Re: [Marxism] On. Hunter Thompson, Susie Bright,and Nina Hartley (Redone for Text Format)

["Carlos A. Rivera" <cerejota@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Anthony J. Kennerson" <anthonyk_6319@xxxxxxxxxxx>

> My main issue, however is in this statement which Mr. Proyect made:
>
> "Susie, like Nina Hartley, is one of those 'sex industry' experts who take
> great exception to the idea that prostitutes are exploited."
>
> I happen to be a follower and a huge fan of both women; and while they do
> indeed support decriminalization and destigmitization of sex work as a
> means
> of allowing greater freedom and choice in the lives of those who are
> involved in such, nowhere in their vast work do they ever intimate or even
> imply that there is no exploitation in  the "sex industry". Indeed, their
> entire lives' activism has been based on fighting to end exploitation
> (both
> economic and sexual) from within the industry through organization and
> education.

1) Some gossip first: Nina Hartley is a red diaper baby, and she is the porn
business' Michael Moore, in that she is as close to a socialist as you might
find there.

2) I agree with you in that Proyect has misunderstood both Susie and Nina,
and on the need to de-stigmatize prostitutes (both male and female), and to
integrate them into the wide working class (something that has the
precondition of de-criminalization) but I feel you over-emphasize their
feminism in an inverse of Proyect's misunderstanding.

For example, Nina is loud to proclaim that she has never allowed herself to
be exploited (in a sense, blaiming the victim, like many "post-feminists"
like to do). She does this even to the point of self-denial, selling the
porn business as if it were

Mankiewicz: "Traci Lords says she's never met a happy porn star."
Nina Hartley: "Well, I would invite her to come have lunch with me."

http://www.lukeisback.com/archives/updates/030712.htm

Not even the common-sense proposition that many people in any industry hate
their jobs crosses Nina's disingeneous representation of the porn business
as a happy, liberating, sexually stimulating experience, save for a few
rotten apples that ruin it all. Such disingeneousness is enough to make one
question her motives.

3) It might help clarify matters to read this polemic by Nina Hartley's
husband against Stan Goff.

Ernest Greene Versus Stan Goff
http://hardcoregossip.com/021405-002.html

I must say this piece by Goff is one of his less stellar arguments, although
I understand his moral outrage, and Greene's is a pathetic answer.

My main problem with Goff's argument is that it is moral, and that it sees
in the sex business a form of "special" exploitation. The sex business is
exploitative because it IS a business. It is more explotative than more
"legitimate" business precisely because of its illegitimate nature makes it
hard to create worker solidarity and guarantee the respect and excercise of
civil rights.

Goff also takes a highly hetereo-sexist view on things.

While it is true that the majority of consumers of pornography are men, the
majority of porn is not hetereosexual in content. If you take out the Big
Three (Playboy, Penthouse and Hustler) and their franchises, Gay porn rules
all. It rules so totally, all you have to do is walk into a sex shop and
compare the gay porn collection and the straight porn collection... 1 to 5
is not a rare proportion.

And if we go further down the road into prostitution and sex tourism, we
find that the bulk is gay oriented. Its always the Nambla types who get
arrested in Thailand and stuff.

The exploitation of men in the sex business is seldom addressed by
bourgeoise feminists because in their view men are never exploited for being
men, and because they have a completely body-centric view on explotation,
not an economic one. To question the exploitation of men by men in
pornography means that one will eventually reach a class perspective,
something a Hillary Clinton for example, would never want to do.

Stan is more correct in explaining the roots of the sex commodification in
gender society as resulting from patriarchy ( a large percentage of gay porn
is indeed "chick with dicks" misogynism), but this has as much to do with
the price of beer as explaining that the roots of drug commodification in
capitalist society is productive alienation. It makes a good explanation of
origin, but it doesnt explain why sex commodification is more explotative
than any other form of commodification.

5) My view on the sex industry, is much less emotional.

I fail to see the objective economic difference between selling your body
to, say, mine iron ore or to be used for sexual gratification.

Like in the drug business, what makes the sex industry much more
supreficially exploitative is that it is illegal or grey, and hence like in
any illegal or grey industry, the ability of the owners of the means of
production to extract surplus is enhanced. Look at Russia and the Mafiocracy
there.

Nina, Susie, and their co-thinkers, for the most part are exploiters
themselves, the pornographics equivalents of Oprah Winfrey, who began as a
humble actress and host, to become a prodution powerhouse and major boss.

Their perspective have a certain "rebel" tinge, and some of them are
interesting and valid. But while their views are informed by a liberal take
on economic relationships and exploitation, and while they continue reduce
as the single criteria of exploitation if a person is doing something out of
"free will" or not, the fact remains that moral views aside, porno is a form
of commodification, and hence exploitative by definition.

The problem is that many answers to them, like Goffs, accept that this is a
moral struggle, when it isn't. There is nothing wrong with people jerking of
to pictures of naked people, what is wrong is that this is an alienated
process, and that the people who actually perform labor see very little as a
result, unless they turn into exploiters themselves.The next rich pornstar
who didn't become a producer I see, will be the first.

The thing is not to abolish pornography, but to abolish the preconditions
that create it.

6) Empirically I have had friends, lovers etc who have been or are sex
workers of one sort or the other, in various levels, from nude dancers to
sex shop attendants. (Ex) Prostitutes I know, both male and female, do
suffer a lot in their jobs. Besides occupational hazards, such as STDs and
abusive clients, they also beging to get alienated from their sexuality, to
the point things they enjoyed before begin to lose any interest.

But this process can only be singled out from other forms of exploitative
alienation of you make a moral, idealist, judgement on sex being a
particulary sacred human activity. Other workers also become alienated from
necesary forms of human activity, such as cooking, creative arts, etc etc,
and even most heterosexual male gynecologists lose interest in naked women
after a while.

Don't get me wrong: alienation from one's sexuality is one more sad thing
that capitalism puts on top of us. But this alienation is no different, or
"special" than others.

We must not single out the sex industry, and in the specific the sex
proletariat, as supporting gender exploitation more than other forms of
industry less obviously directed to gender.

sks


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