Women - Liberation curtailed? (SWP article)

[audiotech]

When will the left realise that people don't vote for parties who tell them what they should think!! ie moralise!!

Well, throughout the years, the public have voted in droves for the 'moralists' of the main parties. Is the left to amoral in your eyes then?

 

[Gmart]

She is a leading member of said party though and it's not therefore completely unfair to in ciriticisng her raise in a fraternal and friendly manner possible criticisms of the swp's approach.

It seems to me the left as a whole is a little out of touch on sexual politics.

Well, throughout the years, the public have voted in droves for the 'moralists' of the main parties. Is the left to amoral in your eyes then?

Still trying to tell me how I should be.

 

[revol68]

“that a human relationship, something which should bring pleasure to the vast majority of men and women, has a price like a piece of meat or a second hand car and has been turned into another commodity. This process degrades the women and men directly involved in its production and display, but it also degrades the rest of us, since sexuality is turned into a series of objects and commercial relationships rather than being a natural expression of human relations.”

So that would be like everything else under capitalism then you silly Judeo Christian twat.

You'd almost think leading SWP members hadn't read their Marx.

 

[TremulousTetra]

What do people think of this review:

http://www.permanentrevolution.net/?view=entry&entry=1962

Is it me or is the SWP getting totally moralistic on women's issues and sex?

I know exactly where you are coming from, because several times over the last 20 years I have felt quite repelled by the way the argument is presented, by SW and many others on the left. There does seem to be a real moralism. But in the end I come to the conclusion that is a misunderstanding, a misrepresentation of the actuality.

I don't think the socialist argument negates animal sex. What I'm saying is, even if you are in a deep loving relationship, but there can be times when sex is just about your animal lust, enjoyment, and pleasure. It has nothing to do whatsoever with your love for that person. In fact you could go outside of the relationship, have sex with somebody else on a purely sex basis, never speak to them, never see them again, and there would be nothing at all wrong with that.

The problem with us having sex without values being imposed, free sex, is because we are not free. We cannot pretend that we are free. We live within capitalism, and any sex we have is in the context of that existence. I think I can only begin to explain what I'm trying to express, by drawing a parallel with the Marxist historians arguments about working-class culture. The Marxist historians argued there is no such thing as working class culture, because even if some culture, a newspaper for example, is produced for and by working class people, living in capitalism that production is distorted by the relationship the working class has to the ruling class. Anything the working class produces, is distorted from what a working class would produce, because the working class is producing what it is produced in in relation to its oppression by the ruling class. If the working class was producing a newspaper where there was no oppression by a ruling class, then it would be nothing like as "Northern Star" the Chartist newspaper. Another analogy, it is a bit like the argument about alienation. The multimillionaire, billionaire, is alienated from society it in capitalist society. Karl Marx is alienation isn't like in common use of the word, where a teenager is alienate it from society, Marx use of the word alienation is about the whole of capitalist society, that all participants in capitalist society are alienated, because they either abdicate responsibility for society, you cannot buck the market, or do not have the means to assume responsibility for society. (well I suppose even the billionaire cannot assume responsibility for society, we can only do that as a collective.)

So it is only in a free society, that you can have free sex.

It is like pornography. I would say there is absolutely nothing wrong with pornography, the production of literature, art, and moving picture to invoke a sexual emotion it's like technology, it only becomes 'bad' or 'good' technology, in a social context. In a social context, in a free classless society where nobody is in any way impelled to produce pornography, how could a photography be less valid than the invoking of any other feelings by "art".

 

[TremulousTetra]

So that would be like everything else under capitalism then you silly Judeo Christian twat.

You'd almost think leading SWP members hadn't read their Marx.

that is the point you stupid person. (by the way I will not use the word twat, not because not using the word twat will change society, but the use of the word twat has to be put into the social context of the class relations of society, and the subsequent oppression of women. in a free society the use of the word twat will have no social relations context, and so will be freely used, but we are probably more likely to use a word like revol68, because you surely are a complete revol68. )

 

[TremulousTetra]

"degrades us all" - not sure, TBH. That's why I didn't put that little bit in bold. I would defend it to this extent, though. We live in a society in which the wretched business of prostitution thrives. Is an injury to one not an injury to all?

At the very least the people involved are degraded. The punters may disagree, but I expect you know that many prossies have to get smashed out of their heads on heroin or other poisons in order to ply their trade.

