Sex Workers, Thinkers and Activists in France Today: A ‘Real’ Feminist Vanguard

This paper explores three manifestoes by contemporary French sex workers, which combine personal memoir with theoretical and political writing: Libérez le féminisme by Morgane Merteuil (2012), Fières d’être putes by Maîtresse Nikita and Thierry Schaffauser (2007), and Porno manifesto by Ovidie (2002). I examine the complaints and demands they make of French feminists today, who frequently impede rather than support the aims of sex workers. I then outline these authors’ vision for a future feminism which could incorporate and learn from sex workers’ thought and activism, and which would be properly inclusive and radical. For these reasons, we will see why this envisaged feminism is deemed a ‘real’ feminism by some, to signify a surpassing or enhancement of earlier feminisms. Connections with a variety of feminisms will be considered, including postfeminism, sex positive feminism, and feminism in its second and fourth waves.