My family are mostly Democrat voting liberals and I identified as one for years. When I was in 5th grade I spent more time with my Fox News-watching grandparents and became a Republican for like a year or 2 and became an apolitical lib for a while. From like 2015-2019 I was a Bernie bro who had some objectively shit takes. The biggest 180 I did was probably on the sex trade. I used to be for it as a horny teen like “huh? Did someone say SeX?? Well it’s all ConSeNsUAL so why cockblock someone from getting some PuSsY?” Obviously now I realize that’s a disgusting sentiment and that most people in the industry are not happy and would rather do anything else. Just because a few are happy with their line of work, it doesn’t make it right to force so many others into a position where they feel abused and humiliated or threatened. “Legitimacy of industry” in terms of prostitution always means lining the pockets of abusive pimps (physical or anything else) who will use the opportunity to get rich and usually fund illegal markets (source: Look at Nevada). Enough about me, what topics have become more clear to yall after becoming a communist? I could probably list a few others but I’m interested in seeing what yall say.
I can’t help but feel that too many communists don’t actually listen to sex workers and base a lot of their misgivings on some moral, conservative, patriarchal attitude towards sex, women and culture.
Not everything under the umbrella of “sex work” is prostitution or porn. In general (and I say in general, because I’m aware that this is a complex issue) we should be letting sex workers guide this conversation.
This is it.
None of the SWERF takes on here are listening to the relevant stakeholders.
Personally, I don’t take people who use “SWERF” in these conversations seriously, let alone someone who accuses an ML instance of harboring those ideals… whatever those ideals are.
Thinking of? I’ve never seen a genuine “SWERF”. Every take I’ve seen here has been rather adamant regarding the necessity for those in the sex trade to be at the forefront of these conversations.
We’ve had this struggle session before. Financial extortion for sex = rape. The anecdote of your friendships is well and grand. It doesn’t ring true for 99% of all victims of the sex trade.
Hit me back when you talk to some emaciated 14 year old Peruvian girls trapped within it, offering sexual favors for 5, 10, 15 USD. Hit me back when you talk to some 60, 70, 80 year old Korean women, who also work 50+ hour jobs, trapped within it. Hit me back when your partner is being assaulted almost daily, and she agrees that she is, yet says “we need the money” anyway. Empowering. Ha.
Perhaps it is puritanism, perhaps it is moralistic argumentation, idk. I do know that every successful socialist revolution eliminated prostitution. It is, 99 times out of 100, one of the most exploitative financial relationships that can exist. Good for you if you wind up a top 10% OnlyFans creator by your bootstraps or whatever. That doesn’t matter much to the thousands of people being trafficked and raped every goddamn day.
“SWERF”. Where are the voices of those aforementioned Peruvian youth? Those elder Koreans? The 6.3 million people trafficked for sexual exploitation in 2021 alone? I don’t care about the feelings and opinions of sexual hobbyists nearly as much as I care about victims, and I don’t think anyone should. 🤷♂️
Thank you for writing this.