Katharine Jenkins (University of Nottingham)
Who's Afraid of Andrea Dworkin? Feminism and the Analytic Philosophy of Sex

The nature of sexual desire has been a topic of profound interest to feminist theorists for
some time, and certainly in the latter half of the 20th century. Yet this body of work is routinely
overlooked by those working on this topic within the analytic tradition, resulting in two quite
separate literatures. Focussing on the work of feminist theorist Andrea Dworkin – a distinctive
and polarizing figure – I argue that much is lost by this partitioning. Dworkin’s work
interrogates the connections between sexuality, gender, and dominance, aspects of sexual
desire that are under-explored in the analytic philosophy of sex. I first show how an analytic
approach can help us get the most out of Dworkin’s intricate prose by clarifying ambiguous
passages and disentangling distinct claims. I then argue that analytic work on sexual desire
would benefit greatly from Dworkin’s valuable insights about the social and political nature of
sexual desire. A notable exception to the tendency to overlook Dworkin’s work is Seiriol
Morgan. However, I argue that even Morgan does not account for the full implications of
Dworkin’s arguments - and indeed, his work provides some especially clear examples of how
her insights can be of use.

Katharine Jenkins is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Nottingham. She
did her PhD at the University of Sheffield with Jennifer Saul and Miranda Fricker, before which
she studied philosophy at the University of Cambridge. Her research is primarily in social
philosophy, especially the ontology of social categories. She is interested in how social
categories such as races and genders exist, and how these categories are bound up with
systematic injustices. She also works on feminist philosophy and critical philosophy of race
more broadly, on the philosophy of sex and sexuality, and on social epistemology