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Five studies (using U.S. samples) examined whether men’s higher entitlement contributes to a sexual pleasure gap that disadvantages women. Participants indicated that men receive more sexual pleasure from their partners, whereas women provide more pleasure (Study 1a). Participants believed that men have more of a right to experience orgasm in both hook-up and relationship encounters and attributed higher negative affect to the male target than to the female target when the target did not experience an orgasm in a sexual scenario (Study 1b). In concert with the idea that pleasure is a privilege that men are perceived as being more entitled to, participants preferred men’s orgasm when forced to choose between the male and the female partner in an orgasm allocation task (Study 1c) and in an experiment (Study 2). Study 3 examined why people believe that men are more entitled to pleasure than women. Men’s higher sense of entitlement as an obstacle to gender equality in sexuality is discussed.

The lack of inclusion of sexual pleasure in comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) could be detrimental to sexual development, misses opportunities for inclusive education, and may have a long-ter...

Objectives: Despite billions of dollars in funding spent each year on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and HIV programming, sexual pleasure is insufficiently addressed. This paper therefore has three key aims: (1) to introduce the concept of sexual pleasure in SRHR programming, while providing context regarding investment and research, (2) to introduce and situate an upcoming systematic review and meta-analysis to quantify whether and to what extent incorporating sexual pleasure into SRHR interventions can improve health outcomes, and (3) to examine the key practical, methodological, and theoretical challenges in carrying out such a review. Methods: We undertook a literature review and analysis of conference abstract publications to highlight the 'pleasure gap' in evidence in sexual and reproductive health and rights programming and research. We detailed the scope, search strategy and challenges for our subsequent systematic review. Results: This paper and the subsequent review highlights the need to equip the SRHR and HIV fields to better meet the needs of communities by considering key reasons people have sex, and understand the challenges of undertaking a review of this nature. Conclusions: We conclude that this a focus on pleasure is particularly pertinent in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals and the ratification of the declaration on sexual pleasure at the 2021 World Congress of the World Association for Sexual Health.

We present herein an exploratory essay on sexual pleasure, in support of the objective of developing an evidence base of knowledge for the WAS Declaration of Sexual Rights. We have attempted to acc...

This commentary summarizes the context and positioning of sexual health, sexual rights and sexual pleasure, as three interlinked and indivisible aspects of sexual health and wellbeing (SH&W). In tu...

Objective: various sources of evidence suggest that men and women differ in their experience of sexual pleasure. Such gender differences have been attributed to men’s higher innate sex drive, supported by evolutionary psychology perspectives and gender differences in reproductive strategies.Method: this paper presents biopsychosocial evidence for gender similarities in the capacity to experience pleasure, and for substantial gender differences in opportunities for sexual pleasure.Results: we conclude that sexual activity, in most cultures, is less pleasurable and associated with greater cost for heterosexual women than for heterosexual men, even though they do not differ in the capacity for sexual pleasure.Conclusion: since gender differences in experienced sexual pleasure are not a biological given, a more critical discourse of sexual pleasure might create awareness of current inequalities, help lift restrictions for women’s opportunities for pleasure, and could reduce gender differences in the cost of sex. That would truly serve sexual justice around the globe.

Objective: Sexual activity is a fundamental human function with short-term and long-term emotional, social, and physical benefits. Yet within healthcare, sexuality has been marginalized and many HCPs are unaware of its beneficial implications for immediate and long-term health. Methods: To challenge this assumption we combined the data that already had been collected by the authors with an extensive search of articles on the various health benefits of sexual activity. The results of this process are displayed according to short-term, intermediate-term, and long-term benefits with some explanation about potential causal relationships. Results: For the time being, it cannot yet be proved that “good sex promotes good health” since good health also favors good sex. Conclusions: Despite lacking such convincing evidence, the article concludes with recommendations for the relevant professions. The balance of research supports that sexuality anyhow deserves greater attention among HCPs and that sexuality research needs better integration within health research.

Sexual pleasure is best attained through facilitating access to the highest standard of health. Today global data show a persistent high burden of sexual health issues. Yet, pleasure remains a sens...

