Re.: NOW and Marxism

[Chris Brady <cdbrady@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"It's quite logical under any economic system in which men hold power
over women. Or I suppose you believe that rape and relationships formed
on a material needs basis were blissfully non-existent before the First
Man put a fence around a piece of land and boomed,
"This is mine, and the name I will give it is my PROPERTY"."

--the rest of your ludicrous (as above) post made me think
 you wanted me to feel shame and guilt. I wondered why.
I am trying to understand but perhaps my sex (not gender)
precludes that connexion.  Do you think so?
Or is my ignorance willful?  Or rooted in marxism?
Do you think it is helpful to tell me to "get it straight"?
(I hope we don't take exception to plays on words.)
I am not going to parade my personal experiences on this public list
as anecdotal evidence for particular stands.
I will not be corralled by you, nay! --nor anyone else
into betraying my personal relationships to make points.
Prostitution? How greater than a prostitute is the woman
 who determines to marry a professional man?
Lenin noted in 1913 the hypocrisy of bourgeois denunciations
of prostitution while they discounted raising wages for women workers.
Don't assume my past fights, and, don't worry,
  I won't bore you with my testimonials.
I won't try to gain currency by claiming the intimacies
of others and various body parts.
What am I, an eyewitness for your judgement?
What if I insisted that I am not now nor have I ever been "straight"?
How do you know that is true or false ?
You seem to be trying to make me personally culpable
 for the outrages of violent beasts.
What if I plead: "Guilty."
No, not for specific acts,
but YES --for all the eons live in my chromosomes.
Lo, I have sinned in my genes.
What then?
Am I kicked out?
Do we rely on the bourgeois legal standards of profit and loss?
Or can we do something positive?
Can we appeal to the angles [sic] of our better natures?
Can we rationally work together, or are we doomed to the
battle of the sexes?
I am not being facetious.
I suspect that a sexual advantage to the individual animal,
both male and female, in their ways,
based on both hard-wired responses and socially constructed stimulae,
is part of the package.
There are relationships of social power linked to
perceived and actual sexual potency and fecundity.
But there are social proscriptions on a primacy of sexual interaction.
    Not all of us are of prime age.  We have children,
infants, old people, sick people, work to be done, etc.
So power must be democratic, shared.  The demands and needs of
sex and reproduction of the individual cannot eclipse the requirements
of the reproducton of society.  SO even though power and sex
will continue to be linked, far after my flesh has melted from my
frame, my last orgasm evaporated, and my dust sifted off in breezes,
there will also exist other powers, of numbers, of justice, of
intelligence.

In other words:
Having had a little exposure to the antics of our fellow animals
in their sexual relations I would assume that our homonid forebears
were capable of rape -- not a noble inheritance--
and also sought after and took advantage of certain sexual liaisons.
I believe that attraction and revulsion, etc., will exist for some time
after the revolution, but the actual commodification of sex,
the exchange of money for sex, the accumulation of money
from commodified sex acts,
will be terminated by the very nature of communism.
Still, while we remain human there exist responses
that I believe are not social constructions,
may be overlaid  with socialization, but are essential to reproduction.
 Health, virility, fecundity, power, insanity or sanity
(I understand that idiocy can be appealing OR appalling ), etc.,
are generally sought after by sexually mature humans.

As regards shaming as a toool of Domination:
I appreciate the initiation potential of moralistic denunciations,
but past that, how can we benefit the liberation of our species?
(Negate the negation.)
How to develop a system that is just,
that opens the doors of possibility for people in this world?

At the risk of opening Pandora's Box wider, I am becoming
bewildered by the shotgun fusilade of lesbian rights,
rape, prostitution, patriarchy, chastizement, etc.,
AS (i.e., *qua*) charges *against* marxism.
How is it that marxism today,
as I have declared more than once--and has not been contested--
is opposed to lesbian rights, or is in favour of rape?
or champions prostitution?
or is going to lie down and take charges of culpability
   for crimes it did not and will not commit?
How can each one of us be on top of each discrete battle
in the great struggle?  How can we NOT use our many knowledges
for our mutual benefit?

On a more subtle note, if there are areas where marxists
individually, like me, or as a group, or subgroups,
could be more facilitative of the inclusion of all
in our common project, then by all means,
grab that bull by the horns,
--ruthless criticism of all things, etc.--
but to a creative purpose;
please approach this as we are comrades,
not criminals.
Unless you believe we are beyond redemption,
but then why would you even be here on this list?

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