Should men describe themselves as feminists, if they are supportive of feminism?

[Santino]

From what I can tell, your thesis is both vague and useless in working out how to view sex work and the best approach a society should adopt towards it. As I said before, it's a deepity, at best. At worst, it is pious nonsense.

How is it pious? Why do you feel the need to reduce a perfectly value-free claim to something you can belittle?

At the very least, laws about sex must take into account the particular meaning that sex has in society, and not attempt to treat it like another economic transaction or a leisure activity.

 

[Santino]

This is a bit of an over-simplification, and I'm not sure it really stands up to proper examination.

I'd agree that it has widely had a special value attached to it, though you seem to be suggesting that this attached special value is somehow unique to sex and unless you expand on what you mean your assertion just comes across as simply that - an assertion without any real evidence or substance.

But in pretty much every human society we know about, this special value has also existed alongside women (mostly) being forced by circumstance (and maybe occasionally by choice) to exchange access to sex as a means of straightforward survival or (less frequently) attempt to gain some form of influence, so there has always been a conflict between the dominant supposed-special-value and the underlying reality for many people, particularly women.

You're the one simplifying the sense of 'special value'.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

At the very least, laws about sex must take into account the particular meaning that sex has in society, and not attempt to treat it like another economic transaction or a leisure activity.

That meaning is a contested one. It varies between people, and it is very often little more than a veneer of respectability that hides a whole series of hypocrisies.

It is within living memory that girls would be committed to mental asylums for promiscuity here in the UK. The meaning of sex changes across generations and there is no accepted societal norm. I think any society has to tread very carefully when attempting to impose a particular morality upon everyone in this way.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

You're the one simplifying the sense of 'special value'.

Oh come off it. You're pretending to be saying something, but you're saying absolutely nothing.

 

[Santino]

That meaning is a contested one. It varies between people, and it is very often little more than a veneer of respectability that hides a whole series of hypocrisies.

It is within living memory that girls would be committed to mental asylums for promiscuity here in the UK. The meaning of sex changes across generations and there is no accepted societal norm. I think any society has to tread very carefully when attempting to impose a particular morality upon everyone in this way.

Of course the meaning is contested and of course the meaning changes and of course the meaning is often marked by hypocrisy and domination.

 

[andysays]

You're the one simplifying the sense of 'special value'.

You're the one who introduced the phrase. I really don't know what you mean by it; we're all left having to guess what you actually mean, so if you think I'm over simplifying, that's probably the result of your failure to explain WTF you're on about.

 

[Santino]

Oh come off it. You're pretending to be saying something, but you're saying absolutely nothing.

It is true that some liken me to a gadfly that stings a lazy horse into action.

 

[Johnny Vodka]

it is. i don't think people with disabilities should necessarily have any special dispensation for procuring sexual services though - to do so would mean that sex IS a right. But I would need to think about it some more.

What you need to remember is sex isn't necessarily just about sex - this becomes more and more obvious the longer you go without. I've read a few really interesting and moving articles about sex workers and disabled people. It can read more like a form of sex counselling - teaching someone about how to use their body, etc... There is a lot of nuance. Even with the cliched 'baddie' male, what that person might be seeking is more physical contact, human warmth rather than sex, in a society where people feel increasingly isolated.

 

[Santino]

You're the one who introduced the phrase. I really don't know what you mean by it; we're all left having to guess what you actually mean, so if you think I'm over simplifying, that's probably the result of your failure to explain WTF you're on about.

Perhaps I should have said sui generis but I'm on a phone and doing italics is a pain.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

How is it pious?

Missed this. At worst it is pious if it takes the specialness as something whose existence is so self-evident that it doesn't even need explaining, but whose importance is also seemingly self-evident, reverentially so.

As andysays says, we're all left guessing by your vagueness. But I'll be charitable and stick to the original 'deepity', if you like.

 

[Santino]

What you need to remember is sex isn't necessarily just about sex

Careful, you'll upset littlebabyjesus.

 

[andysays]

How is it pious? Why do you feel the need to reduce a perfectly value-free claim to something you can belittle?

At the very least, laws about sex must take into account the particular meaning that sex has in society, and not attempt to treat it like another economic transaction or a leisure activity.

