Regarding the sale of Amptoons.com (which I posted about last month), Hugo writes:
Barry, you owe your readers a public forum where you can further explain your decision, and offer those who are stunned and hurt an opportunity to express that to you directly.
It’s the right thing to do, and it needs to happen right now.
Okay. Here’s the same post, this time with the comments open.
* * *
Announcement: I’m not the owner of “Amptoons.com” anymore. I sold it a couple of months ago.
Five months ago, I was facing two problems. First of all, I was in real financial trouble – we were paying all our bills, but by a slimmer margin each month, and if things had kept on going that way it was only a matter of time before we’d come up short. Plus, one person in the house hadn’t been able to pay his rent in a long time, while another seemed on the verge of being unemployed (although as it turned out, that was a false alarm).
Second of all, I kept on having to beg my host not to shut down “Alas” for using too much server time – and in fact, “Alas” was briefly shut down more than once, and I was forced to remove a lot of functionality in order to reduce server load. My host kept on telling me that I needed a dedicated server, but the cost of that is well beyond anything I could consider.
Then a buyer approached me offering to purchase amptoons.com, so he could use it to improve search engine rankings for his clients (how that all works isn’t something I have any knowledge of). He offered a substantial sum of money – not enough to erase my money worries, but enough to ease the pressure for a while. Plus he offered to provide a free dedicated server for “Alas.”
The contract took months to wrangle, but here’s the bottom line: The new owner has absolutely no control over the content of “Alas.” However, “Alas” plus my cartoonist pages are the only parts of amptoons.com I have any access to or control over. The buyer also has the right to put in one or two inconspicuous links on “Alas,” positioned in a way that would make it unlikely that anyone but search engine robots would follow the link.
I was assured by the buyer that he would never host porn sites on “amptoons.com.” And I wrote into the contract that his link on “Alas” could never be a direct link to a porn site. But beyond that, I have no ability to control what the buyer does with his pages – the deal is that he has absolutely no say in what’s on “Alas,” but we also agreed that I have no say over what he does with his own property. And – as a couple of “Alas” readers have noticed – some pages I don’t own include links to porn.
[Edited to add: A couple of readers have speculated that I didn’t know that the new owner would link to porn on his pages. That’s not true; I kept the links off of “Alas,” but I knew that he would be putting links to porn on his own pages.]
I’m essentially in the same position as someone with a blog on “blogspot.com” – I don’t own the domain, and although I control what’s on my own blog, I don’t have any say over what’s posted on the domain other than my little piece of it.
I realize that some “Alas” readers will feel that I’ve sold out, or that this puts me beyond the pale. I’m genuinely sorry for that. For the record, I don’t feel I’ve been victimized (as one person suggested in email), nor do I feel like I’m a total sell-out. What I feel is this: I’ve made a compromise, one that I probably wouldn’t have made in a perfect world.
That’s all. And now, back to your regularly scheduled political rants.
* * *
New comments from Amp:
I warned the new owner that a likely result of this sale would be many other blogs delinking “Alas.” He said that didn’t matter to him and wouldn’t impede his profit; whatever his business model is based on, he isn’t concerned about that.
My views on porn: I’m not terribly pro-porn; most porn, like most mass media, seems sexist and harmful to me. The arguments that porn prevents rape or is in some way tremendously beneficial to society strike me as not at all supported by the evidence. On the other hand, I’m also not especially anti-porn, in that I don’t see porn as being particularly separate from or different than regular mass media, either in how sexist and racist it is, or in the harm it does. I’m convinced that there are other problems far, far more pressing than porn, and I think what I’ve written about over the years reflects that. If all porn disappeared from the face of the Earth tomorrow, I think that sexism, misogyny, and the wage gap would continue uninterrupted.
As I understand it, from the questions I asked before selling “amptoons.com,” the practical outcome of what the new owner does is that when someone searches for “porn,” they’re more likely to find his clients’ sites than other clients’ sites. I’m not thrilled with that, but I also frankly don’t believe it makes the world a worse place if porn company A gets ranked above porn company B in porn searches. Nor do I believe that I could have prevented such manipulations from taking place by refusing to sell the domain.
For me, this compromise is similar to the compromise I’ve made in the past accepting pay for cartoons from small publications who depended on strip club and escort ads for their income; or for being a secretary for various firms on Wall Street (some of those firms do, in my view, far more harm than porn ever has).
I’m not saying what I did was great. It wasn’t. It was a compromise, one that I felt I had no choice but to accept. It’s not something I would have done if I thought I could afford not to do it. It’s a bad thing, disturbing to me, and understandably disturbing (or much worse than disturbing) to my anti-porn readers. I know that some people who formerly liked me will now have lost all respect for me. I understand that, and I regret their departure; at the same time, my respect for them is undiminished.
That said, I’ve never been big on the politics of personal purity. It’s hard to be sure, because I’ve written thousands of blog posts and comments, but I don’t think I’ve ever criticized another feminist for being insufficiently pure in their personal life, their porn use, their income source, or the ads on their blogs.
* * *
One criticism of me that I think is especially strong is that I should have announced the sale of amptoons.com before it happened, to give people a chance to comment and to give other bloggers the chance to delink. It was wrong of me not to do that, and I sincerely apologize for that.
“Alas” reader “Curious” has usefully posted many links to other bloggers criticizing me on this thread. Some of the bloggers are people who have, as “Achilles and Patroclus” says, “the same folks who have been berating Amp for being insufficiently feminist for literally years now”; but others are people who have been quite kind to me over the years, and who I don’t think are knee-jerk Amp-bashers.
* * *
Comments are open for discussion (very much including criticism), but the usual moderation policies apply. Also, I want to remind people that I’m not at the computer all the time, so it may be many hours before I read comments.
This thread is for feminists, feminist-friendly, and pro-feminist posters only.
Look, I know you know I’m a lawyer, and I know that you have lawyer friends, and I know that you know tech people, and I know that all of what you’re saying here isn’t entirely credible unless you were completely trying to hide what you were doing.
Basically, I can’t quite believe that you spent months — MONTHS!!! — negotiating a contract, months, without knowing what exactly you were agreeing to. And how the whole thing worked.
Honestly, I could believe that you didn’t really know what was going on if you’d, say, just jumped at the first version of the contract they gave you. But you didn’t. The months thing tells me that others were involved, advising you, and if you didn’t necessarily understand the implications of what you were doing (though telling the seller that people would likely delink you should they find out tells me that you knew very well), someone did.
Maybe he meant this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_positive
If the fences are beyond mending, how many more times do you plan on stating as much before you realize that not everyone is going to be convinced ?
I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything. I was replying to the commenters in this thread who still are unclear on the situation. Given all the extreme confusion evident here about how the internet works, I was just trying to clarify.
My position is that since this is a feminist blog, and many feminists oppose pornography, I think people have the right to understand that this blog is supported by hard-core pornography and is in turn promoting hard-core pornography.
Once people understand the situation, it’s up to them to decide whether they are troubled by it. Really, either it bugs you or it doesn’t. Either you think Barry should have been upfront about it or you don’t.
It seems worth waiting to see what more, if anything, amp plans to do to address this.
Here’s something I wrote about three years back under a different handle attempting to define ‘Sex Positive.’
Hope it’s useful.
—Myca
Pingback: Women's Space/The Margins
Zuzu – I don’t think Amp is claiming that he didn’t know what he was agreeing to (ie he knew what was going to happen to the domain when he sold it). What he has said that he’s unsure of is how the person who bought the blog off him is making money out of the whole thing. Therefore he doesn’t know anymore than anyone else what difference people who link to his blog make to either the profit of the person who owns amptoons.com, or the rankings of the sites that are linked to.
As co/guest bloggers have been brought up I think I should make it clear that I did know that Barry had sold his domain, and didn’t have a problem with it (for reasons that I may explain in another post).
‘What are you proposing that Amp do to mend fences ?’
I don’t know…maybe not support racist, misogynistic porn. Or is that too much to ask from a feminist who claims to care about issues of race and prejudice?
Amps site links to porn.
Amps site posts pix of his daughter.
Yeah, anashi. I get it. Believe it or not. I’m not a moron. I’m trying to figure out just what specifically you think could be done to keep the site going without the domain being an online lad rag. Any specific ideas ?
As Maia correctly says, I meant that I don’t understand how search engine rankings, and attempts to manipulate them, work.
I didn’t consult with anyone except close friends on an informal basis. I didn’t consult any lawyers, and I didn’t consult any tech people. My main concern with writing the contract was making sure that no one but the writers of posts would own those posts (and ditto for my cartoons), and that “alas” would retain editorial independence. That might sound strange to you, but keep in mind that my background is in cartooning, where there are endless horror stories about people losing the rights to their creations to publishers.
