Support Sex Workers
(midwest.social)
CobraCommander
Memes of ProductionI don't think I've ever heard anyone make that statement before. Mostly because that statement is utterly irrational even if you don't think that sex workers should be a supported business.
There are a brand of folks derogatorily called SWERFs or sex worker exclusionary radical feminists. It's not a super common view, but exists, and I'm sure as a sex worker she's experienced plenty of it on twitter.
Yeah, this is a very weird tweet. It almost is like that person doesn't want to think of the realities of procuring. Sure buddy, the women having to sell their bodies / services to rich men got to keep all the money and then spend it in their communities.
Who said that in the first place?
iPhone users masking as leftists on twitter make up their imaginary enemies to shit on
This is the question that needs to be asked everytime an outrage discourse starts
A lot of times I see something like this I am pretty sure it’s reacting to a villain that only exists in a theoretical sense
It's not even if prostitution has much of a left vs right stance on it. It's generally seen as something that's more or less inevitable, and much used by the political classes on both sides of the divide.
I know some people seem to think that it's an indication that an economy is in decline, but it really isn't. Because it's a job that will be always in demand and there will always be people who are prepared to do it, regardless of how much money they may already have. The only real economic marker that you can use prostitution for is how much they charge.
"erm sex work is actually heccin wholesome" oh my fucking god, execute all porn addicted brain rotted gooners please
Money is needed to purchase your needs for survival, without it you're pretty much dead. You cannot buy consent with money, you cannot go up to someone and say "hey let's have sex in exchange for your means of survival", it is literally just commodified rape in every sense.
What makes it worse is that if you look at sex work industry, the vast majority of sex workers are single mothers with children to care for :) with major spikes in their quantity during times of economic downturn :))), meaning that for them it's "get raped by this guy for money or you and your child will starve to death"
This shit is horrifying, it's not wholesome it's not revolutionary, and if you think that it is then genuinely seek help for your porn addiction or at least give it a bit more thought. It makes me unreasonably angry due to my own life experiences, not because of some vague moralism.
The problem here is that the poster is not necessarily a "porn-addicted gooner" but a sex worker herself. So she is also speaking from her own experiences. I think the problem is that very valid concerns, such as your own, can be weaponized against individual sex workers to alienate them from our movements. So even if your arguments don't originate from a place of vague moralism, they still function to reinforce divisions of labor, which only benefits the ruling capitalist class, the pimps, the exploiters.
A fundamental part of any struggle for liberation is the struggle for legitimacy against individual dehumanization via structural delegitimization. You compare sex work to slavery, which is a good comparison in many ways, especially since we live in a (mostly) post-slavery society and are able to criticize slavery from a position of moral and social certainty. It has been thoroughly delegitimized by history and only persists in the shadows of production.
W.E.B DuBois makes some observations about chattel slavery before the civil war:
The slavery of Negroes in the South was not usually a deliberately cruel and oppressive system. It did not mean systematic starvation or murder.
The victims of Southern slavery were often happy; had usually adequate food for their health, and shelter sufficient for a mild climate. The Southerners could say with some justification that when the mass of their field hands were compared with the worst class of laborers in the slums of New York and Philadelphia, and the factory towns of New England, the black slaves were as well off and in some particulars better off. Slaves lived largely in the country where health conditions were better; they worked in the open air, and their hours were about the current hours for peasants throughout Europe. They received no formal education, and neither did the Irish peasant, the English factory-laborer, nor the German Bauer; and in contrast with these free white laborers, the Negroes were protected by a certain primitive sort of old-age pension, job insurance, and sickness insur ance; that is, they must be supported in some fashion, when they were too old to work; they must have attention in sickness, for they represented invested capital; and they could never be among the unemployed.
This is not an argument for slavery, but an objective assessment based on actual people's experience of their own lives, that exists as part of a soaring criticism of slavery. But it demonstrates that people who were enslaved could feel happy, healthy, and "taken care of" despite being victimized by absolutely horrific means of production. The victims of chattel slavery emancipated themselves during the battles of the USAmerican civil war, and many of them not just willingly became soldiers but eagerly sought the right to self emancipate, to fight and die bravely for their own freedom. During Reconstruction, even the people who stayed behind on the land their masters bound them to, who obediently supported the southern armies, were extremely committed to the cause of freedom and emancipation for black victims of slavery, and were not willing to give up the project of black emancipation.
