A place to ask questions of Lemmygrad's best and brightest
casual sex is good and if people wanna fuck let them. but i do think capitalist alienation makes people have a tendency towards non lasting relationships that make them less happy. so hookup good but like everything capitalism makes it worse.
I don't think you can view hookups outside of their material conditions. Hookups under capitalism are transactional because everything is.
this is the only take imo, hookups in a communist society would have a completely different character to what they are now. People hookup casually now id say primarily cause they want/need to have some human affection or are bored, and that is a symptom of our society where people are largely alienated from that
What if they just like fucking/getting fucked, and want to derive pleasure from sex. I understand what angle you’re taking, but I think you’re looking at it too deeply… people just like sex.
Now for people paying sex workers I feel like your analysis works better, but not casual hookups.
I don't know anyone that does hook up culture and is a happy person. I don't think hook up culture is the cause, a least not across the board, but it's definitely not just people enjoying sex. you go on an app and show off your body so people can decide if you're hot enough and then you have a fake date, fuck, and leave.
I know plenty of people that do hook up culture and are happy. Anecdotes don’t really hold much weight in the grand scheme of things.
The problem from that comes mainly in if people make that their entire goal or identity, and not something to do for fun. It’s the drinking for fun vs alcoholic argument. One is arguably alright, the other is a serious issue.
It’s those people who don’t view it as good fun (then usually fail and blame the other side like incels and radfems do) and try to make it their entire identity of means of connection, which is just sad.
Kollontai most likely wrote something about this topic.
She did! https://redsails.org/winged-eros/
Briefly, Kollontai promotes "Winged Eros", which is a multifaceted connection between people, and not "Wingless Eros", which is sex without friendship or emotion. But on the other hand, she also denounces the bourgeois ideal of love, which is possessive and centered around the economic unit of the married couple, and which denies the multifaceted nature of love.
The essay covers more than just that though: she starts by tracing how ideals of love change as socioeconomic systems develop, and she ends with a discussion of what proletarian ideals of love could be. It's a great essay.
This is an excellent essay, but I would say that Kollontai would be against hook-ups and hook-up culture... its more that we can form deep, meaningful relationships sans possession, and outside of the framework of bourgeois monogamy.
Yes, exactly.
did she have a position on poly relationships?
Call me out if you think this is bullshit.
Relative to the feudal conception of sex only after marriage as the acceptable form of relations to have (not that people didn't get around before then), I'd say that it is an improvement to protestant/catholic traditional forms of relations. Various forms of birth control unburdened women the full consequences of free sex.
I suspect that the "free love" movement was kind of a movement for white petite bourgeoisie to just use social justice as a meme to have sex with alot of women. The new term is "sex positivity", but sometimes that really is just encouraging sexual relationships over relationships that actually promote commitment. I don't know to what extent this is intentionally promoting people to spend money on dating apps, memes to pretend to be the ideals of masculinity/feminitity over to seduce, but over time the mask slips. This results in therapy. This results in marriages of unhappy people or children without both parents. This produces more miserable people to create more gears for the capitalist machine to keep on running. All of these things cost money to the people and promote GDP growth. Promoting animosity between men and women and rightfully seeing each other as deceitful creates conflict to obscure class relations. Not all people buy into this bullshit but this way of thinking seems to create dysfunctional relationships.
I suspect we should build institutions that can take feminism seriously and encourage relationships that nurture both parties in more complex ways than just sexual ways. This does not mean we fully conform back to the old ways that are trans/homophobic. We can recognize what works in relationships for most people but we don't need to alienate all of the outliers either. Mental healthcare for all would be a boon for everyone in the society.
Yeah this is bullshit. White petite bourgeoisie do free love stuff but they also eat and shit.
As Mao has famously said: “touch grass”
touch ass*
I have no issue with it, but tinder and similar apps are intentionally made to be addictive and ineffective. I once downloaded it just to check it out with zero dating intentions, ended up spending every free minute swiping left because my pigeon brain really likes scrolling regardless of what's being scrolled.