It was inaccurate of me to say negotiating the contract took months. The negotiation as a whole took months, but the contract was only the final part of the negotiations. And as for the negotiation taking months – it just did. There were a lot of back and forth emails, often with several days between each email. At one point I was traveling for a couple of weeks and not responding to email. At one point I walked away entirely, because he wouldn’t agree to have no porn links at all.[*] Then a couple of weeks passed, a tenant told me that they might be losing their job, and he emailed out of the blue with a higher offer, and I decided I could live with the compromise. It all added up to months.
IIRC, the delinking conversation happened very early in the process, when I was thinking he was nuts, and pointing out reasons I thought it wouldn’t work. That he said delinkings wouldn’t be relevant for his interests, made it seem less consequential to me that I tell everyone right away. In retrospect, I was wrong.
[*] I mention this not to excuse myself – obviously, it doesn’t, and if that were my intention I’d have mentioned it long ago. I just mention it to give you an idea of how it is an amateur negotiation can, in fact, take months.
It seems worth waiting to see what more, if anything, amp plans to do to address this.
I am puzzled, what more do you expect him to do? Sounds to me like he did what he needed to do to make sure his family didn’t do without. That’s a good thing for a person to do, yes?
While I am not a fan of porn myself, I have a world of problems with the feminist police attacking Amp yet again for a choice that we don’t really know much of. To make it worse, this comes from Heart, whose hypocrisy I have spoken about more than once ( for some reason I have huge doubt that anyone with a passel of childrn has a right to call others picket fence feminists or whatever, and I have called her bullshit on that).
I do not have the data that I would need in order to make a correct judgement as to how “right ” or “wrong” Amp’s decision was. But it appears that he had to make a choice between selling the domain and kicking out a roommate( or something similar), and if any feminists of whatever colour actually think the former is a bigger crime than the latter, then I call that being utterly screwed up.
Insofar, I have seen no one attacking Amp who hasn’t done it in the past already for various reasons. As such, their honesty has to be questioned. As for me, I appreciate all the work that Amp has done and continues to do, and hope that whatever reason he had for this will be soon sorted and things will get better for himself and his household.
Okay.
I’m not here much anymore, but my snapshot take on the situation is that Amp was faced with a shitty situation and did the best he could.
We’re all trying to get by in this world, and it’s oftentimes really fucking hard, and we do the best we can, and sometimes we don’t make the choices that other people would have.
We will all fuck up sometimes.
I just hope that when my time comes, and I screw up while furiously treading water, that the people around me have a little more kindness and a little less vicious orthodoxy.
I just wish that he would have let us know that things were bad, because I’d have been happy to give something back for everything he’s given to us over the years . . . and I just did.
—Myca
Soopermouse, thank you for your post. I really appreciate it.
But I do want to point out that I’m not in dire economic need right now; but it is in part because I made this deal that I can afford to pay my bills and be relaxed about tenants not paying rent (sometimes, not in many months). I didn’t mean to give the impression that I’m currently in bad shape.
Also, although it’s true that some of my critics have been eager to criticize me harshly over the years, it’s also true some of the people criticizing me have been quite kind to me in the past; for instance, Violet Sacks, Lauren, and Hugo are all people who have been perfectly nice to me. (I’m not saying those are the only three, they’re just the three that leap first to my mind.)
And may I repeat what Amp has said: the reason Amp responded to me directly was that I slammed him hard at my blog but also sent him an email asking him to open this thread. Nothing to do with taking a man’s opinion more seriously, as far as I can see.
I’d love to see Alas continue on another site, somehow, someday.
Myca and Hugo, thanks. (And thanks to many, many others, as well.)
Putting on my moderator cap for a moment, I have to comment on this:
Soopermouse, with all due respect (and I respect you a lot), as moderator I have to ask you to leave old arguments with Heart – and also Heart’s number of kids – out of this thread.
I’m not sure total thread derailment is what’s needed at this point, but there are some things that it’s hard to ignore:
I see absolutely no hypocricy about a feminist having children. And degrading the work that women do giving birth to and raising children seems profoundly anti-feminist to me.
People have already offered suggestions about alternatives. Donations for one thing. If people wanted to read Amp so badly and were invested in seeing him continue writing, I think that donations would have been a good alternative. But that ship has sailed, so why are you even asking me about what I think as far as alternatives go? Seems like there were plenty of people who would have been willing to help that weren’t given a chance to. I don’t see donations as a bad thing at all. I think that it’s perfectly legit to lean on your readers for support. There’s no shame in asking for help. I don’t think you’re a moron at all. There aren’t any simple answers, I’m afraid. And nothing he does right now will probably appease some people, even going the donation route. What I think is being missed here is how incidious the system is, how it worms its way into our lives through compromise…it happens in increments and suddenly we wake up and we don’t have a leg to stand on anymore because we’re just as bad as the people whose minds we are trying to change…I’m sorry for all the blathering. That’s all from me.
Amp, point duly noted, and I apologize.
However, the attacks against you are what I call the feminist police, they are a thing that has been going on for a while and from my POV this is bullying. I am sick and tired of seeing it, I am sick and tired of seeing pwople who have done a lot for feminism being attacked just because their POV is not a copy of *****’s POV.
Maia
the hypocrisy was in the context of Heart’s observation. This can be found at genderberg
I’m coming to all of this very late.
I’ve been a fan of the thoughtful and intelligent writing on” Alas” for a long time.
I’m really glad that the blog is no longer in jeopardy, is continuing and will remain autonomous.
“Body impolitic” will certainly maintain its link to you.
Anashi, donations had been solicited but not many people actually contributed. Barry also tried some feminist friendly advertisement space. Again it didn’t measure up. It’s been an ongoing problem for Alas, and I find it extremely dishonest of many of the critics to feign unawareness. They happily used Alas bandwidth to be critical of Barry (and often times his housemates have gotten caught in the crossfire – ala Matt and I embracing and happily enjoying the Babyblogging links of our two daughters that have been used by idiots like Pony to push their own bullshit and uninformed agenda). On the same token, consider what might have happened had the donation route taken hold with different factions of feminism fighting over what was appropriate and not appropriate for the blog. Do you think the same people who feel so entitled to saying what should go on and not go on at Alas would have been less or more vocal had they invested five bucks to the cause? I’m thinking they would have felt five bucks entitled them to a hell of a lot. Unjustified entitlement isn’t unique to the patriarchy.
Although I know this doesn’t excuse my past errors, in response to this thread I’m planning to donate one-tenth of the money from the sale of amptoons.com to charities that help women. Hopefully this will provide some feeling of closure or balance to feminists who are distressed by having linked to “Alas” during the period since the sale.
I was thinking that one-half of the donation could be sent to the campaign to end fistula.
The other half, I was thinking of sending to an organization that provides services and assistance to prostitutes who want to leave prostitution. I was hoping that someone could suggest a good organization they know of (doing a google search for “services for prostitutes” did not turn up the kind of thing I was looking for, to put it mildly).
ya know, the campaign to end fistula sounds like a good idea. Maybe this will remove some pains in the ass ya know ;)
All I have to say on this further can be found on my blog, so I won’t alter the civility of this blog ( for which I respect Amp. I would ahve told soem people to go fuck themselves a long time ago if I was you).
Kim, Amp, you do not owe anyone anything. You should not fdeel like you do, and not give in to the bullies.
Amp, I run a web hosting business. Maybe you will want to email me about seeing what can be done regarding a server.
I’ll throw in some money to the charities you decide to support, Amp. Please put links on the blog when you make your decisions.
Rather than making null and void Alas’ credibility – a feminist blog site supported in part by a pornographer – gives us all the more material to think with.
Before I started reading Ampersand, back when he was the only writer on the site anyway, I didn’t consider myself a feminist. My mom had been a huge Limbaugh fan when I was a kid and though I was politically liberal, I had a very skewed opinion of what it meant to be a feminist. Reading this site, Ampersand’s writing, changed my mind about that and I’ve been glad to call myself a feminist for quite a while now.
This site has been a tremendous educational resource for me personally and, through links, to share with my readers. It would actually be my hope that, provided the SEO people keep their word, the site could remain where it is. It would be a shame for the existing backlog of links to content here to go dark and for web searches for it to have to rely on the Google cache. But what they’ve done at the moment, just a simple page with text of the sort they’ve got up, is probably not going to get this site flagged as spam in Google.
