Alienation, sex work and marx

[drwitch]

Does anybody know of any literature that examines sex work from a Marxist perspective. I'm not completely sure about what I'm getting at but it's to do with the idea that it is the (according to Marx) the comodification of labour that causes alienation. Thus when sexual activity is transactional either through prostitution or in a traditional marriage it is profoundly alienating and worse because it's your actual bodies

You already know this but........
In Marxist thought, then, the condition of the prostituted woman within the capitalist system is like that of a slave. It presupposes the alienation of the most intimate parts of her personality as well as near-total lack of freedom to choose employers and to bargain about wages. This website might be helpful Indian rather than UK but might lead you somewhere useful

journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2455632716637914?journalCode=jwsa#:~:text=In%20Marxist%20thought%2C%20then%2C%20the,and%20to%20bargain%20about%20wages.

Thanks for that. I'm thinking of writing something on that idea that sex work as work is not useful framing and keen to look at various perspectives

www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjSiqTtkp_0AhUSfH0KHcyoDf4QFnoECAIQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FThe_Origin_of_the_Family%2C_Private_Property_and_the_State&usg=AOvVaw3gnubQiWqXuDFduvC4oGq0
Engels argued that women in the nuclear Victorian family with no civil rights were essentially prostituted. Very powerful analysis.

Yes so (perhaps over simplistically) patriarchy alienates women from sexual activity and true pleasure and fulfillment)

The Communist Manifesto is quite clear (and concise!) on this actually, but I can’t find my copy.

Basically it responds to the accusation that communists would make women ‘a common good’ by stating that the argument only works if you think that women are goods rather than human beings in the first place.

Sorry you probably already knew that

@drwitch

Does anybody know of any literature that examines sex work from a Marxist perspective. I'm not completely sure about what I'm getting at but it's to do with the idea that it is the (according to Marx) the comodification of labour that causes alienation. Thus when sexual activity is transactional either through prostitution or in a traditional marriage it is profoundly alienating and worse because it's your actual bodies

May I ask why?

I am profoundly anti the normalisation of prostitution as "sex work" . But given the horrific reality of Communism and Marxism whenever put into practice what purpose does such an analysis hold for bolstering the case against such normalisation?

I suppose you might find it an interesting intellectual game but beyond that?

I suspect that aside from Marxist feminists on here most people would raise an eyebrow at your conflation of prostitution and marriage.

Being and Being Bought: Prostitution, Surrogacy and the Split Self, by Kajsa Ekis Ekman

www.spinifexpress.com.au/shop/p/9781742198767

Because it's interesting to me anyway to read different political approaches!

Communist manifesto you can get free download easily. It's in my to read list... Along with mau and mein kampf.

Sadly my attention span is fucked ATM so here I am!

She didn't conflate them. She wrote what she knows of the Marxist view.

www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/61

And plenty other hits on Google.

@CheeseMmmm

Because it's interesting to me anyway to read different political approaches!

Communist manifesto you can get free download easily. It's in my to read list... Along with mau and mein kampf.

Sadly my attention span is fucked ATM so here I am!

The Communist Manifesto, Mein Kampf and Mao's Little Red Book are of no interst other than their historical relevance for setting out their respective demented and evil ideologies.

@donkeyskin thank you that's exactly the kind of thing I was looking for

Kimikos not of interest to you clearly.

Of interest to some.

I don't understand your reaction. Reading Marx won't turn OP into a dictator.

@CheeseMmmm

Kimikos not of interest to you clearly.

Of interest to some.

I don't understand your reaction. Reading Marx won't turn OP into a dictator.

Nor does it make a particularly convincing case against the normalisation of prostitution.

I suppose my point is this seems to me to be theoretical navel- gazing of the highest order.

The OP says that her understanding is the opposite. That it's a bad thing.

You would have hated it here a few years ago! It went super academic theoretical for a few years. I didn't visit much then...

Politics is worth studying I mean it's a well respected subject. Gives insight into all sorts of things.

It's not your thing that's fine but your reaction just seems s bit OTT! It's one thread with about 4 posters on it! No big deal.

Oh sorry back to front! You're right it's against.

If you've never read the theory how do you know that it doesn't make a convincing case though? Maybe it does. Maybe it would to you but not to me.. Dunno I've not read it (yet!).

@CheeseMmmm

Oh sorry back to front! You're right it's against.

If you've never read the theory how do you know that it doesn't make a convincing case though? Maybe it does. Maybe it would to you but not to me.. Dunno I've not read it (yet!).

It doesn't make a convincing case because such a discredited theory in to prop up an argument about why prostitution is bad simply looks ridiculous, is unlikely to change anyone's mind , assuming there is interest anyway.

No doubt a fascinating topic for feminists on here but largely irrelevant elsewhere.

Marx has been discredited?

That's news to me!

Quick bit from wiki-

'Marx has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history, and his work has been both lauded and criticised.[17] His work in economics laid the basis for some current theories about labour and its relation to capital.[18][19][20] Many intellectuals, labour unions, artists, and political parties worldwide have been influenced by Marx's work, with many modifying or adapting his ideas. Marx is typically cited as one of the principal architects of modern social science.'

I am not a Marxist feminist at all, but I would link prostitution and marriage before the late nineteenth century, and possibly later, in the prevailing idea that women were property. That is not saying marriage was a form of prostitution (although I can see the basis for that argument in the Victorian times), but that marriage historically saw women as the property of husbands and prostitution saw women as the available property of men.

