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.
Exhibitionists exist. Sex is fun and doesn't have to be work even if produces porn at the end it can all be made freely and given away freely as all art should be.
In all likelihood, it would look like free amateur porn (like most NSFW content on reddit, for example), since that already exists today. There are people who like the idea of "showing off", so to speak, so as long as those people are able to do so, it will exist. I would expect a socialist society to generally lower or even eliminate the average required workload for basic subsistence, so that would likely mean increased supply.
I am honestly not sure how prevalent this is. I'm gay, and without going into too much detail about my personal preferences, I have good reason to suspect things are different with the specific type of stuff I look at, and that very nearly all if not all of it is or was initially uploaded by the people featured.
Well for one, I would normally expect revenge porn to be uploaded in a huge batch, not as a trickle of content like most amateur porn social media accounts typically do (a lot of the stuff I'm talking about is predominantly solo content, for clarity). Like, some even have fan engagement videos (short videos for talking to fans) which is a surefire sign that it's legitimate. You could fake the appearance of someone regularly making and uploading content to an extent, even spacing it out over a long enough period to where they don't appear to age too fast, but I don't think it would necessarily be easy and it honestly sounds like way too much effort for revenge. I mean I haven't ever been in a state of mind where I thought it would be reasonable to leak someone's nudes so I don't know how far these people would go, but still. There is a lot that custody can't be verified on, though, like a lot of old content that has been reuploaded a million times from where sites have been deleted (like tumblr), because those are places where people voluntarily published a lot of content, but that can't be verified by people any more and we also don't know if the person is still okay with it floating around the web.
Also reminder that the professional porn industry has been caught doing EXTREMELY coercive and bad things before as well. So while free amateur stuff clearly isn't the white whale of ethical consumption under capitalism for reasons you described, nobody involved necessarily is having their labor value exploited, and in some respects we can have a better idea of what's going on behind the scenes while in other respects we can't. As long as we have the Internet, someone is going to use it to show their dick to other people, who in turn want to see it. This is likely the least exploitative and harmful way for that to happen even though it still isn't perfect.
Jerk off to amateur porn made by people who are just having a good time and want to show it off.
Drawn porn was about all we had for most of human history, holodeck porn is just the future of pornographic art.
I’m going to sound naive. I’ll own up to it.
But with the removal of coersion of financial means, it doesnt get rid of the want to MAKE pornography. Almost literally as the screws were tightened to produce the first camera, pornography was made. People will want to take pictures and videos of themselves, and there shouldnt be a problem per say, with that.
Its kinda important that while there always an exploitative mode of it, it’s built off the less exploitative method that grew the demand the capitalists descend onto. We call them vultures FOR A REASON. They dont kill what they eat and they dont profit from what they built.
The concept of porn after capitalism will be nebulous, like many things that got turned up to 11 the minute profit threatened to show it’s face. We cant imagine what it’ll be like, but we forgot it WAS something else in the past.
Thats my read on it, at least.
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.
I know there's one or two episodes about holodeck addiction, but I don't think we ever see anyone falling in love with anyone on the holodeck or even expressing sexual interest in those people...except that episode where Geordi's dead friend (I think?) helps him save the Enterprise?
Like Picard is always hanging out in his ready room with that laptop pointed away from the doorway. Don't tell me he isn't looking at pictures of Dr. Crusher when no one's around. (No one but the fish and Q, that is.)
edit: lol I commented before you linked to Riker's little adventure there.
It wasn't his dead friend, it was a recreation of the designer of the Enterprise's engine who he ended up kind of turning into a waifu (In a later episode, the actual person shows up on the Enterprise and finds Geordi's use of her likeness understandably creepy, though she still ends up marrying him later IIRC)
Of course, you also have the sex tourism planet, Risa. Though as I understand it, there's no prostitution involved
No the designer Geordi was Holo-creeping was actually ALREADY married when she visited the Enterprise and met Geordi. Before she arrived Geordi was all prepared to make her fall in love with him but once that is revealed the rest of the episode is Geordi overcoming the preemptive cucking of his preemptive wife and learning to work together anyway and all that.
weird ass episode imo but something like this is literally going to happen to people one day if not already lmao
You'd think the Federation would have some serious legislation regarding likenesses of living individuals in Holodeck simulations, like Barclay just straight up turned his female coworkers/superiors into weird waifus
there's a few episodes like that where im just like "seriously no one considered this problem before and already set a precedent?" but I think it's just sci-fi storytelling convenience. like how the Enterprise, the flagship of the entire Federation, gets sent alone into uncharted space like every other week.
Inshallah a Spanish Inquisition style Volcel police would strike terror into their hearts
I want to push back on the sex trade disappearing under a global socialist society. Sex work in some form will be around forever. Sex work can be liberating and can be a service, especially to disabled folks, and I don't see it disappearing even when there's no monetary incentive to do it. Maybe it won't be "labour" but it'll still be a kind of work, they'll still be sex workers, and they'll still be a sex trade. It just won't be coercive in the form that it is now. Same with porn.
So been listening to peepshow podcast and some episodes I think everyone should listen to are the pornhub processing payments ones.
From what they get from sex workers the worst parts of making porn is the payments. Banks are super discriminatory against sex workers and it's credit card companies that decide what porn gets made based on what gets processed in payments.
We might see new kinds of porn all over the place like for instance from what I learned menstrual blood is not allowed because it creeps out the credit card companies i.e well to do white guys on top.
Taking away their control over this industry could mean porn will become more an art form for all to enjoy and not just dictated by the tastes of a few.
There would be way less of it but it would still exist because there's a lot of people who like bein nekkid online
Before the cultural revolution, assuming there are no economic pressures to produce porn? Youre absolutely going to mainly get porn where the focus is still on the male pleasure as the predominant porn, it may just be less terrible- like not doing things that are actively uncomfortable or painful to the actresses.
You'll also get a lot of content that couldn't exist before, some good (period content) some more questionable- you know what I mean- because of a lack of censorship by credit card companies
Also a lot more queer porn. There absolutely will still be a lesbian porn genre for the purpose of being consumed by cis men unfortunately.
Porn might gradually become more private during this era with content creators distributing based on what brings them pleasure, and with patriarchal power dynamics still dying, putting yourself out in public will probably only be a thing people who enjoy being degraded or dehumanized by men still do.
Saying "look at gonewild now" is silly, because straight gone wild stuff is heavily monetized. If you want a better example, look at content produced in private gw subreddits.
Post cultural revolution, I think porn will absolutely still be a thing. I think that is going to be in an entirely different cultural context, and as someone in relationships with people with lower libidos, I hope there is still content similar to what is produced now by places like crashpad and queerporn.tv, private wlw subreddits, etc. I think the two main reasons for production will absolutely be exhibitionism and catering to rare fetishes.
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.
