Imagine you are a woman in your mid-twenties with the world at your feet. You believe that as a grown woman in Australia, you have the right to express yourself emotionally and sexually.
Now imagine that you are hounded and berated for your honesty. You’re constantly insulted for being yourself and standing on your own two feet. Your chosen career is the catalyst for threats and bullying; you are subjected to abuse and scathing remarks.
Whether you want to believe it or not, this is the reality many women - including those in the sex industry - face today. And sadly enough the attacks are not solely from men. A lot of the time they are from women - with most of it derived from outdated feminist views.
I know a lot of women (and men) in the fetish and sex industry. I chose to be a fetish model, blogger and a sub to a mistress, and I find it liberating and gratifying. I use it as a form of expression.
However my aim over the past six years as a blogger to help women feel liberated and confident has been knocked down many times by some who appear jealous or angry because they think taking your clothes off for the camera is a form of exploitation.
Social media platforms support women in the adult industry, paving the way for more acceptance, even creating career aspirations for younger women who want to earn good money while feeling liberated.
However, there is still a stigma attached - a girl who wants to take her clothes off and dance around a pole for money must be an attention-seeking slut.
Anti-pornography feminists believe that women who participate in pornography are sexual objects purely there to be abused and controlled by men. They also believe those who participate are being degraded and exploited. This also appears to attach a strong stigma to escorts, strippers, pornographic models and participating sexual slaves.
But have many people from the industry been given the opportunity to stand up and give perspective on their own experiences?
I spoke with Penthouse Pet Ashlee Adams on the issue to get a bit more insight from the perspective of a woman who is fierce, independent, and headstrong. Not to mention that, just like many of us in the younger generation, she also thinks feminism is becoming outdated.
Here’s some common assumptions - and the facts:
Assumption: All women who work in the sex industry do so as a last resort due to lack of skills, or are forced to as a pawn in a man’s money making scheme.
Fact: There are a lot of strippers out there who take up the profession due to the money, flexibility, feeling gratified and having complete financial freedom.
Assumption: All women who strip or use their bodies for financial gain are being degraded, victimised and exploited.
Fact: There are women (and men) in the industry who believe that nobody can degrade you unless you let them. There are women and men who will try to degrade you but at the end of the day it is a reflection of someone else’s bad character, not the workers.
Assumption: All women in the sex industry are uneducated, slutty, drug-affected sluts with no self respect.
Fact: It’s a social stigma and just that, an unfair assumption that puts someone else down purely because of their personal choice of how to make money. To quote Ashlee Adams:
I’m normal and happy and not some emotionally damaged whore looking for my next bag of meth.
Assumption: The adult entertainment industry breeds misogynists.
Fact: If anything, it can breed women who hate men and those who suggest the adult industry breeds misogynists are somewhat ignorant and narrow minded. Ashlee says:
In my time I’ve encountered a lot of misogynistic behaviour at work, but I genuinely believe that those men hated women long before they watched porn for the first time or paid a woman to get naked - the strip club just gives them an outlet for them that in their mind seems more acceptable than saying something to a woman in the street.
Society believes women who are sexually promiscuous or choose to work in the adult industry were abused when they were younger, have no self-esteem or have deep mental issues.
You’d think in 2011, after all of the lessons learnt in the past few decades, that this stereotype would be broken down and that pro-choice in women would be far more accepted than it was back in the 70s and 80s.
How is that people still feel they have the right to push their beliefs on another person by telling them how they should feel about their own body and sexuality?
The assumption that a woman has been ‘raped’ (as some radical anti-adult industry feminists put it) because she is promiscuous and likes to take her clothes off is not only narrow minded, but offensive to women working in the industry who are just like the average person you would see in your local supermarket, but there are plenty of women out there who are quick to judge these women.
Just yesterday, I was labelled a fat and ugly whore, among other derogatory names, by a radical feminist on Twitter because I said that Germaine Greer’s views on the sex industry were outdated. There is also a huge assumption that with my own personal fan base for my modelling and my views on sex that my male followers are dogs on a leash that just want to disrespect me.
If anything, my male fans are respectful, encouraging and are genuinely interested in what I have to say and this is the same for Ashlee and every other stripper, nude model, escort and pornographic actress I know. On occasion I do receive the inappropriate comment - but I really do believe it comes down to educating people.
What I want to know is, why do young women allow these types of opinions to further represent us? I admit first hand that we would not be where we are today if it weren’t for feminism, and it is still very important in this day and age - however, many of us feel some of these views being put out there to represent all women are becoming more and more outdated with radical influences from the echelons of high society.
If these people have such respect for all women, then why do they resort to slut shaming, name calling, and personal attacks? Instead of putting someone else down and trying to censor people, we should be working together to ensure that people of all ages, shapes, sizes and genders are educated and respectful to one another.
The world will never evolve if there is no respect for individuals’ choices.
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