Woman Centered

Radicalized feminist. Gender critical. Transwidow. Figuring things out as I go along.

[kiefbowl]

empowerment is not about feeling good, it’s about resources, knowledge, and autonomy

[the-real-ted-cruz]

This is not going to be a fun post. If you are sensitive to graphic descriptions of violence and rape, here is your warning. Also a warning for suicide and self harm mentions.

I know I am probably going to get hate for this post, but I honestly really don’t care. The porn industry is horribly messed up, and the thought of people continuing to watch pornographic videos of girls being assaulted makes me pretty pissed off. I know people are going to argue, “oh, but it’s consensual. The women WANT to be there,” and I could go on about how that’s just blatantly incorrect, but instead, here are some testimonies of a few women who were/are in the porn industry:

EVA ANGELINA: “My pussy was so swollen, it was unbelievable. And the next day, I was obligated to work for Cherry Boxxx. And that f—ed me up even more. Working three scenes after having been so injured f—– me up. For a good six months, I wasn’t normal. My pussy wasn’t normal until a couple of months ago. It just sucks.”

MICHELLE AVANTI “Some of my experiences on the porn set include me being totally wasted and porn producers allowed me to be and even provided alcohol and drugs for me. I experienced rough sex scenes and have been hit by male talent and told them to stop but they wouldn’t stop until I started to cry and ruined the scene. During one specific scene called “Bukkake” I was really high and the producers knew it and they told me to use a Douche to pretend I was urinating on another performer but I had an accident and instead I defecated on the performer. I was so humiliated and wanted to die. They told me it was okay and not to worry that they weren’t going to make a big deal about it and the next thing I know they blasted the scene all over the web. I felt totally degraded.”

MAHLIA MILIAN “My worst day was when I was forced to use a sponge to do a scene because it was already booked and my monthly came early I had never did anything like this. The sponge was pushed so far and got stuck that I had to be taken into the hospital because I had caught a infection and they had to open me up to remove the sponge. I wasn’t able to work for a few weeks and the agent stole two of my checks to replace the money he didn’t get from me leaving me broke and without food.”

EMILY EVE “I shot scenes where I had to pretend to be dead and let someone rape my dead body. I came home bruised and sometimes a little bloody from the rough scenes. I shot deep throat scenes where they slapped me and spit on me and called me horrible things. I threw up, and had to keep shooting.. I couldn’t breathe because of the vomit in my nose and the genitals in my mouth.”

REGAN STARR “I got the shit kicked out of me… most of the girls start crying because they’re hurting so bad… I couldn’t breathe. I was being hit and choked. I was really upset and they didn’t stop. They kept filming. [I asked them to turn the camera off] and they kept going.“

CORINA TAYLOR “When I arrived to the set I expected to do a vaginal girl boy scene. But during the scene with a male porn star, he forced himself anally into me and would not stop. I yelled at him to stop and screamed ‘No’ over and over but he would not stop. The pain became too much and I was in shock and my body went limp.”

JERSEY JAXIN “Guys punching you in the face. You have semen from many guys all over your face, in your eyes. You get ripped. Your insides can come out of you. It’s never ending.” - Jersey Jaxin

ELIZABETH ROLLINGS “I didn’t want to feel the pain of penetration from an over average sized man, being told to freeze in a position until the camera man was happy with his shots was very painful. I had peoples body fluids forced on my face or anywhere else the producer pleased and I had to accept it or else no pay. Sometimes you would get to a gig and the producer would change what the scene was supposed to be to something more intense and again if you didn’t like it, too bad, you did it or no pay.”

GENEVIEVE “I had bodily fluids all over my face that had to stay on my face for ten minutes. The abuse and degradation was rough. I sweated and was in deep pain. On top of the horrifying experience, my whole body ached, and I was irritable the whole day. The director didn’t really care how I felt; he only wanted to finish the video.”

JENNA JAMESON “Most girls get their first experience in gonzo films – in which they’re taken to a crappy studio apartment in Mission Hills and penetrated in every hole possible by some abusive asshole who thinks her name is Bitch. And these girls, some of whom have the potential to become major stars in the industry, go home afterward and pledge never to do it again because it was such a terrible experience.”

ROXY “After only 30 movies I caught two sexually transmitted diseases. Herpes, a non-curable disease and HPV, which led to cervical cancer where I had to have half of my cervix removed. Porn destroyed my life.”