Sexual education is vital. People must understand how the male and female human bodies work, how to spot STD’s, cancer signs, UTI’s, and how to be properly hygienic downstairs. People need to understand what are and how to use condoms, female condoms, safe lube, Plan B, IUD’s, birth control, copper implants, pregnancy tests, etc. People need to understand the weight behind having a child and the risks+how to avoid them. People need to fully comprehend and understand consent. People need to know what’s ok to put in your body (the amount of people who think using coconut oil, olive oil, hair brushes, broom handles, etc is safe is absurd)
If we can accomplish that communist world… I could care less who is fucking who, what people do after going home from the club together, or what’s going on in the bedroom.
I think there's also an emotional aspect that people need to learn about. sex can be casual and that can work for people, but it can also hold a lot of weight. people need to learn about how they feel about things and what's healthy for them.
True, but that is beyond the scope of something that can be educated. At best that is a one on one therapy kind of topic. At least they should be aware if the emotions attached, but that is entirely personal.
that's not beyond education. educate people on how it can affect them emotionally and when they should stop, maybe explain the general lines people fall along.
True, but it won’t affect everyone identically, so it could be hard to create a “one size fits all” type of education related to that, without making it incredibly broad.
But I agree the topic should at least be broached like you mentioned in your last line.
It would inherently be broad, but it should be at least enough people have the tools to start understanding themselves and others. A bit like talking about sexualities in school. You can't explain every kind because it's deeply personal, but you can explain some of the components(attraction, libido, sex repulsed or negative) and some examples of how people generally fall(straight, gay, bi) with an emphasis on how you can have an experience outside of it. In thr same way they used to have family life classes, and some Christian Schools still teach something like that. Make it less cringe and let people know a bit about how relationships can work and generally affect people.
Sex is highly weaponized so to say in our capitalist society and in a socialist society we would have to unlearn/relearn a lot of things.
That being said, there is nothing wrong with hookups. People like sex and they will probably always like sex. I personally haven't thought about it too much.
I think the culture is a result of people reaching for human connection. The apps are exploitation of it, and shape it into something ugly.
But it's all a symptom. It's not something to be cured by banning it or reforming it. It will wither on its own when humanity has its humanity restored.
The apps themselves are bad due to the means by which they attempt to make money, either stringing people along or gating people from others due to not being a premium subscriber (a new model being discussed by dating/hookup apps).
As for just casual hookups those are fine as well as flings as long as all parties are comfortable and able to consent.
I'm not a cop. Fuck around if that's your thing, don't fuck around if that's your thing, i don't really care and this isn't something the state really needs a hard line on
Agreed
it's the reverse side of the hikikomori coin. It's not good. No one I know who does it is happy, they have all admitted at one point or another they want a real relationship, lots of people do it as a trauma response. It plays into the anonymization which plagues our society and prevents community building. There's a place for casual sex and free love, but this is bleak shit. A healthy society doesn't have the levels of objectification we are sitting at.
Sorta is a way of rebelling against women being forced into domestic labor for men, just wanted to throw that on the pile of commentary
?
Women are generally expected to do the bulk of the social reproduction work for free if they're in relationship
I don't see how hookups rebel against this. They might not be doing the work but that leaves the expectations there
Well, I mean, theyre materially not doing the work.
Yeah, but there's a difference between having a strike and just being unemployed
As long as:
A. No pedo shit B. Consent
it's ok.
I think a hook up culture, while not inherently bad, is indicative of a society that doesn't prioritize human connection. I need to reiterate that I have absolutely no issues with casual sex culture and experienced my fair share of it growing up. However, my true happiness came from long standing relationships that were incredibly hard to maintain under capitalist culture. I think a fairer and more equal society would see less of a hook up culture develop simply because people would find it easier to connect with the people they truly care about.
This applies to pretty much any human connection/relationship. It's basically impossible to develop and maintain fulfilling, long lasting friendships with people under capitalism. I firmly believe that if hypothetically, socialism were to happen tomorrow, then in the following decades we would see hookup culture disappearing. No one actually wants quick and shallow relationships where no one really knows who can be trusted.
They arent worth it