Pornography: Women possessing bad theory[i]

Sara Moiseff; 26/04/19

Andrea Dworkin seems to be in fashion again. Dworkin, that titan of radical feminism who "has been worshipped, reviled, criticized, and analyzed — but never ignored"[ii] has become somewhat popular with young hip-and-happening feminists.[iii] Dworkin is a complex and controversial figure: with a legacy of over a dozen books, fingers in all sorts of feminist pies (including anti-porn legislation and the Nordic model of sex work law) and a surviving husband who still attempts to manage her public image, it can be difficult to sort the good from the bad.

I will admit to being a bit of a Dworkin apologist myself. I am a sucker for good prose and lurid descriptions of violence, and Dworkin provides both in spades. Dworkin and I seem to share a morbid fixation on confronting and recounting the worst forms of violence that human beings are capable of enacting. Her writing is emotionally resonant, giving voice to raw anger at male supremacy, the sort of anger that inevitably wells up in anyone who begins to really pay attention to how women are treated. In a world in which women are expected to suffer silently, Andrea Dworkin is loud and unapologetic — "our Old Testament prophet raging in the hills, telling the truth."[iv]

And yet, Dworkin apologia is a tricky subject. Dworkin remains popular with such notorious tranny-haters as Mary Daly, Janice Raymond, and Julie Bindel. Even if she was not personally transphobic (a debate that has been rehashed endlessly to no clear resolution), her work is incredibly useful to transphobic feminists. In the world of social media, a mention of Dworkin in a feminist's bio is usually a huge red flag — one can be reasonably certain that the feminist in question will have all sorts of reactionary, definitely transphobic, possibly racist, opinions. Many of the worst sorts of feminists imaginable have flocked to Dworkin, because Dworkin's loud, one-size-fits-all approach is highly conducive to dangerous and reactionary politics. In order to find the good in Dworkin's work, one must sort through the bad: transphobia,[v] nationalism,[vi] hostility to sex workers,[vii] insensitivity to certain racial issues[viii] — and of course, her somewhat baffling opinions on pornography. It is Dworkin's position on pornography — bold, uncompromising, and often inscrutable — that will be the focus of this essay.

Anti-pornography feminism has a long, often sordid, history. Certainly, there is value in criticisms of pornography. Pornography, produced within a male supremacist world, tends to be intensely male supremacist, depicting women in demeaning and sexually objectifying ways. Anti-pornography feminism is brash and bold, necessary qualities as feminism continues to be subsumed by spineless liberalism. And yet, anti-pornography feminism is often based in questionable assumptions and analytical frameworks. Furthermore, because of the sorts of people who tend to flock to anti-pornography legislation — that is, the religious right — anti-pornography feminism often finds itself in dangerous water. Anti-pornography feminism, arising out of the "sex wars" of the 1980s, is closely linked with anti-prostitution feminism (arguably more problematic[ix])and often transphobia. A brief history lesson is in order.[x]

A male supremacist system reduces women to sex objects — "Man fucks woman; subject verb object",[xi] regardless of whether the woman wants it. This dehumanizes women in two ways: one, women are forced to be sexual against their will; two, women are denied the right to meaningful personal sexuality on their own terms.

These two outcomes — both incredibly detrimental for women — both arise from the male supremacist objectification of women. However, strategies for combating these two different outcomes tends to be quite divergent, which, during the 1980s, created a rift that nearly destroyed American feminism. The second wave was divided into two camps: sex-radical feminists and antipornography feminists. (Various names have been given these two groups; I take these particular terms from Lorna M. Bracewell.[xii])

Sex-radical feminists focused on the ways in which sex could be reclaimed to empower women. These feminists created pornography, embraced taboo queer and lesbian sexualities — including sadomasochism — and focused on sexual subversion. Broadly speaking, this camp was much more welcoming to transgender people than the other. Sex-radical feminists focused on allowing women the right to meaningful personal sexuality on their own terms. Although modern retellings of the sex wars typically valorize this side as the "correct" one, notable among sex-radical feminists' serious missteps are repeated attempts to justify sexual relationships between adults and children. Such positions — sanitizing statutory rape as "intergenerational relationships" — are, of course, indefensible.

