St Augustine and Aquinas, as I remind everyone on at least the weekly, were super clear on the fact that sex work was necessary because if single men had no one to have sex with, their desire could build up to uncontrollable levels and result in violent outburts.
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This is why medieval cities usually kept municipal brothels - in order to ensure that men would have some place they could access sex and therefore not riot.
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A difference between the medieval and modern conception of violence, however, is the medieval conception tends to focus on potential group violence - so riots. Our modern discussion of it tends to focus on violent outbursts from one individual.
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(Insert something here about neo-liberal capitalist society's focus on the individual as opposed to the medieval conception of society as a group.)
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The point is that incel apologists now go to *almost* the same place as medieval theologians did. There's a lot of hand wringing (sometimes in my damn mentions, which, please to do not), about how sex IS necessary for a happy healthy life.
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And like, hell yeah it is for mine at least. ((*GENTLEMEN*)) So medieval people were like yeah sex workers. HOWEVER that is no longer possible in our own society because we have spent so much time shaming everyone who participates in sex work: both workers and customers.
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So suddenly sex work is BAD and SHAMEFUL, and now if people say sex workers should deal with incels it's like throwing them as sacrifices to these terrible violent men so that socially acceptable women are shielded from their violence. That's not OK.
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Moreover incels are pretty clear that they won't see sex workers anyway because their complaint isn't that they're not having sex generally - it's that they are not GIVEN sex in return for just showing up, and that is legit not what is happening with sex work.
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Plus if you think they hate women generally, oh lord, you should see the terrible things they say about women who dare to profit of off their sexuality. I mean, it is disgusting.
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So the other option is like, 'Ladies! Be nicer to these terrible men! YOU should stop being so stuck up. Think about HOW HARD it is for them. Really this violence is all your fault.' I.e. women should just have zero standards because we're here to prevent men's bad behaviour.
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Point is, there's always some men saying that women as a group should be used to give poor poor men what they want in order to make sure they don't boil over and start destroying things. Also keep in mind that women are still also the too emotional ones who aren't rational.
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We've really not moved on from this conception of sex as an overriding compulsion that leads to men's bad behaviour. Mostly our only change is that we now also say that sex work is shameful and bad so that option is off the table as well.
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In conclusion, society, in my esteemed opinion as a social historian of sex, is disappointing.
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End of conversation
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Good thread--I remember the Augustinian part, at least. My timeline surfaced this related tweet a few away from yours:https://twitter.com/drnelk/status/991005177971990528 …
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I always go to obsessively religious pre-industrial celibates for advice on these matters.
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Great thread! Loving having the time to read your writing
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