The real irony here is that the author imagines that she poses a
significant threat to the patriarchy. I hate to break it to the author,
but the author is serving and utterly re-inscribing the power of the
patriarchy with every exchange of her sexual labor for money. The
patriarchy is based on a power differential in which one party, women,
are the underclass, those without, those who come second and the ones
who serve. In this exchange, you are entering the commodity relation as
the weaker party, the party who needs money, the one who must sell her
sexual labor as a commodity. Don't forget that is is the patriarchy that
has the power and the money to "command" your labor as such. Any worker
can imagine that their sale of the labor commodity "empowers" them. But
the objective conditions are otherwise. Objectively, there is no parity
between you and the patriarchy that employs you. You are the one in
need of money; the sex industry is the one with the money. You are the
one who must work; the sex industry is the one who profits from your
labor by selling the surplus value extracted at the point of labor, your
labor. You are paid a fixed wage, I would imagine, while the sex
industry reaps profit for doing nothing.
You can believe what you want to believe; but your belief is actually false consciousness. You're being exploited just like every other worker, and in this case, in a much more intimate way. Your body is literally becoming the spectacle of the commodity, a commodity that obscures the real social relations between people, the people who made it. Your sexual spectacle is being erected to dazzle others with a false sense of participation in an act from which they are ultimately alienated, objectively.
This is not a moral judgment. It is an economic and social analysis. In the end, you are a worker, a laborer, the one exploited. The sex industry, the emblem of the patriarchy, is the one profiting from your work. I don't feel sorry for you. I just think that you are seeing life as if through a camera obscura: upside-down and inside-out.
You can believe what you want to believe; but your belief is actually false consciousness. You're being exploited just like every other worker, and in this case, in a much more intimate way. Your body is literally becoming the spectacle of the commodity, a commodity that obscures the real social relations between people, the people who made it. Your sexual spectacle is being erected to dazzle others with a false sense of participation in an act from which they are ultimately alienated, objectively.
This is not a moral judgment. It is an economic and social analysis. In the end, you are a worker, a laborer, the one exploited. The sex industry, the emblem of the patriarchy, is the one profiting from your work. I don't feel sorry for you. I just think that you are seeing life as if through a camera obscura: upside-down and inside-out.
