ABSTRACT

What might be recognized as the most paradigmatic example of the sexual objectification of women’s bodies has also proved among the most controversial within feminist thought. The ethical and political issues concerning sex work1 have inspired a vast and seemingly untraversable divide among feminist scholars. On the one hand, pornography, prostitution, stripping, etc., are seen as crucial and blatant examples of a patriarchal culture, and in their construction of women as sex objects for men they contribute to-and perhaps even provide a foundation for-a culture that condones violence against women (Adams 2000; Carse 1995; Hill 1987; Kittay 1984; Pateman 1983; Satz 1995; Shrage 1989; note, however, that Shrage’s subsequent work [see 1996 especially] disavowed her earlier views). Women who work as sex workers show up in this analysis as victims who are degraded, humiliated, wounded, even killed in the service of a misogynist culture. Although feminists belonging to this camp disagree about how to go about the process, there is virtual agreement that the cultural phenomenon of sex work should be halted almost entirely (at least in the forms that that it currently exists), whether by law or by changing social values and expectations.