2. US Feminism vs. Prostitution (& Porn)

How does modern day feminism look at prostitution? Why did western second – wave feminists oppose prostitution and sex workers?  How did feminism theorize prostitution?   This episode 2 tracks the US women’s liberation movement around porn and prostitution during second-wave feminism (1960s to 1990s) in the United States of America.   Second wave feminism has not only set the foundation for modern day feminist discourses around prostitution across the world but has also shaped global liberal discourses around women and sex.
Warning:  sexual content, other adult themes. Listener discretion is advised. 
Credits: Host: Surabhi Chatterjee
Audio production: Pruthu Parab
Cover Art: Rini Alphonsa Joseph

Support the Show.
Music: The intro music is Wake up, Max by Axel Lundström. Music for the episode was sourced from YouTube audio library and other royalty-free music libraries and include: Colony, Helium, Limousines, Forest Find, Blue Ribbons – TrackTribe; Pelagic – Density & Time; El Billete – Edgar Moreira; Sinister – Anno domini Beats; Lazy Laura – Quincas Moreira.
Sources: 
The events of the US feminist movement around prostitution during second wave feminism has been constructed from: Amia Srinivasan (2020). "The Right to Sex"; Juno Mac and Molly Smith (2018). “Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Workers Rights”; Melissa Gira Grant (2014). "Playing the Whore"
More on Margo St. James:
Margo St. James, the sex workers’ ‘Joan of Arc’ dies at 83 by Sam Whiting; Carol Queen Rememering Margo St. James ( Part 1). Youtube Video; “Hard Work” – Tributes to Margo St James. Youtube Video. 
The anti-porn bill defined pornography as the graphic sexually explicit subordination of women through pictures or words that also includes women dehumanized as sexual objects, things, or commodities; enjoying pain or humiliation or rape; being tied up, cut up, mutilated, bruised, or physically hurt; in postures of sexual submission or servility or display; reduced to body parts, penetrated by objects or animals, or presented in scenarios of degradation, injury, torture; shown as filthy or inferior; bleeding, bruised, or hurt in a context that makes these conditions sexual.
 Feminist theories: Shelley Cavalieri. “Between Victim and Agent: A Third-Way Feminist Account of Trafficking for Sex Work” ; Karen Peterson-Iyer. “Prostitution: a feminist ethical analysis”;Jane Scoular. “The ‘subject’ of prostitution: Interpreting the discursive, symbolic and material position of sex/work in feminist theory"
Wikipedia pages:  second wave feminism; radical feminism; sexual revolution; counter-culture;Feminine Mystique;Andrea Dworkin; Margo St. James

Transcript

 Episode 2 – US feminism vs. Prostitution (& Porn) 

 Prostitution is not illegal today for morality or religious reasons, it is now illegal for different reasons. We’ve evolved - we now believe (in theory at least) in gender equality and today’s anti – prostitution discourse is feminist. Although, if you see these feminist discourses, you’ll realise that the discourses are very exclusive, very intellectually driven, very elite and very symbolic.  Lot of discussions around symbols – what does prostitution do to the prostituted woman? Can we allow women to degrade themselves in prostitution to service sexually entitled men? what does the existence of prostitution mean for gender equality and gender relations?  What does it mean then if we as a society allow prostitution? 

Feminism has only properly entered the mainstream very recently. Maybe in the 2010s, do we see women in the mainstream, like celebrities, who have identified as feminists. Earlier, it was mainly restricted to academic and intellectual circles, and has consisted of privileged women. The Feminist was and, in some circles, still is, the archetype for an angry woman. Feminism has included anger. Why shouldn’t it - women have a lot of reason to be angry.  But all of this we can’t get into.  For feminism to survive - it needs to include debate and despite it all – feminism has survived, it’s stronger because of it. 

But not always has feminism been so receptive to different perspectives and differences in opinion. The main issue before us today? – often, this wrath of the feminist? This anger? Sex workers have found themselves, unfairly, at the receiving end of. 

One of the major opponents of the sex worker rights movement and the driver behind modern anti- prostitution activism, has unfortunately been, feminism. 

Hello and Welcome to So skewed. I’m Surabhi, a lawyer and researcher. This is episode 2.  

If you read any articles or books or papers around prostitution, it will invariably include feminist theories on prostitution, which discussion is incomplete without talking about second – wave feminism. 

Second wave feminism went down in the west, specifically the USA which was the most visible feminist movement from the Anglosphere. Feminism is so closely interlinked with prostitution today, that it is impossible to talk for sex worker rights without having to address the feminist discourses. So, in this episode, I’m tracking, the best I can, the US feminist movement around porn and prostitution, how that played out and the resulting theories. 

Another disclaimer for this episode: there are discussions around sexual abuse and child abuse, so please be warned and be careful. 

I previously spoke about anti-prostitution campaigns by Victorian feminists during colonization in the 19th and early 20th century. This period fell within the first wave of feminism, which saw women in the West fighting for their right to Vote, and generally their inclusion in existing political and economic systems. 

Then in the 1960s, feminism goes into the second – wave, which was a very heated and contentious time. This was when the feminist movement starts discussing for the first time ever -  sex under the patriarchy. 

Let’s Go. 

