Category: Sex, sexuality, and sexual politics

World of Warcraft: Sexist by Design?

tekanji

I’ve made the case more than once that Blizzard has made a choice (conscious, I’d say, by the rate that they ignore the opposition voices) to create a sexist environment that’s hostile to women in Word of Warcraft. In doing this, they have lost a portion of women (and continue to lose, as players pass their tolerance levels and decide that quitting is the only answer) for an imaginary gain of men and boys who wouldn’t play their games if not for the ability to masturbate to Night Elves who pole-dance in skimpy outfits. I am not the first woman who has left WoW in disgust, being fed up with having to deal with misogynistic asshats who objectify and degrade women vocally, and I will not be the last.

My mother and her partner still play, although they might be moving on to another game soon (for unrelated reasons). Knowing my stance on Blizzard and their choice, they pointed me to a 30 page thread on the matter entitled Female Armor Art Design (it seems to be part of a larger debate, but I’d rather not seek it out at this point given the size of this one). Ever since I saw a thread where a player wishing to find a GLBT friendly guild on his server was lambasted by 75% of the commenters, I’ve viewed the WoW forums as kin to Barrens chat: a dumping ground for bile, idiocy, and word vomit. A quick skimming of this thread yields much the same, but it’s always a good time to pull together threads that I’ve ranted on in the past.

I. The Debate

I would like to add my voice to those who feel that the art used for female character design contributes to sexist attitudes in Warcraft.

Clearly the general forums are a terrible place to have a discussion about this, but after an extensive search of Blizzard’s customer feedback options, this is all I’m left with.

I think it’s fair to say that the female armor art is generally designed to be ‘sexy’, while the male armor art is not. I assume this means that Blizzard is more interested in the demographic that likes their fantasy in a ‘Heavy Metal’ style, than the demographic that is offended by that representation of women.

I also don’t see any sign that Blizzard acknowledges that these design decisions alienate some of their potential player base. They are either oblivious, or don’t care. In either case, I can’t really continue to support them with my money.

Again, the general forums aren’t where I’d like to be saying this – I’m sure nobody here really cares what I do with my account – but I haven’t been able to find any other avenue to express this to Blizzard.

Thank you.

[From Female Armor Art Design by Eggbread]

I’m not going to bother to address the issues that came up in the responses, as it would require me sitting down and actually engaging with the infuriating ignorance and misogyny present on the boards. If any of y’all are brave enough to go wading through that sludge, please feel free to quote and critique the comments if you like. I’d certainly be interested in what you have to say.

II. Sexism Isn’t Fun

Eggbread could have been me a few months ago, although I decided that my blog was a better place than the forums to voice my dissent. Not that Blizzard reads my blog, mind, but I’m pretty sure if they read the forums they wouldn’t care anyway.

In my post, Goodbye WoW, hello disappointment, I described how after a while putting up with the sexist comments ruined the game for me. It wasn’t fun to log in and deal with harassment, both of myself and of the women (or female avatars) around me. I game to get away from stress, including the oppression of a misogynistic culture, and when my already too high blood pressure rises every time I log in, what’s the reason to stay? Why put myself through torture in an attempt to wring out that last bit of fun from a game? If I’m going to be angry, I’d rather do something constructive about it like blog. If I’m gaming, I want to be having fun.

And what’s fun about feeling alienated by the company that you pay 15 bucks a month to? Eggbread makes the excellent point of bringing up the Heavy Metal brand of fantasy, which seems to be touted as The One True Fantasy by many video game companies. The attitude that Blizzard seems to take — that of an imaginary force of horny teenage boys being so important that they feel the need to exclude women, and women-friendly men — is a disease that has infected the industry itself.

III. Objectifying Real People

In my introductory post for my Girls & Game Ads series, I took this attitude to task, arguing that men (being the ones who’ve been marketed towards since the dawn of video games) don’t need sex, as a gameplay is what will make or break a game for most of them. Furthermore, by utilizing a Heavy Metal model for how they present women in the games, companies lose potential female customers, thus robbing themselves of a chance to make even more money than they already are.

