section_path: Sexuality/Sex industry
section_name: Sex industry
paragraph_text: Sex industry
  
  Opinions on the sex industry are diverse. Feminists who are critical of the sex industry generally see it as the exploitative result of patriarchal social structures which reinforce sexual and cultural attitudes complicit in rape and sexual harassment. Alternately, feminists who support at least part of the sex industry argue that it can be a medium of feminist expression and reflect a woman's right to control and define her own sexuality.
  
  Individualist feminists support the existence of a sex industry on the grounds that adult women have the right to consent to sexual acts as they choose and should have access to labor rights, to earn money how they choose. In this view, banning the sex industry effectively strips women of their right to work and earn money on their own terms, treating them as children who cannot make decisions for themselves. In this view, women who consider the sex industry degrading do not have to partake in it. Women who do choose to work in the sex industry however should not be banned from doing so, given that they are doing so willingly. Libertarian Feminist Zine, Reclaim, has argued that sex work has helped more women (including students, freelancers, and women in poverty) achieve financial independence than all government grants combined.
  
  Feminist views of pornography range from condemnation of pornography as a form of violence against women, to an embracing of some forms of pornography as a medium of feminist expression and a legitimate career. Similarly, feminists' views on prostitution vary, ranging from critical to supportive.