Same Sex Marriage and Straight Men
It matters not to me whether gays and lesbians can legally marry. It's none of my business. And maybe this new marriage configuration will serve as a model for human relationships, still it is not my concern, since I am not into that lifestyle, although I do love lesbians, speaking as a dirty old man.
But seriously, my concern is with straight men, and I have been involved with the men's movement since we produced the Black Men's Conference at the Oakland Auditorium, 1980.
I am ashamed of straight men for being unorganized and hypocritical, since they want to condemn gays and lesbians for their lifestyle, yet straight men cannot entertain prostitutes, ho's, sex workers or whatever you want to call women who charge men for sex. A friend's wife told me, "I know I'm just a ho in disguise." So marriage can be called prostitution as well but I am really concerned with straight men who appear angry and jealous at gays and lesbians because they have organized for their rights, no matter what we think about them. They have come together to fight for the right to legally marry. And the irony is that straight couples have little right to condemn the gays/lesbians when 50% of straight marriages end in divorce.
And of course the two main reasons are issues of sex and finance, with the resultant domestic violence, including verbal and emotional abuse. Perhaps straight people need to consider a reconfiguration of so-called monogamy, especially with respect to sex outside of marriage. In short, I favor legalization of prostitution, but this would require straight men to get organized as the gays and lesbians have done, but instead of fighting for the rights of straight men to exercise their human right to have sex with whomever they please, they are exhausting their time fighting against same sex marriage. Look at yourself, straight men, look in the mirror at your behavior, Tiger Woods, Kobe Bryant, McNair (now deceased). With your billions and millions, you cannot have sex with whomever you desire but must be treated like a criminal dog, beaten by your spouse, murdered in your sleep and charged with criminal behavior, including rape, only because you have not organized yourselves to secure the rights you desire and deserve.
As men, you are pitiful, especially with your billions and millions of dollars, yet get treated like a dog. How can you call yourself a man when you must sneak around in the alley, lie, cheat, or steal away into the night to be with the one you love--or the other one you love.
Thus, in your powerlessness, in your jealousy and envy, you waste your time condemning the gays and lesbians for doing their thing yet you can't do shit. You are less than a gay and lesbian on the scale of humanity. Get organized for your rights and leave other people's rights alone.
--Marvin X
Re:
Same Sex Marriage and Straight Men
Thank you...wowwwuuoouuo...ok, we done went deeply shallow. Cuz we talking bout legalizin prostitution and same sex marraiges! Can SOMEBODY PLEASE TALK ABOUT CULTURAL HISTORICAL AMNESIA....!!l Like damn, did white folk just come and liberate us from our overly oppressive, repressive culture that just did not allow this big thing in the "closet", in Egypt and before to just come out? Like. we were just waiting on these johnny come lately-from- the-cave fools to enlighten us into opening up to our "found selves" that was just waiting to lay with same sex but just couldn't do it until the socially evolved whites came along and liberated our consciousness. What the hell are we thinking? We need to do some serious research and fast.
Cuz we need to know that these are the folk who did the crusades with their own children, that killed five or so million women just cuz they were women. check the book (you may not find it but i can get you a copy of mine) Crimes of the Last Fleet that shows these folks were stealing chickens and goats and pigs and getting sentenced to hang. They were hungry.. !!
Sexing a woman was liability cuz she might get pregnant. I am not professing the answers but i can tell you that when pigeons and other animals start having homosexual relations shit is gone way wrong. We need to really look at the thing that was considered ill behavior and check it. Breast feeding (choice) bottle feeding (choice) is common (shooting each other in the hood too) but it does not mean that it is normal. We need a serious look at ourselves thru our own eyes and not thru the cultural eyes of our oppressor. One of our Most powerful revolutionaries, Amilcar Cabral, of Guinea Bissau observed, “Liberation is an act of culture, and one can measure a people’s chance for achieving liberation by the qualitative difference between the culture of the oppressed and the culture of the oppressor.” We often use the term culture loosely.
Aaaaahhh, prostitution has been around since the beginning of time or homosexuality has been around since the beginning of time, but where do these studies come from? We must be carefuland really check ourselves cuz did this really and truly exist in a just and balanced society of ten thousand years ago??Really..?? Anyway...peace...and let us grow together....
Rehema Bah
Marvi
n X Replies to RehemaYou have said a mouthful, so I want to respond. But your point about memory is key, culture is memory, collective, and we definitely suffer collective amnesia, thus our behavior is demonic, that is we express love with hate. Listen to the conversation between mates, it is often not the language of love but hate, anger, insecurity, jealousy, envy--and we're/they're supposed to be lovers.Historically, if we are the first man and women, from which all others came, then all aspects of human culture came from us, the good, bad, ugly, whether homosexuality, prostitution, murder, greed, selfishness, the gamut of socialpsychology.The key to all human activity is the balance, not going over the precipice. If there is a man shortage, the natural response would be either polygamy and/or lesbianism. The devastation from war in our community is an abundance of women without men. The men are either mentally deranged from the effects of white supremacy, or imprisoned from the same. They are not in college as any visit will attest. And 25% to 50 % are unemployed, thus unable to take care of their families except through criminal activity. They are in constant danger of being taken out by another brother or the white man. So their own mental and social instability makes them a bad choice for a mate, hence the many problems when they do connect with another person who is likely suffering the same trauma, whether male or female. Dr. Julia Hare called it political and sexual anorexia, a slow death of the heart and mind.
