By Maria Cernat
Our body is not a commodity. Stop telling us the lie that we will become powerful by renting out our vaginas for money. Stop the hypocrisy and the lies. You don't like Tate? Stop screaming that "sex work is work." Selling access to your orifices, to your being, is not the path to success. If it were, it would make all the bank executives flock to it. They can at best experience humiliation in a controlled environment. To play at submission. But they will never truly be submissive on the path you sell us as liberation.
Our bodies are not commodities. Stop selling access to our identity to men whose feelings are more important than our safety. Our bodies are not a package, not a commodity for men to buy. Our body is not an operetta costume, only good to operate for the satisfaction of ideals sold by businessmen.
Our body is not a commodity. Our womb is not a place to experiment and rent out to buyers who want to procure a child. We are not walking wombs good for sale on the sexual market. We are not pieces of meat good for rent and then to discard.
Our bodies are not commodities. We are not images, good for sale; we are not masturbation material. Stop calling us "conservatives" because we say "no!".
Our body is not a commodity. We don't want a world without sex. We want a world without the sex that porn sells us as the norm. We want a world without the neoliberal sexual liberation prescription. We want a world truly free of what we are given in this rape culture. We don't want a world without sex. We want a world without sex sold as violence against women.
Our bodies are not a commodity. We don't want the fight for abortion to be the ticket to abuse. If we want reproductive health, we don't want it to absolve men of responsibility. If we want abortion rights, it's not to turn us into blow-up dolls. Contraception isn't a get-out-of-jail-free card for us to be treated as sex objects. Contraception is the right to say "no!" to an unwanted pregnancy, not to say "yes!" to any horny man.
Our bodies are not a commodity. Stop lying when you call yourselves "feminists" and sell your sisters to pimps, johns and pornographers. Stop reducing systemic oppression to matters of individual choice. Just because you've seen happy slaves doesn't mean you should accept slavery, hypocrites!
Our bodies are not a commodity. Being paid is not consent. Stop using consent as an umbrella for systemic abuse. Having money is not success. Stop glorifying sexual exploitation based on the money privileged women earn. Stop calling yourselves "leftist" because you glorify rich women who have successfully sold their bodies. Talk to the poor and disadvantaged – here's a great idea for the capital-loving 'left'.
Let's say NO! To exploitation, to the sex industry and especially to the traitors who sell us these forms of oppression as liberation. Liberation will only come when we learn to say NO!
This article was originally published in Romanian here.