Feminism and Pornography

Feminism and Pornography
Author: Drucilla Cornell
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
Total Pages: 671
Release: 2000-01-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780198782506

This collection of essays seeks to expand the parameters of the debate on pornography. In an effort to move away from the divisive frameworks of which side are you on? and who counts as women worthy to be listened to? in feminist debates on pornography, this volume seeks to understand what pornography means to those who consume it, fight against it, work within it, and to those engaged in changing its meaning. By opening up a space for divergent points of view to address the complexityof sexual material, this volume seeks to forge solidarity amongst a diverse array of constituencies, including academics, activists, and sex workers from diverse socio-political contexts. Through seeking to address the relationship between imperialism, the exotic, and the pornographic, the collection moves away from Eurocentric perspectives on pornography, by including the perspectives of women involved in struggles for national liberation in the South. This volume explores a wide range of issues, such as, how the meaning of pornography is shaped by changing historical and political realities; the role law should play, if any, in the sex industry; whether union organizing can change the working conditions in the sex industry; kinds of representational politics available for redefining pornography; and how sexually explicity literature, videos, art, and music can serve the purpose of sexual freedom. Contributors to the volume include Diana Russell, Catharine MacKinnon, Andrea Dworkin, Wendy Brown, Becki Ross, Mallek Alloula, M. Jacqui Alexander, Victoria Ortiz, bell hooks, Rey Chow, Judith Butler, Candida Royalle, Zoraida Ramirez Rodriguez, amongst others.

The Feminist Porn Book

The Feminist Porn Book
Author: Tristan Taormino
Publisher: The Feminist Press at CUNY
Total Pages: 334
Release: 2013-02-19
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 155861818X

The Feminist Porn Book celebrates the power of desire, turning the spotlight on an industry where feminism is thriving.

Pornography, Sex, and Feminism

Pornography, Sex, and Feminism
Author: Alan Soble
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2011-02
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1615927069

In this unabashed defense of pornography from a utilitarian-hedonist perspective, philosopher Alan Soble strongly rebuts both feminist and conservative critics. Soble demonstrates that neither conservative nor feminist critics of pornography show much acquaintance with the genre they criticize. This suggests that purely political motives underlie their critiques instead of reasoned, objective arguments based on thorough empirical research.Soble also faults critics of pornography for their failure of empathy: they refuse to see pornographic images from the various perspectives of their viewers. In approaching these images literally, detractors promulgate the worst possible interpretation of pornography. Further, they do not do justice to the social and psychological research about pornography and its purported harms. Conservatives and feminists manufacture their case against pornography and its consumers based on oversimplified interpretations of the images and a poor understanding of scientific studies.This sardonic and well-reasoned critique of feminist and conservative moral outrage over pornography is sure to be controversial.

Intercourse

Intercourse
Author: Andrea Dworkin
Publisher: Basic Books
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2008-08-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0786722363

Andrea Dworkin, once called "Feminism's Malcolm X," has been worshipped, reviled, criticized, and analyzed-but never ignored. The power of her writing, the passion of her ideals, and the ferocity of her intellect have spurred the arguments and activism of two generations of feminists. Now the book that she's best known for-in which she provoked the argument that ultimately split apart the feminist movement-is being reissued for the young women and men of the twenty-first century. Intercourse enraged as many readers as it inspired when it was first published in 1987. In it, Dworkin argues that in a male supremacist society, sex between men and women constitutes a central part of women's subordination to men. (This argument was quickly-and falsely-simplified to "all sex is rape" in the public arena, adding fire to Dworkin's already radical persona.) In her introduction to this twentieth-anniversary edition of Intercourse, Ariel Levy, the author of Female Chauvinist Pigs, discusses the circumstances of Dworkin's untimely death in the spring of 2005, and the enormous impact of her life and work. Dworkin's argument, she points out, is the stickiest question of feminism: Can a woman fight the power when he shares her bed?

Defending Pornography

Defending Pornography
Author: Nadine Strossen
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2024-03-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1479830798

Named a Notable Book by The New York Times Book Review in 1995, Defending Pornography examines a key question that has divided feminists for decades: is censoring pornography good or bad for women? Nadine Strossen makes a powerful case that increasing government power to censor sexual expression, beyond the limits that the First Amendment sensibly permits (for example, outlawing child pornography) would do more harm than good for women and others who have traditionally been marginalized due to sex or gender, She explains how the very anti-porn laws pushed by some feminists have led to the censorship of LGBTQ+ and feminist works, and she examines the startling connections between anti-porn feminists and right-wing fundamentalists. In an illuminating new Preface, Strossen lays out the multiple current assaults on sexual expression, which continue to come from across the ideological spectrum. She shows that freedom for such expression remains an essential prerequisite for the equality, safety, and dignity of women and sexual/gender minorities.