Part 1: The US women’s liberation movement 

Second- wave feminism in the US was said to be triggered by this book. This book was called Feminine Mystique written by a Betty Friedan in 1963. I haven’t read this book or anything so this is summarised from Wikipedia.  ‘Feminine Mystique’ is what the author called this myth – this myth that women find happiness and identity through marriage, child raising and domestic work, and she argued that women were unfulfilled, miserable and being misled with this myth. This book resonated with a lot of women. It was not a political book but served as consciousness – awakening among middle class women in general who were looking to get out of this domestic servitude. So a feminist consciousness-awakening was entering into the American mainstream.  Simultaneously – a more political feminist movement was already on its way.  

In the 1960s,  the US sees the rise of the New Left – the liberals of today. The New Left at this time start opposing America’s involvement in the Vietnam war.  The scene is: Students, activists, hippies are marching against the government, protesting  - in colleges, on the streets; different social justice movements are opposing US’s role in the war.  Feminists,  many of who were in college or just out of college, were also part of these liberal circles.  

Soon though, feminists start noticing the misogyny inherent even in these liberal circles. What they see is: sexist protest songs; men who say they stand for women’s rights but wanted housewives, married men who slept around and they started calling out their “male comrades” - these liberal men - for being essentially as sexist as their conservative counterparts. 

So what becomes a feminist movement which gets called the US women’s liberation movement or just the Movement--- starts as a breakaway from the male-dominated new left to centre their movement around women’s issues.  

When the Movement begins, feminists are discussing women’s domestic servitude,  reproductive rights, and domestic and sexual violence, in and outside home. To understand the Movement’s take on sex,  we have to first set the stage. What are the different things happening in the US relating to sex at this time?  What is the feminist Movement interacting with and what is it responding to?   So, mid - 1960s and into the 1970s – a few things are happening simultaneously. 

The first thing was the sexual revolution: US at this time also had a very puritanical relationship with sex – with the evangelical belief that sex outside a heteronormative marriage was a sin. The sexual revolution saw people challenging these notions. This time sees more acceptance towards pre-marital and casual sex. Gay and lesbian rights activists start coming out publicly and protesting police harassment and social prejudice. Queer communities wanted to challenge the shame that was projected on them and celebrate their sexuality. This time was also part of what is called the  “counter – culture” in the US – where there was a pro – pleasure and pro-queer outlook to sexuality and so the sexual revolution also sees the rise of queer sex -  of BDSM, Kink and entire cultures around it. Some states and cities in the US also relax laws relating to obscenity. During this time – Time Square in New York was a red-light district – with strip clubs, sex shops, peep shows, topless bars and the ‘working girls and hustlers’ as the sex workers were called. And so with this sexual revolution ? At this time? also comes the rapid growth of the adult entertainment and porn industry. 

The second thing happening is that the feminist Movement is gathering momentum. Many Feminist organizations and groups form during this time – they hold meetings and conferences.  Women are finally getting together to talk about the female experience, what it is like to be a woman in a patriarchy. These women are noticing the very common experience of sexual violence, domestic violence or other types of gendered violence that existed in some form in all their lives. Now with the sexual revolution and rise of adult entertainment and porn, the Movement starts discussing sex and what they see around them is extremely problematic to them. 

In their defense: The porn and adult shows they see include bondage, domination-submission, sadomasochism, other kinks, rape fetishes, fetishizing of slavery and colonialism – all with women tied up and submissive, and the men - dominant.  To add fuel to the fire – the men from the liberal circles - the ones the feminists broke away from because of their misogyny – these men were spearheading the counterculture which was also a movement on the left. These liberal men were defending porn as a freedom of speech issue; an anti-censorship issue; as freedom from religion and morality. (Just FYI: while prostitution is fully criminalized in the US even today, the porn industry is not and has never been. The US has the biggest porn industry in the world cause porn films are protected under censorship laws. So in the US, strangely, you can be arrested for selling sex off camera but on camera, you’re fine) 

So, the porn and adult entertainment industry is commercial, it’s booming, and it’s everywhere. And - the feminists are getting understandably concerned and a little irritated about this widespread reach of porn. 

At this point, we should note that this feminist Movement consisted of mainly white, middle to upper class, college educated women at this time -  so privileged women and often those who came from academic and intellectual circles so it was an elite and intellectual movement. 

The third thing happening at this time is sex worker activism also begins. The reason we must distinguish the feminist Movement as being privileged is because there’s also grassroot activism happening.  Among sex workers and queer communities who were not considered to be part of the feminist Movement. These movements saw women and other gender identities from more marginalized backgrounds so black women, women of colour, queer identities and mainly people from the working class. Sex worker activism begins by sex workers protesting “police harassment and interference” - they call for an end to raids, crackdowns, and custodial violence. At this time,  sex workers are still called whores or prostitutes or hookers. It was only in 1978 the term sex worker was introduced.  

Now given this background– let’s get back to the Movement. 

The feminist movement had already identified the patriarchy as the main source of oppression for all women.  The aim of the movement? was to put an end to the social, economic, political and sexual - subjugation of women and domination of men. This was revolutionary, and a very sensible goal for a feminist movement.  But the thing is the second wave feminists,  focused a lot on the sexual aspect of this male dominance.  

