Sex Wars: How Porn Split Feminism

June 20 + 23, 6-8pm ET

Melis Umut

The final blow to second-wave feminism was, surprisingly, pornography; Dworkin and MacKinnon’s infamous call for a ban on pornography indeed split the feminists based on their pro-porn/anti-porn status. In this course, the focus will be on how the two sides approached female sexual desire, power under patriarchy, and pornography in general, and their possible effects on contemporary sexual politics. We will examine two key texts: excerpts from Dworkin’s 1980 book Men Possessing Women, and Gayle Rubin’s 1992 article "Misguided, Dangerous, and Wrong: An Analysis of Antipornography Politics."

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Melis Umut is a PhD Candidate and Instructor in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Stony Brook University specializing in body politics, porn studies, psychoanalysis, and disability studies. Her dissertation is titled ‘Erotic Visuality and Popular Culture in a Conservative Society: 1970s Turkish Erotic Melodramas and the Muslim Sexual Imagination.’