ground. Skin bruised with light red burns and singed clothes. Their lips quivered as they begin to cry over the sound pounding inflicted on them. Reaching out, hands grip their faces. Between the boy’s fingers their eyes could be seen round and terrified. The smell of sweetened sulfur burns the hair of their nostrils.

“KACCHAN!”

Little hands with dirt and cuts matching her knees clutch onto Katsuki’s shirt. The little girl Katsuki called Deku-chan whimpers up at him, large emerald eyes flooding with tears.

“N-no more, Kaachan! They had enough! No more, please!”

Katsuki clicks his tongue. He pushes against the boys’ faces, shoving them onto their backs. They scramble away crying. Katsuki turns onto Izuna and brings a karate chop onto her head. Izuna squeaks and grabs her head.

“Owie!”

“Useless Deku-chan! You’re too nice to jerks like them.”

“B-but, they…tease me, because you tease me…”

“Damn sheep!”

“Don’t swear!” gasps Izuna.

“Baaaaa!”

Katsuki’s bleating snorts out a giggle from Izuna. She wipes one of her eyes. Her other eye is wiped by Katsuki.

“Even if I didn’t tease you, others would do the same…I tease you because you’re stupid! Stupid, Quirkless Deku still wants to be hero! You can’t be a hero, stupid!”

Izuna bows her head. Katsuki huffs as he puts his hands on his hips. He glares at her when she begins to sniffle. Growling, he grabs her hand and drags her to the swings. He orders her to sit and pushes her back once she was seated.

“Deku-chan doesn’t need to be a hero. You have me! I am going to be hero and be bigger and stronger than All-Might!”

“There’s no way you can be better than All-Might, Kaachan!”

“I WILL be better than All-Might,” swears Katsuki.

Izuna screams when her seat was suddenly grabbed. The sudden stop almost makes her fall forward of the seat. Katsuki was in front of her face, gripping the chains above her hands. His cheeks were rosy.

“I’ll will be a better hero than All-Might…I’m going to be your hero…and protect you.”

Izuna turns her head to hide a pretty blush. But her blush goes up to her ears and down below her collarbone. Katsuki smirks triumphally.

“Kaachan.”

“What?”

“That man on the bench. He’s…watching us.”

Katsuki frowns and looks to where Izuna was looking. He had noticed the man before too. He had never seen him before in their neighborhood. If one paid attention, he certainly stood out a bit from the parents, guardians or much older siblings that passed through or rested at the park. He looked to be in some sort of light suit with a regular cotton white shirt that was untucked. Instead of dress shoes, he wore black sneakers. Izuna clutches Katsuki’s shirt. Her eyes didn’t leave the strange man’s. Katsuki watches Izuna. Izuna was very observant for a child. She had this bad habit of sitting away in a quiet corner or against the wall alone and just watch the other children at play. Especially for their quirks. She even would write out her thoughts in a big sketchpad with her favorite color red crayon. Katsuki had told her that what she was doing was creepy, but Izuna continues to do it. Katsuki pulls Izuna from the swing, making her stumble.

“C’mon, let’s go home…we’ll take the shortcut through the woods.”

“Kaachan…?”

“C’mon, don’t look at him anymore.”

Katsuki and Izuna enter the woods using the trail path. When they thought they were far away to be out of the sight, they leave the trail into the woods itself. Katsuki could feel Izuna shaking nervously. Her hand was cold and wet. Izuna looked scared.

“Kaachan…!” she whispers.

Katsuki listens carefully, ignoring his and Izuna’s footsteps. He hears something or someone else in the woods after them. Whoever it is was trying to stay quiet as they were following them. Katsuki growls. He spins Izuna about to face him, he squeezes her shoulders.

“Deku-chan, you go ahead and go home.”

“What?”

“I want you to go home!”

“What about you?!”

“I’ll catch up with you. You saw that guy right…if someone asks you what he looked like…I know you can remember him.”

