“Porn goes hand in hand with ‘the oldest profession,’ no, not prostitution, pimping. The last 2,000 years of men’s history include the buying and selling of women and girls for men’s status, use, pleasure, degradation, service, and childbearing. It gives me a sardonic chuckle when people say ‘prostitution’ is the oldest profession as if women of old were savvy entrepreneurs living autonomous lives rather than a slave class bought and sold for men’s profit and pleasure. Throughout this time women have fought against our reproductive exploitation, subjugation, and control. (And we continue to fight.)
Although women have gained things like the right to vote, the right to own property, have our own bank accounts, and get equal pay for equal work (nearly), many of the things are foremothers fought for and won are vanishing before our eyes, the right to single-sex bathrooms, shelters, hospital wards, prisons, and sports. One thing that has remained constant over this period is sex-based violence against women. According to UN Women and WHO, 1 out of 3 women experience sexual violence from men. Multiple factors make it especially hard to end the epidemic of sex-based crimes, 1. the normalization, fetishization, and glamorization of violence against women in porn and publicity, and 2. the erasure of sex as an important characteristic in the public and political lives of women/girls alongside the valuing the importance of the human capacity for sex recognition.”
