To be fair, this can happen both ways. A lot of people will try to tell women that casual sex was definitely good for them, and they should feel good about it. Any narrativising, trying to tell women what they should feel, is, in my opinion, bad.
My ideal would be to ask women: do you actually like what’s going on or do you actually not? To what degree are you just trying to conform to other people? I think that’s a message that would result in a lot of people realising that they don’t want to have casual sex. And maybe a lot of people realising that, in fact, they do.
LP: I do agree with you that the power of narrative is amazing, and we restructure our memories according to narrative. There is a phenomenon, though — I don’t know if this necessarily applies to camming — but, a lot of women who’ve done in-person prostitution (particularly the worst end: street-based, brothel-based prostitution) say that, when you’re in it, believing a narrative that it’s okay is the way you survive. It’s the way you get through what is a fairly terrible experience.
FR: There are many jobs that people do that are unpleasant, and they have to do for money. What makes sex work any different, Louise?
LP: The idea that sex is like any other kind of social interaction — comparable to working in a factory, to shaking hands, to making coffee, going surfing — I call that, in the book, sexual disenchantment. It’s this idea that comes out of the sexual revolution, that all of the religious, bourgeois, traditional norms of the past had to be done away with. The idea of sex having any kind of special status, let alone sacred status, had to be done away with in order for people to shake off the oppressive shackles of the past. And I think the problem with that idea is twofold.
One, I don’t think people believe it in the vast majority of cases. They overwhelmingly don’t behave as if sex is like anything else. There are people who do polyamory well and enjoy it. There are also, on any given platform devoted to discussion of polyamory, people really struggling with jealousy — finding it really, really difficult to suppress that instinct to view sex as being unique compared with other kinds of relationships.
And the problem with trying to pretend that sex is just like anything else: if you can’t have a special status for sex, you also can’t have a special status for rape, which we do in law. We recognise that rape is worse than theft — instinctively, and also in our legal codes. We recognise that sexual harassment has a uniquely harmful effect on its victims.
FR: Aella, do you think that sex is sacred?
A: I agree that for some sections of the population, sex is treated very seriously, and in others, it’s not. My guess is that people are much more flexible along the spectrum than you might think.
I worked at a factory — terrible hours — and then I escaped into sex work, and eventually into prostitution. After I did this, I was shocked that people had placed so much meaning on sex, in a way that prevented me from escaping terrible jobs to begin with. Because I didn’t go straight into sex work because of that meaning that people placed on it. And then when I did, I was like: “Fuck that, that meaning that people loaded up on to sex, prevented me from living basically my best life.” And I know a lot of other sex workers who feel the same way. And I’m not saying that everybody should. I also know some sex workers who tried sex work, and they were like: “Shit, I can’t not have the meaning here”.
My overall issue here is: people are pointing a laser eye at the non-standard, non-normal, deviant types of sexual approaches than they are at the conservative, socially-accepted ones. You’re correct that a lot of polyamory discussions are talking about jealousy issues, but monogamy also has dead bedroom problems. Both are relationship structures that require some sort of negotiation of your desires, and what you can achieve in your life. And both of them have pretty severe downsides. And as a sex worker, I see a huge amount of the downsides in monogamy, from men who come see me because of failures in their monogamous relationships.
FR: If you were not there to service their needs, do you think they would turn back to their partners and have a frank conversation about their sex life? Or do you think that you are offering them a way out?
A: I would ask the guys that I saw: “Are you married?” And if they said, yes, then I’d ask: “So why are you seeing me?” The general sense that I got was that most of them had wives that weren’t interested in them anymore. Basically wives that had a bunch of kids, or had health issues, and their sex drive was zero. And sometimes I would ask: “Well, have you considered bringing it up with her? Have you talked with her about it?” And the majority of their responses — I’d say 60 to 70% — were horror. They were like: “I don’t want to destroy my entire life.” It was common for guys to be like, “If I bring it up with her, I think she would leave me.”
A lot of the men had been sexless for ten years before finally trying to find a sex worker. Most men don’t feel great about making their wife unhappy, potentially, to do this. A lot of them are risking damage to their life. Most guys I talked to, I got the impression that they had made at least some effort. Some of them, no — some guys were like, “Fuck it, I don’t give a shit. Our relationship is totally separate from this, and I’m just going to fuck other people, because that’s what I want” — but it was not the majority. In fact, I got the impression that seeing these men actually probably helped save them from divorce, because their other option was leaving their wife because they couldn’t talk. So it was this safe, tiny outlet that allowed them to maintain longer, more dedicated relationships.
LP: Presumably, their wives would have left them if they’d known though. So these were secret encounters. Monogamy clearly has its downsides too, but everything in the whole entire world has trade-offs. I completely take your point that there are some people for whom polyamory is great, there are some people for whom sex work is great, there are some people who are just temperamentally much more suited to non-conventional sexual lives. But I think the other thing that I’m interested in, and which is much more difficult to talk about within a liberal framework, is how this scales.
So one of the things that I write about in the last chapter of my book is the fact that there are all sorts of ways in which societies that have a monogamous marriage system do better than societies that don’t, even though only about 20% of societies on the anthropological record have been monogamous. They tend to be more affluent, they tend to have lower rates of crime, they tend to have lower rates of spousal abuse, child abuse, compared to polygamous cultures.
A: I’m not surprised that this is the case. I would guess that if you compared polygamous cultures to monogamous cultures, monogamous cultures would probably do better.
FR: Is there an ideal when it comes to how we build our relationships? Louise, do you for example disapprove of Aella’s work as a sex worker? In your ideal society, would OnlyFans not exist?
LP: “Disapprove” is not a word I would use. I think that it is clearly the case that some individuals do well on OnlyFans. Most don’t. I think we agree on the fact that OnlyFans is insanely unequal. The vast majority of women who become content creators are not going to make any real money, and are likely to suffer negative consequences down the track. I think it would be better if OnlyFans didn’t exist. That’s not the same thing as saying that I think it should be banned, because there are obviously all sorts of downstream consequences of that kind of legislation, which might do more harm than good. I think it’d be very, very difficult to ban OnlyFans or similar sites. But I think, on balance, they have a net negative impact on society.
A: Would you agree with OnlyFans if, say, before signing up, a girl got like statistics on how likely it was for her to make various amounts of money? Like, “90% of creators make under $1,000 a month,” or something like this?
LP: I think that would be good. I imagine the platforms would not want to do that, because it’s obviously going to limit their profit-making.
The other thing that I would want a lot of naive young women to be aware of is the fact that even though men are less likely to admit to the fact that they still ascribe to the sexual double standard, they do. And I think that one of the worst consequences of OnlyFans for very many women, which isn’t talked about nearly enough, is the fact that it becomes that much harder afterwards to find a committed relationship, which actually most women say is what they want long term, because men are judgmental about it.
A: My guess is that this is very well-known in women cultures. I’ve joined so many discussion groups where girls are thinking about getting into OnlyFans, or already doing OnlyFans, and a huge amount of that discussion is centred around, “How much is this going to damage my mate prospects? How much should I hide it from my potential mates? How can I do OnlyFans in a way where it’s not going to leak to potential mates?” This, to me, is one of the top things, at least in practice that I have seen women consider. To me it doesn’t feel like an overlooked aspect at all.
FR: Doesn’t that suggest we should be driving towards a more sexually open society? Because I suppose if we got into a place where nobody had any taboos around sex work, then we wouldn’t have to deal with that problem.