DANIELLE WILLIAMS “A female porm star that’d been in the industry for a while had excessive anal intercourse and a piece of her muscle from her anus fell out on set while she was filming. Some females damaged their reproductive systems which left them unable to have children. A male porn star broke the muscle in his penis because he was having abnormal and outragous rough sex. I found that a male porn star who was in the business for a while was a devil worshipper. Both male and female porn stars were committing suicide. A lot of the porn stars were known to go overseas and do beastiality in porn. (Sleeping with animals.) Shortly after that, a numerous amount of people starting turning up with diseases, Herpes to be exact.”

ALEX DEVINE “Donkey Punch was the most brutal, depressing, scary scene that I have ever done. I have tried to block it out from my memory due to the severe abuse I recieved during the filming. The guy, Steve French has a natural hatred towards women in the sense that he has always been known to be more brutal than EVER needed. I agreed to do the scene thinking it was less beating, except the ‘punch’ in the head. If you noticed, steve had worn his solid gold ring the entire time, and continued to punch me with it. I actually stopped the scene while it was being filmed because I was in too much pain.”

JESSI SUMMERS “I did gonzo porn to start out and it was the most degrading, embarrassing, horrible thing ever! I had to shoot an interactive DVD which takes hours and hours of shooting time with a 104 degree fever! I was crying and wanted to leave but my agent wouldn’t let me he said he couldn’t let me flake on it. I also did a scene where I was put with male talent that was on my no list. I wanted to please them so I did it. He put his foot on my head and stepped on it while he was doing me from behind. I freaked out and started balling; they stopped filming and sent me home with reduced pay since they got some shot but not the whole scene.”

ERICA CAMPBELL “Being in the world of adult modeling I see A LOT of pain….A LOT of heart break. SO many lost girls get into this business just for some extra money….to help pay for school….to help support themselves or even their children as single moms. “It’s just temporary”. They are only going to do this for a while…just a few shoots. I too started out to make some extra money to help me finish school. Almost ALL of the time It doesn’t end where you think it will…..the path goes on……the hole gets deeper….and the road gets darker. MOST of the time the girls don’t even realize it. One day you see this bright beautiful girl shooting tame nudes…the next they are signing on the dotted line of a hard-core porn company. Lost. Broken. Alone.“

CRISSY MORAN “I went through more heartbreaks and became suicidal. I was taken to the hospital for panic attacks. I tried to overdose on xanax, strangle myself, and cut my wrists but not nearly deep enough. I was too scared of the pain. I prayed God would just take me away! I felt helpless. I even went to church for a few months but the guilt I felt was overwhelming that I would feel as if I were choking when I was at church. I had to choose and once again I chose to continue sinning. It was easier and I needed the money.”

TIANA LYNN “I tried porn a year-and-a-half ago for three weeks. They [my agent DK] booked me for everything I didn’t want to do. I was in the hospital three times. Allergic to lube. Being pounded too hard. My cervix closed up. My ass got torn up.”

ERIN MOORE “Over the course of my porn career I have been belittled and treated like a piece of trash more than I could have ever imagined in a lifetime I would. I wasn’t a woman in any of these directors eyes, I was nothing to them. The male talent at times were nice, but sometimes, they were horrible. I’ve had men choke me, slap me, thrust me so hard until I couldn’t walk and this would happen even after I would tell them to stop. They have no respect for women.”

Can we stop pretending that what goes on in porn is fake? That the women in the scenes are happy to be there? That it’s consensual? Can we stop pretending now?

[archivedtdp-deactivated20240111]

I’m pretty sure nobody is going around pretending that all sex workplaces are amazing and nobody is ever mistreated. There’s no career on earth that allows for that - no place at all really. Some people are just abusive and some people are more easily victimized than others, so they attract the abusers like a firefly to light. It’s just when people make widespread generalizations that’s the problem - not even close to all women are being abused in the porn industry. To say so is actually incredibly rude and offensive to the women who do choose to be there and who do like their work. It takes away their agency and just paints them as victims - that’s not okay. That’s actually pretty gross.

Not to mention, why is it only women who are ever mentioned? What about gay porn? If all women are being abused in the porn industry then don’t you think the gay guys who bottom would be just as mistreated? Shouldn’t they be mentioned and cared about as well? Or is that just not as important?

