Talk:Sex worker-exclusionary radical feminism

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Is this a thing?

Is this actually a thing? Is it prominent and widespread enough to need a standalone article? Aceⁱ⁹ 23:00, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Yes, this is actually rather prominent in current radical feminism, at least in online communities. Wherever you find TERFery online there is often SWERFery interlaced, though as I noted, SWERF stuff is promoted by TIRFs too. Chillpilled (talk) 23:48, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

From what I can Google, SWERF is a newish term that seems mostly in the online world for now (it pops up in mainstream-ish media like The Daily Dot but it's rare overall; on the other hand, it's all over the searches of social media cancers like Reddit and Twitter). I think it's mainly used as a pejorative/insult. The debate between "sex positive" and "sex negative" type feminists though is not new at all. Like TERF, I see the "SWERFs" as an extension of the very-anti-pornography / sex work "sex negative" part of the radical "second wave" of feminism in the 1970s. BobJohnson (talk) 00:13, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Yeah sex-worker/sex work exclusionary feminism is definitely a thing. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 01:23, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Ah well, you learn something every day. Aceⁱ⁹ 02:02, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Aren't pornography and prostitution objectifying?

Hello!

I read this article and it seems like you're pro-porn and pro-prostitution. You criticise anti-prostitution feminists, calling them "SWERFs".

However, don't you see that pornography and prostitution are inherently demeaning and objectifying? When people watch porn or buy sex from prostitutes, they use porn actors or prostitutes as sex objects to achieve pleasure, not as human beings with their personalities, views etc.

Considering the fact that other people are used to give someone sexual pleasure, it could be argued that porn and prostitution are inherently objectifying. Prostitutes and pornographers are essentially exploited by those who want to use them to satisfy their desires.

Do you think seeing your fellow human being as a tool to satisfy your desires is moral? Do you support exploitation and degradation? ^{— Unsigned, by: 2a00:f41:70e8:fd7f:d041:226c:188e:57f3 / talk / contribs}

I wrote the criticism section on prostitution, as it is currently, though had much less to do with the sections above it. I was mostly focused on how different concrete governmental policies can empirically help or harm prostitutes. As I see it, the way radical feminists discuss this may contribute to stigma against prostitutes. The manifestation of that stigma I would be most worried about is from abuse or harassment from the police (which seems to occur, albeit less frequently, even under a neo-abolitionist model, just in craftier ways). I also consider (though I don't think I wrote on this in the article's text) how this links up with a prostitute's individual bodily integrity, something that I should think does matter if we're speaking of women as each her own person with "personalities, views etc."

If SWERFs were just making some cultural critique, that would be one thing, but the attempts by some radical feminist academics to distort the strength of their evidence to subsequently push flawed legal solutions is where I have to break with them. I think it's possible to see the legalization or decriminalization models for prostitution as "less bad" in terms of care versus harm than the neo-abolitionist and prohibitionist models, while even accepting some radical feminist premises like prostitution being sexual objectification. In fact, it seems to me that if some of those same premises — e.g. that poverty is the root of prostitution and that only negligible amounts of women are doing it because they genuinely like it — are followed to conclusion, then the best way to end prostitution would be to end poverty and other social instabilities. Meantime, creating legal regimes that don't add to sex workers' day to day misery would seem wise. Chillpilled (talk) 11:14, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

As noted in the last talk discussion, the view among feminists that pornography and prostitution are inherently demeaning and objectifying is not universal; the Wiki on sex-positive feminism goes into this. It's a, er, very contentious topic (especially in the 1970s-1980s -- there's a whole f'n Wiki page on that debate.)

For what it's worth, I disagree with a dogmatic label for porn, simply because there is a seriously wide variety of pornography produced, once you get past the stupidity of the Mindgeek crap that permeates the top porn 'tube sites or similar junk. This includes pornography produced by women and feminists. To throw out a mainline example, from what I've heard of OnlyFans (all it's problems aside), part of the appeal of that platform among consumers is that there is more of a "personal connection" (of a sort) with the performers. So it's more complicated than "simple sex object to achieve pleasure" even with that. BobJohnson (talk) 15:17, 5 June 2024 (UTC)