Anti-pornography feminists focused on the ways in which sex functions as an oppressive tool to subjugate women. They focused particularly on two targets — prostitution and pornography. Dworkin, the most famous and notorious of the anti-prostitution feminists, described prostitution as the "material reality" and pornography as the "underlying ideology", both supporting, enclosing, and reinforcing the "circle of crimes against women".[xiii] (Although I usually use the term sex work, I use the term prostitution within specific discussions of anti-prostitution feminism, because it is the term used by these feminists.) Anti-pornography feminists primarily focused on preventing women from being subjected to sexual exploitation and violence. Broadly speaking, this camp was hostile to transgender people. This feminist movement was incredibly misguided and has been criticized at length. However, outright condemnations of these feminists as "prudes" or "Victorians" fail to grasp these feminists' cogent critiques of structures of power encoded within sexual relationships. As the T-shirt reads, "I won the feminist sex wars and all I got was this inability to critique the structure of violence visited upon women by heterosexual intercourse in a misogynistic world."

Although the sex wars are best remembered as an argument between two groups of feminists, both groups were in conversation and conflict with other groups, such as non-feminist liberals and conservatives. For the purpose of this chapter, it is the anti-pornography position that is particularly worth examining. Anti-pornography feminists, broadly speaking, also oppose transgender rights; both positions arise from similar narrow ideological viewpoints.

I have criticized anti-prostitution feminism at length in Trans/Women (Chapters 2 and 9); it is an incredibly misguided project that, via the apparatus of criminalization, does tangible and demonstrable harm to sex workers. It is a movement that completely fails the needs of the sex workers it purports to protect.

(Particularly trivial are feminist debates over the practice of sadomasochism. Surely feminism has better things to do than regulate lesbians' sexual practices.)

Anti-pornography feminism, while not exactly productive or grounded in solid analysis, is not as egregiously misguided as anti-prostitution feminism. However, anti-pornography feminism easily collapses into a reactionary position that is particularly harmful to sexual minorities, such as queer or trans people.

The most famous piece of feminist anti-pornography legislation is the Dworkin-MacKinnon ordinance, written by Dworkin and colleague Catharine MacKinnon. Versions of this law were passed in Minneapolis and Indianapolis, but all were ultimately struck down by federal courts.[xiv] Unlike obscenity laws, which tend to broadly ban any materials defined as "sexually explicit" — and are thus frequently used to censor media depicting LGBTQ+ people — this ordinance had a specific definition and specific target:

Pornography is defined as the graphic, sexually explicit subordination of women in pictures and/or words that also include women presented dehumanized as sexual objects, things, or commodities; or women presented as sexual objects who enjoy pain or humiliation; or women presented as sexual objects who experience sexual pleasure in being raped; or women presented as sexual objects tied up or cut up or mutilated or bruised or physically hurt; or women presented in postures or positions of sexual submission, servility, or display; or women's body parts — including but not limited to vaginas, breasts, buttocks — exhibited such that women are reduced to those parts; or women presented as whores by nature; or women presented being penetrated by objects or animals; or women presented in scenarios of degradation, injury, torture, shown as filthy or inferior, bleeding, bruised, or hurt in a context that makes these conditions sexual. If men, children, or transsexuals are used in any of the same ways, material also meets the definitions of pornography.[xv]

Thus, the ordinance — theoretically — could not be abused to suppress media depicting queer and trans people, as so many anti-pornography laws are. Furthermore, the ordinance was a civil, not a criminal law. MacKinnon was quite clear that she was uninterested in strengthening the state apparatus — thus, this ordinance cannot particularly be accused of being a form of carceral feminism.[xvi]

To the courts who struck the law down, the feminist implications were irrelevant — it was simply a matter of free speech. The United States Supreme Court was, especially in this era, committed to free speech at all costs. In 1992, the court ruled unanimously that it was "free speech" for a white teenager to burn a cross on the lawn of the Black family.[xvii] Thus, although it is important from a feminist perspective to carefully examine the ordinance, its motivations, and its implications, this was unimportant to the court — it was a law that restricted speech, and therefore had to be struck down.

