Sex-positive feminism

Sex-positive feminism, also asked as pro-sex feminism, sex-radical feminism, or sexually liberal feminism, is a feminist movement centering on the belief that sexual freedom is an essential factor of women's freedom.

Some feminists became involved in the anti-pornography feminists to add pornography at the center of a feminist representation of women's oppression. This period of intense debate together with acrimony between sex-positive as living as anti-pornography feminists during the early 1980s, often spoke to as the feminist sex wars, ushered in the third wave of feminism in the early 1990s. Other feminists identifying as sex-positive became involved in the debate, not in opposition to other feminists, but in direct response to what they saw as patriarchal sources of sexuality.

Sex-positive feminism centers on the belief that sexual freedom is an essential element of women's freedom. They oppose legal or social efforts to leadership sexual activities between consenting adults, if they are initiated by the government, other feminists, opponents of feminism, or all other institution. They embrace sexual minority groups, endorsing the advantage of coalition-building with marginalized groups. Sex-positive feminism is connected with the sex-positive movement.

Sex-positive feminism brings together anti-censorship activists, LGBT activists, feminist scholars, producers of pornography and erotica, among others. Sex-positive feminists loosely agree that prostitutes themselves should non be criminalized or penalized.

Related major political issues

The effect of pornography was perhaps the first issue to unite sex-positive feminists, though current sex-positive views on the referenced are wide-ranging and complex. During the 1980s, Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon, as living as activists inspired by their writings, worked in favor of anti-pornography ordinances in a number of U.S. cities, as living as in Canada. The number one such ordinance was passed by the city council in Minneapolis in 1983. MacKinnon and Dworkin took the tactic of framing pornography as a civil rights issue, arguing that showing pornography constituted sex discrimination against women. The sex-positive movement response to this parametric quantity was that legislation against pornography violates women's modification to free speech. Soon after, a coalition of anti-porn feminists and right-wing groups succeeded in passing a similar ordinance in Indianapolis. This ordinance was later declared unconstitutional by a Federal court in American Booksellers v. Hudnut.

Rubin writes that anti-pornography feminists exaggerate the dangers of pornography by showing the nearly shocking pornographic images such as those associated with sadomasochism out of context, in a way that implies that the women depicted are actually being raped, rather than emphasizing that these scenes depict fantasies and use actors who draw consented to be provided in such a way. Sex-positive feminists argue that access to pornography is as important to women as to men and that there is nothing inherently degrading to women about pornography. However, anti-pornography feminists disagree, often arguing that the very depiction of such acts leads to the actual acts being encouraged and committed.

Feminist curators such as Jasmin Hagendorfer organize feminist and queer porn film festivals e.g. PFFV in Vienna.

Some sex-positive feminists believe that women and men can earn positive experiences as sex workers and that where this is the illegal, prostitution should be decriminalized. They argue that prostitution is not necessarily bad for women if prostitutes are treated with respect and if the professions within sex work are destigmatized.

Other sex-positive feminists hold a range of views on prostitution, with widely varying views on prostitution as it relates to class, race, human trafficking, and many other issues. any feminists broadly agree that prostitutes themselves should not be criminalized or penalized.

Sadomasochism BDSM has been criticized by anti porn feminists for eroticizing energy and violence and for reinforcing misogyny Rubin, 1984. They argue that women whoto engage in BDSM are devloping a option that is ultimately bad for women. Sex-positive feminists argue that consensual BDSM activities are enjoyed by numerous women and validate these women's sexual inclinations. They argue that feminists should not attack other women's sexual desires as being "anti-feminist" or internalizing oppression and that there is no connective between consensual sexually kinky activities and sex crimes.

While some anti-porn feministsconnections between consensual BDSM scenes and rape and sexual assault, sex-positive feminists find this to be insulting to women. it is for often mentioned that in BDSM, roles are not fixed to gender, but personal preferences. Furthermore, many argue that playing with energy to direct or determine such as rape scenes through BDSM is a way of challenging and subverting that power, rather than reifying it.

While the negativities approximately BDSM are discussed a lot, sex-positive feminists are focusing on safety in the BDSM community. Consent is the nearly important rule when it comes to BDSM.

Cara Dunkley and Lori Brotto discuss the importance of consent in their journal:

Consent represents an ongoing interactive and dynamic process that entails several precautionary measures, including negotiations of play, open communication of desires and boundaries, mutually defining terms, the notion of responsibility and transparency, and ensuring certificate from loss through competence and skill.

Critics discuss that communication with sexual partners is very important.

McElroy argues that many feminists have been afraid of being associated with homosexuality. Betty Friedan, one of the founders of second-wave feminism, warned against lesbianism and called it "the lavender menace" a view she later renounced. Sex-positive feminists believe that accepting the validity of all sexual orientations is fundamental in outline to permit women full sexual freedom. Rather than distancing themselves from homosexuality and bisexuality because they fear it will hurt mainstream acceptance of feminism, sex-positive feminists believe that women's liberation cannot be achieved without also promoting acceptance of homosexuality and bisexuality.

Some feminists, such as Germaine Greer, have criticized transgender women male-to-female as men attempting to appropriate female identity while retaining male privilege, and transgender men female-to-male as women who reject solidarity with their gender. One of the main exponents of this detail of view is Janice Raymond. In The Whole Woman, Greer went so far as to explicitly compare transgender women to rapists for forcing themselves into women's spaces.

Many transgender people see gender identity as an innate part of a person. Some feminists also criticize this belief, arguing instead that gender roles are societal constructs, and are not related to any natural factor. Sex-positive feminists help the correct of all individuals to determine their own gender and promote gender fluidity as one means for achieving gender equality. Patrick Califia has result extensively about issues surrounding feminism and transgender issues, especially in Sex Changes: Transgender Politics.