{"id":63395,"date":"2019-03-27T19:00:03","date_gmt":"2019-03-27T23:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=63395"},"modified":"2025-08-19T09:37:31","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T13:37:31","slug":"metoo-shadow-sexual-pleasure","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/metoo-shadow-sexual-pleasure\/","title":{"rendered":"Is #MeToo casting a shadow on sexual pleasure?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Is #MeToo casting a shadow on sexual pleasure?\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

What has happened to sex \u2014 to the body and its pleasures \u2014 in the era of #MeToo?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bodies and sexual pleasures have always been entangled in public, moralizing discourses. #MeToo, in its articulation of the very real sexual harassment and violence that too often accompanies the pleasure of some at the expense of others, takes shape in and through an intensified and hypermediatized morality that reconfigures bodies and pleasures as matters of contract and law, appearing in the contemporary media landscape in language that speaks nothing of desire. Mass media discourse speaks of sexual \u201ccontracts\u201d and personal \u201cresponsibility\u201d; we read about denunciations (or \u201ccancellations\u201d) on social media platforms such as Twitter, threats of prosecution and the prevention of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How has this social climate influenced the ways in which individuals express, experience, communicate and embody their sexual desires and pleasures? Has there been a \u201crecord high\u201d decline in people having sex<\/a>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFree speech\u201d?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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Just over a year ago, more than 100 French women, including actress Catherine Deneuve, signed an open letter<\/a> condemning the #MeToo movement for its \u201chatred of men and of sexuality\u201d and to \u201cdefend\u201d men\u2019s \u201clibert\u00e9 d\u2019importuner<\/em>\u201d \u2014 men\u2019s freedom to importune, to press or to make advances toward women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\n Catherine Deneuve shocked many people by signing an open letter denouncing the \u2018excesses\u2019 of the #MeToo movement. (Shutterstock<\/span>)<\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Their letter characterizes #MeToo as a \u201cvague purificatoire<\/em>\u201d \u2014 a \u201cpurifactory wave\u201d \u2014 and as a \u201cliberation of speech\u201d that unfairly targets men and sexuality, if not pleasure itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For these women, \u201cfree speech\u201d had gone too far with #MeToo because its speech impinges on men\u2019s \u201cfreedom\u201d to make advances toward women, which they suggest is a man\u2019s primordial right. In their \u201cdefence\u201d of men and in the name of women\u2019s pleasure, it was time, they claimed, for women to liberate \u201canother speech\u201d (une autre parole<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what is this \u201cother speech\u201d? And does it concede or advance the possibility of sexual pleasure, and if so, for whom? In the wake of the #MeToo movement, our interdisciplinary team of researchers is interested in contemporary discourses on sex, its pleasures and their ethical dimensions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rhetorics of \u201crisk\u201d and moral panic<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The prevailing social context is marked by an increased social awareness of sexual abuse and violence, high-profile court cases, burgeoning institutional and educational programs around sexual consent, victimization and the use of broad definitions of sexual violence. In contemporary culture, we tend to treat desire as if it were something that must be expressed in and through law, without understanding how desiring bodies and pleasures frustrate legal discourse and can be expressed in other ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\n Sexual harassment in the workplace is a key battleground for the #MeToo movement. (Shutterstock<\/span>)<\/span>

