speech and respect - College of Social Sciences and International ...

The Evasions of Neutrality
Poland, a British entrepreneur offering "free" sporting activities to
pre-adolescent boys in exchange for participation in homosexual
pornography and prostitution found plenty of takers. 9 Berlin's East
European community allegedly kidnaps or buys babies and young
children for adoption in the West, where fair-skinned merchandise
can fetch up to £24,600. 10 Estonian prostitutes migrate to Finland
and Yugoslav to the Netherlands, while Poles are lured into Swedish
prostitution by fraudulent advertisements for marriage. 11 Moscow
teenage girls' first choice of a career is "escorting" foreigners for
hard currency, i.e. becoming high-class call girls. 12 Sasha Kazachkova,
a Jewish emigre, exchanged her job as attendant in the men's
room of Moscow's National Hotel for one as attendant in the men's
room of New York's Laura Belle Supper Club. 13 Despite their facade
of self-righteous prudery, the Reagan and Bush administrations'
market fetishism also stimulated sexual exploitation. Between 1987
and 1992 "quality" topless clubs multiplied from 800 to 1100,
becoming a $3 billion a year industry. Tara Obenauer, who dances
at the up-scale Stringfellows, postponed her entry to NYU Law
School because "the money here is just so good." Performers earn
up to $1000 a night in tips. 14 "Choice" is even more illusory in the
third world. During 1991, 249 Nigerian "mules" were arrested at
Kennedy Airport for smuggling heroin by swallowing small amounts
wrapped in condoms, which they later excreted; those who escaped
detection (and long prison terms) earned 16 times their annual
incomes. 15
Material need and greed do not exhaust the constraints of civil
society. Cultural hegemony is at least as powerful. The television
program "American Gladiators," featuring five men and five women
who fight challengers, appears on 156 stations nationwide. 15,000
people have auditioned for the chance to brawl in public. One
woman watches it regularly with her 4-year-old daughter because
she prefers its role models—"five women out there, kicking butt, just
like the men"—to the cartoon stereotypes of stupid women obsequiously
following dominant men. 16 The year after Princeton admitted
women, male undergraduates began "streaking" through town
to celebrate the first snowfall. A senior explained why she and other
women joined the event 16 years later: "My first thought was, here's
a male tradition. I not only wanted to be part of it, I wanted to try to
take it over. Running in the Nude Olympics is not wise, but it's fun."
The Women's Center and the Sexual Harassment and Assault Advising
Resources and Education Office encouraged participation. But
Sandra N. Silverman, assistant dean of students, was appalled: "I
125