GenZedong

This reads slightly like concern trolling, but I will respond anyway. The issue is important.

I do not assume that everyone reading my comment is a straight man; rather I assume that most people defending sex work will be straight men. Long experience with The Online Left has made me very cynical in this regard; as Deng Xiaoping said, "seek truth from facts," and a whole lot of pro-prostitution rhetoric is eerily similar to arguments incels make. You cannot seriously tell me you've never run into a straight, cismale "leftist" whose "support" for sex workers was ultimately about getting (as someone else in this thread put) a "Revolutionary People's Prostitution Office;" such individuals are a plague in our circles. Genderwise, this thread may be an exception to the general rule -- it is hardly a total exception -- but it does not disprove said rule. Any experience with the internet or (indeed) real-life left will show you that.

But neither are women and queer people automatically immune to this nonsense. Just as you have right-wing trans people like Blaire White, and other women who support MAGA and "redpill" philosophy, so you get plenty of women and queer people on the left who support sexist positions ultimately not in their interests. (I remember, not too fondly, when Merrick DeVille's reinvention of comfort women was a hotly debated topic in leftist forums). The assumption that identity always equals ideology, and that being part of an oppressed minority leads therefore, always and in every case, to a correct interpretation of material reality, is wrong and ignores the existence of false consciousness. But only Marxists-Leninists seem really to talk about such things.

I am perfectly aware that men can be trafficked as well. However, the vast majority of trafficked people are women and girls. To ignore that, or to say that protections for women and girls should not be the main focus of anti-trafficking policy, is to engage in a sort of leftist reskinning of an infamous right-wing talking point: "You spend all this time talking about how Black people are victims of racism in the US, but did you know that white people can also be victims of racially-motivated crimes?" Certainly they can, but the problem is not anywhere near comparable, or anything like so institutionalized. Similarly, to focus on protections for women and girls, from a problem that they disproportionately face, is not in the least to deny them agency.

Lastly, the institutionalization of sex work is far more characteristic of fascist regimes than socialist ones. Stalin, Mao, and Kim Il-Sung abolished prostitution and pornography. Mussolini's Italy was content to regulate the existing the brothel system. The Nazis similarly had military brothels, from which women of "impure blood" were excluded. We know about Imperial Japan and "comfort women", and there have been reports of similar things happening in today's Ukraine. South Korean "democracy activists" have tried to smuggle porn into the DPRK, apparently under the belief that it is a social rot which will help undermine society from within. Are we to believe that these regimes, regressive in every way, were progressive and better than socialist states on this one issue? That seems dubious, to put it mildly.

People arguing against lemmygrad users in this thread? A mix.

People arguing the pro-sex work position elsewhere on the net, and in real life? In my experience, almost always straight dudes, with an incel mentality and a terminal case of porn brain.

But honestly, I don't know what to tell you. This is a Marxist-Leninist community which supports AES states; you are going to find people supporting the ML line on sex work. That shouldn't be any kind of surprise. Just as it shouldn't surprise you to find that people here support state authority, rapid industrialization, limited role for markets within a centrally-planned economy, and a police force and security apparatus to fight against counterrevolutionaries. The old meme "You mad? Grow a community garden about it" somewhat applies.

You seem to be arguing in good faith, so I'll provide I detailed breakdown.

I do disagree with the idea that women’s “sexual purity” is something to be owned and protected by men.

I hear this language from a lot of leftists who are pro-sex work, and it always seems to me a little nebulous. There are societies where men "owning and protecting a woman's sexual purity" means something; they are generally pre-industrial societies, or societies ruled by a religious authority, not modern western societies. There is certainly sexism in the modern west, but it expresses itself in a different form: often as women experiencing social pressure to become, as it were, common sexual property. The women who give in are then shamed for not being the ideal autonomous individual of liberalism. This, not religion or any leftovers of religion, is the real root of the modern phenomena of "slut-shaming."

I am suspicious for this reason even of things like OnlyFans. While they provide some agency for sex workers, and some modicum of protection, their long term tendency or goal seems to be turning women into luxury commodities for the wealthy. This is not liberation.

Please note also that, when I spoke of workers' concern that their "wife, girlfriend, mother, sister" fall into the clutches of a predatory industry, I spoke also of the workers concern for themselves -- i.e., I was including female workers. Furthermore, there is nothing inherently patriarchal about a straight male worker being concerned that a female worker is being sexually exploited. It is class solidarity, though it may be expressed in terms that we as Marxists should strictly speaking disagree with -- most workers have not gone to college, and do not know the latest trendy lingo.