Often, anti-pornography feminists are accused of prudishness. Sometimes, this charge is well-warranted: for example, at the infamous Barnard Sex Conference — remembered today for being the inflection point that kicked off the sex wars — anti-pornography feminists accused the event of being run by "sexual perverts".[xviii] In reality, the purpose of the conference was to begin a complex feminist dialogue about the topic of sex. In the words of Judith Butler, who attended, the conference's aim was to "counterbalance the anti-pornography perspective on sexuality with an exploration into women's sexual agency and autonomy."[xix]

The use of the term "pervert" is especially telling. "Pervert" is a nearly meaningless term, referring only to those who engage in "any means of attaining sexual gratification that is traditionally regarded as abnormal."[xx] Because "normal" is defined within a male supremacist and homophobic society, many forms of completely harmless sex are considered "perverted", such as sex between two men, or two women, or sex in which a woman dominates a man. Furthermore, many forms of sex that are deeply harmful are not considered "perverted" — for example, it is considered "normal" for a man to physically and sexually dominate a woman, regardless of whether or not the woman wants it. This is, of course, deeply harmful. To use the term "pervert" as an insult is to play on homophobic biases, and to sidestep any discussion of the actual harm and effects of a specific sexual practice. That some anti-pornography feminists accused sex radical feminists of "perversion" makes it clear that anti-pornography for feminism is, in part, motivated by a reactionary and prudish morality.

However, the notion that all anti-pornography feminism is motivated by prudishness is deeply incorrect. Dworkin and MacKinnon analyze pornography, considering the harm it does to women. Dworkin, in particular, cannot be accused of prudishness. The sexually explicit character of her writing makes it clear that she was willing to confront the violence of rape head-on. A prude would shy away from such unsavory topics as sex and rape.

The Dworkin-MacKinnon ordinance, taken in isolation, was a more or less fine feminist anti-pornography law. Ultimately, however, the ordinance is largely irrelevant — it was quickly struck down. Exploration of the law's effects is necessary, and will be pursued. But on what grounds was the law justified? Was Andrea Dworkin's theory of pornography even accurate?

In the gaps

Undeniably, Andrea Dworkin is a breathtakingly gifted writer. Her prose is incisive, disgusting, moving, shocking. Her familiarity with literature, and her ability to navigate complex arguments peppered with references and quotations, are both to be marveled at.

However, Dworkin's actual analysis of the way in which pornography functions leaves much to be desired. At best, this analysis rests on dubious ground, at worst, it is blatantly nonsensical. Emotionally-charged writing often obscures arguments that, seen in the sober light of day, simply don't make sense. Dworkin takes for granted countless things that in fact must be proven.

When initially reading Dworkin, it can be difficult to make heads or tails of her. In a 1989 essay — included as an introduction for the recently republished edition of Pornography — Dworkin speaks of "women who have been hurt by pornography."[xxi] What does it mean to be hurt by pornography? In the examples Dworkin gives, to be "hurt by pornography" is to be sexually abused by men who were inspired to do so by pornography. Following a series of stories of sexual violence, Dworkin states: "They are simply what happens to women who are brutalized by the use of pornography on them."[xxii] Pornography, in this argument, functions as a weapon: it is used by men to hurt women.

Dworkin's argument, so far as I can piece it together, is this: pornography (sexually explicit media) teaches men to be misogynistic. Pornography is one of the primary means by which male supremacy is reproduced from man to man, generation to generation. She writes, "Pornography incarnates male supremacy. It is the DNA of male dominance."[xxiii] Thus, pornography must be eliminated if women are to be liberated. "We will know that we are free," she writes, "when the pornography no longer exists."[xxiv] But does this argument really hold up? Two questions must be asked.

First, what even is pornography? The dictionary definition will suffice — "literature, art, or photography of erotic or sexual acts intended to excite prurient feelings."xxv Pornography is sexually explicit media, and because pornography is produced within a male supremacist world, pornography tends to be explicitly male supremacist. This is the definition present in much of Dworkin's work. Throughout her book, Pornography: Men possessing women, she analyzes and argues against sexually-explicit media. Her ordinance, cowritten with McKinnon, targets sexually explicit media.

However, sometimes Dworkin employs quite a different definition. In Scapegoat, she refers to pornography as "the inner logic of any sexualized dominance and the reigning iconography of dehumanization."[xxvi] Here, pornography has ceased to be the media itself — it has become the "inner logic". The meaning has shifted. This meaning is echoed when, in Right-Wing Women, pornography becomes "the underlying ideology" that enables "the circle of crimes against women".[xxvii] Here, it becomes clearer what Dworkin means when she says that women "are pornography."[xxviii] Women "are pornography" in the sense that it is this a logic of sexual domination that enables violence against women.

