Why you will not have porn in socialism

This is a topic that to this day produces very long conversations and debates between communists. In my opinion, those who support the production, spread and consumption of pornography or related sex markets (prostitution, drawn content, written content…) have not researched the topic enough and don’t fully grasp the ramifications. There also seems to be a very defensive reaction from the start when this topic is brought up — whereas many comrades understand the problems of playing video games for hours on end and support China in their actions against deceptive practices, they somehow do not understand the same mechanisms as they apply in pornography. I hope to address that comprehensively and respectfully.

For readability this is formatted in a FAQ format using questions and concerns that I often see repeated.

What is pornography?

Pornography is media produced entirely for the purpose of instant, sexual (self) gratification. It is different from eroticism or simply the naked human body. The distinction has existed for decades and we all understand it to some level; that’s why diagrams of the human body in medical textbooks don’t arouse anyone and people can look at them without wanting to rub one off. We seek out porn specifically for that purpose. We look for medical diagrams for the purpose of learning anatomy.

How long has pornography existed?

For the purposes of this essay we are concerned about pornography as it exists in capitalism, and how it will dialectically transform in socialism and then communism. Pornography is the commodification of not only the human body, but human sexuality as well. So is prostitution. It is making readily available what was once kept intimate between a few people. This state of affairs has not existed in prior times. Fertility statuettes from the Bronze age, which some people claim was a form of pornography, are likely not. It does not matter if someone once masturbated over such a statuette (that says more about them than anything), what matters is why it was made. Thus pornography did not exist until very recently.

Pornography has become widely available in the 1920s due to production processes that made it easier to copy and spread. It has only existed since the 19th century as an industry made explicitely for that purpose.

How long has prostitution existed?

It is very likely prostitution has only existed since class society. Thus pornography and prostitution have not been “part of humanity forever” (a metaphysical outlook that I often see).

Prostitution is the sale of sexual services in exchange for something else — commonly money, but it can also be gifts, a contract… in capitalism, this sale happens at the individual level as a job, and not as a one-off thing.

There is no possibility then for prostitution to have existed prior to class society. The monogamous family is only a speck of dust on the timeline of human history. The first families, the first social ties that imply sexual ties, were the consanguine family (Engels, Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State). There all people from a generation formed a family. “All the grandfathers and grandmothers within the limits of the family are all husbands and wives of one another”, Engels notes. Sex was freely given between members of a community, and freely received. There was no possession of one person over another in this arrangement. There was nothing you could give to another member of the tribe that they did not have or want (in this proto-communist state, all means of production were put in common and personal property was very limited due to long production processes. Houses would usually fit the whole family in one room). Thus there would be no material basis for prostitution to exist, especially as an institution.

Why do you want your values projected on everyone else?

An accusation that comes often is that the anti-porn and anti-prostitution comrades are just moralising; we have, it seems, latent Christian morals still left in us that we should address.

This argument is dishonest because it shuts down any further discussion (one can just call us moralists every time we make a point) and compares us to missionaries, which we are not — missionaries are a reactionary force. There are marxist arguments to banning porn and prostitution, which we’ll get into. There is also precedent for it: in video games, as we saw, and in all AES countries in history that have banned both porn and prostitution. There is not in fact one single AES country that did not ban both.

This has nothing to do with morals and everything to do with a scientific analysis of both markets as they exist in capitalism and the effects they have on human beings (consumers as well as the trafficked providers, the workers). We will mostly focus on the providers here because we should not care that a consumer is sad they can’t get access to a trafficked woman’s body any more. But with regards to pornography consumption, there are very well-documented effects that happen in the brain which we will briefly mention.

Why do you not say sex work ?

In my opinion, sex work is a mainly liberal term that tries to justify all these oppressive structures by lumping them into the same basket. The onlyfans petit bourgeois woman making bank every month off her own videos (where she doesn’t have to have someone else with her) is not the reality of most prostitutes, who are trafficked by groomers.

Prostitution is different from acting in pornographic movies and should not be made to look the same. This is a dialectical materialist understanding of the sex trade today.

Some actors and prostitutes enjoy their work

I don’t care what the labour aristocracy or petit bourgeois producer likes. Sure they make more money doing this than working a job. The drug dealer enjoys growing weed and selling it, that hasn’t stopped the DPRK, China or Vietnam from outlawing weed and it shouldn’t stop us from outlawing prostitution.

It is a liberal argument to say that people should be free to do (almost) anything they want; it is directly lifted from liberal thinkers (my freedom ends where yours begin comes to mind). Thus it is worth examining before declaring if it’s wrong or right for a communist to think the same as liberals. A careful analysis of the sex trade today shows that there is and can be nothing worth salvaging in it.

