Women, Sexuality and the Political Power of Pleasure

Susie Jolly, Andrea Cornwall, Kate Hawkins, Susie Jolly, Andrea Cornwall, Kate Hawkins

• Publisher: Zed Books
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781780325729
• eBook ISBN: 9781780325750
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gender Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

This pioneering collection explores the ways in which positive, pleasure-focused approaches to sexuality can empower women. Gender and development has tended to engage with sexuality only in relation to violence and ill-health. Although this has been hugely important in challenging violence against women, over-emphasizing these negative aspects has dovetailed with conservative ideologies that associate women's sexualities with danger and fear. On the other hand, the media, the pharmaceutical industry, and pornography more broadly celebrate the pleasures of sex in ways that can be just as oppressive, often implying that only certain types of people - young, heterosexual, able-bodied, HIV-negative - are eligible for sexual pleasure. Women, Sexuality and the Political Power of Pleasure brings together challenges to these strictures and exclusions from both the South and North of the globe, with examples of activism, advocacy and programming which use pleasure as an entry point. It shows how positive approaches to pleasure and sexuality can enhance equality and empowerment for all.

Table of contents

• Feminisms and Development
• About the Editors
• Title page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Abbreviations
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Introduction | Women, Sexuality and the Political Power of Pleasure
• 1 | Thinking with Pleasure: Danger, Sexuality and Agency
• 2 | Challenging the Pleasure versus Danger Binary: Reflections on Sexuality Workshops with Rural Women’s Rights Activists in North India
• 3 | Sexual Pleasure as a Woman’s Human Right: Experiences from a Human Rights Training Programme for Women in Turkey
• 4 | Better Sex and More Equal Relationships: Couple Training in Nigeria
• 5 | Building a Movement for Sexual Rights and Pleasure
• 6 | Enabling Disabled People to Have and Enjoy the Kind of Sexuality They Want
• 7 | Desires Denied: Sexual Pleasure in the Context of HIV
• 8 | Sex is a Gift from God: Paralysis and Potential in Sex Education in Malawi
• 9 | Why We Need to Think about Sexuality and Sexual Well-Being: Addressing Sexual Violence in Sub-Saharan Africa
• 10 | Could Watching Porn Increase Our Expectations of (Safe) Pleasure? An Exploration of Some Promising Harm-Reduction Practices
• 11 | Challenging Clitoraid
• 12 | How Was It for You?Pleasure and Performance in Sex Work
• 13 | Eroticism, Sensuality and ‘Women’s Secrets’ among the Baganda
• 14 | Laughter, the Subversive Body Organ
• About the Contributors
• Index