I recently made a post about this topic but it caused a lot of controversy. I did not specify and used the broad term of sex work which probably made the interpretations so varied. For the purposes of this conversation, I want to focus on work that is consensual because obviously human trafficking or coercive sex is inherently wrong and exploitative. Some people even said that sex work is not valid labor which I personally found strange. I’m personally not a fanboy of the sex industry at all, but most people involved would say that the illegality of it exacerbates the bad situation that they find themselves in, and I cannot personally find a reason to be going against what the people involved are saying. And yeah it probably wouldn’t exist under socialism but at the same time, I think it is a huge mistake to go in with an iron fist and just say “I’m going to make everyone stop sex work right this instant because it’s not socialist” because this does not treat the underlying causes of it, which will only make it spring back up anyway.
And I’m not just expecting one type of answer but if I am making an error in applying dialectical materialism or Marxism-Leninism please let me know.
Please, try and engage honestly with all of what I have said in the paragraph you are referencing. It’s all right there at the top of my post. Act in good faith. Thanks.
What did I say? Did I say right now? Did I say under capitalism? No. I said under socialism. I said under socialism after their material needs have been met, they aren’t going to lose a home or food, or medical care for sake of ceasing to do this “work”. I said after not only that but intervention, therapy, re-education. If both of those things fail you have people willingly engaging in anti-social behavior, they’ve been brainwashed by communists (do you know the origin of brain washing? It literally means to wash the brain, to wash out the lies, to capitalists and imperialists who were frightened by their soldiers in Korea being woken up to what they were doing of course they’d conflate it with indoctrination, I don’t hold it against you that you use it that way, many people do, but I did want to point it out as it’s an interesting fact), that is cleansed of indoctrination while being provided for and they still choose to defy the line we’ve set, then and only then does anything happen. That is extremely lenient, extremely caring, we are under my proposal taking great pains to avoid having to be harsh. We are doing everything we can to materially meet needs, and educate. But you must understand. There is a tiny fraction of the population who refuse re-education. Who refuse to be deprogrammed of the old superstructure, of old social structures.
To address the second part briefly. I am engaging in a conversation with people who take as a given that pimps and men profiting off women selling sex is bad. I am engaging in a conversation with people who deflect with, well it was the woman’s choice, it wasn’t men, she likes it, she chose it. Etc. My post does go over men but it is huge as you can see no doubt. I didn’t want to pad it out going over something everyone already agrees with and I really do not appreciate your insinuations towards me which are little more than personal attacks and cheap shots from someone who has no argument to offer.
Women perpetuate misogyny and this must be recognized and dealt with in any conversation where people pull out token women to excuse something. Men are primarily responsible, overwhelmingly responsible for misogyny and patriarchy and upholding it with incredible violence. It is their job, their fault and I expect them as comrades to shoulder primary responsibility which includes not perpetuating things like what we are discussing. However we cannot ignore in desiring to abolish it that there are women who will resist us actively, who will aid, abet, and join with those men seeking to uphold it. And this conversation got into that territory. And I have addressed their existence as best I could in brief without getting bogged down into a dissertation on the matter.
Absolutely men and people of other genders engage in sex work and prostitution. However it is a primarily women’s issue and it is from that perspective of feminism and women’s rights I address it. I do not want to distract from the fact prostitution was not built and is not a structure primarily of oppression to men, LGBTQ+ people, etc, that any such oppression came later, often as part of, ancillary too the structure of patriarchy and misogyny. Overwhelmingly women are those who do it and men are those who consume it. That includes trans women and the issue of trans-misogyny by the way. Fetishization, degradation, de-humanization. Trans-women are women and women are not your fetish or kink they are people my friend. That said, if one were to abolish it only among women and leave men and other genders in it, you’d have the same issues I raised which would form around them. So don’t think I favor only saving women. I am talking about snatching back human sexuality from capitalism and this vile industry.