Again, you're claiming that sex has a particular meaning in (presumably our) society which everyone agrees on, or perhaps should agree on, while saying absolutely nothing about what this particular meaning is.

And in case you hadn't noticed, sex has been treated as an economic transaction for centuries, and the tendency in capitalist society is to expand the range of activities treated as economic transaction, not to reduce it.

If you genuinely want to end the treatment of sex as an economic transaction, then you need to address the economic and gender inequalities which make it a necessary one for significant numbers of (mostly) women.

 

[Johnny Vodka]

Careful, you'll upset littlebabyjesus.

I won't. I've not contradicted anything littlebabyjesus has said or that I've said. There is no universal meaning.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Careful, you'll upset littlebabyjesus.

Nobody's upset me here. You are puzzling me, but nobody is upsetting me.

Weird thing to say.

 

[Santino]

Missed this. At worst it is pious if it takes the specialness as something whose existence is so self-evident that it doesn't even need explaining, but whose importance is also seemingly self-evident, reverentially so.

As andysays says, we're all left guessing by your vagueness. But I'll be charitable and stick to the original 'deepity', if you like.

Can you think of a single society in which sex didn't/doesn't have a (set of) special value(s) attached to it? For good or ill.

 

[Johnny Vodka]

If you genuinely want to end the treatment of sex as an economic transaction, then you need to address the economic and gender inequalities which make it a necessary one for significant numbers of (mostly) women.

To go off possibly on another controversial tangent ( ), I would put it that a woman selling sex, generally speaking, has more value than a man selling sex. Supply and demand.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Can you think of a single society in which sex didn't/doesn't have a (set of) special value(s) attached to it? For good or ill.

I've already covered this. If it's true, it is trivially so. It tells us nothing about how to address any given problem.

 

[Santino]

I won't. I've not contradicted anything littlebabyjesus has said or that I've said. There is no universal meaning.

I've not said that there is a universal meaning.

 

[Santino]

Again, you're claiming that sex has a particular meaning in (presumably our) society which everyone agrees on, or perhaps should agree on, while saying absolutely nothing about what this particular meaning is.

I've said nothing of the sort, but that's the simplistic conclusion the three of you jumped to.

 

[Johnny Vodka]

I've not said that there is a universal meaning.

You quoted a post of mine. Sometimes sex is more than just about sex, but other times you could reduce it to little more than scratching a biological itch.

 

[Santino]

You quoted a post of mine. Sometimes sex is more than just about sex, but other times you could reduce it to little more than scratch I ng a biological itch.

A scratching and an itch that always has a special value in human society.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I've said nothing.

edited for sense

 

[andysays]

I've said nothing of the sort, but that's the simplistic conclusion the three of you jumped to.

It's direct quote from the post I was responding to:

...At the very least, laws about sex must take into account the particular meaning that sex has in society, and not attempt to treat it like another economic transaction or a leisure activity.

Clearly pointless to engage with you any further

 

[littlebabyjesus]

It's direct quote from the post I was responding to:

Yes, quite.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Clearly pointless to engage with you any further

And this.

 

[Santino]

It's direct quote from the post I was responding to:


Clearly pointless to engage with you any further

I didn't say everyone agrees with the meaning, or that anyone should agree with anything. I am deliberately making no value claims at all.

 

[Johnny Vodka]

A scratching and an itch that always has a special value in human society.

At its most basic, it's a biological urge akin to needing to eat, piss or shit, only of no significance to your immediate survival. Some humans might attach a 'spiritual' dimension to it, or maybe we became more aware of the consequences (babies), but ultimately there needn't be any more significance to two humans having sex than there is two horses having sex.

 

[Yossarian]

How did a thread about men calling themselves feminists become a thread full of men discussing female sex workers?

 

[Santino]

At its most basic, it's a biological urge akin to needing to eat, piss or shit, only of no significance to your immediate survival. Some humans might attach a 'spiritual' dimension to it, or maybe we became more aware of the consequences (babies), but ultimately there needn't be any more significance to two humans having sex than there is two horses having sex.

And yet human society stubbornly refuses to see it your way.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

How did a thread about men calling themselves feminists become a thread full of men discussing female sex workers?

The thread's been going for two weeks, tbf. It's going to contain digressions.

And it's a subject that divides opinion, so it's bound to cause contention once it's brought up.