The…expression “culture war”…suggests two sides of equal strength…wanting to conquer each other. But what we commonly call the “culture war” is not like this at all. Those who hate and fear sexuality (erotophobes) are attacking those who appreciate or tolerate sexuality (erotophiles). And while erotophiles are not attempting to force erotophobes to live more sexually adventurous lives, erotophobes insist that both sides – everyone – live according to their erotophobic values. – Marty Klein
That’s a slightly-abridged version of the first few sentences of America’s War on Sex, Dr. Marty Klein’s analysis of the ongoing campaign to repress any and all consensual sexual activity that does not conform to the most prudish and narrow standards of the most prudish and narrow-minded Americans. In fifteen chapters (alternating short and long, with the long ones divided into subsections) he closely examines the way that organized prohibitionists have colluded with a repressive government to wage a scorched-earth campaign on sex education, reproductive rights, porn, “indecency” on television, adult businesses (including strip clubs), the internet and sexual minorities (including gays, polyamorists and BDSM aficionados). Klein is an engaging writer and doesn’t pull his punches; his highly-readable style is reminiscent of good glossy-magazine journalism, complete with insert boxes and bullet-pointed facts. He tears apart all the major prohibitionist arguments and provides statistics to refute claims about “premature sexualization”, “negative secondary effects”, supposed harm caused by porn, and other myths used by the prohibitionists to pretend their anti-sex crusade is based in something other than pure dogma.
In fact, his arguments are so well-made that the book’s two major deficiencies are thrown into even sharper relief, and thus become far more annoying than they would be in a weaker text. Some of you may have noticed one of them already, but if you haven’t take a look back at the list of chapter topics in the previous paragraph. That’s right; prostitution is completely absent. Though Klein mentions it in passing two or three times, it’s always in conjunction with something else and is never elaborated upon; there isn’t even an index entry for “sex work”, “prostitution” or any other synonym. And though he discusses police campaigns against swinger’s clubs, he can’t spare a few paragraphs for the organized persecution of whores which is the longest continuously-active front in America’s war on sex (going on 100 years now). While Klein dares to say that porn is a healthy expression of sexuality, he doesn’t even suggest that buying or selling sex in a more direct way is not pathological; though he vigorously attacks the bogus statistics prohibitionists use to attack other forms of sex work, he makes no such effort against bogus claims about hookers; and while he does not hesitate to point out the myths and exaggerations by which prohibitionists disguise their bigotry against other sexual minorities, he is utterly silent about the “sex trafficking” hysteria (which was already two years old and rapidly growing when the book was published in 2006).
The other problem is in a way worse, because it represents a dangerous distortion rather than a simple omission. And while it could be argued (however unconvincingly) that Klein left whores out for fear of alienating his target audience, there is no excuse for his willful mischaracterization of the identity of the enemy; it’s as though an author writing about World War II blamed the whole thing on the Nazis and acted as though the Japanese didn’t exist. Though Klein doesn’t spare any ammo in attacking one end of the Anti-sex Axis, conservative Christianity, he doesn’t even bother to aim at the other end: neofeminism. Though James Dobson, Jerry Falwell and their ilk are quoted extensively and debunked thoroughly, there is no mention of Andrea Dworkin, Catharine MacKinnon, Gail Dines, Melissa Farley or any of the others who have caused at least as much damage to sexual freedom as their Christian allies. Indeed, the neofeminists are arguably much more dangerous because they appeal to a much wider demographic; consider that while the Christian prohibitionists have adopted a great deal of neofeminist rhetoric, the opposite is not true.
I do not believe that Klein engaged in deliberate obfuscation in either of these cases; given the honesty and devotion to individual liberty (including support for sex worker rights) he displays on his own website, Sexual Intelligence, I rather suspect his publisher may have had something to do with the missing subject matter. If his editor had neofeminist leanings it might’ve been impossible to get pro-sex worker text or criticism of feminist catechism past her; on the other hand, we don’t know that he even tried. These twin flaws aren’t fatal, but they are most assuredly crippling; the book is still worth a read, but it isn’t nearly as good as it could have been, or as I had hoped it would be.
