Big ups and kudos go to my colleague Alison Lee, manager of Good for Her in Toronto, on writing a kick-ass feature for the November/December This Magazine on The New Face of Porn, and how a new generation of feminists are reclaiming porn, both as consumers and producers.

Here is her fabulous self talking about her work at the store for This:

I think we go back and forth all the time with the argument about sex positive feminism, what it really means, and how we can practically apply the tools we hear in theory while living out there in a world that is downright prejudicial on so many levels.

For example, I myself struggle with believing the whole “hypersexualization” school of thought because I’m an advocate for choice and self-determination (i.e. I don’t just believe in the decriminalization of sex work, I believe people can and do choose it and deserve more than basic human rights) I look at colonization and remember that we need to take the power back.

I mean, I don’t personally like knitting, crafting, or baking at all but I sure as hell respect the women who have taken those things back as non-second-class-citizen stuff. I’d like the same respect with my penchant for feminist porn and sex trade rights advocacy work, thank you very much. People can argue all they want that comparing these things makes no sense, but to me it does. I remember that healthy sexuality was common practice in a lot of Indigenous and racialized communities before the influx of Christianization, etc, so at the foundation of it all, it’s more than just a reclaimation on sex we’re fighting for. I think people get to decide what that looks like for them.

Even this year at the Rebelles: Waves of Resistance conference we fought relentlessly about our positions on porn, sex work, and other elements of sex positivity that Ariel Troster documented in Xtra.

So what do you think?