The “Sexual Revolution:” An Unwitting Instrument of Capitalist Counterrevolution’s Devastating Public Health Legacy

The so-called “sexual revolution” that began in the 1960s and 1970s, hailed by bourgeois liberals and postmodern academics as a triumph of individual liberation and progressive reform, also became bound up with deeply reactionary phenomenon. From advancing the cause of human emancipation, it became a critical component of the broader social counterrevolution orchestrated by the ruling classes to undermine the potential of the working class. This pseudo-liberation, rooted to a notable extent in the decay of capitalist society, has contributed directly to profound negative impacts on public health, including the explosive proliferation of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), mental health crises, and the commodification of human relationships under the guise of “freedom.”

The “Sexual Revolution:” An Unwitting Instrument of Capitalist Counterrevolution’s Devastating Public Health Legacy

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Trotskyism

Communism vs. Feminism

Porn, Feminism & the Meese Report

Feminist theory is not just flawed thinking; it is the product of a middle-class view of the world. In the prosperity of the 1960s, radical feminism was marked by its extreme utopian nature. Demands like “smash sexism” and “abolish the family” abounded—with absolutely no program that could win them. Since feminists rejected Marxism and with it the one class that actually has the power to revolutionize society, their utopian maximalist rhetoric dissolved inevitably into the most pragmatic minimalism. In fact, because the reformist strategies of the ’60s—above all the overwhelming support of feminists for the Democratic Party—failed to bear ample fruit, a fertile ground for cynicism was laid. The root of the current feminist support for the thoroughly capitulatory Dworkin is the cynicism born of defeat.

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A Socialist, Feminist, and Transgender Analysis of “Sex Work” (2020)

The question of women’s liberation is central to any revolutionary project, and thus so is the question of “sex work.” Esperanza Fonseca’s contribution, although coming from a Maoist political orientation with which we often have differences, [1] makes the stakes of this debate crystal clear, as she combines personal experience, public policy research, and historical materialism to argue that Marxists cannot uphold what she calls “sex-trade-expansionary feminism.”

Content Warning: Descriptions of rape.

The right of the subordinated classes of men to buy access to women’s bodies has been used historically to break class solidarity in order to maintain the dominant social relations of the time. This was true in feudal Europe and remains true today: when proletarian and petit bourgeois men get to buy women too, they develop a false consciousness and build solidarity with bourgeois men of their own gender rather than aligning with women of their own class. And because the overthrow of capitalism is only possible by the overthrowing of the bourgeoisie, prostitution serves two great purposes: (1) allows bourgeois men access to a reserve army of women for their pleasure, and (2) prevent class consciousness and thus helps stop the proletariat from organizing as a class.

A Socialist, Feminist, and Transgender Analysis of “Sex Work” (2020)