--- joanna bujes <jbujes at covad.net> wrote:
> Not being interested in having sex for money does
> not make one a sexphobe.
>
> Joanna
I wonder whether, when the matter is properly described, how many people really object to having sex for money. Maybe not _just_ for money, but what else is marrying or staying with a man (presumably this relation involving some sex) because he is a "good provider." I think there is some sexual asymmetry here, men are statistically more likely to have sex with just about any reasonably attractive possible object than women. But how many men would factor out altogether, in a relationship that was supposed to be more than one-off, the fact that a possible sex partner had money to share or give?
Marx discusses the sex and money issue in th Manifesto where he calls bourgeois marriage as species of prostitution (disapprovingly). This had more force, perhaps in a day when many women were forced by their parents or economic circumstnaces into marrying men for whom they had no or little feeling or sexual attraction because of economic need. This has bot disappeared, of course; it is weakest in places with strong welfare states and high female employment (like Sweden) -- where marriage is withering away as an institution, btw, stronger in places like the Us with less of a safety net and a lower proportion of women in the workforce. (Am I sound too Posnerian here? Too much econ & law? Well, it overlaps a lot with Marxism.)
There is a romantic idea, probably at least partly religious in origin, that the only thing that should matter in whether anyone has sexual relations with anyone else is sexual attraction. It's considered very bad to get money mixed up in the equation. I wonder whether either of these positions is defensible. People haves ex with others for lots of reasons other than being sexually attracted. They may be just horny. SEx might just be fun, even if the other person isn't especially attractive to you. (This is more of a boy thing.) You might want to "score." It may help you form a relationship with someone who is or might be appealing on other grounds. Sex enhances closely and companionability. Sex cements long term relationships, making it more likely that a person may desirable on other grounds, like being nice or helpful or the father of your children or a good provider -- will stick around. Remember that divorce is a major cause of female poverty. I think lots of women are keenly aware of this point. In a related vein it may reduce the likelihood of extramarital sex, and concomitant threats to the stability of the family . . . .
The case of prostitution, which is a straightforward commercial exchange of sex for money, is a limit case, but even then it is complicated. Streetwalkers are probably the purest form of this commodification, but brothel workers, call girls and escorts may form long term and even emotional relationships with their clients -- good for repeat business, among other things. (Similar considerations with male prostitutes, most of whom cater to homosexual activities with straight men, or so I'd guess.)
Now, there are a bunch of questions involvbed here. Is there anything wrong with the commodification of sex? There obviously is something wrong with a situation where women (mainly) are actually enslaved or forced by threat of destitution to sell their bodies -- but as Brian (ansd Marx) point out, we all do that, and most of us under compulsion.
Is there something specially wrong with it because they are selling their bodies for sex? Is it because sex is "supposed" to be mixed up with love? Or with pleasure? And whores get little of either (one may assume). Where's that "supposed to" coming from, though? And shouldn't other sorts of work be mixed up with fun and pleasure if not also with love or at least friendship?
It's not a typical case, I am sure, but consider a woman who faces a choice, as she sees it, of lower-paid, grinding, dead-end clerical labor (no sex, but maybe sexual harassment), or getting married to a "good provider" she doesn't find that sexually attractive and maybe is a bit dull, ot working asa prostitute under, tolerable conditions -- not streetwalking, maybe as a call girl or an escort with a fairly clean and decent clientele, some of which she actually likes personally. (Maybe she coiuld even set herself up as a S&M pro Domme, and not have to have with the clients at all, just tie them up and spank them and such, wear cool looking scary clothes. But that might not count as prostitution.) I'm setting things up this way to see if there is anything wrong with prostitution as such, or anything that demarcates the second from the third choice.
I don't have answers here. But it seems to me that a case can be made that the commercialization of sex -- I mean of sexual activity, I mean performing sexual activities, not just posing suggestively for pix -- is no worse for women than a lot of options in capitalist society, and that the real objection is just the coercion of circumstances in capitalism, amplified for women by patriarchy, that makes women and also men subject to domination and exploitation. Is there something specially wrong because the third choice involves commodified sex.
Am I a horrible person? Have I been bitten too hard by law and and economics?
jks
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