The labour aristocracy of the sex trade, that exploded especially on onlyfans, is obviously going to like the status quo. They make money off it. This is nothing new; it is the petit bourgeois mindset that we see with anyone for whom the system works (= makes money for them). We are concerned about the liberation of the proletariat, which prostitution is not, and accordingly look at proletarian porn actors and prostitutes.

What’s the problem then with porn and prostitution?

Human trafficking is the first problem. Most people working in these industries are trafficked.

In porn, actresses are often lured in under false pretences, for example applying for a bikini calendar and once they get there (usually in Florida), it turns out to be a porn movie. They spent money getting there and need to go back home. The industry preys on mostly desperate, but above all poor women to trick them into participating in something else than they imagined. You know those interviews sometimes at the beginning or end of a porn movie? They are often scripted and it’s stipulated in the contract that they have to look happy in it. They are not told what is going to be in the scene, and many female actors report being abused by the male star (boundaries are not discussed, he is being forceful for the camera…) Most actors leave the industry feeling used and abused (not helped by the widespread use of drugs to self-medicate) and never wish to go back in it. Most leave after less than one year.

Prostitution is the main driver of human trafficking in the world. If you live in the imperial core, you might mostly see the labour aristocracy of the prostitution world (though they do not represent most prostitutes; in Germany for example, most prostitutes are by large foreigners from Bulgaria or Romania). But in the Philippines for example, prostitution was an industry brought in by American GIs stationed there. They had money that the locals did not have, and to get some of that money the locals had only one choice: accept whatever demands the foreigners made of them. The imperialized periphery is where you will find the bulk of prostitutes today, who are exploited by fetishising foreigners and alienated locals. Even in the imperial core, you will see trafficked human beings prostituted. Pimps still exist, and are not romantic Romeos offering you a life of comfort. If you don’t bring in money, they beat you up. If you try to leave, they beat you up. If you refuse a client, they beat you up. You are a commodity to them, the most raw kind of commodity as you are not exploited for your labour-power but your body itself. They groom you at a young age (often starts around 15), they select you because you ran away from home; you need money and have no support system in place.

The prostitute is always in struggle with her client: she wants to do less for more money, and he wants her to do more for less.

The class analysis of both points us back to the patriarchy. Both acts are of proletarian men buying the bodies of proletarian women. It turns us against each other and justifies inner-class exploitation. We develop a false consciousness where we start associating with the bourgeois men (that also buy proletarian women) rather than our own class.

But they agree to do this, right?

(This is thankfully something almost all comrades understand is not the case in capitalism, but I must address for this essay)

There is simply no consent under these conditions. The actress did not give her consent for you specifically to ogle her or for her male counterpart to abuse her. The prostitute is unable not to give consent, because her pay depends on her performing acts. The act of paying for such a service is something in itself entirely; it is essentially bypassing all social norms about consent, about rapport, about flirting and interest. Just present money and buy someone for however long. It is the ultimate form of exploitation, one that is immediate and predicated on power that surpasses class, the power of money. Thus it creates false consciousness in proletarian men.

Yes, they might say no at first. Most prostitutes, as I understand it, have a price list. These are prices that can be negotiated however and clients know that. How can someone say no when she is at your home, naked and vulnerable, and you suddenly want to pay less? Many are drugged by their clients. Almost all prostitutes working in the streets have such a story to tell. There are no STD checks in place — how could there be?

What if it was legalised, that would cut exploitation?

If you know how difficult it is to get your labour rights respected by your employer, imagine how much more difficult it must be when your industry exists on your trafficking.

Pornography is already very legal in the United States and we see that the actresses are still trafficked. Thus we can conclude legality does not protect workers in this trade in capitalism.

In places where prostitution is legal, like in Germany, many women opt not to work legally. A small part of it is the tax benefits of not declaring this income. The bigger part is that usually, laws are backwards and don’t protect the workers. Solving a problem is not as simple as making it illegal, which is why it requires an exhaustive, comprehensive solution made with the material reality of the workers in mind.

Taking the hypothetical socialist scenario, making prostitution legal in a framework would require that pimps and managers are illegal, as they would be profitting off the exploitation of labour— the women they traffick. But this alone is not going to stop men from grooming young women to traffick. There will always be someone offering cheaper services, thus brothels will never have a monopoly and thus not all prostitutes can be protected.

Thus the socialist state needs a program as described above, and one that moves women away from this type of work. Much like we marxist-leninists don’t advocate for welfare capitalism, it is the only way to prevent exploitation at this level.

Revolutionary liberation is not allowing people to perform whatever work they might want to do in order to become petit bourgeois. Revolutionary liberation is giving every proletariat an equal part in this dictatorship of the proletariat towards achieving communism. Prostitution, as it pits proletarian men against proletarian women, is not liberating.

What would sexuality look like under socialism?

A common argument made against us is that we are simply anti-sex (echoing back to the Puritan moraliser argument earlier).

