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Quote by Wendy McElroy

“Now anti-pornography feminists are trying to turn back the clock and shut women's sexuality away behind the locked doors of political correctness. Their first line of attack is to define the debate in their own terms. The first line of defense is to flatly reject such maneuvering.”

Quote by Wendy McElroy

Book:XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography
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XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography

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Author

Wendy McElroy
Wendy McElroy

Wendy McElroy is an active writer and activist in the fields of libertarianism and feminism. Born in 1951, she is known for her steadfast support of individual freedom and women's liberation. Her works cover a range of subjects, including political philosophy, economics, and gender studies. more

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“Historically, feminism and pornography have been fellow travelers on the rocky road of unorthodoxy. This partnership was natural, perhaps inevitable. After all, both feminism and pornography flout the conventional notion that sex is necessarily connected to marriage or procreation. Both view women as sexual beings who should pursue their sexuality for pleasure and self-fulfillment.”

FeminismSexualityWomens RightsPornographyLibertarian FeminismIndividualist FeminismPro Porn
Book:XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography
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“In the wake of two other Contagious Disease Acts (1866, 1868), prostitution became virtually a state-run industry. The government issued cards to women who were medically checked our and "registered." Then, they were allowed to work the streets. With unlimited powers of arrest, plainclothes policemen picked up women at random. Often, the police proceeded on the basis of gossip or reports from people who had grudges. Women who refused to be surgically examined could be detained at the magistrate's discretion and imprisoned at hard labor.”

FeminismSexualityWomens RightsPornographyLibertarian FeminismIndividualist FeminismPro Porn
Book:XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography
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“For most of the nineteenth century, women were the chattel of their husbands. Men had legal title to their wives' property and wages, to children, and even to their wives' bodies. Women could be locked away in insane asylums at the discretion of their husbands or other male relatives. They had no voice in government. They could not enter into contracts without their husband's consent. Even labor unions shut out the most needy of workers: women. Those seats of enlightenment-the universities-locked their doors against women who dared to ask for knowledge. To be a woman was to be powerless.”

FeminismWomens RightsLibertarian Feminism
Book:XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography
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“Freelovers vehemently denied the state had any right to intervene in the sexual arrangements of consenting adults. They focused on empowering the weakest and most abused partner in sex: the woman. There were two keys to securing sexual rights for women. The first was to reform the marriage laws, which gave husbands almost absolute authority over their wives. Marriage-free-lovers insisted-should be a voluntary and equal association between two people who shared a spiritual affinity.”

FeminismSexualityWomens RightsPornographyFree LoveLibertarian FeminismIndividualist FeminismPro Porn
Book:XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography
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“There were two keys to securing sexual rights for women. The first was to reform the marriage laws, which gave husbands almost absolute authority over their wives. Marriage-free-lovers insisted-should be a voluntary and equal association between two people who shared a spiritual affinity.”

FeminismSexualityWomens RightsBirth ControlFree LoveLibertarian FeminismIndividualist Feminism
Book:XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography
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“In a provocative move, the first issue of her periodical, Woman Rebel announced an intention to disperse contraceptive information. When the postal authorities declared this issue "obscene," Sanger avoided having it confiscated by mailing it in small batches all over the city. As subscriptions poured in, the post office declared five other issues unmailable.”

FeminismBirth ControlLibertarian Feminism
Book:XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography
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“Sexual freedom-especially pornography, which is sexual free speech-is an integral part of the battle for women's freedom. The censoring of sexual words and images does not simply lead to the suppression of women's sexual rights. It is an attempt to control women themselves. For women's rights have traditionally been phrased in terms of their sexuality: marriage, abortion, and birth control. To surrender one iota of women's control over their own sexual expression is to deny that it is their sexuality in the first place.”

FeminismSexualityPornographyLibertarian FeminismIndividualist FeminismPro PornPro Pornography
Book:XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography
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“society tolerates sexually explicit images of women as long as they conform to an ideal that doesn’t relate to women’s autonomous erotic pleasure. Encouraged to be hyper-sexualised and available spectacles from a young age, when women focus on their own erotic desires and satisfaction, they are seen as monsters, and even more so when they get rich doing it.”

ArtFeminism
Book:Women in the Picture: What Culture Does with Female Bodies
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