Intercourse, by: Andrea Dworkin - Feminish

movement. The term “prosex feminist” was coined by womenwho wanted to distance themselves from the antiporn faction.O f course, all feminists thought they were being prosex andfighting for freedom, but when it comes to sex, freedom meansdifferent things to different people. Screaming fights became aregular element of feminist conferences in the 1980s, and perhapsthe single most divisive issue was an ordinance crafted byDworkin and MacKinnon.In 1983, when MacKinnon was a professor of law at theUniversity of Minnesota and Dworkin was teaching a coursethere on pornography at MacKinnon’s invitation, the twodrafted a city ordinance positioning porn as a civil rights violation.Their legislation, which would allow people to suepornographers for damages if they could show they had sufferedharm from pornography’s making or use, was twicepassed in Minneapolis but vetoed by the mayor. Dworkin andMacKinnon were subsequently summoned by the conservativemayor of Indianapolis, Indiana, and their legislation wassigned into law in 1984 by a city council opposed to core feministgoals like legal abortion and the passage of the EqualRights Amendment. It was soon overturned by federal courts,but many feminists never forgave Dworkin and MacKinnonand antiporn feminists in general for getting in bed with theright wing.Dworkin was accused of being a man-hater even by somemembers of her own movement. And she didn’t write ormake speeches with an eye toward mitigating this perception.In a speech she gave in Bryant Park at a “ Take Back theNight” march in 1979, she called romance “ rape embellishedwith meaningful looks. ” In Heartbreak she wrote, “ men areshits and take pride in it. ” But in fact the most significant