What is pornography? Is it the media, or the ideology? Dworkin seems to use both meanings interchangeably. In any particular instance, how can a reader figure out what she is referring to? The actual pornographic media becomes a rhetorical stand-in for the entire ideology of male supremacy. This is emotionally compelling, but hardly stands up to scrutiny.

Furthermore, Dworkin takes for granted that all pornography is intensely male supremacist. This is not necessarily a bad assumption — the vast majority of pornography, produced within a male supremacist world, reflects the biases of the system from which it emerges. The vast majority of pornography is male supremacist, depicting women in demeaning positions, sexualizing and objectifying women, depicting women who enjoy being brutalized and raped. However, reality is more complex than Dworkin's black-and-white thinking. There is a rich history of gay and lesbian pornography, produced outside the mainstream and representing subversive sexual values. Certainly some, maybe even much, of this pornography will reproduce male supremacist values. However, there is no inherent reason that it must. The most famous lesbian feminist pornographic magazine — On Our Backs — can hardly be called a bastion of male supremacy.

The first question — what is pornography — has been answered, or rather, has been revealed to have several conflicting answers. The second question is — is pornography actually primarily responsible for propagating male supremacy?

No. No, obviously not. Male supremacy predates the modern video porn industry by hundreds of years. Male supremacy predates the printing press by thousands of years! Male supremacy does not require pornography — sexually explicit media — to convey its values from one generation of men to the next. Of course, this does not mean that pornography plays no role — but rather, pornography is only one means among many by which male supremacy is reproduced. Dworkin claims that, "Men do not believe that rape or battery are violations of female will in part because men of influence have consumed pornography in the private world of men for centuries."[xxix] One wonders what precisely Dworkin means by this. She does not provide any citation or further explanation. Of course Dworkin does specify "in part", but it might perhaps be more accurate to say "in small part". The reproduction of these male supremacist values occurs in religious doctrine, media that is not sexually explicit, locker room talk, corporate culture, father-son relationships. Pornography is the most visible form, but not the most crucial — it is, despite what Dworkin claims, a "superficial target".[xxx]

Dworkin's focus on pornography is both too broad and too narrow. It is too broad because it collapses all pornography, without consideration, into its most male supremacist forms. It is too narrow because it fails to consider the countless other ways — beyond sexually explicit media — by which male supremacy is reproduced.

Media can be intensely male supremacist without being sexually explicit — without being pornographic. One personally relevant example comes to mind: when I was in middle school, I was in a production of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, an intensely misogynistic play highly inappropriate for middle schoolers to be performing or watching. The play follows a group of brothers (can you guess how many?) who kidnap a group of women with the intent to marry them. Although the women are initially (and justifiably) upset at being abducted, they soon come to fall in love with their captors; the play ends with a sextuple wedding (one brother has already married). The message of this story is simple: men are entitled to women. Men can take whatever women they want, at any cost. Secretly, the women like it, and will fall in love with any man who simply "claims" them.

This play is intensely male supremacist. It teaches men to feel entitled to women's bodies, lives, and sexuality — and yet, this play is not pornographic. It is not sexually explicit, contains no sex whatsoever. For young boys and men who see plays like Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, such media teaches them to view women with disregard. And yet, Dworkin's monistic theory of pornography cannot account for this. Because it is not sexually explicit, it does not register. Neither does Dworkin's theory account for the million individual interactions between men, in which they encourage one another to feel entitled to women's bodies. Surely it is these male bonding rituals that play a significant role in perpetuating male supremacy.

In a sense, Dworkin's theory does account for these other vectors: they are pornography, the ideology. But does Dworkin ever bother to explain that when she says pornography, she sometimes refers not to sexually explicit media, but to an ideology? Of course not. She is allergic to explaining herself. For work that is so foundational to the anti-pornography movement, Dworkin's work is seriously lacking in analytical rigor. Her vast and effortless literary references make clear the breadth of her education, but to what end? What do such references accomplish when they are strung together so shakily, with comparisons, innuendos, double meanings? Dworkin, a brilliant proser, is an intensely mediocre analyst — producing work that is, in the words of Sophie Lewis, "dazzlingly erudite and stunningly stupid".[xxxi]

Finally, Dworkin takes for granted that all media depicting sexual violence against women perpetuates such violence. Such a critique is understandable, even justifiable — but, like all of Dworkin's opinions, lacks nuance. Despite her protestations, Dworkin clearly finds value in sexually explicit, violent, lurid, detailed descriptions of violence against women — because she produces them constantly. Andrea Dworkin's books are more sexually explicit than most erotica. There is nothing inherently wrong with Dworkin's violent writing — but the contrast between her total opposition to all pornography and the pornography that lustfully seeps into her own prose bespeaks a certain hypocrisy.