Libertarian types of people for all their faults are seldom if ever are for prostitution prohibition. Both conservatives and liberals are usually for prostitution prohibition. You are right that the neo-feminists(liberals-there’s more than one type) are more dangerous to prostitution than the social conservatives(conservatives-there’s more than one type) for the reasons you stated above. Note that I never said social conservatives know or really want normal relationships between men and women, but they certainly know and want much more normal relationships between men and women than neo-feminists. The problem with social conservatives is they want the sexual minorities such as homosexuals and prostitutes to act like good heterosexuals and wives which is not possible and leads to disaster. The neo-feminists are all for misandry(the subjugation and humiliation of men) and for role reversal in male and female relationships which does not work and leads to disaster much more disaster than what the social conservatives want. Prostitution prohibition is even more senseless than narcotics prohibition and has in my mind proven to be more disastrous than narcotics prohibition for the amount of suffering caused in numbers, intensity and percentages.
I find the use of the word “erotophobe” in your epigram to be desperate and strained. LOL – he uses this term (which I have never heard before) repeatedly – as if he’s trying to muscle it into my brain. Sorry Marty … t’won’t work.
What is this obsession with Leftists to attach the word “phobe” to anything in order to disparage anyone who thinks differently from them? Is this the best the Left has? Creative name calling? Hell, I – and most of my classmates – perfected that art in the third grade.
Then we moved on.
Of course – his target audience are Liberals, who hate whores as much as Conservative Christians do.
I think you give him too much credit. It’s his book – with his name on it. I don’t think you can truly be a “libertarian” until you realize that both the Left and the Right are … wrong.
Well written. Actually, I think that the liberals in particular the neo-feminists hate whores more than the social conservatives( otherwise known as religious conservatives-if you think there aren’t social conservative Muslims, Jews, Buddists, Hindus etc. then you are wrong) because you can at least point to the arguments St. Augustine of Hippo or St. Thomas Aquinas stated about prostitution saying that it was morally evil but governments should tolerate it. It’s harder to convince non-Christians of their arguments, but most Christians philosophies regarding being for prostitution prohibition are shaken if not reversed when you cite these two Saints.
The reason neo-feminists hate whores more than social conservatives is because neo-feminists love misandry or the harming of men more than they even want to help women. They want power to harm others as they feel good doing so. They are also the most delusional people you will ever meet concerning how the natures of human males and human females are as well as to how most male and female relationships work. They are about enforcing their delusions and harm on to people too. They don’t care for the greater good and insist everyone follow what they think is good even if it is truly bad. Whores act as” strikebreakers” to a neo-feminized culture where the majority of women who have been neo-feminized to one degree or another all too often use sex as a weapon against men. It’s not the only weapon used against men, but it is surely one of a few if not many.
Consider how many men would bother to get married or work hard and pay taxes to support neo-feminism and misandry which attacks men if they could go to whores when they wanted sex. The answer is fewer men would do so especially considering how much misandry is involved against men for being in marriage, live-in relationships which are not marriage and child support laws whether or not the child is born inside wedlock especially if there is a divorce later on or out of wedlock. The neo-feminists don’t even want men reading anything about GAME( seduction of women) or about men’s rights activism or about men going their own way and trying as much as possible to cut women out of their lives. The neo-feminists know they can not survive without men the same way that slave-master owners know they can not survive as well without the slaves being subjugated to them as in the revolt of Spartacus against the Romans in the 1st century B.C. They want a culture and society which will subjugate men so they can have a powerbase and make the subjugated pay for it. Whores are the ultimate rebels against neo-feminism and the neo-feminists regard them as traitors to women and even worse neo-feminists and neo-feminism. What the idiot neo-feminists didn’t realize is that when they liberated women, they also liberated men or set into motion the eventual liberation of men. Slowly men are starting to realize this, and neo-feminists don’t like it because without the support of subjugated men then neo-feminism dies. Here’s a disturbing question that needs to be pondered because it’s true and the neo-feminists don’t want you think at all about coming in the next sentence. Why “buy”(don’t get upset-I mean in a sense that no sex is ever truly free for a man and you pay for it in one way or another) a wife, work hard and support a family when one can use internet porn, purchase the services of whores, GAME women for PUMP, DUMP and NEXT SEX or ignore women as much as humanly possible while not working hard and supporting the system as little as possible?
