Not trying to be obscene or offensive just looking for an answer!

[Hedonic Socialism]

Is it possible under democratic socialism to have a system where the government not only legalizes prostitution but takes it under its wing? Also people who are over 18 of either gender are encouraged to go to the prostitute once a month the payment for which will be subsidized by the government based on individual income. Any visits occurring more than once a month has to be paid solely by the individual whatever his/her income be!


This is a genuine question. Not an attempt at trolling or sounding offensive. Please try to answer my question in a serious way. All views welcome! I encourage an open debate. Thanks!

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

That depends on what you mean by the term "democratic socialism". In most cases, the term describes the politics of e.g. the Democratic Socialists of America, Bernie Sanders and so on. It's the more "radical" version of social-democracy, at best. We would say it's about as socialist as "national" or "Arab" or "Islamic" socialism, i.e. not at all. In the society imagined by the "democratic socialists", private property, wage labour, commodity production and the market all still exist.

A small minority of people, mostly on the Internet, use "democratic socialism" to describe socialism, as opposed to all those undemocratic socialists, I suppose (actually the only socialist tendency to oppose itself to democracy outright is Bordigism, and they're a small tendency to say the least).

In socialism, there is no government. Prostitution would not be legal or illegal - it would simply exist, just as other services would exist. It would also be changed by the fact that neither markets nor money exist anymore. And obviously, without a government (the public power in socialism taking on a purely administrative and technical character, like the power company if you will but extending to all of production and distribution), no one would encourage people to make use of the services of prostitutes.

If we're talking about DSA "democratic socialism", then yes, what you've described is quite possible. What I don't understand is why you would think it's a good idea - obviously as socialists we stand against police violence against prostitutes, but you're calling on the state to "encourage" people to make use of the services prostitutes offer. Why? That's the first question, it seems completely pointless to me. Second, it is coercion, even if "soft" coercion. If someone doesn't want to visit a prostitute (we're not even getting into the gender and sexuality politics of this, which deserves a post of its own - but for starters, what would the gender of the prostitutes be? how would it all be organised?), what happens then? Are they ridiculed? Does official propaganda imply they're weak/unmanly/whatever? It seems extremely problematic to me.

[Rudolf]

Prostitution would not be legal or illegal - it would simply exist, just as other services would exist. It would also be changed by the fact that neither markets nor money exist anymore.


How? Im operating under the impression that communism makes prostitution impossible as prostitution isn't simply fucking people

[Rafiq]

This is a genuine question. Not an attempt at trolling or sounding offensive. Please try to answer my question in a serious way. All views welcome! I encourage an open debate. Thanks!

No. While we will fight for prostitutes, Communists despise prostitution as it encapsulates what is universal about sexuality in present day society. There could be no prostitution in a Communist society, for the simple reason that it would be unthinkable to buy a women's body. Even in the Soviet Union and East Germany, while prostitution existed it was quite anomalous and the logic of selling one's body was a strange one to most people.

Prostitution is irrevocably linked up with the sexual dimension of women in capitalist society - it is its logical extension.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

How? Im operating under the impression that communism makes prostitution impossible as prostitution isn't simply fucking people

Prostitution is fucking people as a service. Services, surely, will still exist in the communist society. The difference between prostitution and good old promiscuity, which will surely be ubiquitous in communism (to summarise an earlier discussion on the same subject) is that prostitution will be advertised and available to anyone regardless of personal ties (if the prostitute wants to do their job, of course).

Let me put it this way: in communism, a friend could come over and fix your computer, for example. Or, you could contact someone who provides that service, even if you don't know them. Likewise with sex. You could fuck people you know, or, if anyone is willing to offer sex to strangers, you could contact them.

[Rafiq]

How? Im operating under the impression that communism makes prostitution impossible as prostitution isn't simply fucking people

Xhar-Xhar's juvenile understanding of Communism purports it to be - rather the universal negation of private property, the universal negation of outward Catholic mores. Prostitution will simply "exist" say the edgy cynics, because for them Communism is nothing more than an imaginative accentuation of all the entangled confusions, perversions of capitalist society - it is capitalism without capitalism.

They do not understand the over-encompassing nature of changing a mode of production, nad transforming social relations to production. They accuse intellectuals of giving primacy to "ideas" over the "real material base", and yet it is they who gravely underestimate the vast over-encompassing spiritual, moral, aesthetic, cultural and societal changes that would result from such material changes or even the prerogative to realize them. That is because for them, socially necessary labor and its particular expression is trans-historical save for technological and natural considerations.

What they do not understand is how wants and needs are necessitated by the productive relations and production itself - with production being a mode of human life, not simply a "task" that takes one from A-to-B with a DEFINITE goal, but a real expression of the actual process of life. Thinking of production as an "instrument" of human will assumes there is a mythological, cynical human subject with aims that are outside the sphere of his social totality. But there is no such thing.