While reading Dworkin's work, I found myself desperate for explanation. What did Dworkin mean when she spoke of "using pornography" on women? Why did she specifically choose to focus on pornography above all else? Why does she carelessly slide between referring to the "ideology" of pornography, and the actual pornographic media itself? With every page I turned, I hope that Dworkin would provide the context that would make everything clicked into place. Dworkin seems, again, allergic to explaining herself! She simply restates things again and again, hoping that the sheer force of repetition will convince the reader. Perhaps it may convince some readers, but not this one.

Anti-pornography law today

The Dworkin-MacKinnon ordinance has been dead in the water for decades. Still relevant, however, is the law's impact, and the anti-pornography laws that exist today. When these laws are put into place, they are done in such a way as to do real harm to sex workers, and queer and trans people.

The Dworkin-MacKinnon ordinance was appropriated by the religious right almost as soon as it was introduced. A version of the ordinance in Suffolk County, New York, blamed pornography for causing "sodomy", and thus, used the supposedly "feminist" reasoning of the law to enforce homophobia. In fact, it was the notoriously homophobic Reagan administration that solicited testimony from MacKinnon and Dworkin for a report criticizing pornography.[xxxii] Within years of the original ordinance, its reasoning was used by the Canadian government to charge a gay and lesbian bookstore with criminal obscenity.[xxxiii]

It is without doubt that mainstream pornography is overwhelmingly misogynistic. It is without doubt that young people, especially young men, who consume this pornography can be influenced to view women in degrading and sexualized ways. However, it is equally clear that any feminist attempt to legislate pornography out of existence will be appropriated by the religious right to persecute sexual minorities under the guise of feminism. (This is the same tactic currently used by the right wing to target transgender people: they employ feminist language, developed by actual feminists, in order to push blatantly patriarchal goals.) Thus, it is, at best, misguided for any feminist to seriously attempt to legislate against pornography. This remains especially true in the modern day, decades after the Dworkin-MacKinnon ordinance.

One particularly notorious example is FOSTA-SESTA, a 2018 piece of federal legislation in the US aims to "stop enabling sex traffickers". Although such an agenda sounds noble, in practice this law targeted websites that sex workers used to communicate with each other and share information. Thus, this law directly endangered sex workers by isolating them from one another and from information.[xxxiv] Such "anti-sex trafficking" legislation tends to be supported by anti-prostitution feminists.

Most modern day anti-pornography legislation seriously harms sex workers — nowadays, many sex workers produce pornography independently and distribute it via sites like OnlyFans. For the people who engage in this work (women and otherwise), this is an income. Whether or not these people enjoy the act of creating pornography or feel pressured to do so is irrelevant to the fact that, if these workers are deprived of the ability to sell pornography, they will be deprived of income. Socialist revolution (and universal basic income in the meantime) is needed to liberate these sex workers (and all workers); depriving them of income without changing the fundamental economic forces that push them towards sex work is cruel and callous. This is especially relevant to transgender people — because transgender people are so often barred from traditional employment, many transgender people, especially trans women, turn to sites like OnlyFans to sell pornography. Attempts to ban pornography, even if they are framed as "protecting women", deprive these transgender sex workers of an income and thus directly jeopardize their well-being.

Another example of modern anti-pornography law is Utah's law requiring age verification for pornography websites.[xxxv] Although this law is positioned as well-intentioned (supposedly, it will prevent children from accessing pornography), in practice, requiring age verification to access any website is a massive threat to privacy. Given the frequency with which large corporations leak customer data, it is inevitable that if people are forced to submit identification and verification in order to access websites, that data will be leaked. Furthermore, the vast and lawless scope of the Internet means that anti-pornography laws are typically easy to bypass. Thus, these laws have massive deleterious consequences for no benefit.

