Full Text Available
Note: Clicking the button above will open the full text document at the original institutional repository in a new window.
Let's talk about sex : the power and politics of women's pleasure
Simpson, C. W. G. 2025. Let's talk about sex : the power and politics of women's pleasure. Unpublished masters thesis. Stellenbosch: Stellenbosch University [online]. Available: https://scholar.sun.ac.za/items/d40262e9-a1a3-4336-8dce-bfb642915208
Saved in:
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Thesis |
| Published: |
Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University
2025
|
| Subjects: | |
| Tags: |
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| _version_ | 1867614081473576960 |
|---|---|
| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Simpson, Ceilidh Wendy Gwynnyth |
| author2 | Du Toit, Henriette Louise |
| author_browse | Du Toit, Henriette Louise Simpson, Ceilidh Wendy Gwynnyth |
| author_facet | Du Toit, Henriette Louise Simpson, Ceilidh Wendy Gwynnyth |
| author_sort | Simpson, Ceilidh Wendy Gwynnyth |
| collection | Thesis |
| dc_rights_str_mv | Stellenbosch University |
| description | Simpson, C. W. G. 2025. Let's talk about sex : the power and politics of women's pleasure. Unpublished masters thesis. Stellenbosch: Stellenbosch University [online]. Available: https://scholar.sun.ac.za/items/d40262e9-a1a3-4336-8dce-bfb642915208 |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:scholar.sun.ac.za:10019.1/132120 |
| institution | Stellenbosch University (South Africa) |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:46:21.556Z |
| license_str | Other — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from SUNScholar — Stellenbosch University Repository |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| publishDateRange | 2025 |
| publishDateSort | 2025 |
| publisher | Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University |
| publisherStr | Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | SUNScholar — Stellenbosch University Repository |
| spelling | oai:scholar.sun.ac.za:10019.1/132120 Let's talk about sex : the power and politics of women's pleasure Simpson, Ceilidh Wendy Gwynnyth Du Toit, Henriette Louise Smith, Charla Emmarentia Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Philosophy. Feminist theory -- Political aspects Sexual ethics for women Sexual excitement Women -- Sexual behavior Simpson, C. W. G. 2025. Let's talk about sex : the power and politics of women's pleasure. Unpublished masters thesis. Stellenbosch: Stellenbosch University [online]. Available: https://scholar.sun.ac.za/items/d40262e9-a1a3-4336-8dce-bfb642915208 Thesis (MPhil)--Stellenbosch University, 2025. ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis investigates the lack of feminist philosophical discourse that engages with the social and political complexities of women's sexual pleasure and the potentially empowering impact this pleasure can have on the sexual subjectivity, in general, of women. Framed by feminist philosopher Luce Irigaray's thinking on the nature of the monosexual culture of the patriarchal West, I argue that much of feminists' engagement with sex and women's sexuality is centred around the danger of sex for women, unwittingly repeating the phallocentric logic of patriarchal Western culture which defines female sexuality as a source of danger and vulnerability. The lack in feminist engagement with women's sexual pleasure results in female desire and female sexual pleasure being misunderstood and misrepresented, leaving women in a continued struggle to (re)claim their sexual subjectivity for themselves and to symbolically mediate their sexual experiences in ways that are liberating and empowering. The first objective is to thus establish that in Western culture, from antiquity to present-day, the danger script currently dominates everyone's understanding of women in relation to sex, In order to elucidate the rise in this danger focused discourse, I provide a brief historical trajectory of the repression of female sexuality within Western thought and discourse, sketching the development of the Western patriarchal idea that male sexuality is the 'norm' of human sexuality and female sexuality is a dangerous deviation from the norm. The second objective is to argue that, if we hope to rekindle and (re)claim women's sexual subjectivity, we can and must disrupt the danger script's dominance over how we talk about and understand women's sexuality via an alternative interpretative framework. The alternative interpretative framework that I propose is what I refer to as the pleasure paradigm, a framework centred around a feminist understanding of women's sexual pleasure as following from and serving women's sexual subjectivity. Here again I draw on Irigarayan theory of sexual difference, female sexuality and the power of discourse, which I bring into conversation with feminist thinkers such as Ellen Willis, Carole Vance, Audre Lorde, Bibi Bakare-Yusuf, Patricia McFadden and Amia Srinivasan. The final objective is to consider the importance of feminist engagement with the power and