Izuna was shaking her head as Katsuki was speaking. She grabs his wrists. “I don’t want…”

“That guy is after me or you!” he hisses. “You’re quirkless! You have no way to protect yourself…”

A strange white fog begins to roll through the forest. It creeps through the trees. Katsuki curses and pulls Izuna as he runs. They run as fast as they could toward a fallen tree hanging over a gap. Several feet below were a small stream running beneath. Katsuki pushes Izuna towards the tree bridge and turns towards the cloud.

“Kaachan!”

“Go home, Deku!”

“Kaachan!”

“I said go home!” Kaachan sets off an explosion. “I’ll hate you forever if you don’t go!”

Izuna sniffs as she slowly backs away. The strange cloud was close to Katsuki. Katsuki creates explosions to clear the cloud. But, it was having no effect and the cloud overwhelms him. Izuna gasps, turns and runs. If she makes it home, maybe she could save Katsuki if she told an adult. Within the cloud, Katsuki quickly becomes dizzy and lightheaded. He falls to his knees collapsing onto the ground. He groans irritably before falling unconscious. The cloud disappears revealing the man standing over the boy. He smirks. Picking up the boy, he slings him over his shoulders.

Katsuki wakes up to gentle movement. He realizes by the sound that he was inside a car or truck. He moves but not by much. His arms were tied at the wrist behind his back. His ankles were also bound. Wiggling his hands, he finds that they were wrapped in something heavy. Some sort of cloth that was soaking up his sweat. The car he was in rumbles and bounces. He hears traffic vary from light to heavy and minutes later become quieter and quieter. Katsuki dozes lightly. He tried to keep alert but would be lulled backed into darkness through the journey. He becomes alert at the soft rolling of wheels on gravel and the engine cuts off.

“Yo, Perv-Cloud!”

“Shaddup, don’t call me that!”

A chuckle, “What are ya’ doing back so soon?”

“Heh, heh…got a new fighter. I think I got me the catch of the day! Maybe even of the year!”

“Oh? Whatcha’ got?”

A door is dropped open. A round light blinds Katsuki. Slowly, he opens his eyes to a flashlight. Behind the light was the man that caught him. Alongside him was another man dressed in a shirt that showed off his heavily tattooed arms and belted dark slacks. Katsuki glare at the kidnapper. Pure hate and promise of fiery vengeance impales the man.

“Wow. He doesn’t like you very much. What’s his quirk?”

“Exploding hands…and he likes to fight. Been watching this kid for a few days.”

Katsuki’s glare hardens, “Damn stalker!”

Both men’s eyebrows rose. They looked at each other for a moment and roared with laughter. Katsuki didn’t like being laughed at; he rolls onto his stomach, bunches his knees under him and lunges forward, giving the kidnapping-stalker a headbutt to the chin. The other man jumps out of the way as his colleague and the child topple over each other onto the gravel. Katsuki was lucky that the kidnapper cushioned his fall. The stalker curses in pain and anger. He throws Katsuki off and grabs the boy by his hair.

“You little…”

“Do not damage him, Kizuri!”

Kizuri the Kidnapper froze and becomes pale as well as the other man. Katsuki couldn’t see the man that shouted, his hair was being held prevented him from turning his head. His hair was released swiftly and he was suddenly rolled onto his back. Looking up he recognizes it was evening. The red of the sunset was turning into the blue of the night. Adding into his vision was an older man. He was well-seasoned, with speckles of gray and white in his cropped and slicked back hair. There were a few lines on his face further showing his age. He wore a white tank undershirt, showing off his tattoos that went down from his neck and spread all the way down to his wrist, over his chest and down beneath the shirt. He wore workman’s overalls with the top half’s sleeves tied around his waist. Heavy military-grade boots were on his feet. Behind him were others in similar dress worn in a variety of ways, some of his age, others a little younger. The man moves over to Katsuki and crouches over him.

“What are you looking at, old man?”

The man slowly blinks.

“Quirk?” he murmurs.

“Explosions. Iwao-san!” Kizuri reports like a low-rank soldier.

Iwao’s stone-cold eyes looks Katsuki over. He notices his hands over-bound with duct tape with bits of a dirty towel peeking through. Iwao makes a hand gesture and two young men approach. He points down at the boy.

“He’s the last one in this year’s collection. Take him to the show room.”

