…when public humiliation of a young woman makes good television…
April 29, 2008 by sparklematrix
I am a bit lost for words at this latest story of perverted father - daughter relationship. However, several words do spring to mind - sexually and emotionally abusive, boundary-less, controlling, coercive, devoid of any empathy and downright creepy. And here’s the link. (Warning, disturbing and maybe triggering)
A US chat show (Tyra) had a segment really on an 18 year old adult film actress called Summer. Nothing new in that. Except her manager is her father. And her manager is “responsible” for her grooming including her brazilian wax.
You getting the muse here? You think it is starting to sound like a porn narrative, yeah, funny so do I except this “father” gets to act out his porn fantasies - in public. With his eighteen year old daughter.
It starts off with him patronising her about ensuring she’s packed “sexy clothes” and then rounds off by telling her she shouldn’t be in a relationship as “boyfriends are not really conducive to this business”. What business? He’s taking her for her first day at one of Nevada’s brothels. His managerial advice - “Always make sure your make up is right as you have to be every man’s fantasy”. On delivering her to the brothel Summer is in tears and obviously having second thoughts - he response “the decision is made, this is what you want to do, I don’t want to sound unsympathetic but go in there and think happy thoughts”. But, thing is, she obviously doesn’t want to do this. I mean how is this not abusive and coercive? I mean what (sane, rational, empathetic, caring) father would behave in that way? (Debates about the rights and wrongs of prostition aside, that really isn’t the point I’m making here).
Is the word “groomed” grating on you, perchance? In addition, who sanctioned this young womans public humiliation?
Oops sorry, that’s the porn factor.
Just beam me up Bat Woman.
Am I shocked? No I’m not because there is a continuum meaning a connection. Think about Josef Fritzl who imprisoned his daughter in a basement prison for 24 years in order that he could systematically rape and sexually abuse her. Why? Because this father too believed he had the right to sexually abuse her. As for the pimp father who used coercion and emotional pressure against his 18 year old daughter, he has acted in a similar way to Fritzl. Yes, this man didn’t rape his daughter but he has sent her to a brothel where she will raped and sexually abused by men and it will be called prostitution or as is more commonly termed now ‘a job!’ So what is similar - well both men believe they have the right of ownership over their daughters because they are female.
Think of child sexual abuse because this too is predominantly committed by males within the family and yes fathers do rape and sexually abuse daughters, as do other male members in families. Why does this happen - because being born female means that some men and boys believe it is their right to rape and sexually abuse females.
Did this 18 year old girl go willingly - no it would not appear to be so, but that is not the issue. The issue is this father who clearly demonstrated his control over the daughter which is evidenced by his telling the daughter ‘I’m working on your career’ - ‘we all make sacrifices.’ Yes - but just who is making the sacrifice is it the daughter and why is she making this sacrifice? Is it because she has been coerced by her father? Her father claims to love her? Yes, well this is double-speak because no father if they really love and respect their daughter would not commit rape against their child or send their child to a brothel to be raped and abused by other men. Sounds very much like emotional blackmail and emotional control on the part of the father.
Oh yes, the daughter was having second thoughts but no that isn’t allowed because the father immediately squelches the daughter’s protests and tells her she must go into that prison. Harsh words - well the Nevada brothels are prisons and research shows this to be true. Prostituted women’s lives are controlled and monitored 24/7 in these brothels because their only reason for being there is to provide sexual servicing to men - not so the women can earn an income.
But hey, she went willingly so what is the problem it is not like she was imprisoned as in the Fritzl case. So we needn’t become angry because we need to differentiate between ‘free choice’ and ‘coercion’ don’t we. Well, actually there is no difference - prostitution is not a job it is sexual slavery and only a tiny minority of women really freely choose to enter prostitution. Most enter it because either they have been sexually abused by males and that is an excellent training system for teaching young women to become men’s sexual slaves. Or else, they did not receive adequate care when they were children.
Nor must we forget the role pornography plays in normalising the belief that all women are reduced to men’s sexualised playthings and that all women and girls too are not human but just ’sex’ - meaning they are something for men to masturbate into and we can ignore the immense damage both physical and pyschological this does to women in prostitution - because they supposedly ‘chose’ this lifestyle.
