I see sex work as somewhat analogous to coal mining. It’s not that it isn’t real work, or that those who work in that capacity don’t deserve rights, dignity, or a society that works for them. The problem, of course, is the ever-present exploitation of the workers coupled with the severe unpleasantness of the occupation which ensures that the people who do work these jobs are those with few other options. That isn’t to say that all sex workers and/or coal miners are miserable. Even so, the patterns around this kind of work are unmistakable.
Given these facts, I think most reasonable people understand that sex work should go extinct. That isn’t to say that you can’t make pornography or have sex with strangers. However, it’s impossible to gauge enthusiastic consent when money is changing hands, and enthusiastic consent is a vital component for an ethical sexual encounter.
My question for the community is how exactly this is meant to be accomplished. How can sex work be abolished without harming the very people it’s meant to protect? The number one problem western sex workers face, more so than creepy clients, is the cops, who profile them, steal their wages, and arrest them on a whim. Clearly, criminalizing sex work hasn’t done much for sex workers. What are some alternatives?
Step 1: Depose capitalism and liberate the working class.
That’s it. You can do anything you like to abolish sex work, but if capitalism remains fhen economic coercion will remain and sex work will eventually come back. When capitalism is gone, the economic coercion that makes transactional sex exploitative/unethical is gone.
This is 100% it. In a society that has moved past capitalism into socialism/communism there won’t be sex work because people won’t need it for income.
Pornography should also be extinct. Consent under capitalism in porn is dubious at best and is still exploitative, and it objectifies the people in it mostly of which are women.
The solution is simply to improve living standards and worker conditions so that they have no need to go into sex work. Sex work should not be legalized period.
pornography addiction is a symptom of an intensely isolated society. Like most things, pornography won’t disappear but will change its shape and purpose in a society without capitalist reproduction.
That’s a bit economistic, there will need to be a massive cultural revolution in the west to fix the gender contradictions that goes beyond just improving living standards and worker conditions. Can’t speak to the rest of the world although I know similar contradictions are present thanks in large part to Christian missionaries.
Totally agreed on pornography though, it is very harmful to women and queer folk (and men too, mostly in different ways). Society would have to be fundamentally different before sexual material like that could exist in a healthy way.
Is pornography still exploitative if no money changes hands? I figure if I want to put my ass on the internet for free, there’s nothing wrong with that, right? I’m not sure how that specific kind of pornography relates to capitalism.
And what about drawn pornography? Are we coming after the furries? lol
Porn is a multi-billion dollar industry, that is essentially filmed rape. However consensual the actors appear to be, if their livelihoods and ability to pay rent depend on views, then that goes against the very definition of consent.
Obligatory copy pasta:
"Alright time’s up. Let me spell it out for you then.
For the millionth time: You don’t get to jerk off to filmed rape under socialism.
Every socialist state that ever existed has banned porn.
Yes, porn is coercive as every form of wage labor is. But it is not just any wage labor, but labor involved in the social production of art - in this case reactionary art.
Why is it reactionary? Its ideological content is. It objectifies - or more precisely, commodifies (primarily female) bodies. It dehumanizes women. It is the reason why you have white people going around fetishizing Asian women.
Porn fits into the capitalist superstructure which reproduces the institutions of patriarchy, and by extension, of capitalism itself. It has no place in a socialist society. The suppression of pornography then isn’t simply the suppression of commodity production, it would be similar to the suppression of any other reactionary cultural product (music, films, etc…).
Now for the infamous FAQs:
“But what if I film me and my girlfriend having sex with the consent of both parties?”
First of all, if you have to ask that, your girlfriend is most likely imaginary. I don’t know about white amerikans, but in my part of the world, nobody does that. Uploading sex tapes is considered a form of humiliation, and thus it’s a punishable crime. People have committed suicide over this. No one who has healthy relationships would ask their girlfriend: “Hey can I upload a video of us having sex?”
