A Brief History and Impact of the Feminist Sex Wars

-- By AndreaRuedas - 23 Feb 2024

Introduction

Social movements in the United States during the latter half of the 20th century were based in a struggle for liberation, civil rights, and human rights. Anti-war and anti-imperialism organizing, as well as racial organizing for civil rights, dominated the Left’s image and politics which positioned feminism in the shadows of its male dominated counterparts. During this time period, feminism shifted from its suffrage based political platform to become a movement based in the dismantling of the patriarchy and socio-political equality of the genders. In the 1960s, sex and violence emerged as popular subjects among feminist activists and scholars that turned into a decades long debate between theorists. This debate became known as the feminist sex wars in which participating parties were simplified into two sides: anti-porn theorists and sex positive theorists. The sex wars became known for asking the question: is sex liberating or perpetuating oppression?

The sex wars, in which feminist scholars debated the origin and implications of sex (primarily heterosexual sex), marked an important moment in feminist social movements. From that point forward, articulations for the equality of women and the end of patriarchal structures were embedded with theory based on either sex positivity or sex negativity - especially in cases that involved gender-based violence or sex trafficking.

What is "Feminism?"

The origins of feminism continue to be contested, partially because of academic insistence to focus exclusively on movements using the word “feminist” without regard for prior organizing with similar goals and different language usage, but it is undeniable that throughout time women have collectively organized for their rights. In the United States, modern feminism is said to have begun with abolitionists calling for the end of chattel slavery (along with its highly gendered violence) and with suffragists demanding women’s right to vote during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. With the attainment of the legal right to vote for white women in 1920, second-wave feminism at the beginning of 1960s focused on the slogan “The personal is political” to attract attention to issues of the private domain like reproductive healthcare, economic dependence, and gendered violence. Radical second wave feminists brought forth claims of sex work, pornography, and sexuality being mediums for violence on women’s bodies and psyches. Liberal feminists countered with the liberation found in sexual agency from virginity myths, coerced sex, and repression of women’s sexuality. The term, sex positivity, was created in response.

In the mid 1990s, third-wave feminism moved away from the heated sexuality arguments among feminists and demanded an intersectional feminism - one that recognized the impact of multiple axes of oppression on women, especially women of color who faced racism, poverty, and misogyny. Although women of color had been writing on topics of feminism for years before, mainstream feminism attempted to re-do theory and practice so as to intentionally consider, include, and highlight the narratives of women who were not white, cis, heterosexual, middle class, and able-bodied.

Today, we are living in the fourth wave which has been labeled as a “post-feminist” movement that consists of non-organized micro-movements that depend on digital platforms to serve as mediums (and replacements) for organizing, consciousness raising groups, and academia. While increased access to the internet and social media platforms has encouraged visibility of feminist concerns and actions, it has also allowed for the spread of anti-feminist stereotypes that has contributed to women disassociating themselves from the label “feminist.” However research points suggests that even when women do not self-label as feminists, women continue to support and engage with ideology and action that support women’s socio-political equality.

The Sex Wars

The binary division in the theoretical backgrounds of radical and liberal feminism led to that sex negative or sex positive interpretations of sexuality that permeated the sex wars. Radical feminist theory, a feminism whose focus is to dismantle all patriarchal institutions and systems as well as gender roles, argued that sex as it existed in this society could not be liberating. Porn, sex work, and individual heteronormative intercourse only existed through the male gaze, in which the pleasure of women was not and had never been the focus. Hence, neither could contribute to the sexual or whole liberation of women. Some theorists declared porn and rape as equivalent because actresses did not hold any agency during the filming, scenes were considered violent, and women were objectified and commodified.

Liberal feminists on the other hand, were preoccupied with the liberation of women through legal and social systems in which women would be able to make truly autonomous decisions. As such, women’s sexuality was not seen as a hindrance to the movement but as an asset because it symbolized the destruction of patriarchal sexual socialization that was based on slut shaming and misogyny. Sex workers and porn artists emerged to counter the claims made by radical feminists. They argued that through sex work and porn, women were able to appreciate their bodies, their pleasure in sex, and learned to balance power dynamics with their partners.

The Impact on the Present

Popular academia and the media portrayed the feminist sex wars as a dichotomous debate and omitted its many nuances. The sensationalism created the stereotype of the “man-hating, angry feminist” and overshadowed feminism’s multiple triumphs for women’s socio-political authority. As a result, feminism lost political strength and social support as many would-be feminists distanced and disidentified from the movement.

Despite the bad press, the sex wars should be recognized for their catalytic contribution to the birth and boom of the many feminist fields that exist today. Whereas the history of feminism began with suffrage and abolition, modern feminism considers everything from intersectionality to environmentalism. This expansion happened when second-wave feminists were pushed to critically consider and include not only their own experiences in relation to sex but also the lives of women across the globe who are impacted daily by politics affecting their agency, mobility, and security.

This draft does the crucial job of a first draft well: it tells us what we are thinking about and puts questions that we can build on.

It seems to me that the best route to improvement, certainly the most accessible to someone like you who has read the literature, is to put the essay in touch with the literature. It's a little odd to read the history of thought without the thinkers. Not to discuss any particular writing is a drawback you can easily remedy. I know the books and essays you are talking about, but a reader who wasn't there can't readily locate herself. By viewing the conversation largely through the lenses of non-intellectuals not involved, whose approach—as you say—was largely reductive, you make it harder rather than easier for a contemporary reader to understand.

I should think we would want to consider, before we come to the pro- or the anti-, the immense and largely ignored significance of Shere Hite, who asked what sex women actually had and how they experienced it—earning ridiculous dismissal from the very observers you are treating as unnamed sources—in the process. Surely we can do better by Catherine MacKinnon, or even less subtle philosophers like Germaine Greer, than to trap them within an "anti-sex" label? Susan Brownmiller and Kate Millett deserve at least a couple of sentences about their actual ideas, don't they? Second-wave theorists like Dorothy Dinnerstein, Evelyn Keller, or (forgive my bias) my mother, for whom the "sex wars" were not the primary theoretical issue were not therefore not feminist thinkers, surely? Given that not all sex is heterosexual, and that the issues for lesbian theorists like Esther Newton were therefore of a different sort, some accounting for their pioneering might also help contemporary feminists see the historical background better.

The writing you are doing here is valuable. But so was theirs, and you gain value from being in true contact with one another, rather than leaving once- or still-living women, courageous, thoughtful intellectuals to be buried, unnamed, beneath the wreckage of a controversy than which they were immensely larger. You've read all these works and can inhabit them. I look forward to reading the next draft.