by Carol Hanisch
The Women’s Liberation Movement has a long history of having to criticize the Left for the hypocrisy of its sexism. Jacobin Magazine, which describes itself as “a leading voice of the American left, offering socialist perspectives on politics, economics, and culture” recently ran an article on its blog supporting pornography. It was in the form of a plea, signed Opal Lee, claiming the ban on porn recently instituted on the social media platform OnlyFans would be harmful to her business producing “adult content.” She herself is apparently not a “sex worker” but a producer – that is, a boss. Even that didn’t stop Jacobin!
You can read the Jacobin post here. It is full of the usual charges of “puritanism” directed against anti-pornography critics and it even pulls out the usual guilt-trip threat so often used by the trans ideologues against feminist critics: suicide. It made me wonder if the author was a transwoman.
Jacobin is an adherent of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). While I don’t agree with everything the site posts, I do find many informative articles from which I learn. However, like many Left organizations, their treatment of feminism (and therefore their socialism) leaves a lot to be desired. Meeting Ground took them to task a few years ago over a post that distorted the history of late 1960s radical feminism and promoted the anti-materialism of transgender ideology, among other things.
Though seething that it is necessary to still have to do so after more than 50 years of feminist struggle with the Left (in my lifetime alone and that of many for decades before me), I sent Jacobin the email below.
I’m sorry to report that after much criticism by supporters of porn (like that found on Jacobin), OnlyFans reversed its ban on pornography, so it’s back to business as usual.
As the Civil Rights Movement used to sing it, “Freedom is a constant struggle.”
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You’ve got to be kidding, Jacobin!
All the horror going on in the world and you run an article supporting pornography (“sex workers”): “I Produce Adult Content on OnlyFans. Their Ban on Porn Would Hurt Me.”
And you make it the lead story for the day at that? What has the U.S. left come to? The male-dominated Left/liberals often make less sense on this issue than the male-dominated Right.
When you run articles about cutting the military budget, do you ever run a plea by a soldier or bomb-maker on keeping the military machine going because it would otherwise send 720,000 civilians and 2.2 military personnel to the unemployment lines?
When you run articles about the role of gas and oil in the climate crisis, do you also run a story by a fracking worker saying we can’t do that because it would put him and 1.7 million workers in the fossil fuel industry out of jobs?
When you run articles about the need for public universal health care, do you also run a plea by one of its number-crunchers about how it would mean the end of around half a million jobs in the health insurance industry?
Ah, but pornography is mostly about the exploitation of women: those who “work” in pornography and those who are merely its victims (which is all women). So who cares? We should sacrifice our well-being and just suck it up and move on when it comes to men’s short-sighted pleasure? Maybe sexual exploitation of women is so common, you are blind to it.
And you call yourselves socialists? I call you sexists.
Carol Hanisch
August 25, 2021
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Recommended Reading: “OnlyFans Never Cared about Sex Workers”
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This came from Kathie Sarachild:
…circulate Carol’s terrific letter–and points!
I haven’t seen Carol’s arguments applied by a feminist to porn before. I think this can really help.
Back when the Labor Party (in the U.S. in the 1990s) still existed, and was leading the fight for “Just Health Care” (national health insurance–now called Medicare for All), they had a program they called “Just Transition” — which was a whole plan to deal with the unemployment problems for workers in the HUGE number of bullshit jobs related to all the paperwork of health insurance. (Jane Barry, a Redstocking of the 1980s, said of this paperwork–it’s WORSE than housework!!) I thought the phrase was terrific, and it soon began to be applied to people working for the military-industrial complex who need to get phased out also–and pronto!
I LOVE that Carol is applying this to porn! (Of course, it also applies to all of what Judy Brown called the “genital jobs” ghetto so many women are still pretty much stuck in, if only as partime work now instead of fulltime). Anyway, Carol–I think what you just came up with constitutes ” a theoretical breakthrough’!) Thanks. We need more of them. And there will be plenty of chances, unfortunately, to use your point again!
Kathie