Especially worrisome is the effect that anti-pornography laws have on media depicting queer or transgender people. When obscenity laws are in place, it is especially easy for reactionary governments to define all forms of queer sexual expression as "pornographic", and thus subject to legislation. This is especially true of transgender women — the mass cultural rape of trans women (described in Chapter 7 of Trans/Women) ensures that trans women are, against their will, always perceived as sexual. Thus, reactionary governments can abuse anti-pornography legislation to prevent trans women from appearing in books, videos, and other media. It is misleading to even call such actions "abuse" of the law; typically, patriarchal-conservative governments implement anti-pornography laws in order to strengthen patriarchal control of sexuality and attempts to eliminate non-normative sexuality. Thus, homophobia and transphobia are always implicit in obscenity law.

Furthermore, it is not only by implication that queer and trans art can be targeted. There is a long and proud history of pornography produced independently by queer and trans artists; this pornographic art allows queer people to reclaim their sexuality on their own terms, to tell their stories in bold and explicit ways, and to document their history. Examples of such queer pornographic works include Susie Bright's Nothing but the Girl: The Blatant Lesbian Image; Our Vision, Our Voices: Transsexual Portraits and Nudes; or the work of Isaac Julien. Some critics of pornography make draw a distinction between pornography (exploitative) and erotica (artistic) — a somewhat dubious distinction — but regardless, anti-pornography laws will certainly target all these works just the same. This pornography is a legitimate and important form of queer expression: attempts to legislate it out of existence are inherently homophobic.

Dworkin's all-encompassing theory of pornography may be wrong, but that does not mean that pornography is harmless. One of the most direct and tangible harms of misogynistic pornography is the effect that has on young men and women who lack good sex ed: young people who are exposed to pornography as their primary form of sex education are likely to internalize deeply harmful and misogynistic notions about sex. This can teach young men that they are expected to dominate women, and can teach young women that they must let men do anything to them. The harm caused here should be taken seriously — but it must also be understood that simply banning pornography will not fix the issue.

Regardless of what media teenagers do or do not have access to, teenagers will have sexual desires and sex lives. Comprehensive sex education is needed to ensure that children and teenagers understand their bodies in an age-appropriate fashion and know how to engage in sex safely and helpfully when they are ready to do so. Although it is often naïvely assumed that such education encourages children to have sex, the reality of the situation is that young adults will have sex with each other whether or not they are taught how to do it safely. Sex education can prevent STIs, unwanted pregnancies, and can teach teenagers how to establish healthy relationships and boundaries. Teenagers must be taught not only how to have sex safely, but that they do not have to have sex — regardless of pressure from peers or adults. Sex education can help reduce child abuse by giving young people the tools to recognize that what is being done to them is wrong and should be reported to a trusted adult. Feminist professor Amia Srinivasan, in her examination of feminist opinions on pornography, offers this tentative vision of sex education:

If sex education sought to endow young people not just with better "rote responses" but with an emboldened sexual imagination — the capacity to bring forth "new meanings, new forms" — it would have to be, I think, a kind of negative education. It wouldn't assert its authority to tell the truth about sex, but rather provide young people that the authority on what sex is, and could become, lies with them. Sex can, if they choose, remain as generations before them have chosen: violent, selfish, and unequal. Or sex can — if they choose — be something more joyful, more equal, freer. How such a negative education is to be achieved is unclear. There are no laws to draft, no easy curriculums to roll out. Rather than more speech or more images, it is their onslaught that would have to be arrested. Perhaps that the sexual imagination could be coaxed, even briefly, to recall its lost power.[xxxvi]

There may have been a time when feminist attempts to legislate pornography out of existence were well-intentioned. Even when well-intentioned, they rested on shaky analytical ground. By 2026, it is obvious that these attempts will always be co-opted for reactionary ends. Thus, any attempt to use the legal system to eliminate pornography is, from a feminist perspective, intensely misguided. I will not go so far as to say that feminists should not feminists advocate against pornography on a personal level. Although I remain unconvinced of the efficacy of such measures, it is true that pornography remains a misogynistic and exploitative art form. Still, feminists should remain cognizant of the other vectors by which male supremacy is transmitted, and should avoid reactionary-religious approaches to pornography. Any attempt to get the government involved in order to fight porn seriously jeopardizes the liberation of women, especially sex workers, and queer and trans women.

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i Special thanks to Juliana who has — against my great protestations — forced me to grant Dworkin the charity and nuance she deserves.

