The irony of it is that she’s only successful because she’s pretty. In a way, her point is correct, pretty women have the advantage, even when it’s undeserved. She’s proof of it.

I do think that Hugh Hefner only chooses girlfriends based on their sex appeal (I mean they all have to be blond, thin, big boobed, young, etc.) but for god’s sake that’s a thing to talk shit about HIM for, not them, in my book. I do find him a gross old man and have heard that he’s not the angel to all these girlfriends that he apparently wants everyone to think he is.

Sometimes I wonder…not saying it’s true with Fey or anyone in particular, but my twin is a stand up comic, and I’ve spent a lot of time around comics, and sometimes I just wonder if people “joke” (in parentheses because it’s not funny) about women who end up as “whores” being molested is a way for them to talk about something that they think is troublesome, instead of it never being talked about. I mean, sometimes my sense of humor is dark and I joke about horrible things, and sometimes it’s from a drive to say something in an in-your-face way versus talking about it intellectually or even emotionally. I mean, I’ve made jokes (not publicly but still) about how even though I’m a pervert, I’m not into play-rape, because once you’ve had the real thing, imitations will never do.

Obviously it’s different to joke that way about *myself* versus saying it at the expense of anyone else. I think that’s the only part of Fey’s stuff that bothers me. I don’t actually have a problem with women who have critical feelings about the sex industry, I don’t think they have to have ever been in it in order to have a right to voice their objections. But saying cruel things or mocking women who are in the sex industry is not, in fact, an actual critique of the industry.

Plus another thing I’ve noticed is that she seems to be only attacking women who are voluntarily in the industry (versus making jokes about women who are at street level prostitution). Or that’s all I’ve seen (on SNL or in Bossypants which I just finished), maybe I’m wrong. But like the commenter above, there seems like there’s this resentment towards women who she thinks could choose to not-cater to men (and overwhelmingly, that is what the industry is about – catering to men) but who do it anyway. And since she doesn’t want to, she wishes none of us would, she thinks it makes it harder for those of us who don’t want to.

And again, I can’t say that I think that’s an invalid argument. But – as you point out, she’s not consistent (hello, sexy pictures) in this condemnation of catering to males, and again, I personally am okay with people talking about the dynamics of that whole thing but not okay at all with laying the whole fucking thing at the feet of strippers or the women who have to suck that musty old fucker’s dick every night, or any other women, in or out of the sex industry.

So. I have unfortunately heard plenty of female comics make jokes at the expense of women in the sex industry (not my twin though!) and it seems like it’s a *thing*, though some of them do it from an obvious motive of wanting just a little bit of whore-i-ness to rub off on them, for dudes’ approval, while not actually having to descend into whore-dom themselves. (Sorry, I refer to myself as a whore and it’s, in general, how I think of “my people,” other whores, but I would not refer to anyone with that word who found it offensive, despite it not being derogatory in intent, from me personally.)

I just wish women would condemn the things they think are harmful, without taking passive aggressive swipes at the people they (mostly unjustly) blame for it. I don’t mind having discussions or even arguments about the sex industry and how it affects all female people, with any woman who may not see things how I do. There is room for that, for me personally. But talking hurtful shit about whores? No, not on my watch.

I also think Tina’s perceptions of the sex industry obviously come from a very removed perch. She sees any woman who would employ herself as an “object” for men as contributing to a problem she fights every day, and that’s where she stops thinking about it. She doesn’t see sex work as actual work, doesn’t see that there are honest-to-god skills involved, doesn’t see the men who utilize sex workers as thinking, feeling human beings who are looking to interact with thinking, feeling human beings. She only sees an extension of society’s views that women should, above all else, be pretty for men. the end.

I recently entered the workforce in the same city Tina works in and I cannot tell you how many times a day I look at the men I work with, longingly thinking “I want to wear that.” What if I could go to work every day in loose clothes and flat shoes? What if I was just – comfortable – every day? I find myself so heinously jealous of people who are running late to work and not wondering about how their makeup has fared the mad dash. I am conscious of my looks all day, every day, and I honestly think it makes me a less effective worker, but I am equally convinced that I got my job in large part because of my looks. I don’t know what to do about it, but my righteous indignation at the vast chasm between expectations for men and women gets worse every week.

I think she is unforgivably uninformed on a topic she seems to spout off on all the time, but I think she spouts off (as thoughtless and wrong a she is) because she is nursing a massive well of resentment for the things she has to do to get along in a paternalistic society. And I understand that.

Oh – but I should add, I have no defense whatsoever for this:

“I’m not going to be a person who points at another human being and says, “you know what? Your history of sexual abuse is abundantly apparent even to the most casual observer. And you’re utterly ridiculous because of it.”

God, that really is what she did and it really is truly hateful, so I appreciate you drawing her statements in appropriately stark terms.