This one came in in response to a shortened version of this post that ran as an article in the recent Earth Island Journal. It came in anonymously, more or less, so we can’t run it in the Journal. But the EIJ’s loss is your gain. Here it is, all gratuitous capitalizations in original.
Watch Your Language!
Chris Clarke’s article on “Green Sexism” had the good intention to protest sexism in the Environmental Community (as if the “progressive” status of environmentalism should be synonymous with feminism.) What I found most insensitive about the article was Clarke’s use of the phrase “Mexican whorehouse.” whether it was Clarke’s ignorance to the connotations of the word “whore” or it was his lack of respect for women doing sex work, this language should not be permitted in EIJ.
Thanks,
NSJG
PDX, OR
Quick! Someone inform Jill Nagle!
I’ve been trying to parse the substance of her objection from several different elliptical approaches, and I’m still stumped. It seems to come down to “Ma! Chris said a bad word!” somewhere, though.
Would she have been happier if you called it a brothel or bordello, or were you supposed to call it a sex-work collective?
I know the Journal’s letter-writers. “Bordello” would have earned me criticism for glamorizing the trade with a fancy word, and “brothel” is obviously just wrong: should be “sistrel.”
And what the hell is up with the word ‘Menstrual”?
This leads back to any numbers of questions about the reclamation of words. When is a word reclaimed? When it is no longer connected with any negative connotations for anyone anywhere? In the meantime who can use it (in order to be sensitive to people who otherwise might be hurt)? Only those people to whom the word applies?
Regardless of the issues surrounding the language, though, your writer is on the money. There was a connotation available in your phrasing, however, meaning is in the ear of the beholder and I find that what I took away from your sentence is my own distaste not for sex work or sex workers, but for so-called progressive men who pay for sex work.
Am I being prudish? How can I simultaneously respect women who do sex work, but not their customers? I think I have a little analysis to do in this area.
=v= It’s all a misunderstanding. Dave Foreman et al are nature-lovers, fond of tending gardens. They had that meeting in a Mexican hoe house.
I would say there’s a misplaced period, but I am aware of the connotations of the word “period” and wouldn’t want to offend.
How can I simultaneously respect women who do sex work, but not their customers?
You can’t. Neither can you simultaneously respect the troops but not the war.
/joke
I just keep missing all the correct connotations. I thought this was about hiking along that creek system north between Davis and Vacaville (truncated inside referent for the NorCal ecoterrorists). But i did notice that there is a new book out from University of Chicago press called From Squaw Tit to Whorehouse Meadow: How Maps Name, Claim, and Inflame by Mark Monmenier.
I took the liberty of adding a link to Spyder’s post.
Monmonier has written some great stuff on cartography. His How to Lie With Maps is one of those books I think it ought to be mandatory to read before being granted legal adult status.
Hmm. Maybe there’s a blog post in that concept. Must consider.
I’m not sure I agree. Wouldn’t respecting the troops mean respecting the individuals enough to bring them home and see them in jobs that are physically safe and don’t harm their humanity? Jobs that meet their needs financially and emotionally and that respect people’s individuality and diversity?
I see sex work and workers similarly. To the extent that sex work damages people’s humanity in harming their ability to connect intimately with others, I abhor it. However, I’m sure that some sex work is not damaging or can be carefully not done in a damaging way and some may even be healing from time to time. I’m also aware that some sex workers would accept the collateral damage and maybe even partition off parts of themselves in order to not feel the damage.
Look, it’s a human being’s perogative what he or she does with her own body. I, however, would like to see a society in which everyone who wants one can get a well-paying job and doesnt have the rely on the sex industry, and one in which sex and real intimacy were given a lot more freely.