You do get that it’s his own term, right? Kind of like my “neofeminist”? I have no problem with an author using neologisms in his own writing as long as he defines them clearly b(and they aren’t linguistically annoying). As for the “Left” and “Right”…they’re not both “wrong”, they simply don’t exist as defined. And trying to pretend that they do is a major source of the problems in the US, as demonstrated by Klein’s omission of neofeminists.
I don’t find your use of the term “neofemist” to be “droning” and “strained” as his use of the inaccurate phrase “erotophobes” is. “Neofemist” is a constructive term … “erotophobe” is what … a medical term? He’s seeking to instill the believe in the reader that people who think differently from him on this are mentally ill? Give me a break.
Why the fuck then, didn’t he label the other side as “erotomaniacs”? Just to keep it all in the family with the pyschological slur terms? Come on – admit it – he’s using language to program the reader’s opinions. The term “neofeminist” doesn’t do that. In fact, “neofeminist” … “archeofeminist” – when I first showed up on this blog I didn’t know which was the more disparaging term. You’re using a constructive label – he’s using a slur – and an overused slur.
When a guy uses language in this fashion – I dismiss him and stop listening – because I can see the gimick. I’ve said many times I’m not a smart man – yet, in my life – I have been placed in charge of some pretty complex things that I didn’t fully understand. I learned in meetings – to spot the “bullshitter” … you can’t make a bad decision if you ignore what he’s saying.
As far as using “Left” and “Right” – I use them in the commonly used sense – which is flawed I admit. But clearly – in this book – the writer is addressing the issues within the context of those common language terms. He’s wooing liberals … while he’s disparaging conservatives.
And that makes him the “bullshitter” in the meeting, Maggie – because anyone who’s not firing at both sides is not straight up.
Actually, his use of “erotophobe” is a straight usage of greek roots (as shown by how he defines it – and its opposite “erotophile”). No “mental illness” connotation is needed. The “-phobe” suffix might have been overused and abused, but it doesn’t mean it’s forever defiled (we all know where that kind of thinking leads).
On the other hand, the silence on sex work and pseudofeminists (since they only pretend to act in women’s best interests, I’ll use this definitely loaded term in all conscience) is indeed suspicious.
Precisely. His use of “erotophobe” follows standard practice of both construction and usage. And Krulac, if you don’t think that the prohibitionists’ behavior demonstrates psychopathology, you really haven’t been paying attention.
I believe that prohibitionists behavior especially prostitution prohibitionists behavior demonstrates psychopathology, and I believe Krulac does too, but I’ll let the man answer for himself as there is a small possibility that I’m wrong in my perspective about the man.
Prohibitionism is NOT a mental illness. Yes, it’s about control – but Joseph Stalin was about control and I don’t think he was mentally ill. Come on Maggie – you’re better than that. You know that one of the favorite things a totalitarian state does is declare those who think differently “mentally ill” and then they can just have them committed – out of the way, very nicely.
I oppose that practice and I cannot oppose it if I’m willing to adopt it for my own.
You can call them controlling, or evil, but mentally ill? Nope. If that’s the tripwire for mental illness then everyone who’s ever killed another human being is CERTAINLY mentally ill.
Also – we’re forgetting here that “prohibitionists” are never one-dimensional. In other words – they are not “all about” prohibiting things – their lives consist of many other elements than the prohibitionist element. They cannot be labelled with a mental illness based on that one fact alone.