That being said, it is a shame what allegedly happened to these women and if their accounts are true than I hope justice occurs, however it’s not even slightly okay to paint a whole industry as toxic and abusive like this. I don’t really say this a lot, but honestly it’s kind of misogynistic to paint all porn actresses as victims. There’s been a lot of accounts from porn actresses and ex-porn actresses who have nothing negative to say at all - hell, some are even downright positive. Don’t erase their agency and their experiences just because it fits your narrative. Don’t be that guy.

(All references to “you” are generalized - I’m in no way singling out anyone.)

[medaea-deactivated201839183999]

i’m too tired to properly argue with sources and shit but i just gotta say….

you read all that and your ONLY reaction is “not all women are abused”? “some women want to be there”? 

just a quick stat: 90% of the women in the porn industry want to leave but have no means to do so. and you’re really gonna take a huge dump on the NINETY PERCENT of women who are exploited against their wishes in order to protect that precious 10%?

i can’t believe that you read the accounts of these women who were horrifically abused and your first thought is to defend the fucking industry and question if these accounts are true. maybe you just don’t want to think about the fact that the women you jerk off to are being raped and physically abused, are addicted to drugs, are suffering from STD’s, and can’t leave the goddamn terrible industry because they won’t be able to support themselves?  

“it’s kind of misogynistic to paint all porn actresses as victims” no, it’s not. because they are. i swear to god, why is rape, specifically rape against women the ONLY crime where people aren’t allowed to claim victimhood? face it bud: these women are being exploited. their bodies are being sold as commodities. would you say it’s ageist to say all child laborers were victims because some chose to work in order to support their families? 

“don’t erase their agency and their experiences just because it fits your narrative. don’t be that guy.”

and in that moment, you had no idea, not a single FUCKING clue… that you were that guy. you heard the accounts of several women’s abuse in porn and shut your ears to it because it killed your buzz. 

you need to take a long hard look at yourself.

[womenslibber]

The amount of ignorant #notallporn additions on this post is astonishing, especially after reading all of those testimonies. Ya’ll keep defending a horrible industry that treats women like objects that can be bought, fucked, abused and thrown away. Hope your conscience catches up with you some time soon.

[lowkey-radical]

“some people are more easily victimized than others, so they attract the abusers like a firefly to light” SHUT THE FUCK UP @the-defiant-pupil

[uterinepride-blog]

THIS sort of shit is exactly what woke me up to the horrors of porn. I had wanted to be seen as a funfem!! Not one of those prudish, uptight women with the pursed lips!! Sex is good! Empowerment for all! It’s all about CHOICY CHOICES, AMIRITE?

Yeah, no. THIS is the reality.

[andwhimsicality-deactivated2023]

Yes, there is discrimination and pain and bullying that comes with being a gnc boy and that’s awful. But it’s not female socialisation. That doesn't​ mean that gnc boys who later identify as trans women have exactly the same experiences as straight gender conforming boys, it just means their experiences aren’t female.

[uterinepride-blog]

A lot of trans “women” transitioning in their 30s and 40s were never gnc boys to begin with. There is a lot of tailoring memory to fit their current narrative going on.

As time went on, my MTT ex-husband’s narrative changed from “I liked the thrill I got putting on lingerie” to “I always knew I was a girl.” 

[humblekitten]

There’s this whole wonderful “progressive” movement that tells parents “don’t worry, your gender non conforming child isn’t an icky gay! They’re just the opposite sex!”

And isn’t it super neat that this very progressive movement lines up very neatly with conservative thought, that being gay is wrong, and bad, and unnatural? Now you can hate us, condemn gays and lesbians, and still get to claim a sweet and trendy progressive label!

[fromond-deactivated20170206]

The country that carries out the most sex-reassignment operations is Iran, for exactly this reason. Same-sex relationships are punishable by death, but pledging to imitate the opposite sex for the rest of your life in order to appear heterosexual is actively encouraged.

[femcoven]

if you read any memoirs or old books on what being gay was like anywhere in the last few centuries, being told you were a “man in a woman’s body” as a lesbian or vice versa for gay men was an extremely common homophobic tactic used to deflect the realities of our sexual orientation and reinforce heteronormativity. the same thing is happening now, but with a different (more sinister) twist–people are being forced into these new surgical procedures so they can emulate heterosexuality (even though that’s not how it works), and even those who stand for “justice” are ignoring the blatant homophobia behind these horrific actions so they continue their trans “activism”.