They analysed ‘the politics of sexual desire’ and what they saw as the patriarchal influence in forming this desire. They believed that all sex, as it existed, was problematic  – from the porn industry to the sex women were having at home. All sex was an act of male domination and female submission, which in turn was ensuring women’s social subjugation. These feminists were called ‘sex negative’ or ‘anti-sex feminists’. Also – due to their stands - anti-porn and anti-prostitution feminists, and would later all fall under the umbrella term – Radical Feminists. 

Radical feminists say that sex as we know it is a product of the patriarchy. It reinforces and eroticises gender inequality. They said that the true liberation of women is only possible with a complete overturn in the sexual relations between the two genders.  So the kind of sex people were having had to be changed completely and until such time – women must give up on sex or marriage with men.  And to achieve this,  they have a solution – they start advocating for 3 things. Separatism (so stay away from men including partners because men and women have different interests), abstinence (so stop having sex with men) or lesbianism which later got called political lesbianism because to them lesbianism was just women living with and talking to each other. 

And they didn’t just advocate for these methods – they tried to enforce them. In the book – ‘the Right to Sex’, Amia Srinivasan talks about feminist groups during this time that enforced anti-sex policies. One such group was The Feminists formed in 1969. They had a rule that said that not more than 1/3rd of their members at any time could be married to or living with a man. So 2/3rd of their members had to, at all times, not be involved with men at all. “The group believed that feminism must change what women” want, i.e. marriage or sex with men, and until then women should stop giving sex to men. 

To these anti – sex feminists’ , the issue with porn and prostitution was obvious. Porn and prostitution gave men access to women and sex, which according to them, men should not be getting from any woman. They identified porn as this tool of the patriarchy, they saw porn as this perfect representation – of a woman’s continuing subjugation in the hands of men in a patriarchy. I’m going to read from the book, the Right to Sex and in this portion, there’s also a quote from a prominent anti-porn feminist from this time called Catherine Mackinnon, which will also give you an idea of what the radical feminist thinks about porn.  

Amia Srinivasan writes: 

“For anti-porn feminists of this era, porn wasn’t merely the misogynistic depiction of women and sex. It was ‘propaganda, no more and no less’. It was the ideological scaffold of patriarchy: eroticising, inciting and legitimating male violence against women – and reinforcing the broader social and political subordination of women by men. As Catherine MacKinnon put in her anti-porn manifesto, Only Words (1993): 

“the message of these materials… is to get ‘her’, pointing at all women, to the perpetrators’ benefit of ten billion dollars a year and counting. The message is addressed directly to the penis, delivered through an erection, and taken out on women in the real world. The content of this message is not unique to pornography. It is the function of pornography in effectuating it that is unique” 

Catherine MacKinnon also said this about porn: 

“paying the woman to appear to resist and then surrender does not make the sex consensual; it makes pornography an arm of prostitution. The sex is not chosen for the sex. Money is the medium of force and provides the cover of consent” 

There were thousands of women who were part of the Movement but some more powerful and visible than the others. Few of the well - known radical feminists from this era who were extremely influential, are still read in feminist studies across the world, who wrote, ran lecture circuits, formed organisations and campaigned against porn and prostitution, and whom we’ll keep coming across include: Kathleen Barry who wrote her extremely influential anti-prostitution manifesto called ‘Female Sexual Slavery’ in 1979;  Andrea Dworkin, who in the 1980s writes her popular anti-sex manifesto called ‘Intercourse’; and Catherine MacKinnon, who wrote her popular anti-porn manifesto – Only words in 1993.  

Just to get a sense of these radical feminists. Let’s talk about Andrea Dworkin – a staunch radical anti-sex feminist and one of the most popular feminists from this time. Let me give you a quick overview of her background and entry into the Movement to understand a little about where these women are coming from - these radical feminists. Like most second wave feminists – Andrea Dworkin walked out on her liberal circle during anti-war protests; she also, in one of these protests, was detained and in prison, was subjected to an internal medical examination for some reason which severely bruised her. She later wrote about this experience in the New York Times, which caused a government investigation into the prison. So she already was a public-ish figure and became very prominent in the Movement. She later wrote about her experiences of being sexually assaulted as a child; a common experience among women at this time and about her marriage to an extremely abusive man, another common experience, which marriage she left. Andrea Dworkin unlike most Radical Feminists had some experience in sex work. Basically after her bad experience in prison, she decided to take a break year in Europe and somehow lost her money, and to fund some of her time in Europe she did some sex work. Now I need you to understand this cause this is relevant. As a rule, radical feminists – with their education and privilege - are not sex workers. Radical feminists have no experience in the sex trade and mostly came from backgrounds which ensured they never had to. Andrea Dworkin was the exception and she also came from privilege – she just had a bad experience which led her to do sex work for some time. This somehow made Andrea Dworkin speak and seem like she was qualified to discuss prostitution from ‘experience’. 

Andrea Dworkin’s anti-sex stand is legendary. She was a very confrontational writer, her books made people especially men very uncomfortable, and she was very widely read – whether liked or not.  

