Tom says: >The anxiety isn't over pleasure and sensuality per se, but over the >commodification of pleasure and sensuality -- a process that is no doubt so >far advanced that it becomes hard to conceive of pleasure and sensuality in >any other terms.
Non-commodified pleasure and sensuality under pre-capitalism and much of capitalism are, more often than not, provided by unpaid women's labor, e.g., Mom's Home-cooked Meals. Commodified pleasure and sensuality under capitalism affordable to the working class are, more often than not, provided by low-paid labor of men and women of color in sweatshops, e.g., mass produced and yet stylish Kenneth Cole goods. But for commodification of pleasure and sensuality, women today would be still spending all day carrying water, preparing food, sewing clothes, and so on (poor women in poor nations still in fact spend much of their time carrying water, etc.!). But for commodification and urbanization, which have come to allow human beings to live independently of the pre-capitalist duty to marry and procreate (or else), we wouldn't know such identities as gay men and lesbians (pre-capitalist male-male same-sex desire appears mainly to have been channeled through hierarchical relations between men and boys, as among ancient Greeks and monks and samurais in pre-modern Japan, without becoming a fixed sexual orientation -- women's same-sex desire generally went unsanctioned even in pre-modern societies that celebrated certain forms of male-male love). Just as wage labor is a necessary stage through which production must pass to become socialized enough for socialism, commodification of pleasure and sensuality is a necessary stage through which (broadly defined) reproduction gets socialized enough for socialism. -- Yoshie * Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/>