[female-feminism]

I think my biggest annoyance about transactivists throwing fits about our signs that mentioned “vagina” or “uterus” on them for the women’s march is that they’re being so fucking hypocritical. We did exactly what they claimed they wanted us to do. People made signs that said “no uterus, no opinion” or something to the effect of “stay out of my vagina/uterus” in regards to abortion rights and birth control access. These signs are NOT gender specific. They ARE inclusive. There’s nothing on them that says it applies to ALL women or ONLY women. There’s nothing on them that excludes trans men. It’s exactly what they claimed they wanted when they insisted we start using language like “uterus bearer” because they claimed that wouldn’t exclude trans men who do have a uterus and wouldn’t include trans women who don’t have a uterus. It applies strictly to people who can get pregnant and may want to get an abortion, regardless of their gender identity, and does not apply to anyone else. This is what THEY SAID they wanted. But when we did it, then suddenly, it’s STILL transmisogynistic to them SOMEHOW. Because they never really gave a damn about what language we used anyway, they just wanted us to shut up about our bodies and our struggles entirely. It’s what they wanted all along. They just thought policing our language would get us to stop. But even when we word it how they wanted, they’re STILL mad, because we’re not entirely focused on trans women’s struggles 100% of the time. Even though there were also plenty of signs out there that focused on trans women and NOT cis women or trans men, having SOME signs focused on their struggles and SOME signs focused on ours wasn’t good enough. Apparently, they ALL have to be about struggles that apply to trans women. It’s okay if it’s something that applies to BOTH trans women and cis women or ONLY trans women, but if it’s something that ONLY applies to cis women and trans men and nb afab people, then it’s not important enough to mention at all.

[uterinepride-blog]

I love how “shut up about icky icky girl parts” has become, somehow, “feminism?” Downright Orwellian.

[heyumdonttalktome-deactivated20]

Please help me cover the costs of my cancer surgeries

My health for the past few months has been gradually worsening, culminating in an emergency surgery and a diagnosis of endometrial cancer last February. Just days after my birthday actually,  how’s that for irony?

I have a hysterectomy scheduled for April 3rd, 2017. It will take me a long time to recover from that surgery, meaning I will not be able to work for a long time. At the moment, I work as a freelance artist specializing in LGBT+ themes, but even this work will be put on hold for a long while while recovering for this surgery.

As it stands, I’m already phenomenally in debt from the first surgery (the kind of surgery is kinda TMI but it is tied to my diagnosis), and I am currently offering cheap emergency commissions.

My current debt is at precisely $15,556.97

If you would like to commission me, please visit my art blog at the link below, or email me, which you can also find at my Tumblr. Even if I don’t make the goal to cover my medical bills, I hope to at least cover the weeks I won’t be able to work in order to support myself.

If you would like to donate, I’ll link to my PayPal, YouCaring, and Ko-Fi as well.

I’m going to remain strong. Thank you for all your love and support.

Art Blog - PayPal - Ko-Fi - YouCaring

[uterinepride-blog]

#signal boost

[radladiesunite]

Facts

👉Trans women are male. They were born male and they’ll die male. We will all decompose in the ground and centuries later archaeologists will find our skeletons and be able to tell if we were of the sex that produces sperm or ovum. Is that not the definition of a trans woman? someone born male who ‘identifies’ with being a woman? 

👉Acknowledging the reality of the sex you obviously are is not violence. It may hurt your feelings, but it is not violence. Being critical of gender and males defining womanhood does not make someone transphobic.

👉Lesbians are female homosexuals. You can’t come up with your own definitions for words and get pissed when people don’t use your definition. 

👉Homosexuals are people attracted to the same sex that they are.

👉Sexuality is about attraction to primary and secondary sex characteristics, not an elusive sparkly ‘feminine’ feeling that you display with sexist stereotypes, presentations, and roles. No one is sexually attracted to gender identity.

👉Saying women have vaginas is not the same this as saying women ARE vaginas. it’s a classification. If i say dogs have fur, am i ‘reducing’ them to their fur? No, i’m just pointing out one of their defining features.

👉Defining woman as anything other than female is sexist garbage.

👉Lesbians don’t have to date, have sex with, or be attracted to trans women. To berate and harass them for the natural preferences that come with their sexuality is misogynistic rape-apologism.

👉‘Cis’ women are not privileged over trans women. An equivalent sentence is 'females are not privileged over males’

👉Sex is not a social construct. Social constructs exist only in the context of human culture and are variable. Sex is a biological reality manifested by gonads, reproductive organs, skeletal structure, secondary sex characteristics, chromosomes, etc. Humans are sexually dimorphic with .05% being intersex.