Katsuki gives them a tough time. He managed to headbutt or kick the men. What concerned them was the burning through the bonds around his hands.

“Don’t your hands hurt,” asks Iwao.

“NO!” snaps Katsuki.

Iwao thinks in silence.

He looks to another one of his men and orders them to bring him quirk guards. A pair of gloves were brought to him. Iwao has Katsuki placed on the ground on his stomach. He kneels placing a knee into Katsuki’s back. From his side pocket on his pants, Iwao pulls out a dark switchblade with dark studs. The blade clicks open softly. Smoke emits from the makeshift bonds.

“Listen, pup. You’re a good find. I see great potential in you. You’re a fighter. I can tell you have thirst for blood and glory. I can give you that as your Trainer…but, if you don’t be a good dog…you will be punish severely…and your new Master won’t be pleased with me. Don’t fight me. You won’t win.”

Katsuki growls and the smoke increases. Iwao narrows his eyes and sighs. He mutters under his breath.

“This kid’s trouble…but the Boss will like him.”

Iwao’s large hands turn to stone. Round rocks grow from his skin, covering his forearms. Between the cracks frost grew and fog rises as it meets the warm night air. The blade was awkward in his even larger hands. The bonds are cut and Katsuki’s hands are grabbed instantly. Katsuki yells when frost covers them. With an assistant, they pull the quirk gloves over Katsuki’s hands. The gloves are secured by a tightened strap around his wrists that is locked in place by a small key like for handcuff.

“The gloves are for elemental-quirk dogs. Especially for you pups that only know how to use their quirks through your hands. Maybe with training, it won’t just be through your hands.”

Iwao picks up Katsuki by the neck of his shirt and shoves him into the show room. The show room was a large room, filled with over a dozen boys around Katsuki’s age. Many were dirty and had faces wet with tears. Boys were yelling and crying for their mother or father. One of the walls was a black window where nothing could be seen through the other side. Katsuki passes the other boys, shoving them if they got in way. He pushes over one small crying boy with glasses and large calves. He stands in front of the window. He shakes with rage and with a roar begins punching at the window. The window shudders violently with every strike. The gloves held up against his quirk only allowing smoke.

“ASSHOLES! I KNOW YOU’RE THERE!”

The boys were stunned silent and they stare at the angry boy who dare to curse and attack the window. One red-haired boy gazes upon him with amazement.

“Manly,” he whispers.

On the other side, Katsuki’s fury could be seen by those in the room. In the center of the room, sat an elderly man. That man sat on a low chair. He wore a dark blue kimono with a rich haori jacket. The man had a bald head with a splotch of a liver spot, sat up straight with a slight hunch like a brooding owl. The man smirks as he balances a long, decorated pipe in his long, bony hand. He is surrounded by men in suits. Two were dress in black with stark white shirts and black ties. The man’s bodyguards. The other men in suits were much fancier. They vary in age but they were mostly middle-aged and older. The sliding paper door opens and Iwao enters barefooted. He sits away from the group with his hands over resting knees. He stares at the glossy, wooden floor. Iwao takes a side glance at the loud pounding of the window and there was that disobedient pup. The old man in the kimono chuckles. Iwao closes his eyes and quietly breathes through his nose.

“Spunky little pup we have here. What is his quirk?”

“Explosions, Boss Oshiro.”

“You’re going to be working very hard with this litter, especially with that pup. I’m making him your responsibility, Katashi Iwao.”

“Yes, Boss.”

Katsuki throws kicks, punches and curses at the window for half an hour. The door opens and men in overalls enter the room. They order the young boys to stand against the wall. The red-hair boy tugs on Katsuki’s shirt.

“Hey, we better…”

Katsuki glares at him.

“Listen, you can’t use your quirk…you won’t be able to get out right now.”

Katsuki’s teeth grind as he allows the redhead to pull his hand to guide him to the wall. After the boys were lined up, Masuya enters with his bodyguards and his first and second lieutenants with their own guard. Masuya stands before the boys looking down the line from beginning to end. His eyes revisit Katsuski. Katsuki glares at him making the man smile.