This father is not a ‘monster’ neither is he perverted - rather he is enacting the extremes of masculine norms - wherein he believes it is his right to dispose of his daughter as he sees fit. You see he owns his daughter and she is his possession. Just as Josef Fritzl too believed his daughter was his property to do with whatever he wished. Have we really become a more civilised society or is it just a veneer, because I do not see women having equal power with men - instead I see increasingly women being dehumanised and reduced to men’s sexual refuse bins.
Jennifer - have I told you that I love you… lately?
(Goddess have mercy!)
““Always make sure your make up is right as you have to be every man’s fantasy””
Specifically, men’s fantasies are only triggered with falseness: make-up, clothes that constrict and tighten to reform, shoes that exaggerate proportions, starved bodies, waxing.
Free choice cannot be made in such falseness. But delusions do pretty well.
The video makes my eyes roll back into my esophagus. Of course the girl is smiling, compliant, not a trace of unhappiness on Tyra’s show. Don’t you know she got some serious coaching from Daddy/Wax-er Extraordinare prior to taping. And Tyra just makes me batty: “Does he wax the thing too??” FFS it’s a vulva! “Vagina” if you must. The poor girl is having her parts objectified enough.
Well said jennifer.
Umm–what else to say…
I am just bowing my head this week.
And this week’s not even exceptional.
In the US, we’ve also got Jessica Simpson’s dad (I am very reluctant to post this because it’s so gross):
In a GQ interview last month, Joe said, ”Jessica never tries to be sexy. She just is sexy. If you put her in a T-shirt or you put her in a bustier, she’s sexy in both. She’s got double D’s! You can’t cover those suckers up!”.
I’m convinced that sexual “liberation” (as in pornography, increased acceptance of the sex industry as a good and liberating thing) is only opening up new avenues for men to exploit women.
Where do we get self esteem and the idea that we have a right to say no? From the people who look after us when we’re very young (usually our parents). So what chance did this young woman have - really, if her father cares about her so little? I despair….
This father - daughter stuff just creeps me out. It reminds me of Sam Fox’s (page three *eye roll* model) dad, who kick-started her career by sending a picture of her in stockings, suspenders -whatever- to the Sun Newspaper when she was just sixteen. He then went on to be her “manager” - oh yeah total control.
Of course she will just think that this is *normal* behaviour.
This is beyond sickening! don’t have the words right now its so disturbing. Yes Sparkle Sam Fox’s father also came to mind when I was reading this! Bloody horrific, and what the hell does the mother of this girl think?!!! just can’t focus on this right now, what with Josef Fritzl……. OMG!!!!
This story is really horrifying.
“Is the word “groomed” grating on you, perchance?”
This word “groomed” makes me think about the pimp “seasoning” his female victim before he prostitutes her to lots of johns.
A father abusing his daughter like that…
And was the public humiliation of that young woman shown as “a good thing”? Ugh, if so, corporate pornified media is getting worse and worse and worse…
Was it one of those shows that glorify the porn industry, Sparkle*Matrix?
Hi Maggie - no it didn’t glorify porn or prostitution, it just normalized prostitution by the fact that her father totally supported and then pressurized her to partake. In a *normal* sort of way.
This young woman believes that her fathers behaviour is normal ( as we all do when we are growing up) and I think the media exploited this as some sort of freak show including heavy sexual overtones…for titillation, at the expense of a very naive and abused barely out of childhood woman.
No Sparkle you haven’t but I’m so glad you wrote about this case because it is a classic example of the normalisation of women and girls being dehumanised. A good friend of mine told me all this normalisation of porn is really nothing new because porn is not ‘new’ it is the same old misogynstic violence women have had to endure for centuries.
I am wondering whether this man will benefit financially because we must never forget the profit motive.
As for Jessica Simpson’s father - what an appropriate male model he is for his daughter - reducing her to a sexualised object and gloating gleefully about her sexualised body parts. One obvious question why is the focus always on women’s sexualised body parts and yet men’s sexualised body parts are still taboo subjects!! Answers on a postcard.
Thanks for the clarification, Sparkle.
How awful that story is!
“some sort of freak show including heavy sexual overtones…for titillation, at the expense of a very naive and abused barely out of childhood woman.”
