Pictorial History
I saw both these pages today:
(Click through for legible images but beware, they’re full size screenshots. And no, that FB post is not mine, although I agree with its sentiments.)
The Facebook page has a No on Prop. 4 ad and a No on Prop. 8 ad in the sidebar. The YouTube page has a Yes on Prop. 8 ad, even though the Yes on 8 ads violate Google’s own advertising content policy.
Tomorrow night, one of those images will be obsolete.
“I Want You To Be Nice To Sex Workers”
Last September, sex worker, pleasure activist, and artist Sadie Lune (NSFW) took first place at Tony Labat’s I Want You project at SFMOMA. As part of the contest, the five winners had their images and slogans turned into posters. I’d actually forgotten about that, but I can’t wait to see them go up all over the city. For one thing, it’s great, free publicity for Yes on Prop. K. For another, Sadie Lune’s poster looks fabulous and combines the personal, the political, and the artistic into a provocative political request:
I love that line, “I want you to stop punishing me because you can’t imagine being me.” I think a lot of the prejudice in society comes from a lack of imagination and an inability or an unwillingness to empathize with other people. That ignorance and lack of understanding results in fear of the unknown and then hostility, trying to keep the unknown as far away as possible. When it comes to sex work, that hostility manifests as criminalization, which drives sex workers underground and tries to lock them into jails, where they’re kept out of sight and thus out of mind. It’s the attitude of, “I can’t imagine being a sex worker and so I’ll punish them for making me think about it and feel uncomfortable–I’ll push them away so I don’t have to think about them–I don’t want to think about the issues and so I’ll just vote no on K to preserve the status quo.” “I want you to stop punishing me because you can’t imagine being me” looks that attitude of hostility, fear, ignorance, or just plain apathy in the face and says, “Stop. Think.” The combination of the image and the slogan says, “Stop. Think. I’m a real person, and your decisions affect me.”
“I want you to be nice to sex workers” is another powerful line, because it raises the question of what exactly it means to be nice to sex workers. How does one go about it? Does it mean being a good customer, respecting a sex worker’s rules and paying them well? Does it mean not harassing them? Does it mean not making dead hooker jokes? Does it mean supporting programs that help sex workers transition out, if they want to? Does it mean giving a damn when someone murders, rapes, or robs a sex worker and gets off with a slap on the wrist? Does it mean advocating for sex workers’ rights? Does it mean realizing that sex workers are no more a monolith than any other group of people? Does it mean not privileging the voices of non-sex workers over the voices of sex workers?
Does it mean listening to sex workers when they say what they want?
Questions, questions. The poster challenges the viewer and raises lots of questions. I love that.
Sadie Lune’s “I Want You,” video by activist, artist, and sex worker Scarlot Harlot (video NSFW):
Transcript:
[Organ grinder music]
[Applause]
I want you. I want you to listen to me, even if you think you’ve heard it before or don’t think I know how to speak for myself. I want you so bad, so bad right now–to respect me, and pay me, and understand that I do not sell myself, because I’m still here, and I’ve always been here.
I want you to know that I have your money. And your coworker’s money, and your father’s money has fed my family, and my rent, and my studies, and my habit, and my poverty, and my extravagance. And you might think that you don’t know me, but it’s more likely you just don’t know that you do.
I might want this job or hate it, but your condemnation and your ignorance and your accusations and your locking me down for my living, and your turning your back on my rape, and your knocking me off because you think no one cares, and your using me as the inhuman butt of your jokes–I want you to stop.
I want you to stop punishing me just because you may not be able to imagine being me.
I want you to be nice to sex workers. I want you, I really do. Please vote yes on Prop. K.
[applause]
———————————
I’m not a sex worker, and so although I can write about Prop. K, I’m trying to navigate the boundaries of privilege such that I don’t appropriate the sex worker activist movement or claim to speak for it. On the one hand, I’m writing about Prop. K the way I would write about any other ballot initiative–opining, navel-gazing, and analyzing–but I realize that in our anti-sex work society, my voice is privileged over the voices of actual sex workers. That’s wrong and I’m trying not to replicate that same power structure when I write, so if I fuck up and put my foot in it, please call me on it and I’ll fix it (I realize that asking for that guidance is in itself an act of privilege, but I’m not sure how else to say that I will inevitably fuck up, despite trying not to, and I welcome being told how I’ve fucked up. Perhaps the writer’s tag, “constructive criticism always welcome” would work?)