There are certainly other sorts of very harmful and horrible work, but there is a difference between prostitution and the other examples you give. The things that are wrong with mining and factory work are to do with the pay and conditions of work. You make it safe and pleasant enough and reduce the hours and then I wouldn't mind and probably you wouldn't mind doing the work. Prostitution is intrinsically and intimately horrible. German explains that. I still don't understand how you don't agree.

It is one thing to do a dreary job for a pittance. It is another to be so desperate that you let ugly strangers fuck you for money. That is the reason why the word 'prostitution' is used figuratively to criticise other activities that are seen as appalling misuses of the self.

Spearmint Rhinos: the Social Workers are playing their usual opportunist games and you may have a point about the conditions being less bad than some other places and I certainly won't be joining their campaigns, but let me ask you something. Can you imagine any socialist revolution - of the sort you and the Social Workers want or anything at all similar - tolerating places like Spearmint Rhinos? C'mon - you'd close them down!

I don't agree, it is an injury to all. think about the logic of the man who raped a woman. if sex can be paid for, why can it not be stolen?

 

[TremulousTetra]

Still trying to tell me how I should be.

no it is analysing how capitalism inculcates what you should be. only in a classless society will you truly be free to be what you want to be.

 

[cockneyrebel]

RMP3 thought a lot of your first post was interesting.

But this bit:

I don't agree, it is an injury to all. think about the logic of the man who raped a woman. if sex can be paid for, why can it not be stolen?

I don't get at all. Are you really saying that sex workers are an injury to us all? Why wouldn't you say the same about asbestos miners? It's wrong to put it that way because it somehow implies that the workers are to blame.

As said there is no social stigma for a gigalo or Chippendale who both can have very good jobs and looked up to.

There is a total difference between sex work on one hand and sex slaves and rape on the other. Just as there is a difference between a worker and a slave in all industries.

There does seem to be a real moralism. But in the end I come to the conclusion that is a misunderstanding, a misrepresentation of the actuality.

Don't agree. I've met loads of people who have snobby sexual morals on the left, even to the extent of looking down on women who choose to wear mini skirts, high heels or thongs. Lindsey German's book (from the bits i've seen and other stuff I've seen her write) is full of it in my view. And I think that's partly because the SWP now seem to put more emphasis on the right of women to cover up than the other way round. Many women who cover up in religious clothing (of whatever religion) are made to do so by force.

 

[Gmart]

no it is analysing how capitalism inculcates what you should be. only in a classless society will you truly be free to be what you want to be.

It might well be analysing capitalism, but it is still one set of people telling another set of people how they should be. I is also implying that people are stupid and don't recognise what's happening around them.

The left will never get anywhere without putting to one side their moralism and stating realistic steps which will make life easier for the electorate.

You might feel that my life would be better if everyone saw the world the way you see it, but many people see the world in a different way.

I, for example, recognise a class struggle, but will NOT accept violence as a means to an end. I would support reform of the education system for example, maybe with a voucher system, a movement of tax burden from income tax to land tax, reforming of the House of Lords and a written constitution, all of which would help in the struggle towards a classless society, but actually people are not interested.

For example this thread entitled 'What's your strategy for political change' didn't even get to page 5.

Why? Because people aren't interested in change, they are only interested in their agenda.

 

[revol68]

that is the point you stupid person. (by the way I will not use the word twat, not because not using the word twat will change society, but the use of the word twat has to be put into the social context of the class relations of society, and the subsequent oppression of women. in a free society the use of the word twat will have no social relations context, and so will be freely used, but we are probably more likely to use a word like revol68, because you surely are a complete revol68. )

is it the point?

Does German get her knickers in the same twist about nurses being paid to care and look after as she does about sex workers? Does German not support the struggles of nurses because by exchanging their care and labour for money they are debasing it not just for themselves but for us all?

And why does sex have to be about love and intimacy? Is German actually a prude or is she just not wanting to alienate the muslims they are courting?

Anyway I prefer cunt to twat.

 

[Nigel]

Stand By Your Man

Does Lindsey German have to employ sex workers to sleep with her, or to proof read the shite she writes

Sexual politics demised within the SWP when they ousted Womens' Voice in the early eighties.

 

[audiotech]

Does Lindsey German have to employ sex workers to sleep with her, or to proof read the shite she writes

Sexual politics demised within the SWP when they ousted Womens' Voice in the early eighties.

Not according to the rad fem I recruited at the time, who was also part of a womens' collective.

 

[Nigel]

Not according to the rad fem I recruited at the time, who was also part of a womens' collective.

Elaborate!!!!!