I am not anti-sex. Have all the sex you want and do what you want with consenting adults that understand what they are doing. Be respectful and safe. Don’t push their boundaries, make your own boundaries clear, and make sure everyone has a good time. In fact, proponents of sex work in this context often seem to conflate prostitution and pornography with sex. They are not the same, and many people (maybe you included!) that have access to sex in the above conditions also consume pornography regularly or hire the services of prostitutes. These products are not a replacement for sex and we don’t consume them for this purpose, otherwise people with an SO would not be consuming porn.

German women in the DDR had better sex than their BRD counterparts, and the sex trade was banned in the former. Why did that happen?

The socialist transformation that took place led to more equal relations between men and women. They didn’t have to settle for anyone as they could make it on their own, and without porn to warp their expectations of what a human being should look like or act like, they had more genuine relationships.

The common route for a young person growing up today with the internet is to discover porn at an early age (it’s not difficult, it’s everywhere on the internet) and watch it because of the taboo factor— Billie Eilish recently opened up about discovering porn at age 11, for example. I remember my internet provider, on their own public website (sort of a yahoo of its time), had an “erotic” section with pictures of naked people on the sidebar. This website was our default starting page on the family’s computer. It’s everywhere, and it’s generally agreed upon that all men will watch porn, and those that deny it just don’t want to admit it (whereas in reality, it’s not as widespread as one might think). It’s become a common part of our lives, so much so that we have difficulty imagining our lives without it. But for most of human history, pornography did not exist.

This warped fantasy of what sex should be like often leads young men to abusing their partner later, where both might not even realise what was happening at the time. Men demand things from their girlfriend that they want to say no to, but might still agree to (due to thinking it is normal, because porn even affects people that don’t watch it, or not knowing how to make their boundaries clear), to fulfill a fantasy that would not exist if it were not for porn.

In socialism, our social relations would be different due to different material conditions. Thus it’s very likely that people will naturally turn away from consuming pornography and hiring the services of prostitutes. This does not mean we need to let it happen naturally and not interfere. If we did, we could apply the same argument to the revolution and not fight for a dictatorship of the proletariat as it would naturally happen eventually under that logic. Thus we would find, most likely, a situation similar as in the DDR.

What if we just cut down on it then, instead of entirely banning it? Make it more difficult to access

This is in effect banning it, albeit less strictly. Yet as we saw the relations of productions that exist will not cease to exist as soon as the revolution is proclaimed.

Nobody chooses to become a prostitute or porn actor. Choosing implies you had other options to pick from. The few that do it, do it under false pretenses — especially in the porn industry. They think it’s one way of becoming famous and possibly rich. The dark underbelly of the trade is hidden from them until it has its claws dug deep.

What’s the problem with fictional media like stories, audio or hentai?

Fictional media has the advantage of not exploiting real human beings in the content portrayed (the exploitation can only happen at the production level, such as authors writing under contract).

However, perhaps because of this fictional setting, that is usually in this type of media that you will see the most repulsive things happen (one of the most popular tag on one of the biggest hentai scans website is “lolicon”— characters clearly meant to look like prebuscent children — with 80 thousand entries in it). There are worries that it can normalise this content to people, and thus give them an impulsion to seek it out in real life. At the very least, desensitisation is a well-documented phenomenon. It can also make these practices more accepted, and again create false expectations of what a human being should be like.

There is also now pornographical audio material, with a big community right on Reddit, that has actors act out fantasies and stories in a simple sound file.

The problem with acting out fantasies by oneself (that are not lolicon, let’s be clear that it is pedophilia and is a discussion that has its place in a courtroom and not in an essay) is exactly that you are by yourself. In a consenting environment with another person, they will have boundaries and other expectations they will want you to integrate. No doing this, no doing that… in a setting such as being by yourself listening to or reading a fictional story that was entirely crafted by an author (and thus its characters and situations are entirely controlled by the author), there are no boundaries. Anything goes, the only limit is the author’s imagination. This is a one-sided situation that has nothing in common with a typical sexual setting, where the inclusion of another person makes it an exchange and not a situation.

If socialism is for the workers and there is no profit motive, then it will not be exploitative

I want to say first of all that in the event of a fully nationalised socialist state (like in the USSR or East Germany), the role of that state will not be to bring you all that you desire under the name of liberty and freedom of choice. This is liberal thinking. The first directive of the socialist state is to ensure a path towards communism and establish a dictatorship of the proletariat. There can be no dictatorship of the proletariat while inter- and inner-class exploitation exist.

This might be the only moralising argument I make if you want to take it as such, but it is gross to think that the socialist government’s job will be to procure you with state-owned porn and brothels in this situation.