LP: I think that the nature of human beings is such that we seem to have a very strong instinct towards regarding sex as being special. Men seem to have a very strong instinct towards mate guarding. Trying to dissuade people from feeling this way is a serious uphill struggle. Any kind of political project based on the idea that we can undo human nature is one that’s doomed to failure. I think that we do still basically have minds evolved for a hunter-gatherer life, because that’s 90% of our species’ history.
A: I think that this is probably why women are very into BDSM — because evolutionarily, and historically, you had to be aroused by powerful men in order to survive. But also, to some degree, a lot of it is quite cultural, too. We’ve seen a lot of different sexual structures throughout history. I do think that we have a little bit more flexibility.
FR: Both of you seem to be arguing there that there’s a certain amount of nature involved here and we’re trying to push against nature, and to impose social norms upon it. Is there an argument for letting nature run riot and just allowing people to tap into their most primal selves?
LP: I think the problem with absolute liberation — just allowing people to do whatever feels right to them — is the fact that some people have dark, destructive, horrible desires. Actually, probably a lot of people do. Human sexuality is not necessarily nice and pro-social at all. So you have to think about how you’re going to manage the desires of people when that desire is destructive to others.
The other problem is: one sex is much more vulnerable inherently than the other sex. How you manage that asymmetry is, I think, a question that all civilisations have grappled with. And no one has ever come up with a free-for-all as the best solution, because clearly it wouldn’t actually work.
FR: Digital sex work might be an answer there, though. Aella is behind a screen: she is, in many ways, invulnerable to male violence, and she is being paid for sexual acts, which she finds pleasurable, I assume. And so, isn’t that a win-win?
LP: Or, a step further, sex robots. Then there would be no ethical issues in terms of consent. It would bypass all of the feminist arguments over sex work that’ve been going on for so long. The focus is normally on the effects on women, though. And I actually think that having a class of men who basically just spend all day indoors, playing video games, and having sex with their sex robots seems like a fairly bleak future for that portion of mankind.
A: It seems nicer if they can have access to real women. I would be sad. I used to do OnlyFans, but to be clear, I’ve also been an IRL prostitute, and have been subject to male violence. But out of all the sex-work forms that I have done, the in-person feels the healthiest to me, for both me and the men. The others feel like some sort of weird, warped version of human interaction that objectifies us both more. And sure, it’s safer to some degree, but you can take steps to be safe in-person. In my opinion, in the healthiest future society, the dominant form of sex work would be human to human, eye contact, skin contact, just like God intended.
FR: What about these sex robots? That’s certainly not what God intended, but it’s a lot safer for everyone involved, isn’t it?
A: I like the idea of sex robots existing. I think if men can have an outlet that they need that is affordable and accessible to them, this seems good. I’m generally pro people independently pursuing what they want. And if that’s sex robots, then go for it.
FR: But do you think that the skin to skin contact, as you said there, is superior to this kind of digital sex work that we’re talking about?
A: Yeah, absolutely. Because it feels really dehumanising, like I said, for both parties. With OnlyFans, I’m not dealing with a man, I’m dealing with the collection of men. I’m dealing with the statistical likelihood of a man clicking on this thing. It’s very robotic. And similarly, this is encouraging men to treat women the same way. You have like a billion women, and it’s just like cycling through them. You’re not really developing a relationship with any of them.
And again, I am pro people pursuing what they want, in their own time. I’m happy OnlyFans exists. But I noticed it was much better for my mental health to do it in person. It just felt so much better and more fulfilling to be able to touch an individual person.
FR: There used to be quite high barrier to entry for sex work, if you’re talking about street prostitution. Whereas now, with things like OnlyFans, the barrier has been lowered massively. Is it a good thing that more and more people have access to a sex-work career?
A: Yeah. I know a bunch of single moms or women with health issues — women who are struggling to feed their kids on their own — who said, “Oh, I tried OnlyFans, and it gave me, not even that much money, an extra $300 a month, but now I can pay my rent.” There’s a whole bunch of people for whom their lives are really drastically improved by that amount of money. Typically people who are really disadvantaged in some way. It disproportionately assists the poor, or people I would consider to be lower-class — people who were culturally priced-out of the better paying jobs — which is why I think this worked for me so well. I grew up very, very conservative, no access to education, and so a lot of people are like, “Oh, well you should just go to college and get an education, and then get a job.” For some people, their lives just don’t work like that. And for some people being able to have easily-accessible side income that you don’t need training for, or elite approval or credentials, is incredibly beneficial and life changing. And I’ve known so many women for whom this is the case.
LP: I take that point, although I do think it’s worth emphasising the fact that drug and alcohol addiction is extraordinarily common among sex workers. The OnlyFans end of the spectrum is clearly the much less dangerous, traumatic end of it. But it’s also not representative of the whole spectrum of sex work, some of which is dire. And it’s very, very common for women to end up taking drugs and using alcohol as a way of dealing with the emotional fallout of prostitution. And that means that you’re not actually ending up in a better situation at all: you end up potentially spiralling downwards and getting stuck.
I’m not really a radical feminist at all – I think I can comfortably speak for radical feminists, though, in that they tend to think no woman should be in a situation where she can’t feed her children unless she’s doing sex work. I do recognise that we live in the real world and there are situations where that might seem like the best option. The other problem is that because lay people’s understanding of the sex industry tends to be very poor, it can be very difficult to know how you will find prostitution until you’ve actually done it. So saying at the outset, “I think I’m well suited to this, I think it will be fine. I’ve read through my checklist of warnings, and I think it’s fine,” isn’t actually quite the same as actually doing it.
When you make a move towards normalisation, de-stigmatisation, and presenting this as a perfectly valid career route, you are going to end up with people going down that career route for whom it is an absolute disaster and it ruins their lives.
A: There’s a lot of talk about alcohol and drug stuff with sex workers – which I agree is true, they have much higher rates of drug use. But if, say, we have a world where we dramatically criminalise something like plumbing — like, plumbers are really stigmatised and if you plumb then people are like, “I’m not sure I want to date you”, and if you get assaulted as a plumber, you can’t go to the police otherwise they’ll put you in jail — I would expect the kind of people who would gravitate towards plumbing are people who are unsuccessful in other aspects of their life, and probably have problems with drug and alcohol use. My guess is correlation, not necessarily causation.
LP: I agree with you that clearly the stigma makes all sorts of things worse in all sorts of ways. But also, I’m not convinced that the stigma is an after effect of the law. I think that actually the stigma seems to stick to the sex industry, across time and place. And I think it comes back to this problem of the socio-sexuality gap requiring a prostituted class of women. Most women don’t want to be in that class. It’s very hard to persuade anyone to think that that isn’t a bad outcome for those women and the stigma flows from that.
A: It feels like you’re implicitly telling women that they should feel bad for these things. I wish I could hear more, “Yeah, some woman are like that and if you’re not, it’s chill.” When you were talking about prostitution I was like, “Well, you should just try it once or twice and see how it works for you, and if you don’t like it, then stop.” If you have a bad experience, it doesn’t seem to me like it needs to be traumatising. But if we treat it with this level of like gravitas, then it’s going to create that trauma in people. And I wish that when I was in a really sex-negative culture, I could have heard more messaging about how it’s okay to be sexually promiscuous if you want to. If I had been surrounded by people giving me the kind of message that you’re giving me, I think I would have ended up with a lot more shame and guilt overall.
LP: I acknowledge that it can seem condescending and judgmental — the anti-porn, anti-prostitution feminism — but we all know that the really brutal attitudes towards sex workers come overwhelmingly from sex buyers. I’m sure there are exceptions, but we know that men who buy sex are more likely to be sexually aggressive, more likely to admit to rape outside of the sex industry. I think the problem with the effort to de-stigmatise, in the hope that we will somehow arrive at a sex industry that really is just like any other industry, is: it is basically based on theory. It’s based on the faith that all of the stigma is causing the problem, not that stigma is attached to the innate problem, which actually has much more to do with the fact that most women find prostitution very distressing and most sex buyers don’t treat the women they buy sex from with proper respect.
FR: Louise, do you think that you are part of a new movement? Is there a sex-negative movement? You said earlier that you’re not a radical feminist — so what would you call yourself? Are you a conservative?
LP: The key way I guess in which I diverge from radical feminism is I don’t believe in the blank slate. I don’t think that the differences between men and women are a consequence of socialisation. I don’t think that they can be just dissolved away. I think that we have to deal with the existence of these differences on a psychological level as well as a physical level, and kind of progress from there. I’ve arrived at some conclusions which some traditionalists agree with me on — not all of them by any means. I guess maybe this is a materialist form of feminism, in the sense that it’s coming out of the recognition that these material differences exist and we have to make our peace with them.
We are reckoning with these vast material changes. The one that I’m primarily interested in, in my book, is the pill. I don’t accept this idea of the great woman theory of feminist history, where the thing that drives feminist change is particularly charismatic women. There clearly have been charismatic women, but I think the thing that’s driven change for women has primarily been technological — the washing machine, the tampon, whatever you want to name.
And the points, if you look at the history, when you see feminist thinking flaring up, tend to be at the points where you have some important material flux. So you have the internal combustion engine and you have suffrage, and you have the Second World War and the move away from industrial economy and then you have the second [feminist] wave. And I think now, possibly, there is another flare up, and there’s another reckoning with feminist ideas, because we’re seeing the next revolution, which is the online revolution. And it’s really important to be thinking about sexual difference in that space, because it may appear as if we are just these genderless economic units who can all participate in the knowledge economy on a completely even footing and stuff, but actually sexual difference exists. And it will persist until I guess the transhumanists finally have their way.
FR: And Aella, do you feel that you’re an agent of change in this revolution that Louise is talking about?
A: An agent of change? I feel like I just want to defend people like me. It feels, especially in recent years, like I’m fighting against this push of people disrespecting me solely because of my sexual promiscuity and the way that I like to approach sex. And it feels like there’s more shame and judgement about it. I don’t know if it’s just because I’m exposed to different places of the internet or if this is actually a movement, but I feel really protective of it. I’m like, “No, I am okay the way that I am.” And I really want to give that message to anybody who’s like me. Living like me can be a wonderful, healthy and fulfilling and you don’t have to feel shame, or like you need to hide. And so if there’s people like me out there, I really want to take a stand and have a bold, unapologetic ownership of that. And that feels like the thing that I’m fighting for.
Main Edition
US
FR
I am a sex trafficking survivor, and I despise women like Aella.
Why?
Because her wealth depends upon sanitizing the sex industry and making sex buying appear as benign as – according to her – hiring a plumber to fix your toilet. (the next time you hire a plumber, try asking him to fix your toilet with his mouth – only then would his job be equivalent to “sex work”).
As a survivor, what I care most about is to decrease sex trafficking as much as possible.
Why does sex trafficking exist?
There is only ONE reason: because of sex buyers.
There would be no sex traffickers without sex buyers, and girls would not be groomed out of foster care and abusive homes if there was no profit to made by renting their bodies to grown men.
Aella wants to normalize and legalize sex buying, which inevitably leads to an increase in trafficking.http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/45198/1/Neumayer_Legalized_Prostitution_Increase_2012.pdf
Why?
Because there is never enough willing “supply” to meet demand. The gaps can be very profitably filled by girls who are too poor and unsupported to say “no”.
I have no interest in defending “empowered” women who make a free choice to work in the sex industry. They are adults and are fully accountable for the consequences of their adult choices.
But I do care about disabled women, poor women/men, underage girls, underage boys, undocumented women & children, women/girls/boys in poor countries who are not able to make a free choice, and are easy pickings for sex traffickers who make a fortune from sex buyers.
Women like Aella don’t care about the effect they have on other women – especially other women who are far more vulnerable than they are.
Aella should not be ashamed of doing “sex work”; but she should be extremely ashamed of attempting to normalize it by erasing the millions of vulnerable human beings whose lives are destroyed by it.
“Why does sex trafficking exist?
There is only ONE reason: because of sex buyers.”
Partly right. You can never get rid of the demand; it’s male human nature.
Sex trafficking flourishes, though, because prostitution is illegal and incompetently regulated where it is legal.
You seem to have received thumbs down for a valid point. There is surely an enormous difference between a woman involuntarily sex trafficked and a woman voluntarily choosing the life. That must be clear whatever one’s attitude to “sex work”.
The question is how would a competently regulated system operate to ensure that the women involved were voluntarily choosing the work and not being threatened, blackmailed, emotionally manipulated or otherwise coerced into the work? Simply asking will not necessarily produce a true answer. I agree that a system rather better than that resulting in the exploitation of thousands of young girls in Rotherham and elsewhere could be devised, but I suspect rooting out all trafficking would be a hard job short of a National Sex service where potential applicants had to be interviewed and approved by psychologists to ensure they were psychologically sound volunteers under no external pressure. Somehow I don’t see such an arrangement being popular either with those who have fundamental objections to the trade, with potential applicants or the taxpayers having to fund the bureaucracy involved..
Unfortunately there is a mismatch between the number of men wanting commitment free sex and the supply of women wanting the same and inevitably something extra tends to be given to even things up – whether it is cold hard cash, a drink, a lavish dinner or some other inducement. Is it a morally desirable transaction? Well it is an age old one.
But not morally desirable.
Lol, how do you guys talk entirely around the actual “reason sex trafficking exists” when its directly in front of your face, which is pretty obviously capitalism. But of course, capitalism appears to be dogmatically worshipped on this site to the point where it is ingrained as “natural” and thus goes entirely undetected, let alone thoroughly considered.
Prostitution is the commodification of sexual relations, taking it out of the sphere of mutual pleasure and into the domain of the market. Like…duh.
“The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family relationship its sentimental veil and has reduced it to a mere money relationship.”
To be clear on terms here since it’s not anyone’s fault that the belief capitalism = good has been drilled into them since birth, but class is indeed the root social tension upon which all others are built (and unlike idpol nonsense or vague cultural shibboleths, it is objectively determined by one’s material circumstance) as “liberal democracy” is in actuality a bourgeoisie dictatorship, capitalism’s defining feature being the foundational material organization of society in terms of property ownership/control which orients the material interests of two opposing classes who materially benefit at the other’s zero-sum expense, the capitalist/employer class and the working/employee class. This antagonism fuels production but ossifies a social power disparity anchored in that material ownership/control which gradually concentrates over time. The leviathan of the state, idealistically a neutral arbiter/mediator between these classes, then merely becomes used as a political cudgel by the capitalist class to further dominate the working class, leading precisely to the situation we find ourselves in with both parties in the US being entirely captured by corporate/finance capital, through this soulless mechanical process hollowing out all social trust/meaning to be sold for profit and at quite literally all other costs.
As Boss Tweed succinctly put this functionality of regulatory capture in his hubris, “I don’t care who does the electing, so long as I can do the nominating.” Or as that Marx guy put it (god forbid any of you actually read what the dude wrote instead of receiving absurd bs from manipulative morons online and assuming it to be accurate – spoiler: it isn’t…like at all), “the executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.”
A thread of class struggle uncoincidentally visible throughout the entirety of human history, the modern age being carried forth in the fervent working class radicalism of the sans-culottes, with their idealism slowly falling out of favor with the bourgeoisie in the National Convention during the French revolution as their egalitarian project encroached on this newly cemented middle-class material power, despite riding this momentum to overthrow the Ancien régime in the first place.
“The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.” – some guy, a bit optimistic at the end we wouldn’t just choose individual delusion while the planet literally burns around us…
“Why do people fight for their servitude, as if it were their salvation?”
Nicely put and an interesting perspective, deserves more upticks.
I’m sure there must be a valid point in there somewhere.
Can’t find it…..
No, I don’t think there was. The moment anyone starts blaming prostitution (or any other social ill) on ‘capitalism’, one has to ask ‘So before capitalism, what caused it?’ Given that prostitution is frequently described as ‘the oldest profession’, it seems vanishingly unlikely that capitalism causes it.
The communist leaders could take who they wanted to have sex and were brutal with it. At least they got paid in capitalism.
Communism and capitalism are both forms of materialism which abhor equality.
Feudalism also had a class structure where some people were impoverished by accident of birth. This is not rocket science. Did/do hunter-gatherer tribes have prostitutes? It seems unlikely that many did.
Marx never claimed that capitalism was the source of all human ills, he claimed that it was the contemporary structure of social relations which presented very specific problems – he also recognised that in some ways it was an improvement on previous social systems.
Its amazing to me how poorly educated people are about what socialists and communists actually said and believed. I suspect it is because people are blind to their own ideology which ignores the fact that human beings are capable of organising ourselves in quite a variety of ways other than what we have come to call capitalism. The anthropological evidence is quite clear about this.
That said, I’ve always enjoyed WIlliam Blake’s poem about the dark satanic mills.
Feudalism is land based servitude , despite recent efforts by various egg heads to redefine it.
Prostitution is the world’s second oldest profession , “Soldiering” being the oldest , since “Soldiering” , the formation of marauding groups of armed men , is the original sin in the creation of capitalism
I think it’s rather obvious that marxists don’t know history history beyond the most recent couple centuries, and even that history they understand poorly
The point would have been so much better made without the “let me explain this to you brainwashed morons” tone.
It has some validity but you are conflating capitalism with pecking order. As you say, some social stratification has existed since the beginning of humanity. The problem with Marxism, and all the other Utopian ideas, is that they ignore this natural tendency.
Those who float (or claw) their way to the top will always organise things to suit them and theirs, whatever to ruling financial system.
The only way of stopping this being utterly awful for the bulk of the population is to ensure there a numerous centres of power (independent press, judiciary, unions etc.)
Capitalism is the only system that has come close to getting that right.
Tell that to the people living on less than a dollar a day or the seven hundred children who die every hour of easily preventable diseases – sorry guys, a small percentage own half the world because that is honestly the best we can come up with…
Your lack of imagination is wondrous.
Another believer in the materialists pipedream that unlimited growth is possible ?
The original and most damaging form of what is called a false duality. Marx etal were capitalists.
Capitalism has existed for, what, 150 years? Prostitution since the dawn of man.
I expect he thinks prostitution was capitalism as they got paid for it. People have always been paid for work if they wanted it.
This is the dumbest thing I read on the internet today.
I doubt there was very much demand for prostitutes before humans invented agriculture.
Prostitution has existed since the end of the last ice age when the notion of surplus took hold.
In socialists countries prostitution is rampant because women don’t have many other opportunities. Capitalism allows women to develop valuable skills and avoid prostitution.
Ah yes, Russia – that bastion of socialism, second highest rates of prostitution in the world. I should have known that the collapse of the soviet union was a capitalist ruse.
Capitalism doesn’t allow women to develop skills and avoid prostitution – you are thinking of state education systems – try again. Maybe use your brain this time.
Humans need an outlet for their warlike tendencies. When you remove capitalism you get war.
Buyers can be cajoled into buying as well. If the ‘product’ wasn’t so widely advertised and easily available there would surely be far fewer buyers? Just like with any commodity demand can be generated.
Actually, sex trafficking rates increase quite drastically in countries in which prostitution is legal. Look at the examples of The Netherlands and Germany, where there is a huge problem with trafficked women and children. Not so much in the countries in which buying sex has now been criminalised, such as France and Denmark.
Aella did sound increasingly defensive.
She is probably the best face of pornography and prostitution but she admits she was drawn simply by the money. Morality didn’t come into it.
Sounds to me like she’s just being a good little capitalist – what is wrong with that?
While I’m broadly on the side opposed to sex ‘work’ I think you are a little hard on her. She agrees that there are many abused trafficked vulnerable women and she is vehemently opposed to that as well.
But surely her main point is that some women like herself are AOK with online sex especially as it makes her lots of money and she supports likeminded women who can and do make good money from the work. It is non-contact after all.
There was scant nention of men (like we are all the same: shallow and brutal which I resented) but perhaps that was inevitable given no men was invited to give their views.
Personally, like so many discussions pf this type I feel the answers lie somewhat in the middle and indeed the answers are probably varied to a huge degree just as we humans vary.
I too am bitterly opposed to the exploitation of women and girls especially the vulnerable but what Aelie was saying was quite different.
They all say that sort of thing,I like it,it’s giving me a lovely life etc then years later they have a breakdown when they realise how fucked their minds are,never mind the rest of their bodies and all this “,I earn loads of money so it’s worth it and proves I’m a worthwhile person” garbage. They don’t. That’s all lies or at least fantasy thinking.
Like all deceptions you pay in the end.
Very good points. I always view porn as mental adultery. It can actually change how you are and the way you think. I wouldn’t touch it and prostitutes with a barge pole.
Aella never really answered Louise’s point about not all desires being pro-social or good. In fact many desires people have are quite destructive, and the role of social norms is to tamper or channel them.
Aella later says she is in favor of people doing what they want, but again that is not an answer to Louise’s challenge; most humans have some desires which are destructive and harmful to society, and the answer surely cannot be a shrug and saying “do whatever you want.” Maybe there’s a reason for protective norms. And dismantling of protective norms should not be done lightly (I’m reminded of Chesterton’s fence).
I agree. There is nothing here about how cultural norms benefit a society, rather than an individual.
It seems to me that Aella’s argument (and much progressive thought) is based on abolishing the concept of shame.
Shame is probably an evolutionary advantage in that tribal survival required the tribe to act as a unit and therefore share norms of good and bad. However, the particular behaviours that actually generate shame are obviously entirely cultural.
The progressive project seeks a culture in which one’s authentic self is deemed acceptable, even laudable, whatever its behaviour. In their worldview this involves the complete abolition of all existing cultural norms or rules. They fail to acknowledge that they are not abolishing shame, just putting in place a new set of norms – for example being racist now being a very much bigger sin than being promiscuous.
Actual minimisation of shame could be achieved by elevating tolerance to one of the culture’s primary virtues, without losing the acknowledged need for some norms. In relentlessly pushing the destruction of the existing norms, of course, progressives have shown themselves to be massively intolerant of anybody wishing to hold to them.
All that said I thought this was an unexpectedly good debate between two rational proponents of their respective positions.
Her argument to get rid of shame does not solve the problem. If she had to earn her money in a dingy flat with a pimp on the door, I am sure her sattutudecwoyld change. Even high class call girls soon change their mins when they come up against a sexual sadist who won’t stop and the encounter is then rape.
These women haven’t a clue. Online is there for ever. Will they still think there is no shame when their children and their friends find “mum” online with a d***o? Will they be happy when their grandchildren find them? I don’t think so. But they don’t think of the actual consequences, just the money. And how many have a relationship with the HMRC?
You’re assuming traditional values will survive into your (her) grandchildren’s time? Just lok at the change in attituds in our generation: we came from illegal gay sex to same sex marriage.. from a glimpse of stocking as it were to the whole 9 yards.. so God knows what will be the norm in 50 years time? Of course there is a possibility we will regress back to prudery and shaming but I very much doubt it!
Shame because the world was a safer place then. Violence did go on but not to the extent of today.
Prudery is attributed to the Victorians who had large families. They couldn’t have been that prudist. They just kept it private within marriage. I prefer that system personally.
Yes, and ask how has the liberation of sex has impacted fertility rates? If the goal is societal collapse, seems like abandoning monogamy is indeed the right answer.
A bit bigoted I feel….. 🙁
That’s assuming she ever gets married if people actually marry prostitutes.
I agree. They are merely replacing one religion with another, but they don’t see it like that. Moral relativity is no different than moral absolutism.
Well said, the inverse of shame is honor, that pride which is given and is due to people who fight and work hard against adversity and achieve great things, eliminate shame and where is the honor ?
So much honour bestowed on so many military men for killing and maiming so many people: sticking their little chests out so the rest of us can see their medals and ribbons! What a sick joke all that was (and is)!
And all the honours bestowed on all the lying, cheating, self-serving politicians etc. so they can call themselves Lord’. What a sick joke that is an’ all!
Spare me from such honours!
No honor is given to a man who kills a helpless man, woman or child in fact great shame and dishonor. The greatest honors go to the warrior like the heavy weight champion who defeats the most skilled and dangerous fighters in combat. Our modern sports are just pale imitations by proxy of ancient forms of combat. Real combat has never left and is still around us every day.You may wish to be a pacifist, you may even try to practice in your life, but if you do, you are living under the protection of an armed man, trained in combat. What sort of a man do you want him to be ? Brave and honorable or cowardly and shameless ?
The men fighting in wars were fighting other men who were trying to kill them. Would you have found it more honourable for them to have lain down and taken a bullet or blade to the heart ??
Surely your point re tribal norms being necessary gets to the kernel of the issue. We no longer live in tribes and so tribal norms are no longer relevant? In a post tribal world where such cohesive norms are clearly N/A we must consider what taboos are no longer of service. Growing up in 1950/60s Ireland had shame aplenty with our Magdalene laundries etc. We are well past all that dreadful shaming and all the better for it.
It is time to explore, in a rational way what is OK and what isn’t and if the latter, why? And whether we need norms for all or whether we can tolerate the minorities who act and feel and are different. Variety is the spice of life. We’re all sick of one size fits all, PC and the idiotic Woke crap!
Of course we’re all still living in tribes. What are you ? A hologram living in a computer database, an alien living in a spaceship ? It’s one of the great conceits of “modern” people that the fundamental laws that have governed life for millions of years, now, suddenly don’t apply to them. Gravity has not been repealed and Darwin has not left the building.
Yes,even in a city we actually live in small cohesive neighbourhoods.
I think we’re making the same point. Shame exists because a tribe needs to stick together. It figures out what works and what doesn’t, and they become norms and it becomes shameful to go against the norms.
Of course we don’t live in tribes now, therefore the norms should be different… but we must have some.
The culture wars seem to be about whose norms we accept. My feeling is that the norms of the 1950’s probably worked better for more people than the emerging norms of the 2020’s, which seem to be creating a societal mental health breakdown.
We are not past that shaming,not in my East Bristol community anyway. Every day I get called out as a w***e for something that happened once 50 years ago. Actually didn’t even happen.
Hi Jane, you can’t fix stupid people. People misunderstand out of ignorance, habit, falling with the crowd so they don’t know how to think another way… Jesus told his disciples to shake the dirt from their feet and leave those who could not embrace the truth. I wrote a reply to you below. Two replies.
I think its often overlooked how bad pornography and prostitution is for men. I see it a bit like the obesity crisis – we evolved with this preference for high sugar, high fat foods in an environment where they were quite rare and our survival depended on them. In the modern world where for most of us there’s far more of this food around than we need, we gorge and make ourselves very sick in the process. The availability of pornography and prostitution now may not be making men fat and visibly sick, but from personal experience, I think its an addiction we fall into that sucks away so much of our energy that could be used to create more meaningful lives. Of course the way out of this hole is not coercion – but it would be nice to see more discussion of how this is not the ‘best life’ for men either.
Another thing, if male and female sexuality is the “same” where are all the lesbian bathhouses? What is the lesbian equivalent of a “glory hole”?
Male and female is sexuality is most definitely not the same: any man who has had a normal sexual relationship with a normal woman knows that. But I generalise. Happily I’ve had plenty of encounters with ‘abnormal’ women who really enjoy sex and don’t have the usual hang ups. Make of that what you will.
Now who is preening himself and sticking his little chest out ? Totally without cause, nothing honourable in putting yourself about.
The most salient sentence in the article:
“Any kind of political project based on the idea that we can undo human nature is one that’s doomed to failure.”
Absolutely! Well said! I have some sympathy with the view that sex should be confined to meaningful relationships, but that is simply not possible with real human beings.
It’s been possible since the invention of marriage and traditional morality.
Very true: all attempts to do so and create a Utopia have ended in disaster..
Well as somebody once observed, the sexual revolution of the 60’a was the greatest con trick ever played on women. I should know I was there. Do as you please boys and girls, but never concede your self-respect. Self-respect is a strange thing: The older you get the less of it you can see.
Who was it who played the con trick on you?
In an interview I read Marianne Faithful told how she had to get drunk and out of it on drugs to tolerate having sex with Mick Jagger and the others she was in real terms coerced into sex with.
Wow! A fascinating debate between two brilliant ladies. Perry’s argument was very sturdy the whole way through. At points, I felt Aella’s appeals to a libertarian free-options-for-all approach to women and sex work overlooked some of the biological realities Perry alluded to and thus detracted from the argument’s strength. Overall, I was very impressed by the two women’s clarity even when debating such a heated topic from opposite sides: I’m not sure many people (including me) would have the composure to do this.
Yes, good to see a dispassionate treatment, and respect, on both sides. Politicians, and peanut galleries, take note. On balance through, Perry made the more telling points. Some of Aella’s points are the kind you’re very sure of when you’re young and fit lol.
Some of Aella’s points are also the things you say when you’re in a debate and your job is to advance your side’s arguments. You overstate the case. (I do it all the time in politics.) Aella is very smart and capable of seeing both sides of a question, so I doubt that she fully believes everything she’s saying.
Agreed.. but you need to work on your composure you say? Only kiddin’
So, now warning that having indescriminate hook-up sex with many, many partners is a bad idea is “anti-sex”? I love sex, love orgasms, love all of it, yet I would advise my daughters to find a monogomous committed partner before exploring. It’s less risky and far more satisfying, and leaves them better set to end up in a long term fulfilling relationship once their desirablness wanes in middle age. It’s not anti-sex at all, in fact I see sex as something a bit more amazing and special than a hand shake. I think that is very pro-sex thank you.
An old professor of mine once exclaimed that “Whig sex is preferable to Jacobin sex.” Upon occasion these words slip from my mouth…and of course, no one has a clue what I’m saying.
..including me I have to say?