👉Socialization based on birth sex is real. It manifests as differential treatment throughout life based on sex. Socialization starts the second the doctor says 'it’s a girl!’ and the mother gets showered in bows, dresses, Disney princess, toy kitchens and cleaning equipment, all in sparkles and shades of pink while the father is simultaneously disappointed he won’t get to play catch with his offspring and worried about boys victimizing and harassing his daughter, knowing firsthand how that plays out.

👉Gender is socially constructed. It is the roles assigned to males and females. It is 'women wear dresses, aren’t good at math and science, have to shave and wear makeup, don’t do sports, are fragile and sensitive, are overly emotional and totally nurturing, should not be assertive or in positions of power, should have a goal to get married have kids and take their husbands name’

👉There is no such thing as brain sex. When trans women see an article saying trans women have a similar sized hippocampus as ‘cis’ women and they’ll say to themselves ’SEE!This means my made up gender identity is valid and genetic!’ when in reality the discussion section will mention that even for cis women it is a spectrum/distribution and that the results do not automatically imply that those differences are not due to brain plasticity, experience-dependent development, and socialization (half the time they’re not even studying causal factors). So you may be thinking, ‘well what ARE those differences present from birth?’. Experiments studying male and female differences from birth as displayed in children and infants show that the only cognitive differences are few and minuscule, such as higher visuospatial ability in males. And these articles never even mention some correlation to ‘gender identity’. Thats left for psychologists and social theorists, because there’s no way to empirically study the bullshit gender identity in your head when you can’t even come up with a definitive, operationally sound definition for ‘woman’

👉Bathrooms are separated by sex, not gender identity. Males do not belong in female only safe spaces, bathrooms, lockerooms, rape shelters, etc.

[gothhabiba]

I’ve finally started reading Why Does He Do That and honestly I’d recommend it to anyone who is or has been in a relationship (romantic or otherwise) with an abusive or controlling person, even if you’re already out of that situation, because it’s been validating and enlightening to me to see my experiences corroborated

here’s a pdf I uploaded to my google drive

[uterinepride-blog]

This is, hands down, the most important book I recommend to pretty much anyone who dates men. It helped me untangle a lot of the gaslighting left over in my head from my terrible marriage.

[browsedankmemes]

[heyumdonttalktome-deactivated20]

Please help me cover the costs of my cancer surgeries

My health for the past few months has been gradually worsening, culminating in an emergency surgery and a diagnosis of endometrial cancer last February. Just days after my birthday actually,  how’s that for irony?

I have a hysterectomy scheduled for April 3rd, 2017. It will take me a long time to recover from that surgery, meaning I will not be able to work for a long time. At the moment, I work as a freelance artist specializing in LGBT+ themes, but even this work will be put on hold for a long while while recovering for this surgery.

As it stands, I’m already phenomenally in debt from the first surgery (the kind of surgery is kinda TMI but it is tied to my diagnosis), and I am currently offering cheap emergency commissions.

My current debt is at precisely $15,556.97

If you would like to commission me, please visit my art blog at the link below, or email me, which you can also find at my Tumblr. Even if I don’t make the goal to cover my medical bills, I hope to at least cover the weeks I won’t be able to work in order to support myself.

If you would like to donate, I’ll link to my PayPal, YouCaring, and Ko-Fi as well.

I’m going to remain strong. Thank you for all your love and support.

Art Blog - PayPal - Ko-Fi - YouCaring

[liesofthepatriarchy]

[sangredesirena78463748-deactiva]

this is what happens when you let your straight interns run your social media

[uterinepride-blog]

I just can’t even. with this.

[joshua-wright]

No room for heretics in dragon cults.

[uterinepride-blog]

I posted this elsewhere recently as a response to “when did you hit peak trans?” and thought it worth sharing here as well.

I don’t think I was ever really aboard the trans train, though I made a valiant effort to understand, as the good little liberal I was.

