A Message from Sam Berg, just to clarify something...

Now, I'm being told that there is a lot of vitriol being said about Sam Berg, me and others over the pro-porn blogosphere right now and I've not even had a look as I am not interested. As I said before, I don't go to *their* places anymore as I don't care about what's being said about me by a sad bunch of people who don't even know me and who pathetically don't have anything better (?) to do than trash rad fems on their blogs. I perfectly know that all the nonsense pro-porners talk, the jeers and the gender-specific name-calling they sometimes use clearly show pornography's negative effects on them, as I have said before. . .

So why don't I care about what pro-porners say about me? Because I know that these people are all so full of it, obviously. . .

But, although in my previous post I'd said that "the next post I'll make on this blog will not be about the same subject. I'll go back to doing my patriarchy-bashing and exposing the harms of pornography and prostitution" (count on it next time for sure), I'm merely posting this message from Sam, upon her recent and urgent request, in order to clarify something because serious lies and misrepresentations are apparently being said about her right now over the "sex-poz" blogosphere. Here it is from Sam:


There are a lot of lies being told about me right now. I’m used to that because it comes with the pro-woman activism that kooky kid called life dropped into my lap like an unexploded bomb, but it’s rather concentrated at the moment. Most of it is nonsense, like that I’m trying to get the pro-sex work group kicked off campus (I’m not) or that I’m afraid to debate sex workers (I’m not) or that I said RenEv made threats personally to me (she didn’t and I didn’t say she did), but there is one very serious bit of business tucked into the ever-heaping distortions that I feel must be addressed.

Renegade Evolution is saying that I sent her threatening private emails. I have never emailed RenEv. Not once. What would be the point?

So where did the supposed emailed “threat” come from? I think I know, and I think you’re all going to want to learn what I know, because the pieces are fitting together for me very clearly for the first time.

Remember that person who committed fraud by lying to one of Genderberg’s moderators about being anti-pornography and anti-prostitution so they could spy on our private forums and then release words from there publicly? If you need or want a recap about the violation of women’s safe space that happened one year ago today in April 2007 you can read this post at Sinister Girl's.

Caught up? Good.

Also in April 2007, the aforementioned lying person started a hate blog called “Radical Feminist Terrorism” where the person who stole private writings from Genderberg [forums] spewed her vituperative guts out with such psychotic absurdities as:

“You can't really understand the hatred that is embodied in many of the posts on Genderberg. Many members of that forum simply do not see other women as human at all.“

“I am not sure why the belief that women should be free to live as they wish is so dangerous. I do know that to many in the Genderberg this belief in women's freedom is utterly inexcusable. They will do anything to destroy it.”

“While many will claim that Genderberg is a "safe space" my belief is that there should be no safe space for those who work to destroy women. There should be no dark corner where ANYONE can get together and plot against or foster hatred of women.”

“There is no evil that these haters of women will not stoop to. There is no vile act of malice they cannot justify. They will do anything in their power to destroy or silence anyone they disagree with. In their hate they are trying to destroy her. In their blood lust for a purge they are trying to force Renegade Evolution to reveal who I am. They want to close the hole so they can go back to plotting against women in the dark.”

“In my time on Genderberg I read more hatred of women than I ever read or saw in pornography.”

Seeing how loony the anonymous Radfem Terrorism blogger clearly is, I brushed off replying substantively because the raging dementia speaks for itself.

Throughout May and June the moderators at Genderberg worked like demons to try and figure out which of the 100 or so members was the leak. We ask every member a series of questions before approving them and we were going member by member to try and restore some of the lost sense of security that made one prostituted woman feel she had to leave Genderberg. By early July we pooled our research and figured out that the leak was someone who registered as “Miriam” with a bunch of hooey about being anti-pornography and caring about prostituted women. I deleted “Miriam” from the memberlist and sent her the following email on July 5, 2007:

“I feel bad for you because you've obviously been seriously fucked up by people in your life, but if you don't back off slagging on radfems you're going to force my hand.

I can prove you committed fraud when you lied to moderator deedle about your gb membership, and I can prove you were the one who leaked Pony's words. Because you're a pathological liar, you're probably thinking you can lie your way out of this just like you've done other times.

You can't.

I didn't out you before because I have a soft spot for seriously fucked up women like yourself, but I'm not above initiating legal action to show the ex-sex workers in my little community that their privacy and continued peace of mind is something I take very seriously. If you cared about sex workers one tenth as much as you manipulatively tell people you do then you would not have violated a sex worker-heavy community like you did.

Stop telling lies, Miriam. You're not as good at it as you think you are.”

Now ask yourself why RenEv thinks my email to Miriam threatening to reveal that I know Miriam wrote the "Radical Feminist Terrorism" blog was somehow a threat to reveal personal information about RenEv.

-- Sam Berg.


I'm guessing that's another side of another story again exposed now, as I can see. Thank you so much for your honesty about this email, Sam. I can imagine that (1) you were protecting Genderberg's security & privacy and (2) you were very angry at the facts that Pony's words had been leaked from G'berg's private forums by somebody and that rad fems were being trashed on the pro-porn blogosphere (as usual). I also believe that the clarification was important, which is why I'm posting this.

But now, honestly, I do not want to talk about those pro-porners' names ever again on my blog (in future posts -- I'll let rad fems comment on what they will here in case they want to say anything). I do not want to talk about these names anymore after that due to the fact that, as I have said before, they aren't worth paying attention to even though I spoke in defense of Sam as they clearly went way too far in their nastiness this time with the way they treated her regarding the issues that surrounded that porn panel. . .

(BTW the post over at Heart's on the W&M panel and her comment thread were very interesting)

They'll carry on bashing us as if that's all they're capable of and I'll be carrying on bashing patriarchy and pornstitution meanwhile. . .


Edited to add: See also the similar post at Laurelin's on Sam Berg responding to her detractors, and Laurelin's little comment thread that follows it. Also, check out the comment thread at Witchy's.

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