You write that sex work sells the body, and not just the labor-power. But that’s exactly what looks like fetishism to me. The performer sells their labor-power for a definite period of time to film a movie. After that, the porn company does not own their body and cannot film a second movie with them unless it buys more of their labor-power. Only the patriarchy regards the performer’s body as sold and degraded. The patriarchy says that the performer is now in a lower caste and unsuitable for other work, that their body is essentially “sold” but to the whole industry as in the Salon article I linked.
I read your proletarianfeminist article. I agree with most of the 7 suggestions at the end, including decriminalization and de-stigmatization of sex workers. Glorifying johns is liberal consumer activism. Glorifying pimps is bourgeois class warfare against workers. Socialists should not do either.
But I can’t get behind total abolition. She quotes a Canadian group saying that “we must reject the idea that prostitution could be a solution or a social safety net for proletarian women; instead we should fight for creating real opportunities–employment, education, etc.” But why not both keep it as a safety net and create real opportunities? Rather than getting rid of safety nets, seat belts, etc, shouldn’t we try to avoid needing them but still have them?
The author herself used sex work to provide housing and medical care for herself and her family. Would she have been better off if sex work had been abolished before she could buy her mother’s cancer medicine?
Her answer would probably be that if we provided housing and health care, then sex work would not have been necessary. I agree. If we were capable of providing housing and health care to everyone, and if as a result sex work completely disappeared on its own, without our having to abolish it, I’d be totally fine with that.
But what if we can’t? What if our ability to provide the necessities is imperfect or takes a long time in the lower stage of socialism? In case we can’t, shouldn’t we at least leave the safety net in place?
But why not both keep it as a safety net and create real opportunities? Rather than getting rid of safety nets, seat belts, etc, shouldn’t we try to avoid needing them but still have them?
There are two situations, one being prostitution in capitalism and the other prostitution in socialism.
In capitalism, prostitution is never going to be abolished – and we see that with groups trying to get it legalised, regulated, and “detabooifed”. This is not a judgment but just the facts we are living in.
In socialism, we are inheriting that structure & institution and must decide what to do with it. We are entirely able then to provide programmes so as to make prostitution so irrelevant, it can be banned and made illegal. I addressed illegality in my article; it doesn’t necessarily mean that prostitutes would be jailed for providing their services, but that there is a legal basis to enrol them in the programmes. These could look much like China’s did (or the USSR before them, or Cuba…) – provide housing, provide education and then job opportunities. Following from the examples of past and present socialism, I have no reason to believe there is no material way today to cut prostitution straight up – this is the material reality we are currently in. It’s not a safety net for the women who are trafficked into it, and so should be a priority for a socialist state to take care of. As Parenti said, there are no poor countries, there are over-exploited countries. Huge amounts of wealth are being siphoned by the national and international bourgeoisie, when they could be used right now on their people. Thus I can’t think of any country that couldn’t tackle prostitution and pornography right away.
So indeed:
The author herself used sex work to provide housing and medical care for herself and her family. Would she have been better off if sex work had been abolished before she could buy her mother’s cancer medicine?
We can assume not, but that is in a capitalist framework and I think even she recognizes this is the nature of prostitution in capitalism. Anything is better than starving to death, some workers even accept slave contracts (e.g. when your employer holds your passport). We must aim that this does not happen to anyone and that they do not have to resort to such choices.
Only the patriarchy regards the performer’s body as sold and degraded
I wouldn’t say only the patriarchy does this. The objective analysis is that most prostitutes (by and large they are trafficked in the so-called third world) are not doing this by any choice, they are doing it for survival and sometimes under duress. Thus they do not have labour-power to sell, the only commodity the proletarian can sell to survive, and they must sell the only next thing they can: their body. They are cut out of the formal economy. I lifted this completely from the other article, under the section called “Selling the only commodity we have left: our bodies”.
it doesn’t necessarily mean that prostitutes would be jailed for providing their services, but that there is a legal basis to enrol them in the programmes.
