links for 2009-07-08
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"“Everybody thinks what I do is so cool, but there’s a racist aspect,” he says. Damien’s father is Scandinavian and his mother is African. “Being a European black gets me in the door.” During the actual session, he tries to act “more like an American black” because his white customers want Damien to violate a rather quaint American taboo.
Interracial cuckolding is profitable: “My working partner is usually a white female escort who pretends to be the customer’s wife or daughter. He is forced to watch her being taken by a black man. Then he self-services.” On a few occasions, he was paid to have sex with a customer’s wife."
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
Fiqah wrote:
SIGH. Really? White male customers requesting the playing out of the Brute Negro thing? Do I dare to ask what this fantasy satisfies? This is both trite AND distubing, because it’s an old story based on an old anxiety that just will not die. I’d laugh if it wasn’t all so damn scary.
Posted 08 Jul 2009 at 12:11 pm ¶
Joseph wrote:
@Fiqah
I agree that “interracial cuckolding” scenes are both trite and disturbing. And I cosign your characterization of this dynamic as based on “an old anxiety.”
But.
Isn’t this scene really just the flip side (white side) of the race play BDSM conversation our own Cruel Secretary presided over so eloquently following the infamous Ciara/Justin Timberlake post? In other words, Mr. White Husband is acting out his race fantasy in a controlled environment, which–it could be argued–is not necessarily a bad thing. The fact that these guys are hiring a sex worker to live out this fantasy makes the interaction even more ritualized and therefore removed from real life. And as a sex worker Damien has a lot of agency here: if he finds such scenes distasteful he doesn’t have to participate in them.
If I had to be honest I’d say that a lot of what other people do to get themselves off is both trite and disturbing (and/or boring) to me. But hey, lid for every pot, you know?
I guess the bottom line for me is that the interaction is consensual.
Posted 08 Jul 2009 at 1:07 pm ¶
Fiqah wrote:
@Joseph: I appreciate your perspective here, and I agree that there are (obvious) race play parallels in the outlined scenario. However, I would strongly question the idea of consensuality in this scenario: if one or more parties are being paid to act any of this out, can we REALLY call it consensual? Sorry, to me “consensual” = “free and willing, willing and free.” When sex is your job, then a sex act is a service – the dynamic shifts, and we shouldn’t ignore that. Also, we know that the “Other” – whoever it is – often serves as the locus of envy, desire and fear for the “Subject”.
You suggest that this scenario may be the flip side of “race play” in a controlled environment. I counter that this IS in fact a form of race play, and a relatively benign enactment of race/sex dynamics that have historically played themselves out, often to the point of violent excess in, this country for centuries (e.g., castration as a feature in lynchings of Black men). The red thread connecting all of this is White masculinity’s reactionary anxiety. It is that, more than anything, that I find disturbing. Because I can’t help but wonder if these scenarios relieve that anxiety, or feed it.
Posted 08 Jul 2009 at 2:21 pm ¶
Joseph wrote:
@Fiqah
I understand your concerns, wondering if this scenario is an outlet for racial anxiety or just another iteration of it, given the historical backdrop for this encounter… But it is also the same concern people expressed toward the black submissive partner in the race play scenario when we discussed it before. That’s all I am saying. I just don’t think there is any way to know and/or judge what is going on for people who play this way. (BTW I didn’t mean “flip side” to indicate something other than race play, just the inversion of the racial/dominance dynamics–this is absolutely race play). Again, you put it beautifully when you write “White masculinity’s reactionary anxiety.” No argument from me at all… I have been the focus of this anxiety myself more than once.
But I disagree that this scene isn’t a consensual encounter because it involves a paid participant. Both parties agree on the parameters of the experience and money changes hands… that is consent. It may not represent a pleasurable sexual experience for Damien but that is part of the job–to put your own desires on the shelf to fulfill the desires of a paying customer. For a sex worker, that is the gig.
Posted 08 Jul 2009 at 3:09 pm ¶
atlasien wrote:
“I just don’t think there is any way to know and/or judge what is going on for people who play this way.”
I disagree…. I think it’s pretty easy to know/judge these people. They can be analyzed just as much as people engaged in non-sexual activities, like making art, or going to restaurants, and so on.
I agree there’s a social tendency rush to extreme kinds of judgment when it comes to sexual activities as opposed to non-sexual activities. So when we do judge, it’s a good idea to calm down and take a deep breath first, and try to recognize the nuances. But that doesn’t mean that consensual sexual activity should be off-limits for criticism… that’s going a bit too far in the other direction.
