>>6470I saw this comment on r/communism101 years ago and it stuck with me.
“ For the millionth time: You don't get to jerk off to filmed rape under socialism.
Every socialist state that ever existed has banned porn.
Yes, porn is coercive as every form of wage labor is. But it is not just any wage labor, but labor involved in the social production of art - in this case reactionary art.
Why is it reactionary? Its ideological content is. It objectifies - or more precisely, commodifies (primarily female) bodies. It dehumanizes women. It is the reason why you have white people going around fetishizing Asian women.
Porn fits into the capitalist superstructure which reproduces the institutions of patriarchy, and by extension, of capitalism itself. It has no place in a socialist society. The suppression of pornography then isn't simply the suppression of commodity production, it would be similar to the suppression of any other reactionary cultural product (music, films, etc…).
Now for the infamous FAQs:
"But what if I film me and my girlfriend having sex with the consent of both parties?"
First of all, if you have to ask that, your girlfriend is most likely imaginary. I don't know about white amerikans, but in my part of the world, nobody does that. Uploading sex tapes is considered a form of humiliation, and thus it's a punishable crime. People have committed suicide over this. No one who has healthy relationships would ask their girlfriend: "Hey can I upload a video of us having sex?"
Secondly, the question makes no sense. It's like saying "not all white people are racist". You are talking about a social phenomenon with a systemic role that only exists in relation to a set of conditions, individualizing it only obscures the point. Porn isn't just "capturing two people having sex", that's ahistorical view which abstracts away from all social context. If that's porn, ancient paintings of people having sex would be porn, and if that's the case "porn" would be meaningless as a category of analysis. Pornography presupposes the capitalist mode of production, the productive forces developed to a sufficient level so this phenomenon can even take place in the first place (the means to circulate these videos like the internet or other distribution channels, the filming equipment), patriarchy, etc…
Let me give you an example: Money is only money in relation to commodity production as the universal equivalent. On a desert island it would just be useless pieces of paper. Porn is no different. It is a social phenomenon that only exists in relation to the larger capitalist-patriarchal superstructure. If you film you and your girlfriend having sex on a desert island, yeah sure, then it's "consensual", and it's not even "porn" anymore. But you don't live on a desert island. You live in a society where all of the conditions I mentioned exist. The "amateur sex tapes" you upload in a capitalist society will inevitably conforms to logic of profitability that predominates a capitalist society - which is why, as someone has mentioned below, "amateur sex tapes" are commodified, and thus aren't even really "amateur" (This is the reality no matter how the internet in the neoliberal era has masked it as "liberating" since "everyone's a content producer"). And once you've accepted that, its' not hard to see why there's no such thing as "non-patriarchal" porn: Commodities have a use-value: in order to be sold, they have to be socially necessary. If you're uploading "amateur sex tapes" in a society where people who consume those tapes are people who consume "professional porn", the your tapes will have to mirror "professional porn" in its ideological content. Meaning, all those elements of objectification and fetishization remain. Your "amateur" sex tapes necessarily conform to the larger cultural logic of capitalism, and thus , they fit into that larger reactionary ideological superstructure. In other words, in the grand scheme of things, the distinction between "amateur" and "professional" porn is meaningless, and so are your individual motives.
Finally, you have a nonsensical view of consent. In the same way that wage labor isn't truly "consensual", those who "consented" to filming amateur porn faces the systemic pressures of capitalist-patriarchy.
"What if people still want to film themselves having sex under communism?"
We have established that porn is a social phenomenon, an industry under capitalism. Would there still be isolated cases of people filming themselves having sex under socialism that is separated from the logic of commodity production? Maybe. But considering that this has never happened in any socialist society up to this point, why do you insist on asking this question? Fantasies are not real, but they have very real implications about the worldview of those who came up with them. So why do petit-bourgeois Western men find it impossible to envision a "liberating society" without the existence of sex tapes? The answer I think, is quite obvious.”