Women’s Studies Professor Isn’t Listening to Women: Sex Workers Clash with “Experts” in Rhode Island
Donna Hughes, a Professor of Women’s Studies at the University of Rhode Island and an outspoken opponent of the sex industry, wrote a piece for the Providence Journal called RI’s Carnival of Prostitution. In the piece, she describes a hearing in which sex workers speak out for themselves and give their perspectives on legislation to re-criminalize indoor prostitution in Rhode Island. Learn more about about what’s going on (well, sort of) from the archives of the Providence Journal. Filmmaker Tara Hurley responds on her blog (which, by the way, is the best chronicle of this saga I’ve seen).
The bulk of Hughes’ piece is criticism edging into mocking the sex workers who spoke up at the hearing. One of the women she picks on is Megan Andelloux (pictured above), who was a participant in the first Speak Up media training that Sex Work Awareness did in April.
Ms Hughes had this to say about Megan:
Then a tattooed woman, calling herself a “sexologist and sex educator,” spoke against the bill. She is also a reporter for a prostitutes’ magazine called $pread. (I couldn’t make this stuff up!)
And this is what Megan had to say in return:
Let me introduce myself: I’m the nationally certified sex-educator and derogatorily labeled “tattooed lady” mentioned by Ms. Donna Hughes in Wednesday’s paper. It seems that the would-be chairwoman of URI’s women’s studies program (she is not) was so put off by my appearance that she called into question my credentials. Putting quotation marks around my profession was insulting. And yes, it is not “made up” that I am a contributor to the sex-workers magazine $pread. Is it so shocking that sex-workers can read?
This “Opinion piece” was nothing more than an exercise in highbrow name calling. She attacked the opponents to her pet bill as “a sordid circus”, as “smelling of other odors”, and as projecting the atmosphere of “a carnival”. As an alum of URI (‘97), I would have expected faculty of our honored University to develop a reputation for science and truth. Instead, it seems that Ms. Hughes would rather resort to right-wing scare tactics. Perhaps if “the Professor” really cared about women, she wouldn’t attack us for the way that we look.
Megan J. Andelloux, AASECT, ACS
I have also sent in a response to the article that Donna Hughes wrote, but I think Megan’s is better.
I think it is great that Megan bottom lines it saying if “The Professor” really cared about women, she wouldn’t attack us for the way we looked.
The truth is Hughes doesn’t care about women. She just wants to throw them in prison.
She lies about everything, including saying I said someone was a pimp. I never said that. And I only brought women to the hearing, not men. The list goes on with this woman.
I have watched Donna’s career deteriorate over the past 3 years, and it is sort of sad really. She gets more vocal and less fact based as the time goes on.
Kudos, Megan! Calm and rational in the face of abusive ignorance is a difficult thing to do – you are a real credit to our movement.
Bravo for Megan and her and her colleagues’ courage in publicly fighting re-criminalization!
Unfortunately, this incident illustrates the continued gulf between perception and reality with respect to sexwork. Public perception, even in RI, still seems to be that sexwork is a dirty business, engaged in by desperate, emotionally troubled clients and, at least in this case, tattooed prostitutes forced into it out of economic desperation. The truth is far more complex and generally happier, of course.
To help educate the general public, though, it is important to recognize that how the legalization message is communicated can be as important as the message itself. This is not to say that public advocates of sex rights need to be from the Ivy-educated, pantsuit and pumps crowd, but it does help to present an empathetic presence with which the public and their political representatives can identify and, over time, support. Politicians may visit this world, but they are not of it.
The role of sex-industry related press also needs to be considered, as illustrated by Donna Hughes’ reaction to $pread. Thoughtful articles are there to find, of course, but to someone inclined to see the industry as dirty and unappealing, it would be easy to write it all off as deviant erotica and nothing more.
This isn’t to say that publications like $pread aren’t constructive contributors to the industry – they are – but they are not likely to change the minds of politicians who are focused on attracting businesses to their districts and building stable housing markets, and more importantly on raising money from constituents for re-election. In fact, they can harm the cause.
Theses so called experts are all alike, they’re liars and they don’t have our permission to represent us actual workers.
They usurp our voices on a regular basis because they’re sitting around getting paid to do fake research that’s never subjected to the usual cursory peer review so they invade our industry to prop up their sagging pathetic lack of professional life.
My expert opinion is that these people who advocate for the criminalization of prostitution is really a cover to act out their own fetish. Paternalism and slave ownership.
if some one interested in sex please mail to me at pratibhahomeo@yahoo.com
ds to be considered, as illustrated by Donna Hughes’ reaction to $pread. Thoughtful articles are there to find, of course, but to someone inclined to see the industry as dirty and unappealing, it would be easy to write it all off as de