Friday, March 14, 2014

Higher Education Is A Hard Row To Ho

By Ilana Mercer

Who's the bigger prostitute? Sex kitten "Belle Knox," alias Miriam Weeks, a promising porn star who is studying at Duke University, or her father, Dr. Kevin Weeks, an army doctor who recently returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan?

"I would support porn over the adventures for the Empire, anytime" is the verdict of libertarian Robert Wenzel, editor at Economic Policy Journal.

Indeed, daddy's girl is an open book. We know what the 18-year-old does and that she does it for the love of it.

But what does papa Weeks do? Here's an attempt to sum up his vocation in this season of rhyming against the regime:

Humpty Dumpty was sent to war
Where Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the king's horses and all king Hussein's men
Asked Dr. Weeks to put Humpty Dumpty together again
And again. And again.

Papa Weeks is in the business of patching up the peons, so as to send them back to the killing fields where they fight for nothing.

At times, the "talents" of GI Joe and GI Ho come together in the theater of war—the Abu Ghraib porn theater starred some sadistic and slutty servicemen and women. However, the pornography of Miriam Weeks is soft core compared to the X-rated pornography of war, in which Dr. Weeks partakes. Furthermore, selling sex for money, in private or to audiences, is voluntary, consensual and violates no rights.

As corrupt as Miriam's morals are, better to have been a ho for sale than a mercenary for Uncle Sam.

From interviews "Belle Knox" has given, one gathers that she owes her blankness and banality to a privileged upbringing: a "religious" home-life and private schooling, secondary and tertiary.

In a chat on a porn-promoting site, Ms. Weeks pairs the sanctity of her sexuality (namely her promiscuity) with women's rights. You can't go wrong with that bit of cant, also an article of faith among America's parents and pedagogues.

Face it, North-American parents treat their teenage girls as though they were celestial beings around which the world orbits. Verbalizing inappropriately and misguidedly, in my judgment, about sexuality as a facet of female self-actualization and self-determination is part of this parental profile. Devout or not, any parent who has such a demigod under construction is guilty of playing a preponderant role in the development of deviance.

Next, Ms. Weeks informed CastingCouch-X.com that she'd "like to use [her] experience as a porn star to advocate for women's rights." She also noodled on about "using [her] education"—she wants to be a human rights lawyer [what else?]—to promote women's right.

Another sister, also from a top school, famously conflated her right to screw herself silly (or sillier) with the obligation of other Americans (insurers included) to supply her with Trojans and Trivora. She is Sandra Fluke. In the addled minds of these women, language reserved for acting-out sexually lends itself quite “logically” to the language of rights.

I'd venture further that this vulgarity is not incongruous with a Christian upbringing. No longer doctrinaire or demanding, the mishmash of pop-religion practiced in churches and transmitted in American homes is an extension of the therapeutic culture: it emphasizes feelings, fun and personal fulfillment. Our society, in fact, revolves around the pleasure principle. Unless something is pleasurable, it excites suspicion and is deemed unworthy of pursuit.

Seconds Ms. Weeks: "I love what I’m doing. I’m safe and empowered." The porn performer is certainly safely ensconced at Duke. She has not been expelled from the Ivy League institution whose motto is "Knowledge and Faith" and whose religious affiliation is with the United Methodist Church.

Perhaps the performance of pornography qualifies, at Duke University, as an extra-curricular credit?

Remarkably familiar, too, in its vacuity was the clichéd, regurgitated screed this genius unleashed in yet another interview. It, no doubt, comes straight out of the "women’s studies" curriculum in which Miriam is "majoring."

Behold:

"My entire life, I have, along with millions of other girls, been told that sex is a degrading and shameful act. When I was five-years-old and beginning to discover the wonders of my body, my mother, completely horrified, told me that if I masturbated, my vagina would fall off.
The most striking view I was indoctrinated with was that sex is something women 'have,' but that they shouldn’t 'give it away' too soon -– as though there’s only so much sex in any one woman, and sex is something she does for a man that necessarily requires losing something of herself, and so she should be really careful who she 'gives' it to."

Thankfully, this writer's adult daughter has never delivered so imbecilic a soliloquy and has taken care to be discreet about her private life. Maybe it is because when my girl discovered what the frightful Ms. Weeks discovered at age 5, her mother (me) said this:

"That's private. Only for you to see and touch. To do that, you have to go to your room and close the door."

As with all the asexual, apolitical, neutral, age-appropriate messages moms and dads were once perfectly capable of conveying, it worked. The little girl nodded and chose instead to cuddle with mom in front of the wonderfully innocent "Adventures Of The Gummy Bears." (Cute, innocent Disney is long dead, but boy, was it magic!)

To avoid raising a genius of genitalia is not that hard. But how do we stop dads from choosing the gore of war?

llana Mercer is author of Into the Cannibal's Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa

She blogs at www.barelyablog.com

Copyright 2014 Ilana Mercer

10 comments:

  1. "That's private. Only for you to see and touch. To do that, you have to go to your room and close the door."