Without this understanding of production, Marx's whole theory of value falls apart. The point of socially necessary labor IS NOT that we tacitly assume that "well, society wants this for reasons that are subjective/whimsical", the point of socially necessary labor, as Marx understands when he talks about labor "as a peculiar commodity", is how that labor and the commodities it yields reproduce social relations as they already exist. In fact it is the inability to understand this point which sustains the so-called "transformation" problem, and not to mention more importantly the "calculation" problem of socialism: It assumes that socialism will be worse off in reproducing capitalism than capitalism itself, a charge we confess is undoubtedly true.

[Rudolf]

Prostitution is fucking people as a service. Services, surely, will still exist in the communist society. The difference between prostitution and good old promiscuity, which will surely be ubiquitous in communism (to summarise an earlier discussion on the same subject) is that prostitution will be advertised and available to anyone regardless of personal ties (if the prostitute wants to do their job, of course).

Let me put it this way: in communism, a friend could come over and fix your computer, for example. Or, you could contact someone who provides that service, even if you don't know them. Likewise with sex. You could fuck people you know, or, if anyone is willing to offer sex to strangers, you could contact them.

Having sex with strangers isn't prostitution and neither is advertising the fact. People do this right now on their phones. The thing you're missing is payment, exchange. Prostitution is commercial sex. You can't have commercial sex without commerce.

Using your computer example, a mate can fix my computer, a stranger can but this is different to me paying someone to fix my computer.

[Rafiq]

Let me put it this way: in communism, a friend could come over and fix your computer, for example. Or, you could contact someone who provides that service, even if you don't know them. Likewise with sex. You could fuck people you know, or, if anyone is willing to offer sex to strangers, you could contact them.

That it would not be prohibited for someone to have sex with strangers sais nothing about some kind of "free access" prostitution.

We do not respect this point enough to take it seriously at face value, for we know the ideological dimension which underlies it. And this dimension is precisely the retention of the alienation, degradation and exploitation that is prostitution but "without" this or that aspect of it. You could "contact" someone who is willing to offer sex to strangers? Of course you could, no one is proposing this ought to be stopped, but if sexuality has not changed to the point where the culture of craigslist "services" remains intact (of course, without this or that "trivial" thing that totally wouldn't imply giant transformative ramifications for the totality, like money *sarcasm*), then there is no Communism to begin with - but a pathological fantasy.

Take the family. Who will "stop" the family or make it illegal to live with people and have kids? The point, which you continually fail to understand, is that not prohibiting something most often times is because there is no reason to prohibit it, its existence is already negated as an inevitable result of a new order of social relations.

In Communist society, you could not have sex with a stranger, even if you are fucking someone from 1000 miles away who you have never met. That is because a Communist society would be inherently cohesive and united by universal solidarity between free peoples. In present day society you are stranger to those you see every day and who live all around you. In the society of the future, we can imagine you are familiar with those you have never seen and who live way out of your proximity. The very act of association between peoples, and coming into contact, would already be exemplary and expressive of an inherent social solidarity united by their socialization through labor no longer being alien and a matter of exchange.

I mean what is fascinating here is how you present such ideas "You could contact someone who specializes in this thing", like where oh where does Xhar-Xhar get this fantasy from? Pure imagination, or an abstraction of prostitution as it already exists in capitalist society? Xhar-Xhar actually pictures in his head a society where people "know" of someone who does this or that - that is strange, that would be just as strange as "knowing" someone who specializes in cuddling or going on morning walks with you. Sex would no longer be a commodity, just as presently taking someone out for a movie is not a commodity - that is because sex inevitably has an emotional and social dimension to it, its de-personalization is hardly some inevitability, but a result of prevailing sexual relations that elevate sex to the level of exclusivity. In other words, there is no reason to think that friendship would not exist between people who fuck any more than friendship exists between people who might hold hands or do this or that.

If sex was just about doing a "service" like fixing a fucking computer, then the solution to the "demand" for this service would be to sit the fuck home and masturbate. Sex is more than physical stimulation, however, it is a profoundly personal act.

[Rafiq]

"Advertised" he sais. What? Do you understand how profoundly stupid this is? I mean the level of naivity here is shocking.

This "Communism" is literally no different from present day society. It is a fantasy. "Advertising" he sais. There would be no advertisements, there were seldom even advertisements in Stalinist countries. The whole point of advertisement is conveyance of social relations that are alien, advertising compels you to want things outside what is consciously understood as the product of your labor (money), the idea that this would persists in any form is literally capitalism without capitalism.

People literally are so naive. They take so much for granted, as if society as it presents itself is some human inevitability, and that we can change protective relations without changing its source of vital perpetuation.

