Citation

Shrage L. Fem. Theor. 2005; 6(1): 45-65.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/1464700105050226

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper examines an issue at the centre of feminist debates about pornography and sex work, and that is whether these practices reduce women to sex objects. I question the assumption that the expression of sexual desire is unique in its power to degrade and dehumanize persons. I show that this assumption underlies Catharine MacKinnon's attack on pornography by considering MacKinnon's intellectual debt to the philosopher Immanuel Kant. I then examine recent discussions of sexual objectification in the philosophical literature and argue that MacKinnon's adaptation of Kant has flaws comparable to Kant's original account of sexual desire.