politics of women's sexual pleasure for the efforts to disrupt the danger script and to help (re)claim women's sexual subjectivity. I identify some of the ways in which pleasure serves as a source of power for women so as to demonstrate how women's sexual liberation can be bound into a larger agenda of women's political liberation and empowerment. This is followed by a discussion of the political nature of women's professed sexual desires and the importance of both celebrating and continuing to interrogate the grounds of women's sexual pleasure in an effort to produce a truly radical movement for social change. AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis ondersoek die gebrek aan feministiese filosofiese diskoers wat fokus op die sosiale en politieke kompleksiteite van vroue se seksuele plesier en die potensieel bemagtigende impak wat hierdie plesier op die seksuele subjektiwiteit, en subjektiwiteit in die algemeen, van vroue kan hê. Geraam deur die feministiese filosoof Luce Irigaray se denke oor die aard van die monoseksuele kultuur van die patriargale Weste, argumenteer ek dat baie van feministe se betrokkenheid by seks en vroue se seksualiteit gesentreer is rondom die gevaar van seks vir vroue, wat onbewustelik die fallosentriese logika van patriargale Westerse kultuur herhaal wat vroulike seksualiteit as 'n bron van gevaar en kwesbaarheid definieer. Die gebrek aan feministiese betrokkenheid by vroue se seksuele plesier lei daartoe dat vroulike begeerte en vroulike seksuele plesier misverstaan en verkeerd voorgestel word, wat vroue in 'n voortdurende stryd laat om hul seksuele subjektiwiteit vir hulself (weer) op te eis en om hul seksuele ervarings simbolies te bemiddel op maniere wat bevrydend en bemagtigend is. Die eerste doelwit is om aan te toon dat in die Westerse kultuur, vanaf antieke tye tot vandag, die gevaar-diskoers tans almal se begrip van vroue se verhouding met seks oorheers. Hiervoor bied ek 'n kort historiese trajek van die onderdrukking van vroulike seksualiteit binne Westerse denke en diskoers, en skets die weerstandigheid van die Westerse patriargale idee dat manlike seksualiteit die 'norm' van menslike seksualiteit is en vroulike seksualiteit 'n gevaarlike afwyking van die norm is. Die tweede doelwit is om te wys dat, as ons hoop om vroue se seksuele subjektiwiteit weer aan te wakker en op te eis, ons die gevaar-diskoers se oorheersing oor hoe ons oor vroue se seksualiteit praat, deur middel van 'n alternatiewe interpretatiewe raamwerk kan en moet ontwrig. Die alternatiewe interpretatiewe raamwerk wat ek voorstel, is waarna ek verwys as die plesierparadigma, 'n raamwerk wat gesentreer is rondom 'n feministiese begrip van vroue se seksuele plesier wat voortkom uit en vroue se seksuele subjektiwiteit dien. Hier maak ek weer gebruik van die Irigarayaanse teorie van seksuele verskil, vroulike seksualiteit en die krag van diskoers, wat ek in gesprek bring met feministiese denkers soos Ellen Willis, Carole Vance, Audre Lorde, Bibi Bakare-Yusuf, Patricia McFadden en Amia Srinivasan. Die finale doelwit is om die belangrikheid van feministiese betrokkenheid by die krag en politiek van vroue se seksuele plesier te oorweeg vir die pogings om die gevaar-diskoers te ontwrig en om vroue se seksuele subjektiwiteit te help (her)-op-eis. Ek identifiseer sommige van die manière waarop plesier as 'n bron van krag vir vroue dien om te demonstreer hoe vroue se seksuele bevryding gekoppel kan word aan 'n groter agenda van vroue se politieke bevryding en bemagtiging. Dit word gevolg deur 'n bespreking van die politieke aard van vroue se verklaarde seksuele begeertes en die belangrikheid daarvan om beide die gronde van vroue se seksuele plesier te vier en voort te gaan om hulle krities te ondervra in 'n poging om 'n werklik radikale beweging vir sosiale verandering te produseer. Masters 2025-05-26T07:17:17Z 2025-05-26T07:17:17Z 2025-03 Thesis https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/132120 Stellenbosch University 170 pages application/pdf Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University |
| spellingShingle | Feminist theory -- Political aspects Sexual ethics for women Sexual excitement Women -- Sexual behavior Simpson, Ceilidh Wendy Gwynnyth Let's talk about sex : the power and politics of women's pleasure |
| title | Let's talk about sex : the power and politics of women's pleasure |
| title_full | Let's talk about sex : the power and politics of women's pleasure |
| title_fullStr | Let's talk about sex : the power and politics of women's pleasure |
| title_full_unstemmed | Let's talk about sex : the power and politics of women's pleasure |
| title_short | Let's talk about sex : the power and politics of women's pleasure |
| title_sort | let s talk about sex the power and politics of women s pleasure |
| topic | Feminist theory -- Political aspects Sexual ethics for women Sexual excitement Women -- Sexual behavior |
| url | https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/132120 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT simpsonceilidhwendygwynnyth letstalkaboutsexthepowerandpoliticsofwomenspleasure |