Shelley is exactly right about how this works and I know because I used to do SEO for a living. Visiting here directs no actual traffic to the pron people. It won’t land pron in searches for feminism. SEO has two main features: linking and keywords. Linking helps page rank, which determines overall importance of a page. Keywords determine relevance. This second thing is prime, because no matter how high a page rank might be, that page will only show up in searches for terms that are included in its text content or in the text of links to it. A site like microsoft.com, for example, has a page rank of 10 (out of a possible 10, 10/10, which can be observed by anyone who has the Google toolbar installed in their browser and looks at the little PageRank icon with the variable green and white bar) that makes it come up pretty high in the rankings … if you’re looking for software services of the type they provide. Indeed, if you google their company or product names, rest assured that a page rank of 10 will land them on that first page of results. But it will under no circumstances give Microsoft any standing whatever in a search for feminism, or pron, or where to find the best Indian food in Seattle. (Cedars, btw, on 70th, eastbound off I5 above the Flying Apron bakery. The chai is bottomless and it tastes mildly of the best pumpkin pie you ever had.) As regards internal linking on a site, this has a different effect. It doesn’t touch page rank, but does affect relevancy somewhat. What the people who bought this domain have done is to make it minimally likely, as noted above, that they’ll get flagged as gaming the system by choosing a perfectly innocuous and descriptive link term and while also maintaining flexibility to promote the sites of many different clients.
For the record, a page rank of 6 like Alas has is damn fine. Most SEO people would consider selling their grandmother’s dentures to get even a 4, because while it’s normal for a reasonably trafficked blog that’s been around a few years, it’s hellishly difficult to obtain if you’re merely some soulless corporate venue without a national brand name. If Amp moves this site, it might take a significant amount of time to build up that kind of page rank again, which would also mean that the well-researched articles and thoughtful commentary that appear here would also lose rank in the searches. Actual hits to the sites they promote will come through the search engine listings and pretty much there only. It’s in no way realistic that the sort of page they’ve got on the site right now would be anywhere higher than, if they’re very lucky, page 40 or so of any search, which means that it practically doesn’t exist as far as visitors go.
Though I’m not very concerned about the pron issue, either. It isn’t something that inherently irritates me, nor does it especially interest me, no one looks like they’re having an actual good time and I find that a turn off. I don’t like the attitudes towards women that go along with many of the narratives, but not only don’t I know that fighting pron is the best way to beat that, I know for sure that it isn’t the only source of those attitudes.
Back when I was married, the jerk I’d had the bad taste to hook up with would sulk by reading Russian mail-order bride catalogs and discussing the merits of the various listees with me. All the women were fully clothed. Usually, they were all white, though some of the catalogs he’d ordered had sections for women from various parts of the world, which he by and large wasn’t that interested in. There was no explicit talk about sex, as such. And it wasn’t really about that, anyway. It was about him wanting a partner who was at once supremely competent and entirely obedient. ‘She has an advanced degree and I bet she’d have dinner ready on time every night, too, because she’d be so grateful.’ No pron was necessary for my complete and repeated humiliation. No pron was necessary for this man to feel like he had the right to treat me like a possession and so restrict my access to our joint finances (even though I had a job as well) that I often had to scrounge out of the change jar so I could buy ‘lunch’ from a vending machine. It would not have affected his issues for every pornographer on the planet to have disappeared overnight and oh, good grief, do I believe that I have well and away enough information to say that with confidence.
The first guy I dated after my divorce was an online pron fiend like I have never known before or since. But he finally taught me how to drive at the age of 23, which my ex had made impossible. He helped me learn enough about computers, and encouraged me to take classes in them, so that I was able one day to get a Very Good Job. Neither my family nor my self-proclaimed ‘feminist’ ex ever did so much to ultimately set me on a path to independence or to believing that I had the right to have such a thing.
And I’ll echo the comment of someone else upthread, it amuses me to know that pron will be supporting a feminist site. It makes me glad that Amp will be donating some of it to worthy causes and it sounds to me like his initial suggestions are good ones.
As a blogger myself, I know how hard it is to get a site to pay for itself through donations. Not even Atrios can pull in enough off his blog to have a minimum wage salary at this point, iirc. There isn’t at the moment a network of sympathetic financiers who will underwrite what is typically just an incredibly time-consuming hobby, something which requires hours of unpaid labor every week, during which the blogger could presumably be doing something else to earn a living. The likelihood that a boutique site could earn enough to significantly impact household finances is slim to none, while maintaining it is a virtual part-time job unto itself.
Lastly, just, frakking blog wars, man. There weren’t this many people threatening never to link to the NY Times again because they employed that lying, warmongering hack Judith Miller.
Amp – As long as Alas continues to be the blog I’ve known and loved for the last several years, you will always have a link on my site. But yeah, this would have been a good thing to mention a little more plainly when it happened and though when I looked just now I didn’t see any stereotypified ethnic pron advertised, that would be an important thing to discuss with them if you can still negotiate that.
But on the whole, thanks for everything.
This is really disgusting. but it reflects badly on Pony, not on Amp.
Human Rights Watch has an anti-trafficking campaign, but that is probably not exactly what you’re looking for Amp.
I agree with Mandolin–post links!
If Only! With our powers combined….the NYT will probably remain the (toilet)paper of record.
“When did the feminists of weblogging have their secret meeting and hammer the rules by which the rest of us maintain our weblogs, or suffer the consequences?”
Dontcha know? Heart has determined Proper Feminist Credentials for all Womynkind. Of course, she’s careened crazily from submit-to-your-man-bear-a-dozen-children-for-the-glory-of-God to the other extreme of man-hating, but either way, she’s Correct and you’re not.
You’re not the only one , Soopermouse, who has issues with her tremendous hypocrisy, which completely trumps Amp’s blog sale.
You know, I’m not thrilled with Amp’s decision, and I wouldn’t blame anyone for delinking, not posting/reading, whatever. I’m not a big fan of porn or of so-called “sex positive” thinking that worships the idea of women as servers/men as consumers, or the philosophy that anyone who questions the status quo is a big meanie who’s all for repression and against sex (I’m looking at you, Josh–you’re just as bad as those you whine about).
But, you know, it is pretty damn ironic that the very feminists who have a personal grudge against Amp (i.e., Heart and her clique) have routinely come here and used this very blog to shake their fingers at us lesser feminists, lecture us, and hector us. Who’ve used the comments section of this blog to make sweeping comments trashing all of the feminists on Amp’s blogroll for not being good enough while ignoring their own baggage. Who ignore their own friendships with so-called feminist men who aren’t the the best allies, who ignore their own heteronormative privilege while trashing those lesser and “fun” feminists–or even fellow radical feminists–for just that. Well, fuck that noise.
I have to agree that Pony’s statement was out of line, and very distasteful. I support Amp in making a donation to a good cause-as for one that supports prostitutes when leaving the field, I want to say there is one in California that is run by an ex-sex worker, but for the life of me I can’t remember the name…want to say Angels is in there somewhere but sometimes with my memory I think angels are everywhere. As I said earlier, I think Amp made a mistake, admitted it and I still think this is a wonderful site full of thought provoking articles to make me go hhmm.
I have been reading this conversation with fascination and frustration. That Barry should have said something earlier is clear; he has acknowledged that. We are, all of us, fallible human beings and we all of us fuck up from time to time; and there are always, at least in my life, and I am assuming in everyone else’s life as well, people waiting to pounce on that as a way to prove how inhuman, how below contempt we really are. The people who are calling Barry pimp, pornographer, who are suggesting that he is a pedophile, are taking cheap shots because they are cheap and what makes them cheap is not that there is nothing in Barry’s decision to sell, in his decision not to be as open as he is now being, and so on, that is worth critiquing from any of the various feminist points of view that are out there. That male privilege is implicated in what went on seems to me to be a more-than-obvious conclusion, not only in terms of Barry’s personal decision-making (since when is male privilege not implicated in any man’s decision-making, especially when he identifies as pro-feminist, or feminist, and especially when it involves something like Alas?), but also in terms of who had the kind of money, and why, to buy amptoons.com that would force Barry, given his financial situation, to take seriously the offer that was made.
