I’ve been mulling Chauncey’s comments over the weekend and wanted to respond out here in the open. I would have done so sooner, but I had some family issues to deal with, as well as work, as well as hanging out with some friends, so I just haven’t had a chance.

According to some post-modern, post-feminist, post-whatever thinking, women who choose to work in pornography, or women who choose to become strippers, or high-priced ‘escorts,’ or, for that matter, women who actively seek to become professional cheerleaders, Playboy playmates, or anything where there is a conscious choice involved to sell their own sexual image, are really sort of the ultra-feminists; that they know what’s involved, that they are willing participants, that they are paid well, that they have a modicum of control over exactly what they will and won’t do, according to this theory, is the ultimate feminist zeitgeist. It’s their sexuality; no man or male power structure owns or controls it, and therefore they can sell it if they want to. Pornography, and scantily-clad models in advertising, and paid public nudity may have all begun as avenues of male-dominated exploitation, but women, in the ultimate act of defiance, now very often run the show.

And there are parallels to this sort of thing elsewhere. Many African-Americans claim that taking the word “nigger,” and using it as a sort of badge of honor, is the ultimate act of sticking it to the white racism from whence it came. Some gay people will also say that they have taken the word “fag” and turned it into a word of defiance. And, while we’re talking about women, there are many women who claim the word “bitch” as a symbol of empowerment. Along those same lines, it has become popular in some feminist circles to claim that, for instance, running fashion magazines like Elle or Vogue or whatever, which regularly feature a certain stereotypical image of skinny, airbrushed, physically fit, overly-made-up women, just like producing or directing pornography, is the ultimate feminist reclamation of their sexuality.

On paper, at first blush, I think this almost sounds right. It may, in fact, sound condescending to women to suggest, if they willingly choose to become a professional pole-dancer, or if they get paid millions of dollars to appear nearly naked in a ’swimsuit issue,’ that they need to be ’saved’ or ‘rescued’ from exploitation. It’s their choice to be there, and it’s their ultimate responsibility, no one else’s. They can leave at any time, and they don’t need any man to save or protect them from anything.

Although strippers, erm, usually do rely upon bouncers, who are mostly, if not all, men, for safety.

But moving on. The first thing which came to my mind, as I was considering this issue, are those people in the Middle East and elsewhere who choose to strap bombs to themselves and blow up a lot of innocent people in public places. Yes, it’s their individual choice, and their ultimate responsibility, but do we not also speak of the larger issues of the family beliefs, cultural influences, societal mores, religious tenets and economic conditions which worked in concert to convince them to do it in the first place? Or which created the very idea of suicide bombing in the first place?

I am also reminded of the guards at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo who engaged in acts of torture. Yes, I think we should hold the individual participants accountable, but what about the people above them who gave the orders in the first place? What about the Secretary of Defense and the President? Would the lower-ranked guards feel ‘insulted’ if we suggested that they were ordered or coerced into their actions? For that matter, what about the entire armed forces? They are paid (although not well), they choose to be there, they are not drafted (except through the back door), and so, is it an insult to them to suggest that there is some exploitation going on, and to consider the larger issues involved in sending them off to potentially die?

This line of reasoning may, too, begin to sound condescending. ‘Exotic dancers,’ or models, or Playboy playmates are not killing or torturing anyone, and they are not, in and of themselves, bad people. And neither is sexuality or nudity bad or evil. So please don’t miss the larger point, which is not to compare strippers to killers, or public sexuality to murder, but rather that, no matter what we may believe about individual choice or responsibility, there are always larger issues to consider.

The word “pragmatist” was used, so let’s look at this issue on a practical level. What is the audience for women who sell their own sexuality? Mostly men. So, imagine the average man who patronizes a strip club. If you are a woman (or a gay man), is this the man you wish to make your lifelong soulmate? Imagine the average ‘reader’ of Playboy magazine.  Do you want to date this man? Maybe you’d date him, but do you want him to be your husband, or the father of your children? For that matter, do you want him to be your father? Imagine the average man sitting in one of those individual peep-show booths. Do you have no personal or moral problem - none whatsoever - with imagining this man to be your son or father? On a pragmatic level, if you’re a man (or a lesbian), are you very likely to get a date with a woman if you tell her that your favorite diversion is watching strippers? And do you think she’ll really believe you when you tell her that it’s because you are a feminist, and it’s because you believe in supporting the feminist movement? On a pragmatic level, do you want to be the guy in the booth with your pants around your knees? In fact, if you believe that there is no larger societal or moral issue with a woman selling her own sexuality, would you make the same claim about the flip-side, the men who show up to see it? There may be nothing inherently tawdry about a naked woman on a stage, or in an ad, but can the same thing even begun to be said about the leering, aroused men in the audience?

Academic feminists may speak of the liberation of female sexuality on paper, but I don’t think too many of those same college professors or philosophical theorists would admit to actually participating in it themselves. And I don’t think too many, if any, of them, would tolerate their spouses or significant others subscribing to Maxim, or going to the strip club, or spending large amounts of money on pornography. On a pragmatic level, I don’t know of any feminist, modern, post-modern or otherwise, who actually wants their daughter to become a stripper, or who wants their daughter to be known for her full-frontal nudity. Nor have I ever met any woman, no matter how feminist she may be, who wants her husband or sons to become avid connoisseurs of pornography.