Ugh, incest and child abuse made “sexy” by media entertainment… This is so sickening…
Absolutely, we need only look at the Malleus maleficarum, which condoned sexualised torture and murder of women.
Sparkle, that’s a typical quote coming from the misogynistic Malleus Maleficarum.
You could have also quoted another part where something like “woman evil because being born of a bent rib” (referring to genesis in the patriarchal bible) is mentioned (another quote which is equally misogynistic).
I can’t even watch. And the disturbing thing is this all reminds me of how my dad will freak out if I am wearing a barely low-cut top, or my legs aren’t shaved, he thinks that it’s then “open season” on me if I wear “revealing” clothing or if my legs are not shaved than I am being “rebelliant” and not lady-like.
Way to go dads of the world, thinking you can own your daughters’ bodies and fucking everything up for them :/
Tell me, how different is this whole scenario of this dad pimping his daughter than asshole dads in Turkey or Afghanistan committing “honor killings” because their daughters “disobeyed” them?
Fucking men.
When he says to his daughter, ‘You have to be *every* man’s fantasy’ I’m sure he is including himself in that.
This is sexual abuse being acted out infront of our eyes. He has probably been having sex with her from a young age but this is yet to be revealed. After the recent Austrian heinous crimes, if I were the authorities I would be straight onto him. They are very similar, only this pervert has moved into the public eye.
I agree whole heartedly with you fanny. Sadly.
>>>This young woman believes that her fathers behaviour is normal ( as we all do when we are growing up)
And many sexually abusive males create this belief in their vulnerable female victims… this man should be in jail; he is a pimp and a child abuser.
I haven’t watched the video as I am still reeling from the volume of pornography I was accidentally subject to a FEM 08 (bugger, just knocked over the shredder…paper everywhere), but am I to gather that this man waxes his own daughter’s genitalia???!! WTF doesn’t cover it then does it?
This is a clear example of why people at large think that there isn’t an enormous probably of female sexual abuse, because so much of it is normalised to entertainment, so people only see what is *even worse* as abuse. Meanwhile, what Jennifer says is true - this man is not a freak, he is one of many many many men who are exactly the same. The man who would never consider using the word sexy to describe his daughter becomes the exception to the rule. After all this man just wants his daughter to be ’successful’. Another misconception that for the ‘modern woman’ success is equated with making money quickly rather than being happy with your life. The Patriarchal world cares about men making money, so for women to be equal they must also make money, but they don’t have the skillz that men have so they have to use their feminine wiles(TM) instead (please rate my sarcasm on a scale of 1 to 10!)!!
But don’t you realise that it’s just “fantasy” Grace. [/snerk]
I’ve just read elsewhere that he’s not her biological father but a “father figure” help! this has sent by head eastwards trying to get a grip of even more dynamics.
Yes Grace he does her ‘Brazilian’ then you see him driving her (she’s obviously reluctant) to her first day as a prostitute at the Bunny Ranch (?) Nevada.
I agree Z, fanny, Laurelin. And Lara, you’re right they are just sides of the same coin. Some cultures ‘hide’ their daughters and some pimp them out. It’s all about control and ownership.
There was porn at Fem08 Grace? Why does that not surprise me?
Sparks I looked on the Tyra Banks website and it said he was her ‘father figure’, but then it said he was her ‘own father’ on the trailer. Stepfather maybe?
http://tyrashow.warnerbros.com/thisweek/
Thanks polly, yeah maybe it’s her step-father.
Oh and my father would never have thought of using the word “sexy” to describe me, or commenting on my appearance, dress or anything similar in any way. Was I just very fortunate? Cos I thought that’s how dads were meant to behave - ie parenting. And when my friend said when she was a teenager that she wanted breast implants her dad (he’s a personal injury lawyer) dragged her into his study and showed her images of breast ops that had gone horribly wrong. So not all dads are bad….
polly, I agree I have no experience of men like this in my family, including the father of my two daughters. Quite the opposite really - totally nothing inappropriate and well aware of personal boundaries, even when they were quite young.
Yes *normalisation*of porn, the girl feels that its *normal* to do this. When will the rest of *civilised* society wake up and rub the scales from their eyes for jeezus sake!!! perhaps that is just too dam scary!! and would required them to look just a bit too deeply within themselves, like many of us have, to be able to shared our comments here.
