Since sex work is a hot topic these days so to speak, I want to talk about it.
Now, the basic class questions are who does the work,
who benefits and who gets to distribute the benefits as he wants
or she wants? But the most basic questions are who does the work, who benefits from that labor.
We can look at sex and sex work asking those questions. Who does the work
and who benefits? You have all those brothels in Nevada, where men and women work providing
sexual enjoyment for customers, and they get paid a wage. The capitalist owner of the brothel
makes a lot more money than he or she ever gives them, because in capitalism, as we all know,
it doesn't pay to hire you unless they're making more money off of you than they ever give you.
And it's not only in formal brothels. There are smaller brothel operations all over
the United States. They may be illegal, but they're everywhere.
Where some people hire other people to work providing sexual acts
and the people who own the brothel, small or large operation, collect the money from the johns
and give the sex workers a small portion of that money. We can look at sex work as who produces
sexual pleasure and who gets to appropriate it. And if we look at the whole morality,
there's a whole right wing morality about sex work that condemns sex work. However,
if we look at it the way I suggested in terms of classes of sex work,
class arrangements in which sex work is performed then the immorality is the exploitation.
Either in slavery or in capitalism, where you're ripping off people. Beause in slavery you don't
give them any money. Keep them alive so they can have sex with the people you hire them out to, or
in capitalist sex work, where you exploit them. You give them less than they earn for you.
That's the basic reason capitalists give wages anyway. But I feel that's immoral:
to exploit a person, give them less than they're making for you. And so I consider that
immoral sex work. Capitalist profiteering is immoral, but independent sex workers
are not immoral. Nobody's being exploited, and used and profited from.
I think this is really important for two reasons. One is the morality that condemns sex workers
is a hypocritical morality. It condemns people for trying to make a living
renting out their sexuality and making a living, not exploiting anyone else
and not doing anything that is in my book immoral. And we are quite a hypocritical society
around that. Our morality, that many are taught, is completely off. It doesn't respect that. What's
immoral is exploiting someone, taking more than you should, taking a share of their work
and not giving it back to them. That's immoral. That's theft. And not getting on some high,
runaway, moral horse of condemning people for doing sex work ,which is born out of economic
necessity. Sex is one of those many areas where women are condemned and where exploitation is not
condemned. And it's very important for us to get it straight. Sex work can be honest work.
Sex work should not be criminalized. What should be criminalized is slavery,
and I think, capitalism: using people to make money off of them and not giving them the money
that their work has earned. It's a very different take on sex work from what you usually hear.