Slaves were, according to DuBois and any material analysis, part of the working class. This original post is explicitly saying that sex workers are not enemies of the working class, and the "pro sex work" leftist position is that sex workers are workers. Granted, I def know comrades who hire sex workers and probably use the leftist argument to legitimize their own desires, but I doubt that the shared experience is one of rape. These experiences definitely exist within the objective social structures of sex work, and I don't think that engaging in sex work as supplier or consumer is any more revolutionary, arguably less, than any other consumer decision.
But the important part is that sex workers are part of the workers movement, are welcomed and empowered to speak and act on their own experiences, and struggle for their own emancipation of sex work. Now a lot of times a common reform suggested is the legalization of sex work, which is suggested to improve protections of sex workers. I think if we continue the slavery comparison, it gets really difficult to stand by this argument, as legalization of slavery is the legitimization of it, and subsequently, the structural manifestation of exploitation. Legalization of slavery under capitalism is just going to make conditions worse for all workers. Legalizing sex work, as a movement, would also be extremely difficult as I think you'd automatically have like 70-80% of women firmly against it.
But this is how it functions as a division of labor. If people are arguing that sex workers are enemies of the working class, this is wrong as they are part of the working class therefore their exploitation is part of the exploitation of all workers. Like you said, lots of sex workers are single mothers with minimal qualms about it, just trying to provide for themselves and their children. So I question anyone who jumps into a thread about whether sex workers are enemies of the working class who make broad generalizations about the nature of the work that seem to also shout down the experiences of the sex workers themselves. Like, I have a lot of sexual trauma that I gave consent to. I don't dispute that consent is contextual, and can be seen quite differently even years after the fact.
But sex workers have to be centered in the project for their own liberation, as only they are able to liberate themselves. And delegitimizing their experiences and views, even if they are wrong-headed, only reinforces the divisions of labor that contributes to their exploitation as well as the working class generally. I think the whole discussion around sex work is framed in a way that harms both side's ability to see the other perspective, which just deepens the divisions between workers.
Like I agree with everything you said, but the fact that you said it in response to this post kinda proves that the well is poisoned on this discourse.
A lot of leftists have adopted the view that sex work is something positive, liberatory, just another type of work that should be supported like wholesome small businesses while ignoring the reality of just how fucked it is (the why on why it's fucked and why it's rapey is in my other comments), I'd argue more often than not this is done deliberately to justify their own unhealthy views.
The post + title combo and some background of OP of this post (not the tweet) makes me believe they are exactly this type of person, which is what I was responding to. I am not arguing that "sex workers are enemy of the working class", that's stupid and I highly doubt anyone sane or anyone here at all says that except some Marx quote which OP references if one was to read it in the most disingenuous way possible.
It is work, they are workers, but it's a horrible job that can easily be and must be abolished even before commodity form dies.
That being said:
But sex workers have to be centered in the project for their own liberation, as only they are able to liberate themselves.
Alright, with all due respect, what the fuck are you talking about? Workers struggle is one and the same, there are no "unique worker struggles". The historic task of proletariat is to abolish the anarchic mode of production, private property and commodity form completely (in other words, the current state of things) in favor of production for use in a classless, stateless society. Sex work would literally cease to be a thing, if someone truly wants to fuck a ton then they're not a prostitute but a 'playah' since no exchange takes place other than one of actual consent, with all the survival needs and freedoms being provided freely already.
Even as early as DOTP, there would be no reason to keep sex workers or lumpenproletariat in their positions given their misery and the ability for counter-revolutionaries to mobilize them. Reintegration to the labor pool is the most sane choice.
Without a proletarian revolution, there is no emancipation.
P.S. you use "division of labor" in the wrong way. What it refers to is not when workers go and cry about whose job is real or not, but a concept where people split into specialized roles during labor process. It is it's own can of worms that is completely unrelated to this topic.
