“To this man, and others who want to help: you need to listen.”

I’m sure you realise that no one who has adopted a world view based on a *structure* that allows only for the intersections of race and class and gender would ever feel the need to adjust their position based on listening to someone else’s experience. Whatever the individual position, yours, or someone else’s, it doesn’t matter, as it can be easily explained away as lack of true understanding of the structural nature of the *system*. IE, you may *think* you’re not exploited while in fact the mere existence of the criticised structure implies that you are, regardless of what you may think or say. To someone holding this opinion, your opposition to their telling you about your exploitation is similar to poor people voting for less economic redistribution because they believe in “free enterprise” – and it’s considered, in a way, delusional. It’s not an intellectual disrespect for individual experiences although it usually looks just like that, just a (in itself delusional) belief in having found the answers and trying to fit reality into it. To do that, you have to axiomatically believe that everything contradicting your worldview has been corrupted by the system and isn’t aware of it’s own oppression. Obviously, if you hold that position, ignoring and “saving” people who tell you to leave them alone is still the right thing to do…

In addition, when I challenge certain feminist rhetoric by addressing their language and failure to acknowledge individual agency and voice, I am told I’m ignoring a larger system of oppression. This leaves me feeling like I’m in a bind – to address only the system feels to me like the individual women are mere passive shadows within a dominating hegemony. Well, can’t I acknowledge a powerful system at the same time as acknowledging individual women’s (and men’s) voices? According to many, I can’t.

Anyway, thank you for all you do – I am now a regular reader of your work, and it has made me feel like perhaps I’m not some kind of naive product of my own internalized oppression.

Brannon may call himself a feminist man, but he is a sex-negative one, and those of us involved in battles for freedom of expression have long known him for his strongly negative views of adult entertainment and sex-workers.

In 1991, in a salient example, the National Organization for Women held their national convention in New York City. At that time, Brannon had a lot of influence with the New York Chapter of NOW. The convention happened to coincide with pending legislation in the Congress, an Omnibus bill that would have, among other things, incorporated some of the radical-feminist theories of law professor Catherine MacKinnon into federal law. It was a pivotal period of time, because there had been much talk and a certain momentum favoring MacKinnon’s view of adult entertainment as a violation of women’s rights.

NOW had been invited to submit testimony to Congress and plans had been made by many of the powers-that-be in NOW — particularly from the New York (Brannon — currently and I think then, co-chair of the New York chapter’s Task Force on “Trafficking, Pornography and Prostitution”) and L.A. Chapters (Tammy Bruce) — to testify in favor of the proposed law. In the end, after a nasty and bruising debate, NOW (National) representatives withdrew their offer to testify before Congress. The withdrawal resulted directly from the work of a group of twelve anti-censorship feminists, heroes all, who had come to the convention to fight for freedom of expression. Despite vehement opposition, with a lot of name-calling, the group won out through political wisdom and a refusal to back down. Some names may be familiar: The New York 12 (in alphabetical order) were: Priscilla Alexander, Wendy Chapkis, Miki Demarest, Betty Dodson, Phyllis Frank, Nina Hartley, Bobby Lilly, Carol Queen, Annie Sprinkle, Kat Sunlove, Carol Vance and Veronica Vera.

The group gathered in New York armed with a procedural weapon. In earlier months the San Francisco NOW Chapter had acted favorably on recommendations from a Task Force on Pornography and Prostitution, chaired by Miki Demarest (who was, in her day job, publisher of Spectator Magazine). Those recommendations generally recognized that women who work as sex workers and in adult entertainment were women whose choices should be respected.

The San Francisco Chapter, in effect, had taken a radically different position than the New York and L.A. chapters, which saw women in sex work and adult entertainment as victims. The different views, in accordance with the rules of the organization, had to be reconciled before NOW could take a position before Congress. That’s what the New York 12 argued, and they refused to be shouted down or intimidated. It was a battlefield. To this day, participants still remember the pain of the vituperative, ugly things that were said, with Brannon in the thick of it.

Brannon also has developed, in some circles, a reputation for angry, demeaning, and insensitive behaviors. See for example: http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/ohBROTHER/retrogeov1.html

I am however seriously concerned at the uses being made of this week’s ILO report on coerced labor. The text does not support the furor, but already we have seen a political call for the Swedish solution in Germany based on the report, which should be read in the context of all ILO publications on this, and those of UNAIDS. If anything the report emphasises that coerced sexual labor is declining relative to other forms of coerced labor. See also John Davies’ recent study “I am not Natasha” (University of Amsterdam 2009).

Gorgeous — thank you!

Love –
mattilda