Anti-Pornography Feminism, KinkTok, and Consent: What We Can Learn from The Sex Wars and Leather/Sadomasochistic History

Authors

Nic Cloyd, University of Nebraska - LincolnFollow

Document Type

Thesis

Date of this Version

Spring 3-9-2022

Citation

Cloyd, Nic. Anti-Pornography Feminism, KinkTok, and Consent: What We Can Learn from The Sex Wars and Leather/Sadomasochistic History. Undergraduate Honors Thesis. University of Nebraska-Lincoln. 2022.

Comments

Copyright Nic Cloyd 2022.

Abstract

Sex education and LGBTQA+ history have long been censored and removed from curriculums across the United States. As this information has disappeared from our education systems, important values like consent and boundary setting have become increasingly obsolete despite the modern body autonomy movement. Leather and SM culture, which began post-WWII and reached their peak in the 1970s during the sexual liberation, have become increasingly important as their ethical and moral codes have been lost over time to the HIV/AIDs epidemic and censorship from second and third wave feminsism. Two prominent movements, anti-pornography and sex-work exclusionary radical feminism, have worked to eradicate sexually explicit content, including sex education, as well as LGBTQA+ history. As human contact moves further online, Kink communities have found themselves banned from various platforms along with relevant safety information due to policies like FOSTA-SESTA that have made platforms, like TikTok and OnlyFans, liable for activity on their apps including grooming and other predatory behaviors. These policies have also led sex education and safety information to be spread by unreliable sources that is inaccurate at best and dangerous and deadly at worst. Hanky code, Old Guard era safeword-based models of consent, and various boundary setting protocols from the 1970s are vital to understanding the development of human sexuality and building healthy relationships in the twenty-first century.