The Sex Tech

The folks over at skepchick.com - well, specifically, the folk named Elyse, have asked a question that is actually pretty important to the sex industry. It is also related to a topic that still needs to be discussed, broken down (to a bloody pulp) and answered. She says:

I’ve been involved in, read and listened to some discussions lately about what is and isn’t “feminism”.   I’m curious to hear what you have to say on the topic.  So my question for today is:

Can a woman still call herself a feminist if she poses nude, strips, or if she works in porn or prostitution?

I'm posting my response here because of the amount of things that ties into it and all the points that need to be considered in order to give a very good answer. This time, the answer is not simplicity, my dear Elyse. (Extra points if any of you recognize the movie reference).

The things I think I need to consider regarding this question are:

• How do you define feminism and who should define it?
• Is the term 'feminism' a desirable label and how is the desire of this label relevant to the sex industry?
• Why should nudity or the sex industry be considered against whatever feminism happens to be?
• Wouldn't the better question be in regards to individual rights?
• What do others think?

So, how does one define feminism? Well, as it turns out, that depends on who you ask. In fact, the very motivation for why Elyse asked her question is the reason why the question itself must be flawed. Different people define feminism differently because there are various types of feminism. Each feminist group has their own theories and ideas and oftentimes those theories and ideas conflict with the other groups. That's why there are multiple groups. You have the Liberal Feminist, the Radical Feminist, the Black Feminist, the Multiracial Feminist, the Socialist Feminist, the Libertarian Feminist, the Ecofeminist and each one is often broken down into even smaller sub groups! Each one also defines themselves differently, and even defines feminism differently enough that no one group would classify others as feminists using the same criteria. In fact, the differences between these groups can be so great that some of these groups are actually responsible for the corruption of the concept of feminism that many people seem to think is not a bad idea, the concept that feminism is about equality. In many ways, though, feminism is often linked by people to a concept that is more extreme - the idea that women need special rights beyond that of men that are more than a society should be asked to provide, or that is beyond what might be ethical. Of course, most rational people don't want to make unethical decisions for society.

Tying in slightly to what I just discussed, it is the case that the question Elyse asks assumes that feminism is a desirable label. Naturally, without a clear definition, this might be problematic. Many women who have done sexual rights activism cling to the label of feminism as if that by itself is important to our rights. With such a problem of ambiguity in it, though, it seems feminism becomes one of those ideals that people seem to want to cling to, but they want their own versions of it. So who wants to be a feminist, for example, if the Separatist Feminists decide what the definition is? Then again, who wants to be a feminist if the Cultural Feminists or the Libertarian Feminists get to decide what a feminist is? See the following definitions:

Speaking in regards to the Separatists, Belle Hooks said, "Diverting energy from feminist movement that aims to change society, many women concentrate on the development of a counter-culture, a woman-centered world wherein participants have little contact with men." (Hooks, Belle. Feminist Theory: From Margin To Center. 2nd ed. p. 28.)

Separatists hold to the notion that there is not a way to make the relationship between men and women a workable relationship in society and they attempt to separate themselves from what they see as a patriarchal society that would only oppress them if they remained. They consider their true independence to be one outside of a culture of men (or what they see as the culture of men).

On Cultural Feminism, Josephine Donovan has to say:

There are other veins of equal importance in nineteenth-century feminist theory, however, ideas that may be grouped under the label "cultural feminism," because they go beyond the fundamentally rationalist and legalistic thrust of Enlightenment liberal theory. Instead of focusing on political change, feminists holding these ideas look for a broader cultural transformation. While continuing to recognize the importance of critical thinking and self-development, they also stress the role of the nonrational, the intuitive and often the collective side of life. Instead of emphasizing the similarities between men and women, they often stress the differences, ultimately affirming that feminine qualities may be a source of personal strength and pride and a fount of public regeneration. These feminists imagined alternatives to institutions the liberal theorists left more or less intact--religion, marriage, and the home. By the turn of the century this vein of feminist theory moved beyond a view of women's rights as ends in themselves and saw them finally as a means to effect larger social reform. (Donovan, Josephine. Feminist Theory: The Intellectual Traditions. 3rd ed. p. 47.)

The cultural feminists, it seems, wanted to focus on what became known as 'women's values' - things that they thought were innate values that women had built in due to our own biology. These values were/are seen by them as superior to those of men and may even disregard the rational or pragmatic in favor of women's values.

Libertarian Feminism, or individualist feminism is a little bit easier to define. In reality, it is simply an application of libertarian thought to feminist issues. Ifeminists.com defines themselves as follows:

The core principle of individualist feminism is that all human beings have a moral and legal claim to their own persons and property. It is sometimes called libertarian feminism.