[Црвена]

I don't see any reason for prostitution of any sort to exist in communism. What the OP described would be particularly out of the question seeing as there is by definition no government, no money and no legal obligation in communism, but in a society where there are no taboos concerning anything to do with sex and people are much, much more promiscuous, as well as there being no need for anyone to sell sex as a last resort in order to make money, I imagine someone who feels horny one day or whatever would just be able to ask strangers on the street if they want sex and then do it. No transactions involved, and no "job" of prostitution as such.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Having sex with strangers isn't prostitution and neither is advertising the fact. People do this right now on their phones. The thing you're missing is payment, exchange. Prostitution is commercial sex. You can't have commercial sex without commerce.

Using your computer example, a mate can fix my computer, a stranger can but this is different to me paying someone to fix my computer.

If said person didn't put out the memo of sex, how would anyone know? I mean how could anyone use said service if they don't even know about it? That's like a doctor moving to a new town and not having a sign out front; who's gonna look at a random building and be like "say, I bet a doctor of medicine is in there!" Huh? Maybe eventually what we know as 'prostitution' could be coopted into some sort of sex/psych therapy?

[Rudolf]

That it would not be prohibited for someone to have sex with strangers sais nothing about some kind of "free access" prostitution.



Holy shit Marx flashbacks..


"But you Communists would introduce community of women, screams the bourgeoisie in chorus. The bourgeois sees his wife a mere instrument of production. He hears that the instruments of production are to be exploited in common, and, naturally, can come to no other conclusion that the lot of being common to all will likewise fall to the women. "

[WideAwake]

Hi, good question, because sex is a basic need like food, urinating, etc. I've read in a book by Schopenhauer, where he claimed that marriage itself is really a legalized type of sexual activity. He claimed that people get married, not primarily because of love, but to fulfill the basic need of sexual intercourse. And he proposed in Germany where he lived, short-term marriages of 1 week, or more in order to fulfill that basic need of sexual intercourse.

Because the USA anti-sex laws are really too anti-scientific, banning sex like with the current extreme moralist legal code, leads to repressed sexual needs, and when people cannot fulfill the basic need of sex, they either get depressed, or rely on other types of pleasures like binge-eating, alcoholism, drugs etc.





Is it possible under democratic socialism to have a system where the government not only legalizes prostitution but takes it under its wing? Also people who are over 18 of either gender are encouraged to go to the prostitute once a month the payment for which will be subsidized by the government based on individual income. Any visits occurring more than once a month has to be paid solely by the individual whatever his/her income be!


This is a genuine question. Not an attempt at trolling or sounding offensive. Please try to answer my question in a serious way. All views welcome! I encourage an open debate. Thanks!

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Having sex with strangers isn't prostitution and neither is advertising the fact. People do this right now on their phones. The thing you're missing is payment, exchange. Prostitution is commercial sex. You can't have commercial sex without commerce.

To be honest, I'm not sure we disagree (on this at least). Prostitution in the capitalist society involves market exchange, sure. (In previous periods, I'm not so sure. There is e.g. temple prostitution, and according to my admittedly limited understanding of the issue it wasn't always for money, and when it was the exchange was often not an equal market exchange). Now if you want to say that defines prostitution, then sure, there will be no prostitution in the socialist society.

But to continue with this line of thought, there will be no, for example, tailoring, either. Tailoring, in capitalist society, isn't just sewing for strangers, it's commercial sewing. So if there is no prostitution in socialism neither is there tailoring or steelworking etc.

I think it's better if we retain the names used to refer to the function while making clear the way the function is preformed will change radically. Steelworking in the socialist society will be done according to a scientific plan, for example, tailoring done as a service to others and a way to express freely your personality etc. Likewise with sex-as-a-service.

Of course this doesn't mean there will be prostitutes, just as there will be no tailors or steelworkers; no one will have a fixed sphere of activity (except to the extent that they fix one for themselves, which won't happen a lot, I would imagine). One will rather sleep with people in the morning, sew suits in the afternoon and pour ingots of steel in the evening etc.

[Rudolf]

To be honest, I'm not sure we disagree (on this at least). Prostitution in the capitalist society involves market exchange, sure. (In previous periods, I'm not so sure. There is e.g. temple prostitution, and according to my admittedly limited understanding of the issue it wasn't always for money, and when it was the exchange was often not an equal market exchange). Now if you want to say that defines prostitution, then sure, there will be no prostitution in the socialist society.

But to continue with this line of thought, there will be no, for example, tailoring, either. Tailoring, in capitalist society, isn't just sewing for strangers, it's commercial sewing. So if there is no prostitution in socialism neither is there tailoring or steelworking etc.

I think it's better if we retain the names used to refer to the function while making clear the way the function is preformed will change radically. Steelworking in the socialist society will be done according to a scientific plan, for example, tailoring done as a service to others and a way to express freely your personality etc. Likewise with sex-as-a-service.