In her book ‘intercourse’ she writes “the experience of sexual possession for women is real and literal…. Without any magical or mystical dimension to it: getting fucked and being owned are inseparably the same: …. they are sex for women under male dominance as a social system”.  

She also wrote “ critiques of rape, pornography and prostitution are ‘sex -negative’ without qualification or examination, perhaps because so many men use these ignoble routes of access and domination to get laid, and without them the number of fucks would so significantly decrease that men might nearly be chaste”

Radical feminists are credited for even imagining to critique and analyse sex and desire. Even the radical feminists’ critique of porn – is relevant even today.  But the thing about radical feminism as we will now see – is that it quickly derails the minute it stops being academic. Because,  depriving men of sex as the solutionto ending the subjugation of women in society – is a highly debatable conclusion. 

Back to the 1970s. The adult entertainment and porn industry is thriving. The Movement is anti- sex and looks at porn as the epitome of misogyny and sexism. Their anti – sex views were justified with what they are seeing around them in the sex industry. Women behind glass windows in shops or on video, being paraded;  Women literally being tied up, and dominated and acting coy and submissive; and the men ?? – sexually entitled and getting to display their dominance over women. This was getting out of hand and soon, the feminist Movement starts focusing a lot of its energy into attacking the porn and adult entertainment industry. This anti-porn view was integral to the feminist Movement. Radical feminist, Robin Morgan wrote in 1980: ‘Porn is the theory, rape is the practice.’ And this point of view, radical feminists also extended to BDSM, kink and prostitution. 

Janice Raymond wrote “Prostitution is rape that’s paid for”. 

Simply put, with their anti-sex stand, they thought of porn and prostitution as sex that men did not ‘earn’. They just threw money at women, whom they could treat as objects and got access to sex. So as per them - porn and prostitution in a gender equal society cannot and should not exist.   

This is also a time when sex workers are becoming a little visible to the public. Times Square is famous – a beautiful red light district with lots of tourists visiting; Jane Fonda – a Hollywood actress - does this movie called Klute where she plays a call girl and wins the Oscars in 1971; a book called ‘happy hooker’ which was a first-hand account of a sex worker is published and becomes a hit. Sex worker activism against police harassment of course is also happening. So not only are sex workers being seen by the mainstream, not only are sex workers asserting their rights but they are also being humanised in the public eye. 

All of this,  kind of, bothered the radical feminist. Not for no reason. The radical feminists thought that these accounts, this acceptance, this humanisation of prostitution was dangerous. They were attempts to legitimise the violence that porn and prostitution actually is. And by now, they are organising meetings and conferences speaking against porn and prostitution. And radical feminists did not like to mingle with sex workers. They actively shunned sex workers from their meetings and refused to engage with them. Their assumption of intellectual and moral superiority over sex workers was evident. To them: a prostitute who sells sex to men could never be a feminist and so they can’t be part of our movement and if they want to, prostitutes should just listen to us and stop having sex with men for money or else  they are simply colluding with the patriarchy and with men. I’ve purposely used the word prostitute here because well, the word sex worker has technically still not come into use but mainly because radical feminists refuse to use ‘sex worker’ even today because to them prostitution is not work but exploitation; but since the word prostitute stigmatises the woman which they don’t want, they choose to call sex workers ‘prostituted women’ or ‘women in prostitution’.  

Anyway, sex workers who have been keeping track of this feminist movement around prostitution are getting annoyed. The radical feminists were organising discussions around the sex industry with no experience in the sex trade andrefused to let sex workers take part in these conferences, andsex workers soon started demanding to be heard by the feminist Movement. I’m quoting from the book ‘Revolting Prostitutes’, where the authors – Juno Mac and Molly Smith, write about the experience of a feminist writer, Kate Millet, who attended a conference on prostitution, held in 1971. These are Kate Millet’s words about this 1971 feminist conference where sex - working women come to demand to be heard by the feminist movement. 

She writes:  

“:…...the title of the day’s program was inscribed on leaflets for our benefit: “Towards the elimination of prostitution”. The Panel of experts included everyone but prostitutes… all hell broke loose – between the prostitute and the movement. Because, against all likelihood, prostitutes did in fact attend the conference…. They had a great deal to say about the presumption of straight women who fancied they could debate, decide or even discuss what was their situation and not ours”  

The radical feminists’ contempt for sex workers – increases, the more sex worker activism becomes visible. Radical feminists wanted sex workers to just listen to them and leave the sex trade. They refused to hear sex workers’ perspectives; they didn’t allow their participation in their conferences – accusing them of being the representatives of men –pimps, traffickers, and clients. They accused them of trying to ruin it for other women for the greed of money. To them: sex worker activism was anti-feminist  – because not only were sex workers not listening to them  - the feminists and leaving prostitution but now they are advocating for rights in the sex trade? 

Since sex worker activism was pissing the Radical feminists off, let’s catch up with it: 

The beginning of the modern sex worker right’s movement in the US starts with a revered sex worker and activist, Margo St. James. So a little about her; her background and activism: Margo St James moved to San Francisco in the 1960s and worked as a waitress in a club. At this job, she ended up partying with a lot of musicians and celebrities. One day – because of the number of people, especially men who came in and out of her house, the cops arrest her for prostitution, which she did not do at this time. In her trial, despite her telling the Judge that she was not a sex worker, he convicted her for prostitution because he thought she didn’t come off as a “nice girl” and this criminal record, ensured that she could not get a lot of the few jobs that were available to working class women at this time. So Margo St James took up prostitution. She says, that with this she also became a feminist and then began her activism. 