At age 18, I hit peak trans living in a terrible house with terrible people, including a “trans woman” who was James at work and “Taryn” after hours. Taryn’s entire wardrobe consisted of stripper clothes, which I mean literally—they had Velcro up the sides for easy removal. She was a living, breathing stereotype in 8” heels and a bad wig. “Her” boyfriend was a homophobe, who quickly informed everyone he met about the fact that he “wasn’t gay,” that it “was okay because she was actually a woman and would have surgery soon,” and emphasized that HE was the one who always did the penetration. He had a huge collection of porn magazines lying around featuring women with cartoonishly enormous breasts—not just your standard porn-implant fare, but specifically focused on grotesquely enlarged women. It could not be more clear that they both had no respect for actual women, rather, they saw “womanhood” as being properly embodied by over the top pornified caricatures of femininity and fuckability.

At 23 I hit peak trans again, after I made the naïve mistake of believing that my boyfriend’s attraction to cross-dressing meant that, like me, he wished to challenge and abolish gender roles, and would make an ideal partner what with being less attached to notions of masculinity. I got pregnant and married in short succession, and only then realized how wrong I was. Now that this narcissist had his “supply” firmly in hand, the mask could come off, and the appalling behavior began. But I felt stuck, and without other options. Caught up in the whirlwind of pregnancy and parenthood, I simply tried to make the best of things.

He could not possibly have behaved more like an entitled stereotypical white male if he tried, and then he’d secret himself away, put on some ridiculous lingerie and masturbate to the thought of what a pretty, pretty girl he was. And so it went for nearly 20 years of emotionally abusive bullshit.

[Will spare you the details of the repeated absurd conversations around womanhood and his distorted picture of what it was; skip the fact that he constantly spent nights playing the “poor me, I never got to be that pretty girl wearing pretty things that men look longingly at” game any time we were around young women. Skip his disdain for my post-pregnancy body and weight gain and how quickly sex turned into just an utterly one-sided playing-out of his distorted fantasies. How the house became a place where my daughter and I were constantly on edge wondering when the next time he would go off was. And how I couldn’t talk to anyone about it, because he was closeted and wanted no one to know of his proclivities.]

Peak trans. Over and over. Ridiculous conversations where he’d dismiss feminism because look how HARD being a boy was for HIM. Contributing nothing to the running of the household beyond a paycheck. On and on. Michfest were evil, evil women for not making it all about dick.

Enough for now. Eventually he decided he really was a woman and yadda yadda yadda, the usual routine. We didn’t have money for my daughter’s braces, but we did for the never-ending parade of new clothes coming to the house… and finally I got the strength to leave. Now, “she” fancies herself an important online feminist activist with a little cadre of handmaidens eager to reinforce how BRAVE and IMPORTANT “she” is and I just can’t even.

[uterinepride-blog]

Reblogging my own damned self, since I now have a few more followers than the 0 I had when I posted this.  

[radicurious-deactivated20190122]

Reblog this post to your radfem blog/sideblog so that other radfems can find you and follow you. We need to support each other, listen to each other and learn from each other, and we need to built a community which is strong enough to stand against all the vitriol which is directed towards us - and the first thing we need to do is to find each other 💕

[uterinepride-blog]

Yes please.

[pattykrenwinkelsbountifulleghair]

There is nothing empowering about commercialized rape

One of my best friends, a girl I have known since I was like 16, is a “sex worker”.  She was abandoned by her father and abused by her unstable mother.  She has multiple learning disabilities, processing difficulties, and executive dysfunction.  She has never received proper treatment or diagnosis other than being labeled with a form of Autism in early elementary school.  

She is the single mother of a child conceive by the man who, when she was fresh out of HS, essentially kidnapped her to the other side of the country and pimped her out to support his crack habit, all while starving and beating her almost to death.  

She risked her life to leave, only to be left completely dependent on her still-abusive mother (who not only starves and degrades her, but also refuses to allow her to see a psychologist because the mother “doesnt believe in mental illness” and considers people on psych medication to be “drug addicts”).  

Her mother also refuses to get her the testing that would possibly entitle to her to some sort of social security disability benefits, job placement programs, and other resources for the disabled.  Her mom also regularly steals her meager WIC checks and food stamps allowances as ‘rent’. She’s going through all sorts of programs and on all sorts of waiting lists trying to do the right thing and get into a work placement program and she’s being strangled by red tape and bureaucracy.   

She is the strongest woman I know but she is also, in every sense of the word, a vulnerable person.  

In order to provide for her son, she has resorted back to ‘sex work’.   She doesn’t talk about it much.  In fact, the only thing she’s said since taking it back up took my breath away.  

