I do think the scandinavian solution of keeping it illegal to purchase but legal to sell works the best for keeping dynamics in the favor of the prostitute.
you think this 'works the best' based on what? your direct experiences organizing? Your wide array of SW specific theory? help me understand, where does this knowledge come from?
Like I keep seeing posts all over about not attacking sex workers, but I’m not seeing anything attacking.
when your idea of "not attacking sex workers" includes fostering/accepting rhetoric that continues the stigma against sex workers and that ramps up and supports active legislation that brings material harms, it's pretty easy to be supportive.
Western leftists gobble up swerf rhetoric the way 'progressives' fervently support imperial propaganda.
I'm not on here enough to know the scheduling of the book club, but I would be happy to drop in and add suggestions! hit me up w an @ the next thread!!
I agree that this is a valid critique of individual sex workers , but it is often mailiciously leveled as a critique of all sex workers actively engaged in SW. This is a mistake. The arguments and rhetoric around sex work is all context-dependent, the terms and tropes that now seem monolithic or set in stone were grown from active material struggle, and separating and viewing those terms and tropes without the accurate historical background usually leads to misinterpretations and misrepresentations.
here's a podcast w one of the authors (no idea of pod quality), other than that I'm afraid I can't spend a ton of time finding good summaries. https://radionapier.com/2018/10/25/changing-pages-revolting-prostitutes-the-fight-for-sex-workers-rights-molly-smith/
Additionally, here is an article with imo v solid material analysis as refutation of SWERF politics. might start another flame war tho lmao
ctrl-f for 'Sections' to get to argument table of contents
The one critique I personally would aim at a sex worker (please let me know if this is ) rather than the industry, is when a hugely succesful and influential sex worker presents the industry as wholly good, or their story as the norm.
this is actively under contention in SWer theory circles. The dialectic between the Happy Hooker and the Trafficked Slave is really well explored in Revolting Prostitutes , which, from this thread, it is obvious not many people have read this solid work from SWers engaged in struggle
Esperanza can call everyone who disagrees with her white petit boug neoliberals, but it doesn't change the fact that her and her organization push for carceral reforms that will hurt the most marginalized and vulnerable. don't come at me misrepresenting my position as beginning and ending with "sex work is work," or acting like I've done zero fucking research. maybe if you looked into the people who "attack" Esperanza and her position, you would see that they're predominantly POC SWers actively engaging in struggle for labor rights.
edit: gonna drop these links for context for anyone else who comes across this, ctrl-f for 'Sections' to get to argument table of contents in the first piece
"The Equality Model" aka rebranded Nordic Model, which decriminalizes prostitution but leaves all other parties involved criminalized. What other parties? surely just johns and pimps right???
Af3irm will have you believe that will end the demand for the sex trade and save everyone. In actuality these policies are carried out by the carceral state, social workers and associated programs are just another arm of that system.
When partial criminalization occurs, the stigma toward sex workers is not reduced. We can see this shit in action w FOSTA/SESTA, where even hosting SWers in an online space to meet or discuss is criminalized. How does this help collectivization and solidarity without further atomizing and hyper-individualizing this struggle?
Imagine calling yourself leftist and your analysis beginning and ending with what you've heard on podcasts, rather than from workers in active struggle. Thanks for taking the bait and bringing this out into the open, it's been bugging me how under the radar it's been
leftists will dogmatically agree w "Sex work is work!" or "swerfs get fucked!" but the second they hear actual swerf arguments and material realities of SWers, they're immediately onboard w SWERF rhetoric that just doesn't say the quiet part out loud
if you don't actually work in the material reality being discussed and don't know what you're talking about?
Marxist philosophy holds that the most important problem does not lie in understanding the laws of the objective world and thus being able to explain it, but in applying the knowledge of these laws actively to change the world. From the Marxist viewpoint, theory is important, and its importance is fully expressed in Lenin's statement, "Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement." But Marxism emphasizes the importance of theory precisely and only because it can guide action. If we have a correct theory but merely prate about it, pigeonhole it and do not put it into practice, then that theory, however good, is of no significance. Knowledge begins with practice, and theoretical knowledge is acquired through practice and must then return to practice.
On Practice
so glad you know more about the organizing efforts and the material reality of the person making this video than they do themselves :)
When you examine at close quarters the colonial context, it is evident that what parcels out the world is to begin with the fact of belonging to or not belonging to a given race, a given species. In the colonies the economic substructure is also a superstructure. The cause is the consequence; you are rich because you are white, yon are white because you are rich. This is why Marxist analysis should always be slightly stretched every time we have to do with the colonial problem.
We as leftists can't just take marx at face value, the material world marx observed is not the exact same material world we currently live under, and we need to adjust our analysis and internalize the lessons of the revolutionary struggles from the past century
I absolutely love this whole quote. reminds me of when leftist swerfs try to point at Kollontai as a figure to read in this regard, as if her writings weren't highly tailored to the revolutionary moment in the nascent Soviet Union and those material conditions.
one overview w quote https://www.hamptonthink.org/read/an-ideal-blueprint-the-original-black-panther-party-model-and-why-it-should-be-duplicated?rq=lumpenproletariat
Over the years, Marx's assessment and discarding of the "lumpenproletariat" - a population that he described as "members of the working-class outside of the wage-labor system who gain their livelihoods through crime and other aspects of the underground economy such as prostitutes, thieves, drug dealers, and gamblers" - had been accepted by many on the Left. However, the BPP's familiarity with Zedong and Guevara led them away from this commonly accepted notion, and their philosophy paralleled that of Frantz Fanon, who in his ongoing analysis of neocolonialism, deemed the lumpen to be "one of the most spontaneous and the most radically revolutionary forces of a colonized people."
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huge mood