Prostitutes

[Fawkes]

I've come across a good amount of people that consider prostitutes to be lumpens and it's pretty alarming and I think very inaccurate to say. Here's a post I made in a thread a month ago explaining why prostitutes are not lumpens and what the implications are of referring to them as such:

In most cases, they sell their labor power for a wage to their boss (pimp, escort agency, madam, etc.), making them proletarian. At best, they're self-employed and have no pimp or escort agency, making them petit-bourgeois. The fact that they operate outside of the legal framework of most capitalist systems does nothing to alter their relationship to the means of production. Relegating them to the class of lumpenproletariat serves to alienate an already ostracized faction of workers, not to mention ignore materialist class analysis.
http://www.revleft.com/vb/self-employment-t147847/index2.html


Whatchyall think?



Also, I'm just gonna say preemptively that no, this thread does not belong in Women's Struggles and here is why:
http://newyork.craigslist.org/m4m/ ("roses", "$", and "generous" are the key terms here)

[PhoenixAsh]

I've come across a good amount of people that consider prostitutes to be lumpens and it's pretty alarming and I think very inaccurate to say. Here's a post I made in a thread a month ago explaining why prostitutes are not lumpens and what the implications are of referring to them as such:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/self-employment-t147847/index2.html


Whatchyall think?



Also, I'm just gonna say preemptively that no, this thread does not belong in Women's Struggles and here is why:
http://newyork.craigslist.org/m4m/ ("roses", "$", and "generous" are the key terms here)

I think for a part they are either petit burgeoisie or proletariat.

Part they are slaves. Forced to work in the sex industry.
Part they are addicts using sex as buy drugs as a means of begging as dictated by their addiction and are thus part of the lumpen proletariat.

The problem with prostitutes is that the are not easilly grouped. The motivations for working in the profession are diverse.

[Hoipolloi Cassidy]

Whatchyall think?

I think you're right; To quote our recently published "The Red Museum: Art, economics and the ends of capital:"


In Baudelaire's day the Parisian working girls called this kind of job the second shift. Sex in the Western World is a metaphor of work...Illustration by Paul Werner for The Red Museum:

http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd258/TheOrangePress/TheRedMuseum/Invisible-1.jpg

[Fawkes]

Part they are addicts using sex as buy drugs as a means of begging as dictated by their addiction and are thus part of the lumpen proletariat.


1. What it is that economically incentivizes someone to work in a particular job is irrelevant in determining their class. My sister worked at a retail clothing store so as to have money to buy heroin, she's not lumpen.

2. That's assuming all prostitutes are addicts, which is not true at all.

[pastradamus]

I agree with hindsight and I think fawkes brings up a good issue here.

Prostitutes, Generally speaking are selling their body for money, mainly, because other job opportunities are not available to them. This might be a knock-on effect of a severe drug addiction or debts owed to people or business'. I think that for the most part prostitutes are an extremely exploited group of people (more so than the average proletariat).

It is my opinion therefore, based on what i've outlined above, that prostitution should be a legally recognised profession - which would take the criminal element out of the trade and would also protect the safety of the individuals.

[pastradamus]

My sister worked at a retail clothing store so as to have money to buy heroin, she's not lumpen.

Of course not. She's a functioning member of society the same as anyone else. I've a friend with a huge drinking problem. He'll finish drinking about 3am and get up for work at 7am.

People can still be Functional with an addiction.

[PhoenixAsh]

1. What it is that economically incentivizes someone to work in a particular job is irrelevant in determining their class. My sister worked at a retail clothing store so as to have money to buy heroin, she's not lumpen.

2. That's assuming all prostitutes are addicts, which is not true at all.

@2 As I stated..."part" this was ment as a division in the groups of prostitutes and not as part of the motivation of all prostitutes.

@1 I see working for addiction as a way of begging in a dignified way. Beggars are not considered petit burgeoisie eventhough they are self employed. In the same way I do not count workers who work with a motivation to work dictated by addiction as workers.

Marx himself categorised prostitutes with the lumpenproletariat. I do not agree with that. But I do agree with his assessment that the divisonary lines between proletariat and petit burgeoisie and lumpenproletariat are fluent lines.

Especially given the distinction as the Lumpenproletariat of a retrograde class. That is why I take motivation into account. And drug use will lead to degeneration of work capabilities and is a progressive illness. for example if your sister continues to use heroin she will at some point in time not be able to work anymore. That does not make her less of a person but it does make it that she is not a proletarian.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

It depends on their work relations (ie. whether they are self-employed or work for an agency/brothel/pimp).

"A singer who sings like a bird is an unproductive worker. If she sells her singing for money, she is to that extent a wage labourer or a commodity dealer. But the same singer, when engaged by an entrepreneur who has her sing in order to make money, is a productive worker, for she directly produces capital. " - Marx

[The Red Next Door]

These people become prostitutes for economical reasons, they are not lumpen unlike Crack Pushers.

[the last donut of the night]

in b4 the sexists come out of the wood-work

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

These people become prostitutes for economical reasons, they are not lumpen unlike Crack Pushers.

There are all sorts of prostitutes. It's not limited to desperate street walkers. There are escorts that work for "high class" agencies making thousands per week. In Japan, there are places like pink saloons all over the place, staffed almost equally by housewives working in secret for extra money and young women working there because it pays several times more than they can make at a "regular" job, according to studies. Korea's "kiss rooms" are staffed almost entirely by college students.

If you're looking at it in terms of class, the relations are what matters. Is it their main source of income, are they being exploited by an employer, etc.

[red cat]

Still, most prostitutes form one of the lowermost groups of the proletariat. To call them lumpen is to succumb to sexism and bourgeois notions of morality.

[PhoenixAsh]

Still, most prostitutes form one of the lowermost groups of the proletariat. To call them lumpen is to succumb to sexism and bourgeois notions of morality.

Perhaps...though Marx did classify them as such. saying they were part of the regenerate class.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Like I said, it really depends on the specifics. In Japan, where prostitution is rife (and to a large extent legal), many who work in the industry make much more than they would working "regular jobs," and are exploited. The facilities they work bring in much more than the prostitutes themselves receive. They are exploited just as they would be if they worked at a clothing factory.

I don't think there's anything sexist about recognizing that some women belong to the lumpenproletariat, though of course a lot of leftists misuse the term that way (and class in general).

The lumpenproletariat is made up of "swindlers, confidence tricksters, brothel-keepers, rag-and-bone merchants, beggars, and other flotsam of society."

[red cat]

Marx had his own dogmas. That doesn't mean that we will be unquestioningly accept those.

Even many workers in high posts directly act against the working class. That does not mean that we should deny the condition and demands of most of the workers. We classify the proletariat by considering the condition of the vast majority of workers. Similarly, we should classify prostitutes by considering the condition of the vast majority of them.

EDIT : Most beggars are not lumpen too. They are unemployed members of the proletariat who have no other choice.

[sologdin]

prostitution is a profession, though it may no longer require any advanced study or licensure. but it's up there with with law, medicine, divinity, and soldiering as a field of employment where the primary "product" is the provision of service.

it is likely a misstatement therefore to suggest that prostitutes "sell" "bodies"; the most charitable response is that, perhaps, a prostitute leases out part of the body--though i do not read most prostitution to confer any type of title to the body itself.

the capitalist who runs a prostitution firm accordingly makes very little capital investment--though it's easy to imagine that lawful prostitution would lead to prostitutes who acquire progressively more ornate surgical body augmentations and use progressively more complicated accoutrement during the provision of services.

the rate of exploitation is therefore extremely high, as the capitalist need not recover much in the way of fixed costs; only the wage of the prostitute must be recovered--though my impression is that the prostitute works for a commission, rather than a wage. so it is safe to say that the prostitution capitalist need not advance any moneys--except, perhaps, to bribe police, bail employees out of jail, and so on.

that said, it appears to me that the organic composition of capital in an underground prostitution market includes almost entirely labor, with small capital expenditure, if any. the rate of profit will accordingly not fall in unlawful prostitution markets, making it, perhaps, capitalism's all-time best performer.

prostitution therefore must be made lawful in order to free its rate of profit to fall, and thereby hasten the end of the system as such.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Marx had his own dogmas. That doesn't mean that we will be unquestioningly accept those.

What's important is the method, which of course remains valid.

A one line post on an internet discussion board dismissing it certainly won't change any minds on that anyway.


Even many workers in high posts directly act against the working class.

I'd love to hear more about this..


That does not mean that we should deny the condition and demands of most of the workers. We classify the proletariat by considering the condition of the vast majority of workers.

The proletariat is an international class, united by its relation to the means of production, with concrete shared interests.


Similarly, we should classify prostitutes by considering the condition of the vast majority of them.

"Prostitutes" is too broad a term.

You can't classify everyone in the textile industry together. There are workers, managers, owners, etc.

The same goes for sex work. There are studio owners, brothel owners, traffickers, pimps, madams, house moms, escorts, shop workers, street workers, poor workers that rely on it from time to time, vagrants that sometimes dabble in it, etc., etc., etc.

It comes down to work relations, no matter the industry.


EDIT : Most beggars are not lumpen too. They are unemployed members of the proletariat who have no other choice.

Hence lumpenproletariat.

The point is not whether or not they "chose" to be beggars. Who in their right mind would choose such a thing?

The point is their relation to the means of production, their relation to other classes, and their likely activity.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

prostitution is a profession, though it may no longer require any advanced study or licensure. but it's up there with with law, medicine, divinity, and soldiering as a field of employment where the primary "product" is the provision of service.

it is likely a misstatement therefore to suggest that prostitutes "sell" "bodies"; the most charitable response is that, perhaps, a prostitute leases out part of the body--though i do not read most prostitution to confer any type of title to the body itself.

the capitalist who runs a prostitution firm accordingly makes very little capital investment--though it's easy to imagine that lawful prostitution would lead to prostitutes who acquire progressively more ornate surgical body augmentations and use progressively more complicated accoutrement during the provision of services.

the rate of exploitation is therefore extremely high, as the capitalist need not recover much in the way of fixed costs; only the wage of the prostitute must be recovered--though my impression is that the prostitute works for a commission, rather than a wage. so it is safe to say that the prostitution capitalist need not advance any moneys--except, perhaps, to bribe police, bail employees out of jail, and so on.

that said, it appears to me that the organic composition of capital in an underground prostitution market includes almost entirely labor, with small capital expenditure, if any. the rate of profit will accordingly not fall in unlawful prostitution markets, making it, perhaps, capitalism's all-time best performer.

Not every prostitute works for an agency or pimp. There are self employed prostitutes (ranging from high price escorts to street walkers), among others (including prostitutes who at the same work as pimps for other prostitutes).

It's also the case that some prostitutes, who are trafficked or sold to a house for example, are bought or rented. Thus capitalism grotesquely turns human beings back into property, resurrecting a form of outright slavery.


prostitution therefore must be made lawful in order to free its rate of profit to fall, and thereby hasten the end of the system as such.

Prostitution will exist for as long as "the overturning power of money" does.