It isn't the case that I would even come close to considering that any single one of these feminist groups are themselves feminism or that any one of them could define feminism. However, it is the case that feminist groups are no less prone to ingroup/outgroup thinking than any other group and are then often prone to defining all but those who agree with them as 'the other.' Thus it is the case that each one of these groups tend to see themselves as the real feminists and all others are excluded. If it was the case that the separatists or the cultural feminists were to define the term, then feminism is a label I wouldn't want, ever. However, I would think that the individualist feminist seems to have a pretty damned good idea, but then, why not just use the term 'libertarian' in that case? Why, then, does the term have to maintain the qualifier of 'feminist' when the motivation seems to be to apply a rule to everyone? Doesn't the concept then escape the realm of it just pertaining to women's issues and shouldn't it then be extended to all? Furthermore, the concept of feminism, even in this sense, excludes other people who may need the fight for equality even more than women in general. What about the intersexed? What about all the variations of people who cannot be easily categorized as 'male' or 'female'. In our efforts to become equal, it seems, we forgot a few people and left them behind simply because they were even more of a minority than the minority in question. So feminism is a label that many people may want to shed - and not because they simply want to be oppositional, but because they have valid, rational reasons to do so.

Let's assume, for the moment (and regardless of my own thoughts on that particular point) that the label of 'feminism' is actually desired. Why should people in the erotic industries be excluded from the ability to claim this label? Well, in the not-so-distant past, some feminsts decided that pornography itself was degrading to women. This came from an extension of the idea expressed in Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique (1963),  where she pointed out that women, even down to their own sexuality, were often not owners of themselves. While the argument was valid, at the time, for the majority of women in the 1960s, a time when we were still chained to a kind of traditional domestication pattern (that sounds like a decent term for it) through social constructs that hadn't crumbled yet after the regaining of various rights and the acquisition of some that included the one seen as the most important, Women's suffrage in 1920, the problem is not the same today. Friedan focused a lot on the invisible chain that she thought linked a woman's sexuality to that of men. Other feminists took the steps to extend this to how women are portrayed sexually to men and even going to the extreme to say that men objectified them in nearly every action that occurred in their regard. (I will note that there is a problem already with this idea anyway and that is that men and women's sexualities, as shocking as it may sound, really are linked but the problem was really that the way that link was approached at the time did not allow for women to have the right to many elements of their sexuality.) At some point in time, a group of feminists targeted the sex industry for what they saw as a way that women's sexuality was still enslaved by men's desires. These women focused mostly on traumatic cases that they dug up from the industry where women were abused and then made claims based on speculation about behavior in order to demonize the industry. By filtering out the information about women enjoying their roles in the industry, men in the industry who promoted women's rights, studies that effectively debunked their speculation and ignoring any possibility that women might desire to be in the sex industry and choose it as a career, the women managed to gain a strong following of feminists who considered the industry as counter-intuitive in regards to protecting women's rights.

Assuming, for the sake of argument, that feminism really is about seeking equality, would it not be the case that a woman should then have the same exact right as a man to perform in the erotic arts? Protecting anyone's rights should be geared towards allowing people to do things - that is to say, doing things that don't interfere with other people's rights to do things. Also, equality between the sexes - any of the sexes - should be about making sure those rights are reasonably the same. So should erotic art or porn be considered against what feminism is? Not when using the egalitarian argument, no.

It isn't the case that we should ignore all the horrible cases that were brought to light in the anti-porn movement, but it is the case that we should really focus on fixing what caused those problems and realize that it wasn't the sex industry itself that was the cause, nor were nude art, or other forms of erotica. Things like social attitudes toward the sex industry that makes people want to ignore horrible things because people seem to care less about people in the sex industry than people outside of it really should be addressed since those are really a major part of the root of most of the stories used to support the anti-porn movement. This leads into my next point. It seems to me that the better question is not if a random girl in the sex industry should be considered a feminist, but a better question might be "Is being in the sex industry counter intuitive to maintaining personal rights or interfering with the personal rights of others?" (Fighting over being able to don a label, like a tiara, is not nearly as productive as getting down to the actual issues that affect our society.)

Of course, one could write an entire series of books on this very question. The answer reaches far into topics regarding ethics, social butterfly effects, individual rights, liberty vs. security and natural sexual behavior. I did consider, for a brief moment, trying to answer the question that I just posed myself. Realizing the magnitude of effort that might take, I decided to leave the question open. This question seems to require a book (I'm working on it) to answer it. Since the question is open, though, I am going to suggest that everyone else contemplate it too and try to answer it themselves.

Thus, Question for the Readers: Is being in the sex industry counter intuitive to maintaining personal rights or interfering with the personal rights of others?