‍ ‍ii Andrea Dworkin, Intercourse, 1st Basic Books ed (BasicBooks, 2007), loc. Back cover.

iii Citations to Dworkin appear in Shon Faye, The Transgender Issue: Trans Justice Is Justice for All (London ; New York, 2022), 261; Talia Bhatt, Trans/Rad/Fem (Self-published, 2025), 53; Jude Doyle, DILF: Did I Leave Feminism? (Melville House, 2025). This essay is written in partial response to Tara Knight, “Dworkin’s a TERF and You’re a Sexist,” Bundleofstyxx, April 9, 2026, https://bundleofstyxx.substack.com/p/dworkins-a-terf-and-youre-a-sexist.

‍ ‍iv Gloria Steinem, quoted in Andrea Dworkin, Pornography: Men Possessing Women, First Picador paperback edition (Picador, 2025).

‍ ‍v Janice G. Raymond, The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male (1979; Teachers College Press, 1994), viii; Dworkin, Pornography, 258; For a thorough and nuanced discussion of Dworkin’s conflicting views, see Doyle, DILF, chap. 3.

‍ ‍vi Andrea Dworkin, Scapegoat: The Jews, Israel, and Women’s Liberation (Free Press, 2000), ix, 336.

‍ ‍vii Melissa Gira Grant, Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work, Jacobin Series (Verso, 2014), 16, 99; Molly Smith and Juno Mac, Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Workers’ Rights (Verso, 2018), 11–12.

‍ ‍viii Andrea Dworkin, Woman Hating (Plume, 1974), 21; Lorna N. Bracewell, Why We Lost the Sex Wars: Sexual Freedom in the #MeToo Era, with JSTOR (Organization) (University of Minnesota Press, 2021), 143–148.

‍ ‍ix See Smith and Mac, Revolting Prostitutes.

x The Sex Wars have been re-litigated time and time again. Particularly thorough and nuanced is Bracewell, Why We Lost the Sex Wars.

‍ ‍xi Catharine A. MacKinnon, “Feminism, Marxism, Method, and the State: An Agenda for Theory,” 7 Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 3, 1982, 866, https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv39x51k.23.

‍ ‍xii Bracewell, Why We Lost the Sex Wars, 15–16.

‍ ‍xiii Andrea Dworkin, Right-Wing Women, First Picador paperback edition (Picador, 2025), 218.

‍ ‍xiv Amia Srinivasan, The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century, First American edition (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021), 51–52.

‍ ‍xv Dworkin, Pornography, xxxi.

‍ ‍xvi Bracewell, Why We Lost the Sex Wars, 183.

‍ ‍xvii Srinivasan, The Right to Sex, 52.

‍ ‍xviii Srinivasan, The Right to Sex, 34.

‍ ‍xix Quoted in Bracewell, Why We Lost the Sex Wars, 6.

‍ ‍xx The Random House Dictionary (Ballantine Books, 1980), under “perversion.”

‍ ‍xxi The Random House Dictionary (Ballantine Books, 1980), under “pornography,” xxiii.

‍ ‍xxii Dworkin, Pornography, xxiii.

‍ ‍xxiii Dworkin, Pornography, xxxvii.

‍ ‍xxiv Dworkin, Pornography, 214.

‍ ‍xxv Random House Dict., under “pornography.”

‍ ‍xxvi Dworkin, Scapegoat, 165.

‍ ‍xxvii Dworkin, Right-Wing Women, 218.

‍ ‍xxviii Dworkin, Right-Wing Women, 221.

‍ ‍xxix Dworkin, Pornography, 156.

‍ ‍xxx Dworkin, Pornography, xxxvii.

‍ ‍xxxi Sophie Lewis, “Are Women Weak Jews?”: On Andrea Dworkin’s Zionism (Spectre, 2025), https://doi.org/10.63478/VRETINRM.

‍ ‍xxxii Srinivasan, The Right to Sex, 56.

‍ ‍xxxiii Srinivasan, The Right to Sex, 55.

‍ ‍xxxiv Smith and Mac, Revolting Prostitutes, 20–21.

‍ ‍xxxv Sam Metz, “Utah Law Requiring Age Verification for Porn Sites Remains in Effect after Judge Dismisses Lawsuit,” PBS News, August 2, 2023, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/utah-law-requiring-age-verification-for-porn-sites-remains-in-effect-after-judge-dismisses-lawsuit.

‍ ‍xxxvi Srinivasan, The Right to Sex, 71.