Re: the poster of this lemmy post - fair, I haven't looked into them and I agree that the application of sex-work positive liberatory language can be applied to anti-worker reaction.
Re: divisions of labor - a few quotes from Principles of communism
Labor was more and more divided among the individual workers so that the worker who previously had done a complete piece of work now did only a part of that piece. This division of labor made it possible to produce things faster and cheaper. It reduced the activity of the individual worker to simple, endlessly repeated mechanical motions which could be performed not only as well but much better by a machine. In this way, all these industries fell, one after another, under the dominance of steam, machinery, and the factory system, just as spinning and weaving had already done.
But at the same time, they also fell into the hands of big capitalists, and their workers were deprived of whatever independence remained to them. Gradually, not only genuine manufacture but also handicrafts came within the province of the factory system as big capitalists increasingly displaced the small master craftsmen by setting up huge workshops, which saved many expenses and permitted an elaborate division of labor.
This is what you are talking about. However, later:
The existence of classes originated in the division of labor...
The form of the division of labor which makes one a peasant, another a cobbler, a third a factory worker, a fourth a stock-market operator, has already been undermined by machinery and will completely disappear.
So this doesn't contradict your point, but it does add some depth to it. If divisions of labor are the basis of class, and class is a social relation defined and differentiated by material conditions, then it is more than just "people split into specialized roles during labor process," it isn't anywhere near that neutral. It absolutely defines our social reality, differences based on these divisions generate different lived experiences.
What the fuck I'm talking about
Theses on Feuerbach, I:
The chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism – that of Feuerbach included – is that the thing, reality, sensuousness, is conceived only in the form of the object or of contemplation, but not as sensuous human activity, practice, not subjectively. Hence, in contradistinction to materialism, the active side was developed abstractly by idealism – which, of course, does not know real, sensuous activity as such.
Feuerbach wants sensuous objects, really distinct from the thought objects, but he does not conceive human activity itself as objective activity.
So Marx is saying that the old materialist view considered everything in the abstract, separated and distinct, views as the thing in itself. The part that I've become really conscious of is his constant use of the concept of "sensuousness" which I take to mean something like experience, where an individual senses something in their environment.
Theses III:
The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-changing can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice.
This lands on a particular conclusion. Marxist materialism conceptualizes "the thing, reality" as a process that begins with individual sensing/experiencing, contemplation of experience, and activity that changes something in the world. These changes are experienced by the subject, so that this is a cycle of social development that is concretely centered in human experience and activity. This is affirmed in Marx by his adaptation of the labor theory of value, which centers human labor power in capitalist production. He took Ricardo's more abstract "old materialist" formulation and expanded it to include the actual time and energy of.people, unlocking its revolutionary potential. Lenin described how class consciousness is structural, rather than purely individual.
This process is the fundamental insight of Marx, this insight represents the actual turning of Hegel on his head.
unique worker struggles
There is one unified worker's struggle, the working class against the capitalists, but divisions in labor create totally different experiences between workers. For example, Marxists have tried, and failed miserably, to convince the broad majority of black workers that there is one worker struggle, because frankly, it's too abstract. But what black peosympathise, erstand is that white people literally can not understand racism. We don't experience it directly, so we can only understand it in the abstract. What white people can do, is involve ourselves in the actual work of black liberation. We gain real experience in struggle, centering black experience in order to identify the actual causes and effects of racial discrimination. Like we all know racism comes from capitalism, but that's too abstract and doesn't actually connect the experience of the individual to the material consequence. Lots of people deny it out of hand because it doesnt match their experience. Because of alienation, workers don't experience every aspect of our material conditions, but we do have direct experience of bad or dangerous conditions, certain kinds of exploitation, etc. These fundamental experiences are commonly used by union organizers to develop class consciousness and solidarity. It isn't hard for people to see how our struggles connect us, but it does take a little help connecting our lived experiences to class struggle. And that connection does not occur without direct experience, combined with direct involvement in the struggle to improve material conditions.