Think about the fact that women had no legal rights to property on marriage until 1882, no access to higher education and professional employment opportunities until the late nineteenth century, unequal access to divorce in England until 1923 and rape within marriage was illegal until 1991. A man could take another man to court if he slept with his wife (not sure when that stopped) because of the idea that women were property. This is not navel gazing intellectualism, but how life used to be. In fact, you could go beyond this and look at the history of child custody, which also comes from the idea that children were property, and indeed, until 1839 (I think) property of the father.

Then think about the high value put on women’s virginity and chastity in the respectable classes and the sexual double standard in the nineteenth century, the idea that it was more acceptable for men to have sex outside marriage and not for women, indeed there was the term ‘fallen woman’; young women were seen to be in danger of seduction from men. So one way of protecting the daughters of the respectable classes was to allow prostitution so men had somewhere to go, which was not the daughters of the respectable classes. Prostitution was of course rife in Victorian Britain. And those women who were engaged in prostitution were poor single women who were not paid equal wages for the manual work they did (given the concept of a family wage which paid men more assuming they would have a wife and children to provide for).

So you could look at it through a class-based lens. If the men of the wealthier classes were accepted as having sex outside marriage but their wives were expected to be chaste virgins when they meet, where were those men going for sex? The servant classes and women engaged in prostitution. That relies on an idea that women are available for money, ie they are property to be bought. If you bring in the Contagious Diseases Acts, then you can extend the argument to say that women were also seen as the property of the state.

So it is not saying that marriage was exactly prostitution but the two things were linked in the class and gendered (in the second wave sense of gender hierarchies) social order where women did not have equal legal rights and were viewed as property, not autonomous citizens.

That is of course a historical argument and there have been substantial legal changes around marriage and women’s citizenship since then. But Marx was writing in the nineteenth century, not now. So I am not sure you can apply the ideas of a traditional marriage in the Victorian sense to today.

Ps I have used the term prostitution as this is what it was called in the nineteenth century and I think it is inappropriate use the modern day term of sex work in that context.

given the horrific reality of Communism and Marxism whenever put into practice what purpose does such an analysis hold for bolstering the case against such normalisation?

I suppose you might find it an interesting intellectual game but beyond that?

Patronising much?

OP asked for reading recommendations so that she could read and judge for herself.

What's the point on coming on a thread like this and saying "don't bother reading around this - I can save you the trouble and tell you what I think instead"?

It's important to read background materials with a range of conflicting views both to inform one's own view and to persuade others, regardless of whether some random stranger says it's a bad idea- it's perfectly reasonable for OP to ask for reading recommendations, and it's odd that you seem to be disparaging her for asking for the wrong recommendations.

You were clearly allowed to read the source material to make up your own mind, so why are you so against others following in your footsteps and doing the same?

“It doesn't make a convincing case because such a discredited theory in to prop up an argument about why prostitution is bad simply looks ridiculous, is unlikely to change anyone's mind , assuming there is interest anyway.”

You’ve never done a social sciences degree! Using Marxist/ historical materialist theory to explain political or social phenomena is very mainstream.

Marx wrote mainly about ‘why capitalism is bad’ rather than ‘what communism would or should look like’.

But given the horrific reality of Communism and Marxism whenever put into practice what purpose does such an analysis hold for bolstering the case against such normalisation?

Reading the OP, I expect that this is in the context of the deep contradiction of the established left-wing's position on prostitution as sex work, which must be fully decriminalised and framed as work like any other and their professed belief in Marxism and neo-Marxism. If I wanted to show that being a Marxist is incongruous with supporting the practice of prostitution, it would be logical to look to Marx's own writings.

The Communist Manifesto, Mein Kampf and Mao's Little Red Book are of no interst other than their historical relevance for setting out their respective demented and evil ideologies.

I wish that were true. Critical theories, of which the doctrine of gender identity is but one (albeit one with huge destructive potential already resulting in harm), are rooted in Marxism. If one seeks to oppose these critical theories and prevent them from dominating society and keep its proponents from power, one must know where these theories are coming from.

I'm currently listening to a podcast deep diving into all of these texts and it has been eye opening to see it all laid out so clearly. A lot of the things happening right now, the tactics, the arguments, even no debate are making much more sense now. And that is helping me find a much more efficient way to respond to extremist demands and tactics.

Now don't get me wrong, the podcast is challenging at times, in more ways than just the obvious - if you're not an academic or have prior knowledge of these highly theoretical concepts, it can be both difficult to comprehend the issue and difficult to focus as long as required. But as I found even the first episode I listened to very useful in understanding the current situation, I have persisted. It took me three weeks to listen to that first episode as my attention span is not the best when the subject matter is so difficult, and I'll probably listen to it again now that I'm working my way through the whole podcast in order.

And finally, let me just finish with this: those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it. As a society, we need to understand how and why these ideologies held sway with their followers if we want to prevent them plunging us into another totalitarian regime based on these concepts. We are well on the way towards just such an outcome. It is in my view therefore neither navel-gazing nor pointless to understand the root texts of these ideologies.

It doesn't make a convincing case because such a discredited theory in to prop up an argument about why prostitution is bad simply looks ridiculous, is unlikely to change anyone's mind , assuming there is interest anyway.

Discredited or not, Marxism is the theory much of the left cleaves to. It's everywhere you look, but it's particularly embedded in academia and cultural institutions. Critical race theory is rooted in Marxism. So is the doctrine of gender identity. As well as queer theory. Granted, the latter two as well as many on the left are currently pretending that class isn't a thing anymore, but Marxist ideas are permeating throughout both their beliefs and their activism.

@SeaOfLights

Ps I have used the term prostitution as this is what it was called in the nineteenth century and I think it is inappropriate use the modern day term of sex work in that context.

No, prostitution is entirely appropriate. Don't try prettifying it by calling it "sex work"

Sex worker also includes brothel owner and pimp.