Radical Feminism vs. the Sex Industry Pt. 2: White Male Supremacy + Racism

***TRIGGER WARNING: Graphic Language and discussion of sexual exploitation, rape and racism within the sex industry. ***

Before I start my second installment on the sex industry, I want to say that I read two amazing posts today and I’d like to share them with you all. A Radical Pro-Feminist’s blog recently had a guest blogger and the posts are amazing! It examines sex work, issues with ‘trans activists’, trans and other queer politics as well as capitalism. For these posts, which are in order, click here for part one and here for part two.

I’d like to move onto my next section on the sex industry, I want to look at matters of racism in pornography and the sex industry at large. I will start this off with two relevant and powerful quotations from Andrea Dworkin, courtesy of Nikki Craft’s website.

“Pornography uses racism and anti-Semitism to promote sexual arousal; pornography promotes racial hatred by promoting racial degradation as "sexy", pornography romanticizes the concentration camp and the plantation, the Nazi and the slaveholder; pornography exploits demeaning racial stereotypes to promote sexual arousal; pornography celebrates racist sexual obsessions.”

"Why Pornography Matters to Feminists," first published in Sojourner, Vol. 7, No. 2, October 1981. Copyright © 1981 by Andrea Dworkin. All rights reserved.

“In pornography, everything means something. I have talked to you about the skin of black women. The skin of white women has a meaning in pornography. In a white-supremacist society, the skin of white women is supposed to indicate privilege. Being white is as good as it gets. What, then, does it mean that pornography is filled with white women? It means that when one takes a woman who is at the zenith of the hierarchy in racial terms and one asks her, What do you want?, she, who supposedly has some freedom and some choices, says, I want to be used. She says, use me, hurt me, exploit me, that is what I want. The society tells us that she is a standard, a standard of beauty, a standard of womanhood and femininity. But, in fact, she is a standard of compliance. She is a standard of submission. She is a standard for oppression, its emblem; she models oppression, she incarnates it; which is to say that she does what she needs to do in order to stay alive, the configuration of her conformity predetermined by the men who like to ejaculate on her white skin. She is for sale. And so what is her white skin worth? It makes her price a little higher.”

"Pornography Happens to Women," copyright © 1993, 1994 by Andrea Dworkin. All rights reserved.

As most of you know, or hopefully you will after reading this post, that the sex industry is blatantly racist and this racism is celebrated. The racism is not hidden, it is on the cover of a film, sold in a store, next to another store, within a neighborhood, within a community.

Along with being racist, it is homophobic, sexist, misogynist, heterosexist (yes, even the gay porn is heterosexist) and ultimately abusive. Note that by “sex industry” I mean any industry where human beings are bought and sold, directly or indirectly (in the case of pornography) for sexual consumption.

Any research I have to conduct on my own time to reveal the degradation, abuse and hatred that is pornography wears on my nerves. My spirit shakes when I see such abuse, hatred and degradation. It hurts me as a woman to know that men consume this material at our expense. However, without research (not research that includes the watching of pornographic films, merely the searching of titles, viewing of pornographer’s interviews etc) this type of radical critique could not be conducted. Robert Jensen endured much abusive material when he was writing “getting off”; I can’t imagine what he has seen. But, without seeing it, could he really analyze it?

What is even harder to imagine is that people wank off to this material – this blatantly racist and hateful material. That is what is hard to imagine.

Racism is not simply a consequence or one small element of the sex industry; it’s a marketable theme within the industry that generates millions. Not in any other industry will you see such celebratory cheers for racism and bigotry than in the sex trade. No other industry sells items with titles like Ghetto Gaggers, Latina Abuse, Blackhoodrats, Oh No, There’s a Negro in My Mom, Nappy Headed Hoes, Black Dicks in White Chicks, Sweatshop, Oriental Chicks Crave Chocolate Dicks, Naughty Spanish Maids, Bollywood Bang

You get the picture. At least I hope you do.

The picture is ugly. The picture is abusive. The picture is racist. The picture describes the white supremacist, capitalist, imperialist nature of pornography and prostitution. Pornography markets off white male consumption of racist materials to affirm white male privilege. As many radical feminist writers have said in the past that pornography sexualizes oppression and racial stereotypes along with all the other problems that stem from it. In almost all interracial pornography the ideas from imperialist white supremacists saturate the material. Ideas about the corrupt sexualities of people of colour, for example, are huge money makers in the porn industry.