Without the collective memory or mythology, things go from bad to worse because at best we improvise, trying this, trying that--trysexuality it's called. But Dr. Nathan Hare tells us no amount of sex, drugs, religiosity, money, will satisfy the social angst and shattered cultural strivings. Fanon, Hare and others have told us the way to mental health is through social action called revolution, seizing power over ourselves and all institutions that sustain us as human beings. Only then can we configure new patterns of social interaction. Until then, all that we do is improvisation or jazz, trying to find our "voice," trying to do a solo while the band(community) waits for us to take the horn out our mouth.
Thus it doesn't matter whether it's homosexuality, heterosexuality, prostitution, polygamy, polyandry or a combination thereof, it is all transient, elusive and ephemeral, pending the permanent revolution.
Haiti is an example of people who had their revolution but didn't make it permanent and have suffered ever since. And we North American Africans are symbolically and literally quite similar to the Haitians, for our situation is just as fragile and yet just as valiant. But ours and theirs will not improve until we stand up and take control, then practice eternal vigilance, never allowing reaction to set in. The Cuban revolution is a good example of the permanent revolution.
So what does sex have to do with it? Nothing except our sexuality is socially determined by the circumstances of our lives. After the US government's destruction of the black liberation movement, why would we expect strong black men and women to exist when the purpose of the destruction was to destroy black power, male and female, to turn it into some kind of twisted, convoluted version of what it was so that it will never again strive for liberation-- or try an apolitical liberation that means nothing but hedonism or nihilism as we see in hip hop culture. These are the warrior children lost and turned out from revolution, diverted to other causes, now focused on their sexual identity while their ancestors knew the only matter to identify with was freedom, not individual but collective. If revolution is to restore family and perpetuate family, how did we get diverted into lifestyles that are anti-family, such as the drug culture, reactionary hip hop culture and apolitical activities that only advance the individual.
Nor can same gender marriage perpetuate the race. Can two roosters continue the chicken race? Or two hens? But as Rehema noted, chickens, cows, fish and humans are turning homosexual, so we need to question is this a natural happening or some freak occurrence induced by bio-chemical warfare. Is it in the water that is being recycled with hormones, certainly we know the animals are injected with growth hormones to get them to the market place quicker, and we see the result with our children, especially the girls, having periods at nine and ten, and we see the effeminization of our boys as well. I don't believe this is happening naturally but is a genocidal plot to keep us off balance mentally and socially.I don't mean to condemn same gender loving people, but I think the focus on sexuality is a diversion from the task at hand which is the total liberation of a people, of the planet, from the scourge of white supremacy domination in all its forms, including black face or gay/lesbian face. As brother Jones noted, the racism in same gender loving white people is no different than the white supremacy of their heterosexual brothers and sisters. And there is a lot of the same hatred and bitterness in black same gender loving persons toward black heterosexuals, while black heterosexuals have long tolerated the same gender lifestyle. It has been prevalent in the church, colleges and universities, the arts and elsewhere.
Did anybody condemn Luther, Langston, Baldwin, June Jordan, Audre Lourde, Nikki Giovanni, Angela Davis for their sexuality? Do we not love them and embrace them, no matter if they were/are same gender loving. Are we not better because they lived?
But revolution means change, so change we must, change our values to keep apace a world is in rapid transformation, at the same time we cannot throw out the baby with the wash water. There are basic values that must be maintained to insure the perpetuation of the species unless we want to commit mass suicide and fall victim to genocide. As they say in the game, all money ain't good money. And so everything that tastes, looks, feels good ain't good. And we know for a surety our perception is warped if not demented, for when have we had the opportunity to think with a clear mind, free of trauma, amnesia, schizophrenia, manic depression and other mental scars caused by oppression, the white supremacy domination capitalist/globalist "free" market society and civilization (though I hesitate to called this a civilization--what did the Last Poets say, "This is madness!").
--Marvin X
Reply from Adaoma
Subject: TRICKS, JOHNS, PIMPS AND OTHER CAPITALIST PIGS"
Look at yourself, straight men, look in the mirror at your behavior, Tiger Woods, Kobe Bryant, McNair (now deceased). With your billions and millions, you cannot have sex with whomever you desire but must be treated like a criminal dog, beaten by your spouse, murdered in your sleep and charged with criminal behavior, including rape, only because you have not organized yourselves to secure the rights you desire and deserve. In short, I favor legalization of prostitution, but this would require straight men to get organized..." MARVIN X
Greetings Marvin X,
I am addressing your advocacy of legalizing prostitution, only. You can have sex with whomever you like, as long as she is of the age of consent and is willing. Nothing is stopping you. If you happen to be married, adultery is not a criminal act in America and in most countries in the world. There is open marriage, if you like. Or, why marry at all? You mentioned no spiritual or moral limitation for yourself nor will I place any on you.
Therefore, you are free to all the options above. In light of this, however, you advocate that it be made legal for a man to purchase and own the body of a woman as a commodity, to use for pleasure, or pain as it may be. Despite the male bias that has prevailed for centuries...until now, prostitution is a male violence against women.
