Summary: With so much talk about the sex-positive movement, it is easy to become confused and question what position to stand on. Here at Betrayal Trauma Recovery, we want to break these issues down for you to understand.<br> <br> Jessica Sky Bahr, a relationship and individual coach, feminist activist, and founder of <a href="http://relationshifting.com">Relationshifting, </a>explains the feminist theories on pornography,<br> "Radical feminists really try to look at the root of the issues of sexism, misogyny, and patriarchy. The other type of feminist who would argue that pornography or prostitution is empowering is typically referred to as liberal feminists, 3rd wave feminist, choice feminist, or even sex-positive. There is major disagreement among these two types of feminism: The Third Wave feminists think it’s empowering believe that if a woman is making the choice, no matter what the choice is, it is empowering just based on the fact that she’s getting to make the choice. Essentially they are looking at individual empowerment for the actual individual. Conversely, Second Wave feminism is looking at what’s good for women as a class. So, if I decide to be a stripper or go in to the sex trade, in the big picture not only is it not good for me as a women, it’s not good from my sisters, it’s not good for women as a class because it puts women at risk and puts out a message to society that women can be bought and sold and rented by men."<br> Why Is Pornography Anti-Feminist?<br> Adding her personal experience to this, Rachelle Morran, a sex trade survivor who was a prostituted in her youth and has now become an author and an activist says, <br> “There is not now, never has been, and never will be a feminist case for men to commercialize the bodies of women”.<br> Jessica Sky Bahr, who serves on the Board of Directors for <a href="https://www.culturereframed.org/">Culture Reframed</a>, a non-profit whose mission is to build resilience and resistance to hyper-sexualized media and porn, goes on to state,<br> "Our focus, as radical feminists, is on the liberation of all women. As long as there are women enslaved our goal is to help free all women under oppression under patriarchy, not just to make my personal decision. The Women’s Liberation Movement back in the ’60s and ’70s, Gloria Steinem, and the women of that movement were 2nd wave. They were very, very critical about pornography and sexual exploitation because they understood that when you have an oppressor class, which is men in male supremacy or patriarchy buying or renting the bodies of the oppressed class you can never have equality."<br> Pornography Is Abusive And Does Not Value Women<br> So what about the sex-positive/sex worker movement? How do we understand that as feminists? Skye Barr goes on to explain,<br> "I’m a firm believer that until we address the demand side of sex buying women will not be liberated because we know by the data and by the experts in this field who study prostitution and pornography, that it is the most destitute, impoverished, traumatized, vulnerable people on the planet are the ones who end up in prostitution, being trafficked, pornography, and stripping. People argue for choice, like: “Oh, that’s her choice.” We have to step back and really define what choice is. Is her choice that she has to prostitute herself because she won’t be able to feed her kids? Are those the kind of choices that we are looking at?"<br> <br> "Are we talking about sheer survival? Why would we argue for that choice? Shouldn’t we be giving women more opportunities and we should be stepping back and looking at what are the driving forces that are driving these “choices”, and what is bringing them there and why are they staying too? If we could just look at what brings people to the sex industry and what keeps people from getting out. It’s horrifying. If people got really educated about this topic and they saw what brought women to this...