Every worker has these conditions working on them but every worker experiences them differently due to divisions caused by capitalism. Divisions in labor not only occur between different types of jobs, but fundamentally, between genders, races, ethnicities, levels of education, etc. The economic opportunities afforded to an educated white cis straight man are objectively different than opportunities afforded a black trans woman with a "criminal" record. This is a social division that is fundamental part of divisions of labor. The jobs you can get vs the jobs I can get. And if I'm working as a software engineer and someone else is working as a prostitute the differences between our experiences are compound and chasmic. I will not understand that person's experiences, at best i can sympathise, which only gets me so far.
However my liberation is dependent on theirs because it is fundamentally one struggle. This is why I would rely on a sex worker to define the concrete conditions of their oppression, working together to discover the actual nature of their oppression and how that connects to my own, rather than only understanding these things at the most abstract level in the most general way. Only by reckoning with the actual conditions people experience can we see how other people's experiences are connected to pur own. Understanding the worker struggle as one struggle, if only considered in abstract theory, can never generate real solidarity, and therefore is not by itself a road to socialism. We have to prove it to ourselves and to others every day and in every way possible.
Conditions vary widely from place to place, time to time, occupation to occupation. The existence of broad material generalities does not invalidate concrete specificities. And those concretions are based exclusively in the experiences and practical activity of people. Broad generalities misapplied to the whole of society only compound contradictions, into which the bourgeois will sow corruption and reaction. Compromises will have to be made, socialism is fundamentally a transitional process, and there are certain broad changes to society that have to be made. Like, if we really want to abolish sex work, we could put a huge dent in it by, for example, universalizing free high quality childcare and education, healthcare, housing, jobs guarantee, welfare programs, and in the process, develop a drastically different social reality for all workers. But if we want sex workers to join the struggle, we have to prove that we understand and are making real accommodations for their experiences. And if we don't want sex workers to join the struggle, well then who else are we leaving out?
"sucking a stranger's dick for money is more horrifying and degrading than cleaning a stranger's toilet for money" and other statements only ever spoken aloud by people who have neither sucked dicks nor cleaned toilets for money.
I think you are overestemating how well people clean their dicks usually, by a very big fsctor
I think you are overestimating how much dignity you can retain while scrubbing someone else's shit stains out of a toilet.
I want to thank you for this comment. As someone who was forced to turn to sex work through unemployment due to mental health issues this attitude that sex work is all fun and good is sickening. I will never recover from the trauma I experienced just by participating in that horror and the 'sex positive' crowd are, I'm certain, just paid shills for the industry. Commodified rape is 100% correct, I hated every single one of my 'customers' with a passion, but I needed to eat and pay rent.
I'm really torn by this argument. To me it's mainly an argument against capitalism (and a valid one for that).
The vast majority of cleaning personal might as well be single mothers to meet their means of survival. Also: where I am, there is "good enough" social security, so it's not about survival.
People working at construction sites are ruining their body to make ends meet (to pick up your argument again). Sure, you could not argue that they are raped, but enslaved then.
Edit: the -> there
Yes, wage labor is also shit, it is inherently exploitative and you're also forced to sell your labor power to procure your needs for survival. While work itself is necessary to sustain life, wage labor isn't and it's not something to valorize.
This post is literally valorizing one of the most horrible types of work, ones that more often than not results in literal slavery by pimps, targets the most desperate and vulnerable, and in general commodifies one of the most intimate activities two consenting adults can do and gives 'customers' carte blanche to rape.
The amount of violence, trafficking, abuse, trauma, etc sex industry (even in regulated form) creates is horrifying, but I guess it's okay because it "supports the local community!! Be sure to purchase your own sex slave today!". It's not a wholesome 100 small business.
I absolutely condemn pimping and forced labor (sex or other). So I guess I agree with you quite a bit.
But where does this turn into rape? I can't follow. "Rape is a type of sexual assault involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent." (I googled, AI spit that out, claims it's from Wikipedia. But I hope we can vaguely agree on this definition?). It's bought consent. A huge amount of consent is bought, outside of prostitution. With money, with power, with influence.
Consent isn't something that's bought or sold, 'bought consent' is literally coercion.