Women in prostitution are 18 times more likely to be murdered than women of similar age and race;
80% sustained bruises,
35% sustained broken bones;
47% sustained head injuries,
53% sustained mouth and teeth injuries;
86% felt depressed, 41% felt hopeless;
64% felt suicidal,
63% have hurt themselves or attempted suicide;
68% of women in prostitution meet the criteria for diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder.
In Chicago:
25% of the women in drug houses, hotels, and on the street were raped more than 10 times;
21% of the women in escort services were raped more than 10 times;
“Johns” – men who purchase sex acts – were the most frequent perpetrators of violence
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/9691/BLI/family/index.htm Though women being prostituted has been referred to as the "Oldest profession", it is not a profession at all. It is an activity that a woman is forced into because of illiteracy and poverty. No little girl desires to grow up to have sex with strangers for money. Prostitution of women is legalized in Amsterdam, Australia, Belgium, Germany and Sweden. In none of these places did legalization stop the physical violence to women and girls, sex trafficking of women and girls and the slavery of women and girls by their handlers.
Sweden, took a different approach to prostitution. Sweden decided to decriminalize the sell of sex and began to criminalize the sex purchasers, the agents of prostitutes and the sex traffickers. "In Sweden prostitution is regarded as an aspect of male violence against women and children. It is officially acknowledged as a form of exploitation of women and children and constitutes a significant social problem... gender equality will remain unattainable so long as men buy, sell and exploit women and children by prostituting them."
http://www.justicewomen.com/cj_sweden.html
No, its not prostitution that is the "Oldest Profession in the world" It is the exploitation of women to meet the desire for sex, it is the "trick and the John", it is the pimp and the sex traffickers that would sell and buy women like capitalist do with worker's labour. Sex trafficking is a multibillion dollar business where women who are prostituted don't make a profit. While you bemoan the abuses of men who find other lovers, consider the lifestyle of violence that the women you wish to buy and own like commodities suffer. And, stop lying...Marriage is no form of prostitution. If so, there is probably grounds for annulment...no divorce fees.
Adaoma
Marvin X replies to Adaoma
So there is no violence, exploitation, abuse in same gender loving relationships or heterosexual relationships? Married men pay the cost to be the "boss", therefore marriage is a form of prostitution--even freedom ain't free! Although we cannot put all partner abuse on the capitalists since much of it happened in pre-capitalist socities, and still occurs in underdeveloped communities, especially precolonized and neo-colonized nations. If a woman is abused, does it matter if she is a "ho" or wife, girlfriend? Oh, ok, it's a matter of degree. When people evolve there shall be a right way and wrong way to do things. France recently made verbal abuse of women on the same level as physcial abuse. In America men and women can be charged with making terrorist threats to each other. Amazingly, all this abuse is done in the name of love, including the prostitution, although rape and violence are sick love. And even the everyday language of partners is an abberation of the love language. And further, not only are tricks, johns, pimps and other men capitalist pigs, but women as well, after all, they collaborate with the capitalist pigs by desiring and demanding their men acquire for them the crass materialism of capitalist society. And it matters not that they are now able to acquire for themselves the conspicuous consumption trinkets of capitalist society. If women, men and children stopped shopping at the malls and stores of the capitalist pigs, his world would fall in an instant. More often than not, the man pays his "pussy bill" in his role as co-dependent of his capitalist pig woman whose closets are filled to capacity with goods she desired but didn't need and refuses to share with the less fortunate by donating them. The sexual activity, the comspicuous consumption, the delusional make believe mental world with the resultant psychoses and physical abuse, all stem from our addiction to white supremacy. And in the patriarchal societies it is primitive religiosity that allows the same abberations to exist and grow into full blown pathologies. --Marvin X
Reply from Adaoma
Hi Marvin,
You wrote this -In short, I favor legalization of prostitution, but this would require straight men to get organized...Marvin X.
And, I responded with this:
"I am addressing your advocacy of legalizing prostitution, only."
Therefore, I will skip your first sentence and deal with the second.
So, are you telling me that husbands must go through a third party to have sex with their wife? Or that they must put some cash in the till next to her bed before making love to her?
Are you saying that if men are not sexually pleased by their wives they get a refund?
No!
Your analogy doesn't fit. Prostitution by definition implies that woman having multiple sex partners for money. So, if a woman is the prostitute in the marriage (according to your analogy..).where are the other partners? Or is she stuck just trying to get paid from hubby's limited finances???
The reality is that most wives are not kept women at home, but, working women who sometimes makes more than the husband.
Quote me where I said all capitalists were men. I did not. Further, you implied that all women were capitalist pigs...into consumerism and filling their closets. Not all women are materialistic. Its simply not so.
So, let's talk about real issue of prostituting women. The real issue is that focus needs to be on the customer, the market for sex. It is the market that abuses the "commodity". 1) It relegates the whole woman to one body part. (Which you, Marvin, don't even call the one body part by its proper name.), separating her from her humanity....as I did when I consciously called 'tricks', 'johns' and 'pimps to be 'capitalist pigs'. I did it for shock value. I respect all humanity.
The problem is that women and little girls get herded into the industry from around the world by tricksters promising other employment, promising education, promising debt relief for their families and they forced to fulfill a market and produce hard cash. Little girls as young as 7 are forced, raped.
