I’ve seen some very heated debates by leftists on both sides of the argument that have left me very confused.
Work is when you do labor contigent for survival
Socialists still don't know what sex is
I've always thought sex work is just an umbrella term for work that is sexual in nature. That leaves a lot of room for misinterpreting it, especially when we have "sanctioned" sex work that ranges from criminalized to fully legal.
I've seen some really horrid arguments from debate bro leftists that I think spring up from unexamined internalized puritanical beliefs alongside not having actually talked to a swer in real life.
Yeah, everyone (on the left) opposes human trafficking, child sexual exploitation etc. I think they can be safely removed from the “sex work” category because they’re just rape. No one supports it.
How do you deal with the question of sex work being inherently coercive (due to capitalism) and, as coerced sex = rape, thus all sex work is rape?
Obviously, there is a contradiction there as many sex workers choose that profession, and thus either:
A) they are consenting to rape, which is absurd.
B) or coerced sex = rape is not the right label.
I've gotten into several arguments with this on here. As someone who has been involved in the past and firmly sides with the "it's rape" category.
In my experience people currently doing it side with the "it's not rape" side while people who are out of the industry have much more critical views that more often lean into "yeah it's pretty fucked up" or like me, "it's rape".
I think that people whose current survival relies upon sex work are unreliable judges of its character, their survival being tied to being able to perform it causes them to defend it from all adversity and "it's rape" it's definitely an adversity that affects their survival. This is why there is such a significant difference in tone between people currently performing the work vs people who have left that industry behind them.
I don't think that we look at the proletariat in other work who defend capitalism and say "it's not coercive and there is nothing wrong with my work" as being correct, we look at them as victims who are riddled with :brainworms: that are incorrectly analysing capitalism's exploitation of them. I feel this way about sex work also.
I agree and I oppose those outcomes while standing pretty firmly by my assessment of what it is.
If socialists were in power we would acknowledge that it is problematic but allow it to continue while aiming to address its root causes. Capitalism doesn't want to address the root causes in poverty, education and so on, so instead it takes the worst approach.
I don't want people imprisoned for stealing food from supermarkets, but I also can't change my language around what stealing food from a supermarket is. Instead I simply say "these people should not be punished and instead we should address the causes, stealing from a supermarket when you're starving is moral and good and I have no problem with it". I don't view these people as doing something they would do if they had any other choice, I have stolen from a supermarket myself when starving, was that a consensual act by myself or one I was absolutely pushed into performing because I had no other choice in order to survive? It is obviously the latter.
I agree sex work is far too broad a term. Taking solo pictures and putting them online for some onlyfans cash is completely different to physically allowing someone to put themselves inside you. Lumping the two together is wrong.
I think Sex Work was meant to a broader term to encompass everything from prostitution to OnlyFans. But maybe what is actually needed is to separate the two, with sexual work and prostitution as two completely different things, at least if it is firmly established that prostitution = rape in all cases.
Yeah, that’s valid.
Since you brought up the proletariat in general, do you think there should be terminology that is similarly evocative and effecting for all coerced labor under capitalism as we have for coerced sex (ie rape)? Or is there something inherent in sexual labor that separates it from other coercive forms of labor?
Good question, I haven't thought about it... A kneejerk thought (I stress that) would be that a lot labour we do isn't tied to significantly degrading the mind, body (and spirit?). Whereas sex itself is layered inside lots of unique issues, christianity's influence on it as a special act, and so on and so forth probably plays a role here in the way anything other than treating it as special is viewed as degrading or damaging to the mind, body and soul of a person.
I really want to stress that this is a kneejerk initial thought as I have not thought about this particular difference very heavily. After letting it stew for some time I might come to different ideas about it.
Both you and @GonzoBonzo raise interesting points that I do not fully understand. But it’s given me the following thought:
Labor under capitalism is about producing a commodity. This includes stuff like Amazon workers and also OF models (producing a video-commodity for example). The capitalist buys the labor power of the worker for the sake of producing something to sell.
But direct sexual labor is not about commodity production, and what is being bought is another person’s body + performance.
Performance itself is a type of commodity under capitalism - see singers at a stage, even strippers.
But maybe the aspect of the body being necessary is enough to differentiate direct sexual labor from all else, and serve to distinguish it from sex work (producing a sexual commodity/performance).
