Solo Activism
So you’re one person up against a multibillion dollar global industry that gets bigger every year. Feel overwhelmed yet?
Don’t fret, we’re here to help you get started! The dirty little secret is, there’s actually thousands of us. But most of us aren’t active or organzied yet. Here’s a short list of simple things that you alone can do every day in your little corner of the globe.
Imagine what could happen if thousands of us did one of these things every single day.
(Jackie's actual tattoo)
Actions in your personal life
• Speak up every time people blindly assume that you approve of porn use. Have oneangrygirl's handy comebacks or Allie's cheatsheet with you if you're stumped in an argument.
• Stop dating or sleeping with known porn users. Make it crystal clear to them why you won’t date or sleep with them. If they meet three in a row like you, maybe they'll catch on and rethink their behavior.
• As long as you're doing that, you may as well go ahead and sign the No Porn Pledge.
• Bonus points: if you're out with friends and the activity shifts from bar-hopping to strip-clubbing, dare to be a party pooper and go somewhere else.
Actions from the comfort of your home
• Call your local cable company and ask them to drop their porn channels. No immediate results, but remember, there’s thousands of us.
• Run a Victoria's Secret or Frederick's catalog through the paper shredder and mail it back to corporate HQ.
• If your local newspaper displays ads from strip clubs or massage parlors, call up their advertising department and ask them why. Tell them that other newspapers, including the New York Press, are dropping these ads because trafficking victims are often involved. Contact the fine folks atNoPornNorthampton for advice on this particular issue.
• Decorate your outgoing mail with our handy stamper .
Actions at the Library
• Ask your local librarians about their policy for patrons who wish to access porn at library computers. If they have a free-for-all policy and you wish to change it, go to Amanda's blogand learn from a woman who's currently trying to change the policy in her city.
• Or if they have a free-for-all policy and you wish to take advantage of it, ask them if you can host a screening of The Price of Pleasure in their Community Room. Tell them free speech goes both ways.
(Laurel's photo from a DC library)
Actions at the Mall
• Wear an Antiporn Star shirt and ride the escalator with pride.
• Go to a trendy store, gather a bunch of merchandise for purchase, wait in line, and then declare to the cashier that you were just about to buy all this pricey stuff but then you noticed all their heinous Playboy Bunny gear, and you can't possibly spend money in a store that would promote pornography use.
• Put Destroy Your Porn Collection stickers or your own homemade version, in the public bathrooms or on just about any shirt at Hot Topic. We recommend Sticker Nation if you have a better slogan than us. As always, check with your local ordinances about the legality of stickering.
• Go to the magazine stores and flip over all the Maxim and FHM issues or hide them behind Modern Bride. Put Warning stickers on any mags wrapped in plastic. If you put them on magazine covers directly, you might be accused of destroying the magazine and be forced to pay for a Maxim.
"The boyfriend and I were having a nice night out at The Grand, unfortunately the menu had a picture of the Maxim Coors Light Girls (they were promoting the "Maxim Caddies" thing, and the girls were making an appearance at the bar the following week- thankfully I was out of town for that one). It was pissing me off, so I put a "THIS INSULTS WOMEN" sticker on it. At first, my boyfriend was mad because he thought that I would cause a scene, and because his band plays at that bar sometimes, so he didn't want me to give him a bad name. I compared it to the times when his old friends would change the "No Skateboarding" signs to "Go Skateboarding" and he realized that I had a pretty good point. Partway through the night, a waitress came and took the menu. I thought I had been caught, but all she did was put it with a stack of menus by the cash register. I hope it went back onto the table the next day!" (photo and story sent by Amber) |
Actions from your car
• Put APAN flyers on the windshields of any cars in the strip club parking lot. The flyer is two pages, so you'll have to print it double-sided and triple-fold it like a regular brochure. Fun variation: dig out some old underwear, write a bright red antiporn slogan on it, then hang it from the side mirror of same car: "Wow, cool, a girl's panties! Oh."
• Go to a strip club or massage parlor early in the morning, and write in sidewalk chalk outside the front door: "Assholes and Rapists Enter Here" or "Prostitution and Abuse Happens Here," or some other cheerful greeting.
• Put Destroy Your Porn Collection stickers on drive-thru speaker posts while you get your morning coffee.
• Put antiporn literature into newspaper boxes, perhaps interspersed with your town's free "arts weekly"?
• Still have energy? Here are 101 more ideas .