"That which is for me through the medium of money-that for which I can pay (i.e., which money can buy)- that am I, the possessor of the money. The extent of the power of money is the extent of my power. Money's properties are my properties and essential powers-the properties and powers of its possessor. Thus, what I am and am capable of is by no means determined by my individuality. I am ugly, but I can buy for myself the most beautiful of women. Therefore I am not ugly, for the effect of ugliness--its deterrent power--is nullified by money ... Do not I, who thanks to money am capable of all that the human heart longs for, possess all human capacities? Does not my money, therefore, transform all my incapacities into their contrary?" - Marx

[coda]

<<<< for example if your sister continues to use heroin she will at some point in time not be able to work anymore. That does not make her less of a person but it does make it that she is not a proletarian. >>>>

Nope, if she was ever a proletarian/worker than she is a (still) proletarian with a current illness/problem that needs to be addressed.

I do not think Marx meant to imply that a person's worth is based on the worth of his paycheck or ability to make money. There are many different ways to work and participate in society and those who have either aged out/illed out/birthed out/ or for whatever reason opt out of the current productive workforce,does not neccesarily make them lumpen or bourgeoisie in regard to the means of production.

[PhoenixAsh]

<<<< for example if your sister continues to use heroin she will at some point in time not be able to work anymore. That does not make her less of a person but it does make it that she is not a proletarian. >>>>

Nope, if she was ever a proletarian/worker than she is a (still) proletarian with a current illness/problem that needs to be addressed.

I do not think Marx meant to imply that a person's worth is based on the worth of his paycheck or ability to make money. There are many different ways to work and participate in society and those who have either aged out/illed out/birthed out/ or for whatever reason opt out of the current productive workforce,does not neccesarily make them lumpen or bourgeoisie in regard to the means of production.

Very well.

Perhaps I should have said she belongs to that part of the porletariat as a whole who will never reach class conscienceness since she is invested in perpetuating the current system because of substance dependency. Workers who work because they need to purchase drugs are invested in perpetuating the system of capital and are dependent on the perseverance of a financial system.


Again I would like to underline that I am not arguing that this makes them less worthy as persons. And to add I do not believe they are not capable of revolutionary violence or activities. In that part I also differ from opinion with Marx.

[sologdin]

Not every prostitute works for an agency or pimp. There are self employed prostitutes (ranging from high price escorts to street walkers), among others (including prostitutes who at the same work as pimps for other prostitutes).

no doubt. i'm sure a large amount of prostitution occurs informally and part-time, with the prostitutes in question not thinking of themselves as sex workers--such as a person with a full time non-sex-work job who procures additional income infrequently through sex work.



It's also the case that some prostitutes, who are trafficked or sold to a house for example, are bought or rented. Thus capitalism grotesquely turns human beings back into property, resurrecting a form of outright slavery.


i'd draw a distinction there between wage-slave "prostitutes" and sex workers held as chattel slaves. the latter incurs a capital investment for the harem owner in the form of housing, foods, aesthetic maintenance (for want of a better term), health care (such as it may be), and so on--all of which are likely not to be provided by pimps and madames.




Prostitution will exist for as long as "the overturning power of money" does.


agreed, there, too. i was only commenting on its relation to the FRoP, though.

[coda]

<<<Perhaps I should have said she belongs to that part of the porletariat as a whole who will never reach class conscienceness since she is invested in perpetuating the current system because of substance dependency.>>>

geh.. I don't want to seem like ragging on you....

A drug addict/street prostitute doing it for a hideous $10/20 dollars is hardly perputuating the current (capitalist) system.
They would be much more proletarian-conscience then prostitutes who are doing it to join the ranks of the pro-capitalists.

[thesadmafioso]

I don't very well care if prostitution is a wage slave or petty bourgeoisies, it is still a despicable profession and a symptom of the inherent immorality of the capitalistic system. Sex is not a commodity to be bought and sold, it is just bloody barbaric and primitive to view it in such a manner.

[sologdin]

the inherent immorality

do we need to construe it that way?


Sex is not a commodity to be bought and sold,

but isn't it?

[thesadmafioso]

but isn't it?

Did I really need to clarify that I meant that remark to not be interpreted in a literal sense? I thought it would be clear enough that I was arguing from a theoretical standpoint with that comment.

[Fawkes]

I don't very well care if prostitution is a wage slave or petty bourgeoisies, it is still a despicable profession and a symptom of the inherent immorality of the capitalistic system. Sex is not a commodity to be bought and sold, it is just bloody barbaric and primitive to view it in such a manner.

Oh god...


it is still a despicable profession
No, it isn't. Care to explain why you think so though? By the way, calling it "despicable" is a really great way to garner support for an ostracized faction of the working class :thumbup1:


symptom of the inherent immorality of the capitalistic system
So we hate capitalism because it's immoral? Get outta here with this bullshit, I don't care about your morals and I'm gonna guess nobody else does either. There's nothing inherently "wrong" with commodifying sex.


Sex is not a commodity to be bought and sold
Yes it is.

I'll quote myself to support this:

You're missing the difference between sex between two people who want to have sex with one another for the sake of having sex and one person who will commit sex acts with another as a means of providing a commodity. (whammy, I said "sex" way too many times in that sentence)

Sex as a prostitute is:
Customer: "Wanna suck my dick?"
Prostitue: "Okay"
C: "Now drape your balls over my eyes and tell me you love me"
P: "You got it"
(provided you are willing to do those things)

It's not a mutual discourse like sex between 2 or more partners, it's similar to "can you focus on massaging my traps" or "can you pour me a pint".

and here:

As a sex worker, you would be providing something that improves people's quality of life and/or makes them happy. This is something that is also provided by massage therapists, bartenders, chefs, video game makers, authors, even physical therapists. Are those all illegitimate professions?

and here:

And yeah, I'm sure sex work still will exist in a post-capitalist society. Obviously the nature of it will be quite different and I would hope the prevalence of it would be greatly diminished due to increased quality of life resulting in a general lessening of isolation and loneliness that often results in calling up some prostitute or slappin the ham til you can't walk anymore, but porn's still gonna be made and people are still gonna want someone to fuck without having to shave and spray on some cologne and I'm sure there will be people willing to provide that service.

These were all taken from this thread:
http://www.revleft.com/vb/should-johns-restrictedi-t142393/index9.html


it is just bloody barbaric and primitive to view it in such a manner
No, it is reactionary and conducive to sexist attitudes to view sex as something possessing any inherent meaning -- we leave that to the hardcore christians. Should we all be enlightened and view sex as this special, romantic bond shared between lovers?

[thesadmafioso]

Oh god...


No, it isn't. Care to explain why you think so though? By the way, calling it "despicable" is a really great way to garner support for an ostracized faction of the working class :thumbup1:


So we hate capitalism because it's immoral? Get outta here with this bullshit, I don't care about your morals and I'm gonna guess nobody else does either. There's nothing inherently "wrong" with commodifying sex.


Yes it is.

I'll quote myself to support this:

and here:

and here:


These were all taken from this thread:
http://www.revleft.com/vb/should-johns-restrictedi-t142393/index9.html


No, it is reactionary and conducive to sexist attitudes to view sex as something possessing any inherent meaning -- we leave that to the hardcore christians. Should we all be enlightened and view sex as this special, romantic bond shared between lovers?

Wait, so discussing what is good and what is bad is not to be accounted for here? Reasoning that as the system of capitalism is exploitative and that since it does not provide for the greatest level of equality amongst man that is is not a desirable mode of economics is bad?

Prostitution is something which underprivileged or economically disadvantaged individuals engage in to survive under the capitalistic system. Of course a great deal of this is personal choice, but at the same time most of the individuals who become caught up in this sort of mess are not exactly given the necessary implements to see the act for its especially exploitative nature. Selling ones body in such a direct sense is simply vulgar and primitive. Humanity has evolved to a point where in it should not have professions like this based around solely in basic biological impulses. Prostitution exists for profit and for a pathetic attempt to quell undeveloped ancient biological urges, it is something which serves no valuable purpose to society.

I don't care if having sex with a prostitute makes people happy, people are as a whole are absolute idiots who are devoid of the capacity to know true happiness. The term itself is terrible as well, as it is subjective to a point where its possible uses overwhelm its potential applicability in a discussion such as this. It is a profession based in a evolutionary impulse which emerged with the intent of continuing the species of man, and that purpose has become overdeveloped at this point in our history. Prostitution is something which is indulgent of the ignorant and the narrow minded fool while at the same time degrading to the actual prostitute.

So would you remind me again how seeing the useless of prostitution is reactionary?

[28350]

Still, most prostitutes form one of the lowermost groups of the proletariat. To call them lumpen is to succumb to sexism and bourgeois notions of morality.

Class is amoral.
I don't think most prostitutes are lumpen, but even if they were, that wouldn't make them inherently bad.

[PhoenixAsh]

<<<Perhaps I should have said she belongs to that part of the porletariat as a whole who will never reach class conscienceness since she is invested in perpetuating the current system because of substance dependency.>>>

geh.. I don't want to seem like ragging on you....

A drug addict/street prostitute doing it for a hideous $10/20 dollars is hardly perputuating the current (capitalist) system.
They would be much more proletarian-conscience then prostitutes who are doing it to join the ranks of the pro-capitalists.

doesn't matter :)

They are not perpetuating it per se but their interests lie in the perpetuation of the system because of their dependency on it to maintain their addiction. As such they are easilly used by the system for support to maintain it...

[Fawkes]

Moralistic arguments are useless because I don't care about your morals. Discuss them all you want, but you ain't gonna convince anyone.


Prostitution is something which underprivileged or economically disadvantaged individuals engage in to survive under the capitalistic system. Of course a great deal of this is personal choice, but at the same time most of the individuals who become caught up in this sort of mess are not exactly given the necessary implements to see the act for its especially exploitative nature.
As with any job.


Selling ones body in such a direct sense is simply vulgar and primitive.
Fuck off with the puritanical bullshit. It's no different from selling any other kind of labor.


Humanity has evolved to a point where in it should not have professions like this based around solely in basic biological impulses.
I'll requote myself:

As a sex worker, you would be providing something that improves people's quality of life and/or makes them happy. This is something that is also provided by massage therapists, bartenders, chefs, video game makers, authors, even physical therapists. Are those all illegitimate professions?


Prostitution exists for profit and for a pathetic attempt to quell undeveloped ancient biological urges, it is something which serves no valuable purpose to society.
All jobs currently exist for profit. Undeveloped biological urges? The urge to jizz is an undeveloped biological urge? It serves a valuable purpose in that it satisfies certain people's desires and wants.


I don't care if having sex with a prostitute makes people happy, people are as a whole absolute idiots who are devoid of the capacity to know true happiness
True happiness? Go back to your lame philosophy class and come back when you have something substantial to say.


The term itself is terrible as well, as it is subjective to a point where its possible uses overwhelm its potential applicability in a discussion such as this. It is a profession based in a evolutionary impulse which emerged with the intent of continuing the species of man, and that purpose has become overdeveloped at this point in our history. Prostitution is something which is indulgent of the ignorant and the narrow minded fool while at the same time degrading to the actual prostitute.
So are you a member of the Methodist Church or Baptist?