I don’t know if this will stand up to scrutiny. I’m also just trying to figure things out. None of us want to harm sex workers and, imo, if some people want to do that under capitalism, and even prefer it to other forms of labor, then we shouldn’t take steps to make it harder? But if it is rape, then shouldn’t we eliminate it and not allow more people to subject themselves to it, even willingly?
It’s confusing.
But if it is rape, then shouldn’t we eliminate it and not allow more people to subject themselves to it, even willingly?
Not without a substitute that guarantees their survival.
Yeah, that seems pretty reasonable, in a way. Provide everyone in the industry the means of survival (money, food, housing etc) and see how many stay in that profession. For those who do, it is voluntary. For those who’ve left, it was coerced.
That should just be done for all workers, of course. And might just be a lower stage of socialism, now that I think about it.
do you think there should be terminology that is similarly evocative and effecting for all coerced labor under capitalism
Don't we have that? I think "wage slavery" pretty well covers that base
Do you think that sex work can exist as non-coercive labor in a socialist society, and therefore not be rape?
I think it stops being work once you take out the need to do it for survival, it would instead become something like an enthusiast hobby that exhibitionists do.
Ultimately the real question of importance here is to ask a person whether they would be doing sex work if they weren't being paid for it. If the answer is no and the money is the driving force of the decision then something is wrong.
the umbrella includes stuff like onlyfans and strippers, so there's not necessarily sex happening there to be rape.
if you want to focus on johns and prostitutes, i'd explore lines of reasoning like "the customer isn't the one doing the coercing and the pro-SW position includes being able to turn down clients" or "if you think capitalism coercing sex work is bad that should lower your evaluation of any 'regular' job that takes a physical and mental toll on the workers"
I don't know if this is a useful distinction but in sex work it is the work that is coerced, not the sex. The capitalist system forces you to work or die but it doesn't care if that work is building houses, flipping burgers or having sex.
Some forms of sex work is obviously rape but it feels wrong to call it rape if say a trained nurse would rather do prostitution than work at a hospital. I recognise that there is a lot of gray area there. At what point does the alternative to sex work become so bad that it is no longer voluntary?
Thet is an interesting point. Today, there exist people for whom sex work is a job, like any other, as distinct from earlier times when it was essentially always forced in more direct ways.
So, does general economic coercion under capitalism for survival mean that sex work, done under coercion for survival, is thus similar to sex under coercion, ie rape?
If so, then it means sex work done for survival should be illegal, like other forms of rape. But then what about the people who are left without a job?
Maybe there should be adequate provisions for those people to still be able to live and hopefully do some other work. But that is then a distinct matter where we are arguing for the emancipation of all proletarians, ie socialism.
We should be able to ban rape even without ending capitalism.
Unless the general economic conditions aren’t considered rape. It’s so complicated.
Marrying an SW*, AMA I guess ¯_(ツ)_/¯
*for doxxing reasons I will confirm that they are not an escort, but I will not specify what they do in a public post.
Is there ever a time where you go "hehe, hell yeah, genitals 😎" or is it mostly a sober subject?
They respect that it is much different than doing something that, while sexy, involves no touching or full on nudity. Ill ask for further comment when im home later.
Sex work is work that involves sex or sex-adjacent activities.
A lot of westerners get upset when non-westerners don't view it positively, as if western countries aren't the only ones comfortable enough to choose their professions a lot of the time. That's not to say every sex worker in the west chose their profession or is happy, or that every sex worker in the global south is trafficked and miserable, but when you compare the two, it's likely that the westerner is comfortable in every way. Many countries outside of the west have been colonized and have seen sexual violence on their populations by foreigners, and that continues today, so that's the basis of their judgement. If you don't know the history of a country, you should keep your mouth shut before blabbing on about changes in policies for a place you don't live in.
There are many socialists today who think ALL sex work will be abolished if socialism were to be achieved. I can see jobs like prostitution being abolished or become unpopular because there is no incentive to do that work - obviously some people simply like sex and will find a way to get their rocks off, and so called "sex therapy" is such a niche career that no one talks about it. A lot of people, mainly women, don't want to be in a situation where they'll be killed or beaten with a client. Maybe a rating system and prostitution being legalized will fix it, but I don't know. Maybe look at Amsterdam's policies and see if the results are good and can be expanded under a socialist society. But again, there won't be much of an incentive to do it. But I don't believe complete equality will ever achieved, so there will be people who fall through the cracks regardless of the society they live in, so just like how they'll smoke the opium of the masses when they're desperate, they'll resort to whatever job is available to survive. Treating them like horrid criminal demons instead of incorporating them into your society won't do anyone any good.