That makes sense, if these programs are about keeping them safe from bad pimps/johns and helping them exit sex work when they’re ready.
Hey, thanks so much for publishing this article and taking the time to write detailed responses! I need to read more about the topic, maybe the Parenti book mentioned in the proletarianfeminist article.
You write that sex work sells the body, and not just the labor-power. But that’s exactly what looks like fetishism to me. The performer sells their labor-power for a definite period of time to film a movie. After that, the porn company does not own their body and cannot film a second movie with them unless it buys more of their labor-power. Only the patriarchy regards the performer’s body as sold and degraded. The patriarchy says that the performer is now in a lower caste and unsuitable for other work, that their body is essentially “sold” but to the whole industry as in the Salon article I linked.
I read your proletarianfeminist article. I agree with most of the 7 suggestions at the end, including decriminalization and de-stigmatization of sex workers. Glorifying johns is liberal consumer activism. Glorifying pimps is bourgeois class warfare against workers. Socialists should not do either.
But I can’t get behind total abolition. She quotes a Canadian group saying that “we must reject the idea that prostitution could be a solution or a social safety net for proletarian women; instead we should fight for creating real opportunities–employment, education, etc.” But why not both keep it as a safety net and create real opportunities? Rather than getting rid of safety nets, seat belts, etc, shouldn’t we try to avoid needing them but still have them?
The author herself used sex work to provide housing and medical care for herself and her family. Would she have been better off if sex work had been abolished before she could buy her mother’s cancer medicine?
Her answer would probably be that if we provided housing and health care, then sex work would not have been necessary. I agree. If we were capable of providing housing and health care to everyone, and if as a result sex work completely disappeared on its own, without our having to abolish it, I’d be totally fine with that.
But what if we can’t? What if our ability to provide the necessities is imperfect or takes a long time in the lower stage of socialism? In case we can’t, shouldn’t we at least leave the safety net in place?
Ah, you lost me there unfortunately:
There are two situations, one being prostitution in capitalism and the other prostitution in socialism.
In capitalism, prostitution is never going to be abolished – and we see that with groups trying to get it legalised, regulated, and “detabooifed”. This is not a judgment but just the facts we are living in.
In socialism, we are inheriting that structure & institution and must decide what to do with it. We are entirely able then to provide programmes so as to make prostitution so irrelevant, it can be banned and made illegal. I addressed illegality in my article; it doesn’t necessarily mean that prostitutes would be jailed for providing their services, but that there is a legal basis to enrol them in the programmes. These could look much like China’s did (or the USSR before them, or Cuba…) – provide housing, provide education and then job opportunities. Following from the examples of past and present socialism, I have no reason to believe there is no material way today to cut prostitution straight up – this is the material reality we are currently in. It’s not a safety net for the women who are trafficked into it, and so should be a priority for a socialist state to take care of. As Parenti said, there are no poor countries, there are over-exploited countries. Huge amounts of wealth are being siphoned by the national and international bourgeoisie, when they could be used right now on their people. Thus I can’t think of any country that couldn’t tackle prostitution and pornography right away.
So indeed:
We can assume not, but that is in a capitalist framework and I think even she recognizes this is the nature of prostitution in capitalism. Anything is better than starving to death, some workers even accept slave contracts (e.g. when your employer holds your passport). We must aim that this does not happen to anyone and that they do not have to resort to such choices.
I wouldn’t say only the patriarchy does this. The objective analysis is that most prostitutes (by and large they are trafficked in the so-called third world) are not doing this by any choice, they are doing it for survival and sometimes under duress. Thus they do not have labour-power to sell, the only commodity the proletarian can sell to survive, and they must sell the only next thing they can: their body. They are cut out of the formal economy. I lifted this completely from the other article, under the section called “Selling the only commodity we have left: our bodies”.
That makes sense, if these programs are about keeping them safe from bad pimps/johns and helping them exit sex work when they’re ready.
Hey, thanks so much for publishing this article and taking the time to write detailed responses! I need to read more about the topic, maybe the Parenti book mentioned in the proletarianfeminist article.