 

[TremulousTetra]

Don't agree. I've met loads of people who have snobby sexual morals on the left, even to the extent of looking down on women who choose to wear mini skirts, high heels or thongs. Lindsey German's book (from the bits i've seen and other stuff I've seen her write) is full of it in my view. And I think that's partly because the SWP now seem to put more emphasis on the right of women to cover up than the other way round. Many women who cover up in religious clothing (of whatever religion) are made to do so by force.

First of all, I am not going to defend Lindsey German, because I don't know what she has written, and I'm not going to pontificate about something I have no knowledge. [revo, you are just showing you are a revo, because you haven't even read the book). What I'm going to do is just to take on the conspiracy theory, of SW conspiring to ditch shibboleths, for the sake of Muslim vote.

Let's turn your question on it's head, why do so many on the left defend the right of women to undress, but not defend the right of others to dress? surely the neutral slogan is "we refute the right to oppress, women have the right to choose to dress or to undress", isn't it? but they don't argue that do they? They back the right of women to undress, but not the equal right of women to dress if they wish. They don't support the right to choose.

Well I support the right to choose, but I would still argue this "we refute the right to oppress, women have the right to choose to dress or to undress" is not a neutral slogan. The the dominant ideas in any society are those of the ruling class. The dominant ideas in today's society are not Christian muslim, they are freemarket dogmatism. The commodification of anything. That includes men's sexuality more than ever. And so placed in that social context, you start with revolutionary defeatism. You start with defeating the ideas of your own ruling class, not the ruling class of Iraq or Iran. So in this country defending the right of women to CHOOSE to dress, particular in the context of war where the enemy is always vilified to justify the war, it is opposing the ideas of the ruling class. It is defending the right of womem to walk down the street and not be attacked because what they are wearing. It's about not allowing the ruling class to use the oppression of women in Iraq and Iran, as an excuse for a war for oil. It's about opposing the scapegoating of Moslems.

Now can defending the rights of women to undress doesn't seem a necessity on the same level when I walk down any town centre on a Saturday night. During the day. I would defend their right if it was under attack, but it isn't.

Now if you live in Iraq or Iran, the argument is completely the opposite way round. I don't think I need to explain this. All I need to say is, morals do not exist in an abstract, the exist in a social context. What is moral and imoral depends where you were, at what moment in time. Equally the position and argument of Marxists on morals, changes are according to social context.

The injury to all issue. Many poor working class kids are forced to try in the army, Marxist do not therefore say "it is therefore okay for them to go kicking in doors in Northern Ireland, Iraq, Afghanistan". So whilst the main thing that marxists is that we are opposed to the army, and workers joining the Army etc, we don't ignore totally what, poverty etc, contributes to them joining. Likewise, we're always for a woman's right to choose to have an abortion if she wants one, and that she should be facilitated in this objective and placed demands upon the state to do so him and now. However, we don't want women to have abortions. The other side of the argument is that we demand as reforms here and now every means possible for the women to choose not to have abortions. All I want to point out here that is in our Marxist analysis, a dialectical analysis, the whole truth is contradictory.

So with prostitute who defend their right to organise. You opposed the right of the state to criminalise. You placed demands upon the state to make what they do as safe as possible. But when the page girl three says, she is not oppressed, or doing anything to oppress women, she is. She is taking part in the construction of ideas, the construction of the idea of the commodification of naked women. I really Think of anybody on the left who would disagree with this argument. Now I had to say I am myself uncomfortable to suggesting women who are so oppressed, prostitutes, contributing to oppression of women. But if the selling of sex, does not contribute to the idea of sex as a commodity, what does? But having said that, Marxist oppose the ideas of the ruling class. The starting point and ending point surely has to be defending the right to organise, safety, and opposing criminalisation.

PS. Can't help feeling uncomfortable with that argument about injury to all. Perhaps I'm wrong. But if you get the balance right, logically it is right. I suppose this is why it is that such a difficult argument to put across for German. I am sure she would agree with the context I have tried to place.

PPS. Just remember that the discussion years ago. It was about the time when people were arguing women were now liberated. And the discussion went on to the ladette culture. And I was arguing, women having the same attitude to sex as men was liberating. But then somebody asked, how is mimicking men's oppression liberating? And I think we often forget that men's sexuality is also distorted.

PPPS. I think Marxist attitude to the equality of men and women in the early 80s, men and women being exactly the same, and it was just the nurture that constructed the differences, is possibly not borne out by the latest scientific research. In particular im thinking of the experimentation of hormone replacement, on men. And women taking male hormone replacement tablets.