<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile \u2014 and by contrast \u2014 popular mass media, including social media and pornography, incite pleasure and convey countless \u201cpractical\u201d tips to optimize sexual performance and satisfaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What should we understand from all this? We are bombarded with many statements about sex that are often contradictory or incommensurable. One side emphasizes the diverse \u201crisks\u201d and \u201cdangers\u201d that lie in wait; it gestures to the powers \u2014 both formal and informal \u2014 that should oversee and regulate the expression of sexuality. The other would revel in and celebrate sexual pleasure as such.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the contemporary context, then, cultural anxiety surrounds sexuality as a new form of moral panic. Sex is politicized anew, the subject of increasing media surveillance and suspicion. The invocation of \u201cfree speech\u201d notwithstanding, bodies and their pleasures seem to be shrouded by a certain silence; desires and pleasures seem almost deviant and unspeakable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Research on sexuality is not much interested in \u2026 sex<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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Most research on sex and sexuality tends to have a medical or psychiatric focus and is studied exclusively on pathological terms. Ironically, research on sexuality tends to ignore sex and very little is devoted to the study of pleasure, desire and excitement in a manner that is realistic, concrete and anchored in people\u2019s experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\n Professionals and researchers examine sexuality from the perspective of pathology and STIs, resulting in a discourse that medicalizes sex and its pleasures. (Shutterstock<\/span>)<\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Research by sociologist Angela Jones<\/a> demonstrates, for example, that most published articles \u201cmedicalize\u201d sex and presume a deficiency or a failure; others tend to focus on risks and sexual victimization. And an essay on sexuality and embodiment published by psychologist Deborah Tolman and her colleagues in 2014<\/a> reports that, in fact, little is known about the embodied aspects of sexual pleasure: <\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cIronically, research on sexuality has little interest in sex, which is what people do, think and feel when they express a sexual feeling or use their bodies in a sexual way.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

So this raises the question of how we determine the conditions of possibility for experiencing \u201cgreat sex<\/a>,\u201d described by University of Ottawa psychologist Peggy Kleinplatz<\/a> as a type of sexuality that goes beyond the functional, the good and the satisfying \u2014 a sexuality that provides a deep sense of pleasure and accomplishment that is lived and experienced as profound, memorable and extraordinary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An \u201cother speech\u201d: the opening of a discursive space?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be clear, we are neither for nor against the #MeToo movement or other social movements. Nor do we question the value of free speech, despite its many faces. Rather, we suggest that these phenomena represent an occasion, or a \u201crhetorical situation<\/a>,\u201d that calls for further study. What is the embodied experience of \u201cgreat sex,\u201d of pleasure, and how is this expressed today?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\n The #MeToo movement represents an occasion for renewed discourse on sexual pleasure.<\/span>

<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Is this not found in the experience of connection, authenticity, vulnerability, and moreover, communication \u2014 in and as the self\u2019s intimate relation with the other? Our research focuses on the ways in which individuals create a sense of agency in their relations, and how they interpret and navigate social norms and injunctions in order to express, to live and to share their bodies and pleasures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between the aversion to moralizing discourses and the injunction to optimize sexual pleasure and performance, our research opens onto another \u201cspeech\u201d that recognizes the ways that sexuality is both ethical and embodied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This \u201cother speech\u201d is not quite the one imagined by Catherine Deneuve and the other French feminists who signed the open letter. Rather, this speech is productive and takes place in bed (or on the sofa or elsewhere); it speaks about bodies and their pleasures between intimates that invite, rather than \u201cimportune\u201d or take liberties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Carleton University is a member of this unique digital journalism platform that launched in June 2017 to boost visibility of Canada\u2019s academic faculty and researchers. Interested in writing a piece? Please contact Steven Reid<\/a> or sign up to become an author<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All photos provided by The Conversation from various sources.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

—
\nCarleton Newsroom<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What has happened to sex \u2014 to the body and its pleasures \u2014 in the era of #MeToo? Bodies and sexual pleasures have always been entangled in public, moralizing discourses. #MeToo, in its articulation of the very real sexual harassment and violence that too often accompanies the pleasure of some at the expense of others, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":410,"featured_media":63418,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_story_type":[1623],"cu_story_tag":[],"class_list":["post-63395","cu_story","type-cu_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_story_type-expert-perspectives"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":"blueprint"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/63395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/410"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/63395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63420,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/63395\/revisions\/63420"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_story_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_type?post=63395"},{"taxonomy":"cu_story_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_tag?post=63395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}