User:Nelischalich/Feminist sex wars

Two opposing views

Anti-pornography feminists

In 1976 Andrea Dworkin organized demonstrations against the film Snuff in New York, but attempts to start an organization to continue the feminist anti-pornography campaign failed. Efforts were more successful in Los Angeles, where Women Against Violence Against Women was founded in response to Snuff in 1976; they campaigned against the Rolling Stones' 1976 album Black and Blue. The U.S. anti-pornography movement gained ground with the founding of Women Against Violence in Pornography and Media (WAVPM) in 1977 in San Francisco, following a 1976 conference on violence against women held by local women's centers. Early members included Susan Griffin, Kathleen Barry, and Laura Lederer.

WAVPM organised the first national conference on pornography in San Francisco in 1978 which included the first Take Back the Night march.The conference led to anti-pornography feminists organizing in New York in 1979 under the banner of Women Against Pornography (WAP), and to similar organizations and efforts being created across the United States. In 1983, Page Mellish, a one-time member of WAVPM and of WAP, founded Feminists Fighting Pornography to focus on political activism seeking legal changes to limit the porn industry. Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon wanted civil laws restricting pornography and to this end drafted the Antipornography Civil Rights Ordinance, also known as the Dworkin-MacKinnon Ordinance.

Sex-positive feminists

From 1979 feminist journalist Ellen Willis was one of the early voices criticizing anti-pornography feminists for what she saw as sexual puritanism, moral authoritarianism and a threat to free speech. Her 1981 essay, Lust Horizons: Is the Women's Movement Pro-Sex? is the origin of the term, "pro-sex feminism". The response to the anti-pornography strand of feminism by the sex-positive feminists was one that promoted sex as an avenue of pleasure for women, seeing anti-pornography positions as aligned to the political right-wing's war on recreational sex and pornography. Early sex positive groups included Samois, founded in San Francisco in 1978, whose early members included Gayle Rubin and Pat Califia, and the Lesbian Sex Mafia, founded by Dorothy Allison and Jo Arnone in New York in 1981. The Feminist Anti-Censorship Taskforce (FACT) was set up in 1984 by Ellen Willis in response to the Dworkin-MacKinnon Ordinance; in 1989 Feminists Against Censorship formed in the UK, its members including Avedon Carol; and Feminists for Free Expression formed in the United States in 1992 by Marcia Pally, with founding members including Nadine Strossen, Joan Kennedy Taylor, Veronica Vera and Candida Royalle.

Erika Lust, a Swedish erotic film director, changed the feminist pornography movement with the release of her explicit short film, The Good Girl. The film was played at the Barcelona International Erotic Film Festival and was previously downloaded over 2 million times in the first month it was released on the internet. Lust became a name within sex-positive feminism through her cinematic creation that was made for the female gaze, instead of the male gaze, as usual in erotic film. The film won several awards, including the Feminist Porn Award for the year 2008.

Key events

In October 1980 the National Organization for Women identified what became known as the "Big Four" through declaring that "Pederasty, pornography, sadomasochism and public sex" were about "exploitation, violence or invasion of privacy" and not "sexual preference or orientation". One of the more memorable clashes between the pro-sex and anti-porn feminists occurred at the 1982 Barnard Conference on Sexuality. Anti-pornography feminists were excluded from the events’ planning committee, so they staged rallies outside the conference to show their disdain. In London, September 2007, a series of protests called "Bin the Bunny" were organized by the group Anti-Porn London with the purpose to expose the company, Playboy, with the intent of targeting young girls as customers for the opening store. The group Anti-Porn London has since retired from its active campaigning, opting to become more of a online resource. Additionally, Vienna-based artist, Jasmin Hagendorfer, is the founder of the Porn Film Festival Vienna, her process of connecting feminism and art/pornography. The festival aims to show others how to approach porn and queer art with an open mind.