It is for Barry to work through what went on in him as he made the decisions he made and to come to terms with that–and it sounds, frankly, like he has already done some of that work–and it is for him to decide whether he wants to go public with that working through. However, if this discussion can become a discussion, as anashi puts it, of
and if that discussion can be had without judging individual people, without calling them names, without invalidating them as human beings–which is not to say that we shouldn’t hold them accountable for choices they have made–then we will have moved on to something quite valuable. In that spirit, I have been thinking this: A while ago, I had a business doing freelance corporate communications and one of the things I did was ghostwrite a column on Internet marketing for one of my clients. One of the columns I wrote was about how one of the dirty little secrets of online commerce was that the Internet pron industry had pioneered many of the e-commerce and online traffic-generating techniques that made the growth of e-commerce possible. It would be interesting to see a post or series of posts, though I am not the person to write them, exploring the ways in which online pron has helped to drive the growth of the Internet, making all of us who use and benefit from it complicit. It would also be interesting–someone had probably already done it, and I just haven’t seen it–to see a feminist analysis of blogosphere economics, not just in terms of dollars and cents, but in terms of asking what kind of economy is it. (I am thinking, for example, of how, in the literary community, poetry–which makes no money–is thought of as circulating in a kind of gift economy that is separate, though not necessarily entirely distinct from, and also subversive of, the capitalist economy. These kinds of posts, if there is someone out there willing and able to write them–I would if I felt I could do the subjects justice, but I am neither knowledgable enough nor do I have the time–would, I think, begin to build on this discussion about the decisions Barry made in a constructive way.
I have been reading and commenting on Alas for quite a while now, and I have come to value the writing and the community of people the blog pulls together. While I would have preferred that amptoons.com had been sold to an interest that had no connection to pronography, and I also would have preferred more openness on Barry’s part, I am not so sure that continuing to read, comment and link here is any different from helping to boost circulation figures by picking up NYC’s The Village Voice, which gets an awful lot of its advertising money from escort services, phone sex lines and the like. I pick the paper up anyway because I value much of the writing that is in it; they are voices I would not be able to read anywhere else. Similarly, I will continue to read and comment and link here.
Sheelzebub, I have come a long time ago to the sad conclusion that radical feminism is a movement of white western women… and sometimes I feel like screaming at the fucking entitlement it reeks of.
White privilege…check
Western privilege…check
het privilege…check
breeder privilege…check
Along the same lines, I think it needs to be said that having the ability to spend time and effort on the scale that Amp must spend to create something like this blog is the product of either its own kind of privilege, or herculean dedication of a kind that I don’t have the right to expect as a matter of entitlement. I haven’t done a survey, so I don’t know the percentage, but the quest for purity is most likely to stifle the voices of anyone other than those who are independently affluent, underwritten by universities or like minded employers, free lance or professional writers, or wildly and atypically successful in the blogosphere. Which is not to say that there is no line that oughtn’t to be crossed, but we need to think long and hard before we say that someone has irrevocably crossed that line.
Yeah, anashi, Kim nailed it. I’ve donated little specks of money here and there to worthy feminist blogs. These days I don’t even have the little specks any more. Even when I did, I had no idea that things were going to financial hell for Amp’s household as much as he later mentioned they were. And we actually live in the same town and hang out together at least once a month. Maybe he was embarassed to make a big deal out of it when he had a regular job and I don’t. Maybe he did make a big deal out of it and I just wasn’t listening. At any rate, if I didn’t realize that the situation was getting serious until recently. If I didn’t pick up on that, it shouldn’t be a surprise that a lot of readers who only know Amp from this space and the occasional dinner together didn’t pick up on it.
Speaking of dinner, someday I still want to buy it for Sheelzebub. I probably don’t mention that enough and I don’t read her page enough either. :o
[sarcasm] Kim, have you broken the news yet to Matt that Sydney is actually Amp’s daughter ? I can’t wait to read the meltdown around blogland about that ? [/sarcasm]
The Fistula Foundation is a great org. And I second bean’s suggestion about the Baldwin Foundation.
That’s why Soopermouse – you used your “Privilege” to bash someone of a lower economic class for at least 5-6 posts in your blog. Who isn’t a hypocrite to you?
Just because you had a fall out with people on just about every radical feminist site doesn’t mean that you can claim to be ‘non-hypocritical’ yourself. You take every single opportunity you can to use people’s ‘personal’ information against them. It’s the lowest type of vileness ever.
There are many feminists of colour who consider themselves ‘radical’ or with radical leanings… pls. don’t pull up the race card cause you are bitter.
[sarcasm] Kim, have you broken the news yet to Matt that Sydney is actually Amp’s daughter ? I can’t wait to read the meltdown around blogland about that ? [/sarcasm]
There’ll be an even greater meltdown when it’s revealed that Amp is actually Sydney’s mother.
[cues soap opera organ music for Daran] And what of bean and her forbidden love for Walter the cat ? What of Radcliffe Hall’s sordid masochism and polyamory ? Tune in tomorrow !! [/organ music]
What Richard Jeffrey Newman said, especially the bit about the Village Voice and the growth of the Internet. Not only the Internet, but also the various digital recording media, have experienced tremendous growth and innovation at least in part because of the money from the pron industry. So we’re all a little complicit every day. Amp’s connection is just more obvious and recent. I would have a much greater problem with direct pron links from the blog. What if he had gone the other way and chosen to sign a contract with some Dominionist fundie group? I think a great many of the people who come here regularly would have had problems with that, too.
Amp, thanks for doing what you can to keep this site going, and thanks for being upfront about the situation – better late than never! Sorry the bullies have had their clubs out!
Kim, have you broken the news yet to Matt that Sydney is actually Amp’s daughter ? I can’t wait to read the meltdown around blogland about that ?
Yes, yes, I know. I’m belittling people for their ignorance. Too bad.
The above reference to Pony’s bizarre and ignorant statement is an example of what can make your critique of Amp’s actions easily disregarded. Your utter ignorance of the facts – that have been clearly explained both here and elsewhere – make us wonder if anything you write can be taken as grounded in fact or reality.
Here are a few things that you shouldn’t write if you are critiquing Amp and wish to be taken seriously:
Amp is writing reviews of pron
Visiting Alas will up the ratings of the domain
Sydney is Amp’s daughter
Chickens are made of spam
Amp writes from a position of privilege and you don’t write from a position of any privilege at all
One can only be a feminist if one is solidly anti-pron
You are a pure feminist and the target of your derision is not a “real” feminist
We can call each other names and make shit up to support our wild accusations or we can address the issues that concern us about the situation. It’s very, very hard to do both.
Well, count me in the category of folks who were primarily annoyed at the “no disclosure, not even a polite warning” issue. I figure that’s about the only thing I (as a noncontributor) was especially “entitled” to find troubling. I wasn’t really all that annoyed anyway, and Amp apologized–which seemed fair–so then i stopped being annoyed at all.
See? It’s easy.
I am always a fan of disclosure–I do it a lot in my profession–and I certainly think that given this shitstorm, ANYONE reading this thread will probably be inclined not to hide stuff in the future. Which overall is a good thing.
That said, can’t we have a nice debate about something else?
Susanne, the issue is not what trumps what. The issue is that all these quests for purisms have yet to yeild (sp?) any results but alienating allies and ultimately hurting the movement. As luck would have it, no one is completely white or black, we live in a system that forces us to compromise in order to survive. However, you know, one has to wonder whose compromise trumps whose… and what gives anyone the right to appoint themselves ultimate autority on…
Funny, all these tactics remind me of living in Communist Romania and the Party meetings where the “deviationists” were condemned for not toeing the line.
I believe that Amp did the best he could do for himself and his household, and that he did not owe anyone anything regarding that. Amp’s work has made a world of difference on s many levels ( not just feminism), and he is a league of his own regarding that aspect. He is also a non jesuite about it, which helps tremendously.
The comments made by ***** and such are unwarranted because there is no love lost here. They have attacked Amp before, and this is just another bashing fest occasion for them. This is not about honest concern.
AradhanaDevindra, falling out with them is one of the biggest achievements I have to claim this year. It took a world of hard work. But if you so desire to attack me, please do it at my blog, this is not the place.
Sailorman:
Battlefield Earth. Worst movie in recorded human history or merely a pretender to the throne held by Star Wars: Episode I ?
It’s a tough call, but I have to say that Jar Jar trumps even Scientology for sheer worst-ness.
Speaking of dinner, someday I still want to buy it for Sheelzebub. I probably don’t mention that enough and I don’t read her page enough either. :o
;) I am queen of the skillet meal, so if we’re strapped money wise but are ever on the same coast, we can still eat.
And my blogging has been pretty sparse lately–I wasn’t even online or checking for a week and a half, and found several explosion ‘cross the ‘sphere this week. Crap. I just can’t keep up.
Battlefield Earth. Worst movie in recorded human history or merely a pretender to the throne held by Star Wars: Episode I ?
Wrong and wrong. Battlefield Earth, while a terrible movie, doesn’t even make my bottom 100 list. Star Wars: Episode 1, the movie that made me say, “They never get another dollar from me,” still isn’t close to the worst movie of all time.
