Happens about February-March of every election year (the, ahem, independent media goes out of its way to induce it). Get ready for the next lib wave, and a bunch of iterations of the following script, which they’ve been practicing since like 1999:
-
- “Eh, I disagree with [Democrat candidate] on a lot of things, but to pretend he’s not better than [Republican candidate] is just delusional.”
-
- “Yeah, I know [Democratic candidate] is a war criminal and complicit in a genocide, but have you considered that [Republican candidate] is a war criminal as well, plus he said rude things about [minority group]? In the interest of harm reduction for Americans only, I have a duty to vote Democrat.”
-
- “Your vote actually does matter.”
-
- “The only reason the Democrats aren’t Wholesome Progressive Scandinavian Model Chungus is because they have to play politics with the Republicans. You have to recognize the reality of a two-party system.”
-
- “We can push the Democrats left.”
-
- “Such-and-such Democratic policy (usually the Affordable Care Act) was actually really progressive.”
-
- “My [minority group] partner, whom I’ve never mentioned up to this point and very possibly just made up, is voting Democrat.” (This tactic also gets used by libs defending porn and/or prostitution, e.g. “my totally-real girlfriend loves it when I post videos of us having sex online”).
-
- “If even one less person dies because [Democratic candidate] is in office, it’s my moral duty to vote for [Democratic candidate]. I am a mature, compassionate person who absolutely understands socialism.”
Thanks for the response, legitimately. I haven’t done enough reading and thinking to have a principled position on sex work. I really don’t know where I stand. I really should read more about and by sex workers, because these issues are indeed important.
I do want to say that I haven’t actually seen leftists wanting prostitution for the same reasons as incels. I’m not saying this doesn’t happen, I’m sure it does in some circles and I’m certainly not trying to cast doubt on your assertions that you’ve seen it. I believe you have. But I haven’t, not from people I’d class as reasonable leftists. Part of this, of course, is I just don’t go out in public much or talk to very many people, and when I do, the topic of sex work doesn’t come up. So you and I have very different experiences with the types of people we’ve seen defend sex work, and I think that difference is relevant here. I think I’m much more likely than you to assume that someone I see arguing a pro-sex-work position is doing so not because they’re reactionary or misogynist, but actually from a place of genuine feminism. Because those are the kinds of defenses I’ve seen most often, including in this very thread. Also, and this is a small thing, but unless I’ve missed someone, none of the people talking to you about sex work in this thread are cis men. So yeah, this thread is a total exception to the general rule that people defending sex work are mostly cis men.
Another very small thing I disliked about the first comment of yours I responded to is the line “Orgasms do not increase productive forces.” I don’t believe labor must necessarily exist for the sole purpose of increasing productive forces. Art, conversation, hell, even cooking a nice meal are all examples of labor that doesn’t increase productive forces. So to say that sex work is bad because orgasms are unnecessary, well, I just don’t think that follows. I don’t really see how that argument is any different to the argument that says a barista isn’t really a worker just because they’re not producing something.
Ultimately, I don’t know if this conversation is worth continuing much longer. I haven’t done enough thinking and reading to say anything beyond what I’ve said, so I think I’ll probably bow out here. I mostly commented to point out the unfortunate reality that so many people on the internet make the (shitty, sexist) assumption that everyone they’re interacting with is a straight man. And I want that assumption to die already. I admit I did slightly misread your initial comment and I see now that you weren’t exactly making that assumption, I just read my own shit into what you were saying. You’re also proudly ML (I can’t fault you for that), but since I’m coming from hexbear, the fairly extreme anti-anarchist sentiment in your first paragraph was a bit off-putting. But hey, that’s fine, this thread is on lemmygrad, not hexbear.
Sorry, much of this response is me trying to work through what I found off-putting about your initial comment. There’s likely not a lot worth engaging with here. Still, I’m going to post it because I’ve spent 10 minutes writing it. (I need to stop procrastinating the actual work I need to be doing today! Life is hard!)