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| Soviet anti-prostitution poster: “After the destruction of capitalism — the proletariat will abolish prostitution — the great scourge of humanity!” |
In the first part
of this series, we deconstructed the notion that “transwomen are women”
from a Marxist perspective. In that piece I said that notion is perhaps
the most destructive facing the left today, but I’m going to have to
reconsider that assertion as we tackle the next
anti-feminist/anti-Marxist “big lie” facing the left today, the notion
that “sex work is work”. Marxism has always recognized prostitution as
one of the vilest forms of exploitation; every major Marxist
revolutionary has condemned it in unequivocal terms. The Communist Manifesto openly proclaims that the socialist revolution will do away with “prostitution both public and private.”[1]
In her first major work, Nadezhda Krupskaya, described how
revolutionary workers, during one night of major labor strikes, also
directed their rage at the brothels, destroying eleven of them in a
single night.[2]
And, yet, despite this damning and overwhelming Marxist condemnation of
prostitution, the left has started to drink the “sex-work” Kool-Aid.
This ranges from assertions that prostitution (and pornography, which is
just filmed prostitution) is just a job like any other to outright
proclaiming it liberating for women, a strike against bourgeois
moralism! Pimps have become re-cast as “managers”, and johns as
“clients”. Some so-called “Marxists” have even come out in support of
collectivized brothels under socialism! Unsurprisingly, most of these
declamations are being made by men who, distraught that the revolution
wants to take away “their porn” and “their women”, are now trying to
have their cake and eat it too by twisting the Marxist notion of free
love and the Marxist attacks on bourgeois morality to suit their own
exploitative ends. In this they are assisted by the “PhD Prostitutes”,
well-off bourgeois women, often holding advanced degrees, who engage in
prostitution as a lifestyle “choice”. Joseph Goebbels would be proud.
But
for now, we will leave these reactionary elements to stew where they
are. First, it is incumbent to debunk the central assertion behind all
of this, that “sex work is work”. To tear this apart, we need to first
answer the question, what is labor? In his first major published work, The German Ideology, Marx defines labor as such:
“The
first premise of all human existence and, therefore, of all history,
[is that humans] must be in a position to live in order to be able to
‘make history’. But life involves before everything else eating and
drinking, a habitation, clothing and many other things. The first
historical act is thus the production of the means to satisfy these
needs, the production of material life itself. And indeed this is an
historical act, a fundamental condition of all history, which today, as
thousands of years ago, must daily and hourly be fulfilled merely in
order to sustain human life.”[3]
To put it in more succinct terms, labor is the process by which human beings create, and facilitate the use, of products of social value.
Does the act of sexual intercourse in of itself have social value? Does
pornographic material have social value? The answer is no. Sexual
intercourse is not a fundamental human need in the way food, water,
clothing, and shelter are. Nor does intercourse in of itself help us
interpret and understand the world in the way that science and art do.
Intercourse does take on social value when its purpose is reproduction,
in that case it becomes reproductive labor. It also holds social value
when it becomes a means of interpersonal communication, such as
intercourse between lovers, but that is not necessarily labor as it does
not produce anything of wider use for a community. In Prostitution and Ways of Fighting It,
Alexandra Kollontai said, “prostitutes are all those who avoid the
necessity of working by giving themselves to a man, either on a
temporary basis or for life.”[4]
She is clearly separating it from labor, rather defining it as the last
act of the most desperate and rejected members of society. What does
prostitution create, then? It creates, and increases, alienation and
exploitation of the worst kind. Kollontai also railed against
prostitution because it “threatens the feeling of solidarity and
comradeship between working men and women, the members of the workers’
republic. And this feeling is the foundation and the basis of the
communist society we are building and making a reality.”[5]
But
if prostitution is not labor, what is it? The answer is simple. Sexual
slavery; contractual rape. Continuing on her points already made,
Kollontai reasoned that “Prostitution arose with the first states as the
inevitable shadow of the official institution of marriage, which was
designed to preserve the rights of private property and to guarantee
property inheritance through a line of lawful heirs.”[6] This is a summation of what Engels described in The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State;
that prostitution allowed for men to engage in carnal relations outside
of their marriage. In the society that gave birth to prostitution,
women were either the de facto property of men, or their de jure property,
as in the case of wives. The prostitute was essentially a slave, with
no rights or autonomy of her own; her entire existence was devoted to
serving men. This continued in the age of feudalism, where prostitution
was highly organized and ubiquitous, in order to maintain the chastity
and faithfulness of men’s daughters and wives, who remained their
property. But it is capitalism that has brought forth the full horrific
nature of prostitution, where now the whole lot of woman is threatened
with prostitution if they cannot afford to feed themselves and their
families, or pay their bills, afford an education, or any of the other
necessities working people struggle to obtain and secure. Again we see
the separation of prostitution from labor; the prostitute in capitalist
society is the woman who cannot make an existence by labor alone. The
prostitute is not even considered a human being, but rather a commodity.
