sex and the left

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

At 10:17 AM -0700 10/23/02, joanna bujes wrote:
>>Isn't it a fantasy that sex work is inherently different from and
>>worse (or better) than any other form of wage labor?
>
>The honest answer is "I don't know." I cannot really say that I am 
>sufficiently free of social conditioning about sex to say that it is 
>or it isn't....Right now, it seems that there are very few 
>connections left between people: friendship, familial connections, 
>and sexual connections (including or not including love). I have a 
>problem with prostitution because though it takes the form of a 
>sexual connection, it is not a sexual connection. In my mind sex 
>involves two free people. Call me crazy. I have the same problem 
>with alienated wage labor, but we weren't talking about wage labor. 
>The thread originated with an assertion that the left was anti-sex, 
>and it devolved into the more precise assertion that I was one of 
>these left pc prudes because I would not agree that porn and 
>prostitution were liberating.

We should be looking at the question of sex industries as a labor and 
gender question, not as a matter of whether anyone here is "pro-sex" 
or "anti-sex."

Those who purchase goods and services offered by sex industries can't 
hope to gain sexual connections, though some may (like high-class 
call girls and rent boys) offer semblances of them, just as there are 
no lasting connections between workers and customers in any other 
market, though some (like mom & pop stores) may offer semblances of 
them.  Sex workers can make connections among themselves, though, 
just as workers in general can make connections among themselves.
-- 
Yoshie

* Calendar of Events in Columbus: 
<http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html>
* Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html>
* Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/>
* Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/>