For example … a school teacher who takes a pay cut to work in a poor urban school – and she also happens to believe that prostitution should remain illegal. She’s doing some good work, and for little pay – do we really want to label her as some crazy controlling bitch? I don’t think so.
Too many times we forget – that the people we oppose philosophically are three-dimensional people just like us with both good and bad traits. Bad traits? Oh hell yeah – I got some … so I’m never going to try to shove righteousness down someone else’s throat.
This guy’s book – is simply a financial expedition in the form of “preaching to the choir”. He has his choir – he’s preaching to it – but they are already converts so his book is of little value to anyone except his bank account.
A valuable book penetrates the brains of the people on the other side – it changes minds and thinking.
This one won’t.
You changed my views about prostitution prohibitionists having psychopathology. They are not medically or technically crazy. They are displaying sociopathic tendencies on this issue though. The reason I say this is because they refuse to see that someone else may have a different view. They also fail to see how their view might hurt others and cause greater harm to more people than if they did not enforce their views on others or they just feel good about harming others. Some people like harming others because it makes them feel good.
Okay, I can go with a bit of that, Doc!
The sad fact is … most people believe in some kind of prohibition. My Mom does, Dad does, all my brothers and their wives do – I’m probably the only one that will say that prostitution and drugs should be decriminalized.
Sooo … WE are the minority here … perhaps there’s a psychological label for us since our views are outside the norm?
Of course – I think we are right but we aren’t going to convince people to join us by calling them mentally ill.
I agree. You’re right about most people today especially most Americans. They don’t want liberty. I’ve met men from the former Warsaw Pact nations who fled when they were under Communism and they say the same about most Americans. The thing is that there were more Americans like us at one time than there is now whether or not they were the majority. Our numbers of true liberty loving people wane while the tyrants numbers wax. The reason why narcotics decriminalization and homosexual rights being asserted is that there aren’t the neo-feminists and their neo-feminism to block them. I’m not saying that there aren’t others like social conservatives who are also for prostitution prohibition, but neo-feminism is ascendant and social conservatives get easily swept away by our elite who really run things behind the scenes one way or another. Both groups are used like useful idiots to hide that liberty is being lost.
A Catholic priest and retired Air Force Colonel and chaplain told me that one should be careful about destroying another’s reputation as it could eventually lead to their maiming mutilation and death and to never unnecessarily or wrongfully do this as well as to err on the side of mercy. Here’s some quotes from Westerns films. The movie UNFORGIVEN” Hell of a thing killing a man. You take away all he’s got and all he’s ever going to have.” The movie THE SHOOTIST”I won’t be wronged. I won’t be insulted. I won’t be laid a hand on. I don’t do these things to other people, and I require the same from them.” If only every one lived like this, the world would be a better place.
Some people don’t see how they’re harming others and some don’t care. some like to harm others as it makes them feel good. Neo-feminists want power and money and so harm men without really helping women. they attack whores as traitors to women and especially neo-feminists and neo-feminism and as strikebreakers to the union of women. Neo-feminists especially do not even try to live like the paragraph above. Most American women and maybe most American men have effectively been neo-feminized by propaganda, Later generation will insult and mock us for this and justifiably so I might add.
I disagree. Wanting to control what other people think and do IS mental illness; it’s textbook megalomania. Just because it’s a common illness doesn’t make it any less of one.
I would say wanting to control other people as a general rule is more of a moral failure than a psychological failure. These people still have agency and must be held responsible for their actions which is harder to do if they are psychotic. Actually they deserve harsher and more punishment for their moral failures than truly psychotic people because truly psychotic people have lost the capacity for reason and reality, and these people have not.
To want to control the thoughts in someone else’s head is a moral failing; to actually believe it’s possible requires mental illness.
