Gayle Rubin

"The Feminist Sex Wars: A Retrospective Exploration"

During the 1970s, the feminist movement in the United States had several intense debates over sexuality, but “pornography” was not a focus and was rarely mentioned. This changed in 1977 when a single-minded crusade against pornography materialized, and quickly absorbed many of the previous disputes. This movement claimed that pornography – never clearly or consistently defined – was responsible for violence against women. The nebulous category of “pornography” was increasingly framed as not only a primary factor in anti-female violence, but as the root of female subordination itself. Although feminist critics almost immediately questioned the anti-pornography frameworks, they were dismissed or attacked by anti-pornography partisans. In the late 1980s, this movement morphed into a crusade against prostitution, under the rubric of “trafficking.” Like pornography, “trafficking” is a tricky term. This particular use of “trafficking” equated all commercial sex with coercive forms of sexual (and other) labor. By the late 1990s, this language of “trafficking” had been adopted by non-feminist and often anti-feminist actors and constituencies: religious rescue organizations, law enforcement, nation states concerned about migration and border control, and capital intensive real estate developers and their political allies. Although much of this particular rhetoric about pornography, prostitution, and trafficking was incubated in obscure feminist publications, these frameworks have had a huge impact on how the media, the general public, and institutions of the state treat sexual behaviors and commerce. The effects of these movements have affected the lives and livelihoods of countless individuals. They have been deployed in criminal justice, in immigration control, and in central city land use (notably, for example, in the reshaping of Times Square in the late 20th century).

Gayle Rubin is an Associate Professor of Anthropology and Women’s & Gender Studies.