Flying_horse_in_saudi_arabia posted:don't be disingenuous dude, I'm saying if you care about about gender equality and workers rights then dont use sex workers (first world or otherwise) as a strawman in your posts
Who is doing thus
https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/show/therednation/id/18033161d
https://weimar-project.page/das-dritte-geschlecht/
edit: it is very much a product of its time, so it's not at all radical for today's sex/gender politics. but for 1930s germany, it's pretty radical imo. i figured people who read this thread might find it interesting.
Edited by radical_dave ()
dizastar posted:i just randomly thought about this but its odd how normalized practice of violence and light domination such as choking, slapping, verbally demeaning the partner etc is in heterosexual intercourse.
there is about a hundred percent chance this is because of pornography
dizastar posted:normalized practice of violence
agree the pornification and normalization of violence in sex is problematic, particularly the expectation of its inclusion by default.
not sure about hetsex context, but i believe there is some nuance to the issue in how care/trust can be articulated through varying forms of eroticism and play with power dynamics.
while sexuality is not a neutral space outside of our inherited worlds and cultures, it can have dynamics that are more contained and defined by a particular relational context. i suspect there is a healthy way to engage with this that is not that different from how one engages in martial arts with a trusted sparring partner. a flow between care, power, theatrics, affect, struggle; feeling out the limits and forms of ones own strength in relation to another. this seems very far apart from a situation of actual violence one might encounter.
certainly there are people in martial arts practices that seek out opportunities to abuse, shame, control, hurt others... but that doesn't change the fact that there are situated ways to engage with violence as a form of play/self-development/relating. to clarify, i'm referring to the corporeal aspect of this, not the verbal/demeaning aspect, which still seems suspect however i look at it.
One paragraph I particularly like in this is:
Sex and gender are different; but they are inextricably linked. Once the economic need to control the reproductive labour of women was identified, it was reinforced by socially constructed gender roles to ensure future compliance. As such, the oppression of women can be roughly divided into two categories: material sex oppression which directly controls female reproductive labour (forced marriage, female genital mutilation, abortion etc); and ideological sex oppression which controls females more generally through gender roles (relegation to the domestic sphere, poorer job prospects due to perceived inferiority etc). Female oppression is based on sex and enforced by gender — and, as gender roles were designed to subjugate the female sex specifically, femininity is only oppressive to them. Gender cannot be divorced from the sex it was designed to oppress — it can only be abolished.
cars posted:Going to go out on a limb and say gender can do things other than “be abolished”
hey pal. not reading things properly is my posting brand
cars posted:That’s exactly why I always read things properly, Petrol-san.
And I, in turn, did not click through and read the whole article.
All of reality in late capitalist culture lusts to become an image for
its own security.
Donna Haraway, ‘Teddy Bear Patriarchy’
If you post in this thread saying 'this thread sucks' and nothing else then I'm forced to assume you are already wise and correct.
On the matter of drugs, sex, media and food consumption there are broad masses of people, myself included, who have no leadership when it comes to these questions. I don't know what relationship ethics should have with communist politics. Clearly the communists of the past had their ideas: party members should be examples to others, people who lapse should be criticized and learn from their errors, make amends etc. The situation now seems to be to avoid these topics. If we want to talk about 'otherwise principled people' then I am surprised that otherwise curious and thoughtful people think we can't have these discussions here.
Flying_horse_in_saudi_arabia posted:how to end all the many other forms of oppression and violence directed at them
Alright, how do we do it? Surely along the way we will have to organize, and address the ethical expectations for political agents?
the other component besides money is the fact that she was socialized into it as what a woman should be doing, which i won't go into besides saying her mom was a stripper at clubs and she looked up to that, among a lot of other grooming-adjacent things that seem to happen to girls when they go through middle school. almost seems like this type of sexual expression is just a "thing" you do, like if your parents had a career you'll end up doing the same thing because you know what the beat of that kinda life is, or if you're sexually attractive you're supposed to act like this, etc, a logic that is definitely a lot more personal and "hereditary" in a social sense than the state and economic system. male-subordinated sex trades have existed in state socialism consistently. Obviously phone sex probably won't force her into a shelter or something, but besides caring for her wellbeing i do think about the type of social fabric being woven as people grow up into this stuff.
that's relevant also to the fact that resources to protect people against men - ideologically, mentally, physically, etc - aren't really always up to snuff, and will probably require people become political actors in the same way communists view the working-class as needing to be a self contained force. this is also where Marxist theory goes dry when all it does is look at "institutions" and "influences" from the culture industry or whatever instead of the day-to-day capacity of people to engage in politics. in countries where 80 hour workweeks, illiteracy, or migrant labor is common among the proletariat, there are divisions in party work to other classes and barriers to political life from the people under those conditions. why don't we look at domestic violence, dysfunctional interpersonal relationships, atomization, unstable work hours, abuse, trauma, porn brain etc the same way in a country where it's apparently extremely common? Anyway that's all the theory I have for today, just a few observations.
Edited by serafiym ()
Belphegor posted:Flying_horse_in_saudi_arabia posted:how to end all the many other forms of oppression and violence directed at them
Alright, how do we do it? Surely along the way we will have to organize, and address the ethical expectations for political agents?
Of course.
Belphegor posted:yes, this is a bad thread. Everyone should have the right opinions on these things! Can't believe all these other men don't get it already.
It's not a question of lack of knowledge or wrong opinions so much as the attitude expressed at certain points in this thread, that makes me want to jump out a window. The cardinal rule of participating in feminist topics as a man is "let women take the lead, listen and take their experiences seriously before you open your mouth, don't make it all about you."
Men are restricted to a fundamentally limited perspective in this area and are absolutely going to be challenged in these kinds of conversations. We need to show patience and respect when confronted with things that make us uncomfortable and challenge us. We must be, in short, Very Careful. Instead we get the Lathe Wizard dramatically storming out in disgust that a woman dared to speak about her experience with sex work. Seeing that filled me with a deep despair about the character of this community. I really wanted to expect better.
So please understand that's my perspective when I treat this thread as a poisoned well and make shitty lathe jokes if I post in it at all. I mean it as no judgement on you. For those few great posts that were made, thank you for your sacrifice.