Friday, December 15, 2017

Monopsony

A criticism of my "selling sex should be as free as selling anything else...regulated for fairness and safety" philosophy as applied to that venerable (but never again) institution, the casting couch.

Suppose I'm a talented actress, I want to make a cutting edge independent film, have it produced by the best.  Why should that require having sex with Harvey Weinstein?

I admit, my weak glibertarian response, such people can find someone else to produce their movie, may not always be available.

There may not be the big no-sex-required studio to compete with all the old boys.  The old boys have a monopony on buying talent, they are the only ones with all the right connections, don't you know, to make and distribute movies.  And old boys can help keep the old boys club going, and so on.

It still seems to me there could be "Harvey's Orgy Club and Movie Studio."  It just has to be openly that...and not a market controlling force, by itself, or in coordination.

Strange how insistent Harvey was about including a superfluous sex scene in the movie Frida.  That's what seems to figure as much as Harvey himself trying to tough talk his way into personal sex, in a recent story compellingly told by Selma Hayek.

Yes, we the public have noticed how movies sometimes seem to contain bits of sex, perhaps for the higher ratings themselves.  One of many many "commercialisms."  Higher rated movies go into different streams, just what the producer might be trying to do, to coordinate business.

Disgusting.

The word people also use, perhaps more general, is Gatekeeper.

Basically, there shouldn't be Gatekeepers.

But Gatekeepers exist, with myriad different claimed faults.  Some discriminate upon skin color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, political orientations.  Most of these are far more deeply ingrained, in most industries, than willingness to perform sex acts.

The alternative to gatekeepers might be panels drawn by lottery.

Seen in this context, discrimination based on whether or not you will consent to some kind sex with some producer...is at least something you can change.  Unique resistance to that, as opposed to all kinds of gatekeeping and harassment, represents an aesthetic elitist solidarity of the most powerful, who could be defined as those who can always define themselves not as such.

Sex-willingness gatekeepers have a potential use in serving industries where participants could engage in group orgies, which may even serve the end of production of sexual-oriented entertainment by developing greater closeness and flexibility.

So I still believe there is a place, in sex entertainment businesses, where a casting couch is a reasonable gatekeeping arena, assuming there is always consent.




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