So in effect you're saying people have, over time, become overly randy? :lol::lol::lol: People have sex for a whole myriad of reasons, but the fact that it feels good has always been the primary impetus behind it. Who the hell would want to have sex if it didn't feel good, it's a fucking workout



So would you remind me again how seeing the useless of prostitution is reactionary?

It is reactionary to place sex on this symbolic pedestal as an act suitable for two lovers wishing to procreate.

[Boboulas]

Prostitution is almost allways based on a sense of dependancy artificially created by a pimp or whatever. I think this can obscure a persons mind but its not something that is indestructable and certainly doesnt mean that they "would never achieve class consciousness".


Relegating them to the class of lumpenproletariat serves to alienate an already ostracized faction of workers

I think thats an important sentance. Some Marxists seem to apply this "lumpenproletariat" to (in their opinion) undesireable elements of society, although i think its just a reason to look down at something many people have trouble understanding and therefore find it easy to "write off" with that wierd title.

[PhoenixAsh]

Prostitution is something which underprivileged or economically disadvantaged individuals engage in to survive under the capitalistic system. Of course a great deal of this is personal choice, but at the same time most of the individuals who become caught up in this sort of mess are not exactly given the necessary implements to see the act for its especially exploitative nature.

Whoah...hold your horses there. Are you actually arguing that people can not decide for themselves if they are exploitet or not and f they care or not?

I know several girls and boys who do not do it out of financial necessity or survival but see it as a fun way to make money. They do not see it as exploitation...but rather see it as a hobby which also makes them money.

You are generalizing and marginalizing here.


Selling ones body in such a direct sense is simply vulgar and primitive. Humanity has evolved to a point where in it should not have professions like this based around solely in basic biological impulses.

What a load of horse crap.

First of all you are implyig that selling your body in a less direct sense isn't vulgar. Personally I do not see the difference in spending $100
on a date or simply gifving the $100 dollar and skipping the date all together. Its more direct, more efficient and it has the added benefit that you do not need to worry that he or she requires a second date. This may be a very blunt view of the matter but that is simply what most dating is: a very circumvent way of buying willingness for sex.

I know a lot of men and women who are perfectly willing to sleep with people...but not unless they are willing to spend money on them in the form of drinks or dinner, or entertainment.

Second of all these are biological impulses we have, that drive us and that form the basis of large parts of behaviour and that can not be rationalized. they exist, they are real and they can not be ignored.



Prostitution exists for profit and for a pathetic attempt to quell undeveloped ancient biological urges, it is something which serves no valuable purpose to society.

No...prostitution exists because of demand and supply. THAT is why profit can be made.

There is a need for people who provide sex because people need sex. why? Because its good for them, its healthy and its fun to do. Now loads of people do not get to have a partner because they are socially ackward, because they do not want to tie themselves down, because they do not want or have the time to spend on endless dates, Or perhaps because they are plain ugly or even physically or mentaly handicapt. That does not lessen their want or need of sex. And as such prostitution is necessary.

What you also need to consider... in societies were prostitution is enforced illegal rape goes up, inter gender violence goes up, child abuse goes up....even if the celibacy is freely taken...

So how do you propose to solve these issues in a socialist society?



I don't care if having sex with a prostitute makes people happy, people are as a whole are absolute idiots who are devoid of the capacity to know true happiness.

Wow....aren't we pretentious today....as to tell people what and what does not make them happy and if this equals true happiness or not.



The term itself is terrible as well, as it is subjective to a point where its possible uses overwhelm its potential applicability in a discussion such as this. It is a profession based in a evolutionary impulse which emerged with the intent of continuing the species of man, and that purpose has become overdeveloped at this point in our history. Prostitution is something which is indulgent of the ignorant and the narrow minded fool while at the same time degrading to the actual prostitute.

No...actually its you who is degrading the actual prostitute. The act is neutral...its people with a moral agenda that try to enforce the vision of right and wrong and morality into the issue that actually villify the postitute as someone who dabbles in morally wrong endeavours and is therefore an outcast and to be treated as such.



So would you remind me again how seeing the useless of prostitution is reactionary?

See above...

[Ocean Seal]

They are lumpen because they don't contribute to the growth of capital. But the reason that they are lumpen is that prostitution is illegal. If prostitution were legal, then they would be proletarians as they would sell their labor, and contribute to economic growth. My deepest sympathies lie with prostitutes.They endure so much abuse from customers, and pimps, and on top of that many of them are forced to do drugs by their clients and/or pimps so that they are forced to prostitute themselves to feed their addiction. As far as workers go they are the most abused. And to make it worse, most people don't have any sympathy. They look down on them, and miss the human aspect of their struggle.

Legalize Prostitution & Unionize Prostitutes

Take the power from the pimps (lumpenbourgeoisie), and give it to the prostitutes (workers). The more and more I think about it, prostitutes represent the true workers struggle. In no case is the theft of labor more clear.

[thesadmafioso]

Moralistic arguments are useless because I don't care about your morals. Discuss them all you want, but you ain't gonna convince anyone.


As with any job.


Fuck off with the puritanical bullshit. It's no different from selling any other kind of labor.


I'll requote myself:



All jobs currently exist for profit. Undeveloped biological urges? The urge to jizz is an undeveloped biological urge? It serves a valuable purpose in that it satisfies certain people's desires and wants.


True happiness? Go back to your lame philosophy class and come back when you have something substantial to say.


So are you a member of the Methodist Church or Baptist?

So in effect you're saying people have, over time, become overly randy? :lol::lol::lol: People have sex for a whole myriad of reasons, but the fact that it feels good has always been the primary impetus behind it. Who the hell would want to have sex if it didn't feel good, it's a fucking workout



It is reactionary to place sex on this symbolic pedestal as an act suitable for two lovers wishing to procreate.

So Atheists cannot have moral principles? Morality is not something which has to be a tool of religion, it is something which can be based in secular reason. How is attempting to determine what behavior is good and what is bad inherently religious?

It is the act of sex being treated as a commodity that bothers me, not its potential applications between two individuals who have no desire to procreate. I applied some basic evolutionary principles to this discussion to show how primitive the notion of prostitution is, when you take the act of sex and place it in the very different context of an actual relationship a variety of new factors need to be accounted for which change the situation greatly.

Do I need to remind you that you were the one who brought the term happiness into this discussion? I kept my argument more or less out of philosophy and simply dealt in the barbaric nature of prostitution, you were the one who attempted to drag it through the muck of philosophy.

I never once denied the practical applications of the biological impulses which make sex pleasurable, I merely stated that when taken by themselves in the most static of context (prostitution) that it is primitive.

[Boboulas]

But the reason that they are lumpen is that prostitution is illegal. If prostitution were legal, then they would be proletarians as they would sell their labor, and contribute to economic growth.

As if the capitalist state decides what can and cannot be "lumpen", I guess a weed cafe in amsterdam is a petit-bougeios over there but in the states hes a lumpen? Marxist class basis surely cant be placed on what modern states define as legal and illegal.

And also, they use their money to buy stuff, their pimps use money to buy stuff. They contibute to economic growth in a small way, just like a housewife who buys groceries.

[PhoenixAsh]

I applied some basic evolutionary principles to this discussion to show how primitive the notion of prostitution is, when you take the act of sex and place it in the very different context of an actual relationship a variety of new factors need to be accounted for which change the situation greatly. no you didn't....you just mentioned it was barbaric and that we need to evolve around base biological urges. you didn't SHOW anything...you STATED.





and simply dealt in the barbaric nature of prostitution, you were the one who attempted to drag it through the muck of philosophy.No...in fact you did that. You wanted to define what happiness is and if most people could truely know what happiness was and meant.



I never once denied the practical applications of the biological impulses which make sex pleasurable, I merely stated that when taken by themselves in the most static of context (prostitution) that it is primitive.Yes,...and then you went on to villify prostitution and prostitutes. you also denied that there is a need for sex. That people do not magically not need sex anymore. And you also failed to explain how evolution goes beyond a basic instinct that is the drive of our existence.( <--- this refers back to his earlier claim that we need to evolve beyond sex drive because its primitiv)


edit: coloring & bold added later because the original poster had troubel understanding my reply.

[thesadmafioso]

no you didn't....you just mentioned it was barbaric and that we need to evolve around base biological urges. you didn't SHOW anything...you STATED.





No...in fact you did that. You wanted to define what happiness is and if most people could truely know what happiness was and meant.



Yes,...and then you went on to villify prostitution and prostitutes. you also denied that there is a need for sex. That people do not magically not need sex anymore. And you also failed to explain how evolution goes beyond a basic instinct that is the drive of our existence.

This post does not even meet a basic enough level of coherency to justify a response to it on my behalf. Your logic is so disjointed and fragmented that it would be far too time consuming for it to be justifiable.

[PhoenixAsh]

This post does not even meet a basic enough level of coherency to justify a response to it on my behalf. Your logic is so disjointed and fragmented that it would be far too time consuming for it to be justifiable.

Yeah...I will translate your post:

I have no fucking arguments to bring into position so
instead I will resort to a snide ad hominem in the hopes
nobody notices that my statements in my orginial post
to which this reply was directed, were:
misrepresentations of the truth.

I also hope they will not notice I did not reply to his earlier reply to my post.


:tt2:

I edited my post so it is even claer for the toddlers in the back. ;-)

[coda]

<<<They are not perpetuating it per se but their interests lie in the perpetuation of the system because of their dependency on it to maintain their addiction. As such they are easilly used by the system for support to maintain it...>>>

so are you then counting them as pro-capitalists?

[PhoenixAsh]

<<<They are not perpetuating it per se but their interests lie in the perpetuation of the system because of their dependency on it to maintain their addiction. As such they are easilly used by the system for support to maintain it...>>>

so are you then counting them as pro-capitalists?

Well..yes and no. Not per se. But I count them as being dependent on the perpetuation of the capitalist system. As such I see Trotski's definition of the term Lumpenproletariat as more applicable.

Personally I think the Lumpenproletariat can play a valuable role in revolutionary strategy and the revolution itself.

[coda]

Right, there are a lot of gray areas-- such as lumpenproles. I think also this would apply to many socially productive proletarian workers too, and as advantageous it would be for them, some will be 100% percent against a communist revolution. I guess we'll never know until the time....

