Tag: anarcha-feminism

“We’re Pro-Choice and We Riot!”: Anarcha-Feminism in Love and Rage (1989-98)

In the past two days, I successfully defended my dissertation (“Love and Rage: Revolutionary Anarchism in the Late Twentieth Century”) and had a new peer reviewed article published in the open access journal Coils of the Serpent: Journal for the Study of Contemporary Power. The article is titled “‘We’re Pro-Choice and We Riot!’: Anarcha-Feminism in Love and Rage (1989-98),” and it is part of a fantastic special issue called “Burning the Ballot: Feminism Meets Anarchy.”

Here is how the editors describe my article in their introduction to the special issue:

“As we draw towards the end of our special issue Spencer Beswick continues the discussion of anarcha-feminist contributions to struggles for abortion access, queer and trans liberation, and challenging all forms of oppression and domination within movement spaces themselves. Looking at the Love and Rage organization, and highlighting its contributions throughout the 1990s to keep the anarchist flame alive, Beswick shows the continued intersectional promise of anarcha-feminist politics against liberal forms of inclusion and continually furthering anti-racist and feminist concerns within broader anarchism. The wide ranging work of Love and Rage shows the necessity, but also the difficulties, in expanding intersectional work within movements that continues to resonate today.

In particular, Beswick details the efforts by Love and Rage to foreground and incorporate an explicit anti-racist feminist politics as the organization grew and developed by carefully considering the interventions of Women of Colour feminists and organizers. Importantly, the growing pains of the organization are highlighted, including a critical discussion of its own internal challenges with racism, patriarchy and male domination, and they serve as a reminder of the need for continued vigilance to confront systems of domination in all movement spaces. Externally, the militant contributions of Love and Rage to confronting anti-abortion reactionaries provide lessons and points of consideration for the movements of today. “Militant confrontation of Operation Rescue was a turning point in the development of a new anarchist feminism,” Beswick argues, “feminists went on the attack in order to defend women’s autonomy and build a new world. In their uncompromising struggle for reproductive freedom, anarchists helped build a fighting, revolutionary feminist movement.” By examining the contributions, complexities and contradictions within Love and Rage “‘We’re Pro-Choice and We Riot!’: Anarcha-Feminism in Love and Rage (1989-98)” charts the history of anarcha-feminist agitation and its enduring legacy, while revealing the continued work that needs to be done in the present.”

You can read the article for free here: “‘We’re Pro-Choice and We Riot!’: Anarcha-Feminism in Love and Rage (1989-98).” Let me know what you think!

A Year of Anarchist History

I published a lot this year!

My writing on anarcha-feminist abortion struggles was kicked off with my first piece in the Washington Post, “The model for mobilizing to protect abortion rights beyond voting” (May 17)

That same week, I published “‘We’re Pro-Choice and We Riot!’: How Anarcha-Feminists Built Dual Power in Struggles for Reproductive Freedom” (May 19) in It’s Going Down

I was then interviewed with Suzy Subways for the It’s Going Down podcast episode “Lessons From the Fight to Protect Abortion Clinics in the 1990s: A Discussion” (June 17)

My last piece on anarcha-feminist abortion struggle was “Abortion Struggles Beyond Voting: Women’s Liberation, Reproductive Care, and Dual Power” (August 30) for Hard Crackers: Chronicles of Everyday Life’s excellent series on Reproductive Freedom. You can also find me reading this on Youtube here.

I also published a longer piece on the German Autonomen and the Invisible Committee, “Living Communism: Theory & Practice of Autonomy & Attack” (July 29) in Perspectives on Anarchist Theory

I published a short essay, first written in the early covid days, in Perspectives on Anarchist Theory’s Pandemics from the Bottom Up series, “The Quarantine Commune” (September 11). You can also find me reading this on Youtube here.

Finally, I published my first peer reviewed academic journal article “From the Ashes of the Old: Anarchism Reborn in a Counterrevolutionary Age (1970s-1990s),” in the Anarchist Studies journal (email me for a PDF of my article!)

I’m looking forward to writing and sharing more in the coming year! My new year’s resolution is to finish my dissertation, titled “Love and Rage: Revolutionary Anarchism in the Late Twentieth Century.”

New Publication: “From the Ashes of the Old: Anarchism Reborn in a Counterrevolutionary Age (1970s-1990s)”

My first peer reviewed journal article was recently published in the Anarchist Studies journal: “From the Ashes of the Old: Anarchism Reborn in a Counterrevolutionary Age (1970s-1990s).”

