Comments on: On Agency

By: BobF

BobF — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 15:49:48 +0000

You are making such a powerful argument! Is this in any way related to the theme for your Master’s thesis? I’ll tell you that is makes me personally feel MUCH better about my decision to begin seeing escorts.

I am particularly in agreement about the all people are X because a group of people are X. That is the underlying principle that leads to racism, sexism, and other manner of “isms”. I suppose each of us can find ways when that attitude has affected our lives directly.

By: Alexa

Alexa — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 15:20:27 +0000

Assuming that all women (people) lack agency because some were unable to exercise it is roughly the same as assuming all people are X because a group of people are X. Like any other job, the reason people enter it is as individualized as they are.

People make a lot of assumptions about sex work that they don’t for every other line of work. That displays there obvious bias about sex work and not any true concern for the people who enter it. If I was were desperate for money and took a minimum wage job doing something I detested doing, you’d not hear the first peep out of the radfems – they’d be fine with that. They’d celebrate the fact I was working, trying to make ends meet, blah, blah, blah. But if I were to go into sex work, miraculously, my reasoning skills would be subject to debate, I’d obviously have been coerced or trafficked into it, I’d have been sexually abused at some point in my life – all attempts at rationalizing my entry into the work as something other than my own free choice (i.e., lack of agency).

By: BobF

BobF — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 01:24:37 +0000

I’m working my way forward through your old posts. This is a good one. I was unfamiliar with the concept of “agency” before (seems an odd use o the word, but I accept it). I see the logic in your argument about all working activities being objectifying in one way or another. I suppose one reason the radfems (my Mother and sister most likely fall into that category, though I have never discussed sex workers with either of them) focus on the ‘loss of agency’ is because some (many?) women who entered prostitution in the past may have relinquished their “agency.” In brushing elbows a few years ago with people deeply in the drug trade, I heard tales that made my skin crawl of young women who would do ANYTHING for drugs. Maybe this is a different element, but I suspect the radfem attitude has its roots in some elements of rational thought. They are just now unable to recognize that it is now (and always has been) possible for a woman to use her agency and choose sex work.

Keep my mind working Alexa!

By: The irony of rad-fem and porn « Awakening or Insanity

The irony of rad-fem and porn « Awakening or Insanity — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 00:52:11 +0000

[...] pleasure via self-fulfilling prophecy. Doesn’t surprise me considering this is the same viewpoint that in order to “save” women from sex work effectively denies women their agency. However, as I said it does surprise me how ingrained those viewpoint can be in our society, to the [...]

By: Being Amber Rhea » Blog Archive » 5th Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 11:23:48 +0000

[...] the topic of agency, Alexa of The Real Princess Diaries discusses the disempowering and dehumanizing language used by some feminists when they speak about sex workers. In particular, she deftly calls bullshit on the much-ballyhooed talking point – so often used as a [...]