[Lucretia]

Marx has an interesting discussion of this issue in Theories of Surplus Value:

To say nothing of the fact that on the basis of capitalist production, where the great majority of material commodities—material and palpable things—is produced by wage-labourers under the domination of capital, [unproductive] labours (or services, whether those of a prostitute or of the Pope) can only be paid for either out of the wages of the productive labourers, or out of the profits of their employers (and the partners in those profits), quite apart from the circumstances that those productive labourers produce the material basis of the subsistence, and consequently, the existence, of the unproductive labourers.
...
But however large or small the number of these “unproductive labourers” may be, this much at any rate is evident—and is admitted by the limitation expressed in the phrase “services which perish generally in the very instant of their performance”, etc.— that neither the special kind of labour nor the external form of its product necessarily make it “productive” or “unproductive”. The same labour can be productive when I buy it as a capitalist, as a producer, in order to create more value, and unproductive when I buy it as a consumer, a sender of revenue, in order to consume its use-value, no matter whether this use-value perishes with the activity of the labour-power itself or materialises and fixes itself in an object.
...
On the other hand: an entrepreneur of theatres, concerts, brothels, etc., buys the temporary disposal over the labour-power of the actors, musicians, prostitutes, etc.—in fact in a roundabout way that is only of formal economic interest; in its result the process is the same—he buys this so-called “unproductive labour”, whose “services perish in the very instant of their performance and do not fix or realise themselves “any permanent” (“particular” is also used) “subject or vendible commodity” (apart from themselves). The sale of these to the public provides him with wages and profit. And these services which he has thus bought enable him to buy them again; that is to say, they themselves renew the fund from which they are paid for. The same is true for example of the labour of clerks employed by a lawyer in his office—except for the fact that these services as a rule also embody themselves in very bulky “particular subjects” in the form of immense bundles of documents.

Theories of Surplus Value, Ch. 4: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1863/theories-surplus-value/ch04.htm

[Die Neue Zeit]

I've come across a good amount of people that consider prostitutes to be lumpens and it's pretty alarming and I think very inaccurate to say. Here's a post I made in a thread a month ago explaining why prostitutes are not lumpens and what the implications are of referring to them as such:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/self-employment-t147847/index2.html


Whatchyall think?



Also, I'm just gonna say preemptively that no, this thread does not belong in Women's Struggles and here is why:
http://newyork.craigslist.org/m4m/ ("roses", "$", and "generous" are the key terms here)

There's a difference between being in the proper lumpenproletariat and the lumpen, assuming that prostitution is illegal. Illegal sex work belongs to the former, not the latter (beggars and the like). In countries with sex worker protections, they're proletarians.

[PhoenixAsh]

Right, there are a lot of gray areas-- such as lumpenproles. I think also this would apply to many socially productive proletarian workers too, and as advantageous it would be for them, some will be 100% percent against a communist revolution. I guess we'll never know until the time....

Yes...class lines are not clearly defined.

[Fawkes]

So Atheists cannot have moral principles? Morality is not something which has to be a tool of religion, it is something which can be based in secular reason. How is attempting to determine what behavior is good and what is bad inherently religious?



Because you said we have evolved to a point of being hyper-horny and that those that give into those temptations are ignorant. So remind me again, which church are you a member of?


It is the act of sex being treated as a commodity that bothers me, not its potential applications between two individuals who have no desire to procreate. I applied some basic evolutionary principles to this discussion to show how primitive the notion of prostitution is,
No, you didn't. You went on a pointless, moralizing rant about how barbaric sex outside the bedroom of two procreation-minded lovers.


when you take the act of sex and place it in the very different context of an actual relationship a variety of new factors need to be accounted for which change the situation greatly.
So what are you trying to say?


Do I need to remind you that you were the one who brought the term happiness into this discussion?
And you're the one who brought in "true".


I kept my argument more or less out of philosophy and simply dealt in the barbaric nature of prostitution, you were the one who attempted to drag it through the muck of philosophy.

No. My argument is based in material class analysis; your's is stupid and puritanical moralizing.


I never once denied the practical applications of the biological impulses which make sex pleasurable, I merely stated that when taken by themselves in the most static of context (prostitution) that it is primitive.
1. No.
2. How?
3. What the hell is "primitive"? Is gorging oneself while ravenously hungry primitive?
4. "Static of context"?
5. You said those impulses have over-evolved

[Fawkes]

There's a difference between being in the proper lumpenproletariat and the lumpen, assuming that prostitution is illegal. Illegal sex work belongs to the former, not the latter (beggars and the like). In countries with sex worker protections, they're proletarians.

What difference is made by legality? The relationship to the means of production remains the same.

[thesadmafioso]

Because you said we have evolved to a point of being hyper-horny and that those that give into those temptations are ignorant. So remind me again, which church are you a member of?


No, you didn't. You went on a pointless, moralizing rant about how barbaric sex outside the bedroom of two procreation-minded lovers.


So what are you trying to say?


And you're the one who brought in "true".


No. My argument is based in material class analysis; your's is stupid and puritanical moralizing.


1. No.
2. How?
3. What the hell is "primitive"? Is gorging oneself while ravenously hungry primitive?
4. "Static of context"?
5. You said those impulses have over-evolved

You seem to be arguing against some fictitious image of my point here, one which is completely separate from the clear intent of my original remarks. So why don't you stop trying to falsely paint me as some religious fool and actually read what I said.

[Fawkes]

actually read what I said.

I did, how about you actually say something constructive on the issue other than some moralizing buzz-words.

[thesadmafioso]

I did, how about you actually say something constructive on the issue other than some moralizing buzz-words.

When I say actually read, comprehension is to be implied.

[coda]

Fawkes, you're gonna have to ease up. If thesadmafioso has said you are twisting his context, then you are going to have to take his word for it. It's a dirty tactic you are engaging in. You are going to have to agree to disagree and respect his opinion.
<<You seem to be arguing against some fictitious image of my point here, one which is completely separate from the clear intent of my original remarks. So why don't you stop trying to falsely paint me as some religious fool and actually read what I said.>>>>>

It's no doubt a shady area. We can read what Marx thought of prostitutes in general when he called them the "refuse" (garbage) class, not concealing his contempt and moral position, holding them in the same counter-revolutionary economic class as criminals, swindlers, gamblers and buskers, etc. Rosa Luxemburgh and Clara Zetkin believed prostitutes were on this side of revolutionary struggle and should be organized.

It shows Marxism to be adjustable for the times. He left a formula to determine these things.

Emma Goldman ingeniously said from feminist standpoint: "To the moralist prostitution does not consist so much in the fact that the woman sells her body, but rather that she sells it out of wedlock."


And therein may be the problem when sex becomes a universal legalized commodity. The free exchange may just end up being the exclusive turf of the moralists and a whole new crop of exploited or (sexually deprived) group of workers are going to exist. I mean.. who the hell is going to want to do it for free!?!! :)

[PhoenixAsh]

Fawkes, you're gonna have to ease up. If thesadmafioso has said you are twisting his context, then you are going to have to take his word for it. It's a dirty tactic you are engaging in. You are going to have to agree to disagree and respect his opinion.

I think Fawkes is interpretating his intention perfectly fine. If two people here are getting exactly the same message from the original post there must be something terribly wrong with his communication. See below for a clear explanation.



<<You seem to be arguing against some fictitious image of my point here, one which is completely separate from the clear intent of my original remarks. So why don't you stop trying to falsely paint me as some religious fool and actually read what I said.>>>>>

He is painting you as religiously moralistic because you are holding a view of good and evil as conceptual representation to the world and human behaviour in general because it depends on a higher immage of what is to constitute good and what is to constitute evil which is alien to human behaviour. In essence are building your position on a higher non-existant concept. This concept is higly religious.

Now you say in a reaction you gave that you have shown that prostitution is based on primitive urges which we need to evolve out of. I argue that you did not show that at all but simply put this foreward as a statement of fact. You do not provide arguments for it so its just your opinion for which you do not show any underlying argumentation.

I also hold that your opinion is generalizing, villifying and in fact degrading to prostitutes.


I don't very well care if prostitution is a wage slave or petty bourgeoisies, it is still a despicable profession and a symptom of the inherent immorality of the capitalistic system. Sex is not a commodity to be bought and sold, it is just bloody barbaric and
primitive to view it in such a manner.

Calling it a dispicable profession implies directly that everybody engaged in it are dispicable persons.

In calling it immoral you paint everybody engaging in it as immoral.

In painting the need for sex as a commodity to be available as bloody barbaric and primitive you are painting everybody engaging int it as barbaric and primitive.

That is generalizing. You also offer no evidence into why it is barbaric and why you should not view it in such a manner. You in other words do not provide any reasoning or argument to back up your claim. Yo simply state it as such out of a moralistic exit point to which you mirror the world.



Wait, so discussing what is good and what is bad is not to be accounted for here? Reasoning that as the system of capitalism is exploitative and that since it does not provide for the greatest level of equality amongst man that is is not a desirable mode of economics is bad?

again...you can argue about good and bad. but you have to offer arguments. In fact you simply state that it is bad and do not provie any justification as to why we should agree to that. You are in otherwords pushing a narrow view on us....and since we do not agree with you...you have already made an ad hominem in calling us barbaric and primitive.



Prostitution is something which underprivileged or economically disadvantaged individuals engage in to survive under the capitalistic system. This is completely generalizing. As I provided earlier....it does certainly not count for the whole group of prostitutes. Nor does it adres the fact that prostitution existed long, long before capitalist society evolved. Nor do you adress the obvious question of why there is demand.



Of course a great deal of this is personal choice, but at the same time most of the individuals who become caught up in this sort of mess are not exactly given the necessary implements to see the act for its especially exploitative nature.This is very haughty for you to proclaim. You are actually saying that you are the one who can tell what is and what is not exploitive. Which I reject. Many prostitutes do not see it as exploitive any more than any other job is. They argue that they provide a service for which here is demand.



Selling ones body in such a direct sense is simply vulgar and primitive.Again...you put this as fact. You do not provide any arguments...again you thus do not "show" why this i the case.

You are now saying prostitutes are vulgar and primitive human beings.



Humanity has evolved to a point where in it should not have professions like this based around solely in basic biological impulses. Prostitution exists for profit and for a pathetic attempt to quell undeveloped ancient biological urges, it is something which serves no valuable purpose to society. On the contrary...if it would not provide a valuable service it would not exist. There has always been a demand for the availability of easy acces sexual behaviour.

Sexual needs are not primitive...they are the driving force of our behaviour. Stating this again, and again without providing any arguments as to why this should not be the case is not showing your point....its simply telling your points.

You are now calling prostitutes and eveybody who engages in it...who do see a need...as pathetic.



I don't care if having sex with a prostitute makes people happy, people are as a whole are absolute idiots who are devoid of the capacity to know true happiness. The term itself is terrible as well, as it is subjective to a point where its possible uses overwhelm its potential applicability in a discussion such as this.You are bringing philosophy in the debate by arguing peple do not know true happiness.

In the mean time you are haughtily claiming most people are ignorant of happiness and that you know what makes people happy.



It is a profession based in a evolutionary impulse which emerged with the intent of continuing the species of man, and that purpose has become overdeveloped at this point in our history. Prostitution is something which is indulgent of the ignorant and the narrow minded fool Again...how do you explain that it has been around long, long, long before the current time. You again do not give any arguments as to why it all of the sudden is overdevelloped.



while at the same time degrading to the actual prostitute. This is the gem which set me off. If you read all the red parts you can see that there is barely a paragraph in which you did not rant and rave and insult prostitutes....calling them idiots, primitiv, barbaric, irgnorant and dispicable.

Now tell me again why the profession itself is degrading? It seem to me that in fact you are degrading prostitutes on a very regular basis.