Women who take their clothes off in public, barring any overt coercion, do so of their own accord. In that sense they are not being exploited. Except that the only reason they are there is because of their relative physical attractiveness, as well as their willingness to take money in exchange for their public nudity. No one asks them their opinion on current events, no one cares for whom they are going to vote, no one is interested in their personalities, their whims, their likes and dislikes, or their personal, intellectual or academic accomplishments. They may be there willingly, displaying their own bodies willingly, but they are still nothing but objects of fantasy to those holding the money. They may not feel like an object, and they may even find it insulting for me to call them an object, but that is why they are on stage, in front of the audience, and not dating or married to the audience. The audience doesn’t want to know them as a person, they only want to ogle them as a non-person.

This whole thing began as part of a discussion somewhat about veganism, so let’s bring it back to that. I already asked how many feminists would actually want their daughters to become strippers. I would ask the parallel question of vegans who think there are no ethical problems with PETA publicly displaying naked women. How many of you vegans actually want your daughters, or your mothers, or your aunts, or your sisters, or your girlfriends, or your wives to be naked in a PETA ad? Would you be happy with the thought of hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of strange men, with nothing related to animal rights on their minds, ogling them and, if not, would that make you a “simple-minded” zealot?

I do have a problem with PETA using sex on a tactical level, but I can’t help but also have a problem with it on an ethical level. If being a vegan is an ethical choice, then vegans must be concerned with ethics consistently, and not disregard them when it’s easy to do so. PETA is more than willing to throw ethics out the window to try and appeal to people on a puerile and prurient level. But if we wouldn’t accept that kind of ethical inconsistency from any individuals in our lives, then why should we accept it as some kind of harmless fun from PETA? And on a tactical level, I find it highly unlikely that anyone would be convinced to become a vegan because of a naked supermodel in a PETA ad. So, if it accomplishes little tactically (except to make vegans look like attention-seeking opportunists), and if it is done at the cost of a larger, ethically-consistent worldview, then what’s the point, and why shouldn’t the rest of us, for whom veganism is important, be free to criticize it on all levels?

So, despite the criticism to the contrary, this is not a “black/white” issue. I dislike PETA’s campaigns on many levels, and not because I am a moral zealot, but because I have given the issue some thought and have arrived at what I hope is a reasonable position. There are plenty of shades of gray in the world, but that doesn’t mean that, at some point, you can’t decide that something is probably just a bad idea.

Let me also address male sexuality and exploitation. Since you can’t stop me, that’s a pretty dumb thing to write. Anyway, there are male strippers and models who also sell their sexuality. If a man shows up to take his clothes off for a bachelorette party, or if he appears in an ad in his underwear, is he also being exploited? Well, the same answer applies that I gave about women in the same situation. If he is there to be judged solely as a sexual object, then there is exploitation of a sort going on. Now, we do have all of history to tell us that there is a difference between exploiting male and female sexuality, and that one comes from a much more violent and systemic place than the other. So, again, we can talk about shades of gray, but we can also determine what is a good or bad idea without being zealots.

Speaking of which, let me also address the issue of zealotry. There are real zealots in the world, and I am certainly not one of them. People who, in this country, work to enact ballot initiatives and constitutional amendments preventing gay people from being treated equally, those people are zealots. Likewise, the people who support the criminalization of certain drugs, or who wish to regulate or censor speech, those people are zealots. People who demand that religious dogma be present in science class, or in the courtroom, those people are zealots. People who strap bombs to themselves, or join militias, those people are zealots. People who kill for their beliefs, or who torture or enslave others because of their beliefs, those people are zealots.

To suggest that something I’ve written, one throw-away sentence in an entirely throw-away entry vaguely about using sex to sell things, has anything to do with zealotry, is absurd. I may have a personal problem with the whole idea of a ’strip club,’ but I have no wish to criminalize them. Nor do I wish to personally judge those who work in pornography, or ‘exotic dancing,’ or those young actresses who perform in sexually explicit scenes in mainstream movies. Most of those women are far wealthier and more admired than I will ever be, so more power to them. I also do not wish to make pornography illegal, nor do I wish to put Victoria’s Secret, or the vast Baywatch empire, out of business. As a vegan, I may find eating animal carcasses to be disgusting, but I have no wish to criminalize the meat section of the grocery store. Furthermore, PETA, despite what I say, is free to do anything it wishes. Practically speaking, I can do nothing about it, anyway.

By writing a simple blog post, or recording a podcast, I am not vying to be Emperor of the World, and I do not, like true zealots, wish to impose my beliefs on others. So one cannot, with any honesty, take one sentence that I have written and use it to imply an entire “black/white” worldview. The world is full of shades of gray, and everything I have ever said or written in this space indicates that I reject moral absolutes and dogmatic fundamentalism.

However, just because I don’t believe in absolutes doesn’t mean that I can’t find an idea or activity either ethically or morally dubious. Yes, there are plenty of shades of gray, but some of them are darker than others. The average meat eater, for instance, would suggest that slaughterhouses, while perhaps ethically questionable, are ultimately necessary. If you are a vegan, then that must mean you don’t buy that argument. So, does that make you a “black/white” zealot? Or does it make you someone who has given the issue some thought and who has arrived at an ethical position?

Moral absolutes are bad, yes. But ethics are good. Let’s not confuse the two, and let’s not imply that someone writing about a personal ethical position is a zealot. Because if that’s not “black/white,” then I don’t know what is.