Sweden has proven, as I mentioned, that targeting the customer, rather than the woman, has reduced the violence to women, the consumer market and ultimately the prostituting of women. Followed by education, and healthful and helpful resources to women, women have more options for living.
A customer (trick, john) or agent/sex trafficker (pimp) is part of the problem, not part of the solution. The nameless "ho" he may have bought to boss could be a desperate woman or a dressed up little girl.
http://humantrafficking.change.org/blog/view/whos_stealing_little_black_girlsSo, Marvin X, now that you've heard me out, you have the floor to give your explanation on why you still think that prostitution should be legalized...that if you still think so.
"Prostitution creates a setting whereby crimes against men, women, and children become a commercial enterprise.... It is an assault when he/she forces a prostitute to engage in sadomasochistic sex scenes. When a pimp compels a prostitute to submit to sexual demands as a condition of employment, it is exploitation, sexual harassment, or rape -- acts that are based on the prostitute’s compliance rather than her consent. The fact that a pimp or customer gives money to a prostitute for submitting to these acts does not alter the fact that child sexual abuse, rape, and/or battery occurs; it merely redefines these crimes as prostitution." Female Juvenile Prostitution: Problem and Response, 1992
Adaoma
Marvin X Replies to Adaoma
The subject of prostitution cannot be separated from the general condition and treatment of women, whether as partners, wives or in same sex relationships. Women suffer the same violence, emotional and verbal abuse. It is only a matter of degree. Lesbian and gay partners are known to be more violent that heterosexual relationships. In the patriarchal society, all relationships are based on ownership, thus persons suffer the domination of the owners, and in marriage it is sometimes mutual--we own each other. Thus the root problem is buying into the mythology of people as chattel real or personal property. Within this mythological foundation, all relations are essentially the same, whether partners (boyfriend/girlfriend), marriage partners or partners in prostitution (ho/trick). All these relations involve ownership, whether temporary (for the moment as in prostitution) or permanent as in marriage. And all these relationships suffer the resulting violence. After reading my Mythology of Pussy, a brother noted that I said nothing about marriage. I told him he was correct. Under the present patriarchal conditions I cannot suggest marriage to anyone, not under the conditions of ownership of said partners, man or woman, since the woman in marriage feels she owns the man as well. As far as I am concerned, ownership of humans ended with the emancipation of slaves, although it continues as we write, but ownership and domination not only continues in the traffic of human beings, but in marriages as well, especially among the religious community, no matter what religion, African traditional, Judaism, Islam and Christianity. So I make no distinction between marriage and prostitution--they are both violent, abusive encounters. As my friend's wife noted (RIP), "I know I'm just a ho in disguise (of a wife)."
The man pays his "pussy bill" on a regular basis when he shares the cost of maintaining the relationship or family. He doesn't get free pussy. And who would want free pussy--I would be scared to death of free pussy. "Hey man, that girl/woman is giving away free pussy, don't you want some?" Hell, no.
And if I was with a girlfriend or prostitute, I would not leave her with no money, especially when I knew she didn't have any money, and definitely not if we'd had a nice time kicking it without a lot of bullshit and drag. In fact, I would give a bonus just for attitude. And attitude has nothing to do with sex. It's about manners and appreciation. This is no doubt why some men pay a woman just for talk, not sex. They may only want the woman to listen to them, maybe something the wife or girlfriend never does. They may only want to hear a soft feminine voice, not the sound of a bitter bitch.
Again, the exploitation of women is pervasive in a capitalist society, as is the exploitation of men, now known as boy toys, since they are now only needed for sex, not for economic survival. And they are discarded, thrown out at whim, depending of the woman's disposition or phases of the moon.
Once the patriarchal, capitalist society is destroyed, there shall be the possibility of new, radical configurations of human relationships, minus violence, exploitation and ownership. It is doubtful prostitution will ever disappear since men and women seem to have the need for extra partners. Polygamy and Polyandry are possible solutions only if they are beyond the patriarchal mythology, especially within religions. But we would need to be careful with polyandry, especially within a matriarchal society, for I don't advocate domination by men or women. Why is there the need to dominate? At this point in my life, I don't want to see oppression by anyone, male or female, white or black. We are free spirits, divine beings in human form. We are here to express love and joy. Even the prostitute I fell in love with told me she was here to give love to all who needed her love and was willing to pay.
Men who want to expoit women, abuse women, rape women, need to go into a recovery program until they are cured of their addiction that is a mental abberation of the capitalist or society steeped in religiosity of the most primitive, reactionary form. They must be resocialized into the modern era, trained and armed with the knowledge they do not own women, but only own themselves. Women are not their property and must be respected as divine beings in human form. Such knowledge will eradicate much partner violence, emotional and verbal abuse. Many men have come to this new realization after reading my little pamphlet The Mythology of Pussy.
Women and young ladies say it empowers them. Mothers are buying it and demanding their daughters and sons read it. The young men say it ups their game. Older brothers say they learned something new. To hear this is the ultimate joy of any writer, to know his work is healing and causing radical change. What other task does he have?
