Bob Herbert

Herbert's column in the NY Times this morning reprises his claims about the misogyny of prostitution and pornography but in a different context this time and with some unwittingly apt parallels.

Readers of this blog know that I have a very different analysis of sex work, one that doesn't assume that prostitution or pornography are inherently and essentially misogynistic, so I won't reprise that here. (You can get a glimpse of some of that here and here) Instead, I'd like to point out some of the things I think make Herbert's analysis here especially weak, including some false assumptions about causality, and unfortunate parallels to sports and the military.

You know we've been challenging the Bob Herbert/Melissa Farley stories here, so I'm glad to be able to tell you about a "blog-in " over at Bound, Not Gagged where sex workers and their allies can respond to the mainstream media's reliance on distorted research on prostitution, its conflation of sex work and human trafficking, and it's reflexively anti-sex work bias. Thanks to Iamcuriousblue, of the Blog for Pro-porn Activism, who let us know about this in the comments on my Bob Herbert post.

Call to Action!!! ***Please circulate widely***

Who: Desiree Alliance and Friends

What: Live-blog response to Farley

When: September 17, 2007 Beginning at 3pm PST 6pm EST and going all night

Where: http://www.BoundNotGagged.com

I'm trying to decide what makes me maddest about Bob Herbert's recent op-ed pieces about sex work in Las Vegas.

It might be his use of a tug-on-your-heartstrings story and alarmist title in today's piece, "Escape from Las Vegas." In that piece he uses Amber, a 19 year old with a disabled mother and an abusive and drug addicted step father, who finds herself stripping in Las Vegas as representative of all sex workers: