At 04:01 PM 1/8/98 -0500, Susan Fleck 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.
Response: Marriage is or equals sex for indirect payment of
money/financial security or marriage may or even often involves
indirect payment? If marriage is or equals sex for indirect
payments/financial security, then are all the married women on pen-l
whores (or what do you call someone who trades sex in kind--a sex
serf or sex peon versus a sex worker who sells commodified sex?) and
should all the men who are married go home and help to create
alternatives to liberate their sex peon/serf wives?
>2.prostitution is the 'constrained choice' of many women who face
>relatively lower earnings in other jobs, partially due to systemic job
>discrimination against women
> marriage is the 'constrained choice' of many women who face relativley
>lower earnings in other jobs, partially due to systemic job
>discrimination against women.
Response: And many women (sex workers as well as sex serfs producing
tribute in kind for their husbands) face the "constrained choices" of
not less food but no food, not less money but no money, not less
shelter but no shelter for themselves and their children as an
alternative to sex for money or as tribute.
>3.prostitutes are at risk of STDs because of multiple partners,
> wives are at risk of STDs because spouses have multiple partners.
Response: I've been converted, the notion that multiple partners or
visiting sex workers has something to do with risk of STDs focuses on
the multiple partners rather than the true cause--asymmetric
information. With proper information, then having multiple partners
(the more the merrier) should be no problem as long as one gives up
certain bougeois puritanical hang-ups about monogomy, commitment etc
because in reality it is only an illusion as ALL marriages are just
barter arrangements masquerading as something else.
>4.prostitutes are often considered 'undesireable' once they get older,
> wives are often considered 'undesireable' once they get older.
Response: And even males are also often considered undesirable once
they get older unless they have a fat wallet to lure some sex
peon/serf to produce tribute in return for the protection and
security for the Lord and his manor or if the Lord can turn into a sex
capitalist finding a sex worker whom he can use when and as he
pleases without the burdensome obligations of taking care of an old
sex slave or providing commons for the sex peon/serf--capturing a
portion of the difference between wages of labor-power of the sex
worker versus the value created by the sex worker.
>There's not much difference between the two professions, if you ask me.
>High risk, relatively higher pay than other jobs. We need more and
>better jobs for women (with affordable reliable childcare, of course).
Response: Who is to say better or worse? This is just all puritanism
and bourgeois morality. Some people sell sex, some people sell
capacity to work as a teacher or a computer programmer, just
different commodities being sold. Let the free market, dollar votes,
and the "free and mutually beneficial exchanges" of the market
decide. And childcare? Is it possible that concern for children also
serves to turn people into sex workers or to keep them paying tribute
as sex peon/serfs? Is it possible that these "constrained choices"
are even more "constrained" than nominally apparent?
;-( (Absolutely Gender inequality has a whole lot to do with it)
Jim Craven
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