2. US Feminism vs. Prostitution (& Porn)

So Skewed

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
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

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