The quest for a Viagra equivalent for women has both reignited concerns over female oppression and rekindled hope for gender equality. Communication about decreased desire in women has come under intense scrutiny, especially in terms of the ways in which it may legitimize one view or the other. We present a systematic review of academic research on public communication about low libido in women and drugs/devices designed to increase it. A total of 1,309 records were screened, with 20 studies identified for final analysis (6 monographs, 11 articles, and 3 book chapters). Existing research found that the empowered frame predominated, according to which women sought to increase their libido of their own accord to enhance their individual sexual pleasure. The handmaid frame was described as somewhat less common; here, women resorted to treatment to save their relationships as they feared that inability to fulfill their "wifely duty" could alienate their partners. Importantly, scholars often reported that the empowered and handmaid frames co-occurred. The rejector frame, which suggested fluctuations in libido were normal and should not be medically treated, was described in existing work as least common. These results seem to suggest that low libido in women was constructed as a problem in need of a solution more often than not. As this may prompt women to think of their bodies as malfunctioning machines, it is possible that the framing of low libido in public communication can exacerbate existing trends toward pathologizing the waning of desire.

The paper examines the changes during state socialism in Czechoslovakia in the understanding of the post-reproductive sexuality of women, focusing on the network of medical experts and shifts in expertise, which gave rise to a ‘new kind of person’: sexually active climacteric women. Analyzing the medical press, we show how Czechoslovak experts moved from an exclusive focus on women of reproductive age toward seeing climacteric women first in connection with their working capacities and gynecological health, and over time more as sexual beings. We trace the changes in the broader societal discourse and the shifts in (primarily gynecological) expertise that facilitated a gradual rejection of the stereotypical image of ‘fading’ women and made the emergence of sexually active climacteric women possible. Moreover, we highlight the role of transnational knowledge circulation. We demonstrate how expertise was transformed after Czechoslovak experts became acquainted with the work of the US sexologists Masters and Johnson in the second half of the 1960s. As the systems of knowledge realigned, expertise shifted toward emphasizing the existence and importance of sexual pleasure for (post-)climacteric women. Pointing to similar developments in neighboring countries, we highlight the importance of comparative approaches to state-socialist sexualities.

This article explores sexual agency and pleasure among heterosexual women in South Africa. By focussing on Tupperware-style sex-toy parties, this article offers a glimpse into a ‘hidden’ world of white, middle-class women living in Johannesburg. What is revealed in this ethnographic account is that these gatherings promise women new ways of enjoying sex, while remaining within the boundaries of heteronormative notions of (hetero)sex. I use the term ‘decently transgressing’ to capture the ways in which the women in this study make sense of their (hetero)sexual selves and how they negotiate their (hetero)sexual agencies, particularly in relation to past and present heteronormative discourses within the South African context. The findings show that there are tensions between women wanting to embrace their own sexual agency and desires, yet at the same time being limited by certain heteronormative norms.

Two studies examined the proposal that implicit and explicit sexual motives are associated with the experience of pleasure in sexual situations, as well as with seeking out sexual pleasure. In Study 1, implicit and explicit motive scores of 145 heterosexually identified women and 152 heterosexually identified men were demonstrated to be independently associated with the experience of pleasure in response to videos of female–male sexual behavior, more consistently so for women than men. The implicit and explicit motive scales were also associated with the frequency of viewing erotic materials in daily life. The experience of pleasure within sexual relationships was additionally shown to be associated with sexual motives, although primarily implicit motives. In Study 2 involving 139 women and 65 men, implicit motive scales were associated with ratings of interest in a potential romantic partner. The results support the conceptualization of the two instruments as measures of sexual motivation. The difference between implicit versus explicit measures in the pattern of correlations involving acquainted versus non-acquainted individuals is consistent with research on ideal partner preference.

John Cleland’s Memoir of a Woman of Pleasure (1748–49), commonly known as Fanny Hill, is regarded as the first pornographic novel in English literature. Its description of sexual activities is explicit but its language is not coarse. It employs a wide range of metaphors to refer to both sexual acts and genitalia and the metaphor used most frequently to refer to the penis is “the machine.” The machine metaphor will be the focus of this paper, which aims to argue that the machine metaphor carries two meanings. The first is the machine as one of military metaphors common in erotica since sexual acts have long been represented as battles. Female sexual pleasure, portrayed in this novel, depends on the state of being destroyed or conquered by a large machine. The second usage of the military metaphor suggests the strong affiliation between the penis and a hydraulic machine – the hydraulic penis—as this paper will call it. That is, female sexual pleasure is not only entwined with the state of being ruined but also with a fluid flow.