Not for Sale

Not for Sale
Author: Rebecca Whisnant
Publisher: Spinifex Press
Total Pages: 468
Release: 2004
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9781876756499

Prostitution and pornography are linked with racism and male dominance as well as with imperialism, militarism (including torture) and global corporate culture. The result is devastating harm for women and children within these industries. Subjected to physical and psychological violence - poverty, drug addiction and homelessness are their usual companions. With its mix of personal stories, theory, research, testimony, and accounts of current activism, Not For Sale will be an invaluable resource for all those seeking to inform themselves about the realities of the sex business and will serve to strengthen and broaden feminist resistance to pornography and prostitution.

The Right to Sex

The Right to Sex
Author: Amia Srinivasan
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 307
Release: 2022-05-26
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1526612542

A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERBLACKWELL'S BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021Essential lessons on the world we live in, from one of our greatest young thinkers - a guide to what everybody is talking about today'Unparalleled and extraordinary . . . A bracing revivification of a crucial lineage in feminist writing' JIA TOLENTINO'I believe Amia Srinivasan's work will change the world' KATHERINE RUNDELL'Rigorously researched, but written with such spark and verve. The best non-fiction book I have read this year' PANDORA SYKES-------------------------How should we talk about sex? It is a thing we have and also a thing we do; a supposedly private act laden with public meaning; a personal preference shaped by outside forces; a place where pleasure and ethics can pull wildly apart. To grasp sex in all its complexity - its deep ambivalences, its relationship to gender, class, race and power - we need to move beyond 'yes and no', wanted and unwanted. We need to rethink sex as a political phenomenon. Searching, trenchant and extraordinarily original, The Right to Sex is a landmark examination of the politics and ethics of sex in this world, animated by the hope of a different one.SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE 2022LONGLISTED FOR THE POLARI FIRST BOOK PRIZE 2022LONGLISTED FOR THE BRITISH ACADEMY BOOK PRIZE 2022

Why We Lost the Sex Wars

Why We Lost the Sex Wars
Author: LORNA N. BRACEWELL
Publisher:
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2021-03-23
Genre:
ISBN: 9781517906740

Reexamining feminist sexual politics since the 1970s--the rivalries and the remarkable alliances Since the historic #MeToo movement materialized in 2017, innumerable survivors of sexual assault and misconduct have broken their silence and called out their abusers publicly--from well-known celebrities to politicians and high-profile business leaders. Not surprisingly, conservatives quickly opposed this new movement, but the fact that "sex positive" progressives joined in the opposition was unexpected and seldom discussed. Why We Lost the Sex Wars explores how a narrow set of political prospects for resisting the use of sex as a tool of domination came to be embraced across this broad swath of the political spectrum in the contemporary United States. To better understand today's multilayered sexual politics, Lorna N. Bracewell offers a revisionist history of the "sex wars" of the 1970s, '80s, and '90s. Rather than focusing on what divided antipornography and sex-radical feminists, Bracewell highlights significant points of contact and overlap between these rivals, particularly the trenchant challenges they offered to the narrow and ambivalent sexual politics of postwar liberalism. Bracewell leverages this recovered history to illuminate in fresh and provocative ways a range of current phenomena, including recent controversies over trigger warnings, the unimaginative politics of "sex-positive" feminism, and the rise of carceral feminism. By foregrounding the role played by liberal concepts such as expressive freedom and the public/private divide as well as the long-neglected contributions of Black and "Third World" feminists, Bracewell upends much of what we think we know about the sex wars and makes a strong case for the continued relevance of these debates today. Why We Lost the Sex Wars provides a history of feminist thinking on topics such as pornography, commercial sex work, LGBTQ+ identities, and BDSM, as well as discussions of such notable figures as Patrick Califia, Alan Dershowitz, Andrea Dworkin, Elena Kagan, Audre Lorde, Catharine MacKinnon, Cherríe Moraga, Robin Morgan, Gayle Rubin, Nadine Strossen, Cass Sunstein, and Alice Walker.

The Hypersexuality of Race

The Hypersexuality of Race
Author: Celine Parreñas Shimizu
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 362
Release: 2007-07-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780822340331

A study of the Asian woman as sexual icon in visual culture.

Pornography Feminism

Pornography Feminism
Author: Rich Moreland
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2015-01-30
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1782794956

During the sex wars of the 1980s, sex-positive feminism entered the adult film industry with a performer support group known as Club 90. Over the next three decades feminism found a home among an influential group of women in pornography. Pornography Feminism: As Powerful as She Wants to Be is a popular history of this unfolding saga told largely through personal interviews along with scholarly works, previous popular histories, and film reviews.