Re: The commerce of dating

["ÁÎ×Ó¹â Henry C.K.Liu ¹ù¤l¥ú" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

It seems to me that this phenomenon is not unique or exclusive to capitalism.
All through history, sex and sexual relationships reflect and reinforce the
concurrent soico-economic structure.  It would be so under socialism, but
socialist relationships would be reflected.  For example, in socialist
societies, money tends to have reduced utility.  Self-estime, which is a
dominant factor in the sex drive, may then not be exclusively based on the
aquisition of money.  Even in capitalist America, where score is kept by the
accumulation of most toys money can buy, teenagers who are not yet fully
conditioned to the money culture tend to select their dates on different
critiera than the older generation.

Henry C.K. Liu



Michael Hoover wrote:

> > Welcome to the new world of dating, where everyone's out to get the best
> > deal they can.
> > By James Surowiecki, salon.com
> > Whiting might have walked right off the pages of Candace Bushnell's new
> > novel, "4 Blondes," in which sex and commerce are inextricably linked. For
> > Bushnell, relationships are essentially forms of trade, beauty and sex
> > going in one direction, and wealth and the illusion of power going in the
> > other.
> > Louis Proyect
>
> ah, yes, we're in that "place" Marcuse called "repressive desublimation"
> where sexual permissiveness has been to work in the service of the
> established economic order....     Michael Hoover