news

It doesn't seem like you read anything that I posted other than that first line you quoted, which you then extrapolated into a long thesis I never made. Most of your response has nothing to do with what I said and some of it assumes I hold a position completely contrary to what I actually did say.

But I’m skeptical of the conclusion that, essentially, exploitation only exists if the victim is aware of it.

I am not only skeptical of this, I think it is ridiculous. Of course exploitation can exist without the victim's awareness, that describes most forms of exploitation.

The way to abolish exploitation is to abolish its conditions of existence. The solution is not merely to make it tolerable. This applies to sex work all the same as to wage labor in general.exploitation.

What do you think I was saying with my multiple comparisons of sex work to other forms of labor? Seriously, I think you are replying to a comment someone made in your head, not to the one I posted.

You seem to want social equality for sex work.

You don't? Well, first of all, be specific about what you mean by social equality. But do I want sex work to be treated as the work that it is? Yes, I do, and so should anyone who cares about the well-being and empowerment of working class people.

But the cold reality is that sex work is not actually viewed that way in society

The cold hard reality is that low-wage so-called "grunt work" is looked down upon and viewed negatively by society. That doesn't make it so nor does it mean that as Marxists we should ignore the struggles of people doing low-wage work. In fact it would go against Marxist principles in a very fundamental way.

Revenge porn exists as a concept precisely because sex work, and open sex in general, causes harm if linked to one’s real identity. Yet, I’ve never heard of someone “outed” as a former plumber and left unable to find work, or fired from a job they actively hold like that one story about the teacher fired for being on OF

What are you even talking about?? The vast majority of revenge porn is not "outing" someone as being a sex worker. For the most part, it has fuck-all to do with sex work. It is private photos taken by regular people any profession regardless of what they do for work that are then made public, usually but not necessarily by an angry and unscrupulous ex to hurt them by violating their privacy. Revenge porn would exist and be a problem completely independently of whether or not sex work even existed within a society, and depends only on the viewing of sex (and usually women's sexuality in particular) as a vulgar and shameful thing.

This industry goes beyond “simple” exploitation of labor and takes it to a different degree of coercion.

All the more reason that as Marxists we should struggle to rectify those problems so that sex work can be treated as the work that it is.

But if you define any kind of labor as something done in exchange for money, then that form of labor won't exist under communism

Yes, that is the point. In a society of free producers the nature of production changes dramatically. Sex work under Communism ceases to be work and just becomes sex. Whether you do it with a stranger or a person you know does not change it. I mean, one-night stands exist under capitalism as well. Few people would call that prostitution except weirdos trying to shame women (and prostitutes).

I guess you could call a full-time sex haver who I'd assigned to this role under the plan as a sex worker. But not only does this role seem dubious in a society where sexual activity is unrestricted, but also requires the communist society to have enough surplus labor to spend it as such.

After all, the point of prostitution under class society, as engels puts it, is to be able to have sex without risking the a child who you then have to take care of, cause that child is the sex workers problem. These days, the loneliness crisis is also feeding into prostitution. But both reasons should be solved under Communism. Sex under Communism should just be fun, not a way to paper over social contradictions.

What will you exchange for the labor done by a person who provides you a skilled, professional massage under communism?

Nothing. Under higher stage Communism there is no exchange. Just a ration of labor you are allowed to use (assuming there is no full automation).

Sex work will still exist just as much as any service work will still exist.

A lot of service work might disappear under Communism. Not only due to automation, but also due to them having different social values and different social needs in a society where present day contradictions are resolved. Sex work as you describe it may still exist for various reasons, but it might not as well.