Prostitution is terrible because it is an act of violence by the woman upon herself in the name of material gain. Prostitution is I naked act of material calculation which leaves no room for considerations of love and passion. Where passion and attraction begin, prostitution ends. Under communism, prostitution and the contemporary family will disappear. Healthy, joyful and free relationships between the sexes will develop.

Really powerful.

The text itself as someone else suggested is dated, we could really use an update that engages with the 21st century updates and problems, shifts in the way this problem exists in our era (in particular I think the level and normalcy of degradation being expected in this line of work is noteworthy as is the increasingly alienated versions of this using electronic mediums such as webcams and the internet). I’d suggest that most of the pro-prostitution western left are not interested in being moved by texts like this due to their interests however. Many of them see the liberal idea of sexual liberation as a treat, a nice thing they want, they enjoy and they wish to defend it and keep this liberalism alongside their leftism.

They fall into I think three camps:

1. Men and perhaps some amount of bi and lesbian women, and others who patronize sex work in some way or form or seek to do so in future, enjoy it as an option the “right” to buy a woman’s favors and have ready access to such a supply of women. These include those who delude themselves into thinking that paying a sex worker for her trade is a form of solidarity.
2. Those falsely convinced of the correctness of liberal feminism, liberal notions of sexual liberation under capitalism (much like liberal notions of girl-bosses being liberation and advancement of women’s rights but which are only a perpetuation and furthering of capitalism)
3. The group themselves of prostitutes and sex workers, of which in some amount exist a kind of labor aristocracy which has changed in nature from Kollontai’s day (the parallel with the privately kept woman of domesticity is of course there and all the more appropriate when one considers the kept mistresses of the bourgeoisie kept in splendor) to one of shared rented women who like successful music artists may break out of the pack into wealth. Your pink-haired, anime-sex-face only-fans super-earners who pull in anywhere from several hundred thousand to millions of dollars a year and those who do not fit that group but aspire to, but believe they too can be part of it (or else believe like good indoctrinated proles might believe that those earning such money as CEOs and billionaires deserve it and they believe they are better than them and are ‘happy’ for them) and so like the member of the proletariat who favors the interests of small business owners of petite bourgeoisie because they too hope to be one in future and believe as such those interests are theirs. As well of course as those who have convinced themselves as a way to escape the trauma and degradation of their experiences that they were not traumatic but positive. Much as many victims of sexual assault at first convince themselves that it was consensual or refuse to use the word “rape” because it seems less painful to avoid the confrontation, to deny the trauma happened, to engage in revisionism of events and realities so as to not experience the dis-empowering sensation of victimization. Add in that many of these same of course adopt 2 (liberal feminism) to further justify it to themselves and construct a framework for its justification and you have a situation where they never really realize it and liberal society empowers them to do the same.