Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 01:04:28 -0500
From: malecki-AT-algonet.se (Robert Malecki)
Subject: Re:  M-TH: State-run brothels


>Malgosia wrote:
>>I understand the point about the dubiousness of the "fun" people have
>>in brothels.  But I think that this has very little to do with brothels
>>in and of themselves and very much to do with this society's attitudes
>>towards sex, towards selling, towards women and men, and so on.
>>Everything that goes on in a brothel is just a concentration of what
>>goes on outside, the way sunrays are concentrated by a magnifying lens.
>>It makes no sense to me to specifically condemn brothels, their customers,
>>or the people who work in them.  In a different society one might still have
>>brothels and paid sex, but they might be very different.  On what basis
>>can one single out paid sex for condemnation, unless one has a very narrow
>>model of what "sex" should be, what "payment" means, and their supposed
>>essential incompatibility with each other?
>>
>>And you, of course, say as much, so I am not even sure we disagree.
>
>Nowhere did I "specifically condemn brothels, their customers, or the
>people who work for them." Far from it. You know that because we have
>already discussed sex work somewhat on M-Fem, including among us that
>inimitable Tracy Quan.
>
>But I am not satisfied with good spoofs and flights of utopian fancy. I
>would like us to look at prostitution as a labor issue, immigration issue,
>gender issue, sexuality issue, etc. from marxist points of view. Scoring
>points against moralists like Nancy + Renate is easy and might be fun for
>some, but I think as marxists and feminists *we owe more* to sex workers
>worldwide, many of whom probably don't share Tracy's libertarian views.
>
>Brothels are institutions with histories. Rather than trying to conjure up
>the Platonic essence of 'brothels in and of themselves,' we might see
>brothels as sites that institutionalize social relations--sex work as
>personal service, gender relations, forms of sex and sexuality produced
>through them, ideologies that go with/against them.
>
>It is also necessary to look at sex work that does not fall into the
>category of prostitution inside brothels.
>
>As for the compatibility of 'sex' and 'payment,' we all know that 'sex' can
>be and has been made compatible with payment (through prostitution,
>marriage, etc.). One might even go so far as to say that sex without
>payment is a rare thing indeed under capitalism and other forms of
>class/patriarchal society. I would say that this fact has probably limited
>our imagination as to what sex and eroticism can be.
>
>Yoshie

Nice piece Yoshie! I think we should be looking at the demise of inter-class 
marriages also..Even the bourgeoisie obviously know more about this stuff 
then our "marxists" on this list. The last twenty years or so (leaving aside 
Hollywood marriages) "bodelning" is the Swedish word which means that people 
with economic means sign a contract BEFORE they get married deviding up the 
goodies in case of possible divorce..

Naturally this is not laws used by the prolos. There we have the traditional 
court lawyers wripping everybody off as the parents use children to hit each 
other on the head with!

Warm regards
Bob Malecki

The family the central brothel of history!



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