Here is the abstract:

After almost a century of Marxist predominance, how did anarchism develop from a marginal phenomenon into a force at the centre of the anti-globalisation movement? This article explores how anarchism was reborn in a counter-revolutionary age. Part one investigates how the New Right’s post-1960s counterrevolution defeated the New Left and remade US society, including by recuperating potentially liberatory elements of social movements. Part two examines how a new generation of radicals critiqued the failures of Marxism-Leninism and popularised the anarchist analysis and principles that provided the foundation for the anti-globalisation movement. The article discusses five examples of the development of anarchist theory and practice: Black/New Afrikan Anarchism, anarcha-feminism, eco-anarchism, punk anarchism, and revolutionary social anarchism. Ultimately, the article argues that anarchism was revitalised in the late twentieth century because it provided compelling answers to the new problems posed by the neoliberal counterrevolution and the crisis of state socialism.

Lessons From the Fight to Protect Abortion Clinics in the 1990s [IGD Podcast Interview]

Suzy Subways and I were interviewed about anarcha-feminist abortion struggle for the latest It’s Going Down podcast! Check it out here: Lessons From the Fight to Protect Abortion Clinics in the 1990s.

Description:

“On this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we talk with both long-time anarchist organizer Suzy Subways and historian Spencer Beswick about how anarchists in the 1990s organized in the face of a deadly far-Right attack on abortion access across the so-called United States.

With the growth of both the above ground organization Operation Rescue, which mobilized thousands to shut down abortion clinics and the underground anti-abortion movement which targeted doctors and reproductive health offices with firebombings and assassinations, abortion access was under threat like never before. But while liberals stuck to legalistic attempts to sway the courts, anarchists, utilizing strategies and tactics from groups like Anti-Racist Action, brought a fresh perspective to the struggle and began to mobilize and build coalitions.

During our discussion we cover this history as well as what led to the passing of Roe v Wade; as Beswick argues that it was the creation of a mass, militant movement that centered bodily autonomy and freedom that forced the State to codify limited abortion rights into law. As the supreme court is poised to rule on striking down Roe v Wade, this history, and the lessons and questions that it raises, is needed now more than ever.”

More Info: We’re Pro-Choice and We Riot: How Anarcha-Feminists Built Dual Power in Struggles for Reproductive Freedom, Empty Hands History, and Claim No Easy Victories: An Anarchist Analysis of ARA and its Contributions to the Building of a Radical Anti-Racist Movement

Anarcha-Feminist Abortion Struggle: Reproductive Freedom and Dual Power

The Supreme Court’s plan to reverse Roe v. Wade means that abortion will likely soon become illegal for many people across the United States. As we search for effective responses, we can look to anarcha-feminist strategies to protect abortion by building mass movements and grassroots reproductive healthcare infrastructure. This week, I published two articles about this history; check out the excerpts below.

In the Washington Post, I contextualize our present moment and present The model for mobilizing to protect abortion rights beyond voting.

Beyond voting for candidates who support abortion rights at election time, what is to be done? The historical experiences of the feminist abortion struggle between the 1960s and 1990s offer alternative strategies. Feminists originally won reproductive rights through mass mobilization in the streets combined with widespread underground provision of abortion and other health care. These actions forced the Supreme Court to affirm a constitutional right to abortion in 1973.

[In the 1980s-90s] anarchists (anti-state socialists) within the feminist movement rejected voting and legal reforms in favor of radical grass-roots activism. Instead of the slogan “we’re pro-choice and we vote,” anarchists often marched behind a banner reading “we’re pro-choice and we riot!”

Following the example of second-wave feminists, anarchists framed abortion as a question of bodily autonomy and women’s liberation.

Heading into the 1990s, amid new right-wing attacks on abortion rights, anarcha-feminists in Love and Rage built grass-roots infrastructure to perform abortions and provide for reproductive health more broadly. They sought to build autonomy on their own terms by organizing self-help groups in which, San Francisco activist Sunshine Smith explained, “women learn the basics of self-cervical exams, do pelvics on each other, and learn how to do menstrual extraction.”

Anarchists believed this kind of infrastructure was key to bodily autonomy and helped lay the foundation for building revolutionary dual power: radical institutions that challenged the hegemony of the state. If women controlled their own bodies and institutions, they would no longer depend on the state to protect their rights.

