A response to Laurie Penny on sex work.
By Sofie Buckland, part-time activist, full-time English undergrad, part-time button monkey/code geek. Read her blog here.

There is a phenomenon, observable across feminist debate, that I like to call playing liberal in the middle. Where two ideologies clash there’s always someone who claims the middle ground for their own, however inconsistent and fractured it may be. Take pornography for example – we don’t want to be with those for state bans and prison sentences, that’s illiberal and censorious. But equally, those people arguing for freedom of speech, well, what about violence against women? So here’s a nice fudge – campaign for the state to legislate that lads’ mags must be on the top shelf. Decry both sides for fighting in the process, because they could always take a simple central position – after all, you did – and bingo. Liberal in the middle.

This is exactly what’s going on in Laurie Penny’s article on sex work and feminism. From the very start, the difference in political position over sex work is characterised as ‘an ugly obstructive shibboleth’ – the equivalent of ‘stop fighting or I’ll bang your heads together, now kiss and make up’. Laurie is being our mother, attempting to adjudicate in what she sees as ‘squabbling’, but what is in fact a very real and important political debate over very revealing ideological differences. This serves to both depoliticise feminism (aren’t they silly, don’t they fight, isn’t it unimportant) and to position Laurie’s concluding fudge as the sensible, level-headed answer. The ‘fabric of feminist unity’ is under threat from both sides! Quick, take the middle ground!

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