They are below even the lumpenproletariat,
that great mass that contains both those almost totally squeezed dry by
capitalism, as well as the criminal element of society, which are still
recognized as human. This is the class to which the pimp belongs to.[7]
The pimp is a parody of the parasitical capitalist who profits off the
labor of the working class; in the case of the pimp, he profits off the
dehumanized woman turned commodity.
The
industrial and technological revolutions that have occurred under
capitalism have only made the prostitute’s life worse. With the advent
of mass pornography, especially in the modern age of mass and instant
communication, the prostitute is no longer the commodity of just one
john, but of millions of johns, who fuck her by proxy; in turn the
pimp’s profits are doubled, tripled, quadrupled beyond anything they
ever were. And not just women now, but also homosexual and gender
non-conforming men, who as “exiles” from the community of men are
increasingly finding themselves subjected to the lot previously reserved
almost exclusively for women. Almost every pornography website has a
section for “transsexual” porn. In prostitution we see the development
of patriarchy and capitalism in microcosm; the mass dehumanization of
human beings aimed at smashing our solidarity with one another, leaving
us increasingly alienated and isolated, viewing one another not as
comrades in a common struggle, but vessels to derive selfish pleasure.
The
pro-“sex work” advocates would have one believe that entering
prostitution is a “choice” freely made on the part of the prostitute,
and to deny this is to deny the prostitute’s “agency”. To illustrate
their point, they trot out the “PhD Prostitutes” mentioned above. But
Marxists should know better than to take such evidence at face value.
The Marxist method looks not at the conditions of individuals isolated
from society as a whole, but at the individual within the larger social
context they exist in. A study conducted by the Soroptimist
International, “an international volunteer organization working to
improve the lives of women and girls, in local communities and
throughout the world” found that most prostitutes “were sexually and
physically abused as children, deprived and pushed into selling sex at
age 14, on average.” It also goes on to say:
“In
one study of prostituted women, 90 percent of the women had been
physically battered in childhood; 74 percent were sexually abused in
their families, with 50 percent also having been sexually abused by
someone outside the family. Of 123 survivors at the Council for
Prostitution Alternatives in Portland, Oregon (an agency offering
support, education, shelter and access to health services to clients of
all sex industries), 85 percent reported a history of incest, 90 percent
reported a history of physical abuse, and 98 percent cited a history of
emotional abuse.”
The
study also notes that women of color, women from the third world, and
indigenous women are even more likely to be forced into prostitution.[8]
Additionally “71 percent reported being physically abused and 63
percent reported being raped by a customer. In a rigorous study of pimps
in seven cities in the United States, 58 percent of prostitutes
reported violence, while 36 reported having abusive clients.” It also
challenges the notion that “high-class” “call-girl” prostitution is
safer than street prostitution, finding that escorts will be abused by
johns at least twice a year. But perhaps the most damning evidence
presented in the study to the “choice” argument, is the evidence that
“more than 90 percent of prostituted women in various surveys want to
leave prostitution, but lack viable options.”[9]
Despite
this, the pro-“sex work” crowd insist that prostitution is not
contractual rape, because prostitutes are giving their consent. But how
can “consent” obtained under economic coercion truly be consent? This
sounds like arguments put forward in defense of capitalism as a whole;
for example, that workers who do not like the conditions of their work
or their wages can always “choose” to get a different job. Marxists
rightly recognize this argument as a diversion, because of the external
circumstances that prevent individuals from just easily choosing the job
they want to do. It is the same with the prostitute; her “consent” is
only a passive consent, not the active consent that recognized as being
necessary for a truly consensual sexual relationship. The “PhD
Prostitutes” who are able to freely choose and screen their “clients”
represent an incredibly small minority, and perhaps cannot even be
considered prostitutes, but bourgeois dilettantes “playfully” aping the
suffering of the classes beneath them.