Well put. However, I am defining mental illness as something that someone need to see a psychiatrist or psychologist for. If you choose to define it more broadly, then I see and understand where you are coming from, but respectfully disagree. Nearly everyone is delusional about something, I’m not putting myself up as the exception either as I probably have at least one delusion which I’m completely oblivious to.The only questions are what they are delusional about and how much delusion they have. Do you really think that the majority of American people who support prostitution prohibition need to see psychiatrists or psychologists or that they simply need to be better educated and less propogandized? I vote for the latter.
So he found a cleaver, historical way to pull off a slur. I’m still not applauding here. Whatever the Greeks said about “phobes” we know that, in todays vernacular – it’s an overused slur. It’s most often attached to anyone who opposes something on the Homosexual agenda – they’re labeled “Homophobes” – as if they sit in their homes each night cowering in fear of Homosexuals. I can assure you they do not – and they are therefore not technically “homophobic”.
Neither should one who opposes sex in the streets be considered “phobic”. I oppose sex between 50 year old men and 6 year old girls – LOL – what kind of “phobe” does that make me? Pediphobic? Come on.
Anyway – he totally lost me with his use of his little “invented” term.
But then again, I’m not in his “intended audience”. 😉
You hellenologophobe! 😉
You’re right that he is wooing liberals and disparaging conservatives. He probably is a liberal. Even if he is not, it is too easy to bash conservatives as they are a defeated and retreating force just like the Nazis were after the Battle of Stalingrad against the Communists. Sure they may delay the inevitable, but they won’t stop it. Like Maggie McNeill stated the social conservatives will adopt neo-feminist positions, but the neo-feminists seldom if ever adopt social conservative positions. It’s all march to the to the left ,to the left, and to the left with no right no matter how you look at it no matter how much the liberals say there is rightward movement. Why the liberals are frustrated is because we are not going left especially neo-feminist fast enough. News flash to Leftists and neo-feminists in particular: You are not brave for attacking Rightists and social conservatives because it’s like saying you are brave for killing rottweiller dogs with your bare hands convincing everyone that they are full grown adult dogs in the prime of their lives when all you are doing is strangling 6 week old puppies. I’m more libertarian than anything else, and even I know that. You are correct that if you can’t at minimum take on both the right and left, when they are wrong or anyone else who is wrong then you are wrong and anyone who can’t do this is full of malarkey.
Exactly. Heh, I hate the fact that this guy got me all riled up to defend Conservatives. I was, no shit, a FOUNDING MEMBER of “People For the American Way” – which is as Progressively Leftist as you can get.
For equal amounts of my life – I was a liberal, and conservative. I’ll admit, that conservatives talk some sexy talk when it comes to Liberty on things like guns, taxes, speech … but they are two-faced in their application of Liberty – for instance, all that “liberty” talk is completely forgotten when it comes to sex workers.
They are also slaves – my term, coined by me on other forums … hehe … for conservatives are “Conservative Slaves”. For 50 years they’ve been voting for Republicans who promised to cut government – and each and every time the ones they elected GREW government. They cannot see the forest from the trees and don’t realize that as long as they are weilding a sword against prostitutes and drug users – that same sword will be picked up and be weilded by others against them.
Add customers od prostitutes known as johns and homosexuals among others to the list too. If you want liberty for yourself and your behavior then you have to tolerate liberty for others even if you don’t like them or their behavior. The Lefties and the Righties for the most part collude when it comes to prostitution and only the libertarians defend liberty for prostitution in this regard. The lefties and righties sometimes agree on what to prohibit and sometimes have different ideas what to prohibit while the libertarians seldom if ever want to prohibit something even if it disgusts them.
The other thing I like to tell conservatives is which era or ideas of conservatism or traditionalism do you want to support. Is it 1980, 1950, 1880 or 1850 or any other year? If you can tell me how the Republicans are fundamentally different from the Democrats of 1960, I’d love to hear it. Both parties have marched to the left with just the Republicans trailing the Democrats. Both parties of yesteryear would be shocked at how tyrannical both parties have become by lessening individual liberty at the expense of growing government power.