Love, Honor, Cherish: Jay and Van on Proposition 8
While poking around YouTube’s suggestions of clips related to No on Prop. 8′s ad, I found one by Love Honor Cherish, an LA-based grassroots organization campaigning against Prop. 8. A quick skim of their YouTube homepage showed that their ads feature straight couples, gay couples, relatives, politicians, young people, old people, people of various ethnic backgrounds, and an ad in Spanish. No lesbian couples yet, though. I like their approach, which is generally direct and states that yes, GLBTQI are human beings and therefore deserving of rights, rather than that GLBTQI are humans, too, won’t you please give us our rights? The difference between the two approaches is that one positions GLBTQI people as human beings without positioning GLBTQI people or heterosexual people as the norm, and the other positions heterosexual people as the norm and seeks to slip GLBTQI people into that category as an addition.
I like this ad because it features gay men speaking for themselves; it features an interracial couple; it features two POC. The gay men speaking for themselves aspect is important to me because it states that GLBTQI people deserve these rights simply by virtue of being human and they don’t need a heterosexual messenger to appeal to society at large on their behalf. There’s dignity in that approach and the underlying message is that GLBTQI people are here and we will not disappear. We will not be silenced.
The ad addresses the question, “Aren’t domestic partnerships enough?” and acknowledges the emotional and cultural trappings of marriage. Domestic partnerships are not the same as marriage in terms of the legal benefits; although they might be the same on paper in terms of state-granted rights in California, in their execution, they are often not. Many laws, rules, and regulations say “spouse” rather than “domestic partner,” and many federal rights and benefits do not necessarily apply to domestic partners. Leaving all that aside, however, there’s the simple reality that the modern incarnation of marriage carries certain social and emotional connotations that domestic partnerships and civil unions do not. It’s something emotional and therefore difficult to explain, but Jay makes the point quite effectively: “I couldn’t tell you how I asked him, “If you want to be a domestic partner?” But believe me, I can tell you how I proposed to him.”
No on Prop. 8: Baby Steps, Baby Steps
Via Petulant’s round up of news and links, I saw No on Prop 8′s ad featuring the Thorons:
I have mixed feelings about the ad, namely frustration at its limitations, understanding for the reasoning behind its limitations, and frustration that it had to take that approach. It features a reassuringly straight, white couple dressed in gender-normed colors, and the literal blue collar also places Mr. Thoron as a dependable worker – not poor and unreliable, not rich and out of touch (I don’t hold either class stereotype, but that’s my interpretation of the motivation behind the blue collar touch). The Thorons are portrayed as Regular People, where regular signifies straight, white, and economically secure. Where does that leave GLBTQI people who are in fact GLBTQI, POC, and of all different classes? I understand that the ad would protect their right to marry, too, but the framing of the message bothers me.
It annoys me that the issue is framed as “GLBTQI people are your friends and family. Think about the children!” It annoys me that the issue of marriage equality is portrayed by using straight spokespeople as a front, because presumably having the icky queers speak for themselves would be too frightening and radical and scare voters off. The line, “My wife and I never treated our children differently, we never loved them any differently,” reinforced the “GLBTQI people are not FREAKS, they are JUST LIKE STRAIGHT-ER, NORMAL-PEOPLE, really, we swear,” impression for me. The whole “GLBTQI people are people, too!” message would be much more palatable to me if it were given by actual GLBTQI people speaking for themselves rather than by heterosexual proxies asking the viewer to protect their childrens’ rights.
On the other hand, the ad comes off as a lot less radical and a lot more level-headed than both the virulent Yes on 8 campaigners and the way the Yes on 8 campaign is portraying GLBTQI people. I suppose that it’s meant to appeal to the undecided or wavering voters, the ones that aren’t completely comfortable with GLBTQI people or don’t understand why domestic partnership isn’t good enough, etc., and then there is an advantage in presenting an ad that features unthreateningly straight, white proxies rather than actual GLBTQI people that are in love and married.
In the end, I guess the ad is inherently radical to some extent in that it does treat GLBTQI people as normal, i.e. people, too. Rocking the boat with baby steps. But do baby steps have to include propping up gender norms and the idea of white as the default? It’ll be interesting to see if No on Prop. 8′s other ads will feature same-sex couples diverse in race, age, class, and disabilities, particularly considering how diverse California is.
