Yesterday, there was a discussion curated by one of my Facebook friends, Barry Campbell (if you've ever wondered what FB is good for, Campbell - who seems to have been born to find and post vast amounts of consistently compelling stuff - is the answer), about the anonymous Duke coed who's been paying tuition by doing porn. The news story has gone through several twists. It started out out ala "So This Is What Kids Need to do to Afford College These Days", but the woman pushed back, insisting that she actually likes doing porn, and...and...so what?
Which is a good point, actually. But, inevitably, Internet scum swiftly revealed both her professional and personal names, and death threats and Salem-ish public shaming ensued (as she strained to remain rationally, reasonably ahead of the brouhaha).
Such outrage against someone who happens to be smart, respectable, and who plies a defiantly non-standard sexuality (her porn is apparently especially kinky, degrading stuff)! I'd thought we were living in an era of tolerance for non-standard sexuality, but it appears not. Consensus is forming that the woman's icky sexual choices invalidate her from ever being taken seriously for anything, ever. She's a slut, pure and simple, and slutty sluts are only good for sluttin'.
A couple examples from among Barry's followers:
So I un-published the piece, reworked it, and offer it below, hoping this additional context will help it read more as I'd intended. Here goes:
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I'm disturbed, as anyone would be, to hear about the violence and death threats she's received from sickos. But I'm also disturbed by some of the reaction from otherwise intelligent, reasonable people who see irony/contradiction between her preference for degrading and outrageous sexual behavior and her expectation of respectability in non-sexual realms.
My sexual tastes happen to be appallingly conventional, but I've been with highly respectable women whose sexual preferences were at sharp odds with the persona they project in the real world. Sexuality is, even for the conventional, a wholly separate world, and one's preferences within that realm do not justify the denial of respect outside it (much less the sort of crap this young woman's put up with).
The same applies even in light of the starkly public nature of her sexuality. That's just another sexual preference; one she had every right to keep separate and private, even if it was a public sort of privacy. One's sexual preferences are not grounds for being disrespected. Full stop.
The woman's clear-headed, well-articulated statements under such blistering punishment (at such a young age!) have certainly earned my respect; much more so than any rote adherence to someone else's standards of propriety ever could.
Which is a good point, actually. But, inevitably, Internet scum swiftly revealed both her professional and personal names, and death threats and Salem-ish public shaming ensued (as she strained to remain rationally, reasonably ahead of the brouhaha).
Such outrage against someone who happens to be smart, respectable, and who plies a defiantly non-standard sexuality (her porn is apparently especially kinky, degrading stuff)! I'd thought we were living in an era of tolerance for non-standard sexuality, but it appears not. Consensus is forming that the woman's icky sexual choices invalidate her from ever being taken seriously for anything, ever. She's a slut, pure and simple, and slutty sluts are only good for sluttin'.
A couple examples from among Barry's followers:
"Whats interesting is she seems to do a lot of degradation themed porn which is interesting for a womens studies major who wants to become a political activist"and...
"In the end she comes across as someone who enjoys doing presumptively outrageous things and then acting surprised when fellow cretins express trumped-up outrage. She incites baser instincts in her audience and then is surprised that those baser instincts are not easily compartmentalized."I responded by making a case that sexual choices - even those we find dopey or repulsive - have absolutely nothing to do with anything else. My post was a minor hit, so I whipped it into a slog entry, and, a few hours later, reread it and discovered that it seemed to come from out of nowhere. Which, I guess, it did. It was a transplant, and transplants don't always thrive.
So I un-published the piece, reworked it, and offer it below, hoping this additional context will help it read more as I'd intended. Here goes:
-----------
I'm disturbed, as anyone would be, to hear about the violence and death threats she's received from sickos. But I'm also disturbed by some of the reaction from otherwise intelligent, reasonable people who see irony/contradiction between her preference for degrading and outrageous sexual behavior and her expectation of respectability in non-sexual realms.
My sexual tastes happen to be appallingly conventional, but I've been with highly respectable women whose sexual preferences were at sharp odds with the persona they project in the real world. Sexuality is, even for the conventional, a wholly separate world, and one's preferences within that realm do not justify the denial of respect outside it (much less the sort of crap this young woman's put up with).
The same applies even in light of the starkly public nature of her sexuality. That's just another sexual preference; one she had every right to keep separate and private, even if it was a public sort of privacy. One's sexual preferences are not grounds for being disrespected. Full stop.
The woman's clear-headed, well-articulated statements under such blistering punishment (at such a young age!) have certainly earned my respect; much more so than any rote adherence to someone else's standards of propriety ever could.
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