“I am Oshiro Masuya. From this day forward, I am your Master and you will be my dogs. As my dogs, I will have you trained and be put to work. You will use your quirks to fight each other and others for entertainment. You will obey your Trainers, Handlers and Veterinarian.”

One of the boys, the small one with glasses slowly raises his hand. Masuya looks to him.

“What is it, pup?” Iwao asks.

“We’re not…supposed to use our quirks to hurt people. It’s against the law.”

“That is true, young pup,” Masuya grins in a grandfatherly manner.

“It is against the law to fight with your quirk. But through me, you’ll be able to use your quirks freely for my sake and my family. You won’t need a license, only my permission. You will be trained very well and once your training is over, you will fight. If you don’t like the idea of fighting…than fight to survive. Iwao, take the pups to the nursery kennels. They’ll need to rest for tomorrow.”

Iwao and the others bow at the waist as Masuya, the lieutenants and their guards leave the room. Once they were gone, Iwao stands where their Master had stood.

“Boss Oshiro Masuya is your Master. It his money that will put food in your stomach, a bed to lay on and clothes to wear. It is because of your Master that we will be devoting ourselves to be the greatest fighters in the country. You will follow in the footsteps of the best fighting dogs in Quirk-Fighting ring. Tomorrow, begins your conditioning. You are not humans anymore. You’re dogs. The Dogs of the Tosa-gumi! I am the Head Trainer, Katashi Iwao. You will obey me and the other trainers and the handlers. Your Master’s decisions will be fulfilled through us. We have a lot to do tomorrow. To the kennels.”

The trainers and handlers guide the children out of the room through another door leading to a hallway. At the end of the hall, it forked into two opposite directions. The boys are divided into two groups taken down opposite halls. They were stopped and made to stand in the hall. One of the trainers stands in front of a dead end. He pulls a keycard out of his pocket and holds it out to the wall. The small patch of the wall lifts revealing a control panel. He types a command and the doors slide to the side open. The doorway was tall enough for a child. The children are guided through the doors. For Katsuki, Iwao gives him some encouragement, with a stun baton. Setting on low, it gives Katsuki a sharp shock making him leap into the room.

“YOU BAST…!” The door suddenly slams in his face.

“BASTARD!” Katsuki yells.

He shoves his hands into his pockets, or at least tries to. The gloves were like winter gloves. Bulky and awkward. They made him sweat, but the gloves were made of some sort of fire-proof material. He folds his arms instead and paces through his room. It had three cold, metal walls with a ceiling light. The fourth wall allows him to look out across to a room exactly like his with another boy inside. It was the boy with glasses. He sat in a corner with his knees drawn in and hiding his face. His shoulders shook with his crying. Thankfully to Katsuki, he could barely hear him. The glass wall was soundproofed and possibly unbreakable. In their rooms were a futon bed, complete with a sheet and a blanket. A short square table with a flat pillow and a toilet. A place to sleep, eat and use the bathroom. Basic living essentials. Katsuki paces about his room. He looks out the window wall. Besides the crying glasses boy, he could see a bit of his neighbors to each side. On one side, there was a boy with the head of a baby bird. Katsuki frowns for the boy had some sort of hood over his head that covered his eyes. He realizes that his room was brighter than their rooms. The bird boy lies on his futon and curls himself up. On the other side of crying glasses boy, was another funny looking kid. He had multiple arms that were connected by fleshy webbing between them. He was tall for his age and had his back turn as he sat on his futon. Suddenly all the lights go out, except for the baby bird child. Katsuki goes on his hands and knees and feels about searching for his new bed. Finding it, he rolls onto his back and stares at the dark ceiling.

Did Deku-chan make it home? Did she tell anybody about what happen? His mother was probably going crazy by now. Probably yelling at the police to hurry and find him. Would they be able to him? How soon? How much later? These people called them dogs and there were other dogs that came before them. How long were they dogs? Where they as young as them when they brought here? These people were bad guys. They were breaking the law. They were villains. Katsuki growls to himself.

“There’s no way I’m going to let them get me! Especially old man Ice-hands…”

Katsuki was jolted awake when the lights flash on. There was no ignoring it. Next, his door slides open.

“Get up!” snaps Iwao.

“I’m getting up!” Katsuki snaps back.