Similarly,
abolitionists have come under attack from the “sex work” crowd, being
accused of moralism and puritanism. They argue that criminalization only
worsens the plight of prostitutes, whereas bringing them into the
recognized workforce through legalization and unionization will ease
their suffering. In this first part, they are correct. The
criminalization of the prostitute is an expression of not just
bourgeois, but patriarchal hypocrisy, because the prostitute is
essentially punished for trying to survive, punished for fulfilling the
desires of the ruling class. The second part, however, is dead wrong.
The countries that have legalized prostitution have seen a dramatic
increase in human trafficking, because contrary to the free choice
arguments of the “sex work” hypocrites, there exists nowhere near enough
women who want to commodify themselves to meet the demand.[10] In Australia and New Zealand, legalization has decreased the agency of prostitutes, and increased
the power of pimps, by introducing the “all-inclusive”, a single fee
paid to the pimp instead of directly to the prostitute, essentially
depriving prostituted women of what little power of negotiation they
had.[11]
In Germany, a pregnant prostitute was coerced into having group sex
with a bunch of men who “wanted” a pregnant woman; under German law,
this was perfectly legal. The prostitute in question said she felt like
she had no power to say no, as her agency had been usurped by the
brothel.[12]
Similarly, the “sex worker unions” advocated for by the “sex work”
activists are another vehicle for pimps and their supporters to exercise
their dominance; the Scarlet Alliance, Australia’s largest “sex worker
union” even harassed survivors of the sex industry.[13]
Rosa Luxemburg did advocate for the formation of revolutionary unions
of prostitutes, but not to “regulate” prostitution, but to smash
it. In fact, the advocates of full legalization (with or without
regulation) belong in the company of fascists, not revolutionary
socialists. The Nazis established an extensive and centralized system of
brothels in cities and military camps, as well as in the concentration
camps themselves. When Franco seized power in Spain, he overturned the
abolitionist reforms of the Republic, and re-legalized prostitution so
that men were guaranteed their brides were virgins and not “spoiled
goods”.[14]
The
most effective method of combatting prostitution has been the Nordic
Model, which is made up of two components: 1) The decriminalization of
selling sex, and the criminalization of pimps and johns; and 2) The
creation and strengthening of state resources, such as education,
professional training, counseling, and community support, to help
prostitutes make a safe exit from the industry. Countries that have
adopted the Nordic Model, such as Sweden, Norway, and Iceland have seen
dramatic reductions in prostitution. The Swedish Ministry of Justice
found that since the adoption of the Sex Buyer Law in 1999, prostitution
has fully halved, and continues to decline.[15] Additionally, no evidence has been found that prostitutes are being forced underground as a result of this policy.[16]
And most importantly, not a single prostitute has been murdered by a
john since the law came into effect. What the pimps, johns, and their
apologists cannot stand about the Nordic Model is that it ends their
monopoly on power, and actually punishes their exploitation of women,
all while empowering their former slaves. This is why they always try to
erect obfuscations against the Nordic Model, even outright crying about
how it victimizes the “poor johns”. Some of the more cunning faux
leftists argue against the Nordic Model on the basis that it increases
the power of the bourgeois state and police; or they claim that there is
no use in combatting prostitution since no reform under capitalism will
eliminate it. On the contrary, the Nordic Model represents a perfect
example of a transitional demand. Trotsky defined the transitional
demand as being a bridge between the minimum demands of social democracy
and the maximum demands of revolutionary socialism; demands that would
allow the oppressed to win not just key reforms, but also to increase
their strength and confidence against the capitalist state. Transitional
demands are not just calls for reform, but calls for openly
revolutionary action that will spark reforms and strengthen existing
ones. The Nordic Model is a perfect example precisely because it is a
reform that strikes at the heart of the patriarchal and capitalist
system; it allows the masses to see just who supports and benefits from
prostitution. Eugene Debs, when he was city clerk of Terre Haute,
advocated for a kind of proto-Nordic Model, refusing to assess fines on
prostitutes, because the police took no action against the pimps or the
usually wealthy johns. As for the false concerns about increasing the
power of the bourgeois state and police, the Nordic Model, like any good
transitional reform, forces the state and the police to actually work
for, not against, the people they claim to represent. Would these same
“socialists” so worried about the cops being unleashed on pimps and
johns have cried the same tears when Eisenhower sent in the National
Guard to enforce the desegregation of schools in the Jim Crow south? It
would, at the very least, be amusing to see a socialist cite this as an
example of giving the bourgeois state “too much power”.
