I noticed some shortcomings on your line of thought, and I will share my understanding of the matter.
Pornography is media produced entirely for the purpose of instant, sexual (self) gratification
For the purposes of this essay we are concerned about pornography as it exists in capitalism
This is where I believe some issues arise. When you define pornography as media created for the purpose of sexual gratification, this makes it hard to analyze the overall production of media depicting sexual intercourse throughout history. Most of the time, we cannot analyze intent of the authors or artists producing a depiction of sex.
We do know that depictions of sexual intercourse has been made all over history, from cave-dwelling humans to ancient civilizations and our current bourgeois society. This already hints us that sexual intercourse may also be depicted in a socialist society, independent of the intent of the artists, but certainly in a different way sexual depictions are produced in a capitalist society.
The reason pornography in capitalism is different, as comrade @T34@lemmygrad.ml mentioned, is because in capitalism pornography is produced for profit. Your definition of pornography in a capitalist society may be mistaken because considering this, pornography is not produced for the purpose of sexual gratification. Sexual gratification would be the “use-value” part of the equation.
The second issue is that depictions of sexual intercourse in capitalism is a particular, not an universal. The universal would be the production of media depicting sexual intercourse, which has accompanied humans for thousands of years. Besides that, I completely agree that pornography, as it currently is, has no place in a socialist society. It’s a massive industry based on systematic sexual and economic exploitation, rape, human trafficking, threats and abuse of image for profit.
Having said that, I wanted to also share my speculations of “sex work”. This is not a critique nor an analysis, only speculative thoughts:
I do believe that a socialist society towards communism will feature sexual activity as work. If we remove the “sinful” shell of religious demonizing of sex, much like massage, sex relaxes tensions accumulated during daily life and routines and is a really beneficial, sometimes even essential, element of human health and well-being.
However, we obviously wouldn’t see it as a commodified and intrinsically exploitative activity, but as a science, a study of techniques to enhance pleasure and relaxation for therapeutic purposes for those in need, such as the case for stress or if someone for some reason has difficulty having sex with others.
I noticed some shortcomings on your line of thought, and I will share my understanding of the matter.
This is where I believe some issues arise. When you define pornography as media created for the purpose of sexual gratification, this makes it hard to analyze the overall production of media depicting sexual intercourse throughout history. Most of the time, we cannot analyze intent of the authors or artists producing a depiction of sex.
We do know that depictions of sexual intercourse has been made all over history, from cave-dwelling humans to ancient civilizations and our current bourgeois society. This already hints us that sexual intercourse may also be depicted in a socialist society, independent of the intent of the artists, but certainly in a different way sexual depictions are produced in a capitalist society.
The reason pornography in capitalism is different, as comrade @T34@lemmygrad.ml mentioned, is because in capitalism pornography is produced for profit. Your definition of pornography in a capitalist society may be mistaken because considering this, pornography is not produced for the purpose of sexual gratification. Sexual gratification would be the “use-value” part of the equation.
The second issue is that depictions of sexual intercourse in capitalism is a particular, not an universal. The universal would be the production of media depicting sexual intercourse, which has accompanied humans for thousands of years. Besides that, I completely agree that pornography, as it currently is, has no place in a socialist society. It’s a massive industry based on systematic sexual and economic exploitation, rape, human trafficking, threats and abuse of image for profit.
Having said that, I wanted to also share my speculations of “sex work”. This is not a critique nor an analysis, only speculative thoughts:
I do believe that a socialist society towards communism will feature sexual activity as work. If we remove the “sinful” shell of religious demonizing of sex, much like massage, sex relaxes tensions accumulated during daily life and routines and is a really beneficial, sometimes even essential, element of human health and well-being.
However, we obviously wouldn’t see it as a commodified and intrinsically exploitative activity, but as a science, a study of techniques to enhance pleasure and relaxation for therapeutic purposes for those in need, such as the case for stress or if someone for some reason has difficulty having sex with others.