She first in the beginning of the 1970s sets up an organisation called W.H.O - which stood for ‘Whores, Housewives and Others’. Others was to mean lesbians – like actual lesbians  - which at this time apparently was a taboo to say even in liberal circles.  Lesbians had their own issues with the radical feminists who promoted political lesbianism in their politics but didn’t want to associate with lesbians – like attracted -to - women lesbians. They thought that the lesbians would ruin the feminist movement and excluded them too in the beginning, so lesbians had their own beef with the Movement.  Anyway, Margo St James spoke of how during her part time job as a cleaner in people’s houses in the suburbs, she became friends with some housewives who were curious about her life as a sex worker, and she also made a lesbian friend. So she got this unlikely group together which basically had groups of women that felt not only left out but often targeted by this feminist Movement -  married women, sex workers, and lesbians. 

On Mother’s Day in 1973 – Margo St James sets up the first sex worker rights organisation in the US called COYOTE (which stood for ‘Call off your Old Tired Ethics’). COYOTE started as a group to advocate for sex worker rights and also an outreach collective to help those sex workers who were arrested and needed support. Margo St James got called the ‘Matriarch of the prostitute’s rights movement’ in the US. She was often accused by the radical feminists of being a privileged sex worker, of underplaying the exploitation that prostitution is and of not being representative of all sex workers. She was relatively privileged - a white women and a more high - end sex worker by now, but in her ‘willingness to be a public figure’, to be the face of the sex worker rights movement, open and out on the streets--she helped humanise sex workers. She openly identified as a whore; she marched alongside gay activists for sex worker causes; she told the Rolling Stones magazine about her  “vision of liberating female sexuality from the ‘pussy patrol’ of the state’; she said she wanted to make prostitution ‘palpable to the public’ and remove the idea that prostitution was immoral. 

And the most brilliant thing that she did for the sex worker movement to get it into the mainstream – was linking it to the counter-culture, to the sexual revolution, to the pro – pleasure and pro – queer movement. COYOTE would host these fund raising annual galas called ‘Hooker’s Ball’ and invite celebrities and politicians – those on the left, those on the right, everyone.  COYOTE also ran a publication called ‘COYOTE Howls’ which became fairly popular and kept track of prostitution related news across the world. In 1999, much later, COYOTE set up a clinic exclusively for sex workers and run by sex workers which is still used by the community in San Francisco – the St James Infirmary. Sister organisations of COYOTE also pop up around the US. Eventually her activism goes international. In the 1980s to Europe, where she helps organise the First Whores Congress in Amsterdam in 1985 releasing a World charter for Prostitutes’ Rights. The second whores congress was held in Brussels in 1986, at the European Parliament.  

Margo St James and the sex worker movement opposed and despised the feminist movement for their involvement, their privileged, entitled, out of touch take on prostitution and their refusal to include sex workers. Again, from the book Revolting Prostitutes. 

 “In 1974, COYOTE hosted the first National Hookers’ Convention. The bright orange flyer nodded to the way prostitutes had been shunned from the women’s movement: emblazoned with a hand touching a vulva, it proclaimed: ‘Our convention is different: We want everyone to come’.

The feminist Movement was already meeting, discussing and writing about its anti-porn and anti-prostitution stand. It is annoyed with both the porn industry and sex worker activism. And with this, the Movement starts protesting the sex industry.  They start with campaigns; protests which include raiding adult entertainment shops; heckling with sex workers and other employees; protesting theatres that ran explicit or gory films involving women; protesting adult magazines and those which ran adult ads andalso forming several anti- porn feminist organizations. 

Andrea Dworkin – she along with others formed an influential anti-porn organisation called Women Against Pornography. Along with their campaigns and protests against the sex trade, the radical feminists are also discussing the dangers of porn and want to raise awareness on its dangers, among women.  One of the things these anti-porn feminists start doing is organising feminists tours of red light districts. These tours would take a group through the red light district with their “sex shops, strip clubs, peep shows, and topless bars”. But what was the point of this tour?  So the anti-porn feminists from the organisation Women Against Pornography, before setting off for this tour, would show the group, a consciousness – raising  slide show – a presentation. This is all taken from the book ‘The Right to Sex’ where Amia Srinivasan writes about these anti-porn groups and their activism.  A reporter from the New York Times went for this tour in Times Square and this was her description of this consciousness awakening presentation shown to the group before going into the red light district: She says “A dozen women stared frozen – faced in the tiny storefront, as images of women being bound, beaten and abused flashed across the screen”. Amia Srinivasan jokes in her book about how some feminists later admitted to having been aroused during these slideshows. Because they were showing hardcore porn to these groups as “consciousness awakening”, and it didn’t always work the way it was supposed to.  

Carol Leigh was a sex worker activist who wrote an essay called ‘Inventing sex work’ in 1978 and introduced the term ‘sex work’. In this essay she also wrote about how she managed to attend a conference held by one of these an anti-porn groups where Andrew Dworkin and company held a march through San Francisco’s red light district, where they just humiliated and harassed the strippers and sex workers working there.  