But sex work isn't just fucking. For example, porn and stripping are just essentially forms of entertainment. People will still do that, but I imagine studios or bar will be more worker oriented or performers will be independent. People are delusional if you think that stuff will disappear. Unlike prostitution, porn can be done privately, and stripping usually doesn't allow touching, so there are more incentives to do those things even if your needs are met under socialism.
It's weird that people view sex work as some unique evil in this world. Sure, sex work causes alienation. But why does that bother you when you're priaising McDonald's and Starbucks workers for unionizing? They literally sell poison to people. And you likely contribute the the slaughter of children in the global south by making money for your company that buys stocks in Lockheed Martin. What I'm saying is that all these jobs suck whether you like them or not. To me, there is no difference between a poor person who becomes becomes a software developer and makes $100k and a poor person who becomes an independent sex worker who makes $100k. They will all cause suffering to someone and it's best to try to support workers until we find a new path forward. Even if you think sex work is bad, it's dumb to fixate on it. Besides, if you're a third worldist then you should celebrate because it means westoids are becoming more and more miserable and lonely.
As far as I understand the term sex work it is a wide umbrella term for all kinds of labour involving sexual gratification but I'm also aware that it is often used to speak of prostitution.
I will not claim to know a whole lot about it but I do think it would be a good idea to recognize that it covers many different types of labour, even when you're just talking about prostitution. Obviously, there is an enormous difference between the trafficking victim and the woman who actively chooses to become an independent sex worker because she likes the money and prefers it over a regular job.
There is coercion involved as with all labour under capitalism but the materialist thing to do is to ask what the alternative is. As long as capitalism is in place, the alternative to coercive sex work is not no coercion, the alternative is coercive non-sexual work.
I think the best way to bring material improvements to sex workers is to build a society that doesn't make people so desperate that they will subject themselves to rape just to survive. I also think sex workers should have the same protections afforded to other workers by the law, like pensions, vacations, unemployment benefits, workplace safety etc.
I don't think bans and cops are the right way forward. They might be effective in scaring away the sex workers who have tolerable alternatives but the most vulnerable who doesn't have an alternative will become even more vulnerable as they will have to hide from authorities.
That is a valid point. I guess the ultimate question is if sex done because of capitalism is different from other work under capitalism, because there is a term for coercive sex (rape) which isn’t there for other coercive labor. If sex work (the kind we’re talking about) is rape then is it worse than other proletarian work. It’s complicated.
Sex work is a perfectly fair job as is any other but sex work, like all work, is almost always through coercion. Even the people who actively enjoy and seek out a particular field can not escape that they can and must still answer to their customers and financial backers demands. For example many NSFW furry artists might start out enjoying their work but then a commission for a scat image comes in with a lot of money and they feel compelled to take it, even when it disgusts them.
Some of this is ultimately unavoidable no matter the society because someone has to do the work and they're gonna want things in exchange for it. If I spend all day picking apples, I'm probably not gonna be happy giving them all away without anything in return whether in a capitalist system or a communist one. But recognizing it as inevitable (to some degree) does not mean dismissing that's still an issue either.
Sex work should be respected as any profession is but there also needs to be a strong social safety net because nobody should be forced into selling their body if they don't want to nor should they have to sell their body in a way they don't want.
We aren’t capable here of empathizing with sex workers or their clients With all due respect, you are projecting your own issues onto the entire website here.
You see how these threads go. I am obviously right on this. This isn't my issue, I've been in situations, but you can't deny that is how these threads play out.
Do you dispute any particular point I have made? Did I phrase anything poorly?
After the revolution™️ you will want sex workers for therapeutic reasons
Lol no one's gonna do this
In Germany they have this. Sex workers that have to go to school and get extra certification to work with disabled adults in a therapeutic setting. It is actually a very respected an valuable service and does a great deal for improving thr quality of life and care the people receive. Other countries also, but theirs was the most well regulated program last I looked any of this stuff up.