--Marvin X
Rasheedah Sabreen Mwongozi Replies to Adaoma
"'No little girl desires to grow up to have sex with strangers for money"'~Adaoma
Unless Adaoma has met every little girl in the world of all nationalities I am unclear as to how she came to this conclusion. I know of two women who entertained such a desire as young girls. The first is my self and the second woman is my god sister's daughter who at the age of twelve announced to her mother that she wanted to be a "ho" and she did. When this child was fourteen she met the future father of her first set of four children. He in turn took her home to his mother's house where he lived. They had one child a year until she was eighteen. In between labors and deliveries he found time to turn her out thereby assisting her in her chosen profession. Their relationship ended when he walked in on her having sex with a non-paying consort. Her husband/pimp pistol-whipped her causing brain damage to a person who wrote the most beautiful, exquisite poetry I have ever read. As a result of the beating she never again was able to gift her poetic gems to the world nor would she ever again speak or think without impediment. Fate presented me with two incidents in my life when, had I chosen to be a "lady of the evening", I would have walked a totally different path from that which I am now walking. My plan had been to be a courtesan of means. My services would have been available to the artists, the creative minds among men thus eliminating the riff raff. This idea came to me in my late teens after I read of Mary Magdalene as she is portrayed in Nikos Kazanzakis' novel, "The Last Temptation". My mentor for establishing intellectualism as a criterion for my consorts came from reading "The Diaries of Anais Nin". I will conclude by saying that Adaoma would do well to heed a lyric line from a Bob Dylan composition:"Know your song well before you start singing".~Love and Gratitude~
Marvin X reply to Rashidah and Adaoma
Aside from little girls dreaming of being ho's, just as boys in the hood dream of becoming pimps, most ho's give testimony to being molested at home by fathers, brothers, uncles, aunts, mothers.Thus not all come from poverty, not economic poverty. The ho I feel in love with came from a good, middle class, property owning, business owning family. Now she may have been molested, certainly she was physically abused. She told me the dimple in her jaw was not cute to her because it was the result of her step father hitting her.
My attitude on prostitution comes from growing up with my brother whose only desire from childhood was to become a pimp like the ones he saw on Seventh Street in West Oakland where we lived. And then there were good pimpin cousins and friends. I myself am not, nor have I ever been a pimp.
I am a hustler who would not think of waiting for a woman to bring me money. But my attitude was also shaped by living in the state of Nevada where prostitution is legal and controlled by the state. If athletes use their muscles to make money, why can't a woman use her's?The exploitation is what is shameful and disgusting, the violence and abuse.
And how many ho's end up with anything, or how many pimps for that matter? Ask Fillmore Slim what happened to all the money he made off pimping, and ask him where are all the ho's he had. Dead, drugged out or in the mental ward, although any socalled normal person in the capitalist society could end up in those places, so we can't put it on prostitution,unless we understand that America is a pimp/ho society. How many workers retire with anything in America, most die in poverty after a lifetime on the job. They were not pimped, exploited, abused, cogs in the wheel of the capitalist swine?
I am sensitive to the plight of prostitution as a result of seeing the babies on the streets of Oakland, eleven, twelve and thirteen, who obviously know nothing about whoring, some can't even put a rubber on a nigguh, let alone give head or have vaginal sex. They need to go back to school and get their GED, along with their socalled pimp who is on his bicycle, living at his mama's house.
Thank God the state of California has passed legislation decriminalizing the young ho's if they give up the pimp, then the girls are sent into recovery programs. My daughter works for such a project in New York, helping exploited young girls caught up in the traffic.
I will restate the need for men to get organized for what they desire just as the same sex marriage people have done. But of course the real deal is revolution of the social order so that people can live in relationships that are full of love, joy and happiness, not this capitalist, make believe world of conspicuous consumption, which ends up making the men, women and children ho's and tricks of the capitalist dirty swine, blood suckers of the poor.
Marvin X
Rehema Bah
Re: Same Sex Marriage and Straight Men
i really think it is crucial that we slow our role and sit in quiet with ourselves and try...try to reach into our higher self. where do we get the idea that prostitution is so old. we were not hungry. as far as i know the hunter gatherer societies in central Africa did not leave signs that they were starving. they moved to where there food was. they traveled the planet but i have yet to read stories of hunger and to the point that women had to sale their bodies to the next extended family or the nearby family to get more berries or the such...so come on. please as elders we gotta slow and check where this stuff comes from. their are so many scholars that have already done the work for us. And we have a responsibility to do as we are attempting to now, to discuss and explore and come up with sensible thought our approaches for our youth and the sake of the planet.Africans took several 10's of thousands of years to get to level of predynastic Egypt and Egypt in it’s heights. but to get to that the levels of science including cosmology, astronomy, astrology, and more along with the scholarly was the level of morality and ethics we rose to, we were working at it for some time. So coming up to this i just don't see where the prostitution (meaning someone selling and someone buying, right??) fits in the scheme of things.??? old as time?? And other lines of this sort, where do they come from. we gotta slow and check our selves. we have a job to do. at least start to get it right. also we have to really reach out for a space of clarity. it is ok to love our people and not love some behavior. choice is something else. look we can choose to “love” someone and if they don't pan out the way we want we can choose not to “love” them any more and get a divorce or just leave or what ever. demonstrating that there is choice in this matter. i hear you on the possibility of hormones and the like but even if so that sh..t. aint normal. and so what ..why not recognize it for what it "aint" and work with it from there.?! with love. if you were raped miss handled or molested or your mother took the mini pill while breastfeeding you or whatever and we never ever deal with that but you carry it to your grave or claim “oh, I was born like this”, is that cool i feel not. And i know for a fact that some men do that. and many women do as well but more often men, cuz women have places to go and feel as though there situation is excepted and can be talked about where as men sometimes don't feel that they have a space, safe space, or person who they gone tell? On that note we need more aunties and uncles for real in our communities. Our youth need us. And we need to create space for our folk to open up and sort out things. And we can grow up. There was a young man in our circle that everyone said all around was gay since he was little his parents let him play with dolls and he had what some of us (especially if you never visited the continent by physical means or media ) called feminine ways. But I often saw him in the African context. And one day as he was much older I pulled him aside and I said to him “don’t let anyone define you for you. You decide and define yourself. And use everything you know, not what others don’t know. This happened to me when I was younger. Folk use to ask me was I gay cuz I openly expressed admiration for women/girls or desire to meet so and so. I did not learn that it was ok to feel drawn to women, love being in the company of women, love sharing intimate moments with women , and not want or like sex with women, until I was 24 yrs old. So we got some growing to do. We really do and we really need to have dialog. But it has to be calm and thoughtful and deep and focused. And full of love for our people and the planet.