It means that sex within a framework of ordered liberty is better (more likely to be satisfying, non-exploitative, etc.) than sex within no framework at all – just f**k anything that moves. Pardon my French.
I really couldn’t get through this. Every minute of every day we’re being bombarded with deviance, and justifications for it. Who would have imagined women casually using the term “motherf*****”, let alone a Congresswoman (Rashida Tlaib)? But, thanks to the filth floggers and the ease of the internet, young women believe sex involves violence (as Billie Eilish tragically confessed), that the first date leads to the bedroom without even dinner and a movie, that girls can really score the big bucks if they’ve got a hot OnlyFans presence. The examples are endless and everywhere.
I taught my daughter from the time she was very young that sex – lovemaking – was deeply emotional and that, if she valued herself, it would be something only done when truly valued.
I reject women like Aella and her ugly world.
“that the first date leads to the bedroom without even dinner and a movie”
Will the woman be paying?
I do not disagree the sentiment but equality is the issue
Whoever does the asking out pays. If subsequent dates occur, split the check or take turns. The gentleman might feel a bit queasy at first and may opt to make other arrangements later – if there is a later – but this strikes me as the fairest, most neutral way to kick things off.
Thank you Allison. Having three daughters always makes me very uncomfortable reading these discussions.
I feel the debate on this topic should rise above the individual feelings and address the health and sanity of the community on the long term.
Aella and her kind have little eye for that and she seems only half aware of the (final) consequences of her train of thought.
However, there should always be degrees of freedom for the odd one out. But maintaining a social threshold is not a bad thing. It keeps Pandora’s box at bay.
I think we should learn (again) to deal more with a certain amount of ambiguity and perhaps covertness on this topic.
Sounds like you live is a nice, happy little cocoon and are desperate never to become a butterfly? I hope you cling onto whatever you want and are never exposed to anything that deviates from you narrow little toytown.. but there are those who do want to explore what butterfly life might be like. Please don’t despise them for that. Don’t play the Pharasee: “I thank God that I am not as other men…” Jesus preferred the sinner!
Seems as if from your happy little cocoon there emerged a nasty stinging wasp not a butterfly.
Most of what Jesus says is garbage,I’m sorry to say.
Jesus died on a cross to bear the sins of mankind, to bring them to eternal life. Your suffering is redeemed through his. When the ash holes honk, remember that Jesus was scorned. Jesus sees you and knows your worth. Accept his love. He is here on Earth, in the Eucharist and you can find him.
Find some videos on the internet, good people like Father Mike, Father Mark Mary and Sensus Fidelium or what’ever other sources speak to you. Find some good sources to read, Find a good enough church, or Mass online, and pray every day until your faith grows. It does. I spent two years before faith really took hold and I am at least 25% happier. ;- ). Sure, sample of one, but out here in the stinging nettles with you and others.
”That guy” has made me 25% happier, daily. I read Unherd and get in the mud, still. ;- ).
Jesus knew his time was better spent with people whose minds and hearts possibly could be moved, than with proud Pharisees. He didn’t prefer the sinner for their sin, but loved them.
Preferred the sinner because his mind and heart will still open, but not because they sinned. Would say more but comments on porn are one thing. Comments on religion are another.! Anathema! This is my second attempt, and it is much abbreviated with no saying anything good about J. Anyway, I just today told a friend that I am 25% happier, when the meditator was on in the background who says that meditation brought 10% more happiness.
For myself I feel most of the topics under discussion here are far too hot for a man to comment on without saying something completely fatuous, so I will leave well alone.
One thing I will comment on, was the subject of sex robots, and at this point it might be worth considering just what their use would entail for mostly men but of course for women too. I would say if that is what you want, then go for it – as long as you don’t mind that every convulsion of your body is going to turn up as a spike on a graph in an excel spreadsheet on the desktop of some Japanese Tech CEO somewhere, and remain as stored data about you foreverafter, which will undoubtedly eventually proliferate. Which of course may not be a problem, if your temperament is such that you don’t demarcate between public and private activity for any aspect of your life, but you should be aware exactly what such objects are and what parts of your life you will be signing away in the small print of the terms of their use.
..might count against you in your job application or perhaps, in the future, in your favour?? “At least he’s normal and doesn’t get frustrated” Lol
Perverts don’t usually get frustrated, they have the knack of thinking up the most vile ways of getting around it.
“‘Everyone is jinetera,’ said Luis. ‘Look around. Everyone. Jinetero, jinetera. Look what Fidel has done to our country. Look what he has done to our people’. We were sitting on the Malecón – the wall which runs along the Havana sea front – watching good-looking jineteros and jineteras attempting to snare a tourist. Of all the Latin American countries I visited, I found I had the most intense conversations in Cuba. This was one of them. I transcribed it into my diary later that night. ‘I don’t want my children to be a doctor like their mother, or a political economist like me. What is the point? MD, PhD, a month’s work and I cannot buy a pair of shoes.’ Luis continued: ‘Useless life. A much better life for my son is if he is a taxi driver or a waiter. Then he can get dollars. Maybe he can get a tourist to fall in love with him. And my daughters? I tell you a secret. I pray my daughters will be beautiful. Every father does. So they can have tourist boyfriends, have money, maybe marry a tourist, and get out of here. That is why every Cuban father wants his daughter to be a jinetera. Jinetera – that is the best life you can have here, that is how you survive, that is how you escape. Thank you, Fidel!’”
Dominic Frisby – Life after the state.
When I first heard about Onlyfans I was reminded of this quote and its stuck with me everytime there has been a story in the press.
Prostitution is shameful, degrading and abusive: disease-ridden, drug-ridden and violent. Women who boast about it, encourage it, and attempt to sanitise it with phrases such as ‘sex worker’ should be ashamed of themselves. (Likewise men who resort to prostitutes.)
I spoke to a prostitute once (not ‘professionally’ – we chatted to me in a hotel bar so as not to be ejected by security (can’t upset patrons).. and I suggested, very nicely to her she was smart and beautiful and could surely do better: she said I too sold my body parts (brain and mouth via consultancy) and what was the difference? Made me think…
Oh b****r! Now you’ve got me thinking. The one thing I didn’t want to do.
It seems that Aella has an answer for everything, a good answer for everything. Every thought she has, every observation she makes is perfectly conveniently aligned to her choices. Even the observations that she makes about things outside her personal choices magically line up to not only support them, but to vindicate, exalt and glorify them.
But really no one has all of reality perfectly vindicating and supporting everything they do. Every honest person has some sort of a hard question that they need to struggle with, and everyone has some sort of conflicted desires, some imperfection in a fallen world, but not her. She is perfect, her life is perfect, and it’s her best life now, her choices are best, making her perfectly happy, it’s all so clean, and healthy, and sterilized, and pleasureful, and glorious.
It almost seemed like a religious experience, like a cult, like a bit too perfect, like a carefully curated and protected mask. Of course this is just my subjective opinion, which really, she seems to swim in a sort of radically-subjective postmodern soup, which I am sure she would describe as something she felt was: “really delicious, much better than the horrors of the factory soup”.
With Americans, making lots of dosh usually covers up a multitude. Think of all those working in the massive arms industries there. There work results in the killing and maiming of millions of innocents all over the world and even in their own schools. Where is their shame? And the high ranking military men responsible for all that death and destruction: where is their shame? And the politicians who took the decision to go to war: where us there shame? And the obscenely rich who pay minimum wages: where is their shame? Aelle is in the ha’penmy place!
