“Lumpenproletariat” is exactly the kind of idea an educated German theorist would come up with in the wreckage of the industrial revolution and it’s ridiculous to try to carry that notion forward to the age of cell phones and heavily armed maoist prostitutes and if anyone can’t understand that you should throw grass at them until they stop being dorks because they’re too far gone to touch it themselves.
Like ffs read even one anthro text about black market and grey market economies and stop treating The Man’s legal system like anything but a criminal organization.
Commodities exist under communism? Holy wow!! Truly a fruit of epoch-making wisdom!!
You act like it’s blatantly obvious that commodities would exist under communism and mock the person who pointed it out to you, yet you vehemently deny that something else just as obvious as the existence of commodities will also still very much exist and have a place under communism, calling it utter nonsense and requiring “bourgeois philosophy” without any explanation. That something else involves sex, though. Hmm. Funny how work that involves sex always brings out a specific type with an angry and reactionary axe to grind.
At least u/porcupine can make a reasonable case by redefining prostitution as something other than and separate from sex work rather than denying the legitimacy and validity of sex work.
You act like it’s blatantly obvious that commodities would exist under communism and mock the person who pointed it out to you, yet you vehemently deny that something else just as obvious as the existence of commodities will also still very much exist and have a place under communism, calling it utter nonsense and requiring “bourgeois philosophy” without any explanation.
It’s blatantly obvious that commodities would not exist under communism, just as it’s obvious that private property, exchange property, would not (and with it the treatment of sex not as a private affair but a thing to be bought and sold, even in the realm of marriage).
That something else involves sex, though. Hmm. Funny how work that involves sex always brings out a specific type with an angry and reactionary axe to grind.
You highlight the work aspect of sex work as if I’m saying it’s not work, or to say that it‘s work only quantitatively different from manufacturing goods, delivering goods, etc. I’m not saying sex work is immoral or impure or condemning it based on moral judgement.
Someone may sleep with many members of society and be supported in their needs by the community through the immense wealth of the people under communism, but the support of their needs would not be predicated on their sleeping with members of the community. And their activity would necessarily not contribute to the welfare of the whole community but only persons selected.
At least u/porcupine can make a reasonable case by redefining prostitution as something other than and separate from sex work rather than denying the legitimacy and validity of sex work.
Replacing cash with goods doesn’t make prostitution not sex work or change the relations at play. People misunderstand communism, due to a misunderstanding of its relation to early communal society, as some sort of return to the end stage of historical communities where everyone lives in common low development and individual exchange happens under the table. There will be no room for individual exchange because the phase of individual ownership of items of exchange has passed, and in fact communism will free sexual relations from the restrictions of private property, and therefore of even de-facto prostitution such as the marriage based on financial dependence.
You highlight the work aspect of sex work as if I’m saying it’s not work, or to say that it‘s work only quantitatively different from manufacturing goods, delivering goods, etc. I’m not saying sex work is immoral or impure or condemning it based on moral judgement.
Ok, maybe I was wrong about what you were saying. Do you think sex work is work, then?
Someone may sleep with many members of society and be supported in their needs by the community through the immense wealth of the people under communism, but the support of their needs would not be predicated on their sleeping with members of the community.
Would the needs of any other members of that society be predicated on the work they do?
And their activity would necessarily not contribute to the welfare of the whole community but only persons selected.
I’m not sure what you mean by this. Surely making sure the members of a community are able to lead happy and fulfilling lives is contributing to the welfare of the whole community. Human sexuality is undeniably an important aspect (for the majority of people) of a person’s over all sense of happiness and fulfillment. There being members of the community that help ensure everyone else in the community has that sense of fulfillment, members of the community who are explicitly willing and happy to provide it as a service (labor), is a positive, even necessary contribution to community wellbeing.
Replacing cash with goods doesn’t make prostitution not sex work or change the relations at play.
I never implied otherwise. I wasn’t the person who said “some people will always be willing to exchange goods or labour for sex regardless of economic or political system.” But they are correct, and you are not when you call that “bourgeois philosophy” and “utter nonsense.” Even in a system where that kind of tit-for-tat exchange is unnecessary, it is absurd to say that it will never happen.
