The sex trade - post revolution...

[MJM]

I was just thinking about the sex trade and what it will develop into post revolution.
Will it be eliminated?
Will it manifest itself as a new social dynamic?

Anyone have a dialectical Materialist analysis on this?
Or does anyone wish to perhaps show us their DM analysis on the subject?

I don't understand the system enough to do it myself, but an attempt by someone else could be very educational for me.

Otherwise just opinions would be great.

(Edited by MJM at 5:31 pm on Feb. 5, 2003)

[Fires of History]

Two words:

The Netherlands.

;)

[canikickit]

I don't know what those two words are supposed to mean, Fires, but the Netherlands has a huge amount of illegal traffic in human females to there. Women are often taken advantage of and coerced into the sex trade in Holland.

Although the legalisation of prostitution is obviously (to me) a superior alternative to allowing illegal prostitution to take place, the Netherlands is far from perfect.

Prostitution should be legalised worldwide. I presume that's what you meant, Fires?

[Blibblob]

Prostitution isnt even bad, dammit. You could count dates as prostitution, i pay for dinner, and a little something happens after...

[redstar2000]

Under capitalism, the "sex industry" is a subset of the over-all entertainment industry...music, movies, sport, even to some extent, religion.

Common to the entertainment industry is the opportunity for young (relatively) unskilled female workers to "earn a living wage"...something not otherwise available.

Class struggle does take place...as you might expect. There are prostitutes' unions, though they are still quite small and weak.

After the revolution, with a living wage guaranteed for all, I would expect the "sex industry" to shrink dramatically...down to the numbers of women who actually enjoy that kind of work.

Such women would either be self-employed or work in a worker-managed brothel (as was the case in Barcelona, 1936-39).

With the gradual but inevitable opening of borders and free travel between revolutionary countries, the financial incentive for "traffic in women" (and migrants generally) would "dry up" and disappear.

I think it should work out ok...as long as we don't fall prey to a bunch of neo-puritan "communists" who want to "save women from sin."

:cool:

[Blibblob]

Come on, whats with prostitution anyways. Get a fucking girlfriend, not some damn person on the side of the road. No emotional value in that anyways.

[ravengod]

blibblob prostitution and sex trade isn t a joke
and it s not a pay my dinner and get laid business
it s a goddamn capitalist way of understanding profit and free entrerprise
it defies even the basic democratic principles of human rights
indeed i think it would self dissolve in a socialist and carefully organised society
but by no means it should be disregarded as a nowadays reality
and a very painful one

[Michael De Panama]

Redstar2000 definitely said it best.

Prostitution is an institution that was born from the capitalist system, like a baby that retains and boldly embodies only the ugliest qualities and features of its mother. The sorts of flaws such a mother might try to hide under makeup. Prostitution is wage slavery, and would surely cease to exist after the collapse of capitalism.

[mentalbunny]

I would agree with redstar2000 and Micheal on the one, how strange to find that I actually agree with redstar!

But seriously, he has got the right idea, and it sounds like it would really work, in a society where there is no poverty there will be few prostitutes.