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Intimacy

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Erotic Memoirs and Postfeminism: The Politics of Pleasure

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Abstract

This chapter focuses on the relationship between postfeminist culture and the mainstreaming of the sex industry, paying particular attention to new constructions of sexual intimacy in the 21st century. It seeks to determine if women’s erotic memoirs locate sexual intimacy as predicated on traditional scripts of love and romance, or if postfeminist “raunch culture” has entirely coopted feminist resistance to traditional relationships by positioning sexual promiscuity as a legitimate mode of empowerment. It pursues this line of enquiry by demonstrating how women’s erotic memoirs position commercial and non-commercial sexual encounters in close proximity, as experiences where emotional and physical intimacies are similarly produced and consumed.

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Notes

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Institute of Education, Singapore

    Joel Gwynne

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  1. Joel Gwynne
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© 2013 Joel Gwynne

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Gwynne, J. (2013). Intimacy. In: Erotic Memoirs and Postfeminism: The Politics of Pleasure. Palgrave Pivot, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137326546_3

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