Compare and contrast two situations: one, where two people go "hey, we both like each other and are both horny, let's do it tonight" and thus doing it to share intimacy/mutually satisfy their needs and another where a stranger goes "hey, let me fuck you and I'll give you money so you can afford your future survival, or starve to death", and it doesn't have to be money but position of power or other type of coercion. Even if the other person in the second example agrees, it's not because they freely "want to do it" (they might not even have a choice) but because of what they might receive after the act, one person using their position of power over another.
If it's coercion, there can be no free consent. If there's no consent, it's rape (like the definition you dropped says). If the rape is sold for money, it's merely commodified.
My boss used to buy my consent to do his (non sex) work for many years.
Just because you have exchanged money for sex doesn't mean the sex worker can no longer revoke consent. Rape is a huge danger for sex workers and it is wild that you're sitting here confused about how rape happens.
I never discussed revoked consent, and I fully agree that consent can change. Never said anything different, right?
I'm not confused, and you start making things up.
But where does this turn into rape? I can’t follow.
Sex workers are often raped in the course of their profession. What are you confused about here?
They're both exploitative, but just imagine like you had to kiss you're boss on the mouth the unlock your full bonus.
The more you give the more you might get. True for many many jobs. But this is not forcing, this is not "have to". This is setting you own boundaries. Like you do with every relationship, private, business, erotic (for lack of a better word) or not.
So you think that workplace sexual harassment (exchanging bonuses or promotions or other benefits for sexual activities) is fine, as long as the coercion is only monetary?
No, that's not what I said.
I have re-read the comment thread like three times and I don't see any other interpretation.
"just imagine like you had to kiss you’re boss on the mouth the unlock your full bonus" (textbook workspace sexual harassment)
Response:
- The more you give the more you might get
- True for many many jobs
- this is not forcing, this is not “have to”
How is this anything but defending sexual harassment?
I don't understand your implication. You'll have to spell it out for me please :)
Not sure what/which part you mean. If "all", then sorry, no.
Like what do you mean? That work is like a relationship? I don't get the comparison. Work is a totally different type of relationship because of the exchange of money. It makes it so you can't walk away from situations at work that you would in real life
"funneling" depends if they are on the streets or if hired by someone to entertain their clients. Victims either way, though.
You don't think it's possible for a sex worker to not be a victim?
No. We are all victims of capitalism's drive to commodify all aspects of life.
If they still wanna play the game without the shadow of the market, they're still welcome to.
But does literally anyone say that sex workers are enemies of the working class? Sure, that's a shitty take, but is it one that exists in reality or was the person here in 2020 just shouting into the void at an imaginary strawman?
Marx did.
He considered sex workers part of the lumpenproletariat, the lowest of the low alongside drug addicts, thieves, unemployed, etc. and he viewed them as a dangerous class who could be bribed by the rich to turn against the proletariat.
If you had read marx, you'd know that those are categories that show one's relation to means of production. For instance, an artisan isn't automatically a petite bourgeois or proletariat, it depends on if they own their MOP they work with.
The few sex workers privileged/lucky enough to be relatively independent on onlyfans or other sites are petit bourgeois, those who work in countries where sex work is legalized and is essentially a day job for wage are proletarian, and those who do it illegally, likely under a pimp (who is also lumpen) and/or gangs, essentially being their asset is lumpenproletariat.
The lumpen prostitute was pretty much the only type back then, and them + other lumpens such as thieves and thugs were actually mobilized by reactionaries to coup the French government (18th Brumaire) during Marx's time, thus the analysis that, again, they could be mobilized by reaction.
Yeah, and he clearly states they are misled into being reactionary because obviously its in their material interest to abolish the private ownership of production, as they suffer the most from it.
Anyone can be bribed Into actions which are against his class interest, but because the lumpenproletariat is so poor and desperate, the cost of bribing them is much lower and therefore the risk of them being bribed in relevant numbers into being reactionary much greater
Sure he counted them to the lumpenproletariat, but do you have a text where he actually declares the lumpenproletariat enemy if the working class?
Recalling from memory he saw them as victims of capitalism who deserve better...
