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They just respond with a moral tone about “smashing expectations and traditions of women.” What could be better at smashing expectations of women than abolishing an industry based on sexual commodification? Their answer is basically a moral argument trying their best to push the idea that giving women the “freedom” to be merely objects for sex is “liberation” from the patriarchy.

Your take is correct and good. The fact that this weasel pinned you as a communist only speaks to that lol. An attempt to twist prostitution into a women’s lib thing immediately juxtaposed with an unhinged anti-communist tirade is indicative of the responder being one of the worst types of sexpat-liberals. Wouldn’t doubt that they’ve gleefully engaged in the coercion themselves and feel the incessant need to justify their own worthless existence with reminders that “sex work is real work!” and “paying for sex is actually empowering women”.

Banned under socialism (it would barely exist anyway), under capitalism, it is legalized in order to protect the workers.

I feel like… In a proper socialist society that had easy access to work and everyone was provided for, prostitution wouldn’t exist. Since it’s only real reason to exist is for monetary need and if that was taken care of no one would need to sell themselves.

Porn? Idk. It’s like, people wouldn’t need to make porn for income or anything but… people like making/drawing porn. Porn has happened throughout all of human history at some level. It’s gonna happen. Some people also make videos of themselves for not monetary purposes. I feel like there wouldn’t be an industry for it but there would be porn of some form or another made by people freely of their own desire. So I feel outlawing it outright would not really be necessary?

Any form of either of these that is done out of necessity for income is in and of itself exploitation. In fact I don’t think there’s any form of prostitution that isn’t exploitive. Porn, if done/made from ones own, unincentivized, free will then I guess it could be seen as liberating. Freedom of expression or whatever.

This is all from a hypothetical situation from the standpoint of a true socialist society. As far as from a capitalist standpoint idk. Maybe if that last point of the porn being unincentivized and just cause someone wanted to…

Great job, comrade! Liberals are always all in for porn and prostitution, it’s disgusting… They always bring up that those women are “free” to sell their body or not, reducing the issue to a simple “it’s not good, but it’s better than x”. Upon doing this, they ignore every other problem brought over by prostitution and porn, including addiction, human trafficking, etc.

I think the person who responded to you is very dumb. It’s this standard liberal Either - Or mentality on full display. I’m sure there really are people who have found porn to be very liberating (economically, socially, spiritually), but like with anything, focusing on individual stories doesn’t paint the full scope. Most sex workers in the world are absolutely exploited and forced into those positions, as are most workers of the world with any field of labor.

That person accuses you of “twisting liberty”, but what liberty? Liberty for who? Liberty for a extremely small minority of sex workers & porn consumers in the West to enjoy their glorious freedom of expression while the rest have to toil? Liberty for pimps to make money? That’s not the kind of liberty any society should really be interested in replicating.

It’s hard to talk about porn and prostitution in blanket terms because it differs wildly between cultres, formats, power dynamic etc.

Often when you see the subject discussed online two sides are framing their ideas off very different concepts or examples, and applying each others’ statements to their own model and getting frustrated. My advice would be to always ask for examples and give examples to illustrate points.

I would add though that I’m not a fan of the argument against commodification of the body. We all commodify our bodies and minds to different extents when we sell our labour. The nuance is in the terms of that exchange. Same with commodification of sex and intimacy. Therapists and entertainers aren’t villified for what they do; sex should not hold some sacrosanct status in the spectrum of human experience.

They definitely aren’t good. They are symptoms of larger issues. I’m sure that nearly everyone involved in sexwork (outside of business owners) would prefer to be doing something else but simply don’t have the means to do so.

However I’d argue against criminalizing the practice as it is a response to lack of other opportunities, the best way to attack it then is to go at the material base that gives rise to it, poverty.

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.

A yes, the “anti-capitalists” who want to deregulate an industry that commodifies people’s bodies. It is extremely patriarchal to traumatize (mostly) women for the pleasure of (mostly) men. If you like podcasts there’s a great show called ‘The Probably Cancelled Podcast’ about real proletarian feminism and I cannot recommend it enough.

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Either someone who has a lot to lose from the end of capitalism and is trying to gaslight you (most likely) or someone in denial about the current state of the world. That’s how I see all anti-communists nowadays.

About the porn thing idk, libertarian or liberal I guess, which ties into the previous thing

“Projecting liberty as capitalism”

Wrong… capitalism is liberalism as an economy… who the hell do you think gave birth to it? Free enterprise, private property(slaves, mop), individualism. These are cornerstones of capitalism. John Locke owned great shares in the slave trade and America built its foundations upon his philosophy… so no… “liberty” as a philosophy and ideology is all based on racist white dudes that wanted to keep making money off of owning people.

You made good points and then they find out you’re a socialist and all of a sudden, your concrete points dont mean anything?

And no alternative? What a weird way of telling you to not be on the side of the sexually exploited.