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Feminist Theory
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Exposing the fallacies of anti-porn feminism

Laurie Shrage

California State Polytechnic University, ljshrage{at}csupomona.edu

This paper examines an issue at the centre of feminist debates about pornography and sex work, and that is whether these practices reduce women to sex objects. I question the assumption that the expression of sexual desire is unique in its power to degrade and dehumanize persons. I show that this assumption underlies Catharine MacKinnon’s attack on pornography by considering MacKinnon’s intellectual debt to the philosopher Immanuel Kant. I then examine recent discussions of sexual objectification in the philosophical literature and argue that MacKinnon’s adaptation of Kant has flaws comparable to Kant’s original account of sexual desire.

Key Words: sexual objectification • pornography • MacKinnon • sex work • Kant

Feminist Theory, Vol. 6, No. 1, 45-65 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/1464700105050226
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