In the event of a socialist development closer to that of China or Cuba, where private property is reintroduced in some way, we are back to the exploitation of the surplus value (a known contradiction that is for another essay). Thus in that setting, all that I have written above would still apply in that stage of socialism as it does in capitalism.

However, without the profit motive, can we say that many people would want this kind of job? We have to examine why people turn to this kind of work. For pornography, we see that people often chase fame under false pretenses and imagine pornography makes a lot of money.

For fictional media, we see that producers often have a skillful hobby and want to make money off it — either as a freelance (a petit bourgeois but understandable sentiment), or as a side job to make ends meet (a failure of capitalism).

For prostitution, it is often deep, desperate poverty that leads one to start when the “opportunity” comes knocking at the door. Often, that opportunity is disguised as something else — a job in town, a one-time magazine photoshoot. But pimps know what they’re doing, they are groomers. They will not let their victims run away so easily. Women that turn to prostitution by themselves as a side job do it to make ends meet and describe the same scenario as the independent fictional media creator.

In all cases, as we have seen, removing the profit motive does not remove the underlying contradictions of prostitution, its material base that gives rise to it and the effects on the trafficked prostitutes and the consumers of pornography.

I also often hear that some people, though it is never specified who, might enjoy filming themselves (in an amateur, home movie shot on your cellphone way) and posting it online.

To be honest, I seriously do not believe that there are enough people who wish to record themselves in action and upload it for the world to see to still qualify pornography as an industry, and thus warrant the existence of dedicated media (websites, magazines, TV channels, etc.) Secondly, it is a misunderstanding of the role of the socialist government to think it must provide everyone with whatever they desire. This is the illusion of choice; we have grown up thinking that more choice is always better and is progress by itself. As all communists know, a trip to any grocery store will shatter that illusion. Providing people with a choice when that choice is exploitative is not liberating or advisable, it is liberalism.

But banning something doesn’t make it disappear, people will still find it

Absolutely. In the DDR for example there were bootleg porn magazines (some of which are still preserved). Today with VPNs, anyone can bypass a firewall and access whatever they want. It does cut down on access however and is only the first step in a long string of reforms. It also gives a legal framework for further action. If you are a prostitute for example, you can be enrolled in programs and taken out of the profession. This would be a penalty, legally speaking (you broke the law and this is the consequence), but we see that it excludes penalties such as fines or jail time.

If we ban porn then what’s next, banning alcohol because it’s dangerous too?

Alcohol is alcohol, and porn is porn. The two are not the same and dialectically must be analysed as their own thing.

For a counter-argument, should we then allow everything because people can individually choose what they want to do? Let people do meth and heroin all they want, start selling anabolic steroids in fitness stores, stop prescription medication and make it all freely available in pharmacies, then not try to curb any of that because they made the decision and know what’s best for themselves?

I consume porn and I feel you’re targetting me

I’ve actually never heard this one but I think this is one of the reasons so many people are reluctant to be anti-porn communists.

We do not blame problems on the individual. You and I both wouldn’t tell a worker addicted to heroin that it’s their fault they fell into drugs and they’re on their own because it’s their individual problem. We understand the societal structure that leads to people consuming porn or drugs.

We are not admonishing you if you consume porn or even went to prostitutes in the past (all marxist-leninists I’ve met understand that prostitution under capitalism is exploitative and I have never had anyone admit they visit prostitutes, so I assume in good faith that they do not).

If you feel like you need pornography to be happy or simply to function (a good test is to stop consuming and see how long you can go on), then underlying problems might be at play. Porn addiction is well-documented. If it prevents you from doing other activities, if you would rather be at home watching porn, if you feel you can stop at any time but just choose not to, then you might be addicted to pornography.

What’s your solution then? If you ban it, what then?

In the Philippines, which we mentioned earlier, ex-prostitute groups and unions work towards finding solutions for others to quit this job. They have set up funds to financially help ex-colleagues while they find a new job or train new skills and they routinely reach out and visit them to engage and talk to them. One such group is the Bagong Kamalayan Collective Inc.

In conjunction with similar state programmes to reach out to these workers and find solutions for them to quit this line of work, we would have to offer compensations — free homes, unemployment benefits at least equal to their previous wage, and incentives to learn job skills or attend college for those who do not have a degree or cannot find employment with it (incentives that would not necessarily simply be money benefits, but in general programmes to encourage further education). This is also part of what the group in the Philippines does, albeit with much less means than a government would have.

This is first and foremost poverty allievation, because poverty is what drives people to prostitution.

It is not my place to give an exhaustive step-by-step plan, as I do not presume to know what’s best for everyone everywhere. I live under capitalism and can only analyse the current material conditions.

For further reading, I would like to direct readers to Proletarian Feminist’s incredible article on prostitution here: https://proletarianfeminist.medium.com/a-socialist-feminist-and-transgender-analysis-of-sex-work-b08aaf1ee4ab