Impure relations: feminism, pornography and ethical heterosex

Abstract

This thesis engages with feminist and queer theory to assert that heterosexuality can be understood not as a fixed, unchanging and oppressive institution, but as changing combination of erotic and social affects which coexist within public and private bodies, discourses and imaginations. Drawing on the work on Michel Foucault, William Connolly, Eve Sedgwick and others, it examines the multiple discourses of heterosexuality that are already circulating in popular culture, specifically, representations of sex and gender within sexually explicit media. It examines the fields of polyamory, ‘feminist porn’, amateur and DIY pornography and ‘taboo’ sexual practices to demonstrate the possibilities offered by non-normative readings of heterosex. These readings open up space not only for queerer, less oppressive heterosexualities, but also for models of ethical sexual learning which incorporate heterosexual eroticism and emphasise both the pleasures and dangers of heterosex.