The anarchist and feminist traditions of mass mobilization, autonomous health infrastructure and grass-roots struggle offer alternatives — or at least a radical complement — to voting. Reversing Roe v. Wade will not stop abortions; it will only make them more dangerous and less accessible. As anarcha-feminist Liz Highleyman argued in 1992, “the day when abortion is again made illegal may come sooner than we like to think. We must be ready to take our bodies and our lives into our own hands.”

In It’s Going Down, I explore the anarcha-feminist model for providing reproductive care and building dual power in “We’re Pro-Choice and We Riot!”: How Anarcha-Feminists Built Dual Power in Struggles for Reproductive Freedom

As the Supreme Court prepares to reverse Roe v. Wade under a Democratic president, house, and senate, it is clear that action at the ballot box is insufficient to protect abortion. Reproductive rights were not won by electoral means, and that is not how we will defend them.

Anarcha-feminists were on the front lines of the struggle for abortion throughout the 1980s and ‘90s. They were convinced that Roe v. Wade would not last forever and that they could not depend on the state and the legal system to protect reproductive freedom. Anarcha-feminists took a three-pronged approach to abortion struggle: defense of abortion clinics, construction of grassroots reproductive health infrastructure, and an anti-state approach to building feminist dual power.

Anarcha-feminists physically protected abortion clinics from the likes of Operation Rescue, which was formed in 1986 to act as anti-abortion shock troops.

Anarcha-feminists established autonomous infrastructure and self-help groups in which people learned to take care of their own bodies and induce abortions on their own terms. As one anarchist put it in a 1991 article, “medicine is something we must take into our own hands. Because how can you smash the state if you’re still walking funny from a visit to the gynecologist’s?”

Anarchists advocated expanding grassroots infrastructure and self-organization to gain the knowledge and skills necessary to perform their own reproductive care. They argued that this would produce true reproductive freedom and autonomy that was independent of the state and its laws.

Anarcha-feminists did not appeal to the state to maintain abortion rights. They believed that the state was inherently patriarchal and was ultimately the enemy of reproductive justice. Thus, the Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation (1989-98) argued in its draft political statement that “our freedom will not come through the passage of yet more laws but through the building of communities strong enough to defend themselves against anti-choice and anti-queer terror, rape, battery, child abuse and police harassment.”

Establishing reproductive healthcare infrastructure is a key component of feminist dual power that challenges the hegemony of the state and capitalism. This kind of infrastructure prefigures—and concretely establishes—a world defined by mutual aid, solidarity, and autonomy.

The model for mobilizing to protect abortion rights beyond voting

I published a new article in the Washington Post’s Made By History section today, check it out here!

The model for mobilizing to protect abortion rights beyond voting: ‘We’re pro-choice and we riot!’ How anarchists reframed the fight for abortion

The argument:
The anarchist and feminist traditions of mass mobilization, autonomous health infrastructure and grass-roots struggle offer alternatives — or at least a radical complement — to voting. Reversing Roe v. Wade will not stop abortions; it will only make them more dangerous and less accessible. As anarcha-feminist Liz Highleyman argued in 1992, “the day when abortion is again made illegal may come sooner than we like to think. We must be ready to take our bodies and our lives into our own hands.”

Anarcha-Feminism at the San Francisco Men’s Gathering (1989)

There was a lot of defensiveness around, ‘well I don’t participate in the patriarchy, I’m an anarchist, and I don’t believe in that.’

As women organized their own day of workshops before the 1989 San Francisco anarchist gathering, men assembled for a corresponding gender-specific meeting. Despite constituting the majority of attendees to the broader convergence, the men’s meeting was only around a third of the size of the women’s. As some women later pointed out, this was presumably because men felt less need to discuss “men’s issues” than did women. Around 60 men gathered at Delores Park and Fort Funston for a day of workshops and discussions meant both to interrogate their male privilege and to provide support for each other. Despite some promising discussions, the men’s meeting disappointed both its attendees and the women who observed part of it.

Mike E., who lived at the Chaos Collective (the co-op that hosted the women’s conference) and was a core organizer of the San Francisco convergence, helped put together the men’s gathering. He explained to me in an oral history interview last summer that the men were not initially planning to meet but that some key male organizers decided that they needed to “do work around sexism and gender” in solidarity with anarchist women.