Ideas about the savage, untamed sexuality of the black man ruining the wholesome, virginal white woman; or the submissive Asian woman being taken over by the white man, the white man is viewed asthe be all end all of sexual power; or the feisty, fiery Latina woman whose sexuality cannot be tamed or the black woman’s animalistic sexuality that needs to be contained by the white man. These are common stereotypes within the material. These are the lies that pornography embraces as universal sexual truths. The industry will use derogatory terms like “Hood Rats” or “Jewess” to express white male supremacist sexuality – to maintain the erection of the white man, who never has his power challenged, only confirmed by the similarly racist men who make the pornography.

Some pro-porn/pro-exploitation folks will claim these are merely “taboo fantasies” with no real world implications. But, let’s just pretend for a moment, that this argument holds any legitimacy in any context. It’s a bit hard to pretend isn’t it? It’s a bit hard to believe that a fantasy would be so vile and racist, so hateful. That’s because these are not fantasies, these are realities. Real women’s bodies are being abused; real women of colour are being abused in the name of white male supremacy, capitalist values and imperialism. This idea of the white man’s sexuality being the sexuality is not a fantasy, it has real life implications. The bodies of these women are not artificial, or fake as if a toy doll, they are real. The pain is real, the racism is real, and the societal effects are real. If one sexualizes such racial inequalities, becomes aroused by racist stereotypes and bigotry and ejaculates over these inequalities, you can damn well expect some societal problems.

Viewing pornography does not exist only during the time it is viewed. It lingers in the mind of the men who view it – it rubs off and leaks into their daily lives, into their perceptions of class, race, gender and sexuality. It is damaging to everyone, particularly non-white groups of people, particularly women of colour. This is racism. These videos and photographs are the markers of white supremacy, these are proof. This proof, this evidence is killing women. This proof plays an enormous role in why white supremacy remains.

Now, as a white woman, I recognize the fact that I cannot fully understand the implications. I cannot suggest that I will EVER understand. All I can suggest is that I am outraged by this sexualization of hatred. As a radical feminist, I demand an outcry by not only other feminists but by every single person in any single society who demands a world free from such hate.

This idea of all of this merely being a fantasy? Really? Lets think about a scenario, shall we?

What happens when a 12 year old boy finds “ghetto gaggers” online? What will he think when he sees a white man gagging a black woman with his penis? Or a black woman crying while a white man abuses her? What happens after he views sexualized versions of SS guards raping Jewish women?

Oh, but it’s a fantasy.

The last time I checked the holocaust happened. The last time I checked Jewish women were raped by SS guards; white men raped black women as a way to intimidate and control them during the days of slavery. How about now? White soldiers go into other countries during war; they rape the women there to scare their husbands, show conquer over an enemy, to threaten their village. These threats are carried out on women. All of these things happened, and still happen but the only difference is now you can buy it on DVD and call it a fantasy.

This isn’t just inside the pornography industry; this is in the global sex trade, too. For example, in Thailand tourism is big business. Sex tourism brings in a whole lot of money for the Thai government. Globalization has made it possible for white men to travel to “exotic” countries and buy sex from “exotic” women. These ideas of “exotic” or “animal-like” stem from years of white supremacy. These ideas are pushed forward by continuing racism. White men bring their western ideas about the rest of the world into other countries and ultimately onto the bodies of women. These supposed sexualities of every race and ethnic group were formulated by white supremacist men. These are not truths, merely racist myths created by the powerful to take control over other nations. The global sex trade is big business, there are millions of sex workers in Thailand alone, imagine the rest of the world? These white men come by for business trips; they leave their families at home and explore their “exotic” aka. racist fantasies by renting a body for the night that they can use to affirm their white male dominance.

I’m not pulling this out of thin air, there is much written on the impact of globalization and white imperialism on sex trafficking, prostitution and the like. All of these sexual stereotypes that are incredibly damaging go back to the colonial days. Why has society, particularly Western society, chosen to protect the “speech” of these racists? Why are they deemed as “fathers of sexual revolution” by promoting hate and injustice?How does this translate into our definition of 'freedom?'

White men have a voice. They write the rape, they package the rape, the rape gets viewed by consumers and it continues to be shared between racist rape-culture enthusiasts. There’s a big problem here. The problem affects everyone in that it promotes the hatred and misogyny of not only women as a class, but women of colour everywhere. These pornographers, pimps and rapists have no concept of freedom outside of their privileged lives. Freedom for them is getting to 'write' their speech; their formulated Constitution for the rape culture they have created. They wake up every day with money they made from the bodies of women, the racism they spread and the abuse they hand out on a daily basis. The pornographers should not be protected. We should not defend the racist, sexist, misogynistic pornographers in hopes that ‘free speech’ will prevail.

I have asked it before, and I’ll ask it again, who has ‘freedom of speech?’

What does this mean for women as a class? For the entire world? What does this ‘free speech’ mean?

Free speech is not so free, and rarely, in the hand's of the pimps, is it ever merely just 'speech.'