You can very easily find “real workers” and “real Marxists” whose hatred of “prostitution and pornography” specifically manifests as a hatred of women that have sex outside of a heterosexual monogamous relationship for the purpose of procreation.

In Marxists, this is the result of bad education; in workers, it is false consciousness. (Though in my experience, the number of Marxists who hold such views is minimal, and dwarfed by the brocialists whose idea of women's liberation is "shut up and suck my dick while I talk to Tyler over here about Trotsky"). But this false consciousness is not totally at odds with reality, in that it reflects, as if in a distorting mirror, certain mechanisms of capitalist oppression. Abortion in capitalist societies is often a tool of eugenics. Western governments often "pinkwash" austerity policies, thus throwing queer people under the bus, but also deliberately presenting to workers the LGBTQ+ movement as something opposed to their interests. And so on.

Just as it wouldn’t be fair of me to assume the worst of you, I don’t think it’s fair of you to assume that anyone sensitive to language that most often precedes a call for more police are straight men that want a Revolutionary People’s Prostitution office.

This is fair criticism, though I have run into a whole lot of pro-prostitution brocialists in real life.

This is a valid perspective, and I appreciate you bringing it up, and also the fact that you do not want to argue. But you must realize that -- and let me repeat, the orthodox Marxist position is not, and never has been, against sex workers -- the form of sex work which exists under socialism would be so different from sex work under capitalism as to virtually be an entirely different industry. Indeed, I have a hard time seeing how it could come about under anything but the final stage of communism, where money and class distinctions have been entirely done away with, and labor becomes, in Marx's words, "life's prime want." I recognize, however, that material reality is greater than I am, and perhaps there is a way to square the circle. Though the fact that nearly all, if not all, AES countries are opposed to the sex industry makes me somewhat dubious.

Most people do enjoy giving someone an orgasm, and getting to know their body. It is a valuable part of the human experience. But to be a industry, a non-exploitative industry anyway, it would have to be something like art, or (as you've mentioned) therapy. And neither of these can be the backbone of an economy, since real wealth comes from production. Socialist countries obviously have their artists, like David Oistrakh and the great pianist Yudina; and of course they also have therapists. But they are always a minority, even if what they do benefits many people. This is against the tendency of the sex industry in the in the west, which capital is now pushing into aggressive expansion.

individual women should be making decisions about it and protected by law or like, safe houses, whereas any pimping is imprisonable

I don't think you will find any serious communist who really disagrees with this.

Sorry for the ramble

No worries at all, I thought it was coherent and well-thought out.

just felt like a bad leftist for doing this kind of work

There is absolutely no reason you should be feeling that, and if my post gave off that tone, I apologize. I do admit to having, based on some things I have seen and the experiences of certain acquaintances, a burning hatred of pimps and johns, and I probably express this immoderately at times.

You have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of, and it's disgusting that bigoted prudes like JucheBot1988 worm their way into ML (or general leftist) movements and instigate this kind of unnecessary shame. You are a worker, you have every right to be proud of the real work you do, and there is nothing wrong, certainly nothing shameful, about enjoying your work to whatever degree you do. Just as all workers, sex workers can both find enjoyment in their work and rightfully lament the ways in which that work is exploited under capitalism. And like any other form of work, there is nothing inherently exploitative about sex work itself, but again, only how it operates under the capitalist mode. I'm sure I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, but personally, I find that these kind of reassurances and solidarity from comrades can go a long ways in reminding me that I also have nothing to be ashamed of with respect to my own past work. Especially when sexist SWERFs start going off on their slimy tirades.

Please do not listen to fools like JucheBot1988. They have an agenda, and it's gross, but that doesn't mean you (or anyone reading) need to take their reactionary bile to heart. Notice how they weaseled their pet issue prudery into a completely unrelated post, and the outright sexist implication that women are incapable of enjoying expressing their sexuality online. lol. It really is laughable, actually. They have some weird fucking issues, but do not let that effect you or cause you to feel any shame whatsoever. They're no more worth listening to than chud transphobes and racists are.

Meanwhile most of us, certainly myself, only want to express solidarity, empathy, and compassion for our fellow workers like you.

You are not a bad leftist. There is no criticism we should give sex workers while we live under capitalism, only in a system that has already guaranteed much greater amounts of economic equality can the idea of abolishing sex work be tackled, and anyone who says otherwise kind of sucks.

And yes, your work is honestly incredibly similar to therapy (I've had to hear so many stories from friends in sex work) and is actually very real work, and can be very personally rewarding. Just stay safe!

It is not my fault that in reality bullying non-marxists works

We're talking about American presidents, remember, so the bar is pretty low.