Sex workers are getting more and more appalled by the feminist Movement whose activism was now beginning to really hurt them. Radical Feminists were marching in their workplaces, harassing them, advocating for a closure of their workplace and in some cases - succeeding. The headquarters of this Women Against Pornography organisation was a space that was earlier a restaurant used as  “an assembling spot for transvestites and prostitutes” but Women Against Pornography protested and got the placefor themselves at almost no cost because they had the city’s mayor’s support and anti-porn feminism generally had the support of a conversative state. 

Sex workers pointed out that while radical feminists used sex workers as the symbol of an exploited woman in a patriarchy, they went on to harass, bully and economically hurt the same women in their protests. Sex workers who were from marginalised backgrounds and often for the lack of access to resources were doing sex work, they were already facing police harassment – and  now they had to deal with feminist interventions? and sooo -  sex workers just wanted to talk to this increasingly aggressive feminist movement but the feminists wouldn’t engage. 

What happens though is that some feminists from within the Movement also start calling out the Movement for becoming oppressive. Some feminists, some of whom we saw were becoming very powerful both within the Movement and outside, and also very controlling. Most importantly, these feminists are also feeling like the Movement was alienating a lot of the regular women like married housewives and was actively misogynistic towards a lot of women they considered not feminists – like sex workers. 

These women now from within the feminist movement start calling out this hyper-moralism of the Movement and the obsession with porn and prostitution. These feminists wanted to hear and support sex workers. They also didn’t like this “militant celibacy” that the radical feminists advocated for with their refusal to discuss sex positively at all and they wanted to talk about the sexual liberation of women. 

Part 2: The Sex Wars 

In 1981, a feminist - Ellen Willis writes an essay titled ‘Lust Horizon – is the women’s movement pro-sex’. She argued that this anti-sex view just reinforced the conservative belief that men wanted sex and women merely put up with it. She also argued that the radical feminists were wrong to assume that women would become liberated if they succeeded in curbing men’s sexual freedom.  Women were starting to realise that the radical feminists didn’t seem interested in women gaining power at all. They were only interested in curbing men’s sexual freedoms which wouldn’t do much for women actually and was additionally also repressing their sexuality. This started what became pro-sex or sex-positive feminism which later falls under the umbrella term ‘Liberal Feminism’.

The Liberal Feminist stand becomes -- look, ‘sex and marriage with men can be a legitimate desire for women, and also - a necessity to gain power or for survival, in a patriarchal society’. They wanted to talk about women’s sexuality and imagine a future where marriage and sex could be reformed and rethought of, on more equal terms.  

Liberal Feminists were pro-sex work and supported sex workers. Some in fact would argue that porn and prostitution could even help women in sex education, sexual expression, and help remove patriarchal control over women’s sexuality. They saw pro – queer, sex - working women like erotic professionals, dominatrix and femme fatale – all these non – conforming identities as empowering for women.  So liberal feminists thought of sex work as something that could be empowering to the woman’s sexuality. Most importantly, they believed sex work is sex between two consenting adults for their respective benefits. The man wants recreational sex, the woman wants money. Insisting this woman is a victim is what is actually anti-feminist.  

The sex wars sees the Movement split for the first time into the anti – sex or Radical Feminists who are anti-porn and anti-prostitution and the Liberal Feminists who are sex-positive, and they aren’t pro-porn and pro -prostitution but they didn’t support the censorship of porn and they were pro-sex worker rights.  

The sex wars was not just an ideological battle, it manifested on the ground.  

In 1982, the Liberal Feminists plan a conference called the Bernard Sex Conference in New York which was supposed to be and I quote “a coming – out party for feminists who had been appalled by the intellectual dishonesty and dreariness of the anti-pornography movement”. The conference was on the topic of:   women’s sexual pleasure, choice and autonomy. Several talks and workshops would take place with over 800 feminists, students and activists attending. They had also published these booklets which consisted of a bunch of sex positive essays, reading lists and some graphic sexual pictures, which were to be handed out to the participants. 

How do the Radical Feminists react:  one week before this conference, the Radical Feminists begin harassing the hosts and the organizers, complaining that the conference had been organized by ‘sexual perverts’.  The conference is finally allowed to happen but all  copies of this booklet were confiscated by the hosts after the radical feminists complained that it was ‘too sexually explicit’. At the conference itself, these radical feminists come, they all wear printed T shirts with ‘For a Female Sexuality’ written on the front and on the back ‘Against S/M’ . They hand out pamphlets at the conference saying the conference not only supported pornography and sadomasochism but also, the patriarchy and child abuse. 

Another conference in 1986 called – Feminism, Sexuality and Power. Radical feminists again participate in this conference, andjust interrupt everything. It was like they just got stuck on the topic of BDSM and porn,  and couldn’t bear the fact that other women from the Movement thought of discussing anything about sex apart from this lens of abuse and violence. Afterwards, feminist newspapers would condemn the conferences, insult individual liberal feminists – who called this a form of “witch – hunting’ and accuse these individual liberal feminists of promoting violence against women and paedophilia. 

