Lorna Bracewell's "Why We Lost the Sex Wars: Sexual Freedom in the #metoo Era"

Session Submission Type: Virtual Author meet critics

Session Description

To better understand today’s multilayered sexual politics, Lorna Bracewell offers a revisionist history of the “sex wars” of the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s. Rather than focusing on what divided antipornography and sex-radical feminists, Bracewell highlights significant points of contact and overlap between these rivals and leverages this recovered history to illuminate a range of current phenomena in provocative ways. Since the #MeToo movement materialized in 2017, innumerable survivors of sexual assault and misconduct have broken their silence. Not surprisingly, conservatives quickly opposed this new movement, but the fact that “sex positive” progressives joined in the opposition was unexpected and seldom discussed. Why We Lost the Sex Wars explores how a narrow set of political prospects for resisting the use of sex as a tool of domination came to be embraced across this broad swath of the political spectrum in the contemporary United States. Bracewell offers a revisionist history of the “sex wars, focusing on what divided antipornography and sex-radical feminists, Bracewell highlights significant points of contact and overlap between rival factions, paying particular attention to the challenges they offered to the narrow and ambivalent sexual politics of postwar liberalism including discussions of recent controversies over trigger warnings, “sex-positive” feminism, and carceral feminism. She foregrounds the role played by liberal concepts such as expressive freedom and the public/private divide as well as the long-neglected contributions of Black and “Third World” feminists, Bracewell upends much of what we think we know about the sex wars and makes a strong case for the continued relevance of these debates today. Why We Lost the Sex Wars provides a history of feminist thinking on topics such as pornography, commercial sex work, LGBTQ+ identities, and BDSM, as well as discussions of such notable figures as Patrick Califia, Alan Dershowitz, Andrea Dworkin, Elena Kagan, Audre Lorde, Catharine MacKinnon, Cherríe Moraga, Robin Morgan, Gayle Rubin, Nadine Strossen, Cass Sunstein, and Alice Walker. Feminist theory and gender studies scholars who have worked with these issues in a variety of theoretical contexts will provide commentary, critique of Bracewell's work.

Sub Unit

• Division 2: Foundations of Political Theory

Chair

• Judith Grant Ohio University

Presenters

• Lorna Norman Bracewell Flagler College

• Jocelyn M. Boryczka Fairfield University

• Lori Marso Union College