I love asking social conservatives who oppose homosexual marriage why it shouldn’t exist. I don’t attack from the left. I attack from the right. I might be a reactionary not a conservative on this one. I say to them it was only a matter of time before this homosexual marriage idea happened because you folks did nothing and still do nothing against the misandry laws against men in the USA concerning marriage. Count on polygamy, polyandry and marrying things coming next. The institution of marriage degraded when giving women the children and house in over 90% of the cases in fault divorce starting in the 1860s which led to a 10% divorce rate by 1900 with women initiating most of the divorce by then. Before the 1860s, men initiated divorce most of the time and there was only a 1% divorce rate. At least the women rarely if ever paid alimony or child support. The idea in the 1860s was to make things more equitable and better for women as the Victorian age saw women as more moral creatures than men. Women are just as immoral as men in my opinion, and some others argue more so. Then the institution got really degraded in the 1960s with the introduction of no fault divorce and became much more nasty towards men. the divorce rate sky rocketed to 50%.
I do not know if South Korea has no fault divorce or still has fault divorce only. However before 1990, men usually got the home and the children while initiating most of the divorces and wives were told to leave just like before the 1860s in the USA and South Korean women rarely paid child support and alimony too. They changed the laws to be more like the USA. What happened? Wives now initiate most of the divorces and they usually get the home and children while forcing the men to pay alimony and child support just like the USA. The South Korean divorce rate shot up to 45% by 2000 where it has more or less remained ever since. See, women are women, men are men, and humans are humans wherever you go. If you allow them to destroy someone else with little or no consequence guess what they do. They’ll even justify it as the right thing to do in order to live with themselves. The same thing happens to anyone involved with prostitution. American women in general and neo-feminist in general need to be asked this question: Do you want traditionalist inequality or do you want modern equality? CHOOSE as YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE BOTH OF THE BEST OF EACH WHILE NOT GETTING THE WORST OF EACH. One day you women will not have the best of each while avoiding the worst of each like you do now. At best, you women will have to choose one or the other. At worst the choice may be made for you women. You women may even eventually get the worst of both worlds if you don’t choose and do it soon. This is the path the neo-feminists are leading you to ladies, not me and others with similar views.
Left / right. Conservative / liberal.
Gross simplification that distort the debate.
Is Obama a liberal? Is Bush a conservative? Left or right?
Then what do you call people who think the government should have a warrant before collecting a list of all calls, texts, places your phone has been, and websites you have visited?
Well besides not a recent president.
I agree. The real debate is between those for liberty and those for tyranny. Most people don’t see that though which is why I responded to Krulac the way I did. I think he knows this too as he seems to be a libertarian leaning type like me. I’m not surprised as he is a fellow veteran of the Iraq War, and I’m also a veteran of the Afghanistan War, Ron Paul got more votes from Iraq and Afghanistan veterans in the 2012 Republican primaries and caucuses than any other Republican candidate even though Mitt Romney won the nomination. American veterans especially those who are war veterans know what it is like to have their liberty stripped of them whether they volunteered or were drafted more so than almost any other type of American you meet. This is why so many are libertarian types and Ron Paul got a plurality if not a majority of their vote. American Veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars voted for Ron Paul more than virtually any other demographic you can imagine. Maybe whores voted for Ron Paul more, and at the very least at least the legal Nevada whores appeared to be just as supportive of Ron Paul and maybe more so than veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
Yeah, them lefties hate the hookers and want them all in prison. Not.
Actually, most self-labelled “progressives” do indeed favor criminalization these days; it’s part of their whole pattern of believing that “experts” have the right to manage everyone’s lives. Of course, they hide it behind “end demand”, “child sex trafficking”, “exploitation of women”, “false consciousness” and all, but a cage is a cage and a pogrom is a pogrom, not matter how they’re disguised.
The few members of the so-called “left” who favor something other than criminalization tend to be libertarian-flavored ones, and even most of those tend to think we’re mental midgets who need to be “heavily regulated”…for our own good, of course.
