Feminism is not a single entity. Some feminists love to be all-inclusive, to include men, to include destructive lifestyles, all in the favour of being a progressive movement. Some interests of men do overlap with the majority of liberal values because they are human, not because they are men. I think the true value and purpose of feminism has broadened and diluted itself to the point where its original direction has been reinterpreted and stopped. The ones who reinterpret it assume that the original goal of a once-small movement have been achieved and have become mainstream, and in order to sit at the top of other ideas it needs to be a people-pleaser.
Today I am not talking about feminism, but rather one idea that mainstream or liberal feminists bravely like to defend: sex work. Something that is conceived as a norm and not questioned, although a lot of people who never question sex work end up questioning the morality of young single mothers and overlap notions of equality of gender and equality of role. Single parents oftentimes find themselves in need to claim benefits, regardless of gender. Selfish people like to look down on single parents from a moral perspective “they’re claiming my tax money” or “they are sexually promiscuous” but would jump on the feminist bandwagon when it comes to their pornographic supply or their access to paid sex.
They’ll only support women being sexually active if it is servitude. Not if women could take responsibility of the consequences. Once women claim their own fate away from men, then it’s no longer trendy to support the woman. Paradoxically, they acknowledge that parenting is a full-time job as a housewife to some man, but snicker at single mums who want to take time off.
Similarly, other interests of conservative men that come at a cost to women are protected by liberal feminism. Promoting sex work, even making it online accessible for students and young women to enter the rebranded sex work scene under the name of sugar, in which they are not directly seeing the money paid out to a pimp but under the false guise of labelling it as empowering assume that they are in control of how and when they interact with customers. How is it empowering?
However, it is starting to become a normalized phenomenon that in this increasingly harsh economic landscape, sugar is expected of women at a young age as some kind of phase. it also perpetuates older men getting more access to a dating pool that older women and younger men do not have. it is unfair favouritism. men are so valued for their money, so much that they get soft young peoples’ hands on it and their limply balls.
Nowadays American “strong, liberated” women get through university fees through sugar, oh how empowering. class conscious is at an all-time low thanks to the unfair advantage wealthy middle class and upper class old men have, not just economically owning the capital, but paying the expensive institutions they set up (they’re literally paying themselves) and young women and men must be grateful for it. That’s why it’s very political to oppose sex work, because in the more egalitarian world nobody is pressured into rather being trafficked or would go out there just to get a head start in life, whereas the older men were able to get this head start by having cheaper prices and bigger wages than now.
In public and private discourse, oftentimes I hear some financial advice by boys going along the lines of “I wish I was a woman, I’d sell my nudes if I could.” As if women’s inherent sex value does not come with a security baggage. Especially when its stated as “easy money” as if women’s feelings and apprehensions about sex don’t matter, going as far as to call them prudes when they find such an offer disgusting. how is something a choice if you are being shamed into it?
Men hate giving money to women throughout history, and if you don’t believe this, just look at the horrible and disgusting trends on Pornhub in which the videos are a known crime that could make national headlines, or in which it is known that the women are not being paid for their views, but rather the network of men that operate the whole thing. So next time someone ushers sugar as a lifestyle to get your school or your box apartment sooner, do send them this.