The worst movie of all time, the one that makes time stand still, the one that does everything wrong at every opportunity, is Boxing Helena. There is no disputing this. If you are attempting to dispute this, you have not seen the movie. Even Surf Nazis Must Die is a far superior viewing experience.
Well, I liked the BOOK version of BE, or at least I did when I was 12 year old ;) Never saw the movie though.
SW1 was really, truly, atrocious. But actually I stayed through the whole thing. I have not walked out of movies much in my life, but there have been a few. sadly (happily?) I can’t recall their names.
BTW, I assume/hope you’re feeling better…?
Daran #125 and Jake Squid #128,
I think Matt, Amp, and Kim may need to go on Maury Povich to solve this one. LOL!!!
Sorry, I just could resist, inserting that one into the debate.
You know this is really sad when other feminist women and profeminist men critique another profeminist man – it is not called ‘bullying’.
If this was a nonprofit organization’s website that dedicated itself working towards third world poverty elimination, and let’s say Nike wanted to embed a link to it’s website somewhere, I am sure the critics would have a field day. Likewise if this was a website for helping prostituted women off the streets and this happened – there would be criticism. If this was a website that was dedicated to anti-classism issues and we had a link to Stock trading, it would be the samething. Alcoholics Anonymous with beer sponsorship so on and so forth.
But the thing is – this isn’t that type of site – No one ‘has’ to hold Amp accountable to anything, except himself right? But when you say that you are a profeminist man that means that you are going to take into consideration your actions and the impact it has on women. And if you don’t think much of racist and sexist pornography (like the ones on your site) well then so be it. No one can change what you did / will continue to do. It’s your site Amp – you’ve done what you wanted to. And of course there were no other solutions.
Sure, in a highly pornified culture ‘Amp’s’ selling out is not really that big of a deal. Sure, when 600,000 iraqis are dead since the US invasion Amp’s selling out is not really a big deal.
The point is when you claim to be something, claim that you are dedicating your site to some people, claim that you uphold certain beliefs – it is justified that we should hold you to those claims. And this is why it’s a big deal.
Typical. make an assumption, never back it up and then hold other responsible for not working under your assumption.
radical feminism is not all there is to feminism. Amp has never identified himself as one, and as such he owes no explanation as to why he does not obey radfem rules. The fact that he is treated like this because he does not obey the narrow rules made by people who are far too busy bolstering their own egos than doing anything but blabber on the internet and kissing each other’s asses, and the only result they have to show for themselves is alienating people, making feminism into a scarecrow notion and damaging the movement more than they have helped.
In the mean time, those they have spent so much time accusing and blaming have managed to make advances in real life more than what a bunch of white women who, after paying the patriarchy dues , have the audacity to judge others from the shade of their white fence and unearned privilege, have the right to say or do. It was not the radical feminists who made violent porn illegal in Britain, it was the Government they keep attacking for not bowing to their narrow standards. Radical feminism has turned into an elitist and bigoted club who cares more about judging others than doing anything that’s not words on a screen and reciprocal back patting.
You accused me of having class privilege. I do. And it is earned privilege, earn with blood, health and years of study.
AradhanaDevindra, neither Amp nor anyone else owes you anything regarding how they maintain their blogs or lives. You are not entitled to make a judgement regarding their decisions, and since no one is in any way forcing you to come here you are using Amp’s bandwidth for your agenda. I guess the porn money you are chastising Amp about are good enough if they buy the bandwidth for your soapbox.
The number of victims in Iraq? red herring.
I have seen some moron asking why did Amp not take a loan instead of selling the domain. This is entitlement.
Radical feminism has become a joke.
Pingback: Definition - A Feminist Weblog » This whole “Alas” drama thing
I second what Laurie Toby Edison said in comment #107:
And I’d like to add that though it was a surprise to read last month, while I was guest blogging here, the minimal information Amp gave about the domain name’s sale, Amp was quick this week to contact me (and, I presume, other guest bloggers) and discuss whether or not I wanted my posts here removed from the site.
The fact is that disability bloggers (and, I believe, anyone interested in the community of people who claim disability as an identity) gained a great deal from the large readership of this blog. Some of the discussion following one or two of my posts included the rare online experience of disability and feminism being discussed together in such a large forum, with the typical conflicts emerging when two political identities try to manage merging priorities. I really value Alas for that and the role it has had in the past with disability issues.
Every day when I check the sitemeter for my blog I find many, many Google searches for fetish pron about disabled women (and men) and laugh that the searcher ended up — however briefly — on a site that seeks to upset the objectification and stereotyping of disabled women. Pron is inextricably linked to everything else on the internet, which is deeply problematic, for sure. And though Amp’s full disclosure came late, I just can’t get worked up about the particulars of how pron is linked to Amp’s site. It doesn’t weigh heavily enough against the opportunities for discussion that are provided here.
sailorman:
I was until Squid and his film guide showed up. [sprays down computer with disinfectant]
Sheelzebub, you’re on. I’ll make the drinks. :D
What you should have said was:
(I just realised the joke probably only works in the UK.)
I’m very sure that Ampersand has been an anti-sexist longer than I have, and has done more work of an activistic nature than I have toward that cause.
Knowing this, I can only conclude that a profeminist man – who obviously must understand the principles of “divide and conquer” – who can proceed to watch feminists line up on either side of him, against each other – over HIM – without feeling a sense of emergency so overwhelming as to do absolutely anything to remove himself from that position, is proof-positive that being an experienced profeminist man does not require that you know your ass from your elbow.
Unless your cartoon career was bolstered, aided and to some degree co-authored by a community wherein a significant population was passionately opposed to strip clubs, I’d say there’s nothing similar at all. Furthermore, unless this hypothetical community was not consulted in the slightest before your “compromise”, the similarities fade even further. This analogy, frankly, sucks.
Whose trust, exactly, did you betray in order to take a job on Wall Street? Did some Marxist organization help put you through college?
If an anti-porn feminist made the same “compromise”, do you think they’d offer one word of rationalization for it? I doubt it, and I doubt they’d call it a “compromise”; they’d probably call it “defeat”. But you “understand” all this, right? At any rate, let’s not feign surprise when anti-porn feminists fail to sympathize on this issue (I’ve seen plenty of them *empathize” with you, however.)
Apparently your “respect” doesn’t extend to speaking up for them when they’re attacked in a rather nasty manner for the very beliefs you supposedly “understand”. (your moderating slap on the wrist for the ad hominem attacker notwithstanding)
Taking the moral high ground is probably not going to work with those who feel betrayed by you. But that’s not what this statement is about, of course; rather, it’s an invitation for people to take sides. Is this what “male profeminism” is all about? From all appearances, it is the opposite.
So, selling to a porn promoter – considering your readers – is not worthy of an apology, but this is? This is about as half-assed as it gets.
I’m not going to much criticize the feminist supporters of Ampersand. Feminists have discussed, debated and fought over this issue for a long time. What I’m going to criticize is the idea of a man claiming to be anti-sexist/profeminist/feminist/whatever putting himself in the middle of it. This can ONLY be more hurtful to women on both sides of the argument.
After all, porn divides some of you, and who better to be standing right next to it, between you, but a man? If this is male anti-sexism, I need to find a new label.
Let me just say that I have no qualms about Amp selling his intellectual property. The porn reviews are hidden at least two links deep, and it’s clear that it’s a different entity.
And the money perpetuating discussion of feminism and liberalism is using an enemy’s money against them. It’s like me taking a scholarship from Coors – even though they’re far-right and make bad beer, their money helped me partially defray my educational costs, and my education has helped me more effectively fight for liberalism.
Barbara’s comments upthread are true-on – I do far more damage to the cause of feminism by subscribing to the New Yorker, which is published by Conde Nast, which publishes Allure, Details, Domino, GQ, Glamour, Jane, Lucky, Men’s Vogue, Self, Teen Vogue, Vogue and W, as well as celebrity-idolizing Vanity Fair, than I do advertising in the Portland Mercury, which has the escort ads mentioned by S.M.
The fashion industry has caused 1000 times more damage to women’s self-image (and mens’ too!) than the porn industry at its most vulgar could.
I wonder if the members of ChezAmp can be fed, clothed, and housed on indie/feminist/punk cred.
Pingback: reappropriate » Blog Archive » Selling Out Your Blog
John… Amp has never had the support of the radfems. They attacked him before, and they will just keep doing so, therefore there is no love lost here. Why do you think he should pander to a group that constantly insulted him?
