Why We Lost the Sex Wars: Sexual Freedom in the #Metoo Era

"Why We Lost the Sex Wars is a fascinating read. It provides a gripping social history of both feminist movement and of feminist political theory, including archival research into interviews and writings that current feminist 'legends' did as graduate students. This is intertwined with incisive and creative theoretical analysis of the arguments offered in courts, conferences, and publications. Lorna N. Bracewell shows that the so-called 'sex wars' were not warlike, nor a clear-cut duality, but rather multiple and complex, and that these debates and arguments still influence feminism and feminist theory today. In Bracewell's account of the central role that feminists of color played, which is often overlooked, is particularly insightful and important. This book is essential reading for all of us interested in the history of late twentieth-century feminism and in understanding how we got to where we are today."–Nancy Hirschmann, author of Gender, Class, and Freedom in Modern Political Theory

"Lorna N. Bracewell's careful treatment of the feminist sexuality debates of the 1980s demonstrates how their framing in terms of liberal philosophies of the eighteenth century contributed to a reductive misunderstanding of key questions about freedom and sexuality that continue to resurface decades later. This is a timely and important work."–Judith Grant, Ohio University

"Thoroughly researched, yet immensely readable, Why We Lost the Sex Wars provides a clear, illuminating, and utterly engaging account of antipornography feminism and sex radical feminists' consequential encounters with liberalism. It details how liberalism remade both and, in that remaking, helped to foreclose feminist imaginations regarding damage and reparation and worked to lead us to our carceral present. It, rightly, highlights the oft-overlooked interventions of Black and 'Third World' feminists who critiqued the 'monism' of white antipornography and whose analysis helped to clarify that pornography could do far worse than simply objectify women. The book skillfully and seamlessly combines historical accounts and close textual reading. Among the latter method, the author's convincing illustration of the impact of antipornography feminism on one of liberalism's most revered feminist critics, Carole Pateman, stands out, as it demonstrates how the feminists, who we too often understand to have lost their fight ultimately, helped to shape her understanding of male power. An important contribution to feminist political theory."–Shatema Threadcraft, author of Intimate Justice: The Black Female Body and the Body Politic