It’s been a little over two weeks since I posted a commentary on Sasha Grey’s appearance on The View. I was hoping it might get a few views/notes/reblogs but the overall response was, to put it mildly, surprising.
As someone relatively new to Tumblr and this general form of…conversation (I went to college when Xanga was popular, what can I say?), it was interesting to follow along and hear everyone’s thoughts. Most of the reblog-comments were in general support of Sasha as a former adult performer and in contempt of the hosts of The View (with the exception of Whoopi). After that, many people commented on the merits of her reading to children (most of you agreed that it was harmless).
A summary/rehash of my main point:
Little drives me more up the wall than someone (in this case, Sasha) being viciously maligned for the community they belong or belonged to. As a society, we do this mostly about those who do sex-work and also those who commit crimes against others. The problem here is that we lump these two groups together. These two groups should not and do not deserve to be lumped together. It’s that simple. When you gang up on someone and make no effort to differentiate them between what you think (read: stereotype) their morals are and who they actually are as a person, you belittle them in a way that says “you have no place in our society and you don’t deserve to be seen as a functioning member of any community.”
And I don’t know how she does it sometimes. If you see just 1/100th of the press that’s done on her, you’ll see that most of it is her defending herself from journalists/moms/talking heads. And seeing this video makes me realize two things:
1. Whoopi Goldberg is the only one there that gets it. 2. As a culture we actively work to dehumanize and oppress people (mostly women) who work in the adult entertainment industry.
This is sexism against women in its most clever and deceptive form—one that is championed by women in supposed support of women. In other words, our culture has pitted women against each other and the net effect is that women continue to stay small in rigid stereotypes while sexism goes unchecked. It’s too hard to think that women and porn can peacefully co-exist. It’s too hard to think that there is the idea of choice in porn or that one can view porn as a host for many complicated issues (both good and bad).
This was an ambush on The View. Instead of talking about the real issue here (why are people so upset about Sasha reading to kids and what does this say about our society?) they made the issue a personal one (not in a good way) under the guise of being a moral one. They made it personal in several ways:
1. Sheri Shepherd, probably the dumbest person to be a member of The View, asking how she’s going to explain to her son what a pornstar is. If you as a parent can’t create a sensitive and age-appropriate answer, you are unfit to be a parent. Any parent with any parenting ability should be able to explain what a dentist does, what a pornstar does, or what a police-officer does.
2. Barbara Walters questioning why Sasha would even want to do this in the first place? Why not? What’s wrong with volunteering for a local school? If you understand the simple concept that says: more affluent the area=the more parental involvement and volunteering where the less affluent the area=the less parental involvement and volunteering, you should thank her for wanting to donate her time. What’s more upsetting is that the question suggests that someone like her shouldn’t want to volunteer. It’s much easier to stereotype a pornstar or former pornstar as some vapid, wretch of a person with no sense of community or moral compass. But if you’re a good parent or a good educator, you show your kids honesty and integrity. You don’t have to play a DVD of Sasha Grey’s adult films but you can (if it comes up) have a conversation that is fitting: “Sasha is a TV actress but she’s also acted in adult movies where you have to be 18 or sometimes 21 and older to watch. These movies are for adults only.” What’s an adult movie? A kid might ask. “An adult movie is a movie made for adults by adults. You know how there are cartoons and shows where it’s for kids and adults really don’t watch those? There are adult movies where some adults watch those and kids don’t watch those.” It’s not that hard and that took all of 2 minutes to think of.
3. Barbara saying that “being a pornstar isn’t something you hope your children aspire to be.” Sasha wasn’t forced into sex-trafficking at the age of 5. That’s something you don’t hope for your children. Someone choosing to be an adult entertainer is, to make this exhausted argument again, a choice. A lot of parents don’t want their kids to be in the military fighting a war that they don’t believe in or is possibly breaking international law. If a school wanted to have a soldier come in to read to the kids, what’s the harm? They’re not there to talk about covert operations in Kabul or the overspending of the military or the killing of innocent Iraqi civilians. The point of having people of all walks come in to read is to show that everyone loves to read. Reading is important. No matter what job you have, you will read. As the NBA used to say, “Reading is Fundamental.”
4. Whoopi shares a personal story about being a child growing up next to pornstars. This is perhaps the only sane moment in the interview because instead of heaping on women who do porn=evil garbage, she made it personal. Whoopi is saying these people are people. What a concept.
5. And finally, Barbara chiming in as the old grandmother asking “what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like that?” Before this, she questions why Sasha even entered the business if she believes in education and likes working with kid. I can’t believe this came out of Barbara’s mouth. We’re talking about a woman who pioneered the news industry for women. This question isn’t really a question. It’s more of a setup to try and get Sasha to break down and repent for all of her supposed faults. Actually, the entire interview has this tone. It’s difficult for society to accept that a woman might be in the industry and simultaneously be a good, clear thinking person. It’s easier to demonize someone and say that, eventually, they’ll wake up and realize how wrong their actions were. It’s a bully tactic that is based on the oppression of women: you don’t know what you were doing and you don’t have a mind of your own. It’s like an episode of Mad Men all over again. It just looks like it’s not oppression because it’s women doing it. It’s obvious that Barbara and co. don’t like the porn industry (that’s fine, not everyone has to) but their attitude informs their criticism of Sasha. You can criticize the industry, fine. But when you fail to see the person, the woman, behind it what you really do is create distance and isolation between people. Like Whoopi said, she lived next to and got to know pornstars when she was a kid. When you do that and have actual conversations with them, then you can create closeness and understanding.
Sasha has a lot of guts. It’s just unfortunate that one has to have so much guts and take so much shit to be truly heard as a person.
