Andrea Dworkin (1946 – 2005) is perhaps best remembered as the militant feminist who, in 1983—alongside feminist legal scholar Catharine MacKinnon—drafted an ordinance defining pornography as ‘a violation of women’s civil rights’ for the City of Minneapolis. Though this ordinance was vetoed, Dworkin’s reputation as a porn-opposing, (cis-hetero) sex-negative feminist never died. Dworkin saw woman-hating everywhere, and she saw pornography—and intercourse more broadly—as a central site where this hate was realised. But does Dworkin’s opposition to pornography really rightfully earn her a ‘sex-negative’ reputation? This project proposes to undertake a close study of Dworkin’s oeuvre in order to reveal the contours of her views about sex. In bringing the nuances of her views about sex to light, I will argue that Dworkin’s observations may be central for an emancipatory feminist sexual ethics in the present.