I’d add to soopermouse’s point that feminists find plenty to fight about even when there isn’t a man to be seen for miles. I think that John gives Amp too much credit to assume that somehow blogs run by feminist women are automatically more peaceable than this. Even among anti-porn feminists, you’ll see fierce arguments over whether or not women who make porn are culpable for harm to other women or not, and so on…
Since Heart felt uncomfortable posting my response to Pony’s “amp is a child molester” implicaiton over at hear blog, I’m repeating it here:
That comment was gross. It doesnt even make sense. It’s unlikely that anyone would randomly end up looking at pron via “Alas”–I had trouble finding the indirect link. The comment is insulting, not just to Amp, but to women–like me– who have struggled or are struggling to tell the TRUTH about rape, sexual violence, child abuse and other GBV in thier own lives. You have no evidence to make such a heinous charge, and you should really apologize.
Wow, a lot of people here seem to be upset about something that they get for free. Don’t take anything for granted do we?
It’s a shitty compromise of the type that you make all the friggin time. The food you buy, the car you drive, the energy you consume… At least he told you. If you have a link and you disagree, delink. Not that hard.
Do you check everything you consume to see what it’s supporting that you disagree with? Some of your disagreement seems rather presumptuous otherwise.
The venom is staggering.
John – Why exactly is it that Amp should be called out for betraying an ideal that he doesn’t share? He isn’t anti-pron himself, (and you know, every time you spell that correctly you feed the search engine pron beast) and the female members of the feminist blogging community have had scorching debates about this issue among themselves without Amp needing to be involved. It’s far from settled doctrine, and I can think easily of several more objectionable sorts of businesses that could have piggybacked this domain’s ranking.
” If this is male anti-sexism, I need to find a new label. ”
How about “pompous, pandering, ignorant, fully entitled moron”?
SMM
Wow, it’s so nice when men like John come in and tell people how it really is, and defend us poor women feminists from the likes of men like Barry. I was almost beginning to think that I’d formed my own opinion on why I won’t personally being part of the flogging Amp crew, but now I know it was just masterful manipulation on Barry’s part.
…errr wait.
(This may be very old news to many.)
“Google accused of profiting from child porn”
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/10/google_sued_for_promoting_illegal_content/
As others have already noted – (far more eloquently than I ever could) – my ‘addition’ (above) does not dismiss or discount objections/arguments raised in this thread – and is not intended to do so – but it is a complicated world isn’t it?
1. I use Google as my number one search engine and have a blog that I believe is owned by Google (blogspot).
2. I found the above information using Google’s search engine.
Original Lee: So we’re all a little complicit every day.
And …by the same token (curiously) we’re all a little subversive everyday.
I got a lot from your post Natasha and Barbara you hit it on the head for me when you said you see pron as more of a symptom than a cause.
This issue makes me think of my mate Jenzo (who is doing a ‘Masters’ in social work and identifies as feminist) and a series of articles she lent to me written by Andrew Gara.
It is not that the world is made up of things including people who then relate to each other in various ways. Ways of relating are ‘morphic fields’ or psychical shapes which are then ‘filled out’ in the form of the people or objects or events we perceive. This is the case whether we are talking about one person ‘abusing’ another or two people planning to go out for the evening.
Two things flow from this re-orientation of our thinking. Firstly, if it is ways of relating that emerge from and within fields of interrelatedness manifesting as, say, two people, then these two person’s actions fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. They are like two sides of a coin or the outside and inside surfaces of a sphere — they mutually define each other. They are twin aspects of a mutual boundary relation. They look like they are separate and distinct pieces in a relation (which leads to the whole scientific ‘thing’). But they are actually inseparable but distinct elements OF a relation.
Secondly, if all events emerge from and within fields of interrelatedness, then science’s description of reality and, thus, our commonsense way of looking at reality has to be turned on its head. Science believes that consciousness (fields of awareness) emerge somehow from a non aware universe of dead matter. Awareness somehow emerges from the brain. Science and commonsense takes for granted that ways of relating are a product of the interaction between things. Two people meet and form a relationship. Two great hunks of matter attract each other and we end up with a planet revolving around a sun.
Thus science is led to believe that relationships are ‘caused’ by interactions between material objects. 2 billiard balls hit each other at a certain angle and this collision ‘causes’ both to go off in certain directions. Someone is assassinated and this ‘causes’ a world war. A man beats up his young son on a regular basis and this action ‘causes’ him to suffer from long term depression, feelings of inferiority and self harming behaviour years later.
We have to reverse this. Consciousness did not emerge from dead matter. Awareness is not a product of the brain. The brain does not produce dreams. Ways of relating are states of awareness or being. If I am ‘down’, this mood is a whole way of relating to the world. States of awareness do not emerge from the body nor are they caused by people ‘banging’ together like billiard balls.
*from : http://www.meaningofdepression.com/Part Two.htm
A bit abstract perhaps – but there’s a link for me to much of this discussion. These so-called dichotomies/binaries – right and left, radical and conservative, Feminism and porn. They are in relationship, all the time.
SJ xx
This story doesn’t sound so bad at all.
For the record, you don’t owe anyone anything. You provided a site and the service of exchanging content, for free.
Just to say, after the initial snark, that besides that I agree with natasha, Blue, basement Kim, soopermouse, curiousgyrl, and others;
what I’ve always valued about Amp & Alas is that it -isn’t- limited to any one thing; Amp has always genuinely tried to engage on a number of fronts, with a wide range of issues and people.
And ultimately, you know, besides the porn business–which, sure, if that were really -all- it was, yeah i get it to a point;
but it’s not just that with some people and never has been. Do this with the blog. Do that. Don’t call yourself this. Don’t let these people post. Don’t talk about this. Talk about that more…
…and I don’t know. I can’t speak for Amp, but: I’ve always thought of “Alas” as a “multi-issue” blog. Certainly including feminism(s). And if Amp himself wants to call himself a feminist or a pro-feminist or Agnes (it’s a nice name) or whatever else, hey, you know what: so mote it be.
But I’ve never understood why some people seem to have the need to make it -only- that. “you said it’s a feminist blog! it IS a feminist blog! and this is what that must mean! and you’re on probation anyway, and…”
jesus, who NEEDS it?
Hell, I don’t understand why some people feel apparently not only the need but the RIGHT to tell someone -else- how to run their blog.
i mean, I really love the attitude of some people that they were -doing Alas a favor- by deigning to participate, when frankly…
well i already said that part. Anyway.
>Barbara, “sex-positive” is generally a euphemism for pro-porn feminists.
Oh, hello again. Back to square one, are we?
You know what: we’ve all had our fuck-ups over the last while, VS; and as I expect you know, it never feels wonderful to be on the hot seat. At least Amp doesn’t shut down as soon as he starts getting criticism over a hot spot. And at least he admits it when he screwed up.
Yeah, it’s true, some of us don’t see pr0n as as big a deal as some other people, no. Then again, some take some other issues a bit more seriously, perhaps.
Belledame, I adore you madly, and I’m grateful for your support and friendship.
Nonetheless, I have to disagree with some of the criticisms of Violet Socks in your most recent – whoops, I mean, second to most recent – post.
I think it’s legitimate for VS to shut down comments on a thread if she wants to (I’m pretty sure I know which thread you’re referring to). These kinds of blogstorms can be very, VERY bruising for the blogger at the center of the storm, as I know better than most. It’s up to each blogger to decide for herself what kind of interactions she’s prepared to undergo on her own blog.
I don’t think any blogger should be blamed for deciding “this is not the kind of interaction I want to be having on my blog, at this time.” It’s fucking hard, sometimes. It’s necessary for mental health to shut the spigot, sometimes. And that’s all that shutting off comments indicates, in my opinion. It’s a perfectly legitimate thing for VS, or anyone else, to do.
I also think that criticism on one’s own blog feels qualitatively different from criticism on other people’s blogs. I am obliged to read the comments on my own blog; they are in my space, and to some degree I have accepted responsibility for keeping abreast of what’s happening here (if only to approve posts stuck in moderation). In a way, I’m a captive audience. I can’t decide to ignore “Alas” comments for a week or two and come back to them when I’m feeling more up to it.
Shutting down comments isn’t shutting down criticism, because other folks can always criticize your position on their own blogs. (As I criticized VS’s position on “Alas.”)
Finally, if I recall correctly, in the instance you were referring to VS wasn’t persuaded that she had genuinely screwed up. She isn’t obligated to admit to a screw-up that she isn’t convinced she made.
