Bøker av Sheila Jeffreys

There are (at least) two competing views on prostitution: Prostitution as a legitimate and acceptable form of employment, freely chosen by women and Men's use of prostitution as a form of degrading the women and causing grave psychological damage. In The Idea of Prostitution Sheila Jeffreys explores these sharply contrasting views. She examines the changing concept of prostitution from White Slave Traffic of the nineteenth century to its present status as legal. The book includes discussion of the varieties of prostitution such as: the experience of male prostitutes; the uses of women in pornography; and the role of military brothels compared with slavery and rape in marriage. Sheila Jeffreys explodes the distinction between "e;forced"e; and "e;free"e;prostitution, and documents the expanding international traffic in women. The author examines the claims of the prostitutes' rights movement and the sex industry, while supporting prostituted women.

In this blisteringly persuasive and piercingly intelligent book, Sheila Jeffreys argues that women live under penile imperialism, a regime in which men are assumed to have a sex right of access to the bodies of women and girls. She reasons that the sexual revolution that began in the 1960s unleashed an explicit male sexual liberation and that even now, under current laws and cultural mores, women do not have the right to self-determination in relation to their bodies. Sheila Jeffreys argues that the exercise of the male sex right has mainstreamed misogynist attitudes and so-called sexual freedom has meant the freedom of men to use women and children with impunity. The power dynamics of sex, rather than being eliminated, has been eroticised, supported by state regulations and structures that have further entrenched male domination. And while mens sexual fetishisms such as BDSM and transvestism have been normalised, women now have to fight as their spaces are being erased and their voices silenced in a faux inclusivity that has naturalised sexual harassment. Sheila Jeffreys contends that womens human rights are profoundly harmed and sexual violence is used more than ever to enforce social control of women. This is a sobering and brilliant analysis of the modern predicament of women that is impossible to ignore. There can be no liberation of women without a complete transformation of the way that male sexuality is constructed. Whilst the eroticising of womens subordination remains the basis of what is seen as sex, women cannot escape coercion in the bedroom, sexual harassment on the streets and at work, and the requirement to service mens excitements in the way they dress and behave.

First published in 1987, this collection brings together the major articles which fuelled the feminist campaigns and helped to bring about significant reforms.

Unpacking Queer Politics argues that the strong lesbian feminist movement of the 1970s, which was able to articulate a philosophy and practice that distinguished lesbian politics from gay male politics, was submerged in the 1990s beneath a gay male agenda called queer politics.

'A rigorous, savvy contemporary intellectual history, Read this book.' Andrea Dworkin The sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s is remembered as a time of great freedom for women. But did the sexual revolution have the same goals as the Women's Liberation Movement? Was it truly liberation for women or just another insidious form of oppression? In this provocative book, Sheila Jeffreys argues that sexual freedom sometimes directly opposed actual freedom for women. Anticlimax traces sexual mores and attitudes from the 1950s to the 1990s, exploring the nature of both straight and gay relationships and offering original and compelling commentary on Lolita, Naked Lunch, The Joy of Sex, the Masters/Johnson report, and other representations in the literature on sexuality. At the root of sexual liberation, Sheila Jeffreys finds an increasing eroticisation of power differences within heterosexual, lesbian and gay communities. Her alternative vision of sexual relations based on equality is a major statement in the debates over sex and violence, that remain relevant in discussions over SlutWalk, sexualisation of girls and the pervasiveness of porn culture. "e;Anticlimax' laid bare the myth of the 1960s sexual revolution."e; 'Julie Bindel