PPPPS. Sorry, this is the way my mind works. I start on a topic, and it just unravels like the inside of a golf ball.

 

[cockneyrebel]

Man that's a long arsed post hahahaha!

What I'm going to do is just to take on the conspiracy theory, of SW conspiring to ditch shibboleths, for the sake of Muslim vote.

Conspiracy theory? That's a bit much. What you don't think there is any political argument that could be given on this that isn't a conspiracy theory? I have to say that I think that opportunism has affected the SWP on issues such as this and can be seen in what Lindsey German has written. Does saying that really make me someone who believes in conspiracy theories?

For me it's not personal or a dig, just a political criticism.

Let's turn your question on it's head, why do so many on the left defend the right of women to undress, but not defend the right of others to dress? surely the neutral slogan is "we refute the right to oppress, women have the right to choose to dress or to undress", isn't it? but they don't argue that do they? They back the right of women to undress, but not the equal right of women to dress if they wish. They don't support the right to choose.

I basically agree. But not quite. Historically and even today women are far more oppressed by conservative morals and religious bigots than any pressure they face to wear skimpy clothes, even in free market times. So it's a matter of emphasis.

However there is the question of the oppression of muslims as a whole but that's not quite the same question.

Also I think it's very bizarre to say the least to apply the theory of revolutionary defeatism to clothing!!!!

I would defend their right if it was under attack, but it isn't.

I don't agree. There is still a massive oppression of women in terms of being called slags and insulted for their sexual choices, including clothing.

As for an injury to all. Are you seriously comparing imperialist soldiers carrying out an imperialist war to sex workers? If so I think that's disgusting and totally out of order. How do sex workers cause an injury to all any more than abusive heterosexual relationships?

You say they comodify sex? Not at all. That's capitalism. They don't comodify sex any more than any other work comodifies any other line of work. The point is that you wouldn't say a sweat shop worker is an injury to all, so why a sex worker?

 

[revol68]

So with prostitute who defend their right to organise. You opposed the right of the state to criminalise. You placed demands upon the state to make what they do as safe as possible. But when the page girl three says, she is not oppressed, or doing anything to oppress women, she is. She is taking part in the construction of ideas, the construction of the idea of the commodification of naked women. I really Think of anybody on the left who would disagree with this argument. Now I had to say I am myself uncomfortable to suggesting women who are so oppressed, prostitutes, contributing to oppression of women. But if the selling of sex, does not contribute to the idea of sex as a commodity, what does? But having said that, Marxist oppose the ideas of the ruling class. The starting point and ending point surely has to be defending the right to organise, safety, and opposing criminalisation.

But everything is a commodity under capitalism, what makes the commodification of sex necessary any worse than the commodification of any other human relationship or act? What makes the commodification of the female form any worse than the commodification of the male form? What is the hulking great proletarian men in the big anvil and spark factories of socialist realist art but the pornographic images of men selling their bodies to capital?

Personally the idea of paying for sex makes me feel queasy but that's my own personal take on it, some people don't have such hang ups about it and I don't think a political approach and analysis to sex work should start with my own qualms but from the perspective and needs of sex workers themselves.

 

[TremulousTetra]

It might well be analysing capitalism, but it is still one set of people telling another set of people how they should be. I is also implying that people are stupid and don't recognise what's happening around them.

The left will never get anywhere without putting to one side their moralism and stating realistic steps which will make life easier for the electorate.

You might feel that my life would be better if everyone saw the world the way you see it, but many people see the world in a different way.

I, for example, recognise a class struggle, but will NOT accept violence as a means to an end. I would support reform of the education system for example, maybe with a voucher system, a movement of tax burden from income tax to land tax, reforming of the House of Lords and a written constitution, all of which would help in the struggle towards a classless society, but actually people are not interested.

For example this thread entitled 'What's your strategy for political change' didn't even get to page 5.

Why? Because people aren't interested in change, they are only interested in their agenda.

I have thought about your post from a long time, and I don't really think I can satisfactorily answer it. I mean, you do ask all the right questions, you really capture what the vast majority of working class people think very well in such a succinct post imo, but my answers are so complex, it would take hours of open-minded discussion. I would do that with you if you want, but I don't think this forum is good for such a process. However;;;;;;;;;

I don't think you're being fair to the left. Yes the left are telling you what to think, but who isn't? People are telling you what to think about Daz, beefburgers, global warming, your five a day. Then to make things even more complicated, they all contradict each other. To the point where we have, information overload. Sometimes you feel so battered by everyone competing to tell you what is right, you end up giving up. Should I drink milk? Should I not drink milk? The viewpoint of the experts is constantly changing, so how am I supposed to know? So yes I suppose the left are telling you what to think, like everybody else, but it isn't necessarily the case the left think people are too stupid to make up their own mind, they're just competing for the ear of the working class like everybody else.