To really change or to think deeply we have to challenge our belief systems and question ourselves. This is often a painful process, that will bring about much change in ourselves and will quite often mean those that are closest to us will need to change too or not as the case may be!.
This is probably too deep, but I guess what I’m trying to say is that many people feel that to just go along with the status quo is the ‘easier option’, just bury their head’s in the sand and shut their eyes to it all and perhaps it will just all go away…..but just how far will they have to bury their heads to block out each increasing atrocity towards women??!! So many many men have ‘the power’ when will it all stop? for example on the BBC i player at the moment advertises ‘page three teeens’ following a young girl a couple of months away from her 18th birthday!!! and her aim of becoming a ‘page 3′ girl…. urrg! and if that’s not enough there is also the chance of watching ‘glamour girls’ Yes main stream indeed wrapped up as nice every day *fun* (and that’s no forgetting all the so called ‘national newspapers’ that peddle porn practically every single day!! and not forgetting that much of this will probably take place in front of young children who may well be exposed to it all…..yes normalisation indeed!!), I really hope that the girl behind this story in Nevada, get’s help and find’s the strength to live past this evil trade and will find a happier and more life enhancing existance. Thank you Sparkle Matrix for bring this to our attention! Got to keep talkin…. Got to keep up the awareness…….
Hmmm, these last few comments have got me thinking-
there is the very old archetype of “daddy’s little girl”, usually a pretty, sweet, feminine girl who’s favored by her father. Think American purity balls - if you haven’t heard of them, they are as I understand them, formal dances/parties thrown by Christian conservatives, where the daughter dresses up in a bridal/prom dress and the dad dresses up in a suit, and she pledges to entrust her virginity to him until she decides to marry (and give her virginity to that man).
Under patriarchy, it’s not a bad stereotype. It is interesting, though, that we do not have as many positive or sentimentalized portrayals of mothers and daughters, or even mothers and sons (and so called “mamas boys” are ridiculed as weak or sissies).
I’ve heard of extremely disgusting “daddy’s little girl” incest-pedophilia fetishizing porn, but not in the mainstream. But then again, increasingly hard-core porn is pervading the mainstream, so maybe that explains it.
I can still see her face when she was being delivered to the brothel by her
pimpfather. She didn’t want to go through with it, because none of this ‘glamourous sex work’ was her idea, it was his.In all likelihood, in order to survive mentally in that line of work, she will need to keep convincing herself “this is what I want” until she believes it. Her reluctance is obvious, so it isn’t really something that she wanted, just something she was convinced she wanted. Manipulation by the
pimpfather.For quite some the father ownership of female children has manifested itself into the “lock up your daughters”. Now it is, in this pornified climate, perfectly acceptable to directly “pimp out your daughters”. This is not a ’swing’ the other way, just a different manifestation of the same thing. Locking up one’s daughters was done in order to keep them as ’saleable goods’ for the marriage market. Dowries are proof that marriage is a business transaction, done by males, over the bodies and services of females.
Until females can ‘own’ their own sexuality, there will be no liberation. Getting pimped out by your father is NOT empowernessismshipfulness.
Yes Elizabeth it’s called ‘adaptive preferences’ where individuals in deprived or subordinate circumstances form responses to their restricted options. Intuitively it is less hassle for folks to get what they want than to adapt their wants to be fulfilled by what they can get. Of course Liberalism has a commitment to respecting ’agency’ (real or imagined) and takes a hissy fit. Forgetting of course that a feature of patriarchy is its limitations of women’s freedom.
LM that’s really interesting. Before I even got to the end of your comment I started thinking about ‘mummy’s boys’ which is used in a insulting way but not so the ’daddy’s girl’ And there isn’t anything for girls and their mothers - which of course we know that the patriarchy despises and tries to dismantle at every opportunity.
And there’s the adaptive preferences. It’s easier on the psych to tell your self that this is what you really want than to risk the mental chaos that can ensure when you realise that your so called free choices aren’t that free after all.
Good point stormy (Levi Strauss’s idea of kinship in fact- bride as means of exchange).