It is not so much the profession that degrades prostitutes as it is people who push their moralistic views on them.




So Atheists cannot have moral principles? Morality is not something which has to be a tool of religion, it is something which can be based in secular reason. How is attempting to determine what behavior is good and what is bad inherently religious?

Yes it is. It is based on a view of the world that is both non-human entity that embodies good and one that embodies evil.



It is the act of sex being treated as a commodity that bothers me, not its potential applications between two individuals who have no desire to procreate. I applied some basic evolutionary principles to this discussion to show how primitive the notion of prostitution is, when you take the act of sex and place it in the very different context of an actual relationship a variety of new factors need to be accounted for which change the situation greatly. As I have shown above...by providing arguments....you have not shown anything. You put is foreward as fact....as a statement. There is no underlying argumentation, no evidence, no reasoning...just a statement which you put foreward as fact based on a perspective based on an abstract and highly subjective notion.



Do I need to remind you that you were the one who brought the term happiness into this discussion? I kept my argument more or less out of philosophy and simply dealt in the barbaric nature of prostitution, you were the one who attempted to drag it through the muck of philosophy. No...he simply stated some people were happy with it or by it. you then proceeded to argue on the nature of happiness and stated that humand as a whole were idiots who did not know happiness. So you dragged it into the field of philosophy.



I did, how about you actually say something constructive on the issue other than some moralizing buzz-words.


Fawkes is absolutely 100% right here. You are entitled to your opinion. But all you did was rangt and rave...and insulted everybody in every other paragraph. You did this without providing arguments or reasoning but simply by stating opinion based on abstract concepts.

[coda]

the bullying approach is very off-putting and unconducive for discussion.
I recall he said he was an Athiest?.. therefore, to attribute his position to religion is slanderous and I am sure very insulting! There is a difference between good and bad.. and good and evil. There are also distinct "rights" and "wrongs" outside a religious perspective. It's unrealistic to think that any position comes from anywhere else then a moral position. That Capitalists extract labor from the proletarians and that it's wrong, is both a moral deduction and nonetheless True!

[southernmissfan]

the bullying approach is very off-putting and unconducive for discussion.
I recall he said he was an Athiest?.. therefore, to attribute his position to religion is slanderous and I am sure very insulting! There is a difference between good and bad.. and good and evil. There are also distinct "rights" and "wrongs" outside a religious perspective. It's unrealistic to think that any position comes from anywhere else then a moral position. That Capitalists extract labor from the proletarians and that it's wrong, is both a moral deduction and nonetheless True!

Yeah I don't think he is religious...just an idealist and a liberal (in practice if not theory). Which differs quite a bit from a materialist and a revolutionary leftist.

You are right, we can oppose capitalism on a moral basis. But we do so with a materialist analysis and backing.

[StalinFanboy]

So Atheists cannot have moral principles? Morality is not something which has to be a tool of religion, it is something which can be based in secular reason. How is attempting to determine what behavior is good and what is bad inherently religious?

It is the act of sex being treated as a commodity that bothers me, not its potential applications between two individuals who have no desire to procreate. I applied some basic evolutionary principles to this discussion to show how primitive the notion of prostitution is, when you take the act of sex and place it in the very different context of an actual relationship a variety of new factors need to be accounted for which change the situation greatly.

Do I need to remind you that you were the one who brought the term happiness into this discussion? I kept my argument more or less out of philosophy and simply dealt in the barbaric nature of prostitution, you were the one who attempted to drag it through the muck of philosophy.

I never once denied the practical applications of the biological impulses which make sex pleasurable, I merely stated that when taken by themselves in the most static of context (prostitution) that it is primitive.

There is nothing inherently wrong with having morals. I have my own set of morals. What separates me from a Christian (and cunning ones such as yourself) is that I don't see my morality as the best, I don't desire to impose it on people, and I don't see it as a way to order the world.

Is sex between two or more consenting people immoral because they are not in a "relationship"? seriously, go to church or rethink your ideas. And read this http://www.prole.info/texts/withoutmoral.html

[PhoenixAsh]

the bullying approach is very off-putting and unconducive for discussion.

I am not going to argue with that...its true. However what I am going to put foreward that he has thrown around every insult he could and therefore have the referse view of things than you have. THis is ok...but my opinion is as you can see above that was aggrevating.

Now when pointed out he simply irgnored it and went on throwing around insults.



I recall he said he was an Athiest?.. therefore, to attribute his position to religion is slanderous and I am sure very insulting! My personal view is that you can not complain if you dish out...you should be willing to receive.
Saying someone's views of right and wrong are religious is not saying the person in itself believes in God. Do you agree?



There is a difference between good and bad.. and good and evil. There are also distinct "rights" and "wrongs" outside a religious perspective. Morality exist outside religious borders. That is true. The term Puratinical however does as well. It does not necesarilly mean religious and also notes a strong moral code based on abstract entities.

However for morality to be non religious it needs to have a rational basis and should not solely be based solely on factual statement of abstracts. Therefore there should be arguments. He offered non...even when explained. Deviding the world between abstract truism is religious.



It's unrealistic to think that any position comes from anywhere else then a moral position. That Capitalists extract labor from the proletarians and that it's wrong, is both a moral deduction and nonetheless True!Yes...however there is reason for that and can be rationally explained.

edit: the above explanations maybe better worded

[thesadmafioso]

I think Fawkes is interpretating his intention perfectly fine. If two people here are getting exactly the same message from the original post there must be something terribly wrong with his communication. See below for a clear explanation.



He is painting you as religiously moralistic because you are holding a view of good and evil as conceptual representation to the world and human behaviour in general because it depends on a higher immage of what is to constitute good and what is to constitute evil which is alien to human behaviour. In essence are building your position on a higher non-existant concept. This concept is higly religious.

Now you say in a reaction you gave that you have shown that prostitution is based on primitive urges which we need to evolve out of. I argue that you did not show that at all but simply put this foreward as a statement of fact. You do not provide arguments for it so its just your opinion for which you do not show any underlying argumentation.

I also hold that your opinion is generalizing, villifying and in fact degrading to prostitutes.



Calling it a dispicable profession implies directly that everybody engaged in it are dispicable persons.

In calling it immoral you paint everybody engaging in it as immoral.

In painting the need for sex as a commodity to be available as bloody barbaric and primitive you are painting everybody engaging int it as barbaric and primitive.

That is generalizing. You also offer no evidence into why it is barbaric and why you should not view it in such a manner. You in other words do not provide any reasoning or argument to back up your claim. Yo simply state it as such out of a moralistic exit point to which you mirror the world.




again...you can argue about good and bad. but you have to offer arguments. In fact you simply state that it is bad and do not provie any justification as to why we should agree to that. You are in otherwords pushing a narrow view on us....and since we do not agree with you...you have already made an ad hominem in calling us barbaric and primitive.

This is completely generalizing. As I provided earlier....it does certainly not count for the whole group of prostitutes. Nor does it adres the fact that prostitution existed long, long before capitalist society evolved. Nor do you adress the obvious question of why there is demand.

This is very haughty for you to proclaim. You are actually saying that you are the one who can tell what is and what is not exploitive. Which I reject. Many prostitutes do not see it as exploitive any more than any other job is. They argue that they provide a service for which here is demand.

Again...you put this as fact. You do not provide any arguments...again you thus do not "show" why this i the case.

You are now saying prostitutes are vulgar and primitive human beings.

On the contrary...if it would not provide a valuable service it would not exist. There has always been a demand for the availability of easy acces sexual behaviour.

Sexual needs are not primitive...they are the driving force of our behaviour. Stating this again, and again without providing any arguments as to why this should not be the case is not showing your point....its simply telling your points.

You are now calling prostitutes and eveybody who engages in it...who do see a need...as pathetic.

You are bringing philosophy in the debate by arguing peple do not know true happiness.

In the mean time you are haughtily claiming most people are ignorant of happiness and that you know what makes people happy.

Again...how do you explain that it has been around long, long, long before the current time. You again do not give any arguments as to why it all of the sudden is overdevelloped.

This is the gem which set me off. If you read all the red parts you can see that there is barely a paragraph in which you did not rant and rave and insult prostitutes....calling them idiots, primitiv, barbaric, irgnorant and dispicable.

Now tell me again why the profession itself is degrading? It seem to me that in fact you are degrading prostitutes on a very regular basis.

It is not so much the profession that degrades prostitutes as it is people who push their moralistic views on them.





Yes it is. It is based on a view of the world that is both non-human entity that embodies good and one that embodies evil.

As I have shown above...by providing arguments....you have not shown anything. You put is foreward as fact....as a statement. There is no underlying argumentation, no evidence, no reasoning...just a statement which you put foreward as fact based on a perspective based on an abstract and highly subjective notion.

No...he simply stated some people were happy with it or by it. you then proceeded to argue on the nature of happiness and stated that humand as a whole were idiots who did not know happiness. So you dragged it into the field of philosophy.





Fawkes is absolutely 100% right here. You are entitled to your opinion. But all you did was rangt and rave...and insulted everybody in every other paragraph. You did this without providing arguments or reasoning but simply by stating opinion based on abstract concepts.

People think this so it is true. Wonderful logic. Do you have any idea how many nonsensical and false theories I could prove through this reasoning? Finding two people that believe something to be true is not that hard.

I'm not even going to bother responding to any of this, as it is not a response to my position on this issue. Please, go right ahead and argue against whoever it is that you think you are arguing against, but I will not be dragged into a situation where I am forced to defend opinions that I never held.

[PhoenixAsh]

People think this so it is true. Wonderful logic. Do you have any idea how many nonsensical and false theories I could prove through this reasoning? Finding two people that believe something to be true is not that hard.

You should read what I said.

What I am saying is that when two people get exactly the same idea seperate from each other there is something very, very wrong with how you have formulated your message.

It then is up to you to clarify.

As you ignored my first response made a snipe ad hominem on my second response and never explained your position any further you have not corrected the view.



I'm not even going to bother responding to any of this, as it is not a response to my position on this issue.

I have done my utmost to respond to each and every paragraph you wrote. Giving you counter opinions and stating where I found your wording lacking in clarity and where I found it objectable.

So its an exact response to the position YOU YOURSELF have written. However you do not bother to read...you do not bother to clarify....you even ignore everything that is said.

yet you continue to say I do not respond to your position on the issue. Now if I respond to what you have written explain to me how I do not reply to your position. Its seems to me you are arguing here that you are not able to word your own position correctly....



Please, go right ahead and argue against whoever it is that you think you are arguing against, but I will not be dragged into a situation where I am forced to defend opinions that I never held.

I quoted YOU. How can I not argue against YOUR position...if I respond directly to quotes from what you have written?

As to clarify....



I am arguing against your rant about prostitution, prostitutes and everybody who engages in it.
I also argue against all the insults you made against prostitutes.
And I am arguing on the content you put forward about its evolutionary character and the role it plays in human behaviour.

Again...you are dodging...

[thesadmafioso]

You should read what I said.

