The whole thing: The girls doing it NSFW content and selling it, the dudes buying into it mostly because they won’t have any of it in real life, the way society sees it… Thoughts?
Personally I think every adult woman can do whatever the fuck she wants with her body and sexuality, even sell it. But obviously there will be consequences later in life if she wants to became a mother… And it shouldn’t be like that anymore.
The dudes buying “their girlfriend” there is complicated. At first I made fun of them but now I realised for many men, myself included, is that fake sexual relationship (or even fake sentimental relationships) or NOTHING. I won’t buy any of that for myself, since the fake part kills any allure for me, plus preferring to keep that little money I got left in my wallet but I understand more why more men do it. Is their only shot to a reality close to a relationship, is that or AI girlfriends.
I’m asking you, by analogy, to consider the difference between a forced laborer and a forced laborer that is also subject to rape. Think of it as part of the same coercive system. Historically, it has been.
The leftist feminist consideration looks at work under capitalism as its own coercive entity. Not identical to slavery, but still having its own coercive nature. If one must work to live and one’s sexuality is to be sold (and in a heavily gendered way), it is different than online working to live. It is a commodification not just of one’s labor, not just of the body, but also one’s sexuality and with downstream detriments due to its embedding in a patriarchal society. These things are not separable. “Men can also be X” also does not change this calculus, it just provides another facet that differentially impacts a minority.
The commodification of bodies for sex is also the driver of human trafficking.
The left anti-capitalist position is the end of capitalism itself. It is not simply a reform within the capitalist system that leaves the fundamental driver of this social context intact. Left advocates of abolition may offer reformist policies but they understand them in this other context.
Hopefully this plus the prior answer addresses the question. There is also plenty of abolitionist literature from communist, anarchist, and syncretic perspectives.
Under this framework, trafficking emerges from the aforementioned commodification. Legalization is considered expansionist under this framing, it opens up the labor pool and normalizes this commodification, even telling kids and young adults that this is a profession to pursue rather than something harmful to them. A larger sex trade. More brothels. More “massage” parlors.
Abolitionists tend to advocate for keeping the behavior of “John’s” illegal, making the industry itself illegal while not punishing prostitutes.
Per this framework we should abolish the capitalist labor system. Abolishing the patriarchal sex industry is something that can be achieved as part of this movement. Same as child labor was abolished (although not for everyone). We punish the employer not the child. We know that the right position is to provide economic support to families and children, not to legalize sending children to the abattoir where we know undocumented immigrant children work.
Ok thank you. I understand your argument better now I think, at it’s core it is an argument for abolishing the capitalist system of labour, including sex work. I can get behind the idea of introducing a new system of labour, the current one certainly doesn’t seem to be working very well for the vast majority of people. I don’t find it a convincing argument for the abolition of the sex industry though, because I don’t think you’ve demonstrated that this work is more harmful than other work. It seems like a selective application of the ideas you put forward. Like saying tiling roofs is dangerous, therefore we should ban all red rood tiles. Using the word rape feels like an appeal to emotion to me, there are ways we could demonstrate that sex work is objectively harmful that would convince me but I haven’t seen that.
Thanks for the interesting discussion though.
You can just answer this simple question yourself: is it more harmful to have a system of forced labor or to have a system or forced labor and rape?
If you say it’s the second one you will now have an idea for why it is singled out rather than lumped in with all labor.
Re: things like “appeal to emotion”, that is absurd. This is social theory, not modus tollens. It will all be about impacts in humans, systems, harms, basic empathy, and challenging yourself. There is no equation or deduction. The mere idea is philosophically outdated by at least several thousand years.
You are free to read the literature on this topic or to take this seriously enough to actually engage with it. So far we haven’t been able to get past the very first thing I said, a simple comparison, seemingly stuck on the difference between a comparison and equation. I think you’re perfectly capable of understanding it and then moving forward. But I’m not going to force knowledge into a combative person’s head. You’d need to pay me for that.
You’re making an argument against sex work so assuming you expect others to be convinced by it, I think it’s fair to expect a rational argument. It doesn’t have to be mathematical, but at least rational and honest so I don’t think it’s absurd to point out what I see as a dishonest persuasive technique.
Given the discussion seems to have devolved now into accusations, I don’t think there’s much more to be gained for either of us. From my perspective, your assertion that sex work is a form of rape is not justified, simply asserted and then you use that as a basis on which to argue. A broader appeal to the nature of work under capitalism is simply a non sequitur. You have to show that the impact is similar if you want to make a valid argument here as to why they should be considered the same. If you have no interest in doing so, that’s completely fair but you can’t expect anyone to be convinced.
Just because I do not agree with you, does not mean I don’t take what you say seriously or am refusing to engage with it. Your efforts would be better served showing that abolishing sex work would reduce harm, rather than attacking me.
I gave a very basic intro to the idea that there are leftist feminist abolitionists out there. I’m not trying to convice you, I simply offer a path forward for those with curiosity and good faith. You expect things I never offered and brought a combative approach, despite clearly being very new to this topic. Unfortunately, you blame me for this state is things, even though you won’t even attempt to process the basic mind-expanding example I originally provided and have reminded you of twice. It’s hard to move forward when the simple things are turned into roadblocks.
