Narrative struggles in online arenas: the Facebook feminist sex wars on the Israeli sex industry

ABSTRACT

In this article, I analyze the role of the Israeli online arena in attempts to challenge attitudes toward sex work and the sex industry. By exploring the short history of the “feminist sex wars” that are being conducted on public feminist Facebook pages, I ask whether online activism can really avoid being drawn into the realm of conventional offline politics. The article argues that while the various Facebook pages aimed to alter the landscape of political and public discourse around sex work and the sex industry, they were in fact sucked into the vortex of the existing public discourse surrounding sex work in Israel, forcing them to choose sides in the dialectic sex wars. I conclude that they nonetheless succeeded in establishing a “narrative of influence” which should be analyzed beyond the disappointment of specific policy outcomes. Online activism thus becomes a key platform for both the construction and contestation between different narratives within the sex industry.

KEYWORDS:

• Feminist sex wars
• sex work policy
• social media
• feminist activism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Sex Work activists worldwide, especially sex workers of color, have criticized the use of the term abolitionist which references the abolition of slavery, to be offensive and inaccurate in its application to sex work and prefer to refer to it as fundamentalist, prohibitionist or carceral feminism. However, I use “abolitionist” as a feminist strategy for respecting the titles that activists give to themselves. For elaboration on the critic of the term, see: Robyn Maynard 2018; Mechthild Nagel 2015.

2. Examples of these pages include: “Sex Work and Other Jobs”; “John School Israel”; “The Religious Organizations Coalition for the Struggle Against Prostitution”; “The Discreet”; “Coming to the Lecher”; “The Lobby Against Lechers”; “When He Tries To Buy Me”; “When I Work—The Truth”; “Myth—For the Day After Prostitution”; “The Truth About The Law of Incriminating The Client.” There are also private Facebook groups and the private pages of women working within the industry. From ethical considerations I have only mentioned the open and public pages.

3. The Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA) and Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) are the U.S. Senate and House bills that as the FOSTA-SESTA package became law on April 11 2018.

4. They are also often called “anti-pornography feminists” (for more detailed discussion, see Lorna N. Bracewell 2016; Alice Echols 2016).

5. They are also sometimes called “sex-positive feminists” (see, for example, Melanie Heath, Jessica Braimoh and Julie Gouweloos 2016).

6. According to John and Dvir-Gvirsman (2015), Facebook has around 3.9 million registered users (out of a population of about 8 million) while Twitter has around 155,000 users in Israel.

7. These laws include: the prohibition of recruitment advertisements for prostitution (2017); the prohibition of strip clubs (2018); the prohibition of telephone lines used to advertise prostitution services (2018); and the criminalization of buyers of sex (2017). In addition to these laws, two amendments to existing laws have been added. The first raised the punishment threshold for sexual consumption from a minor from three to five years. The second added prostitution to the restricted access of offensive websites (until then defined as websites dealing with gambling and incitement).

8. https://www.facebook.com/When-He-Pays-953331571347707/.

9. http://todaango.org.il/an NGO that aims to raise awareness among public and policymakers of the destructive consequences of prostitution.

10. http://the-invisible-men.tumblr.com/.

11. https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=when%20he%20pays.%20me.

12. As of August 20 2018, WHP has 13,825 likes and 14,020 followers, while WHP.M has 6,381‏ likes and 6,452 followers.

13. https://www.facebook.com/TaskForceHumanTrafficking/?fref=mentions.

14. https://www.facebook.com/%D7%94%D7%93%D7%99%D7%A1%D7%A7%D7%A8%D7%98%D7%99%D7%9D-975418402580520/.

15. https://www.facebook.com/%D7%91%D7%90%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%9C%D7%96%D7%A0%D7%90%D7%99%D7%9D-1147627928677444/.

16. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1371772782837240/.

17. https://view.publitas.com/art-fanzine/gendertuck-fanzine-april-2018-color/page/1.

18. She chose to be called A when I interviewed her.

19. SWERF is an acronym for “sex worker exclusionary radical feminism” which is characterized by its opposition to those involved in the sex industry.

20. A pseudonym given by the WSW admins.

21. https://www.facebook.com/argaman.alliance/.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by The Israel Science Foundation (grant No.54/18).

Notes on contributors

Yeela Lahav-Raz

Dr Yeela Lahav-Raz is a sociologist  and Anthropologist from the Ben-Gurion University in the Negev (Israel) who is researching sex work regulations and politics, mainly in Israel and the intersection between technology, masculinity and sexuality. After receiving the post-doctoral fellowship from the ISF (Israeli science Foundation), she is currently an honorary lecturer in the Department of Criminology at the University of Leicester. Her post-doc research, under the guidance of Professor Teela Sanders, deals with sex tourism in the Middle East in the aim of expending current knowledge about the global capitalist order; neo-colonialist trends; and the relationship between global elites and local marginal populations. E-mail: [email protected]