Due to a combination of poor planning and defensiveness from some men, things did not go very well. Mike reflects “that to be honest unfortunately we didn’t put the amount of care and work that the women put into their workshops, and so the discussions were not that great. Also, a lot of the men just were not used to having those kinds of conversations. Talking about their role within, you know, the patriarchy. You know, there was a lot of defensiveness around, ‘well I don’t participate in the patriarchy, I’m an anarchist, and I don’t believe in that.’ […] and so, our conversations, honestly, my memory of them is that they were not that productive. There [were] small groups of us who I think had some good conversations, but they were also not that organized.”

In part to try to ease tensions and establish connections, the men broke halfway through the day to have an impromptu soccer game. But, as Mike recounted ruefully, “unfortunately, some of the women who were at their meeting showed up right as the soccer game was going on [laughs], and were like ‘oh really, so we are having conversations about the patriarchy and you guys are bro-ing down, having a soccer game. And this is your way of addressing the patriarchy.’ And that shit busted loose. And so there was a pretty intense confrontation around that, and sort of, you know, um, pretty strong, very pointed and good critique of that. Um, we ended up sitting back down, and sort of having more conversations.”

This confrontation and its fallout did not make it into the official reportback to the Without Borders Chronicle. Instead, they said that “the numbers were somewhat small but many men left the gathering with the feeling of having connected with other men, learning & sharing with each other.” But the report did call out the lack of engagement from men and issued a call to action: “Hopefully more men will plan to attend future mens gatherings. The lack of numbers seems to speak of an evasion or lack of interest amongst many men of the very important topics of men supporting men, men dealing with their own sexism (as well its prevalence in the @ community) and the need to deal with gender issues [that] affects us all.”

The San Francisco men’s gathering was somewhat of a false start. It is certainly easy to criticize its small attendance, the defensiveness of many men, and the ill-fated soccer game. But it also helped to introduce feminist concepts to men who believed that their anarchist politics meant that they couldn’t be sexist. It also built connections and trust between anti-sexist men who would go on to play active roles in promoting feminism in the anarchist movement. The men’s gathering is a good example, warts and all, of the kind of difficult but necessary work that men must do in order to contribute to women’s liberation.

The “Obnoxious Wimmin’s Network”: Anarcha-Feminism at the 1989 San Francisco Gathering

Anarchist women formed the “Obnoxious Wimmin’s Network” in the late 1980s in order to build the anarcha-feminist movement and fight against male dominance in the radical scene. In 1989, they organized a women-only gathering preceding the “Without Borders” Anarchist Gathering in San Francisco. They decided to meet on their own in order to address women’s issues, talk politics without men dominating the conversation, and strategize about how to deal with sexism within the movement. This gathering helped establish anarcha-feminist connections and community that went on to transform the anarchist movement in the coming decades.

Around 150 women (trans inclusive and usually styled as “wimmin”) came together from July 18-19 under the banner of the “Obnoxious Wimmin’s Network” at the Collective Chaos anarchist space in Oakland, which had been founded by members of the Vermont Family. Over the course of two days, they hosted a series of workshops, discussions, and performances ranging from self defense and home abortion techniques to participation in the sex trade industry.[1] (Note that there was also a men’s gathering at the same time, which was significantly smaller and did not go as well. This will be the subject of a future post. Edit: Here it is: Anarcha-Feminism at the San Francisco Men’s Gathering (1989))

The first evening was dedicated to open mic performances including poetry, music, dance, and collective theater. Women gave presentations on fashion and the media, showed videos about women in the sex industry, and shared art based on their experiences of patriarchal violence. There were also multiple music acts: a trio called The Yeastie Girls “performed feminist rap on subjects ranging from safe sex to the joys of masterbation [sic],” and the Blue Vulva Underground “entertained us with rock/trash music featuring such topics as menstruation and sexism in relationships.” This open mic performance space provided an opportunity for women to meet each other in an informal setting before the following day’s workshops.

Day two featured a series of workshops dealing with women’s issues. It began with a session on self defense (both physical and psychological), followed by a workshop on “wimmins health skills, including vaginal health and cervical self examination” at which “Eden demo[n]started technique & explained how wimmin can take cont[r]ol of their health care away from the medical establishment and put it back into our own hands.” Along with a session on home abortion techniques in the afternoon, this continued a long tradition of feminist self-help infrastructure in the women’s liberation movement. These workshops led to the formation of more sustained women’s self-help groups and infrastructure in the Bay Area.

