I don't recall where I read this, but the #surrogacy story of a famous rich single man managing to exploit three different women just came back to me vividly: First the egg donor, then the "surrogate" mother and finally the nanny, because he's not doing the childcare...
Egg donors tend to be chosen for genetics, so they're catalogued to genetic father by looks, intelligence, family health history. They're usually poor university students who need money to keep studying. Egg donation carries significant medical risks incl. infertility and death.
Women who do modern surrogacy (where the baby is not genetically related to them, back in the day surrogacy also meant prostitution to/rape by the genetic father) also strongly tend to be marginalized. The industry likes to outsource this "job" to women in impoverished countries.
So the genetic father is risking 2 women's lives: First the egg donor, then the surrogate, who has to sign a contract with him where he gets a say in her reproductive decisions for the next year or so, possibly also dictating things like diet or whether she may have sex.
Once the "surrogate" mother bears the child it's taken from her. Sometimes without even letting her old it once. Yes, not all mothers and babies have a magical bond, motherhood can be more complex, but many do absolutely experience this as a traumatic separation.
Lastly the "nanny": The rich man hires another disadvantaged woman so that he can keep on with his brilliant career, unimpeded by the physical and emotional needs of an infant, a toddler, a high schooler. She, too, is likely poor, possibly forgoing time with her own kids for his.
Now, this scenario may be the most potent in showing how #surrogacy is about men controlling women's bodies (not women controlling their own as we're being deceptively told), fragmenting motherhood (not claiming its holy, abusive moms exist), but still, patriarchy rejoices...
...when it can commodify everything women's bodies can do and the more fragmented and detached, the less claim each woman has to motherhood - although that child really does have three moms, in my mind, and no father... just someone who wanted to pass on his genes.
Stories like these are so utterly dystopian, so obviously painful symptoms of class, sex and race oppression, that I do not understand how any leftist can possibly support the #surrogacy industry. Yes, this is actual #HandmaidsTale. No exaggerations. Wake the fuck up.

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More from @EllyArrow

8 Sep
I dont care to be polite here: The actual brain worms of liberal feminism. I discuss #surrogacy disproportionately exploiting impoverished "third world" women, interfering with their bodily autonomy & sometimes killing them and the response is "you don't respect women's choices".
Replace surrogacy with the sale of kidneys and you see exactly how insane and neoliberal you sound. Poor people are not wealthier peoples organ farms. Poor women are not baby farms. The small numbers of altruistic surrogates carry many of the same severe medical risks ffs.
Where the comparison falls apart is that of course people give kidneys to loved ones. But this is when people are DYING. Nobody is dying from lack of genetic children. Genetic children are not a right when it requires the use of someone else's body.
Read 8 tweets
7 Sep
In many places of the world the sex trade was created or vastly expanded by colonisers and military. Those roots have morphed into modern "sex" tourism. Its rape when a man exploits the desperate poverty of racialized women in countries his military tried to brutally control.
Online you can see white wealthy "sex" tourists posting images of themselves with Asian women on their laps. The women frown in every picture, the men gleeful, cause they can act like brutal kings by virtue of their wealth that came in part from not letting her country up for air
The modern "sex" tourism industry continues to hold women and girls (duh "sex" tourists rape kids) and their countries' economies hostage. "What else will feed these families?" Families that often have to hand over daughter after daughter cause this system isn't supposed to end.
Read 6 tweets
6 Sep
Discussing the fragility of subsistence in and the volatility of the sex trade which is impacted by economic and social factors, as well as any changes in law is fair when debating the Nordic Model. Saying women "who love sex work" will be forced underground makes no sense though
By definition, if you chose to be in the sex trade and you're not forced by a third party or by economic factors - you have alternatives. That's what "voluntary" means. So that small group of women can quit anytime - by definition - and don't need anyone's advocacy.
In fact,they can keep selling sex in a NM system still if they want to. Likely they will see the prices increase, too. In the initial period when there is a drop in sex buyers, they can weather that best, so I really don't understand why so many people think they need protection?
Read 6 tweets
5 Sep
Lmfao, I've been accused of doxing sex buyers with this thread. These men consented to having their picture and quote taken and published by professional photographer @BettinaFlitner. Not my fault if misogynists go telling on themselves to the entire world. 🤷🏻‍♀️
If it's a business like any other why would these lovely "customers" have a right to privacy anyway? Why do men still come in through the back door when they enter brothels in Germany? Why the ATM outside? Oh they're serial cheaters and organized crime wants to launder the money.
But really there's no doxing crisis for sex buyers, esp in a country where their violent misogyny is not a crime (Germany). Its women in the trade and survivors who are repeatedly doxed. Eg by sex buyers taking photos and videos without knowledge or consent.
Read 5 tweets
28 Aug
If you care about productive discourse regarding #prostitution stop telling women they're abolitonists because they hate their husbands "being seduced" at brothels. Playing women against each other while again letting men get away with it scott free is disgusting.
Might as well say "you're anti prostitution because no one wants to fuck you". This is such misogyny. Most of us are anti sex buyer and pimp because either we or someone close to us endured sexual violence (often in a sex trade context) or we can imagine how awful it would be.
Yes wives who blame the woman in prostitution for her partners infidelity exist and some use degrading language towards women. But men really gotta stop framing women's politics as a whole as being about wanting to control them sexually. This is such a patriarchal reversal.
Read 5 tweets
28 Aug
Since we're once again comparing #prostitution to retail jobs, it doesn't hurt to have a list of disproportionate physical risks of being in the sex trade. This is not to shame women in it or to suggest women's bodies are "broken", but to highlight why these comparisons lag.
Since the recent comparison has centred on cashiers who get arthritis, it's helpful to know that women in the sex trade are at significant risk of chronic joint, back, jaw and wrist pain. The cause of which we don't want to talk about: Sex buyers heavy bodies & aggressive motions
Sex buyers know about this physical damage, btw and talk about it - or rather "complain". "She couldn't do xy cause she's got x pain, so annoying." Trigger warning: Rape and dehumanization.
Read 23 tweets

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