What I am saying is that when two people get exactly the same idea seperate from each other there is something very, very wrong with how you have formulated your message.

It then is up to you to clarify.

As you ignored my first response made a snipe ad hominem on my second response and never explained your position any further you have not corrected the view.



I have done my utmost to respond to each and every paragraph you wrote. Giving you counter opinions and stating where I found your wording lacking in clarity and where I found it objectable.

So its an exact response to the position YOU YOURSELF have written. However you do not bother to read...you do not bother to clarify....you even ignore everything that is said.

yet you continue to say I do not respond to your position on the issue. Now if I respond to what you have written explain to me how I do not reply to your position. Its seems to me you are arguing here that you are not able to word your own position correctly....



I quoted YOU. How can I not argue against YOUR position...if I respond directly to quotes from what you have written?

As to clarify....



I am arguing against your rant about prostitution, prostitutes and everybody who engages in it.
I also argue against all the insults you made against prostitutes.
And I am arguing on the content you put forward about its evolutionary character and the role it plays in human behaviour.

Again...you are dodging...

I will not patronize myself by giving you a lesson in basic logic and evolution. You are clearly incapable of participating in discussion with myself if you are having such immense difficulty in drawing the most obvious and simplistic of conclusions from my remarks. It would simply be a waste of my time to explain the numerous logical fallacies inherent within your faulty line of reasoning, and to be quite blunt I don't really have the motivation to go through such trouble for someone who is so quick to show such incredible vulgarity and rudeness while at the same time being dead wrong.

[PhoenixAsh]

I will not patronize myself by giving you a lesson in basic logic and evolution.

Again...you are being haughty.

You do not understand evolution...even less of human behaviour and inherrent drive. The basic premisses required for evolution is sex...as such there is a drive to have sex. You are arguining we need to get over the sex drive. Which negates evolution because it takes away the driving force behind existence....sinmply put...evolution is the reason we can not get beyond sex drive.

You offer no explanation for it other than blanket staments wrapped in insulting language.



You are clearly incapable of participating in discussion with myself if you are having such immense difficulty in drawing the most obvious and simplistic of conclusions from my remarks.There is no discussion. You ignore my posts or offer excuses and ad hominems to avoid a discussion....from the start.



It would simply be a waste of my time to explain the numerous logical fallacies inherent within your faulty line of reasoning, I quoted YOU. Used YOUR words. Gave arguments against what YOU wrote.

As you again and again avoid discussion, offer no arguments, offer no indepth line of reasoning and use blanket statements there is no reason in your posts to follow.



and to be quite blunt I don't really have the motivation to go through such trouble for someone who is so quick to show such incredible vulgarity and rudeness while at the same time being dead wrong.Vulgarity??? Rudeness???

Few of YOUR words from the very first post:





a despicable profession
bloody barbaric and primitive
simply vulgar and primitive
absolute idiots
devoid of the capacity to know true happiness
ignorant and the narrow minded fool
does not even meet a basic enough level of coherency
disjointed and fragmented



Now...to be perfectly blunt. You are an arrogant ass who thinks he holds the key to the world. I have given you every opportunity to clarify your position. I have offered logical couter arguments and I have expressed my views of your position with arguments and/or examples. All you do is insult, belittle and give snide ad hominems.

If you do not agree FINE...give arguments. However...you seem more and more unable to do so. Therefore it is you who is not fit to argue because you have no arguments to offer. You dodge and evade and take a position of lofty superiority where you actually really can not take that position at all.

All you did...from your very first post in this thread is offer blanket biggotted statements which are very painful insults, false generalisations and misrepresentations of truth to, and about, people I know, respect and love....and to myself and, obviously, Fawkes.

In short...either participate, GTFO or an hero...I personally do not care one way or the other. But do not try to hide behind somesort of hurt misunderstood teenager role...which is unbecoming and not deserved at all.

[Lucretia]

I think the debate has gotten somewhat offtrack. The original question was how to characterize the labour performed by prostitutes, and the answer to this has to be that it depends on the context of the social and economic sets of relationships in which the prostitution is being performed.

In Marx's time, prostitution was universally illegal in Europe and therefore an underground activity undertaken usually by society's marginal, desperate and impoverished elements. These elements Marx called the lumpenproletariat because, as Hal Draper has shown, they were part of the proletariat, defined as the urban-dwelling propertyless free people who tended to live near subsistence level. But they were the dangerous classes because their unproductive labour was labour that took place outside the capitalist mode of production. These lumpen therefore did not have any vested interest in the class struggle against the bourgeoisie and operated as a kind of free-floating rabble dangerous to (because not necessarily committed to) a revolutionary movement.

Since Marx's time, prostitution has become legalized in many areas of the world and even in some portions of the United States. Once above ground, prostitution can begin to assume all the trappings of a business designed to accumulated self-expanding value complete with investors and competition and unionized workers. This has been happening in parts of the world where prostitution has been legalized. The consequence is that the labour of prostitutes becomes interwoven into the logic and stability of the larger captialist circuit, and workers providing what Marx called the "perishable" commodity of sex can begin to assume a class consciousness against the dictates of the mode of production in the same way that a factory worker can. What are incorporated brothels, anyway, besides sex factories?

[thesadmafioso]

Again...you are being haughty.

You do not understand evolution...even less of human behaviour and inherrent drive. The basic premisses required for evolution is sex...as such there is a drive to have sex. You are arguining we need to get over the sex drive. Which negates evolution because it takes away the driving force behind existence....sinmply put...evolution is the reason we can not get beyond sex drive.

You offer no explanation for it other than blanket staments wrapped in insulting language.

There is no discussion. You ignore my posts or offer excuses and ad hominems to avoid a discussion....from the start.

I quoted YOU. Used YOUR words. Gave arguments against what YOU wrote.

As you again and again avoid discussion, offer no arguments, offer no indepth line of reasoning and use blanket statements there is no reason in your posts to follow.

Vulgarity??? Rudeness???

Few of YOUR words from the very first post:


[/LIST]


Now...to be perfectly blunt. You are an arrogant ass who thinks he holds the key to the world. I have given you every opportunity to clarify your position. I have offered logical couter arguments and I have expressed my views of your position with arguments and/or examples. All you do is insult, belittle and give snide ad hominems.

If you do not agree FINE...give arguments. However...you seem more and more unable to do so. Therefore it is you who is not fit to argue because you have no arguments to offer. You dodge and evade and take a position of lofty superiority where you actually really can not take that position at all.

All you did...from your very first post in this thread is offer blanket biggotted statements which are very painful insults, false generalisations and misrepresentations of truth to, and about, people I know, respect and love....and to myself and, obviously, Fawkes.

In short...either participate, GTFO or an hero...I personally do not care one way or the other. But do not try to hide behind somesort of hurt misunderstood teenager role...which is unbecoming and not deserved at all.

The fact that you are capable of literally quoting words says nothing of your capacity to understand their meaning. I attempted to define my point through elaboration and through putting it into more simplistic terms and I was met with nothing but blind contempt and further misinterpretations of my words. Honestly, in this sort of social environment it would simply be impossible to try to engage in any sort of reasonable discussion. You are blindly entrenched into your position of everything I say being false. I hardly have to explain upon this basic point as you have proven it yourself through the nature of your responses in this topic. It is quite clear that any real attempt to combat your illogical argument here will just be met with even more mischaracterization and that it will not further this conversation in any notable way. You literally asked me to explain how a logical conclusion cannot be drawn from two people finding themselves in agreement over the matter of interpreting a bit of text. Your hollows demands to be met with an actual argument on my behalf are pointless, as we are operating in an environment which clearly shuns such methodology. I were to be presented with a thought out and logical counterpoint to my position on this matter, I would be more than happy to engage once more in the discussion, if it can even be called such given its devolved state at the moment.

an hero? Did I mistakenly type 4chan into my browser or is this still the political section of revleft? I presented my stance on this matter, and I defended it from most all of the legitimate and even some illegitimate points of argument which were made against it. Do not try and play your intellectual shortcomings off in some fictitiousness portrayal of this discussion where in I am some sort of holden caulfield type figure. You attempts at ridicule are becoming more desperate by the post.

[PhoenixAsh]

But they were the dangerous classes because their unproductive labour was labour that took place outside the capitalist mode of production. These lumpen therefore did not have any vested interest in the class struggle against the bourgeoisie and operated as a kind of free-floating rabble dangerous to (because not necessarily committed to) a revolutionary movement.

Agreed. I do not know if it was Marx or Trotski who later expanded on this and stated that aside from not having any vested interest the Lumpunproletariat may also have had in part a vested interest in continuation of the continuation of system.



Since Marx's time, prostitution has become legalized in many areas of the world and even in some portions of the United States. Once above ground, prostitution can begin to assume all the trappings of a business designed to accumulated self-expanding value complete with investors and competition and unionized workers. This has been happening in parts of the world where prostitution has been legalized. The consequence is that the labour of prostitutes becomes interwoven into the logic and stability of the larger captialist circuit, and workers providing what Marx called the "perishable" commodity of sex can begin to assume a class consciousness against the dictates of the mode of production in the same way that a factory worker can. What are incorporated brothels, anyway, besides sex factories?

The legality framing may indeed be important to establish the classification. But a prostitute working within a legal framework or outside perform the same act and also work to generate capital where the over value is handed over (in most cases).

Added to that is that even in a legal frameworks the prostitutes themselves often refuse to unionise to maintain privacy because of social and moralist stigma.

So for pure definition purposes the legal framework of a country may be important...in practicality there are also other factors IMO.

The relationship of the employee and the employer for example. determining the personal situation in which he or she performs work. In prostitution there is an extra dimension outside of the legal frame work of exploitative behaviour of force (both physical and psychological). In essence some men and women are forced to perform in the sex industry and have neither free will nor choice. Their situation is not akin to anything proletarian but is more or less comparible of slavery. This also happens in countries were prostitution is legal.

Than there are the prostitutes who use the profession to buy drugs to feed an addiction. (note that IMO this is different from using drugs for entertainment purposes...I am talking about full blown addictions). THese prostitutes IMO still belong to the lumpen part of the proletariat. Not because they work on the fringes but because their continued drive to feed their habit is an vested interest in perpetuating the current system.

[Lucretia]

Agreed. I do not know if it was Marx or Trotski who later expanded on this and stated that aside from not having any vested interest the Lumpunproletariat may also have had in part a vested interest in continuation of the continuation of system.



The legality framing may indeed be important to establish the classification. But a prostitute working within a legal framework or outside perform the same act and also work to generate capital where the over value is handed over (in most cases).

Added to that is that even in a legal frameworks the prostitutes themselves often refuse to unionise to maintain privacy because of social and moralist stigma.

So for pure definition purposes the legal framework of a country may be important...in practicality there are also other factors IMO.

The relationship of the employee and the employer for example. determining the personal situation in which he or she performs work. In prostitution there is an extra dimension outside of the legal frame work of exploitative behaviour of force (both physical and psychological). In essence some men and women are forced to perform in the sex industry and have neither free will nor choice. Their situation is not akin to anything proletarian but is more or less comparible of slavery. This also happens in countries were prostitution is legal.

