I just want to use this to open up a discussion about porn and prostitution because I hear multiple takes all claiming that they have the route to women’s liberation and I’d like to find the correct one, lol.
I think that prostitution and most forms of porn are coercive and not good things overall. Is this a reactionary take? If so I want to correct it by all means but I was always under the impression that the porn actors aren’t paid well enough and prostitution/porn often stems from desperation and not actual desire to be those things.
Let me know your thoughts
I had free access to the internet as a kid and I’d say I’m irrevocably messed up from it. I wouldn’t want to be a lame parent and make my kid exclusively use this computer till they’re 21 'cause I think they’d resent me for that but yeesh. The internet, it’s not good folks.
As for sex work, I dunno really. I think if money is involved then inherently I don’t see how you can establish consent, but pro-sex work people would say that no work under capitalism is consensual and there are people who do find it liberating, at least as an alternative to other jobs available. But while I agree that no work is consensual I find too much of the conversation seems to revolve around affluent men and women who can afford to just stop anytime they want and not the people who are doing it out of desperation, that’s when I get the vibe that the whole “freeing and liberating” thing feels like white-washing how fucking horrible things are for poor people. Like I can imagine the liberal ghouls going around saying just how free and liberated people selling themselves after the fall of the USSR were. Like, people love to bring up the idea of “free love” that people would still engage in sex with strangers even under communism but that doesn’t really seem germane to the topic of it happening here and now under capitalism. I don’t think it’s morally wrong though, I don’t know if that’s the sentiment here or not, I don’t rightly care if people would have sex with strangers if they felt like it, but I think it’s one more of many things that capitalism causes to be a problem or makes worse and while I wouldn’t begrudge any individual who does what they can to get financial security I do at a base level feel uneasy about people trying to promote it as this great liberating thing.
For sure, I am not judging people that are victims of it at all. I also think an ideal world where people actually had the means to provide for themselves but instead turned to prostitution would be a different story but again I feel like most of the time it is out of desperation. I wish I had a study to back this up.
Agree with all your points, just wanna say that I feel you on being fucked up from the internet. We’re among millions of grown-up kids with absolutely fucked ideas about sex, love and romance constantly bouncing around our minds because of psychological damage from exposure to horrendous shit at such a young age, and it’s a struggle to overcome.
The internet isn’t “real”, but it also is, and it has the ability to bear trauma onto us.
heavyish stuff
Gore and extreme pornography entered my purview at 12 years old and stayed for longer than I’d like to admit. I also know I’m just one among potentially millions exposed to this barrage of shit at such a young age, and more and more are exposed daily. Incel mass shootings, violent misanthropy and misogyny, all shit growing at an exponential rate because the internet writ large has been allowed to poison kids’ minds largely unabated.