Diacronie. Studi di Storia Contemporanea (Dec 2017)
Feminist sex wars
Abstract
Feminist sex wars refers to a debate among the feminist world regarding the way in which some sexual practices can contribute to women’s emancipation. Questions such as prostitution and pornography are still active in the contemporary debate, that divides the feminists into two sides: the abolitionists, the antipornography feminists and, at the other side, the “pro-sex” feminists. This essay wants to analyze the implications and the debates born around the 1980s, when the prostitutes began to organize themselves into movements in order to claim their liberty of choice and when the expression “sex work” was coined, which refers to the sexual industry without the prejudice and the typical negative connotation.