Than there are the prostitutes who use the profession to buy drugs to feed an addiction. (note that IMO this is different from using drugs for entertainment purposes...I am talking about full blown addictions). THese prostitutes IMO still belong to the lumpen part of the proletariat. Not because they work on the fringes but because their continued drive to feed their habit is an vested interest in perpetuating the current system.

I think the legal framework is immensely important. If it's one thing Marx was adamant about, it was that class relations could not be understood without also understanding how the class relations were constituted politically. When prostitution is illegal, the 'ill-gotten' gains do not have the protection of the bourgeois state in the same way that other property does. Relationships between employer and employee operate without recourse to formal political structures by virtue of the illegality of their purpose. (What's a prostitute going to do if she's cheated out of some wages? Complain to the police?) Profit-rate equalization that occurs across legally sanctioned industries does not occur in these illegal rackets by virtue of their illegality. Capitalism definitionally requires more than just the extraction of surplus value, which no doubt occurs in black-market brothels. If all that was required was profit, or surplus value production, then capitalism loses its specificity.

As for your characterization of legal prostitution, all I can say is that you should do some research about the nature of that work. Some of it may seem seedier to us because of long-standing connotations, but many of these workers are unionized, are not coerced in the least by anything besides the same compulsion that drives people into other dead-end wage jobs, and end up only having to work for a fraction of the time that other workers do. They are not universally living the kind of drug-addled, abused life you are imagining.

[PhoenixAsh]

answer to sadmafioso





The fact that you are capable of literally quoting words says nothing of your capacity to understand their meaning. I attempted to define my point through elaboration and through putting it into more simplistic terms

There is very little debate about their meaning. We all know what the words mean...there is very little room for any discussion about that.

I explained in my first IGNORED post how I interpreted your position.

You replied from a similar post from Fawkes and did NOT elaborate, you did not put it in more simplistic terms. You however did rephrase the original insulting language into new insulting language....actually offering the exact same blanket statement.





and I was met with nothing but blind contempt Here is my first post...show me exactly where you met blind contempt. T


Quote:
Originally Posted by thesadmafioso http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=2010867#post2010867)
Prostitution is something which underprivileged or economically disadvantaged individuals engage in to survive under the capitalistic system. Of course a great deal of this is personal choice, but at the same time most of the individuals who become caught up in this sort of mess are not exactly given the necessary implements to see the act for its especially exploitative nature.
Whoah...hold your horses there. Are you actually arguing that people can not decide for themselves if they are exploitet or not and f they care or not?

I know several girls and boys who do not do it out of financial necessity or survival but see it as a fun way to make money. They do not see it as exploitation...but rather see it as a hobby which also makes them money.

You are generalizing and marginalizing here.

Quote:
Selling ones body in such a direct sense is simply vulgar and primitive. Humanity has evolved to a point where in it should not have professions like this based around solely in basic biological impulses.
What a load of horse crap.

First of all you are implyig that selling your body in a less direct sense isn't vulgar. Personally I do not see the difference in spending $100
on a date or simply gifving the $100 dollar and skipping the date all together. Its more direct, more efficient and it has the added benefit that you do not need to worry that he or she requires a second date. This may be a very blunt view of the matter but that is simply what most dating is: a very circumvent way of buying willingness for sex.

I know a lot of men and women who are perfectly willing to sleep with people...but not unless they are willing to spend money on them in the form of drinks or dinner, or entertainment.

Second of all these are biological impulses we have, that drive us and that form the basis of large parts of behaviour and that can not be rationalized. they exist, they are real and they can not be ignored.

Quote:
Prostitution exists for profit and for a pathetic attempt to quell undeveloped ancient biological urges, it is something which serves no valuable purpose to society.
No...prostitution exists because of demand and supply. THAT is why profit can be made.

There is a need for people who provide sex because people need sex. why? Because its good for them, its healthy and its fun to do. Now loads of people do not get to have a partner because they are socially ackward, because they do not want to tie themselves down, because they do not want or have the time to spend on endless dates, Or perhaps because they are plain ugly or even physically or mentaly handicapt. That does not lessen their want or need of sex. And as such prostitution is necessary.

What you also need to consider... in societies were prostitution is enforced illegal rape goes up, inter gender violence goes up, child abuse goes up....even if the celibacy is freely taken...

So how do you propose to solve these issues in a socialist society?


Quote:
I don't care if having sex with a prostitute makes people happy, people are as a whole are absolute idiots who are devoid of the capacity to know true happiness.
Wow....aren't we pretentious today....as to tell people what and what does not make them happy and if this equals true happiness or not.

Quote:
The term itself is terrible as well, as it is subjective to a point where its possible uses overwhelm its potential applicability in a discussion such as this. It is a profession based in a evolutionary impulse which emerged with the intent of continuing the species of man, and that purpose has become overdeveloped at this point in our history. Prostitution is something which is indulgent of the ignorant and the narrow minded fool while at the same time degrading to the actual prostitute.
No...actually its you who is degrading the actual prostitute. The act is neutral...its people with a moral agenda that try to enforce the vision of right and wrong and morality into the issue that actually villify the postitute as someone who dabbles in morally wrong endeavours and is therefore an outcast and to be treated as such.

Quote:
So would you remind me again how seeing the useless of prostitution is reactionary?
See above...
__________________




here is my second (original post before you insulted me) show me where you meet blind contempt....




Quote:
I applied some basic evolutionary principles to this discussionto show how primitive the notion of prostitution is, when you take the act of sex and place it in the very different context of an actual relationship a variety of new factors need to be accounted for which change the situation greatly.
no you didn't....you just mentioned it was barbaric and that we need to evolve around base biological urges. you didn't SHOW anything...you STATED.



Quote:
and simply dealt in the barbaric nature of prostitution, you were the one who attempted to drag it through the muck of philosophy.
No...in fact you did that. You wanted to define what happiness is and if most people could truely know what happiness was and meant.

Quote:
I never once denied the practical applications of the biological impulses which make sex pleasurable, I merely stated that when taken by themselves in the most static of context (prostitution) that it is primitive.
Yes,...and then you went on to villify prostitution and prostitutes. you also denied that there is a need for sex. That people do not magically not need sex anymore. And you also failed to explain how evolution goes beyond a basic instinct that is the drive of our existence.






To this last post you replied for the first time to me...with an insult no less...



This post does not even meet a basic enough level of coherency to justify a response to it on my behalf. Your logic is so disjointed and fragmented that it would be far too time consuming for it to be justifiable

That is ignoring the fact that you started the whole thing by saying people who did not share your views were barbaric and primitive. But lets not focus to much on that...shall we?

So after this you expect me to hold in?


and further misinterpretations of my words.

Its a debate. If anybody misunderstands your words you should correct them.

The purpose of debate and discussion is to clarify your position and try to persuade the other side of your position.


Honestly, in this sort of social environment it would simply be impossible to try to engage in any sort of reasonable discussion. Yeah...but as I showed for the umpth time...you really did not engage into any discussion. Now did you?


You are blindly entrenched into your position of everything I say being false.Everything you say is indeed false IMO until you provide backing for the poition. You have not....since you did not engage in discussion with me. and thus did not correct my interpretation of your words. AZs such I must assume thast my interpretation is indeed correct until it is made clear that it isn't.



I hardly have to explain upon this basic point as you have proven it yourself through the nature of your responses in this topic. It is quite clear that any real attempt to combat your illogical argument here will just be met with even more mischaracterization and that it will not further this conversation in any notable way. You have not even tried to explain your situation. All you did is say that I misrepresent it...not WHY. Since that is the case you do not participate in a converstaion...you are creating an evading NEW conversation.



You literally asked me to explain how a logical conclusion cannot be drawn from two people finding themselves in agreement over the matter of interpreting a bit of text. No...you misrepresented my words as I have shown.

What I actually said was hat if two people interpret independently from each other your words as having a certain meaning than its your formulation that is the cause [of misunderstanding your position.....]


Your hollows demands to be met with an actual argument on my behalf are pointless,It seems this is, sadly, indeed the case as you are unable or unwilling to provide them.



as we are operating in an environment which clearly shuns such methodology. No...we are operating in an environment where you do not give them...even when asked.



I were to be presented with a thought out and logical counterpoint to my position on this matter, I would be more than happy to engage once more in the discussion, if it can even be called such given its devolved state at the moment. but you never engaged in the discussion to begin with.

In fact you continuously evade the discusson by saying you are not meeting logical well thought out arguments and are only misinterpreted and misrepresented.

Well..if that is the case...may that perhaps be because you in fact do not engage in debate? Perhpas you have not taken the effort to answer misinterpretations?

Yeah...I think that is the case.

now go back to my first post...answer that adress the possible misconceptions, adress my questions...and then we indeed can have a debate.

:thumbup1:

[thesadmafioso]

answer to sadmafioso






There is very little debate about their meaning. We all know what the words mean...there is very little room for any discussion about that.

I explained in my first IGNORED post how I interpreted your position.

You replied from a similar post from Fawkes and did NOT elaborate, you did not put it in more simplistic terms. You however did rephrase the original insulting language into new insulting language....actually offering the exact same blanket statement.



Here is my first post...show me exactly where you met blind contempt. T



here is my second (original post before you insulted me) show me where you meet blind contempt....






To this last post you replied for the first time to me...with an insult no less...



That is ignoring the fact that you started the whole thing by saying people who did not share your views were barbaric and primitive. But lets not focus to much on that...shall we?

So after this you expect me to hold in?



Its a debate. If anybody misunderstands your words you should correct them.

The purpose of debate and discussion is to clarify your position and try to persuade the other side of your position.

Yeah...but as I showed for the umpth time...you really did not engage into any discussion. Now did you?

Everything you say is indeed false IMO until you provide backing for the poition. You have not....since you did not engage in discussion with me. and thus did not correct my interpretation of your words. AZs such I must assume thast my interpretation is indeed correct until it is made clear that it isn't.

You have not even tried to explain your situation. All you did is say that I misrepresent it...not WHY. Since that is the case you do not participate in a converstaion...you are creating an evading NEW conversation.

No...you misrepresented my words as I have shown.

What I actually said was hat if two people interpret independently from each other your words as having a certain meaning than its your formulation that is the cause [of misunderstanding your position.....]

It seems this is, sadly, indeed the case as you are unable or unwilling to provide them.


No...we are operating in an environment where you do not give them...even when asked.

but you never engaged in the discussion to begin with.

In fact you continuously evade the discusson by saying you are not meeting logical well thought out arguments and are only misinterpreted and misrepresented.

Well..if that is the case...may that perhaps be because you in fact do not engage in debate? Perhpas you have not taken the effort to answer misinterpretations?

Yeah...I think that is the case.

now go back to my first post...answer that adress the possible misconceptions, adress my questions...and then we indeed can have a debate.