Rehemah Bah
Reply from Adaoma to Marvin X
PIMPS AND OTHER CAPITALIST PIGS
If you are a part of the problem, you are not part of the solution.
Definitions:A pimp is an agent for
prostitutes who lives off their earnings. Pimping is illegal in most countries. The majority of pimps are men. The pimp-prostitute relationship can be abusive, with the pimp using psychological intimidation, manipulation and physical force to control the woman or women he sends out to work.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pimp A trick
Slang - for a prostitute's customer.
Sex trafficking has two parts to its definition. Sex trafficking is human trafficking for the purpose of Commercial Sexual Exploitation. That’s another way of saying its human trafficking into prostitution. Also, in the US, the legal definition of sex trafficking includes the exploitation of anyone under 18 involved in commercial sex. So in the US, a pimp with a 20 year old working for him is a pimp. If that woman is enslaved then he is a trafficker. A pimp with a 17 year old working for him is a sex trafficker no matter how the girl ended up working for him.
http://www.madebysurvivors.com/HumanTrafficking MARVIN X WROTE:The subject of prostitution cannot be separated from the general condition and treatment of women, whether as partners, wives or in same sex relationships. Women suffer the same violence, emotional and verbal abuse. It is only a matter of degree.
ADAOMA SAYS: Not so!There is a great difference between Prostitution ( the commercialization of sex) and Domestic Violence (women suffering violence in personal relationships). One is an industry that generates billions of dollars and will cease to run , only, if it is strategically dismantled. If the customer base, the agent and the traffickers are destroyed the industry will be destroyed. The abusive partner, in the case of domestic violence, may be helped with "recovery", as you mention later in this response. So, let us turn our attention, not to the woman, in this case, but to the customer (the John/trick), the agent (pimp) and the trafficker. This has been my focus. Hope we are in tandem.
MARVIN WROTE: Lesbian and gay partners are known to be more violent that heterosexual relationships. In the patriarchal society, all relationships are based on ownership, thus persons suffer the domination of the owners, and in marriage it is sometimes mutual--we own each other. Thus the root problem is buying into the mythology of people as chattel real or personal property. Within this mythological foundation, all relations are essentially the same, whether partners (boyfriend/girlfriend), marriage partners or partners in prostitution (ho/trick).
ADAOMA SAYS: Those are all sweeping generalization of the all the relationships you've mentioned. All in all, I think that I've clearly shown the difference between Prostitution and domestic violence. You cannot compare a woman being abused by her lover to a woman forced into a sexual business transaction with multiple strangers. That you do compare them explains your use of "pussy" when talking about sexual relationships with women. You don't refer to the woman holistically... only to.the partof her that is bought, sold and used...which renders the rest of the woman meaningless, invisible...to the customer. This furthers my argument that prostitution renders a woman a commodity, not a person. Relationships are between people. What's between a John and a prostitute is not a "relationship" that can be compared to marriage. It is a cold business transaction.
MARVIN SAYS:All these relations involve ownership, whether temporary (for the moment as in prostitution) or permanent as in marriage. And all these relationships suffer the resulting violence.
ADAOMA WRITES: Not really.In prostitution, the various customers own the woman temporarily, and, the agent, the pimp, owns her much longer. The pimp owns her as she is useful to him.
MARVIN WROTE:After reading my Mythology of Pussy, a brother noted that I said nothing about marriage. I told him he was correct. Under the present patriarchal conditions I cannot suggest marriage to anyone, not under the conditions of ownership of said partners, man or woman, since the woman in marriage feels she owns the man as well. As far as I am concerned, ownership of humans ended with the emancipation of slaves, although it continues as we write, but ownership and domination not only continues in the traffic of human beings, but in marriages as well, especially among the religious community, no matter what religion, African traditional, Judaism, Islam and Christianity. So I make no distinction between marriage and prostitution--they are both violent, abusive encounters. As my friend's wife noted (RIP), "I know I'm just a ho in disguise (of a wife)."
ADAOMA RESPONDS: Marriage is a legal contract between two consenting people to build a family together. It is a spiritual contract (for those who are married within a religion). In prostitution, there is no contract. In prostitution there is no consent. In prostitution there is no legality and no spirituality. Your comparisons are blown out of the water, Marvin.