I think either idea - the ‘protective’ father, keeping his little girl pure, or the father as pimp is equally creepy. I was horrified when someone told me that when she was about 16 her dad said she needed to start behaving in a more ‘feminine’ manner. That was the kind of crap my mother used to say to me, but if my dad had said it I would have completely freaked out. My dad just used to talk about politics and stuff like how to mend things.
Virginity, specifically female virginity, is a ‘commodity’ only valueable to males. Think about it, it has no bearing on the female herself whether or not she has or has not been penetrated by a male. The value is purely a male perception/invention.
The ‘value’ does of course lie in the guarantee of paternity. The virgin bride is a guarantee to her
new ownerhusband that the offspring will be his, and therefore he can ensure his worldly possessions go to his progeny, and not to anotherprick’sman’s. Why else would there be child brides in some countries? Selling off female children well before they have their own interest in sexuality (unless you are Judge Julian Hall, and believe 10yo females are all little Lolitas).Whilst there may not be dowries in this country to overtly show the financial nature of the transaction, the symbolic gesture of ‘father giving away the bride’ shows the transfer of ownership. One cannot ‘give away’ anything that is not theirs to give. If anyone is to ‘give away’ the bride, should it not be the
unpaid domestic slavemother who spent the time raising the daughter? No, because ownership belongs to the male.Historically in the English middle and upper classes, family mergers and wealth was orchestrated by arranged marriages, either overtly or covertly, but the result was clear. Men bonding, financially and powerfully, using the bodies of females, in this case, daughters as a saleable commodity.
There is not a virgin/whore dichotomy, for it is actually three choices for women under patriarchy, as dictated by The Bible; Virgin, Mother, Whore. They are the only three (visible) types and recognised roles for women. The virgin, a good money spinner for the father; the mother, unpaid domestic servant (and whore) for the husband; and whore. Of course you can grade each of these roles as; unused, a bit used, very used (from the males’ POV). Lesbianism and celibacy is of course, invisible, because of lack of use to the patriarchy, with the exception of faux-lesbian porn (who are never lesbians).
Anyway, the dude in this case is just exercising his ownership, to do as he chooses with ‘his property’. Just as Samantha Fox’s father did, and Miley Cyrus’ father did. The only difference is that these are visible examples of father-ownership and profiteering of daughters as commodities. Females are reared and sold like cattle under patriarchy.
Wake up, take your vagina off the market!
Fem 08 did have porn at the conference but it was a film entitled Hardcore which is a documentary showing the devastating effects porn has on female actors who work in the porn industry. Hardcore does not glamourise porn rather it shows the reality. I also understand an Anti-Porn group had a stall at Fem 08. So, just perhaps matters are becoming a little more negative about porn. Oh yes, a young woman also spoke to the conference and she gave details of her experiences as a lap dancer and no she didn’t say it was glamourous empowering or any of that. Instead she gave the reality side - men who sexually assault her, attempt to penetrate her body, the sexual insults she had to constantly endure.
I think Rebecca Whisnant’s words sums it all up very neatly - women are either privately owned by men or they are publicly owned by men. In other words liberalism and conservatism are two sides of the same coin under patriarchy - both are male-centered and both focus solely on women as sexualised commodities. It has been this way for centuries with some variation but always central is the belief women are ’sex’ but men are human. Explains in part how women are defined as virgins, whores or mothers - all to do with sex from the male perspective.
The double and impossible standards infuriate me. One the one hand girls are taught to view themselves as sexual commodities from no age and then they are shamed and humiliated for acting this out.
What sort of mind set is this?
It has been this way for centuries with some variation but always central is the belief women are ’sex’ but men are human. Explains in part how women are defined as virgins, whores or mothers - all to do with sex from the male perspective.
Jenn, excellent conclusion to my earlier comment, finishes it off nicely. Filed under: Why didn’t I say that?!
The mind set of those who wish to fuck with other’s minds I’d say - what better way of maintaining control. One correction to Stormy’s list though - lesbians/celibate women (the same thing from the point of view of patriarchy), are “invisible” sexually, but still viewed as a threat. Hence the need to disappear them for real, one way or another.
We talk a lot about whether any women really enjoy this hyper sexualized culture, or whether they just pretend to, but without wishing to sound too ‘dear gawd what about the menz’ about it, I wonder how much the average male does either. It’s all just social currency, and it seems it’s about impressing the other menz more than anything.