We had just finished painting Halloween pumpkins with her little son. The baby decided he was hungry, and attempted to open a fresh bag of cereal that we’d just picked up from the store.  He wound up breaking the bag open, and everything spilled out over the yard.  The cereal all spilled out, and some eggs were ruined; maybe 6 dollars worth of food.  We were cleaning it up and she broke down crying. “He doesn’t get it.” She kept saying, over and over. “He doesn’t get what I had to do for this.”

There’s nothing empowering about a mentally disabled abuse survivor sobbing on her front lawn over a single broken bag of groceries because it means she’ll have to be raped again, sooner than expected, to keep herself and her child alive.  

I’ve said it before and Ill say it again, if you buy sex in any form, you are a rapist who deserves a painful death and I personally hate you.  This is not some one-off shock story, either.  These are the girls you are buying. Most of their stories are even worse, a lot of their stories start as children.  If you can perpetuate that and still live with yourself you need to be removed from this earth.

[skramzsexual-deactivated2022090]

This is it. This is the post I found months ago that opened my eyes completely. This post ripped my heart out and fucked me up for weeks. I would still probably be stuck in pro-porn “sex positive” hell if I hadn’t stumbled upon this post. This is hell. I want to make it my goal in life to make sure no one ever has to go through something like this ever. I want to help every trapped sex worker exit and find a better job, a better life. One where they don’t have to be raped and abused just to survive. I owe everything to this story.

[rootfauna-deactivated20180326]

In(g/t)rained Femininity

So, as I’m guessing pretty much all of you know by now, I’m an animal trainer and have been for some time. It recently struck me how apparent, even in myself, the effects off operant and classical conditioning are in women who’ve effectively been trained to be feminine by society. 

Let’s start with the more well known: 

Classical Conditioning pairs a neutral stimulus with an uncontrolled response. In other words, the subject doesn’t realize they’re learning. Think of the famous Pavlov’s dogs. At first, that bell meant nothing to them; it just happened to sound when they were about to get fed and was therefore a neutral stimulus. The drooling isn’t something they were doing on purpose; it was an uncontrolled response. 

How does this translate to being trained into femininity? Behold:

I was working on rearranging my apartment recently, and just didn’t have much motivation. I decided to put on a bra even though I live alone because wearing a bra makes me feel like I should be doing something. When I was about 11, a neutral stimulus (my bra) was added to a situation that already made me feel productive (going to school, work, etc) and 14 years later I’ve been classically conditioned to feel more productive when I put a bra on. 

The same could easily be said for makeup and, indeed, I used to apply makeup to make myself feel more productive as well. 

But the main difference between the two types of conditioning is that in classical conditioning it’s simply pairing a stimulus with a behavior. There’s no praise, there’s no punishment. That’s all for operant conditioning. 

Operant conditioning tries to induce or eliminate an action using positive and negative rewards and positive and negative punishment. Forget the emotional aspects of ‘positive’ and ‘negative’. Here they just mean ‘to add’ and ‘to take away’. Let’s look at the rewards. 

A girl is wearing a pretty dress. Her family gushes over her, telling her how beautiful she looks. This is a positive reward. They are adding their praise. 

The same girl enjoyed a nice holiday dinner with her family, but now it’s time to clean up. Her mother tells her to just run upstairs and play; she wouldn’t want her to get her pretty dress dirty. This is negative reward; an unpleasant task is being taken away. 

Now let’s look at the punishments.

The same girl says something rude and gets her bottom smacked. This is positive punishment, as the smack was added. Then, because she can’t act like a lady, she’s told to change out of her pretty dress which she adores because of the rewards she received. This is negative punishment; something she likes or desires is being taken away as punishment. Think of another scenario with the same girl, only now she’s asked to play outside. She’s told ‘no’; she’ll get her dress dirty. This is negative punishment as, again, something she likes or desires is being withheld to correct behavior (incorrect behavior being that she wants to play outside rather than wear a pretty dress inside)

Think of how this leaks into society even as adult women. Wearing makeup, pretty clothes, and heels can mean people are nicer to you in general or may even net you a promotion (positive reward) People offering to do things for you (negative reward) Being denied a promotion over a more feminine peer (negative punishment) Being harassed or even assaulted for being GNC (positive punishment). 

So you start to get this:

and once you try to unlearn femininity, you run into another problem. As with any animal I’ve ever worked with, the training never ends. It’s always reinforced and sometimes so subtly you can barely catch it or can’t at all. Sometimes it’s outright, ridiculous, or downright dangerous. But it’s always there. 

Food for thought.