Saturday 12 June 2010

More hoo ha without smoke


It is just not credible to talk about sex as an 'industry' in the way that you might talk about mining or tourism or education. Even, I guess you might say, the 'religion industry'.
My previous post about the 'sex industry' raises questions about what is legal, what is illegal, what is criminal and does decriminalisation have any meaning.
The post had some issue about the use of the term 'industry'.
The major contention is that 'industry' is not a neutral word.
It is or should be essentially a positive descriptor; and therefore socially destructive, demeaning, and dehumanising behaviour doesn't fit the bill.
It makes me wonder about what seems to be a reverse process that might be taking place with regard to cigarettes.
Are they being 'criminalised' in a world that has so far seen fit to have them as legal?
It is interesting that the term tobacco industry has been happily endorsed. (But it is huge and powerful as events over the last thirty years or more have shown). I wonder as tobacco becomes yet more and more socially unacceptable, whether it will also be stripped of its designation as "an industry". I hope so.
Meanwhile let's not dignify whore houses and pornography studios with the designation "sex industry"



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