    That validates that my response to my four young girls, which has been almost identical to yours when they get curious about their privates- Thank you!

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    1. Glad, Nick. The thought of exposing these little kids to the corruption of full-on sex-ed (rampant in all schools, private too) is frightening. Kids show a fleeting interest. It's not a signal to bombard them with the proverbial condoms, HIV-ed, the glories of diverse sexuality, etc. Let them be babies. At this age, they need to understand what is private and what is proper social behavior. That response conveyed both respect for the child's person and for society's codes of conduct (you don't want your kid touching self in front of your guests---or imperiling herself with what some perv might take as lewd conduct). Boundaries protect kids.

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  2. A few things came to mind when reading this:

    1) Ron Paul was a military doctor.

    2) "Indeed, daddy's girl is an open book. We know what the 18-year-old does and that she does it for the love of it." Regardless that she also happens to enjoy it, didn't she say she's doing this to raise money for tuition?

    3) I feel like the 2 comments below are pretty judgmental on your part. Isn't the idea of freedom of speech that people are free to comment on things that the average person disagrees with? As Ron Paul said (paraphrasing) "we don't have freedom of speech to talk about the weather"

    "As corrupt as Miriam's morals are, better to have been a ho for sale than a mercenary for Uncle Sam."

    "Thankfully, this writer's adult daughter has never delivered so imbecilic a soliloquy and has taken care to be discreet about her private life."

    -Kevin

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    1. 1) Ron Paul was drafted
      2) So you are against speech that is judgemental?

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    2. Just as I suspected - you had no comeback for my 2nd point!

      As far as your point on Ron Paul being drafted - Fair enough, though I guess one could argue that Dr. Paul could've tried to be a "conscientious objector" (though maybe he did try?)

      On your point "so you are against speech that is judgmental?" - Nope. To be honest, I only mentioned it because clearly the point of the article was to talk about the liberty aspects of this story rather than the author's opinion of right and wrong. In other words, saying her morals are "corrupt" adds nothing to the main point.

      -Kevin

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    3. The "comeback" is that you yourself noted that she's enjoying it. You made the mistaken assumption that one cannot both love a job as well as doing it for the money. Nobody does a job purely for the love of it, because it would be volunteer work, and not a job.

      "Isn't the idea of freedom of speech that people are free to comment on things that the average person disagrees with?"

      The idea of freedom of speech is that people can say whatever the hell they want. Of course that freedom is challenged the most with controversial speech, but it doesn't mean freedom of speech is only meant for controversial speech.

      No matter what, you said "I feel like the 2 comments below are pretty judgmental on your part.."
      The answer is: SO WHAT? People who have values always judge. Even tolerant people are judgmental; after all they judge intolerant people.
      Freedom of speech isn't a one way street. It's doesn't mean having the right to speak without being challenged on it.

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    4. Anon: I'm not quite sure who's who in the comments above, but, yes, Ron Paul was drafted. However, even if his military service were voluntary, from the fact that Dr. Paul served Uncle Sam it doesn't follow that it is right, or that we all must support such service. I thought libertarians were supposed to be skeptical of ALL politicians, even the good ones.
      Point # 2 about judgment is spot on (whoever made it). Why reach for the smelling-salts when you encounter judgment, as liberals do? Judging means to discern; "the formation of an opinion after consideration or deliberation." The human species would not have survived so far if not judgment.
      As to the comment about, "the point of the article was to talk about the liberty aspects of this story rather than the author's opinion of right and wrong." The point of the article is to talk about the points in the article, not only what is legal or illegal in libertarian law. Why the queasiness about the moral judgments in the column?

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  3. I am thankful that American military personnel were brave enough to voluntarily enlist after we were attacked on 9/11/01. It's too bad that the rotten Muslim slime attacked us, but they did so we took the war to them - better to kill the rotten bastards over in that shit hole than over here on our soil. The biggest problem with the war was that it was run by idiot politicians. The military should have nuked those fu--in bastards back to the stone age. Instead we did our pussy half-ass targeted strikes and house to house crap that just pissed them off. If you have an enemy that hates your guts and wants to kill you DO NOT PISS HIM OFF, BLOW HIS ASS OFF. BLOW ALL OF THEIR ASSES OFF. We should have glassified several nations. That's something slimy scum that hate us can quickly understand.

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    1. The biggest problem with the war is that it's supported by people like you, too stupid to think in anything other than terms of "F* yeah, America. Kill the brown people."

      You want the "rotten Muslim slime" to stop attacking America? Then get the fuck out of their countries and stop using the CIA to meddle in their political affairs, and stop putting in puppet regimes or supporting terrorist groups to benefit American interests the way it did with Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and Moamar Ghadaffi..

      You break into someone's house and tell them how to run their household so you can make money off them? Don't be surprised if they show up on your doorstep with a gun to teach you a lesson.

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  4. ...and here we have a perfect example of the aggressive idiot. Unfortunately, this kind is so common that it came to be associated with Americans in general.

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