First-rate! A very interesting discussion between two people who don’t agree, but are willing to seriously consider what the other is saying. Such conversations are the best way to make progress, intellectually; hear a debate out.
The point I think is the most important was “I don’t think that the differences between men and women are a consequence of socialisation. … I think that we have to deal with the existence of these differences on a psychological level as well as a physical level … these material differences exist and we have to make our peace with them.“
A couple of historical observations which bear on some of this:
There was an ancient civilization (I forget which one; Babylonian, IIRC) in which all women had to do a ‘tour of duty’ as a prostitute at a temple; the tour may have been as short as one customer, but they all had to go, and stay, until they’d done that – which was a problem for un-attractive women.
The hetairai of ancient Greece were a class of female sex-workers who had higher status than many. (Thais, the woman who supposedly started the fire that burned down the palace at Persepolis, was a hetaira.) There are similarities with the geisha, who at one edge shaded into sex-workers.
Great discussion; thanks to those who did it.
I feel as though the conversation was incomplete since it didn’t really go in to detail around marriage and children. How does Aella think that polyamory and sex positivism fit in around raising a family? I held many of her libertarian views when I was younger but having a family made me reassess those views.
…no doubt she will do likewise: but there’s a lot of dosh to be made first: she is American after all and money is not just no.1 there: it’s nos. 1-10.. next most important thing comes in at 11th.
If the so-called sex negative feminists are labeled “prudes” in the very first paragraph, what should the sex positive feminists be labeled as?
I would suggest even the term “sex negative” has a misleading implication.
I don’t think it takes a lot of imagination to give the give the “sex positive “ group a title.
An interesting discussion and well worth reading.
Louise clearly had the better side of it probably because she’s thought about the subject more clearly and for longer. Aella has some very bizarre ideas not only about human nature but the nature of life in general
In what sort of weird science fiction reality could this even be conceived of as being possible ? Plumbing is water and water is life, clean water in, dirty water out. Contaminate your water supply and you are literally dead within days. It’s like dreaming up a society in which doctors, nurses, healers and physicians are treated as criminal scum.
Honor and shame aren’t just made by random processes of socialization, they are rewards and punishments for behaviors that help or harm society. Allea literally says that monogamous societies are better and yet participates in behaviors that make her own society worse
Unlike yerself Aelle is happy to live and let live: not either or but both. I’m puzzled at how winning military honours (for killing and destroying) is helpful to society? Not sure if Vietnamese society benefitted much from losing 3,000,000 killed or wounded? Or Afghan society, or Iraqi society either. No shortage of honours for the perpetrators though! And no shame whatever! How strange. But Aelle is to be villified and shamed is she… mmm.
You can check out one of my comments above to you concerning what is and isn’t an honorable warrior. But basically there is no pacifist utopia. All pacifists who think there is are free riding on the back of someone who isn’t.
And is Aella really so “live and let live” ? Did you read this ?
Once that other cam girl either ret-conned her memories, or re-evaluated her past in the light of new experiences she became a “b***h”, an enemy worthy of scorn. There’s no reason to believe that Aella is any less vicious than the average human, who will fight to defend what they think is theirs, their family, their goods, their sense of self. Aella is just using different weapons.
In a nutshell, yes.
“…..while the latter believe that liberal feminism’s focus on sexual freedom has come at a cost to women.”
Everything comes at a cost
Good God.
While there may be men that don’t care what a woman has done in her past, it is my opinion that most men don’t want a woman who has had too many other partners.
If a woman isn’t sure she should divulge her previous promiscuity to a potential suitor, doesn’t that convey an inner instinct that women have about how men feel?
I am happily married and made sure that my wife and I were sexually compatible. They say that one of the keys to a successful marriage is to share similar values. Sexual values are part of it. My wife and I are very open minded and open to trying new things but only within our monogamous relationship. We also agree we’re not into pain or bondage. We don’t propose to judge others who may enjoy that but our sexual “values” are on a similar page.
When single, I would never have continued any kind of relationship with a woman who had worked in the sex trade, including strippers. As mentioned in the article, many have addiction issues as well as knowing that my partner had had multiple, multiple partners would be a no go for me. This no go also applied to women who weren’t in the sex trade but who had slept with lots of other men.
It may be unrealistic, but many men want to believe that their mate was a virgin before we came along. Obviously, this is unrealistic and we know reality is that we’re most likely not the first, but there is a limit which is probably different with each man, of how many partners our mate has had when we start to think she was a s**t. That may very well not be right in today’s world but it’s a reality for most men even though we’re not supposed to say that out loud.
Really interesting conversation.
An amazing interview that gives a clear window into this sick world.
What would people lose if they did not have sex until marriage – marry early and satisfy their sexual desires within marriage?
The cost of this casual sex is vast to each individual – even if some people do not understand it at the time (as the interview implies).
The cost to society is vast in broken people, abuse, loss of meaningful contribution, STDs, unwanted children, created ‘need’ for abortion, single mothers, etc, etc.
We can then focus on the problems within marriage to help the couples in this area.
When the statement of the glaringly obvious fact that there are important physical differences between men and women has to be prefixed with “somewhat controversial” we are are in strange times indeed!
The assertion that any sexual encounter could lead to pregnancy is totally baffling! There is a vast range of possible male-female sexual activities which couldn’t possibly cause pregnancy.
The woman who did webcamming and later said it damaged her, when, as Aella said, she was obviously all for it at the time, reminds of those women who did sex work – prostitution, pornography, etc. – entirely voluntarily, consensually, and often very enthusiastically, made some money – perhaps quite a lot of money – out of it, and later started saying they were young and naive and innocent and strapped for cash and didn’t know what they were letting themselves in for, and were exploited and degraded etc. etc. Come off it!
There are some people who are so degenerate that attempting to interact with them is not only not worth the effort but is likely to degrade the other person a bit as well.
Aella seems very satisfied with her life as a sex worker, but I have to wonder if things change down the road if a husband and children never happen? Is a life of polyamory and money a life to be pleased with, sans children and grandchildren? I have my doubts.
And are not some marriages legalised prostitution?
Such an interesting discussion – thank you. Great to hear two smart women, thoughtfully and respectfully debate sensitive and controversial issues.
Prostitution whether skin to skin or digital objectifies women (and men who are involved) and is not victimless. Aella and her colleagues have no clue about prostitution as it has been for millenia. They think it is easy as they are on screen. They have no interest in the mlions of women who are prostitutes by pimps, who are forced into sex with strangers to feed their families, who have no choice due to addiction.
Prostitution exists solely because men want their need met no matter what and if their women won’t provide some other woman must. Governments should be bringing legislation that charges men who pay for sex, including online, and names and shames those caught. Only then is there a chance to rid society of prostitution once and for all.
Well said
Jane Baker, all my replies to you get disappeared. Faith bad, porn okay, apparently. Just wanted to say I hear you and wish you could shake the dirt from your robes in Bristol, but that probably cannot happen. I am keeping you in my “thoughts,” and I hope you can become the 25% Happier I have become, by checking out videos and books and, poo,I cannot give any hints about people who inspired me, but wow. Big hug to You!!!!
I am wrecked that a woman here thinks that she is nasty because she is angry about 50 years of abuse. I wish she could leave her town. I wish I could write directly to her, but the topic is porn not faith, which anyway, improved my life by twenty five percent, and which I wish people would study for a year or more via videos, etc. I keep her in my “ thoughts” and am so sad my posts on this thread remain unseen.