I furthered the argument in the second instalment of the series, Pitching Harassment, by asserting that Blizzard’s attitude toward this issue didn’t just drive women away, it condoned and encouraged harassment of those who remained. The game may be a ‘fantasy’ game, with ‘fantasy’ women, but behind the fantasy sit real people. The fantasizers begin to associate the hypersexualized avatars with reality, and furthermore find it appropriate to force their fantasy onto any woman who chooses to play a female avatar.

Playing its part, Blizzard has given women two choices: play as a man, or play as a sex object. What’s a woman to do? Quit, fight, or give in. The second often leads to the first; after fighting until we’re exhausted with the futility, we throw up our hands and say, “Okay, I’m done!” The third, unfortunately, often leads to women playing a complicit role in their oppression. The whole, “I’m a woman and I’m not offended, so why don’t you stfu?” or “My girlfriend isn’t offended, so why don’t you stfu?” excuses.

IV. Conclusion

Given this, it’s unsurprising that many companies remain deaf to the outcry of their female player base. Way back when I first posted about quitting WoW, Astarte took issue with my methods. Her argument was that I wasn’t doing anyone any favours by leaving. In some ways, she’s right. My 15 bucks a month isn’t even a drop in the bucket of WoW’s sales. The 15 bucks a month of a thousand, or even a hundred thousand, women like me is hardly noticeable against the millions of customers that keep the game alive. But, her solution — to stand up and fight — doesn’t seem to be working, either.

Blizzard has done one thing, though; it has created a game that stays in the minds of many players, even months after they quit. It has become an obvious example of the sexism that riddles the gaming industry from their consumer base all the way up to the designers in leading companies. In all likelihood, nothing will ever be done to change WoW for the better. Those who speak up will continue to be ignored by Blizzard and harassed by the WoW goons, but maybe, just maybe, some of the budding designers out there will take note and decline to repeat the same mistakes with their own games. Or maybe speaking up is a useless task, doing nothing to stop, or even mitigate, the rampant misogyny. I’d like to think it’s the former, personally, but, then, I was always a hopeless idealist.

Girl Power? [Girls & Game Ads, Part 3]

tekanji
Ads from Ebgames.com
Girl Power: Liberating or Objectifying?

Way back when I did the first instalment of this series, I quoted a description of a GameStop commercial that an employee had seen while working in the shop. The long and the short was that it was an ad for trade-ins featuring guys getting hit by women (representing video games) while on their way to trade them in for women who packed a bigger punch. The employee describes the women as “scantily clad” and, thinking of most video game heroines, I don’t think that’s an exaggeration.

These women clearly fit into the idea of “girl power” that’s been floating around the entertainment industry for the past 10+ years. They are valued for their “strength,” as evidenced by how hard they can punch their player being proportional to how valued they are (he trades them in for women who can hit harder). They are women who can, and do kick ass. But, is this “power” that of a true kind or is the phenomenon of women kicking ass a way to co-opt female power and bring it back firmly under men’s control? Continue reading

Turning the other [butt]cheek

tekanji

Astarte might have a budding career as a comedian, ’cause she has the “it’s funny because it’s true” category down pat. In response to the men who came to her blog to read about Hot Girl-on-Girl Action and were sorely disappointed that their privilege was called into question, she has done her best to show the boys out there why we womenfolk are so uppity on the issue of gender parity in video games.

You’ve heard about this great new fantasy game, and you’re really itching to play it. The day it comes out, you’re in line with all of the other people eager to buy the game. You come home and pop it into your console or PC, then turn it on.

At character select, you have a choice between four different female characters and one male character. The female characters are attractive, but they’re dressed as if they’re ready to do battle –“ no skimpy clothing here. They all have detailed stories as to why they’re out on their quest.

The first one seeks ancient tomes to return to her library back home in the hopes that she can crack an ancient spell that she’s been working on for some time. The second one saw her brother killed by the hands of the enemy, and now she seeks revenge of the most bloodthirsty sort. The third one is a mercenary, and she just wants to see blood spilled in exchange for enough drinking money, and the fourth one is seeking riches to build a castle and conquer the southlands.

