What’s Current: Dirty Projectors’ singer Amber Coffman comes forward about sexual harassment from Heathcliff Berru

Dirty Projectors’ singer Amber Coffman comes forward about being sexually harassed by publicist Heathcliff Berru. Berru attempts to make himself look better by saying that at least he “never drugged anyone.” Then resigns in shame.

El Salvador’s advice to women on the Zika virus: Don’t have babies until 2018. Zika has rattled Latin America and the Caribbean, particularly Brazil, where over a million people have been infected and nearly 4,000 babies have been born with microcephaly, a condition where babies are born with unusually small heads.

Afghanistan is going to open its first Women’s University ever!

Samantha Bee is smart, funny, and doesn’t shy away from discussing sexism — women eagerly await the premier of her new late show.

An interview with prostitution abolitionist Rachel Moran:

“What’s your take on online pornography?

Prostitution and pornography are just the same thing. It’s the degradation of women on a large scale. The only difference is that there is a camera involved in one and not in the other.

The same men who say porn is just fine, if they happen to be on the internet one day and saw their daughters and mothers on a porn site, the indignity and humiliation would become immediately apparent to them.

The problem here is that modern day pornography is not erotica. It is not always mutual shared consensual sex.

Prostitution is the world’s oldest profession. How can you get rid of that?

Why are we trying to control the conditions of inhumanity?

Prostitution has been around for thousands of years. So has rape or murder. We legislate against these.”

Anti-porn quote of the day:

“Something I noticed when I was stripping was that the younger, ‘hipper,’ generally white patrons I came into contact with were by far the most vested in the whole ’emotionally invasive performance of enthusiastic consent’ thing. They all wanted to hear how I was doing it because I was ’empowered’ or an ‘exhibitionist’ or just “a slutty sexual deviant that just does this for fun.” Like, I can’t even tell you how many times I actively encouraged this or worked it into a spiel, because nothing kills a sale like a pang of conscience alerting men that maybe this smart, seemingly stable girl doesn’t want to be here. I think that thinking I was “into it” somehow made it easier for them to feel like they weren’t just giant losers paying for sex.

I am entirely convinced that men only care about women being “empowered” by things like sex work because its easier on their ego as consumers, not because they give a shit about our wellbeing. Sex positive feminism is a dream come true for hese men – all the benefits of exploiting women as sexual commodities without any guilt or stigma for being a creepy ass john.”

Susan Cox

Susan Cox is a feminist writer and academic living in the United States. She teaches in Philosophy.