People misunderstand communism, due to a misunderstanding of its relation to early communal society, as some sort of return to the end stage of historical communities where everyone lives in common low development and individual exchange happens under the table.
That may be, but that is not an error I’m making. As I briefly mentioned in a response to another comment, there will always be people who are unable or unwilling to form the kind of relationships usually required for sexual activity and thus sexual fulfillment. There will also always be people who choose to develop skills that help provide people with that kind of fulfillment sans any other form of relationship. You may say that such a thing is so different from the kind of purely transactional relationship we traditionally characterize as prostitution that it may as well not be called prostitution. Fine. But the same thing can be said for countless other forms of labor that people do under capitalism to survive, but that under communism would just be “something I enjoy doing,” that is still labor and provides a service to society. Like an actor who enjoys giving performances that provide other people with entertainment (as one of countless other possible examples).
redefining prostitution as something other than and separate from sex work
I’m “redefining” prostitution? What percentage of prostitutes across history do you believe fit into a definition that isn’t characterized by exploitation? Do you believe a statistically significant percentage of prostitutes are independently wealthy self-employed hobbyists? I would argue that’s redefining prostitution.
I’ve seen people in these spaces carry a bunch of weird moralizing stigma about the “sex” part of sex work rather than the “work” part into these conversations, and I promise that’s not where I’m coming from. As far as I’m concerned, sex between consenting adults is a morally neutral act, and people who engage in sex work under capitalism aren’t guilty of anything more than any other proletarian commodifying their labor to survive.
Under communism (a classless, stateless, moneyless society), the economic and class relations that force people to perform sexual labor as a means of subsistence won’t be present. People will still have sex, but nobody will be coerced into having sex in exchange for food, shelter, or medical care. When people choose to have sex, it will be between mutually consenting adults for its own sake. Prostitution won’t be an occupational category under communism because the purpose of labor under communism is about fulfilling social need. A society where jobs are assigned based on fulfilling social need isn’t going to be assigning people whose primary contribution to society will be having sex with strangers and not being able to say “no”, because coerced sex isn’t beneficial to society. I would say that a person living under communism who has their needs of subsistence met, works a socially productive job, and chooses to have sex with any and every consenting adult they want outside of that job isn’t definitionally a prostitute. Prostitution as a “job” is inseparable from economic and class relations that must be abolished in order for communism to come about.
What percentage of prostitutes across history do you believe fit into a definition that isn’t characterized by exploitation?
What percentage of plumbers across history do you believe fit into a definition that isn’t characterized by exploitation? Sex work is work. Period. Just like other work, it can be done because a person enjoys it, but under capitalism (or other modes of production that exploit workers) it will always involve exploitation. If you want to define prostitution as something that always involves exploitation, ok fine, but then you also have to separate that out from sex work, which absolutely does not inherently require exploitation and most certainly would still exist even if all economic coercion were eradicated (that is, under communism rather than capitalism).
Under communism (a classless, stateless, moneyless society), the economic and class relations that force people to perform sexual labor as a means of subsistence won’t be present.
(Emphasis above is mine). Under communism, the economic and class relations that force people to perform any labor as a means of subsistence won’t be present.
People will still have sex, but nobody will be coerced into having sex in exchange for food, shelter, or medical care.
No shit. There will still be plumbers too, but they won’t be coerced into it in exchange for food, shelter, or medical care. Almost all of your arguments so far can be applied exactly the same to any number of other forms of labor.
Prostitution won’t be an occupational category under communism because the purpose of labor under communism is about fulfilling social need.
So finally we get to some reasoning (flawed though it is) for why sex work would be different than any other work. You think that sex work doesn’t fulfill a social need. Sexual fulfillment is a social need. There will always be people who find it difficult to find partners due to all kinds of possible scenarios (including having no time to build a relationship due to dedicating all of it to other interests or necessary labor). And there will similarly always be people willing to provide that, people who have dedicated their time to become skilled at providing that. Refusing to recognize them as fulfilling a social need is simply being sex-negative and it’s always shocking to me that there are still leftists who don’t understand this.
