Working at the crossroads of pleasure and danger: Feminist perspectives on doing critical sexuality studies

Abstract

For those entering the field of sexuality studies, there is often little advice or guidance on the many facets of the work, some of which are pleasurable and some of which are dangerous. Drawing from our personal and professional conflicts surrounding our work as feminist psychologists and sociologists studying women's sexuality, we extend Carole Vance's (1984) claims about pleasure and danger by arguing that, for the sex researcher, pleasure and danger are in fact inverted. That which should give us pleasure (e.g. having our work promoted to the public; teaching critical material about sexuality; thinking deeply about our personal relationships) ends up feeling dangerous, and that which should feel dangerous (e.g. saying and doing and working on taboo things; calling out homophobia, racism, classism, and sexism) ends up giving us pleasure. We examine several areas where we experience personal and professional costs and benefits of doing feminist sex research, including relationships with partners, communication with research participants, pedagogical challenges and conflicts, the interface between the sex-researcher identity and university/institutional practices, and, finally, our interface with the public world and the mass media. In doing so, we aim to use our personal experiences to highlight just a few of the areas that emerging sexuality researchers may encounter. In addition, we extend Vance's framework of pleasure and danger beyond the experiences of women having sex and into the realm of those seeking to

Reflecting on the interview as an erotic encounter

“…My insecurities and anxieties about how this sexualisation would negate my position as a researcher and the credibility of my work can be attributed to traditional research discourses that privilege and uphold the illusion of the researcher as neutral, objective, and detached. Other researchers have written about their experiences of being stigmatised and having their work discredited within academic peer groups for researching topics of a sexual nature (Attwood, 2010; Fahs et al., 2018; Hammond and Kingston, 2014). For instance, Cupples (2002) discusses how researchers might avoid acknowledging the erotic elements present in their research for fear that these might call into question the credibility of their work.…”

The Messy Politics of Menstrual Activism

“…Breanne Fahs's recent book cover for Out for Blood-which features a realistic depiction of menstrual blood running down a woman's leg-started a tweetstorm online in early 2017 after some right-wing bloggers found it "disgusting"; later in 2017, Fahs also watched Menstrual activists also face numerous other obstacles related to the trivialization of their work, particularly as many activists work to get policies changed, funding secured, or research published. Those working within the academy face critiques that their work is not on a "serious" subject, or that it is of little academic value (Fahs et al 2018). The taboo of menstruation, or beliefs that people should not discuss menstruation publicly, have negatively impacted public conversations about governmental policy initiatives and media coverage for menstrual activist work (Bobel 2007(Bobel , 2010.…”

Queering the Introduction to Sociology Course

“…Although it is an important area of study, it is often disrespected, silenced, or ignored. There are countless stories in the subfield of sexualities scholars who have been marginalized, fired, and shunned based on their research (Fahs, Plante, and McClelland 2018;Jones 2020;Irvine 2015). As a sexualities scholar and teacher, my own career trajectory has been impacted by these challenges, including almost getting kicked out of my graduate program halfway through my degree, with department faculty claiming the study of sex and sexuality in sociology was not "important," "scholarly," or "sociological"; losing a teaching job offer because the program director was nervous about what the university's donors would think about my research on sex-toy stores; and being asked in an interview for a tenure-track teaching position a question about teaching sexualities, which, if I had answered differently, would likely have cost me the job offer.As Past Chair of ASA's Section on Teaching and Learning, as well as a scholar of sexualities, I want to provide a roadmap, particularly for those of us who, by virtue of employment type, institutional course offerings, or hostile environments, do not have the opportunity to develop and teach standalone sexualities courses.…”