After reading all of those, you get to the only male option in the game. His stats are the same as all the other characters, but his story is much different, and his clothing is much different. It turns out that his parents turned him out of the family farm because he didn’t want to get married at the age of majority like every other male. Thus, he’s been forced to take his finely-honed martial arts skill out adventuring so that he can find a date. His main weapon is a quarterstaff, and his avatar is dressed in a mesh shirt, leather speedos, and he sports a constant hardon.

[From Fair Play by Astarte]

And the best line from the entire post? Maybe you’ll be able to find some armor along the way to cover up his protruding nipples and bulging sack.

Can't a man be "sexy" for once???

tekanji
An Ad Seen On Pandagon
Democrat Dates! Only Women Are Sexy

Here I was, trying to read Pandagon because I haven’t checked it out in a couple of weeks. I was minding my own business, looking forward to get my dose of snark against sexism, and WHAM. I was assaulted by the above ad.

This, my friends, is one of the reasons I ceased calling myself a Democrat or liberal a long time ago. You’d expect that a supposedly minority-friendly group would be above reducing women to role of “sexy” date for someone. Or, at least, that they’d shy away from a tit shot and/or use a male model. But then you’d expect wrong.

It's not "just a song" when someone believes in it

tekanji

Moby (as in the musician) apparently has a blog. On this blog, he blogs about stuff that’s not music. Apparently he’s pretty outspoken about many issues surrounding intolerance and hatred. I don’t know if it’s real sentiment or just an attempt to get more fame, but I really don’t care. What I do care about is his post on misogyny. I care not only because I’m a feminist who focuses on how pop-culture influences individuals and society, but also because the link between misogynistic lyrics and abuse/domestic violence is a very personal issue for me.

I’m not going to reproduce the post here (except to yoink quotes as my section headers). You can find it at the above link to read it. This post is not about moby, really, this is about me and my experiences with misogynistic music, domestic violence, and my “friends” who thought it was appropriate to marginalize my experienes by saying, “it’s just a song!” and other excuses like that. Just in case it wasn’t clear enough: the following material is triggering for domestic violence an abuse surviors. Read at your own risk.

I. Making a big issue out of something that no one else seems to care about

Go through enough of my “personal” section and you’ll find out that I was abused by my first boyfriend. He never took a bat to me, or even smacked me around, but all he needed were words to systematically destroy my life for the year and a half that we were together.

I’ve gotten used to the idea that most people don’t understand the form of abuse I went through because most of them have either given it or recieved it in lesser doses as a part of their “normal” relationships. When I bring up potential red flags with my friends they say I’m being “oversensitive” or when they see one of their friends being verbally abused they make excuses like, “Well, she’s not perfect either! I’ve seen her go off on him before.” Emotional violence is seen in our society as an acceptable, if not ideal, part of a relationship.

Case-in-point: the “boys will be boys” mentality. Just this weekend when I was out to dinner with my family, the subject of my female cousin’s now-ex boyfriend came up. I made the case, as I always do, that his behaviour (ditching her on their aniversary to get drunk with his friends, getting into fist fights with people, etc) was unacceptable. They – my uncle, aunt, uncle’s cousin and his wife, everyone except my male cousin who removed himself from the situation – ganged up on me, telling me that “he’s 20 years old.” And I, being 23, said, “Yes, that’s my point. He is 20 years old. He should know better.” But, no, they argued things like “girls mature faster”, “he won’t always be this way” (really? if no one tells him it’s not okay to act that way, why would he ever change his behaviour?), and my uncle even had the audacity to say that “men aren’t in total control of themselves.” He compared men to rabid dogs. Rabid. Dogs. It took all my willpower to not make a pithy remark about rape and rape culture, because that would have only served to make the situation worse.

The point I’m trying to illustrate this is misogynistic culture and the way even the most innocuous things can contribute to it. My family sincerly believed that “accepting” his behaviour (ie. dismissing the real hurt it caused because my cousin would “move on” eventually) was not the same as “condoning” it. But if we don’t speak up about these things when they happen, does our silence not imply our complicit acceptance? And if we continue to defend injustice because “that’s how life is”, does that not give a green light for the injustice to continue to perpetuate itself? My family members may never have raped anyone. Or physically abused them. Or even systematically mentally abused someone. But, even if they have never engaged in the “lesser” forms of emotional violence (which I doubt; I’m fairly sure that all of us have in some way or another), they are contributing to misogynistic culture by dismissing the importance of recognizing all violence as unacceptable.