To
reiterate, every socialist revolution has struck with the full force of
its power against prostitution and the sex industry. Every major
socialist revolutionary has recognized the emancipation of women from
sexual slavery as one of the basic tasks of the revolution. These “sex
work socialists” are more than just hypocrites and revisionists, they
are outright misogynistic reactionaries. The degeneration of the
revolutionary left in the western world, especially in the Anglophone
world is what has allowed these trends to sprout and grow. The
pernicious influence of neoliberalism and postmodernism have infected
the body of the revolutionary left; slowly eating away at it like
gradual poisoning. The Marxist concept of free love aims to eliminate
the current patriarchal system of sexual coercion and exploitation, and
replace it with a humane and open system of actively consensual
intimacy. Those who believe otherwise would best be served by dropping
the act, and joining the Libertarian Party, because that is where their
politics truly lie. The left needs to remember its mission; the
liberation of the oppressed peoples of the world, and take an active
stand against the pimps and johns playing dress-up as communists.
[1] Engels, Karl Marx and Frederick. “Communist Manifesto (Chapter 2).” Marxist Internet Archive. Marxist Internet Archive, n.d. Web. 02 July 2017.
[2] Krupskaya, Nadezhda. “On the Workers’ Strikes and Attacks on Brothels.” Facebook.
Dmytriy Kovalevich, 05 Dec. 2016. Web. 02 July 2017. This portion is
the only English translation of Krupskaya’s first article available
online.
[3]
Marx, Karl. “The German Ideology Part I: Feuerbach. Opposition of the
Materialist and Idealist Outlook A. Idealism and Materialism.” Marxist Internet Archive. Marxist Internet Archive, n.d. Web. 02 July 2017.
[4] Kollontai, Alexandra. “Prostitution and Ways of Fighting It.” Marxist Internet Archive. Marxist Internet Archive, n.d. Web. 02 July 2017.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Marx summarizes the membership of the lumpenproletariat in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte as
follows: “Alongside decayed roués with dubious means of subsistence and
of dubious origin, alongside ruined and adventurous offshoots of the
bourgeoisie, were vagabonds, discharged soldiers, discharged jailbirds,
escaped galley slaves, swindlers, mountebanks, lazzaroni, pickpockets,
tricksters, gamblers, maquereaux [pimps],
brothel keepers, porters, literati, organ grinders, ragpickers, knife
grinders, tinkers, beggars — in short, the whole indefinite,
disintegrated mass, thrown hither and thither, which the French call la
bohème.” (Emphasis added.)
[8]
The wide prevalence of racist porn can attest to this. Most porn sites
have their material broken down by race. The “Asian fetish” is probably
the most egregious example of racist fetishization.
[9] “Prostitution Is Not a Choice.” Soroptimist International of the Americas (2014): 2–6. Print.
[10]
Cho, Seo-Young; Dreher, Axel; Neumayer, Eric; “Does Legalized
Prostitution Increase Human Trafficking?” World Development, 2013,
41:67–82.
[11] Valisce, Sabrinna. “Advocating for the Nordic Model in Australia.” Facebook. Deep Green Resistance Australia, 03 May 2017. Web. 02 July 2017.
[12] Bindel, Julie. “Pregnant Women Are Being Legally Pimped out for Sex — This Is the Lowest Form of Capitalism.” The Independent. Independent Digital News and Media, 23 Apr. 2017. Web. 02 July 2017.
[13] Davoren, Heidi. “Former Sex Workers Claim Harassment by Pro-prostitution Groups after Speaking out.” ABC News. N.p., 12 Oct. 2016. Web. 02 July 2017.
[14] Morcillo, Aurora G. “Introduction: Gendered Metaphors.” The Seduction of Modern Spain: The Female Body and the Francoist Body Politic. Lewisburg: Bucknell UP, 2010. 19. Print.
[15] Aleem, Zeeshan. “16 Years After Decriminalizing Prostitution, Here’s What Sweden Has Become.” Mic. Mic Network Inc., 25 Oct. 2015. Web. 02 July 2017.
[16]
English summary of the Evaluation of the ban on purchase of sexual
services (1999–2008), Swedish Ministry of Justice, 2010. See also: Max
Waltman, “Prohibiting Sex Purchasing and Ending Trafficking: The Swedish
Prostitution Law,” 33 Michigan Journal of International Law 133, 133–57
(2011), pp. 146–148.