:thumbup1:



I occasionally run into responses on this website that are so horribly flawed and without reason that I am overwhelmed with the daunting task of entering into debate with the individual who originally made them, as the obvious gap in intellectual vigor would make proper communication something which would only come with strenuous and immense difficult. With the possibility of influencing such a hostile individual being incredibly slim and the likelihood of my own points being terribly distorted so high, there is no motivation for me to even bother. Your first post qualified as such an instance.

I do not need to wither away my time in such a futile endeavor, my point has on this matter has been made and I still await a response to it which would justify actual discussion. You are carrying even these remarks which are not directly relevant to the discussion into this prolonged, skewered and dreary state, I do not wish to imagine what you would do to any attempt on my behalf to actually enter this 'debate'.

[PhoenixAsh]

I think the legal framework is immensely important. If it's one thing Marx was adamant about, it was that class relations could not be understood without also understanding how the class relations were constituted politically. When prostitution is illegal, the 'ill-gotten' gains do not have the protection of the bourgeois state in the same way that other property does. Relationships between employer and employee operate without recourse to formal political structures by virtue of the illegality of their purpose. (What's a prostitute going to do if she's cheated out of some wages? Complain to the police?) Profit-rate equalization that occurs across legally sanctioned industries does not occur in these illegal rackets by virtue of their illegality. Capitalism definitionally requires more than just the extraction of surplus value, which no doubt occurs in black-market brothels. If all that was required was profit, or surplus value production, then capitalism loses its specificity.

Very well. I accept your line of though here.



As for your characterization of legal prostitution, all I can say is that you should do some research about the nature of that work. Some of it may seem seedier to us because of long-standing connotations, but many of these workers are unionized, are not coerced in the least by aything besides the same compulsion that drives people into other dead-end wage jobs, and end up only having to work for a fraction of the time that other workers do. They are not universally living the kind of drug-addled, abused life you are imagining.yeah...to clarify...I am not saying all prostitutes are coerced.

Yeah...I am actually often working for a platform related to an organisation on this issue. So I am aware of the situation in The Netherlands. Many prostitutes refuse to unionise for privacy reasons. They also refuse to register. They do however pay taxes...which keeps them legal. I am not denying that unions exist.

Part of the prostitution cirquit however operate underneath the law. Involving underage women and men and a large part of coerced workers. The latter are estimated here to form over 30% of all legal prostitutes in Holland...and they are indeed actually being forced into the job and/or are bought from international slave trade or human trafficers. Though it is indeed true that the level of coercion varies.

[PhoenixAsh]

I occasionally run into responses on this website that are so horribly flawed and without reason that I am overwhelmed with the daunting task of entering into debate with the individual who originally made them, as the obvious gap in intellectual vigor would make proper communication something which would only come with strenuous and immense difficult. With the possibility of influencing such a hostile individual being incredibly slim and the likelihood of my own points being terribly distorted so high, there is no motivation for me to even bother. Your first post qualified as such an instance.
:laugh::laugh: O...god...you are actually serious....bwahaha:laugh::laugh:

I like how you refer to yourself in the third person. Either that or you are remarkably able to formulate my situation in this thread.



I do not need to wither away my time in such a futile endeavor, my point has on this matter has been made and I still await a response to it which would justify actual discussion. You are carrying even these remarks which are not directly relevant to the discussion into this prolonged, skewered and dreary state, I do not wish to imagine what you would do to any attempt on my behalf to actually enter this 'debate'.I hope that,...when you actually grow up...that the impact of reality does not inflict to much additional harm to your cognitive functions than your incredibly overinflated selfesteem has already inflicted.

However it is indeed a good thing that you actually admit...after all your posturing of theb conytrary....that you did not actually participate into the debate.

I truely pitty you...and I hope that somebody will eventualy give you the medical attention you so obviously need.



----- you are now on my ignore list -----

[thesadmafioso]

:laugh::laugh: O...god...you are actually serious....bwahaha:laugh::laugh:

I like how you refer to yourself in the third person. Either that or you are remarkably able to formulate my situation in this thread.

I hope that,...when you actually grow up...that the impact of reality does not inflict to much additional harm to your cognitive functions than your incredibly overinflated selfesteem has already inflicted.

However it is indeed a good thing that you actually admit...after all your posturing of theb conytrary....that you did not actually participate into the debate.

I truely pitty you...and I hope that somebody will eventualy give you the medical attention you so obviously need.



----- you are now on my ignore list -----





Well this discussion has certainly been fruitful, what with the baseless statements which denote my apparent immaturity and of my need of medical attention. How you see a correlation between your own inability to provide a substantial response to my position and my supposed immaturity is absolutely mind boggling.

Why would I even bother entering into debate with someone as crass and idiotic as yourself? Of course I didn't participate in a discussion with an individual who argues not with logic but rather with a blind lust for hollow insinuation.

[Lucretia]

Very well. I accept your line of though here.

yeah...to clarify...I am not saying all prostitutes are coerced.

Yeah...I am actually often working for a platform related to an organisation on this issue. So I am aware of the situation in The Netherlands. Many prostitutes refuse to unionise for privacy reasons. They also refuse to register. They do however pay taxes...which keeps them legal. I am not denying that unions exist.

Part of the prostitution cirquit however operate underneath the law. Involving underage women and men and a large part of coerced workers. The latter are estimated here to form over 30% of all legal prostitutes in Holland...and they are indeed actually being forced into the job and/or are bought from international slave trade or human trafficers. Though it is indeed true that the level of coercion varies.

I think that much of the media coverage of sex trafficking is overblown sensationalism latched onto by people trying to use it as a bludgeon to attack all prostitution, but yes, in those kinds of situations, the prostitute would be performing 'unproductive labour' as part of the lumpenproletariat.

[PhoenixAsh]

I think that much of the media coverage of sex trafficking is overblown sensationalism latched onto by people trying to use it as a bludgeon to attack all prostitution

Often that is ineed the case.

However these numbers (estimates to be fair) are also based on investigators reports from the Dutch police investigators working with international human rights groups.


, but yes, in those kinds of situations, the prostitute would be performing 'unproductive labour' as part of the lumpenproletariat.

Exactly.

for me that parts the group of prostitutes for the largest part in the proletariat and some parts of the groups amongst the Lumpen.

[Fawkes]

I haven't bullied anyone, I pointed out the offensive, anachronistic, moralistic arguments posed by a particular member. Yeah, I did it somewhat contemptuously after repeatedly addressing the same point, but so what, they were saying things I find offensive. Also, comparing this moralistic view with a religious one is not libelous in that the view espoused is not all that different from that of many Christians.

I really don't think the legality of prostitution should play into whether or not they are organized and viewed as members of the working class. Most prostitutes sell their productive labor power in exchange for some form of monetary compensation to an individual(s) that holds power over them (pimp, madame). The property relations are much the same and the lack of ability to seek some form of legal retribution from their employer puts prostitutes at an even more disadvantaged and ostracized position.

Anyway, as far as whether we call them proletariat, I hate seeing the lumpen label attached to sex workers because it just serves to further ostracize a particularly exploited faction of the working class.

Also, it's not that big of a deal, but could people stop addressing prostitution as an issue solely regarding women

[PhoenixAsh]

The last post was a real pleaure to read through.. thank you.. (and that would have been Hindsight" s post with the rolling hahha smileys)

you are welcome.




I think the anarchist response to the perceived opposition is really atocious in this thread..:( I don't even know what else to say except--- YOU are showing YOUR age.. and it's ain't pretty..... Anarchists are above that! Anarchists are open minded and tolerant, not rigid and dogmatic!

To be fair...

if you start your post history in the thread with a direct insult to everybody who disagrees with you

and then continue to proceed that you and only you have the true knowledge of good and (if you like) bad and people as a whole are idiots and ignore any argument of (if you like) "misrepresentation" of your position...

and directly insult someone who replies to your post without further adressing the content of the post...

than you really leave no other possibility than attack the position on the basis that you have perceived it....

in this case....as attacking the autonomy and dignity of a group of people and in the mean time trying to force your opinion of good and (if you like) bad on the whole.

Anarchists are not so big on that...you know.

So no...I do not agree with your assesment. The whoel side argument in this thread may not have been pretty form all sides...but the only one who acted attrocious was thesadmafioso.

Please reread the posting history as to see why.

[PhoenixAsh]

I really don't think the legality of prostitution should play into whether or not they are organized and viewed as members of the working class. Most prostitutes sell their productive labor power in exchange for some form of monetary compensation to an individual(s) that holds power over them (pimp, madame). The property relations are much the same and the lack of ability to seek some form of legal retribution from their employer puts prostitutes at an even more disadvantaged and ostracized position.

I partialy agree with you here.

But the reasoning goes that legal position of being more disadvantaged and ostracized is the reason why they are then part of the lumpenproletariat.

As Marx argued the lines between the different classes are however fluent and unclear. So perhaps prostitution is one of those groups that operate on the very edge of two classes (or if you like subclasses) depending on their legal status either belonging to one or the other in a strict definition sense and in reality belonging to one or the other based on choice/action.



Anyway, as far as whether we call them proletariat, I hate seeing the lumpen label attached to sex workers because it just serves to further ostracize a particularly exploited faction of the working class.

This matters when you are either a Marxist or Communist.,...for most Anarchists the Lumpenproletariat should not hold such a negative connotation.

But I agree that it is another label on an already ostracized group.





Also, it's not that big of a deal, but could people stop addressing prostitution as an issue solely regarding women

Hmmm...I have seen 1 quote refering to Emma Goldman...and that was functional. I haven't read other posts that do this.

[Die Neue Zeit]

What difference is made by legality? The relationship to the means of production remains the same.

The wage labour system was defined by Marx to be the legal wage labour system.


It's no doubt a shady area. We can read what Marx thought of prostitutes in general when he called them the "refuse" (garbage) class, not concealing his contempt and moral position, holding them in the same counter-revolutionary economic class as criminals, swindlers, gamblers and buskers, etc. Rosa Luxemburgh and Clara Zetkin believed prostitutes were on this side of revolutionary struggle and should be organized.

It shows Marxism to be adjustable for the times. He left a formula to determine these things.

Actually, illegal sex workers are in the same class as gangster grunts. It's just that there are at least three underclasses.

The lumpenbourgeoisie are typified by pimps and lots of crime lords (assuming no petit-bourgeois or bourgeois fronts of business legality), while the lumpen-scum are typified by beggars.

[Fawkes]

Hmmm...I have seen 1 quote refering to Emma Goldman...and that was functional. I haven't read other posts that do this.

I more mean the use of gendered pronouns which I've seen. It's not that big of a deal though. I probably actually did overreact though just due to the tendency I've observed in general for people to view prostitution as a women's issue entirely.


The wage labour system was defined by Marx to be the legal wage labour system.
I'm not interested in canonizing anything said by a person over a century ago.


while the lumpen-scum are typified by beggars.
Yeah, refer to all (usually) homeless beggars as "scum", real progressive and constructive.


Actually, illegal sex workers are in the same class as gangster grunts. It's just that there are at least three underclasses.
Those two statements totally contradict each other. A prostitute can not be accurately classed with a mob boss just because they both operate outside of the legal framework of the state any more than a cab driver and a senator can be classed together for operating within the legal framework.