II. Music that glamourizes misogyny

It’s no secret that misogynistic messages are part of many song lyrics, but yet so many people act shocked – shocked! – when you point that out. When you use clear-cut examples that talk about doing violence to women people pull up the, “Well, the musician wasn’t serious!” defence or say, “Chill out, it’s just a song!”. Instead of engaging in a discussion on how, and to what extent, these songs may contribute to Western culture’s continued silence on violence against women, they dismiss the possibility as unimportant or unreasonable. Or they act as if I was trying to say that there is a singular and direct causation between misogynistic music and violence against women. Please, these people know better than to confuse correlation with causation.

As with all problematic expressions of pop-culture, the “extreme” – and I use the term loosely in conjunction with the subject of domestic violence – examples are often dismissed out of hand. While I can understand the rationale – that a sane, rational person wouldn’t take a baseball bat to a woman in this day and age – it also misses a bigger picture: the impact isn’t confined to major violent outbursts, but can and does affect the way women are viewed and treated by our fathers, brothers, friends, and even other women. You can’t listen to music that degrades women without being affected by the message. And when you couple that with a blanket refusal to critique the music, and the culture it is a part of, what that means is that you internalize the messages and begin to see what they preach as normal and acceptable.

III. Maybe there’s no connection. Maybe there is. It’s disgusting that we even have to ask that question.

When I was still with my abuser, and quite aware of his hatred of women, I learned that he and his brother listened to Eminem. Loved his music. Loved to sing along to it. Especially the parts about raping and killing women. They’d be singing it while I sat in the room. I tried to bring the subject up, once. I was told that it was funny, you see, because Eminiem was just being offensive to create controversy. You know, singing about raping and killing women is funny. Ha. Ha. Okay, well, I expected that from him. I was too used to his other BS remarks that I just asked him to not listen to it/sing it in my presence and went on with my life, filing Eminem as another artist I never wanted anything to do with.

Who I did not expect it from, however, was my friends. On several occasions I got into arguments with them about the impact of the lyrics.

“Come on,” they said. “Eminem doesn’t really endorse that kind of stuff. He’s just a showman. And a good one at that, look how many fans his controversy has gotten him!”

“That’s not the point,” I replied. “The point is that there are people who listen to his music who believe in it. The message behind his songs is that it’s cool to treat women this way.”

“Well, it’s not like I’m going to run out and buy a bat to beat women with after I listen to his songs.”

The conversation would continue on in this vein with me explaining, for what seemed like the thousandth time, how Eminem’s violent lyrics had directly connected to the violence that I had experienced in my own life. Not that my personal anecdote swayed them in the least. One of them, who was intimately acquainted with many of the scars I carried from my abuse, had the audacity to respond to my story with, “Men get abused, too, you know.” I had no response to that; I was so shocked that he’d dismiss my arguments, and my very real and very painful experiences, with such a callous remark. Without Eminem, or others like him, would my abuser still been abusive? Certainly. But if we lived in a culture that condemned expressions of violence against women, it would have been a lot harder for him to pass off his violence as “normal”.

IV. You have blood on your hands, and you should be deeply, deeply troubled at the culture that you’ve helped to create

Musicians, actors, video game designers, journalists, writers, families, friends… we all have blood on our hands. We may not be criminal, or evil, but every time we condone violence with our silence, or our excuses, we are contributing to the problem. It is not enough for us to simply be against violence, we must actively be against it. And I, for one, am deeply troubled at the culture we’ve all helped to create.

Via feminist.

Because sexual harassment is hilarious

tekanji

I’m not sure what bothers me more about 行殺! Spirits (“Line-Kill Spirits”): the game itself or the response to it.