I could quote any number of the posters in this thread in support of Amp, but this from Blue says enough for me. Clearly Amp wasn’t/isn’t over the moon about what he felt he needed to do, and this was partly why the disclosure was done as awkwardly as it was, and he’s made his apology for that.
Direct to you, Amp, I thank you for the time, thought, effort, blood and guts you put into this blog which I have enjoyed and will continue to enjoy for free. (and I couldn’t have helped you even if you’d asked.) It is much appreciated.
Btw, just to be a pesky commenter (not really), what happened to ‘preview’?
Kim, does he brainwash you into wearing one of those stupid pirate costumes, too ? Shit. I hate that. Amp, you know that I FUCKING HATE PIRATES !! So cut it out !! Grrrr…
Amanda says F*** Ritual Condemnation and links to Faultline’s post on blog policy, which I will quote here in part because it’s just so bloody cool:
And that’s how it’s done. I recommend reading the whole thing.
“One criticism of me that I think is especially strong is that I should have announced the sale of amptoons.com before it happened, to give people a chance to comment and to give other bloggers the chance to delink. It was wrong of me not to do that, and I sincerely apologize for that.”
Please. One of the things on the long list of things I hate about the Net is this inconsistently applied idea of some sort of bizarre consensus rule. Whether or not you sell a chunk of intellectual property is nobody else’s damn business.
I’ve been hesitant to comment on this as I’m fairly sympathetic to the opposition to porn, BUT I respect people who don’t feel that way. I also don’t think its fair to make strict anti-porn beliefs a litmus test for feminism. While I find the pornography industry to be repugnant, I don’t necessarily think that porn itself is fundamentally bad. And I think many “users” of porn are capable of doing so in a responsible manner. I also think that while there are strong and undeniable implications for feminism in the faults of the porn industry, I just think a lot of what they do wrong goes beyond that. Obviously, they encourage a dangerously mysoginistic attitude towards women. At the same time, I think mainstream porn can be profoundly harmful to men. I mean, for one, it encourages them to have dangerously mysogonistic attitudes towards women. Moreover, I think it encourages men to be sexually uninspired and to generally have a stunted relationship with sex. It encourages men to have an unhealthy relationship with women and with relationships. While the results of this can have far more dire consequences for women, I don’t think we should regard this mindset as harmless to the men, either. Growing up, I didn’t use pornography. Given that even then I was aware that I was attracted to fat women, the mainstream porn that was available to me just had nothing to offer me. But I did see the impact this had on my male classmates at the time and I saw their attitudes towards women grow alarmingly combative and disdainful. Not everyone. Not by a long shot. But I saw it enough people I expected better from that I am very wary of the conditioning effects of pornography.
But still, I don’t think its fair to regard this as a mandatory position. Either for feminism or progressive politics. Attacking Barry because he feels this way and is a man is ill-founded. Many feminist women are similiarly ambiviliant about feminism. And even opposing it, I have to admit that I can’t see myself being that offended or outraged at the extent of Amp’s association with pornography here. He’s not producing it. He’s not distributing it. He’s not even linking to it. I can’t deny that the scale of the involvement here is quite minimal and not enough to seriously offend me. I still read the Boston Phoenix and Weekly Dig every week inspite of their getting significant funds from “adult” advertisements. I suspect other alt-weeklies around the country are much the same. And that is a far more direct relationship then we have here.
The bottom line, is that this is Amp’s bottom line. This is his site and HE needs to pay for it. Its success is also a real issue for him in paying for its maintainence. He was put into a tough spot, and I really can’t see myself judging his response to that. I never donated to this blog. I don’t judge people who made that same choice, either. But I recognize that this all puts Amp in a tough spot. I don’t think blog readers have an obligation to donate to the blogs that they read. I think its great if they can, but it has to be a personal choice. And while a result like this is a good reason TO donate to help out the writers and communities we value, its also obviously a good reason why many feel hesitant about that. I did donate to a blog once, and I ended up regretting it. As some many now regret supporting Amp. That’s a fair concern, but its also an unhelpful one. Amp still needs to pay to keep this site running and he took the steps available to him. I won’t fault him for that.
I agree that this situation wasn’t handled well from the outset. I’m a VERY minor contributor to the site, but I could obviously appreciate other guest posters feeling upset by this and the way the news came out. And an open comments thread from the start would have been helpful. But I think Amp recognizes those errors and I’m fine with moving forward.
I like what Jenn from Reappropriate had to say about this. The porn and ethnic porn makes me uncomfortable reading this blog now but this debate needs to be tempered by considerations of privilege and luxury:
To me, I think it’s important as blog readers, that we remember that the blog’s we read are not services that exist for us, but that exist, in many ways, despite us. We may enjoy our daily routine of blog perusals, but that doesn’t mean that the blogger blogs for us; they blog for themselves and the fact that you read and enjoy their work is almost incidental. As a blog reader, we are not entitled to a blog being maintained as the highest priority in a blogger’s life, especially over other concerns like paying for food and shelter.
I was very much swayed by Amp’s discussion of his financial woes. This past summer, I was under amazing financial pressures; I wasn’t getting paid, and nearly all of my non-regular bills rained down on me. Only a few months ago, I was pinching pennies so severely, that I was raiding my piggy bank for change in order to buy food for the week. Every day, I stared at my blog and just thought about how the money I had sunk into it could help feed me, let alone pay for the mounting, past-due bills.
At that point, if a pornographer had approached me with a large sum of money, I would have had to think long and hard before turning it down. I don’t know that I would have done it, but I certainly feel like some of the outraged commentors lambasting Amp for his decision speak from a position of luxury, in which people either cannot remember or have never experienced being, quite literally, broke in America.
And I guess that’s why oppression remains so prevalent; it’s hard being an activist when the people in power can buy you, and sometimes you don’t have the choice to say no.
I think Amp sold out his domain name, and it was disappointing that he would sell it to a pornographer, which is still a controversial industry for feminists. I was disgusted to find that many of the pornography sites being advertised include ones that could hardly be construed as sex-positive feminism; rather, several are blatant exploitations of female sexuality, promote violence against women, and are racist against women of colour.
However, I see no reason to lambast a man who was facing mounting financial woes and worried about maintaining a roof over his head — the whole debate smacks so much of privilege that I am surprised that relatively few are coming to Amp’s defense to advocate a more tempered and faired outcry.
Life can be challenging and sometimes when push comes to shove is when you can know the most about what a person is.
How much is it worth to a person, to her wallet and her sense of integrity, to not participate and profit from the propagation of hate?
How much money would someone have to offer you to host a website that promotes racism and sexism?
Maybe we all have our price and we should all feel compassion on each other, but I don’t think we can forget even for a moment that each individual choice contributes to the power and legitimacy of hatred and that these choices, each little personal decision, as a whole, function to create the world we and other people with fewer choices at their disposal than we have live in.
Each person decides (to the extent that our choices can rise above the subconcious and be explicit) for her/himself.
Just realized I made a major typo in my response that I feel I should clarify as it is not obviously a typo. In my second paragraphy when I wrote: “Many feminist women are similiarly ambiviliant about feminism.” I menat to say: “Many feminist women are similiarly ambiviliant about pornography.”
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AMP- I for one would like to thank you for your extreme patience and understanding for being capable of having this thread open for as long as you have and watching a few trash you in the process.
On that note I have to wonder when enough is enough. I have read all the comments posted here and it seems like you have given everyone enough time to either bash your decision or like myself tell you that I’m definetly going to continue to read your blog.
It seems to me that the ones that are willing to move on have said so and the others that are against your decision have their own blogs to be able to drag you through the proverbial mud.
SO – it’s time to let those that oppose your views go on their separate ways and those that are still willing and waiting so see what the next informative thread you are going to discuss on this blog is going to be.
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Barry,
Fuck the naysayers. People ought to put their money where their mouths are and too many people in the blogosphere don’t do that.
What I am worried about is that you may be blackholed by Google. It’s happened before in this SEO scenarios.
I just wanted to make sure that Ampersand has seen this, particularly the last few paragraphs —
Ben Metcalfe believes that Amp is being cheated
According to Metcalfe, you are in fact not receiving the dedicated server that your contract specifies. If this is true, then it might give you quite a bit of leverage in getting out of this contract on terms favorable to you. That restores you to your previous problem, of course, but it would make it easier for you to start over and find a different solution.
I’ll go read what Metcalfe wrote.
Just FYI, if you need hosting, btw, talk to me.
This probably falls under the category of “already been said,” but… I think Barry sold out. I decline to beat him up for it, because 1) he’s done enough of that himself already 2) let whoever is without sin, and all that. I also think he’s entitled to do whatever he wants, or feels he must, with his own property, intellectual or otherwise.