In 1990, a participant named Sunshine Smith, who went on to help organize a self-help group, reflected in the Love and Rage newspaper that “Being in a self-help group has had a very strong effect on my relationship to my own body, as well as my understanding of women’s bodies in general. Women who go through this process together develop a very strong bond. We are truly taking control of our own bodies: learning our cycles of change, learning what a uterus feels like inside another woman, and becoming intimately familiar with the look and feel of the inside of a woman’s vagina.”[2] This is a quintessentially anarchistic approach to women’s health: not relying on trained clinicians, even feminist ones, but rather taking one’s body into one’s own hands—and doing it collectively with friends and comrades.

Next came a workshop on the “intolerance of sexual diversity,” in which women discussed “ways in which bisexual, lesbian, and heterosexual wimmin can work on understanding and relating supportively with eachother [sic], as well as dealing with non-monogamy, S&M, and relationships involving more than two people.” This was followed by workshops on women political prisoners and women in the sex industry. The latter involved around 60 participants, including a number of sex workers, who “discussed how their sex work related to anarchism, self-empowerment, and non-work relationships. Discussion also focussed [sic] on the difficulties sex trade workers face in dealing with feminists who are anti-pornography and against the sex industry.” (For more on an anarcha-feminist approach to pornography that references debates in this time period, see my piece, Creating ‘New Porn’: Anarcha-Feminism vs. Onlyfans.)

The day ended with a workshop on anti-racism, which delved into “the relationship between feminism and racism, how wimmin’s perception of the threat of violence from men is related to racial issues, and how the anarcha-feminist movement, as mostly white wimmin, can be more inclusive and supportive of wimmin of colour.” This reflected a growing awareness of the problem of anarchism’s whiteness, which would become a central issue in the movement in the 1990s. The reportback does not go into any more detail on how these conversations about anti-racism went or if there were any concrete takeaways or next steps proposed.

The wimmin’s gathering ended with “an open discussion [that] ran into the night, including the topic of dealing with sexism within the anarchist community.” The reportback’s author says nothing more about this topic, and I do wonder why there was not a dedicated time to discuss this problem, since it was one of the major impetuses for hosting the gathering. The reportback ends by reflecting that “The Obnoxious Wimmin’s Gathering was a valuable opportunity for wimmin to meet each other and discuss issues of importance to the anarcha-feminist community, and it is hoped that such events will be part of future anarchist conferences.”

This kind of gathering was crucial for the formation and strengthening of a continental anarcha-feminist movement. It enabled women from across North America to meet each other, discuss women’s issues, compare their experiences, learn new skills from each other, engage in self-critique, and strategize about how to continue developing anarcha-feminist theory and practice.

[1] Unless otherwise noted, all quotes come from an anonymous reportback printed in the “Without Borders Chronicle” on Thursday, July 20, 1989. I also consulted a flyer with the schedule for the wimmin’s gathering (image included here).

[2] Smith, Sunshine. “East Bay Women’s Community Gets Rolling: Smashing scales, wielding speculums, and demanding much more than our rights.” Love and Rage, Vol. 1, No. 1 (April 1990), 11.

“Feminism Practices What Anarchism Preaches”: Anarcha-Feminism in the 20th Century (Panel Recording)

I recently organized an online panel at the Boston Anarchist Bookfair on November 14th (2021), which was recorded and uploaded to Youtube. My own talk, which begins around 41:20, is titled “‘We’re Pro-Choice and We Riot’: Anarcha-Feminism in Love and Rage (1989-98).” It is based on research and interviews that I have been conducting for my dissertation on North American anarchism in the late 20th century.

My talk explores the theorization and practice of revolutionary intersectional anarcha-feminism, with a major focus on abortion and reproductive freedom but also addressing queer and trans liberation, debates around pornography, CUNY student struggles, and the fight against patriarchy within Love and Rage itself. You can watch it here:

As I say in my presentation, if you were involved with any of what I discuss I would love to talk to you about it! Check out more about the anarchist oral history project I’m involved in here.

Creating ‘New Porn’: Anarcha-Feminism vs. Onlyfans

What can anarcha-feminists in the late 20th century offer our analysis of the recent Onlyfans debacle, when the company unsuccessfully attempted to ban pornography from the online platform? Going back to Emma Goldman and the Industrial Workers of the World, anarchists have long supported organizing alongside sex workers in their fight for better working conditions and, ultimately, an end to both patriarchal and capitalist violence. A century later, as debates over pornography raged in the late 20th century, anarchists in Love and Rage (1989-98) analyzed porn from an anti-state feminist framework. Although some members opposed pornography and advocated direct action to disrupt its production, most supported a new vision of liberatory pornography. This “new porn” would model consensual, joyful sex outside the rigid bounds of heterosexual patriarchy. Crucially, it would be controlled by sex workers themselves, who would have autonomy and self-determination in their work.