There is a more important reason why Marxist do not believe the working class are stupid. Marxists have scientifically observed history, and believe the next step in the evolution of human society is either a social revolution to a classless society, or the complete meltdown of society to some kind of Mad Max barbarism. Marxists have scientifically observed history, and predict that the only people who can bring about such a social revolution/evolution the working class. "The emancipation of the working class, has to be the act of the working class." this is one of the central philosophic foundation stones of all Marxist analysis. If the working class are too stupid to understand, then there can be no revolution, there is no point me being on these boards discussing the issue, we might as well just go home and live a hedonistic lifestyle.

That leaves the question, if it is all so difficult and complicated, how can Marxists be so sure a social revolution is possible?

PS.I believe the left should concentrateon talking to people like you,than trying to resolve irreconcilable differences between themselves. but that is in love with thread.

 

[TremulousTetra]

revol68, I have been through them arguments with SW/Marxism in my own head, so I have great empathy with what you are saying. But in the end we need to depersonalise it, we need to step away from our own feelings.

Shock horror. You and I find naked women attractive! Should we feel guilty about this? No, of course not. You see an attractive woman in a bar, you think what ever carnal thoughts you think. In that process, you are purely objectifying one element of the totality of that person's being, how physically attractive she is. When you go to the Cobblers, you do not worry about his oppression, you are just concerned with his ability, you are just objectifying his ability to fix your shoes. Should we feel any guilt about either of these situations, of course not. This is nothing to do with guilt or moralism, it is pure philosophy, looking at the world and asking why? why has society constructed the idea that a prostitute is somehow less worthy than a gigolo, as Cockney asked? It's about asking what in the power relationships of classes in capitalist society, has produced such ideas, and why? why does so often the rapist legitimate his attack based upon the notion of women as whores?

Carl Marx in capital talks about the way human beings fetishsise commodities. We give commodities, and ideas, a life of their own they do not possess. Commodities, you cannot buck the market. Let's analyse that, human beings are trading, they are producing goods to trade, and yet those actions and commodities take on a life of their own and control us? take the notion of God. Human beings one way or another have/are constantly abdicating responsibility for their destiny. They're giving over control of their destiny, to something they have invented themselves, God etc.

Philosophers describe the world, revolutionary change. Look at Charles Darwin. He was a revolutionary because it changed the way people thought about the world. But then when we change the way we thought about the world, it developed the way we could change the world. Where would genetics be without Darwin? equaly analysis of the class context of sexual relations, and how they are distorted by capitalism gives us a guide to action.

Now with sex workers, the guide to action starts and ends with organising, demanding safety, and opposing criminalisation for sex workers. The guide to action starts and ends with opposing all wars. But everything is not just black and white. I am opposed to all wars, I am for the organising of sex workers, BUT there are subtleties in the argument. I'm not going to ignore the fact that however horrific and barbaric the acts soldiers carry out for the ruling class, this is partially due to the way they barbarised by society. At the completely opposite end of the scale, however barbarised prostitutes are by society, the selling of sex does play a role in the construction of ideas about the role of women in society. What are you saying cockney, we should not discuss element you find disgusting?


PS. Sometimes I am slipping into terminology, based upon who I am talking to. When I'm talking about things like revolutionary defeatism, Im asking you to try and grasp the essence of what I am saying, rather than taking it literally. I borrow something from somewhere else which I think you will understand, in order to draw parallels. I think this habit of taking sentences, or are extracts from books like with Lindsey German, is prone to inaccuracy. I am sure German would argue she has been misrepresented. Sure, the onus is on the person trying to explain himself, to explain himself clearly. But there also needs to be a preparedness on the part of the reader to accept your own fallibility, the propensity for readers perspective to destort the writer's intention. And thank fully, you do seem to be recognizing that.

PPS. There is a Marxist argument that the subjugation of women is particularly a class phenomena. The logic of it is, that in capitalist society the capitalist needs to know who his offspring is, in order to carry on accumulating. This necessitates marriage, Fidelity, the instilling of a value system in people's heads so that Fidelity is more valued than free sex. Now, this is the point Im trying to make, no Marxist is saying that the capitalist sat down and thought through this logically. It is the logic that makes capitalist society understandable/tick, without the participants necessarily being aware of it, just like evolution is the logic that makes the natural world understandable/tick, without the participants necessarily being aware of it. it is the hegelian method of philosophy, where we try to understand the essence of things, the logic of things, rather than the appearance.