MARVIN WROTE:The man pays his "pussy bill" on a regular basis when he shares the cost of maintaining the relationship or family. He doesn't get free pussy.
ADAOMA WROTE: Your statement presupposes that women play no part in "maintaining the relationship or family. It also presuppes that a woman's job is to lay or her back or any position you like and his is "maintaining the relationship or family". Maybe for the neandrathal. From all I've read, relationships are far more dynamic than this. On religion. I can only speak about Christianity. The Bible says in Heb. 13:14 -The marriage is honorable in all and the bed undefiled... Which means that husband and wife have liberty to please each other as it pleases them. That sounds a lot more fun than what you're talking about.
MARVIN WROTE:And who would want free pussy--I would be scared to death of free pussy. "Hey man, that girl/woman is giving away free pussy, don't you want some?" Hell, no.
ADAOMA WRITES: It is for this reason that I agree with the Swedish model of dealing with prostitution. When the customer, the pimp and the trafficker of women and girl are faced with the threat of public exposure, arrest and imprisonment prostitution will diminish and finally end.
MARVIN WROTE:And if I was with a girlfriend or prostitute, I would not leave her with no money, especially when I knew she didn't have any money, and definitely not if we'd had a nice time kicking it without a lot of bullshit and drag. In fact, I would give a bonus just for attitude. And attitude has nothing to do with sex. It's about manners and appreciation. This is no doubt why some men pay a woman just for talk, not sex. They may only want the woman to listen to them, maybe something the wife or girlfriend never does. They may only want to hear a soft feminine voice, not the sound of a bitter bitch.
ADAOMA SAYS:Sounds like a persona problem. Marvin, its you who sounds like the "bitter bitch", as you say. Perhaps you should keep your money in your pocket and try a little tenderness, if you want a soft spoken tender woman, try approaching a woman with some transparency instead of carrying a lot of "bullshit" as you call it. You may save a lot of cash for your golden years. Because as difficult as it is to hear, some women are just not for sale.
MARVIN X WRITES: Again, the exploitation of women is pervasive in a capitalist society, as is the exploitation of men, now known as boy toys, since they are now only needed for sex, not for economic survival. And they are discarded, thrown out at whim, depending of the woman's disposition or phases of the moon.
ADAOMA REPLIES:What a pity.
MARVIN WROTE: Once the patriarchal, capitalist society is destroyed, there shall be the possibility of new, radical configurations of human relationships, minus violence, exploitation and ownership. It is doubtful prostitution will ever disappear since men and women seem to have the need for extra partners. Polygamy and Polyandry are possible solutions only if they are beyond the patriarchal mythology, especially within religions. But we would need to be careful with polyandry, especially within a matriarchal society, for I don't advocate domination by men or women. Why is there the need to dominate? At this point in my life, I don't want to see oppression by anyone, male or female, white or black. We are free spirits, divine beings in human form. We are here to express love and joy. Even the prostitute I fell in love with told me she was here to give love to all who needed her love and was willing to pay.
ADAOMA WRITES: When women have more education, more options and more access to the options coupled with the destruction of the customer base of prostitution along with its agents and traffickers women will choose options that will serve her own self-interests, not Tom, Dick and Marvin's. Sweden is the model. In Sweden, women are not doubly victimized by the State and the sex industry. It is the sex industry and its agents that are penalized. And, prostitution in Sweden has shrunken significantly.
MARVIN X WROTE:Men who want to expoit women, abuse women, rape women, need to go into a recovery program until they are cured of their addiction that is a mental abberation of the capitalist or society steeped in religiosity of the most primitive, reactionary form. They must be resocialized into the modern era, trained and armed with the knowledge they do not own women, but only own themselves. Women are not their property and must be respected as divine beings in human form. Such knowledge will eradicate much partner violence, emotional and verbal abuse.
ADAOMA SAYS:Great advice for men caught in domestic violence. For the victim of domestic violence I say get out while you can. There are safe houses and shelters that can help. Tell someone.Reach out. Perhaps, now Marvin is convinced that prostitution should not be legalized, but that attacking the customer basd to destroy it will deplete the sex industry and begin to take women and girls out of danger and violence. For prostitution is Sweden, the "revolution" has come and it is destroying prostitution from the foundation up. No! I'm not for legalizing prostitution. I'm for destroying it, for its demise. Get on the side of women, Marvin. If you are part of the problem you are not a part of the solution. Thanks for the exchange.
Adaoma
Marvin X Replies to Adaoma
Rehemah Bah suggests dialogue and conversation on this topic and others is sorely needed. In fact, I had started the Pan African Mental Health Peer Group Meetings Dr. Nathan Hare called for, but people refused to take authority to continue the sessions. But the meeting format is outlined in my book How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy, Black Bird Press, Berkeley.
This present conversation began as a call to men, so far I have only heard from women.Will men please stand up and represent yourselves.
Adaoma, firstly, you have wanted to take me off my original point of men getting organized to satisfy their sexual and spiritual needs, just as same sex couples are doing at this hour. You enter the conversation with the notion that men have no right to organize themselves for what they deserve and need. This sounds like feminine arrogance or simple narrow mindedness. But I don't want our conversation to degenerate into name calling.