Screenshot from Line-Kill SpiritsLet’s start with the game itself. It seems like a typical cutesy all-girl fighting game. The art style employed is one that is generally associated with pre-adolescence – it tends to be used in children’s manga and lolita porn. I’d put the girls at middle school at the latest, personally. Still, that sort of thing isn’t unusual; I’ve known plenty of fighting games that employ those marketing tactics.

What is unusual, however, is an added game element: picture taking. Not just any kind of picture taking, however, panty shot pictures. As anyone who has watched anime knows, there is a seemingly cultural fixation in Japan on women’s underwear. In particular, men and boys lifting up unwilling women’s skirts to look at their underwear. I can’t speak for how common it is in real life (not being a Japanese woman, nor living in Japan), but I do know that harassment is a part of women’s daily life there. One example of this is the women-only trains that companies began to run because of the unnervingly high instance of sexual assault (groping, mostly, but I’ve heard stories about men using women’s asses for masturbation aids).

To add fuel to the fire, it is not creepy old men taking these pictures (which would be bad enough), but the other girls themselves doing it. Showing women participating in their own objectification (ala. Levy’s “raunch culture”, girly kissing culture, etc) only serves to normalize the behaviour. After all, if the girls are willing to do it then it must be okay, right? While I wouldn’t think that anyone would confuse LKS with reality, having the girls do it to each other rather than a man doing it to a girl undoubtedly helps the players to rationalize the game as “harmless fun”.

And, indeed, that is exactly what many of the commenters did on the Inverted Castle thread. I counted six overt “that’s funny” kinds of comments – four instances of “hilarious”, one pertinent “lol”, and one “amusing” – and five comments that the gameplay was “interesting”, “innovative”, or something along those lines. The ones condemning it, even in part, were an overall minority. Two people called it “weird”, two people called it “disgusting”, four people used “disturbing” (two in direct context to the girls’ ages, rather than the mechanic itself), but only three people addressed women in particular. Out of 61 comments only 4 addressed the obvious gender issues of the panty shot mechanic, one of which was posted by the same person. For a game that is blatant objectification and sexual harassment, that is just sad.

To get an idea of some of the worse comments out there, I’d like to post a few of my… ah… “favourites”.

dj kor said:

dj kor like panties and japanese girls.

NoShit Boy said:

If that’s not innovative, then I ask, what is?

Although, I happened to like the comeback posted to that one: “The Nintendo Revolution’s remote control, of course.” (commenter’s handle was Revolutionary Remote)

MasterBaytor said:

Where can I get me one of these? Seriously, this is why Japan is one of the 3 most creative countries on Earth, according to a recent study (the other two are Sweden and Finland).

Of course, the three parties speaking up didn’t exactly give the game a ringing condemnation for its treatment of women.

Thoughtless said [emphasis mine]:

I don’t know if it’s supposed to represent little girls as sexually appealing; then it’s pretty sick, but obviously the panty shot was meant as humiliation. This is an interestingly insightful; if odd insight into real cat fighting tactics. I don’t know if my distaste for the game is my American prudishness(I didn’t watch the clip) or a genuine effort to avoid prurient material of most disgusting nature. Some perverts like little girls in panties sexually, but most of just yell at them to put closthes[sic] on or they’ll catch their death going outside. If this game gets girls playing video games then I say it’s good if it’s designed for perverts it is illeagal[sic] in the USA(and should be).

He starts out really well with the humiliation angle; one of the best tools for control is shame. Humiliating a woman (or girl) by exerting ownership to her body (in this case, the unalienable right to take pictures of her private areas) is one of the oldest tricks in the book. I think this game displays this tactic quite obviously, but in a way that reinforces its ideology. Certainly, the amount of people who didn’t think to comment on its use of women speaks volumes about how invisible this issue is, even in our so-called “equal” Western societies.

I can understand Thoughtless running with the first part of his initial sentence (the paedophilia angle), as that is what was most commonly focused on by the detractors of the game, but his insight into the humiliation tactics had really had me rooting for him to be a guy who gets it. His second sentence, however, made me weep with frustration. Real. Cat fighting. Tactics. Why, thank you, Thoughtless, for being one of the billion privileged men who is not only uncritical of the term “cat fighting”, but has no problem reinforcing the idea that women do things (like getting into fights) solely for men’s amusement.