 

[cockneyrebel]

I'm not going to ignore the fact that however horrific and barbaric the acts soldiers carry out for the ruling class, this is partially due to the way they barbarised by society. At the completely opposite end of the scale, however barbarised prostitutes are by society, the selling of sex does play a role in the construction of ideas about the role of women in society. What are you saying cockney, we should not discuss element you find disgusting?

No I'm saying it's disgusting that you have compared (and now done it again) soldiers carrying out atrocities with sex workers. Where is the comparison apart from through a logic so vague and convuluted that you might as well get into some post-modernist argument.

Sex workers don't construct oppressive notions of sex any more than sweat workers construct notions of how factory work should be carried out or women is abusive heterosexual relationships construct notions of sex. Saying that sex workers are an injury to us all is disgusting in my view.

 

[TremulousTetra]

No I'm saying it's disgusting that you have compared (and now done it again) soldiers carrying out atrocities with sex workers. Where is the comparison apart from through a logic so vague and convuluted that you might as well get into some post-modernist argument.

Sex workers don't construct oppressive notions of sex any more than sweat workers construct notions of how factory work should be carried out or women is abusive heterosexual relationships construct notions of sex. Saying that sex workers are an injury to us all is disgusting in my view.

never fitted into the education system, so didn't get one, so I am always prepared to assume responsibility for lack of clarity in my writing.

However, how do you mean I have directly compared sex workers with soldiers? I said they were opposite, "at opposite ends of the scale", didn't I? I am not intending at all to say what sex workers do as a job, is in any way comparable to what soldiers do as a job.

On the injury to all, I think I've already said I feel uncomfortable about this. Sometimes I talked things through, to clarify. I've always been prepared to admit when I'm wrong.

Apparently the term was "degrades us all". I think that would be used in the same way slavery would degrade us all, and the way JHE explained it. getting back to the tortured logic of injury to all, Page 3 model? Is she committing an injury to all?

PS. Quite interesting that even when JHE is defending the Socialist worker logic, he has to insist they are coming to this logic far Machiavellian reasons, rather than for the same reasons as herself.

 

[cockneyrebel]

I thought you were saying that soldiers are oppressed but also carry out oppressive acts. I thought you were then comparing that to sex workers. But I don't get the comparison. What was it?

I think though that saying sex workers degrade us all is even worse! Again you wouldn't say that about sweat shop workers. Sex workers are doing a job, in a lot of instances in terrible and barbaric conditions. They no more degrade everyone else than women being oppressed in a heterosexual relationship.

Also sorry if I was being narky!

As for someone like a Page 3 model or someone like Jordan I think they can play a part in oppressing women as they often actively use their looks to make other women feel crap about themselves. But I don't think that is the case for the vast majority of sex workers so doesn't work as a wider point. And it's such a minor point on the scale of women's oppression that I don't think it's worth looking at too much anyway.

 

[TremulousTetra]

cockers
wow! I really do wish English was my first language.

I thought it was quite a common view/expression, from when slavery existed, that the existence of slavery in British society, degraded British society. Each of us allowing it to exist, degrades us all? similarly, the existence of prostitution in society today is damning of society today. We are degraded people, because we allow this to exist. Or to put it another way, it is not the act of the sex workers that degrades us, it is society's not dealing with the problems that perpetuate prostitution that degrades society. Does that make any sense?

 

[TremulousTetra]

Page 3 woman not just about body image, is it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_objectification

then there is the idea of a prostitute. base provides the basis for the superstructure, but the superstructure does not simply reflect the base. (the material base of society provides the basis for ideas, but ideas do not just sit there passively, ideas then shape the material base.) Compelled to or not, selling sex comodifies sex, doesn't it? the material base gives a tangible example of the idea that sex can be commodified. Now look at Madonna, yes the pop Idol. It is apparent in her work that she opressed by her experience of ideas. In her upbringing there was only two models for women, the Saint and the whore. So she rebelled about this, by constantly juxtaposing the two ideas, and saying women are not just either or, they can be both. So the idea of the whore, does play a role in oppressing women.

Now this is NOT saying, sex workers play a active role in oppressing women. But that their actions go beyond what they intend, to play a role in oppressing women.


(also look at JHE comments about selling labour and sell sex.)