Of course this doesn't mean there will be prostitutes, just as there will be no tailors or steelworkers; no one will have a fixed sphere of activity (except to the extent that they fix one for themselves, which won't happen a lot, I would imagine). One will rather sleep with people in the morning, sew suits in the afternoon and pour ingots of steel in the evening etc.

And so you play with words and then pretend the issue is over specialisation and the division of labour. But it doesn't work, you're disingenuous.

Steelworking literally refers to the working of steel (subtle, i know). There is nothing inherent in working steel that implies exchange. I can work some steel and consume my creation directly. Also, tailoring refers to specific sewing and pressing techniques. Yet prostitution is different, it doesn't refer to specific sexual acts it refers to exchange.

You not being sure whether prostitution in previous modes of production involved exchange is weird as exchange predates capitalism. Suppose Classical Greece. You buy a slave to fuck that's not prostitution that's slavery. For prostitution you go to the brothels, maybe even one created by and its prices regulated by the state (as Solon is credited with).

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

In response to the OP I think it's a terrible idea to encourage actual prostitution in a socialist society. Whilst the legal status of prostitution is encouraged by sex workers under capitalism to secure their legal and physical safety, you'd hope that in a socialist society people actually have enough respect for one another to not use somebody else's body as a serviceable object of pleasure. In all honesty, in a society without money it would also become very difficult to carry out that exchange, especially if that moneyless society also ensured enough satisfaction of people's material desires that a quasi-currency (for example, of goods) did not become reality.

Xhar-Xhar's relentless, 'democratic' attacks on all who deviate from his specific definition of what socialism is, is also noted. :laugh:

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

And so you play with words and then pretend the issue is over specialisation and the division of labour. But it doesn't work, you're disingenuous.

Steelworking literally refers to the working of steel (subtle, i know). There is nothing inherent in working steel that implies exchange. I can work some steel and consume my creation directly. Also, tailoring refers to specific sewing and pressing techniques. Yet prostitution is different, it doesn't refer to specific sexual acts it refers to exchange.

You not being sure whether prostitution in previous modes of production involved exchange is weird as exchange predates capitalism. Suppose Classical Greece. You buy a slave to fuck that's not prostitution that's slavery. For prostitution you go to the brothels, maybe even one created by and its prices regulated by the state (as Solon is credited with).

Yes, I'm aware that exchange and commodity production existed before socialism. What I'm not sure of is a factual question; whether every instance of so-called temple prostitution involved exchange. I have it in my head that it didn't, but haven't been able to find any real sources on the issue. The best-known kind, the temple prostitution in Mesopotamia, allegedly did not operate on the basis of an equal market exchange (value for value).

I also don't think I'm playing with words. Tailoring is not sewing as such. One can do all the things a tailor does and not be a tailor - i.e. if one does it at home, for immediate consumption. But it's pretty tiring do dissect words like that. The thing doesn't change if we change the term, and whether we call that prostitution or receiving the ministrations of Fourier's angels of virtue, the service is the same.

[Rafiq]

The difference is that sexual acts AS LABOR would disappear - the dimension of sex that makes it labor that can be bought is precisely its alien, exploitative dimension.

You might say thus holds for practically all service sector work, which has exploded as a result of the rise of the category of mass marginalization, "disposable life" and precarity. There is no labor more unnecessary for a future society than service related labor. All service labor would disappear.

The difference with prostitution of course is its relation to SEXUAL oppression - there can be no sexual freedom so long as sex is a kind of socially necessary labor. It is as simple as that.

[Hedonic Socialism]

The only reason I used the term 'prostitution' is to make sense of it in the usual way it is used in today's world. However, what I really meant was that there should not be prostitution under socialism in the same way as it is used in the capitalist sense, but the term would be in practice to encourage people to have more sex. So the woman or man involved would not be selling their bodies unless it went over once a month, but he or she would be part of a system and from the general population. So I am eschewing the term prostitution as used in the modern sense but what I am seeing is that these women or men wouldn't be offering sexual services because they were forced to because of lower economic situation but these people would be from the everyday general population so men and women from the population would take turns in offering this service as a way of encouraging an active sexual life for most people.

So what I am saying is NOT prostitution in the capitalist sense where you pay to get sex or you "sell your body" for money but it would be part of a culture and system of encouraging people to have an active sexual life and therefore people from all walks of life in a classless society would participate in this system. People would not do it because they have fallen on hard times and they need money as socialism would bring about a moneyless society. So perhaps if the sexual service was offered regularly then the clients would offer some incentive or compensation to the sexual workers. Therefore, I am saying that an active sexual life would be the motive of this system and be applicable to the general population and regular people from all walks of life would participate in it.