And on what planet would a game of women taking panty shots of other women get girls playing video games??? It’s not erotic. It’s not cute. It’s not interesting. And it’s nothing new. Newsflash for you gamer guys, since so many of you seem to be blind to this small fact: a great many games have some implication of girl-on-girl action and we women (especially the ones who love other women) are not amused.

Moving onto Ms. I’m-not-a-feminist-but, Noneofyourbusniess said:

This is so childish and this game so turns to perveted[sic] males(as always). No i am no feminist but you get rather tired of seeing games that always is about less cloth, more boob bouncing etc. I mean really. I at least dont wanna buy a game cause i can see boobies or something. There is adult games for that(not that i like them either).

Not the deepest reading into it, but it doesn’t need to be. The message: objectification of women isn’t cool.

She adds:

A second thought on that game. Why would a girl take a picture of a girls pantises?[sic]

The same reason two straight girls would kiss: fulfillment of male fantasy. And there’s no doubt that LKS’ purpose is just that.

The third and final commenter, ditchwitch, took issue to NOYB’s feminist bashing:

Feminist isn’t a dirty word btw, and you shouldn’t feel the need to qualify your statements. Just say what you think. Anyway I am of 2 minds on the game, on the one hand it’s pretty amusing, at the same time I object to media which consistently links sex and violence together, and it’s hard to argue that this game doesn’t.

It does make me a bit sad that she saw any kind of amusement in this game. This kind of treatment of women, even in a video game (especially in a video game), just doesn’t strike me as funny in the least. But at least she sees the link, which is more than I can say for 98% of the other commenters.

I guess, in the end, I have to say that the overwhelming response to this game is worse than the game itself. In a way, the game is just a response to the demand. While it undoubtedly perpetuates the stereotypes it utilizes, it only exists because of the invisibility of the harm caused by this kind of “entertainment”. Until we – the gamers, the bloggers and readers, and our societies at large – educate ourselves on these kinds of issues and unabashedly speak out against it, games like these will continue to be made and distributed. And, while this kind of thing might be on the extreme end, make no mistake that the kind of attitude it holds towards women can be found in a majority of mainstream games both in Japan and the West.

Via New Game Plus.

Extreme 3some Gaming!

tekanji
Alienware Ad from Game Politics
Alienware Ad from Game Politics

So, I was surfing around this hot new feminist gaming blog, New Game Plus, which lead me to a link to Game Politics but before I actually could read any of the content, I was confronted by the above ad.

Two obviously female lips, pressed up against each other, with the male-fantasy threesome buzzword “times two”. Excellent. The 3 in “3D gaming” doesn’t look so innocuous to me, either, given the context and the fact that gaming marketing is still largely aimed at adolescent males who are seen as being slaves to their overwhelming hormones.

This ad truly disugsts me, although it sadly doesn’t surprise me. My mother bought one of Alienware’s gaming PCs, for crying out loud! This shit demeans her, it demeans me, and it demeans women and men everywhere – gamers or not.

Girly kissing, raunch culture, and me

tekanji

Apparently there’s been a lot of discussion on Ariel Levy’s Female Chauvinist Pigs in the blogsphere, but I’m not really here to discuss that. What I want to talk about is Amanda’s post, Getting approval (which discusses the girls-kissing-girls part of the raunch culture), and my own experiences with it.

First things first: I am bisexual (or pansexual, more accurately). For years and years and years various things kept me closeted to myself and to those around me, but I finally came out sometime in 2003/2004. It was hard for me, especially since I was met with some scepticism from loved ones. My mother believed that people were “gay, straight, or lying” (to borrow from that hideously stupid study done a while back) and a friend said that I had to be mistaken, that I was confusing love/lust for “appreciation” of the female body. It didn’t help matters that I’ve only had one real sexual experience with a girl, especially since neither of us had any interest in pursuing anything outside of that one encounter.

So what does my personal story have to do with the pressure for straight girls to kiss each other? More than I care to admit, but admit I will.

