File spoon-archives/marxism-thaxis.archive/marxism-thaxis_1998/marxism-thaxis.9803, message 868


Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 22:21:17 -0500
From: "Charles Brown" <charlesb-AT-CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Re: Sexual liberation and male chauvinism




James,  You wrote:


Charles,

I can't help but feel that you are tying yourself in knots if you try to
distinguish a sold sex act as a use value qualitively from other use
values. First, all use-values are qualitiviely distinct in their nature.
But more important, the reason that the sex act is so distinct is not a
natural thing, but to do with the dubious moral symbolism that sex acts
are informed with in our society.

I worry that your proposition that

>a sex act between a woman and a
>man is a main basis for , well, UNITING, (including, but more than the bodily
>unity) the sexes, as an emblem of peace in the battle of the sexes.

Is just a leftist gloss on the old reactionary canard about sex being a
sacred thing that only two people who truly love each other must share
blah blah blah.

All relations, sexual and otherwise are distorted by relations of
inequality, including gender relations. To imagine that there is some
sacred space that is untouched by the 'evil' of modern capitalism is
just utopianism.


Charles replies :
      In my statement you quote above, I am not describing a space, sacred or otherwise, in a fixed, unchanging modern capitalism. I am talking about practical-critical activity, activity meant to revolutionize or change the world . The peace in the battle of the sexes we do not have. It is a revolutionary goal in my socialist feminist opinion. Far from an old reactionary SEXUALLY REPRESSED conception, I am saying boldly that we should use our mutual natural passionate desire to have sex (good, better, more varied, and more better sex, as I said in an earlier post) as a basis for reconciling the sexes from the battle of the sexes, the generalized complaint that women have about men and vica versa, which I see as rooted in male supremacy. That's too sexually upbeat for the old reactionary supertaboo on sex that you try to attribute to me.
      The negative distinction which "dubious moral symbolism" informs the sex act with is sexual repression , which I have written against extensively in the last few days on this list.  Above, and in the full text from which you quote, I am proposing a postive distinction for sex as a uniter of the sexes (conditioned on first at least drastically ameliorating male chauvinism). Part of its distinctiveness is that it is "natural" , as much as anything human is natural. All human "natural" conduct is a combination of cultural and natural . Sex, I hypothesize has a high natural preservation quotient, or the ratio of natural to cultural (or socially constructed or historically constituted) is high. Typing on a computer has a lower ratio of natural, for example.

In message <s51a4c5a.079-AT-ci.detroit.mi.us>, Charles Brown <charlesb-AT-CNCL=20
.ci.detroit.mi.us> writes
>James,
>   I agree with you that prostitution under capitalism is not the same as
>slavery under capitalism.
>   I am trying to get at the fact that the object or service which is the
>commodity in prostitution has as a use value to the purchaser of the commodity
>,
>obviously, the sex act or a sex act. I am willing under a marxist ethics to say
>that it is very important to place this use value in a different category than
>most other use values, analysing use values with an eye on them as developing
>toward uses as  use values will be under commuism when there are no longer any
>commodities. 
>  The special category is based on the fact that a sex act between a woman and
>a
>man is a main basis for , well, UNITING, (including, but more than the bodily
>unity) the sexes, as an emblem of peace in the battle of the sexes. It's a
>natural, so to speak, for that. This is why I say we should not treat
>heterosex-
>work
>as just another job, for in it male dominance is always potentially and often
>actually implicated.   
>    It is morality, but a new morality. I am not one who thinks marxism doesn't
>have ethics, even though the terms "morality" and "ethics" are not used in the
>classics , even eschewed to distinguish themselves from the overwhelming
>majority of moralists who were and are bourgeois, hypocritical, patrialrchal,
>sexually repressed, blowhards.
>
>     Charles
>
In message <s51a5e91.005-AT-ci.detroit.mi.us>, Charles Brown <charlesb-AT-CNCL=20
.ci.detroit.mi.us> writes
>Yoshie and Hugh,
>  Regarding quid pro quo and cash payment: In Capital Marx argues that a money
>system derives from the earlier system in which commodities were exchanged
>directly for each other, i.e. barter.
>    My thought is that "barter" or quid-pro-quo, this-for-that, is theoretically
>different than cash payment.
>     Sex does, obviously, involve a potential and natural quid-pro-quo, without
>a cash medium of payment intervening.  Perhaps we should say it involves
>consumption of "you's"-value instead of use-value.
>
>   Charles


James comments:
I suppose this illustrates my difficulty with your approach. You seem to
suggest that there is some authentic place where sexual relations can
take place on a basis of complete and unforced equality. But I don't see
that. Even the most loving relations do not take place in isolation from
teh degrading effects of capitalist society. And even the most degraded
might have a redeeming moment.
James Heartfield

_____

Charles replies :
   Again, the Marxist ethic is one of action or activities that change the world to socialism and communism. You misread me when you say I am trying to define a clean, dry, well-lighted place for old fashion love with your one and only IN CAPITALISM.  In the context of men moving to general respect for women as an active way to negate male chauvinism, If  women start to feel there is an amelioration of male chauvinism , and there is a reconciliation of the antagonisms between the sexes, sexual intercourse might play a role in accelerating the process. It's a natural.
    Oh by the way , on the "truly love each other".   I don't subscribe to "in love" or one true love. But I don't see socialism/communism as involving sex without great affection and care for ones lovers or sexers.  I don't see anything wrong with a "special" relationship, but the notion that one can only have great affection and care or "special relationship" with a one and only is essential monogamy. That is to be abolished or wither away.


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