“We are all part of the same revolutionary subject:” The necessity of organizing our comrades in the sex industry
In the nearly 2 years since I published my analysis of the sex trade as someone inside of it, there has been a wide array of reactions. Perhaps naively, I did not realize the world I was stepping into. While many have understood my piece in different ways, some have taken it to mean that I am against organizing our sisters, brothers, and siblings in the sex trade. Even worse, since publishing my piece, I have seen parallel analyses that attempt to develop a Marxist critique of the sex trade but which fall into reaction by denying the revolutionary potential of those within the sex trade. For that reason, I’ve decided it is necessary to clarify my thoughts on this.
First and foremost, for me to deny the revolutionary potential of those currently in the sex trade would be to negate my entire history as a trans woman who, through reflecting on the violence I incurred in prostitution, came to my current position as a revolutionary socialist. I would still be a liberal, sex trade expansionary feminist if I did not experience the reality of prostitution as a proletarian trans woman. It is precisely because of my revolutionary potential that I have arrived at this position.
Secondly, to ignore the importance of organizing proletarians currently in the sex trade, by dismissing them as “lumpen,” is to apply a mechanical analysis that fails to account for the breadth and depth that would be required of any socialist organizing in our current times. While the term “lumpen-proletariat” describes the class position of many in the sex trade, using it as a pejorative and not an analytical category is to fall into a kind of petty-bourgeois chauvinism that looks down condescendingly on those forced to take to the streets to survive. Like one friend from the podcast “On Mass” reminds me, people seemingly forget the “proletariat” after “lumpen” and fail to acknowledge that they too are a part of the proletariat.
As Comrade Ajith so beautifully stated, “it is the duty of a vanguard to unite the masses to bring together all streams of opposition into a mighty torrent.” Those in the sex industry are a part of the masses and must be organized and united into that “mighty torrent.” Given that the sex industry is expanding due to the protracted economic crisis initiated in ’08, and deepened in severity with the COVID-19 crisis, to ignore the necessity of organizing this ever-expanding group is to ignore the material conditions of our time.
If you understand why the fight against the sex trade is important — chiefly because it is a fight against the commodification of human bodies and sexuality — then it is inconceivable that you would not understand the necessity of organizing those currently exploited within the sex trade.
On revolutionary potential
Proletarians in the sex trade do not have “less revolutionary potential” than the rest of our class. Like the PMC stated, “we are part of the same revolutionary subject.” However, it is essential to understand that when we don’t organize them, the bourgeoisie does.
This is why the pimp lobby, representing the interests of the exploiting class in the sex trade, funds NGO’s worldwide to organize proletarians and petty bourgeoisie in the sex trade to support their neoliberal agenda of sex trade expansion and liberalization. To combat this we have to organize them as comrades to develop unity in struggle against our common enemy.
An example of this chauvinist and incorrect line is expressed in an old piece in The Bellows by Leila Mechoui, who argues that “sex workers cannot improve the world” because they cannot “deal a lasting blow against capitalist social relations.” She argues that because they cannot organize through work stoppages that any collective action they take can be compared to that of a rent strike, which Mechoui argues is ultimately ineffective.
While Mechoui is correct in arguing that “sex work provides a convenient release valve for governments to funnel unemployment and poverty, further enabling states to shed their responsibilities,” her analysis leaves us at a stalemate in terms of any organizing of women in the sex trade to improve their conditions, develop class consciousness, and join the fight for socialism.
As The Black Internationalist reminds us, Mao argued that with proper guidance from the industrial proletariat, the lumpen-proletariat also had the potential to be a revolutionary force in China. And, as they remind us in their excellent video on the lumpen-proletariat, Mao’s analysis of the lumpen was far more nuanced than that of Marx and Engels. While he acknowledged that the lumpen have a tendency to be disruptive due to their material conditions (surely all of us who have been in the sex trade or in gangs can understand this), he stated clearly that they are “brave fighters” and despite being “apt to be destructive” that surely “they can become a revolutionary force if given proper guidance.”
The socialist left in the imperialist core countries has utterly failed to mount a real challenge to capitalism. Not only have we failed to have a successful revolution, but, as the recent inter-imperialist conflict in Ukraine has shown, we have failed to even have a successful anti-war movement. Perhaps, part of this failure is our inability to understand and organize the ever-growing class of lumpen-proletariat in the imperialist core countries which are mostly comprised of internal colonies (Black and Indigenous peoples).
Further, I would argue that part of the reason the contradiction between abolition feminists and those currently in the sex trade has become so antagonistic is that the former has refused or failed to organize the latter, leaving them to be organized by class-collaborationist fronts who seek to fuse the interests of the exploiting class with the interests of the exploited class in the sex industry.