But to think that men are going to stop visiting with women in a fare exchange that is mutual is totally ridiculous, since the sex trade exists in all societies I know about, whether Capitalist, Socialist, Communist, Christian, Muslim, traditional African.
And in reality, it is women who have forced men to run around in dark allies to have sex because they are not satisfied at home or with their wives or girlfriends. Or maybe they have greater needs than monogamy can fulfill, so they want multiple partners. So who in the hell are you to tell men what they can or cannot have. Your attitude is the very reason men go to the streets to escape your fascist terror of matriarchal domination.
As I said initially, in a world where two men or two women can do what they want, don't tell me a man and woman can't do the same, whether married or not. Now violence, rape, abuse are criminal problems, but it is obvious the actions of men or women who desire multiple partners, whether marriage or prostitution is not going to end anytime soon.
My objective is to get shit in an organized manner. As I said, it is not even about sex, always, sometimes men want to be with a person to have a conversation. If they want to pay a woman to talk with, this is illegal as well, in your book?
My objective is for men and women to find ways of doing what they want in an organized manner, without killing each other, exploiting each other, or any kind of abuse. For you to suggest that any kind of interaction between men and women for money should be abolished is beyond common sense.
And in the case of the prostitute I loved, she came to live with me during the time I was producing One Day In the Life, the docudrama of my recovery from Crack addiction. Initially, she had no interest in recovery, even though she was living at my house that was the home of Recovery Theatre. She indirectly listened to our rehearsals, then one day decided to begin her recovery from Crack. She successfully completed a drug program and found employment, reunited with her children and got married. I was happy for her even though I missed my "ho."
But then she began to suffer domestic violence, similar to the violence she suffered as a ho. So should she have remained a street ho, since her marriage treatment was no different than what she received from her tricks? Thus, I maintain violence against women is across the board and marital and/or partner violence is not to be separated from the violence and abuse in prostitution. Violence is violence. There is personal violence and mass violence as in war, but it is all the same, somebody gets hurt, wounded, killed, does it matter if it's a wife, girlfriend or sex worker? I don't think so.
Marvin X
Same Sex Marriage, Straight Men & Prostitutes
Marvin X Replies to Adaoma, Rehemah and Rashidah
This morning, on the birthday of Martin Luther King,Jr., I want to bring to conclusion my argument for men to organize for their rights. I've tried to argue that if two women and two men can advocate for same-sex marriage rights, men should organize for their rights to enjoy the prostitute or sex worker, for we know fare exchange ain't no robbery.
One thing the prostitute that I loved taught me was that she was here to give love to all who needed her love, that I could not be selfish with her, that I could not own her, but I could enjoy her when she was available. Once I understood that, we became the very best friends. In fact, she soon had three titles, "The Maid, the Ho, the Cook," (see In the Crazy House Called America, essays by Marvin X, Black Bird Press, 2002). She came and went as she desired, and I stopped pressuring her to stay. Of course other women wanted to know how and why she had three titles. I asked them which title did they want? LOL
And so I was happy as a puppy dog when she came home to visit me. My point is that the prostitute is just as holy and sacred as the wife. She is just as necessary, for there are men who don't have a wife or girlfriend, thus the necessity of the prostitute; she fulfills a social function.
My old friend, Eldridge Cleaver (RIP), and I were on the road some years ago during the days of his Christian ministry. Since we worked seven days a week away from home, from his wife and my girlfriends (His wife Kathleen said to me, "Marvin the girls used to call here for you, but they don't call anymore,"--no woman wants a man working seven days a week), we wanted to visit some sex workers. As we entered the motel room with our dates, we saw a blind man being escorted up the stairs with his sex worker. Eldridge laughed at the blind man, but said that's why the prostitute is needed, even the blind man needs to have fun sometime.
And there are men who cannot talk to a woman, who don't know how to "rap," who don't have the gift of gab, so the prostitute is there for them. More than any other reason, the "Crack ho" served many men who couldn't talk to a woman, so with the "Crack ho" men only needed to drop the rock on the table and the party was on. For many men, it may have been the first time they had sex.
We have read that originally the prostitute was the priestess who served in the temple. She would serve the stranger when he came into town and for her services she received a love offering that she would share with the priest and the temple god.
Thus we see the sacred origins of the prostitute. She is just as necessary as the wife, of equal importance to society, except today she is totally disrespected, exploited and abused--but no less than the wife, for often her husband is a stranger and she is as well to her husband. They are together yet not together, actually they don't even know each other after years of marriage. And there is the resultant abuse, and worldwide there is more violence in the home than with sex workers. (See my poem You Don't Know Me).
The prostitute I loved did not have a pimp. She was her own woman, and she made it plain that I did not and could not own or control her--don't even think about it! She was a free spirit and so was I. She came to give love and so did I. What crime is this?
In conclusion, if society can make room for same sex marriage, it must recognize the prostitute as a necessary member of society. We honor Dr. King for his support of lowly garbage workers, but he said don't honor him, honor the garbage workers. So I say to you, honor the prostitute. I call upon men to organize society so she has a dignified place, minus exploitation, abuse, exposure to disease and can earn a living wage.
Jesus did not condemn her, so why should you? Friends called the prostitute "My Somalian," since she had East African features. But she said, "I don't know where Somalia is, I'm black and Native American." I loved her and she loved me, what else does one need to know?
--Marvin X
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