And here’s the other side of the coin.
http://www.economist.com/world/africa/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11090113
“I wonder how much the average male does either. It’s all just social currency, and it seems it’s about impressing the other menz more than anything.”
polly I can’t quite grasp this?
Well it’s kind of like the footballer roasting thing Sparks. You know, it’s not about them having sex with a woman - she’s just the currency for their pseudo homosexual exchange with each other. Hence the bartering of women.
Ah thanks, I don’t know how I couldn’t see it - but yeah, I totally agree.
Saying that, I’m doing an essay on the market economy and the over fished E.C. ocean fisheries, and I’m a tad brain dead.
Sounds fascinating.
zzzzzzzz
“If anyone is to ‘give away’ the bride, should it not be the unpaid domestic slave mother who spent the time raising the daughter? No, because ownership belongs to the male.”
And the men make the speeches at weddings and the men get the gifts from the bride & groom because of this. What about the fucking mothers? They are invisible. My god, marraige is so sexist. Anyway veering off now …
Yuk, yuk, YUK.
Re: polly styrene-
“lesbians/celibate women (the same thing from the point of view of patriarchy), are “invisible” sexually, but still viewed as a threat”
Very true, and reminds me of the Nazi view of lesbians: “The Nazis believed women were not only inferior to men but also by nature dependent on them; therefore, they considered lesbians to be less threatening than male homosexuals. The Nazis regarded women as passive, especially in sexual matters, and in need of men to fulfill their lives and participate in sex”. And of course, these “non-threatening” women were still persecuted viciously for disrupting the patriarchal order.
Interesting link LM - thanks. Disclaimer - this is not “anti-Germanic” I have read somewhere that Germany produces some of the the most misogynistic and violent pornography in the world. In addition their early-modern “witch hunts” employed the extreme end of the sadistic and sexually violent persecution of women experienced by Europe during the Burning Times.
Just an observation. Dworkin commented on the witch hunts/Jewish holocaust association but she died before the pornography connection.
There has been a lot of ‘why Austria’ stuff in the UK press, but I don’t think that we should forget that we had our own version of Fritzl - Fred West. While he didn’t keep his children prisoner in the cellar, he did murder and torture many women and bury their bodies there. He abused, and murdered some of, his own children despite coming to the attention of social services on more than one occasion and having criminal convictions. As Fritzl did. And I think there have been a few cases of women being kept prisoner in the US as well.
Oh and the rise of Nazism in Germany has largely been attributed to the punitive way in which the country was treated after the first world war. A country feeling that it has generally been ill treated by the international community is ripe for a Hitler figure, or other demagogue to take over, something Dubya (or his heirs and successors). should bear in mind next time he’s thinking of starting a war for no good reason.
“Those to whom evil is done, do evil in return” as WH Auden said.
“Well it’s kind of like the footballer roasting thing Sparks. You know, it’s not about them having sex with a woman - she’s just the currency for their pseudo homosexual exchange with each other. Hence the bartering of women.”
Yeah Polly, it’s like when men in ancient Greece would praise male bodies, male sexuality, and sexual (and exploitative) relationships between younger and older males, while labeling women and their bodies “inferior.” One of the most famous ancient Greek philosophers labeled women as the deformed version of men. Did I mention women were slaves and sex slaves in ancient Greece? There you have it, men using women’s bodies to communicate with each other. The ultimate in objectification.
Totally off the topic of the thread, but in response to polly and jennifer - I didn’t watch the Hardcore film, it was the pornography seminar in the afternoon that I attended. Our mini discussion group on how to tackle the porn-excusers included a woman who believed that there could be feminist porn. I personally will never consider the term porn to be within the realms of feminism. If it cam exist then it must be called something else. Anyway, there was of course mention of the barely-legal issue in the porn seminar. I’m sad to say that Borders have started selling ‘proper’ porn along with it’s lads mags now. Including Playboy barely legal crap.
Yeah Grace - I struggle how any porn can be remotely ‘feminist’ Maybe they mean just cutting out ‘cum-dumsters’, ‘cum-hungry whores’ and ‘hot Asian sluts’
Disclaimer for lurkers: I am not getting into a ‘feminist porn’ *discussion” for the gabillionth time. Pornography is woman hatred.