So why were the radical feminists so upset with the liberal feminists and their discussions on pleasure?  Just to give you a feel of how the radical feminist is discussing sex and porn and wants everyone else to as well. This is an account from the book ‘Playing the Whore’ written by Melissa Gira Grant. A sex-positive feminist so liberal feminist at this time was Betty Dodson. Betty Dodson basically in the 1960s becomes quite a public figure. She was a sex educator, and introduced women’s pleasure into the mainstream, to regular women like housewives and came to be known as the evangelist of women’s self-pleasure. So Betty Dodson, once, went for a meeting of Andrea’s Dworkin’s organisation, Women Against Pornography, and wrote about how she couldn’t imagine her presenting her slideshow on pleasure, in the “climate produced by WAP”.  

Here she is recounting the meeting of WAP that she attended. 

In her words – “each speakers words and tears were firing up the room into a unified rage…An attractive blonde in her midthirties stood at the mic. With her rage barely controlled, she described her childhood sexual abuse’ which involved her father using what the woman called ‘disgusting, filthy pictures’ and her being made to perform an unnatural act. The whole room was emotionally whipped up into a rage with their own private images of child rape, while at the same time, revelling in the awfulness of it.”

So to the radical feminist,  porn symbolised their very real, painful and traumatic experiences of domestic and sexual abuse. They did not appreciate the liberal feminists’ approach towards sex with all its pleasure and exploration, without discussing the problematic aspects . But the radical feminists were cornering women – they made it look like talking positively about sex at all was the same as endorsing sexual abuse and violence. 

Radical Feminists called the Liberal Feminists ‘perverts’  pandering to male sexuality; of being pro-men and anti-women.  In response - Liberal feminists accused Radical Feminists of “retreating from the sexual battlefield”, of being ‘prudes invested in preserving sexual puritanism”.  

When one of the first world conferences on anti - trafficking was to be held in 1983; naturally the academicians, the intellectuals: the Radical Feminists were invited to lead the discussions around anti-trafficking. Margo St James, the sex worker activist openly challenges radical feminist Kathleen Barry, writer of the anti-prostitution book ‘female sexual slavery’ to debate her on the issue of sex work and trafficking at this conference.  Kathleen Barry refused.  saying it would be “inappropriate to discuss ‘sexual slavery’ with a prostitute”. They would justify this exclusion of sex workers in such conferences by saying they were are part of the ‘sex industry lobby’ and campaigning on behalf of traffickers, brothel owners and pimps. Radical Feminists also produced tons of literature on their anti- prostitution stand. With their education, power and influence – they successfully positioned prostitution as the violation of  a women’s human rights. This view still remains. 

Yet, one of radical feminism’s worst legacy is their misogyny towards sex workers weaponizing feminism -  in their activism, writings, and academics. They made it seem like sex workers by carrying on prostitution were harming the feminists’ fight towards gender equality.  

One radical feminist Julie Burchill wrote: “When the sex war is won prostitutes should be shot as collaborators for their terrible betrayal of all women”

Kathleen Barry said prostitutes were ‘blow up dolls, complete with orifices for penetration and ejaculation”

Andrea Dworkin wrote that the prostitute “lives the literal reality of being the dirty woman. There is no metaphor. She is the woman covered in dirt, which is to say that every man who has ever been on top of her has left a piece of himself behind….she is perceived as, treated as, - and I want you to remember this, this is real – vaginal slime.”  

Radical Feminism was very misogynistic towards many women they saw as intellectually or morally inferior or just, ill – behaved. They simply didn’t think of sex workers as their equals – to them: they were the intellectual feminists using their minds like women now should and sex workers used their bodies.  Out of the many things that seems to have not occurred to them, like they might just be wrong or other women might have different views, the most important thing that the radical feminists ignored was that they were among the most privileged women at this time and sex workers were among the least. 

Now, radical feminism is not a conservative movement; it’s not a religious movement and feminists were critical of religion. It comes from the far left – it’s radical in its aim to reorganise society as it exists – that’s a big one – so the opposite side of the spectrum to that of the conservative right. However by now, it was evident that the Radical Feminists’ values around sex kind of collided with that of the conservative Christian right. Which is strange. How can the conservative right and radical feminism have the same goals relating to sex – even though the radical feminist will insist that their reasons are different but both support abstinence and separatism? Both believe sex for a woman is super special and porn is bad for society – one for morality reasons and the other for feminist reasons? Radical feminism was starting to look a lot like the conservative side of things especially in their repression of all things, sexual. Then something happened that kind of confirmed this obvious coinciding of interests. 

In 1983, two of the radical feminists – Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon – are called in by the State Government of Indiana in the US which had a conservative right government to draft an anti-porn bill. Again, radical feminism in its call to overturn the patriarchy was a far left movement but these anti-porn feminists jump to the occasion to draft a legislation that defines porn and positions it as ‘civil rights violation’. This was the first attempt in the US to define pornography and legislate it. They drafted the bill - it went up the ladder, got veto-ed, gained traction again but ultimately -  never became a law. However what did happen is that a lot of feminists got really pissed off with these two who essentially went to help a government that still opposed abortion – abortion, a core feminist issue – just to draft an anti- porn bill? 