So he's not actually thinking they are class enemies by design. He thought its a class that shouldn't exist because the hardships they are forced to go through.
He didn't want people forced into protitution by the system, I dont think he would have something against emancipated sex workers who work in the field from a desire to do so.
Marx position was not about who shall be emancipated or not but who have an interest to struggle for the revolution. In his mind, a part of the proletariat was too precarious, and could be easily corrupt by the bourgeoisie. Such as thieves and cops.
However with the development of the communists party and their propaganda around ouvrierism, the pride of workers turn to be the pride to work. The lumpen became a slur against people that do not work enough; a conception close to the far-right view of unemployed "parasites". That's why nobody use that term anymore, even if it's still accurate for cops and managers
I ask again, does anyone has a quote on that?
I read the capital, the manifesto, the Feuerbach thesen and the 18the brumaire of Luis Bonaparte in German original and can't recall what you propose. But there are lots of other texts, so if what you say is source based, I am pleased to learn.
"Lumpen" is German for rags, meaning the poorest of the poor, I can't imagine him using that for managers and the like, in another way than sarcastic. It would absolutely not fit into his theory of society.
What I think the reference is to is
The “dangerous class”, [lumpenproletariat] the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of the old society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue.
from the chapter 1 of the 'festo, and even though it's harsh it does state that it's not an inevitability, but rather a more likely outcome.
yeah, that's a cryout about the conditions they have to live under and that they are in danger of being bribed into doing actions that are actually against their material interest
Its the opposite of saying "the material conditions make them an enemy of the working class"
Their is what Marx said and whats marxists made of that. Again, this is poorly defined in Marx text and spread in a lot of them. You'd rather rely on people that study the lumpen as a context, maybe Jean-Claude Bourdin. However for orthodoxes : "From whore to pope, there is a mass of such rabble. But the honest and ‘working’ lumpenproletariat belongs here as well;" - Grundrisse
Yeah, never heard that as well - quote would be nice
If Marx gets to edit out the parts of Hegel he didn't like, then I get to do the same with Marx.
Just that he didn't actually say this and op is either lying or massively misunderstanding Marx.
Hence he only replies to people agreeing with him and not to the ones wondering where he got that from asking for a source or quote.
Let’s just edit out Marx entirely. He was a racist piece of shit at the end of the day.
You are the one that brought him up.
Yeah I feel like this person is getting all riled up about something that doesn't happen. I've heard people say it's immoral, dangerous, exploitative, etc... but enemy of the working class?
The fact that you never had the bad luck of hearing any of them doesn't mean that they don't exist. They do, particularly between tankies, the "alt-left" and the extreme radical left. Also there are some pseudo-leftoid people that don't actually know anything about leftism and all that do is just speaking pseudointellectual nonsense.
They do, particularly between tankies, the "alt-left" and the extreme radical left.
Where??
I'm not calling you a liar, but I don't wanna believe it until I see it. And I don't wanna see it because the world is crazy enough as I see it.
Yeah, that's totally fair. But I'm just pointing out that ausence of evidence isn't evidence of ausence.
Yeah, most of the critiques on sex work you hear from the left is that it's such an inherently shitty and degrading job that it should be banned because it is so exploitative.
A trade union confederation do unionize sex workers as such, and the sex workers section is on the fediverse : https://lemmy.wtf/u/cntstp67tds@pixelfed.fr
@cntstp67tds@pixelfed.fr
broken either way
erf. Maybe through Mastodon ? https://pixelfed.fr/cntstp67tds
yup
The only reason the poor would hate sex workers is if they couldn't afford their services
Who is saying that though
Sex workers literally colonized the world. Step 1 to inviting people into an area to build a new community is to build a brothel. Madames, the owners, were considered real leaders with strong soft power, as they were some of the earliest settlers with invaluable economic and social connections. People really like to forget how much sex workers have done for humanity.
...there is a reason it is called, "The Oldest Profession"...all y'all puritans are weird...
Not the only thing trickling down, ifyaknowwhatimsayinhah
Cum.
Heyyyyooooo
true in 2020, true now
now donate that iphone
BAM!