First off, it was one of the “various things” that kept me closeted; I pushed my attraction to girls into the deepest recesses of my mind, telling myself that since I was attracted to boys I had to be heterosexual, any crushes I had were just “girl crushes”, and pursuing my attraction would just be me giving in to the “fad” of girl kissing.

The second is that after I had come out, I fell right into the viper pit I had tried so dearly to avoid. My biggest failing was that I wanted to kiss those pretty girls. I thought it would make me happy, but it didn’t. In fact, it made me feel ashamed, unhappy, and angry. Ashamed because I had known better than to do that, but I still had given into the pressure of one of my guy friends (who never would have suggested such a thing to me when I was IDing as hetero) and the straight girls who wanted to please him and/or wanted the attention of the other guys around. Unhappy because those girls didn’t want me. And angry at them for kissing me anyway, angry at my friend for pressuring both of us into it, and angry at a culture that normalizes and encourages such destructive behaviour.

I’m with easilyirritable when sie says:

I really, really, really fucking hate the fact that our culture is such that every attempt I might make towards owning my sexuality is thwarted by the fact that the majority of men in the world will take it as me trying to turn them on, when really all I want to do is turn myself on.

The Ugly Side of "Alternative" Porn

tekanji

On my thread about NOW’s use of American Apparel (AA) products, I got into a long debate with reader Anika, who felt that I, and many other feminists, had unfairly singled out AA and ignored other companies:

I have yet to see any retailer or manufacturer be subjected to this level of scrutiny – to the extent that a well meaning person such as yourself demands that NOW boycott their products.

Well, just for Anika I have created a new category called “Companies Behaving Badly”. I wanted to call it “Bad Company!” in tribute of a site my mom used to run, but I decided that it sounded too much like a dichotomy that left no room for a mixture of good and bad. So, in honour of my new category, I’ve decided to plough headlong into a critique of another company, Suicide Girls (SG).

Now, I had known for a long time some of the sketchy business practices that the company engages in. I had heard the complaints from the models about poor treatment, the allegations about their journals being censored (when the company profited off of the “uncensored” nature of those same journals), and all that. It was maybe a year or two ago, and I started a personal boycott of the company. I would certainly speak out to any sex-positive organization that was taken in by SG’s “grrl power” hype.

Recent kerfluffle is that 30 models have left over what they feel is bad business practices. The problems range from financial disagreements, to unauthorized modification and censorship of journals, to termination of models who shot for other companies, and even verbal abuse by Sean Suhl, a co-founder of SG. The first two grievances are the same I remember from before, but the last one is quite shocking. I’m going to address it later, but first I want to give a little background on how SG presents itself as a company.

The message of business-side female empowerment hasn’t hurt either. “The perception that women had an important/equal role in the administration of the site probably made it more attractive to some people who might not have visited a porn site otherwise,” d’Addario said.

Two of the ex-models say they were attracted by the empowerment message, too. “I liked that you had a journal and voice, you had the chance to make your own (photo) sets,” said “Dia,” a 30-year-old former model who doesn’t wish to be identified because she now works outside the porn business in Northern California.

“I looked forward to making great art,” added Dia, who has unsuccessfully tried to get her photos off the site.

She and other models say that contrary to its image as a women-run operation, SuicideGirls is actually controlled by a man — co-founder Sean Suhl. They accuse him of treating women poorly and failing to pay them enough. (According to the site’s FAQ, SuicideGirls models get paid $300 per photo set.)

“The only reasons I’m doing this and I’m sticking my neck out is that people, especially females who are 18 years old and want to be a SuicideGirl, need to understand who they’re representing,” said 28-year-old ex-model Jennifer Caravella of San Francisco, who said she goes by the name “Sicily.” “It’s certainly not a group of women who are working together for this.”

[From SuicideGirls Gone AWOL by Randy Dotinga on Wired News]

It should be noted that Missy, the other founder of SG, disagrees with the claims about her co-founder because the majority of the office workers are women. I would like to point out that, as with AA (whose upper management, according to Anika, is 60% female), employing women is only one part of creating an egalitarian office space. I have to say that I’m less concerned with a man being a co-founder, though, and more concerned that a company that purports to have equal representation of women in the administration could shaft its models so badly on important areas like pay and free speech. I can understand not wanting models publishing journal entries that criticize the company, but I think that it’s unethical (if not illegal) to ghostwrite a journal without the original author’s permission.

