Marx viewed it as just another way people sold labor (he thought it would vanish eventually along with the traditional family unit… I have… complicated feelings about that, I mean I think sex work as a direct exchange for commodities will probably disappear as we reach a post scarcity society, but I do think there will always be people who make their labor contribution to society in the form of sexual labor), Engles was a dick about it but fuck him. (also that article confuses questionable socialism with communism so it’s not ideal).
I think the foremost thing she probably needs to understand about sex work, is it’s work. Here are some things she might bring up:
BUT WHAT ABOUT THOSE POOR WOMEN IN THIRD WORLD (I hate that term) COUNTRIES, THEY AREN’T HAPPY AND 2 OUT OF 3 DESPERATELY WANT TO STOP BEING SEX WORKERS? YUP but that’s not unique to the sex trade, sweatshops, and violent horrible bosses, and terrible working conditions, and even sexual brutality exist across a huge number of industries. If you ask a worker who works in horrible conditions in almost any industry if they want to leave that industry, they will say yes, from the workers producing H&M tatt in unsafe factories under vicious bosses in Bangladesh, to the enslaved agricultural laborers working on cocoa plantations, to the underpaid, over worked and oft mistreated workers in our very own fast food industry, I’m pretty sure all of those people would very much like to escape their work. The working conditions that currently exist in an industry do not indicate the inherent morality of the product. Sex work is not worse than other work, sex workers are more likely to be brutalized because we are stigmatized, our work made illegal and SWERFs are always fanning the flames of belief in our inherent degradation. If there will still be farming, and clothes and quickly available hamburgers after the revolution, there will still be sexual services.
BUT WHAT ABOUT TRAFFICKED WOMEN?
Slave labor is bad. Sexual labor is labor and forced labor is dehumanizing, inherently an act of extreme violence and subjugation.
BUT PORN ENCOURAGES SEXISM?
Only in men who are already violent misogynists, and then only violently misogynistic porn, not all images of people fucking must be violently misogynistic, not to mention non-sexual images of violent misogyny cause the same effects in these men. The problem is the misogyny in media, and in our culture, not with images of humans fucking (or doing other activities people might masturbate to, like tap dancing, popping balloons, eating sandwiches, doing automotive repair, or literally anything else because there’s a fetish for everything)
Why is the sex industry the one industry that won’t exist after the revolution comes? Like no one’s like “gotta eliminate bakeries, people wanting to buy muffins is inherently exploitive,” or “better eliminate wedding singers, because when you pay someone to perform a service they become nothing but an object and you feel entitled to them” or “can’t have women cleaners, it makes men feel entitled to women’s domestic labor/believe all women are maids” or “better not have mining anymore, enslaved laborers are kept in unforgivable conditions and routinely beaten.”
Like let’s say we have actual real socialism, everyone receives what they need regardless of whether or not they can or do work? Right? If she’s saying no one will choose to do sex work, she’s wrong, I genuinely like my job (except for the part where I have to work really long hours to keep the bills paid) today I talked to a shy lonely guy about how to talk to a lady he likes, and I got a foot rub. I like talking to lonely people, I like people being happy, I like people getting off, it doesn’t get me off, but it gives me the warm fuzzies, I like hearing all the weird shit that exists in the human sexual psyche. I only wish I got more female clients.
I think that the problem is A: Capitalism creates shitty labor conditions and B: Sexism exists, and when it stops existing men will treat sex workers with respect like any other person who performs a service that makes them happy (we’ll also stop being shitheads to manicurists and waitstaff) and more women will see sex workers and there will be more male sex workers, because right now women are told that they should only have sex to validate their physical desirability and that’s how women are told to parse desire, and that’s fucked up.
IDK what brand of SWERF is she?
Thoughts From The Peacock Angel 