What Darren gets paid to do is… well, my reaction is that it’s really nasty. I’m not saying there should be a law against it, but it’s still nasty.
And my reaction doesn’t have the power to oppress the customers. In fact, they wouldn’t be doing it in the first place if enough people didn’t think it was nasty… that’s part of the taboo-breaking appeal.
Posted 08 Jul 2009 at 5:17 pm ¶
Daniel wrote:
@Joseph, “And as a sex worker Damien has a lot of agency here: if he finds such scenes distasteful he doesn’t have to participate in them.”
Really? He might just find not being able to pay his bills, foreclosure, hunger, etc. as distasteful as the scene. That’s hardly an endorsement.
Posted 09 Jul 2009 at 12:37 am ¶
Joseph wrote:
@atlasien
Maybe it is easy to judge, I just don’t know how productive it is to have strong opinions about the ways that other people get off. What is really gained, other than the opportunity to say, I do not find that sexy? Well, okay then. Me neither. But since, presumably, neither of us are buying or selling the opportunity to act out racialized sex fantasies then, why do we need to be involved with people who are and do?
Speaking for myself I don’t judge Damien for doing sex work. The border between sex work and the theater is tissue-thin and always has been. I have personally known actors (male and female) who have done sex work and I know from them that the space between their personal preferences and desires and those of their patrons are often vast because, as I said, that is the job.
@daniel
Don’t be silly. The world is full of people who need money to pay their bills who don’t become sex workers. I am not comfortable deciding on his behalf that Damien’s only shot at paying his rent is selling himself sexually. Just because he is a sex worker doesn’t automatically make him a tragic figure who is a victim of circumstance. Maybe he likes the work, except for these scenes, which are distasteful to him. While not an “endorsement” it is certainly still a choice.
Posted 09 Jul 2009 at 12:54 pm ¶
AJ Plaid wrote:
Since my screen name was invoked, here’s my take on what’s being said:
The reasons why people get into sex work are varied: coercion (off the top of my head, child prostitutes and adults who are forced to get into it because they need to pay off an unscrupulous person who said they’d help them emigrate); financial hardship (losing a job, foreclosure, paying off a crippling debt, etc.); financial supplement (to have a “little extra in the bank”, to graduate from college with a degree and without debt, to help a not-quite-enough paycheck, etc.); curiosity and choice (zie “always wanted to do it” and thought zie would try it, etc.); political statement (think Carol Queen, Annie Sprinkle, etc.). Some of these things are reasons unto themselves; some of these overlap. What I’m getting at is everyone doing sex work isn’t a hard-luck story or is all fabulosity. The truths and facts tend to rest somewhere in between.
Nor is every sex worker working under a vicious pimp. Quite a few are independent contractors (the article addresses that); some who work with a pimp may have an amiable relationship with them–not many, but some. So, depending on the working structure and the above-stated circumstances, a sex worker may have the choice to answers a client’s call or not and can agree to do certain sex acts or not. Exchange of money doesn’t necessarily and always mean exchange of free will.
As for race play, Darren doing it, and what we all think about it: Race play, by its very nature, is about playing with permutations of old racial and ethnic anxieties–that’s why some folks get into it and get off on it, whether or not what they get off on matches our ideas and ideals of sex and/or politics. Darren took the call and played his part in it. Can we find it trite, disturbing, nasty, and whatever else? Absolutely, I suppose. Is our opinion oppressing those who wish to participate? I get the impression that some of those who are into it may feel harshly judged by a opinion that seems to them shared by many, considering the proportion of folks who react negatively versus those who react neutrally or positively—non-race play kinksters and non-kinksters alike. To some folks into race play—which doesn’t just involve whites and PoCs–it comes off, in this puritanical society, as an oppressive opinion in a country where grown folks are allowed life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. So, though it may not be *you* per se who is going to pass a law, the fear is, in the right hands, the right person just might.
Having spoken with a woman of color who’s into race play moved my opinion from just saying “that just racially sucks!” to something a bit more understanding as to why she and others do it. But understanding doesn’t mean that I agree, condone, or endorse doing it—even after contemplating it, race play pushes very hard against my personal sex-positive parameters and I won’t do it. So I simply told her, “Hey, race play still makes me squick, but that’s me. Do you.”
Those are my imperfect and ongoing thoughts about this so far. And please forgive the long comment!:)
Posted 09 Jul 2009 at 2:10 pm ¶