I also get the feeling from various things the ex-models have said, that the “standard” contracts don’t do much in the way of protecting the models’ rights. Some of my biggest criticisms of the porn industry treats its workers (and, indeed, how society in general views and treats sex workers as a whole) is that they are often times put at risk, denied access to certain rights and benefits like a fair wage, and seen as objects for purchase rather than people selling a product (sex). The last point is illustrated by Suhl’s belief in his right to verbally abuse the women who work for him and can be seen in other areas such as stripping, ala. Robin’s Tales from the Boobiebar.

Sicily, a former SG model, speaks about her experiences with Suhl [emphasis mine]:

i have seen sean working hard on this project and know that it has been a huge frustration for him. my only grievance over the dvd is that i was lied to and told things like, ‘the dvd sucks because you guys are a bunch of vapid idiots’ and ‘an ass sex video wouldn’t have paid you as much’.
This leads me to the constant verbal abuse and threats that sean dishes out to models, or anyone who gets close enough to experience his personality. i have heard him call everyone in the office “fucking morons and idiots” on numerous occasions. i have heard him call models, “sluts”, “whores”, “junkies”, “stupid”, etc…this list is longer that i care to write. in fact the burlesque tour girls had an on-going joke about this, and actually wrote and taped a piece of paper that read “YOU SUCK! – from sean” on our costume bin. sometimes ya gotta make light of the ugly stuff. i have watched girls (my friends) cry themselves to sleep at night (on numerous occasions) due to his verbals insults and downright mean behavior. i have also heard sean laugh about it later…amused at his own demeaning antics.

[From Suicide Girls: More Sad Tales, quoted text by Sicily]

As any survivor of verbal abuse knows, insults like the ones attributed to Suhl are used to dehumanize and control those that they’re used against. They also constitute sexual harassment under US law and are inappropriate in any setting, much less a workplace that is supposedly “equal” and “empowering”. Every person deserves their right to personhood to be protected by law, but more often than not I read stories where victims in the sex industry are blamed for their abuse by police, news organizations, random people who hear about the issues, and even the government itself.

Sex workers deserve the same rights and respect we give any employees. I’m going to make the same criticism that many of the posters on this situation have made: SG isn’t “alternative porn”, it’s mainstream porn with a new face. There’s nothing subversive about that.

Read More on the Issue:

Via feministe.

Complicitly exploiting young women NOW

tekanji

I was starting to feel bad about dragging my feet in support of NOW (National Organization for Women), but not anymore. Well, I’ll let my letter speak for itself [link added]:

I’m a young feminist who has been aware of NOW for quite some time, but I haven’t made the decision whether to join yet. I was browsing through your catalogue and seriously considering buying a few items until I happened upon your “We do it for Money” shirt. I noticed that it was made by American Apparel and, frankly, I would like to know why NOW, a feminist organization, supports a company that exploits young women in a softcore porn-esque advertising campaign, has more than one sexual harassment suit filed against the CEO, and is known for it’s anti-union bullying.

I also added the following links to the bottom of the e-mail:

For information on AA’s advertising practices:

Info on the sexual harassment lawsuits:

I’ll post a reply when (if) I get one, but until I have a darn good explanation and/or they pull their support of American Apparel, they aren’t getting one red cent of my money, nor an iota of my support.

Update [2005/10/22]: I received a reply from Olga Vives, Executive Vice President.

Thank you for your comments. We are discontinuing the American Apparel
shirts. Looking for a comparable shirt.

My reply[link added]:

Thank you for your prompt response.

If you haven’t already, I suggest considering No Sweat Apparel as one alternative to AA’s gear.

I look forward to seeing the AA shirts replaced with those from a better company.

I’ll keep an eye on the site. Hopefully they’ll replace the shirts soon, ’cause some of them really were cute. Now if only I could find a really nice looking “This is what a feminist looks like” shirt…