‘Battaglie’ senza vincitrici né vinte: prospettive femministe e liberali circa la pornografia e la prostituzione nelle feminist sex wars

Abstract

This article focuses on the philosophical debate characterizing the feminist sex wars (‘battles’ on pornography and prostitution having place mainly in the United States during 1980s) through the study of three perspectives: the liberal, the pro-sex feminist and the contrary-to-pornography-and-prostitution feminist ones. The first approach is in favour of the liberalization of both activities due to the freedom to decide on one’s own body, whereas the second point of view sees the two practices as female empowering; differently, the third one considers them as degrading for women. Through the analysis of these three approaches positions on the main related-to-pornography and referred-to-prostitution issues, this paper aims at showing that the three perspectives thought of pornography and prostitution as only female empowering or only degrading has ended in having no ‘battles winner’.