Walking out of his door, he glares up at Iwao. Iwao glares back and none too gently, juts his baton under Katsuki’s chin.

“Don’t talk back, pup! Move.”

Katsuki was shoved into the line. The boys were taken into the room called the Locker. Much to their shock, they were ordered to strip off all their clothes. There was hesitation but when Iwao barks out the order to strip they jumped to it. The men guiding them were Handlers. The only Trainer with them today was the Head Trainer Katashi Iwao. He kept close to Katsuki but his cold eyes watched over the other boys. The Handlers yelled at the boys to hurry up. Their clothes were thrown away in plastic yellow trash bins. Inside the bins, were old back scorch marks. Once naked the children are herded into a large tiled room and made to stand under shower nozzles. The Handlers were wearing full suit yellow rainwear complete with black wet boots. A Handler standing outside near a control panel uses it to start the showers. The boys are drenched with lukewarm water for about four minutes before the water is cut off and they are rushed out to dry themselves back in the Locker. Handlers hand out clothes. For the kid with the multiple arms, his top had to have his sleeves removed. There was another kid that had to have his pants modified for a long, muscular tail. The crying glasses kid had to wear shorts. There was murmuring from one of the Handlers that many of the clothes had to be customized appropriately and makes notes on his tablet. Each child was dressed in gray clothes that were a simple short-sleeved shirt with a V-neck and cotton pants that reached down to their ankles or were wearing shorts. Completing their uniforms were black woven plastic collars with a small box attached to it. The Handler with the tablet goes to each boy, takes a picture and asks their name.

Next, they were herded once again to a new area, the Gym. The Gym was a huge training hall as big a college basketball court. It was practically sparse except for the blue plastic mats placed in sections through the hall. The Handlers guide each boy to a waiting Trainer. Iwao grabs Katsuki from his Handler by the back of his shirt. Roughly he leads him onto one of the mats. He pulls out the tiny key to his gloves and removes them. He throws the gloves off to the side and shoves Katsuki away. Katsuki stumbles. Regaining his footing he flexes his hands, making clawing, grabbing motions with his fingers. Katsuki stares at Iwao suspiciously. Iwao unties the sleeves of his suit and puts his arms through the sleeves before removing his boots. His arms become rocky and icy as he places himself into a defensive stance.

“Don’t you want to kick my ass? Here’s your chance…come on!”

Katsuki bursts into a run, running towards Iwao. His hands were finally able to bring forth blasting flames. They flare up like an urgent alarm. He stretches out his hand to press it into Iwao’s stomach. Iwao merely shifts his feet on the mat to dodge Katsuki’s hand. With his rock-ice hand he grabs Katsuki’s wrist, sweeps him off his feet with a foot and has him fall on his stomach. The wind is knocked out of Katsuki. He was unable to catch his breath with the man’s knee in his back. Iwao was back on both his feet as he jumps away from Katsuki. The boy scrambles back onto his own feet. He coughs and charges again. He swipes at Iwao trying to land an explosive blow on some part of Iwao’s unprotected body. Iwao expertly dodges his wild swings while parrying and blocking with his arms. Katsuki was wide open and Iwao took advantage of this smacking Katsuki with a hard, open hand at his face and head. Katsuki kept pressing forward like an enraged animal, cursing and yelling. But the blows from a full-grown man onto a four-year old quickly overwhelmed Katsuki. Iwao ends the fight with a fist to Katsuki’s gut. Katsuki coughs up spit as his knees hit the ground with a hard thud. He gasps and coughs, curling into a ball over his stomach. Iwao stood over Katsuki to rest his foot on the boy’s head. Katsuki’s eyes burn up at him. Iwao looks towards the rest of the boys.

“You see this pup? Did you see how he attacked as if he was trying to kill me?! You are to attack your Trainer as if you’re trying to kill him! When you are told to fight or attack…you go for the kill! That’s what I want to see from this point on!” Iwao removes his foot from Katsuki’s head. He bends down on a knee, grabs Katsuki by his shirt and stood him back on his feet.

“Again, Katsuki!”

#fan fiction #fan fic #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #mha fanfiction

1 note · View note