Secondly, the question makes no sense. It’s like saying “not all white people are racist”. You are talking about a social phenomenon with a systemic role that only exists in relation to a set of conditions, individualizing it only obscures the point. Porn isn’t just “capturing two people having sex”, that’s ahistorical view which abstracts away from all social context. If that’s porn, ancient paintings of people having sex would be porn, and if that’s the case “porn” would be meaningless as a category of analysis. Pornography presupposes the capitalist mode of production, the productive forces developed to a sufficient level so this phenomenon can even take place in the first place (the means to circulate these videos like the internet or other distribution channels, the filming equipment), patriarchy, etc…
Let me give you an example: Money is only money in relation to commodity production as the universal equivalent. On a desert island it would just be useless pieces of paper. Porn is no different. It is a social phenomenon that only exists in relation to the larger capitalist-patriarchal superstructure. If you film you and your girlfriend having sex on a desert island, yeah sure, then it’s “consensual”, and it’s not even “porn” anymore. But you don’t live on a desert island. You live in a society where all of the conditions I mentioned exist. The “amateur sex tapes” you upload in a capitalist society will inevitably conforms to logic of profitability that predominates a capitalist society - which is why, as someone has mentioned below, “amateur sex tapes” are commodified, and thus aren’t even really “amateur” (This is the reality no matter how the internet in the neoliberal era has masked it as “liberating” since “everyone’s a content producer”). And once you’ve accepted that, its’ not hard to see why there’s no such thing as “non-patriarchal” porn: Commodities have a use-value: in order to be sold, they have to be socially necessary. If you’re uploading “amateur sex tapes” in a society where people who consume those tapes are people who consume “professional porn”, the your tapes will have to mirror “professional porn” in its ideological content. Meaning, all those elements of objectification and fetishization remain. Your “amateur” sex tapes necessarily conform to the larger cultural logic of capitalism, and thus , they fit into that larger reactionary ideological superstructure. In other words, in the grand scheme of things, the distinction between “amateur” and “professional” porn is meaningless, and so are your individual motives.
Finally, you have a nonsensical view of consent. In the same way that wage labor isn’t truly “consensual”, those who “consented” to filming amateur porn faces the systemic pressures of capitalist-patriarchy.
“What if people still want to film themselves having sex under communism?”
We have established that porn is a social phenomenon, an industry under capitalism. Would there still be isolated cases of people filming themselves having sex under socialism that is separated from the logic of commodity production? Maybe. But considering that this has never happened in any socialist society up to this point, why do you insist on asking this question? Fantasies are not real, but they have very real implications about the worldview of those who came up with them. So why do petit-bourgeois Western men find it impossible to envision a “liberating society” without the existence of sex tapes? The answer I think, is quite obvious."
First of all, if you have to ask that, your girlfriend is most likely imaginary. I don’t know about white amerikans, but in my part of the world, nobody does that. Uploading sex tapes is considered a form of humiliation, and thus it’s a punishable crime. People have committed suicide over this. No one who has healthy relationships would ask their girlfriend: “Hey can I upload a video of us having sex?”
I found this part a bit strange. Some people really do want to upload their sextapes for the world to see. I know plenty of people who have healthy relationships that are willing to do this.
This do seems to be cultural stuff. In Poland this would be at best incredibly embarassing and at worst social death.
So I’ve guided (retired?) sex workers in the past. I wouldn’t overreact if I said that out of a room of 200 sex workers, 1 or 2 would do it because they wanted to. The rest was either trafficked or forced into it.
I fully support sex workers and their orgs in protests, unionizing and activism and I fully support orgs trying to help them with the work or help them escape. Their struggle to change the industry is a thing they need to have control of, as they are the ones being a part of it.
Personally, I don’t see a point in trying to regulate an industry that is filled with so much suffering. I always figured that if the people involved got the chances to do something else in life, 99.9% of them would. In a society where these people wouldn’t have to rely on sex to survive, sex work isn’t needed. That doesn’t mean that a free sexual moral wouldn’t exist. Quite the opposite, I think.
I’d also be curious as to what “wanting to” really means in such a misogynistic society that necessarily is internalized by everyone including (especially) sex workers. At best, “wanting to” engage in sex work really just means wanting to have sex anyway, and does not legitimize sex work in any way, IMO.
I personally only have met white, already well off women that wanted to do sex work. You know, people that were stuck in a job or got out of a long relationship and somehow became a high end escort, with a lot of freedom of choice. That´s the people I refer to that want to do this. They do exist (in very, very small numbers).
I didn’t meant to use them to legitimize sex work.
is this our site’s own little recurrent struggle session?
No, it is every single leftist space recurring struggle session*. For some reason nothing else cause so much emotion so fast and so often.
*In the internet that is, IRL it is discussed much much less often.
In my opinion it should be regulated while under capitalism, abolishing can only be done in socialism and still you need to put in place a real system to get these people to not work there anymore. China IMO hasn’t handled that very well since it’s not legal but clearly there are still prostitutes working there.
