An Alternative Image Of Love

Miguel in Barcelona sent us this government-sponsored poster aimed at promoting egalitarian relationships. He translates the text as:

The love has to be free
Free of machismo
Free of fights
Free of jealousy

This image, as a representation of idealized egalitarian love, is a nice contrast to the representations of love common in the U.S. (and in Spain?) that make power asymmetry sexy, desirable, and constituitive of love. Consider the love affair between this apple and pear and these two images (which look more like the fruit than Miguel's image above):

Thanks to Miguel for sending us our first image from Spain!

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REQUEST: Marxist (?) Poster About The Reproduction Of The Worker

There is a poster out there somewhere that illustrates the reproduction of the worker in an capitalist industrial society. I think it is based directly on Marx. It shows all the unpaid work that women do behind the scenes that allows a man to invest his days in paid work. She feeds him, helps him relax, cleans his clothes, makes sure he can sleep comfortably and stuff, and then pushes him out the front door the next morning well-rested, in clean clothes, and with a bag lunch. If anyone can find this poster, I'd be so excited!

(Wisconsin Soc people... This poster was in the radical posters room on the 7th floor of the Sewell building at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. Do you remember it?)

The Commodification of Sex and Love

The Great Happiness Space is an amazing full-length documentary (available in full online) about "host" clubs in Japan. These clubs service women, mostly sex workers, who buy time with men (hosts, who also get a cut of all the money the women spend on alcohol) who pretend like they love them. The women establish long-term relationships with their hosts, spend sometimes 10s of thousands of dollars in a night, all to have the feeling that someone cares for them. So they earn tons of money giving sex to men and then they turn around and give that money back to men who give them affection (and sometimes sex). The hosts make between 10,000 and 50,000 a month. Also a great study in cross-cultural gender differences.