Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Freeing The “Whore”: Competing Feminist Theories And The Liberatory Potential Of Sex Work Policy, Flannery Mullin

Undergraduate Honors Theses

With a reputation as humanity’s oldest profession, sex work has been the subject of social and political debate for centuries. Feminist scholars, in particular, have given a great deal of attention to the profession, questioning whether the existence and prevalence of sex work have had a positive or negative impact on the advancement of women’s rights. This feminist debate has formed a binary between sex-positive feminists and abolitionists who starkly disagree on the role sex work plays for women, while each side simultaneously believes that their argument provides the greatest opportunity for the liberation of women from the oppressions of …