From bell hooks's incisive look at the scapegoating of black men as archetypal racists to Andrea Dworkin's scathing statement on pornography as violence against women, this anthology is the first to fully represent the range of contemporary perspectives on one of the most fiercely contested areas in feminist thought.

Part 1 Essentialism verus social construction: from "Uneven Developments", Mary Poovey; from "The Spinster and her Enemies", Sheila Jeffreys; from "Feminine Sexuality", Jacqueline Rose; "This Sex Which is Not One", Luce Irigaray; from "The Social Construction of Female Sexuality", Stevi Jackson; from "The Traffic in Women and Thinking Sex - notes for a radical theory of sexuality", Gayle Rubin; "Gender Difference and the Production of Subjectivity", Wendy Hollway; "Biological Superiority - the world's most dangerous and deadly idea", Andrea Dworkin; "Social Construction Theory - problems in the history of sexuality", Carol Vance. Part 2 Affirming and questioning sexual categories: "The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm", Anne Koedt; from "Don't Die of Ignorance, I nearly Died of Embarrassment", Janet Holland; "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence", Adrienne Rich; "Lesbianism - an act of resistance", Cheryl Clarke; "The Straight Mind", Monique Wittig; "Hating Masculinity Not Men", Marie-Jo Dhavernas; "Imitation and Gender Subordination", Judith Butler; "Queer Theory and Queer Politics", Katie Grant. Part 3 Power and pleasure: "Marxism, Feminism, Method and the State", Catherine MacKinnon; from "Surviving Sexual Violence", Liz Kelly; from "The Lust to Kill", Debbie Cameron; from "Ain't I a Woman", Bell Hooks; "Desire for the Future - radical hope in passion and pleasure", Amber Hollibaugh; "Feminism and Sadomasochism", Pat Califia; from "Anti-Climax - A Feminist Critique of the Sexual Revolution", Sheila Jeffreys; "Sex after AIDS", Ros Coward; from "Pressured Pleasure", Holland et al; "Bodies-Pleasures-Powers", Linda Singer; "Lesbian Sexualities", Diane Richardson. Part 4 Commercial sex: "The Politics of Prostitution", Judith Walkowitz; from "Pornography", Andrea Dworkin; from "The Pornography of Representation", Susanne Kappeller; from "Black Feminist Thought", Patricia Collins; various extracts from "Feminists Against Censorship"; "On the Question of Pornography and Sexual Violence", Debbie Cameron and Liz Frazer; "Prostitution - a difficult issue for feminists", Priscilla Alexander; from "Backstreets - Prostitution, Love and Money", C. Hoigard and Liv Finstad; from "Sex, Money and Morality - Prostitution and Tourism in SE Asia", Thanh-Dan Truong; "The Praed Street Project - a cohort of prostitute women in London", Sophie Day and Helen Ward.