I’ll be around.
Barry, what Ben Metcalfe said is correct. If your contract said that you will receive a dedicated server ( not “hosted on a dedicated server”) they are in breach of contract.
Regarding the dedicated server thing, thanks for pointing that out. I’m looking into it. If there ends up being news to report, I’ll report it.
Barry,
I have so many questions!
Did you talk to a lawyer and discuss the possible effects to your trademark and copyright? If you don’t own the domain anymore, aren’t you tarnishing your own intellectual property? What possible repercussions could this have in future defenses of your intellectual property? And did you valuate Amptoons the cartoon before deciding what a good offer for Amptoons.com would be?
I mean … do you understand how HUGE are the legal and business ramifications for a sell like this? It just kills me, KILLS ME, that within the political blogosphere we can’t seem to have discussions around good business practices.
BlogSheroes was supposed to be that place or that group of people. I mean, you have a whole community of tech, law and business saavy women who, if ignorant of the answers, could have pointed you to the right people to talk to.
I am so disappointed on that aspect. Honestly, it’s not the selling of the domain that bothers me. It’s your property after all. It’s not reaching out to the network of people you have, to help you make an educated decision.
More to the point. You sold the domain do that people that live in your house don’t have to worry about paying the rent yet, you didn’t seem to get that this is your house as well. You have two homes : one meatspace, one blogspace.
Had you been in a situation were you would have had to sell your meatspace house, would you have done it in the same way you sold the one you have online?
Fuck you and your “sincere apologies” Amp.
At least the pornographers make it plain that they hate us. You? You pretend to like us.
You’re a turd.
I will never again trust a ‘pro-feminist’ man as long as I live because you sold me out – you sold us all out.
Men fucking suck (even in spite of their living arangements and all of that shit that women have to deal with on a daily basis).
I feel so betrayed I can’t tell you.
Fucking bastard dipshit.
I just wanted to show I’m 100% behind Amp, who did what he had to do.
Sounds like you were stuck between a rock and a hard place and made what you thought was the best decision for yourself and Alas. It’s no big deal to me, I just hope you don’t end up regretting it. I wish there was some way you could have kept the domain for yourself. Keep up the great writing and I’ll keep coming here. I’m also keeping the link to Alas at my blog and appreciate being on your blogroll too.
Sorry, EL. Real feminists spew a bunch of barely coherent profanity, all the while vowing to never post here again and yet deliberately using a vague, link-free moniker and a generic writing style that leaves you in doubt as to whether they ever posted here before in the first place– as opposed to just jumping on the more-rad-than-thou bandwagon.
Try again. :D
Woman,
Sounds to me like you didn’t need Amp to do what he did to distrust men and hate them. I’m sorry for that. I must say in this particular case, I’m afraid YOU are the one giving feminists a bad name. Not Amp.
BTsu – The alt weeklies in Seattle are loaded with adult ads. I can’t recall hearing anyone suggest that this was a reason not to read them. The Stranger, for example, has been a favorite local source for Dan Savage, culture reviews and a mix of progressive/fringe political snark for ages.
Woman – So, one pro-feminist guy, whom you ‘know’ exclusively online, does something to piss you off and you will never trust another pro-feminist guy again. Your essay assignment is to explain to me how this is nothing like some man who goes through a bad divorce and decides that all women are scum because of his experience with one in particular.
It’s like an announcement to the world that the proper way to respond to someone you think acted like a jerk is by being an even bigger jerk yourself. This hardly seems reasonable, to put it mildly.
Natasha,
I don’t know Amp in real life, but how many critics have even stopped to wonder about the difficulties that prompted Amp to sell the domain, rather than launching into a full bore attack, some more substantive than others? I am convinced that there is a significant part of the universe than can only relate to others in anger. It’s not reasonable, but it’s pretty common and no small part of the reason why many small grievances beget serious conflagrations. It’s not that anger is never justified, but when it is the only thing that motivates you, you have a serious problem.
Wait. WAIT. HOLD EVERYTHING. **How** did I miss this before?
>>Chickens are [not] made of spam>>
…which, wait, WHAT are you telling me?…
Fuck!
But, but, I BELIEVED, I…
I should have known.
this changes everything. everything.
i feel so BETRAYED by this knowledge.
i’ll never trust poultry ever again
Well, hell. Right now I’m sick, I’m broke, I don’t have a computer, and I been working 12-hours a day, 6 days a week, for the past four months, and the only thing I really own is my truck (which I’m actually still paying for) and a couple of musical instruments.
I guess I could sell my instruments and turn tricks out of the back of my truck for easy money, huh? Or maybe I should send my picture into one of those amateurishly-inclined porno rags, see if they’ll fly me out to L.A. for a photo shoot.
I mean, if it’s OK for one idealist to sell out, it should be fine for another. Right?
You can publish this comment or not, I don’t really care. I do want you to read it, though. Because you have missed a few of the finer points.
I think that you have kind of cancelled out your call for respectful posting by choosing, willfully and seemingly knowingly, to however ambiguously support an industry that lives and thrives via brutal humiliation and exploitation of women, as WOMEN. You really aren’t qualified to remark as to the harmfulness of the porn industry (as you attempt to do with your watery defense of the way in which you’ve sold out- saying that porn isn’t essentially any more harmful than any other mass media) being as you are a member of the class of humans that benefits from the social recoil of pornography. Why the fuck should a feminist have any respect for someone who tries to pump up their own readership calling himself “pro-feminist” who then turns around and sells his domain in such a way? You got money from pornography. You lost the respect. Punto. Don’t fucking whine about it. And don’t try and negate the negative and murderous effects of an industry that’s more nightmarish than you could comprehend just to defend your ignorant and short-sighted leap for cash. If you didn’t want feminists to be angry, then you should have found another fucking way to make some money.
There are lots of feminists who find ways to manage without resorting to this kind of betrayal. The sob story about the high bills and blah blah blah… I honestly don’t know why you expect any of us to even care. WHY should we care? I honestly would like to know. Everybody’s got high bills. Everybody has to work. The country is in a financial crisis. You felt desperate, an offer was made, and you took it. You should be apologizing, instead of making excuses and squinting your eyes at what the porn industry does- not only to women and to children, but to humanity.
I’m a union organizer. I work day after day with people who keep two and three jobs at a time to keep their families fed, and they do it, even if the jobs don’t pay well. These folks still find time to be active in standing up for their rights. As I mentioned earlier, I work at LEAST 12 hours a day for a small salary, no overtime, and I manage to manage. Fuck your idiotic and selfish excuses. They’re bullshit.
Your excuse is a highlight of your privilege and the ways in which it has blinded you. You should admit to that. If you can’t, then you’re probably lost.
I will be suggesting to folks from now on to avoid this part of the blogosphere. Hope your conscience wakes up one day.
So Amp, I asked you if this was a Kos-style purge on the link thread and you gave me a semi-snarky, dismissive answer. Then I come here and find even more Armando wanna-bes telling the people you’ve offended to leave and don’t come back and don’t let the door in you in the ass, etc.
How could you have not known the repercussions of your actions?
I just don’t believe you. I think you considered the fallout from this sale prior to it and decided it was okay by you.
Gayle, it’s hypocritical for you to criticize me for being snarky/dismissive in response to your own snarky/dismissive comment.
To answer your question: As I’ve said, it was a compromise. So yes, of course I realized that I’d be delinked and purged by many bloggers and comment-writers, including some I have a lot of respect for. That was one of three bad things about this deal, in my view.
This is the nature of compromise. If someone decides to live in a crime-ridden neighborhood in exchange for affordable rent, would you conclude they’re “okay with” having their car robbed over and over?
I guess it depends on what the word “okay” means. If it means “something they can live with,” then yeah, I’m okay with people blacklisting “Alas.” If it means “something they consider a positive effect,” then no, of course I’m not okay with it.
Wondering where my first comment ended up.
Perhaps it was the reference to pimping. Or selling out.
Can we trust any men to be pro-feminist, or do we get shat on each bloody time?
You know, points taken wrt relative privilege. i think we’re all pretty clear that what Amp did here was a choice, not something he -absolutely had- to do. Very few things are, in this life, as per a line in I think BTVS:
“You have a choice. You don’t have a -good- choice, but you have a choice.”
and perhaps Amp has, had more even of those limited options than others. Sure.
Tangentially, just a thought:
Would we be hearing the same degree of outrage from the same people if Amp had sold to someone who only dealt with male-on-male porn? (Not as big, but still turns a tidy profit, that whole rather large subgenre). Why or why not?
Just idly wondering.