Re: Marriage and prostitution

[Xxxx Xxxxx Xxxxxx <xxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Louis Proyect wrote:

> This exchange on PEN-L might help to put these questions into sharper relief:
>
> ===
> Fleck_S wrote:
>
>       >What's different between prostitution and many marriage contracts?
>       >1.prostitution is sex for direct payment of money,
>       >  marriage is sex for indirect payment of money/financial security.
>
>       I should say that Susie Bright made exactly this point in her radio
>       interview with me.
>
>       Doug
> ===
>
> >For all of the revulsion that people like Doug and Harry feel for >classical
> >Marxism, there is an implicit dogmatic Marxist interpretation >imbedded here
> >that needs to be brought to the surface. When Engels wrote about >marriage
> >and prostitution being related, they were making a polemical point >that was
> >very much related to defining the communist political trend. As >communists,
> >we do regard marriage as a reactionary bourgeois institution that >oppresses
> >women. It is based on the cash nexus.
>
> >But if Marxists, particularly in the colonial world, can't make >elementary
> >distinctions between marriage and prostitution then we will be >laughed out
> >of the political marketplace. In reality marriage is under assault from >all
> >quarters. Working class people are struggling to maintain marriages >in the
> >face of declining wages that make child-rearing nearly impossible. >Most of
> >them also have an old-fashioned belief that the relationship is >voluntary
> >and based on love, just as they believe in the Catholic Church or >Islam.
>
> >The sort of analysis that Doug and Harry put forward only has >currency in
> >the imperialist world, among a milieu of highly-educated journalists,
> >academics and leftists with a solid economic base. In our world, it is
> >rather daring if not bohemian to speak about free love. We can even >point
> >to leftist whores like Sara Bright, who was in the ISO at one point, and
> >now writes for Salon Magazine, the perfect venue for this sort of >thing.
> >But for the millions of women who sell their bodies in places like >Bangla
> >Desh or the Philippines, the notion that marriage and prostitution are
> >somehow equivalent can not possibly hold water.
>

Wonderful points, Lou! Sometimes I realize how much I learn from you more than I
learn from my Turkish friends when we debate these issues. You *really* are into
imperialism question, comrade, and THIS provides the critical link to any
discussion on marxist-feminism!


cheers,


Xxxx




>
> >During the 1980s I had an affair with a women I met at the phone company
> who had been a whore in Thailand. (I was working after midnight debugging a
> program, she was pushing a vacuum cleaner. This unionized job was the best
> she ever had in her life. She had pumped gas, sold popcorn in movie
> theaters, etc.) She met a GI who fell in love with her and came back to the
> US with her. After he got his MBA, he dumped her. The stories she told me
> about being a hooker near an airforce base were unbelievably horrifying.
> They were the low point of her life. Her high point was being married to
> the GI. When he left her, her life fell apart. As it turned out, she
> eventually got married to a computer programmer at the phone company
> instead of settling in with me. Best decision she ever made in her life.
>
> Louis Proyect
> Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/

--

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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