I was just pointing out that any idea that the left is more anti-hooker than the right is silly. Many on the left, either because they believe the trafficking hysteria or because they’re afraid of being seen as “soft on crime” will echo their more right-leaning brethren.
I corresponded with the author briefly after I read his book, and he wouldn’t reply to my request for feedback on my blog post about breast shame. It is a great book, but I got the feeling his discourse is highly censored.
The War on Whores is probably the most important current part of the War on Sex. A lot of the other Sex War battles are at least currently contested if not outright won. If me and my wife decided to practice BDSM in our own home without involving other people, I don’t really expect we’d have to deal with the police. The reason why swingers are persecuted is partly because swinging is just seen as a form of prostitution by the authorities. (Seriously, cops who raid swingers clubs just think of it as a brothel raid.) The same goes for strip clubs, even though strippers may decide not to have any sexual contact with their customers at all. Most of the persecution of strip clubs I’ve seen was predicated on the idea that prostitution is bad and what is going on in strip clubs is like prostitution.
Porn and TV indecency are certainly not nearly as contested as actual sexual contact between unmarried persons is. In fact, I think TV has gotten much more permissive and while porn is currently slipping from the “won” pile into the “contested” pile (for example the recent law to require condoms on porn sets), it’s still in far safer legal territory than prostitution is.
Gay rights, as we’ve all seen, used to be on about the same level as commercial sex worker rights as far level of persecution. When I was in grade school, I believe if someone gunned a gay man down in the street, guys would just buy the murderer a drink. That, at least, was the impression I got from people. Of course, that has completely changed and gay rights have rocketed past whore rights. (I saw a car a while back with a “dead hooker storage” bumper sticker on the trunk. Hilarious.)
pws wrote, I saw a car a while back with a “dead hooker storage” bumper sticker on the trunk. Hilarious.
I think this is one of those jokes where the context you bring defines your reaction to it. Kind of like the Seinfeld episode, “The Contest.”
My initial reaction was aversion. But then I saw how it could be used ironically, to subvert the idea that most “Johns” hate hookers and use them as a sublimated substitute for killing them, which is most likely the context the neo-fems would bring to the table. I’m sure that they would argue that the bumper sticker was misogynistic. But then they ought to take their fishy bicycle and pedal away.
Yes, it’s hard when you see it to know what the person was thinking. It could also be used purely for shock value, like some of those bumper stickers that suggest that the driver is insane, “Keep honking, I’m reloading.” Now, I don’t think that the driver of that car is really planning to shoot people, and I don’t think the driver of the other car is really murdering women and putting them in her trunk (female driver in the case I saw). I just found it really weird and off-putting to see a bumper sticker like that.
I wanted to ask the person, “What were you thinking?” but of course I’m not going to shout that out the window going 60 miles per hour.
When I see a bumper sticker like that it brings to mind Joel Rifkin or the Green River Killer. Those are not so funny to me.
I don’t know this book. I see it was published in 2006; might the absence of discussion of prostitution be because of legal issues? It’s a crime in the US, after all, and perhaps he or his editor didn’t want to be associated with “encouraging criminality”. Did you try to engage him in a conversation about this?
Perhaps it’s time for an updated, second edition.
I like the word erotophobe. Phobe doesn’t just mean fear, it has come to mean dislike or hatred too. There are a lot of people who think that sex by itself is animalistic and degrades human beings. They think that sex has to be redeemed by love and relationships to be acceptable. Sex outside of committment for recreation isn’t accepted.
I’m also fond of the word “erotiphobe,” though I’m not fond of erotiphobia. I’ve used the word for at least twenty years, and am somewhat amused to see that somebody else has “invented it” in 2006. The word, by its Greek roots, literally means “fear of sex” which is a perfect description of the motivation behind sexual prohibitions.
Neofeminists are neither left nor right, neither liberal nor conservative. Lefties want to blame them on the right, and righties want to blame them on the left, but the truth is that neofeminists are off in some other dimention, at right angles to the left/right axis.