Re: <nettime> Sex Work and Consent at @transmediale

[Margaret Morse <memorse@comcast.net>]

Thanks to Alessandra for a far more nuanced and recently informed
post. I realize that my responses were from someone with armor.
Words like disrespect and stigma in connection with prostitution
reflect my experience of the suffering of someone with great dignity
and grace whom I adored. My instinct is to defend the rights of
sex workers to social legitimacy and choice. I don't consider sex
workers helpless victims; they may not need me on offense. I also
identify strongly with a different but related issue--ending human
trafficking and modern slavery. This is again a matter of choice and
autonomy--which may mean something more fluid here, but it is hard for
me to imagine how. However, I doubt if armor is the best way of going
about discussing these things with others who might be persuaded to
engage with these issues where they can make a difference.


Best wishes
MM

On Feb 15, 2012, at 4:22 PM, Alessandra Renzi wrote:

> 
> Dear Margaret and others,
> 
> I have been following this thread with interest and feel, that despite
> some very insightful comments, something important is missing.
> Something that still makes this discussion very abstract and far from
> the real issues about sex work and consent. This is because we are
> working from a very reductive definition of what sex work actually
> is. I believe Dymitri's post on the importance of seeing sex work as
> labour started a more nuanced discussion but probably did not go far
> enough, leaving us to discuss the role of consent and violence on the
> body (and/or mind).


<....>
 

Margaret Morse
Professor of Film and Digital Media
University of California Santa Cruz
memorse@comcast.net
morse@ucsc.edu

1230 Colusa Ave.
Berkeley, CA 94707 
ph/fax 510 280 5774
Cell 510 316 1865



#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime>  is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org