There is a woman who rhymes with rain, who lives in the south of England. I heard you! You are not nasty. I wish you could shake your robes of the dirt of the city, but you probably can’t. I am 25% happier and I can’t share why! Porn is fine but sharing other things is verboten. Find some good things online and prey and give it consistency….mustard seeds grow. And you can still read Unherd! ;- )
All my comments keep getting disappeared. I wish a woman could leave Bristol, shake the dirt from her robes. She is not nasty. I would like to speak of faith, which has improved my life by 1/4, at least, but the topic is porn. I wish I could say more. Even this will probably disappear. So, she remains in my “thoughts” and I wish I could share. I will remain unheard.
If this stays, please check faith videos on YouTube, do a deep dive for over a year, and say some prairies daily.
“On average, men are much more interested in casual sex than women are, and they’re also more interested in things like watching porn, buying sex — doing all the things that have become much more socially acceptable post-sexual revolution. ”
I didn’t realise pornography and prostitution was invented in the 70s. Thanks for enlightening me.
I agree with some of what is said though – Simone de Beauvoir and Emma Goldman both believed in the sexual liberation of the “liberal” kind you describe (even though they were both more communistic than liberal), and I think they both personally struggled with it, as many people seem to struggle with polyamory. I think most people are genuinely happier in relationships that aren’t open, and sexual liberation shouldn’t harm that realisation.
One of these women speaks from direct experience of prostitution – her own, and of her friends in the business. The other gives her political opinion about it, based on her views about men and women and how they should relate, but bottles the key question of whether she disapproves of Aella and how she earns money. The truth is that Louise Perry’s views are based on a moral disapproval of prostitution, and she should have the courage to make that clear: we can then consider whether we agree with her.
I read Louise’s whole argument to say she opposes prostitution on moral grounds. She also says indicates, to me at least, that she approves of the people who engage in prostitution. That is to say, she disapproves of the behavior, not the person engaged in the behavior.
I see her approach as positive, compassionate, and considerate. Denigrating a person who adopts Aella’s perspective is pointless and harmful. Identifying moral issues with the perspective is thought provoking and worthwhile.
As the best-known woman ever to work as a prostitute in Britain, Dr Brooke Magnanti (“Belle de Jour”) said in her marvellous book The Sex Myth, people who condemn sex work without any personal experience of it of seem to think their views are more valid that those of people like her who do have extensive lived experience.
Ha Ha Ha. That old joke,sorry argument. Don’t knock it,till you tried it. What! You tried it. You’re morally bankrupt. Whatever you say is totally irrelevant.
Good point: I felt the same: the usual “I’m not affected personally but I fear for those who might be”. Why? Are you so superior? Are they so inferior to you they can’t make the same judgements you make?
Looks like 90% of commentators are men: what’s that about?
That’s about Unherd’s normal proportion. It would be true of more or less any blog dealing with politics or social trends that allows comments. I don’t know why, though I have a sneaking suspicion that the majority of women are too busy to spend time arguing with unknown people online.
This woman has all her comments scrubbed. Will someone say to JB that her post was heard, anger acknowledged, and that she is in my thoughts. Can’t say the p word, though I am amazingly happier through such.
That’s about Unherd’s normal proportion. It would be true of more or less any blog dealing with politics or social trends that allows comments. I don’t know why, though I have a sneaking suspicion that the majority of women are too busy to spend time arguing with unknown people online.
This woman has all her comments scrubbed. Will someone say to JB that her post was heard, anger acknowledged, and that she is in my thoughts. Can’t say the p word, though I am amazingly happier through such.
Looks like 90% of commentators are men: what’s that about?
What a load of gobby old garbage,that sex worker person is talking sh-e-e-t. Aged 17 I didn’t have a boyfriend but all my peers did. I had absolutely NO peer pressure. I just felt like a weirdo especially as every TV show for my age group,every pop song,every novel and I’m talking about serious literature not chick-lit,and Jackie magazine told you if you’re 17 you have a boyfriend you just do,that’s how it is,your boyfriend solves all your practical and emotional problems,and he brings you your future ie a year of “going out”,two years “engaged”,then the marriage and the house. I realise now I just wanted the house. My bad. Anyway a “boyfriend” came along. He was boring and unimaginative. I’m not talking sex here,he had no cultural interests whatever. I only stuck with it because every image presented to me told me having a boyfriend was fun. I thought I should make more effort. Wrong. So I later learned that he was basically a stalker and he didn’t even like me but he needed an object to control. Lucky for me I escaped after 3 years when he found someone else to inflict himself on,until they dumped him. The sex workers always say what’s wrong,it’s about love,Jesus is Love,its nicey-nicey.
No,some relationships are about control on one side or the other. Anyway in this weird relationship there was one attempt at Secks thar didn’t come off,appropriate term. But it being I guess the most interesting thing ever in his dead end existence he went around telling everyone about it which seems to have been all my neighbours. People like salacious gossip. He might as well have sold tickets. So to this day and that was 50 years ago,and ONE TIME and in my city I am still shouted at in the street as a w***e but mostly by dirty thick head pricks married to tight lipped blonde whores. If you live in Bristol and you know me,next time you honk your horn at me please crash and die. So sex is incredibly dangerous which humanity knew up to the 1960s. Dangerous not just in physical terms but in emotional,societal and political terms.
Funnily enough whatever fuckheads like this sex worker say,most of us can still suffer extreme reputational damage,us normal people that is. I mean I think 50 years marked down as the local w***e after almost,but not quite,doing it ONCE is pretty extreme. Thank the nasty revengeful Old Testament God that the old trollop Germaine Greer is old and soon to die. I hope she dies in pain and agony. Yeah,I’m nasty. So.
Who hurt you.
Ah, Jane, I read what you wrote and your anger is merited. Just wanted to acknowledge you and say that I am on your side, virtual though this may be. I wish you could leave your town, but that is probably not an option. Anyway, I don’t believe that you are nasty. Part of you is, understandably. Yet you are also clear thinking and compassionate, sharing so vulnerably. Huge salute to you and I will keep you in my heart and my prayers.
Though Mary was pure, there is no judgement, as our mother, through adoption, Hence do not be off put by the lines about purity…read the promise at the end. You can find this whole lovely prayer by searching Catholic Doors, Novena to St. Casimir. Anyway, this is one of many paragraphs that makes ME cry with joy.
Jane Baker, I heard you. In fact, I wrote three comments on here in support of you, in response to your comments. Here I wrote that your anger seems valid and that you are not only angry, because you share your heart here with others, which is generous.
Unfortunately, I shared messages of Fayth—not fakely pious, either. Ha ha ha. One can go on and on about porn here, but Fayth cannot be written about!! So I guess I will say that you were in my evening “thoughts” tonight, and will remain in them. Please explore Fayth online and in books. Stay at it, and it can grow. I figure I am 25% happier. I wish I could suggest where to hear some homilies I find inspiring, but that cannot be done here. Anyway, J. told his a Paul stalls to shake off their feet if they were not heard in one place and to go to another. I know you think he said a lot of stuff you can’t agree with from another comment. You can still be You, but let go of a lot by what has been given.
I do wish you could not stay in Bristol, but probably that is not possible. But you do not need to be choked by the tares. I wish I could share more. Translate Gottschalk from German and mail hot, perhaps? All one word and lowercase.
I saw this! I heard you! You are not nasty. You are sharing here, which is generous. I am 25% happier with starts with R and is not porn. I wish you could shake your robes of the dust of Bristol. This can be transformed though. I can’t say anymore. My posts get vanished.
The monogamous feminist who has just put her baby to sleep has it all over the porn star prostitute.