There is nothing I’ve said that’s irrational or dishonest. I just took note that you’re appealing to logical fallacies where it simply makes no sense to attempt the application. You are guaranteed to find some “error in reasoning” if you rely so heavily on this category error, funnily enough, even though no actual errors have been made. It is, very obviously, just defensive behavior. Appeal to emotion? For what thesis? I have no thesis, I merely introduced a basic concept to you.
I didn’t say sex work was a form of rape. I think I’ve explained the related concept 3, 4 times?
Yes this is what introducing people to concepts looks like. You describe the idea and how it relates to some other ones. As I have mentioned 3 times now, you are free to educate yourself in this topic at your leisure. I have never projected the pretense that I was interested in demonstrating the veracity of the entire position from first principles.
It’s literally just a comparison to get you thinking and questioning. It does not contain the structure of an argument. How could it be a non sequitur? These terms do actually mean things, you know.
I haven’t done any equating, so your depiction of my claims is false. You’re trying to find flaws in a series of positions you’ve now imagined. I again invite you to go and actually read about this topic rather than pretend I’ve presented a formal argument. At the moment, I believe I’m still trying to get you to acknowledge that forced labor and rape is something you’d think of as worse than just forced labor. Unfortunately you are trying to fight rather than acknowledge the obvious. Or maybe you don’t think it’s worse? Who knows. Can’t seem to get a straight answer.
I expect curious people to read up about it or ask questions. I have been fairly plain in presenting this as a very basic description of a position held by leftist sex trade abolitionists. Not a “I’m going to argue the case to everyone” kind of situation. You can tell, in part, because I keep suggesting you self-educate and because I didn’t make arguments.
That’s true. It’s the refusing to engage with it that is refusing to engage with it. We’re still stuck on acknowledging the basic meaning of the first thing I said. And discussing a series of invented positions and misidentified logical fallacies. Confusions multiply from thin air while the basics go ignored.
I think I’ve explained fairly well why your current behavior is the main barrier. I’ll note that you didn’t address the vast majority of my previous response. Ask yourself why that is.
EDIT: Reread my reply here after post workout clarity and I was being an asshole. Was probably being an overly combative asshole during the rest of the discussion as well so I take the lions share of blame for this discussion going off the rails, sorry about that. If you have any resources you think would be good for me to take a look at to understand your view better, I’d be happy to read them, but understand if you don’t want to take the effort also. Appreciate you coming here to make the counterpoint to my original comment, always better that than just another echo chamber.
Thank you for the reflection and acknowledgement! That is a rare and good thing and a very good thing to cultivate. Nobody is perfect and I also try to engage in this as early and often as possible. Eventually, it becomes something that is preemptive rather than reactive and you won’t have to look back on things very often and say, “I don’t like what I said” (something I’ve had to do many times myself!). I also think that online environments cultivate a maximalist approach to personal agitation even when it is a situation where that shouldn’t need to happen, so cultivating reflection like this helps us remain socially adept here and elsewhere. We also lose resolution of expression in this format.
In terms of resources, left perspectives on abolition are actually about as old as a discernable left re: capitalism. Early works took sex work being negative for granted and extended their analysis of marriage to include this commodification of (usually women’s) bodies, synthesizing an early form of feminism. Marxist analysis - from Marx and Engels themselves - of the family under capitalism describes the core of this idea of commodification and of women as a marginalized subclass whose marginalization serves a function within capitalism and is therefore maintained by it (and has mores that were invented by it, despite the pretense that “traditional” views towards interpersonal relationships are ancient). It is actually quite revealing to look into even just how relationships among European serfs worked differently.
So there are a few ways to begin approaching this issue and diving down into it further and further. If you prefer to build “from the ground up”, which is better for understanding what these positions are referring to because they use Marxist and anarchist language, you’d want to start with Marx, Engels, Goldman, etc as background and then look at their writings on women, families, and prostitution. For example, Engels’ On The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, while flawed, will lay out some key concepts and the angle from which this was and largely still is approached. Reading Das Kapital is challenging but would provide this with very useful context. Instead of going straight into Das Kapital, for most people I would recommend a companion guide like that written by Heinrich, you could read it side-by-side with any Marxist work and it would be helpful. The ideas expressed there constantly reappear under Marxist feminism (and not all “Marxists”, to their shame, have been feminists!). You will find the same core logic presented in later socialist projects. There are many examples, but Sankara was particularly outspoken about this and women’s liberation more generally, and seeing how it embeds in the conditions of Burkina Faso are revealing.
From the angle of a “liberal-friendly” introduction: there is a somewhat liberal but still materially-embedded abolition organization that lays out the core ideas borrowed from this left tradition here: www.demandabolition.org. As an NGO it suffers from tying one hand behind its back in terms of taking action and hiding any semblance of radicalism, but it has many of the ideas and presents them in a “liberal-friendly” way.
From the angle of a modern article summarizing the position (though citing no sources): https://medium.com/@ihla/on-the-necessity-of-sex-trade-abolition-as-a-revolutionary-marxist-line-2516bb9516db
From an anarchist perspective: Emma Goldman’s On The Traffic of Women. Anarchists who cite this work will often go in the same direction. Unfortunately this is less common in the West in modern times, as the label of anarchism itself has often become diluted into a vulgar horizontalism that doesn’t know its real theoretical and historical grounding. But there are still real anarchists out there that do actually read and know these things and will cite these works.