I'm listening to RevLeft's episode on proletarian feminism and wondering about this. I think we can agree that in a global socialist society, the sex trade disappears. Under socialism, people only have sex because they want to. At the same time, almost all pornography produced under capitalism is itself produced under coercion. (A small number of porn stars are relatively wealthy and produce pornography because they enjoy it, not because they have to.) If a socialist society decides to make access to that pornography free for all, doesn't that mean that the porn stars (and all other workers involved in the production of pornography) are still being exploited, even if they're dead? In a socialist society, does all desire to jerk off to pornography wither away, since a sexual revolution has presumably also taken place and most people are relatively satisfied with regard to their sexual needs? Will some pornography still exist, produced by the proletariat for the consumption of the proletariat? Will future socialist porn stars be considered heroes of labor? I don't think we ever catch anyone in Star Trek jerking off to porn.

  • drhead [he/him]
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    edit-2
    4 years ago

    You know, something else I just thought of: Assuming this is some sort of anarcho-communism type arrangement where some labor is mandatory for all (though workweek hours and retirement age may be lower), since creation of porn would be a "free time" activity, there would be heavy selection bias towards retirement-age people. So, one acceptable answer is that it would look like old people fucking. (this is not to be interpreted as a dig at anyone's kinks or at the idea of older people being sexually active, which is valid, healthy, normal, and extremely common sexual behavior.) But I suspect some of us may be slightly disappointed if any of us are the type of people who are turned on by those sexy working-class men in those Soviet propaganda posters.