Re: SEXPLOITATION? What is at stake in Cuba?

[Xxxx Xxxxx Xxxxxx <xxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:

> Xxxx wrote:
>
> >In fact, Cuban
> >government's outlawing of prostitution after the revolution was an
> >attempt " to
> >address the social conditions that made prostitution an attractive option for
> >women". Although they were not quite successful with this, they at
> >least tried.
> >Moreover, outlawing should not ip so facto lead to criminalizing or
> >victimizing
> >women. These are two seperate technical issues. That is the difference 
> >between
> >outlawing in a capitalist country (where prostitution is seen as a choice by
> >women to be punished, and prostitutes as "morally harmful beings to society"
> >bullshit etc..) and outlawing in a socialist country.
>

Yoshie reiterates my points:

>
> >"Socialism in one country" suffers an inevitable distortion
> >(beginning with the need for national security expenditure &
> >repressive measures that wouldn't be necessary if it were not under
> >siege by imperialism, as well as a kind of asceticism which reminds
> >one of Rousseau's love of Sparta).  That said, prostitution was
> >either non-existent or minimal in the more optimistic early decades
> >of socialism in Cuba when the country received aids & favorable >terms
> >of trade from the Soviet Union & the Eastern Bloc and standards of
> >living were on the rise.  Prostitution (as well as other forms of
> >practices that Revolutionary Cuba used to frown upon) returned, as is
> >noted in the article "Sexploitation?: Sex Tourism in Cuba," with the
> >collapse of the socialist trading bloc & the worsening terms of trade
> >for most nations on the periphery in the political economy of global
> >capitalism.  Unlike certain other nations, however, the socialist
> >government of Cuba is not encouraging "sex tourism."

I SAID PREVIOUSLY:

The section of article you cite does indeed talk about the world economy of
capitalism and the international circumstances Cuba is facing at the moment--the
growth of sex industry as a means to attract foreign capital . This has 
*nothing*
do with the Cuban government or sexism of Cuban men. In order the deal with
stagnating economy as a response to US embargo, Cuban government was forced to
emphasize "foreign tourism". That foreign tourism turned into sex tourism has
something to do with the international dynamics of sex industry and the 
compulsive
capitalist order it legitimizes. This is the unfortunate price Cuba is paying 
for
being a socialist country in a world system characterized by
capitalism.



> >But laws,
> >including laws that seek to regulate sexuality, are after all part of
> >the superstructure, not the base.  As long as material conditions
> >that create economic needs that motivate some people to turn to sex
> >work, there will be sex work.  Change the base, and superstructural
> >changes will accompany it.
>

Yes, I am saying the same thing.


>
> >Unlike moralist feminists, I don't think of sex work in itself as bad
> >-- it is bad only when people are either coerced into it by parents,
> >armed forces, debt servitude, etc. or motivated by economic need
> >alone to engage in it even when they don't like this line of work.
>

Nobody, as of so far, has argued that "sex work itself is bad" for the reasons 
you
mention above (victimizing the victim). You are looking for "morality" in the
bushes, dude! I have argued that sex work itself is exploitative because women 
(or
others) mostly engaged in sex industry face all sorts of uncertainities,
brutalities, beatings, rapings, humiliations, traumas, intimate violence, 
racism,
and dangerous physical acts directed against them. I am saying that THIS SYSTEM 
IS
SIMPLY NOT SUSTAINABLE  BY ANY HUMAN STANDARTS. Leave aside the morality label 
for
a second, please,  I don't think that a woman (or a man) prefers to be fucked 10
times a night (except under safe circumstances, if you have enough sexual 
capacity
for 10 times a night, btw) on the streets, in hotel rooms, or whatever,  under
conditions of high uncertainity, and unfamiliarity with the partner buying your 
sex
-- so s(he) sets up the rules for sexual conduct. Although, of course, a woman 
may
face this uncertainity in her regular sexual relations(date rape, wife rape, 
etc),
but in sex industry this probability gets higher by virtue of the nature of the
industry. As far as I can tell from what is going on, despite the bourgeois 
pundits
as high standard moralists of immorality (hypocrites), this anti-moralism issue 
is
really becoming a sort of bourgeois tediousness-- a reactionary ideology of the
kind lefty libertarians endorse, although it may not be your intention to argue 
so,
Yoshie.  From time to time, I sense, you seem to be sliding into that line of
thought out of your intention.  On the issue of morality, frankly, I *do* 
believe
that critique of capitalism should *as well  be established on moral (normative)
grounds. We are against capitalism, because we do have *solid* (not out of blue)
moral grounds that capitalism sucks in every respect (exploitation of women,
workers, children, races, etc..). We criticize capitalism not because we 
"abstract
political economy from ethics" or separate facts from value or value from facts,
such as bourgeois moralists or vulgar materialists do; just the contrary; we
criticize the "ethics of political economy, as Marx says" acquisition, thrift,
sobriety" covered in a hypocritical moralistic language. Marxist ethical 
criticism
is *not* the same as the moralism of bourgeois pundits. We should continue to
insist on this *fine line distinction*, rather than rejecting ethics in total.
"Besides, the opposition between political economy and ethics is only a SHAM
opposition. All that happens is that political economy expresses moral laws in 
its
own way"  (Marx, Economic and Philip Manus, p.97, Tucker eds..)



> >(Sexism is part of the problem,
> >but it is not just women who engage in sex work -- both before &
> >after the rise of capitalism, many boys & men have engaged in
> >prostitution; and sexism, too,

Ohh yeah, there are capitalists engaging in prostutition; there are capitalists
facing poverty; there are capitalists selling their labor power! In fact,
capitalism is just a social construction! Yippie!  We are  living in a world
unbounded pluralism with no systemic inequalities.


But seriously,, circumstances generating prostitution in pre-capitalist times 
are
largely different from the circumstances generating prostitution in capitalist
times. Under capitalism, the problem gains a *systemic* exploitative nature:
selling sex in return for money; out of economic compulsion (necessity)-- sex
turning into a commercial enterprise, so to speak.  That prostitution exists 
ahead
of time and space, regardless of historical variation, is not only an 
ahistorical
treatment of capitalism, but implies the bourgeois idea sexism is universal (or 
in
human nature).


> >What is necessary to abolish the exploitation of prostitutes is the
> >same as what is necessary to abolish the exploitation of all workers:
> >the establishment of socialism worldwide.
>

What is necessary to abolish capitalism is the same as what is necessary to 
abolish
the institution of prostitution, as well as the exploitation of all workers. 
This
will bring the "establishment of socialism worldwide". Under socialism, people (
some women or men or transgenders) won't feel the need to have sex out of 
necessity
by economic compulsion, but out of necessity by need. What is necessary 
therefore,
" both a new mode of production and new object of production: a new 
manifestation
of the forces of human nature and a new enrichment of human nature" (Marx, 
Economic
and Philop Manusc, p.93, Tucker eds..).


I am too sleepily to continue this discussion at the moment. have a good night.


Xxxx



>
> Yoshie

--

Xxxx Xxxxx Xxxxxx
PhD Student
Department of Political Science
SUNY at Albany
Nelson A. Rockefeller College
135 Western Ave.; Milne 102
Albany, NY 12222



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