This Sex which Is Not One no longer a commodity, is no longer useful. The standard as such is them as commodities, have absolutely no connection with their physical properties and with the material relations arising there- from. [ With commodities] it is a definite social relation between Though a commodity may at first sight appear to be "a very men, that assumes, in their eyes, the fantastic form of a relation trivial thing, and easily understood, between things”(p.83 phenomen ological niceties"(p. 81). No doubt, so far as it is a value in brain appear as independent beings endowed with life, and en- use,there is nothing mysterious about it... But, so soon as [a tering into relation both with one another and the human race ooden table, for example] steps forth as a commodity, it is So it is in the world of commodities with the products of mens hanged into something transcendent. It not only stands with hands"(ibid. ) Hence the fetishism attached to these products its feet on the ground, but, in relation to all other commodities of labor as soon as they present themselves as commodities it stands on its head and evolves out of its wooden brain gro Hence women's role as fetish-objects, inasmuch as, in exchanges tesque ideas, far more wonderful thantable-turning'ever was they are the manifestation and the circulation of a power of the (Pp.81-82) Phallus, establishing relationships of men with each other? The mystical character of commodities does not originate, therefore, in their use value. Just as little does it proceed from the nature of the determining factors of value. For, in the first place, however varied the useful kinds of labour, or productive activities, may be, it is a physiological fact, that they are func- Hence the following remarks tions of the human organism"(p. 82), which, for Marx, does to constitute a mystery The material contribution and support of bodies in societal operations pose no problems for him, except as production and expenditure of It represents the equivalent of labor force, of an expenditure of energy, of toil. In order to be measured, these latter must be Where, then, does the enigmatic character of the product of abstracted from all immediately natural qualities, from any con- tbor come from, as soon as this product takes on the form of a crete individual. a process of generalization and of universaliza ommodity? It comes, obviously, from that form itself. Then tion imposes itself in the operation of social exchanges. Hence where does the enigmatic character of women come from?Or even that the reduction of man to a"concept"-that of his labor force- upposed relations among themselves? and the reduction of his product to an"obj from the "form"of the needs/ desires of man, needs/desires material correlative of that concept. that women bring to light although men do not recognize them in that form. That form, those women, are always enveloped The characteristics of"sexual pleasure"corresponding to such a social state are thus the following: its productivity, but one that In any case, the existence of things qua commodities, and is necessarily laborious, even painful; its abstract form; its the value relation between the products of labour which stamps need/desire to crystallize in a transcendental element of wealth 182