In pornography, standard modelling contracts often require a performer to surrender rights over their public image and sexual media in perpetuity and across mediums. Under these contracts, performers are unable to determine who accesses, for what duration, and under what conditions, their sexual media. As a result, pornography has been described by some performers as a “life sentence” - a phrase which, if true, violates some strong intuitions we share about the importance of autonomy in sexual activity. Using the framework (...) of “affirmative consent,” I argue that these contracts violate performers' rights to sexual autonomy, and ought therefore to be considered objectionable. Overall, I argue that the legal regimes we create have a strong impact on people’s lives, and more important than legislating individual outcomes, the type of infrastructure we build around people’s decisions has the potential to radically empower - or disempower - those engaged in sex work. (shrink)

A review of Judith G. Coffin's "Sex, Love, and Letters: Writing Simone de Beauvoir" (Cornell University Press, 2020) -/- .

Who is feminism for? The question reverberates frightfully in feminist discourse. Despite decades of theorizing that the unified feminist subject is an impossibility (given differences in race, class, sexuality, etc.), the question remains all too relevant in praxis—much to the detriment of the movement as a whole. Or at least, so argues Éléonore Lépinard in her new book, Feminist Trouble: Intersectional Politics in Post-Secular Times.