Given that it is highly unlikely such groups will abandon their advocacy and lobbying strategies, and given that the movement to decriminalize pimps and johns is in the last instance concerned with the advancement of the beneficiaries of the sex industry over those entrapped within it, the necessity of socialist organizing in this sector has been laid bare. If the socialist left rectifies their errors in both abandoning their political line on the sex trade, and in failing to organize those trapped within it, then a truly anti-imperialist, socialist front against sexual violence and those who profit from such violence can emerge.
On the mass line
It is necessary to reject the economistic approaches that see struggles for those in prostitution as mere ones that attempt to make some small improvements here and there, through a traditional labor union model that is unable to be applied effectively to the sex trade given its unique conditions. It is also necessary to reject the commandist, top-down approaches that make their policy without any social investigation into the current needs of those in prostitution. So what is left? The necessity of a mass line approach.
Since publishing my initial essay, I’ve had several women in the sex trade reach out to me to let me know that they appreciated this analysis or largely agree with it. People in the sex trade are not stupid, they know what they’re going through. But they also know that they are not merely passive objects being acted upon. They know their revolutionary potential, they know their potential to be militant fighters in the struggle for a new and better world. And they also know when they are being placated or taken advantage of.
The lack of real, genuine organizing of people in the sex industry, beyond sporadic think pieces, has created a scenario where “hot takes” against the sex industry on social media come off incredibly condescending and fake. They are not wrong for feeling this way. If you are not willing to roll up your sleeves and put your boots on the ground to organize with them, then you shouldn’t be talking about them on social media as if you are some expert. The mass line, as I understand it, means being embedded within the community and not analyzing it from outside.
However, a mass line approach does not mean simply listening to the loudest voices on the internet. And, it also does not simply mean listening to those with the privilege to enter and exit as they please, and for those with the privilege of mental capacity to be on Twitter. In fact, so many survivors (such as myself) have stated that due to both post-traumatic shock and our economic interests being dependent on sex buyers and pimps that we were not able to speak out then as we are now.
It is, therefore, necessary to remember that any organizing project must start with a class analysis. For example, when the communists in India approached organizing the peasants, their strategy was as follows.
“There are mainly four classes among the peasants — rich, middle, poor and landless — and there is the rural artisan class. There are differences in their revolutionary consciousness and ability to work according to the conditions.”
Similarly, the class analysis of those in prostitution must also be divided. There are rich (those who are praised for being the “highest-paid legal sex workers”), upper-middle (like those who dabble in the sex industry as a political project or adventurist experiment and those who maintain the ability to enter and exit as they please), middle (those who make enough money for stable housing and other necessities), and the poor and homeless. The current movement organized by the imperialists is led mostly by petty-bourgeois and middle elements with some poor and homeless tokens. The petty-bourgeois narratives are the ones that currently dominate the discourse, and are most active on social media, framing the sex trade through narratives of “independence” and meritocratic advancement mirroring the language of liberal individualism and the American dream.
The socialist organization should seek to organize the poor and homeless to take leadership out of the hands of the imperialists and their petty-bourgeois and middle leadership, as they are the segment that has the most anger against buyers, police, and pimps, they will increase the level of militancy, and they can speak most clearly to why the sex trade is exploitation.
Furthermore, there is a necessity to understand the level of ideological development and class consciousness among those in the sex trade. As Mao stated,
“The masses in any given place are generally composed of three parts, the relatively active, the intermediate and the relatively backward. The leaders must therefore be skilled in uniting the small number of active elements around the leadership and must rely on them to raise the level of the intermediate element and to win over the backward elements.”
This strategy requires not looking at every person in the sex trade as equal or as equally exploited subjects but instead approaching them as an organizer to identify who among them is the advanced, the intermediary, and the backward along with an assertion that the poor in the sex trade must lead the fight, not simply against the state, but also against the pimps and exploiters.
New Consciousness
The new wave of activists coming out of the sex trade is actually a good thing. To have different sectors of society become increasingly conscious of their situation, of state violence and repression, is a good thing. What is necessary is to make them aware of the root cause of the violence and coercion in the sex trade and to develop an understanding that their problems can only be addressed when the ruling class is overthrown. This does not happen through arbitrarily decriminalizing different types of sexual violence (such as pimping or domestic violence) following some anarchist pipe dream, but through proletarian revolution.
We should therefore embrace those in the sex trade who are becoming aware of their dire situation and who are wanting to become active and militant fighters to change it. We should organize and agitate them, ensuring that they have a political home in our movement and mass organizations. And we should reject those who look down upon the “lumpen,” those who use class categories like “lumpen” as a pejorative to dismiss them. And, we should seek to directly organize them in order to prevent the bourgeoisie from doing so, lest we continue retreating from this issue which would further solidify bourgeois reaction among this group of potential revolutionary fighters.