In the foreword to Dworkin’s book ‘Intercourse’ – Ariel Levy writes “ many feminists never forgave the two and anti-porn feminists in general for getting in bed with the right wing”. 

This event cemented the sex wars and ultimately tore the feminist Movement apart. Anti-porn feminists would eventually concede that the anti – porn movement had failed and they would not succeed in banning porn. 

Even though that was the case with porn, this marked the beginning of these American feminists now looking to legislate, and work with governments to influence women related policies, and they end up turning to domestic and international laws around prostitution.

For completeness – after the sex wars, in the 1990s feminism entered its third- wave.  Finally with voices of black women, women of colour and other minorities in the West and voices from the Global South, the movement in the 1990s shifts to what is now commonly accepted, which is – intersectionality. Simplistically – it means that feminism cannot be a universal common prescription for all women – different women will have different experiences which intersect basis their race, caste, class, colour, sexuality, disability. And sometimes a feminism that works for the middle-class and privileged woman may actually not work or work against the working-class and marginalized woman.  

Despite this turn to intersectionality, anti -prostitution laws and activism, still draw from Radical feminism so let’s summarize the: radical feminist theory on prostitution. 

The Radical Feminist says: Prostitution gives men ‘free access’ to a woman and he exercises his liberty but to the woman in prostitution, the selling of her sex is the selling of her entire body, it is the loss of liberty and this act of selling her sex harms her entire self. 

All prostitution is inherently exploitation. All prostitution is rape.  It is just rape that’s paid for and so it cannot be ‘work’.  No woman can truly consent to her prostitution since she would never have sex with the client if not for the money – so the money is used to coerce her into having sex with him. The sex trade according to them is inherently violent and this cannot ever be changed given the nature of the trade, which is the exploitation of vulnerable women, so violence doesn’t exist within the sex trade but the sex trade is in itself violent. It is a highly sexist trade because most people who sell sex are women, while men who are third parties’ profit “off” her, they “exploit her prostitution” and hence, prostitution is forced and abusive. 

For society:  the symbol of a prostitute is the ultimate representation of a woman’s subordinate position in society, what a woman can be reduced to, and the male client is the ultimate figure of male domination and entitlement. The existence of commercial sex harms all women. Men will never treat women as equals but as sex objects until porn and prostitution is abolished. The message that should be sent to men is that sex with a woman cannot be bought but should be earned through love or desire. 

Their politics regarding anti-trafficking laws? They support the ban on prostitution. They just will want harsher laws now. Just like the missionaries, Victorian feminists and as laid out in the 1949 UN anti- trafficking convention, they do not distinguish between sex work and trafficking cause to them attempting to distinguish between the two will legitimize violence against women who say they are in the sex trade by choice, which choice is a fallacy.  All prostitution is the trafficking of women and can be nothing less.  Whether sex workers say they are forced or whether they say it’s consensual – it is all the same. Prostitution is by itself the violation of a woman’s human rights.  Commercial sex is a form of ‘sexual slavery’ – this comes up a lot in anti-prostitution discourse that legalizing prostitution is akin to legalizing slavery. 

So with this the Radical Feminist thinks that all commercial sex has to be stopped – by the State and the Police. The prostituted women have to be removed from the trade and saved, the men should be punished and transactional sex made illegal - so they support complete criminalisation. 

Against this, the Liberal Feminists will say that sex work is a form of sex between two consenting adults and so there cannot be any legal or social efforts to control it, whether by the state, by men, by feminists or by anyone. They support the distinction between sex work and trafficking, which to them is forced prostitution.  Sex work should be allowed and sex workers given rights as they demand. So prostitution is not necessarily bad for the women if sex workers are given rights, treated with respect and the sex trade destigmatized. 

Anti – sex and anti-porn feminism in general is said to have failed. It now looks like a reactionary movement against a culture that was changing, and opening up to sex. Either way – feminists today do acknowledge the more problematic aspects of porn and refer to second – wave feminists and their deep-dives into sex and gender relations. 

But as a movement – it did not and could not sustain. Radical feminism is accused of ignoring the realities of working women and marginalised people.  Radical feminism is often called – white feminism because it was based around and suited only white middle class educated women, at the time. Plus, it just does not make sense, their conclusion – how removing porn and prostitution would overturn the patriarchy without women’s economic empowerment. Radical feminists were privileged – they didn’t have to think about issues that working class and marginalised women faced like poverty, lack of access to education and employment so they just ran with their conclusion that the sexual aspect of the gender inequality is the biggest problem. And their solution ?? was the control of other women.  

Radical feminism aspires and claims to be anti-patriarchy and anti-men, but in practice, it targets, judges and critiques, other women – those they consider ill – behaved or just, anti-feminist. This legacy is still very present in mainstream and feminist discourses. 

And to the radical feminist, the ill-behaved women who have to continue to be controlled and disciplined are sex workers. Their intellectually charged, hyper- moral, aggressive and out of touch politics has harmed and continues to harm a lot of sex workers. 

So, anti-prostitution feminism unfortunately is still with us. Today, Radical feminism looms large over anti-trafficking laws and policies, across the world.  But before we can talk about that --- we have to come back to catch up with the movement around prostitution in Modern India.