The debate in Love and Rage was kicked off in 1991, when anti-porn feminists argued in the organization’s newspaper that pornography perpetuated violence against women and reinforced male supremacy. In his 1991 article “Porn in Flames,” Richard Blake argues that pornography is inherently dehumanizing, oppressive, and violent. Although he disagrees with the state-focused tactics of Andrea Dworkin, he maintains that anarchists should resolutely oppose the porn industry and work against it. But what could this look like with an anti-state orientation?

Blake argues that the state cannot be expected to take action on pornography, and that even if it did, legal changes would not actually prevent pornography from being made and distributed.[1] Instead of seeking to outlaw pornography, He urges anarchists to “fight it in the streets and on the job and in the home, in the same places where you claim to be fighting the state which sponsors it.”[2] Ultimately, Blake maintains that “an anarchist movement that’s not dedicated to fighting the pornography industry isn’t a real anarchist movement.”[3] The fight against pornography was ultimately a struggle for freedom, equality, and justice. As long as pornography existed, women would continue to be exploited and abused by men for profit and sexual pleasure.

Most Love and Ragers, however, disagreed with Blake’s analysis. Although they were not “pro-porn” per se, most anarchists opposed the anti-porn movement for its moralism and common advocacy of governmental censorship. Anarchists supported organizing alongside sex workers rather than view them as helpless “victims” to be saved by either the state or misguided activists.[4] This, Laura Lib insists, is a much better anarchist approach to the problem of exploitation and oppression than a moralistic critique of the industry. Ultimately, they advocated for a new kind of pornography that would not oppress and exploit women, but rather be an avenue towards sexual liberation. What was needed was not to outlaw or abolish pornography, but rather to spread education and alternative models of sexuality.

Liz Highleyman argues that “since the typical pornographic representations of sexuality are so narrow and incomplete, we can make expanded and alternative images of sex and sexuality available, images that convey our own values of equality, mutuality, and consensuality.”[5] Ms. Tommy Lawless agrees, explaining that she does not want to ban porn but rather see it “drastically changed”: “this is what creating ‘new porn’ means to me. It means asserting the personhood, will, and true desires of wimmin.”[6] This “new porn” would also move beyond the bounds of heterosexuality and the male gaze. Queer pornography in particular could perhaps play a more liberating role than the usual heterosexual focus. Pornography as such was not inherently good or bad but rather was a tool and a medium that could be used either to oppress or to liberate.

What does this analysis have to offer to the situation with Onlyfans? Sex workers turned to Onlyfans in part to escape their exploitation and lack of control in the porn industry. Onlyfans gave them a platform to establish their own sources of revenue that they ostensibly controlled. This enabled them a degree of autonomy and self-determination, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic. But because sex workers did not actually control the company, the Onlyfans bosses could make its own decisions without the workers’ input; thus, threatened with a loss of credit card revenue, they decided to ban pornography from the platform. Although a mass outcry eventually forced Onlyfans to reverse course, many sex workers had learned their lesson: they needed to build a platform that they controlled. Several alternatives are gaining popularity, including some that appear more sex-worker friendly, such as one started by a notable gay porn star. It remains to be seen whether they will be able to compete with Onlyfans and survive in the capitalist market.

The problem is not pornography per se, but rather the social structures surrounding it: patriarchy, capitalism, heterosexism, white supremacy. But until those are overthrown, self-determination and autonomy through organizing unions, worker cooperatives, and new online platforms would afford sex workers much more control over their lives, money, and working conditions. All this outside the purview of state control or censorship; a solution that the anarcha-feminists in Love and Rage could surely support.

[1] Richard Blake, “Porn In Flames,” 3.

[2] Richard Blake, “Porn In Flames,” 3.

[3] Richard Blake, “Porn In Flames,” 3.

[4] Laura Lib, “Love and Justice? Porn Debate: A Reply to Richard Blake’s ‘Porn in Flames,’” 7.

[5] Liz A. Highleyman, “1-900-XXX-Talk,” 2.

[6] Ms. Tommy Lawless, “D’Ya Believe in Homicide?” 3.