Sex Wars: Sexual Dissent and Political Culture

by Lisa Duggan, Nan Hunter

Sex Wars is a collection of writings by Duggan and Hunter that brings together the best of the important work they have done on sexual politics in America over the past decade. Sex Wars traces the development of this politics and its deployment in three different arenas--speech and representation, legal regulation, and scholarship.

Genres: Feminism, Nonfiction, Queer, Gender, Sexuality, Politics, History

288 pages, Paperback

First published October 5, 1995

About the author

Lisa Duggan is Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University. Duggan was president of the American Studies Association from 2014 to 2015, presiding over the annual conference on the theme of "The Fun and the Fury: New Dialectics of Pleasure and Pain in the Post-American Century."

Duggan earned her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.

Duggan is also one of the editors of queer commentary website, Bully Bloggers, developed with José Esteban Muñoz, Jack Halberstam, and Tavia Nyong’o. Duggan has described herself as a "commie pinko queer feminist". She was written on topics including feminist responses to pornography and homonormativity.

Reviews

[Quin Rich · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wide-ranging, intriguing, and thought provoking collection of essays and articles on the politics of sexuality in the US from about the mid-1980s through the early 2000s. Lisa Duggan and Nan Hunter write from a feminist, queer, and LGBT perspective, with Duggan taking a more academic and historical approach and Hunter taking a legal one. Some essay are worth skimming, some are worth skipping, and some are must reads.

Of particular interest to me were the essays on the feminist anti-pornography campaign of the mid-1980s. Put in historical context, it's easy to see how anti-feminist that movement really was in practice, especially when it attempted to pass ordinances in Indianapolis and Minneapolis. One essay almost read like a satire. It was really funny to picture Catharine MacKinnon discoursing on legal theory in front of a big group of right wing politicians and Christian activists. Apparently, MacKinnon was led to believe that the right had no part in getting the ordinance passed in Indianapolis, even though its major sponsors were an anti-ERA Republican and the mayor who was trying to find another way to eliminate sexually explicit materials from the city. The article titled "Feminist Historians and Antipornography Campaigns" was also very informative, and gave good historical reasons as to why feminists should be wary of antipornography politics. This is especially relevant now given the reemergence of nominally feminist (but in actuality quite conservative) antipornography politics, most notably in the guise of Gail Dines.

Other articles are less interesting, such as the many essays on the evolution of gay rights and gay marriage legal campaigns. Many of these are now simply historical documents, interesting for demonstrating the zeitgeist of their time and for thinking about how accurate they were in their predictions for LGBT politics.

On the whole, the book is worth picking up if one is interested in feminist and queer sexuality politics in the US. It's not exactly mind-blowing, but it's interesting nonetheless, and it provides an important historical context for our current political moment.

[Sunjay · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a bunch of essays written in the early 90s about the politics of sexuality, debates among feminists and queer theorists, and queer political activism. A lot of it sounded very familiar to today - even at thirty years old, a lot of these concerns remain relevant. This despite the massive strides in rights for at least some subsets of the LGBTQ+ community - Lawrence v Texas and Obergfell v Hodges legalizing gay sex and gay marriage, respectively, for example. Also, this book will help me win internet arguments and we know that's the real reason to read nonfiction.

[Kapiszon · Rating 3 out of 5]

kawał historii ruchu

[Maggie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating read on the history of the anti-porn debates of the 1980s. This book gives interesting background on both the anti-porn and sex-positive camps on either side of the debate. The author discusses the decisions leading up to and eventual aftermath of anti-porn feminists like Andrea Dworkin partnering with right wing Conservative evangelicals in their crusade against pornography. Its interesting (and sad) to learn about the terrible repercussions the anti-porn movement had on women in the sex industry.

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting collection of essays about the political battles over pornography and the gay and lesbian movements. This was assigned for a class (History of Sexuality), and generated a great discussion.

[Jamia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I learned SO much from this book!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Scott Neigh]

Reviewed here.