This study examined individual and familial influences on Black female adolescents’ (N = 1426) sexual pleasure expectancies, sexual guilt, and age of sexual debut using data from the National Longi...

O presente estudo visa conhecer as Representações Sociais sobre relação sexual e uso de preservativo em adolescentes e jovens. Utilizou-se como referencial teórico a Teoria dimensional ou processual de Denise Jodelet (2001) e Moscovici (2007), a Teoria do Núcleo Central de Jean-Claude Abric (2001) e a Teoria Societal de Willem Doise (2002). Utilizou-se a pesquisa quali-quantitativa de carácter exploratória. A amostra foi não-probabilística por conveniência constituída por 79 estudantes de duas escolas públicas. Os participantes responderam a um questionário e a um Teste de Associação Livre de Palavras com três estímulos indutores: sexo, sexo sem camisinha e sexo com camisinha. O dados foram tratados com auxílio do software IBM SPSS Statistic e openEvoc 0.84. A análise dos resultados mostrou que os adolescentes e jovens relacionam sexo com prazer, intimidade e amor e o não uso do preservativo com perigo, gravidez, doença, HIV. Concluíu-se que os adolescentes e jovens possuem informações sobre os perigos do não uso do preservativo, porém, para eles o uso de preservativo diminui o prazer sexual.

Unusual sexual behavior is a major problem in the life of society, both in developed and developing countries, in its magnitude. The aim of this study is to describe the factors associated with risky sexual behavior in adolescents. This is a descriptive study carried out in the town of Mbujimayi with teenage students. The following observations were made: 315 adolescent students aged 12 to 19 responded with informed consent to our questionnaire, of which 73 reported having had their first sexual intercourse. After analyzing the data, we arrived at the following results: 23.2% had already had their first sexual intercourse; adolescents aged 12 to 14 occupied the first place with 53.4%; 58.9% were men and 41.1% were women (gender ratio of 1.4 in favor of men); 23.2% had ever had sex; 64.4% of sex was done with friends; 83.6% of sexual intercourse was voluntary and 16.4% forced; 64.4% of sexual relations were the occasion of a friendly meeting; 49.3% of sexual relations were concluded on the initiative of friends; 56.2% of respondents put society as the main factor, followed by sexual pleasure with 34.2% of respondents; 79.5% of intercourse was unprotected.

To explore the barriers and facilitators to sexual discussions in primary care according to a sample of women aged 50 and older living with Type 2 diabetes.A qualitative, interpretative phenomenological analysis study.Ten women aged 50-83 years living with Type 2 diabetes were interviewed between August 2016 -March 2017. Data were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis.The participants reported changes to their sexual health and well-being, which they attributed to diabetes, menopause, ageing and changes in intimate relationships. Not all changes were considered problematic, but those that were, tended not to be discussed with healthcare professionals. The women assumed that the topic of sex was not broached by professionals due to embarrassment (both their own and that of the healthcare professional), ageism and social taboos around older women's sexual pleasure. The place that sexual health and well-being held in the women's lives also influenced primary care discussions.These findings demonstrate that social taboos around gender, ageing and sex influenced the barriers to sexual health and well-being discussions in primary care. Facilitators to overcoming these barriers were professional-patient rapport, consulting with a female healthcare professional and instigation of the conversation by healthcare professionals.Type 2 diabetes can have a negative impact on women's sexual health and well-being. Prior to this study, little evidence existed of the barriers that older women with Type 2 diabetes faced with regard to sexual health care. This study shows that midlife-older women with Type 2 diabetes can experience sexual health and well-being problems which are neglected in primary care. It also shows that women want their healthcare professionals to explore these problems. Raising awareness and giving training for healthcare professionals may lead to better provision of sexual health support for midlife-older women with Type 2 diabetes.目的: 以50岁及以上患有2型糖尿病的妇女为样本, 探讨初级保健中性讨论的障碍和促进因素。 设计: 一项定性的、解释性的现象学分析研究。 方法: 在2016年8月至2017年3月期间, 对10名年龄在50至83岁且患有2型糖尿病的女性进行了访谈。采用解释现象学分析对数据进行了分析。 结果: 参与者报告了其性健康和幸福的变化, 将其归因于糖尿病、更年期、衰老和亲密关系的变化。并非所有的改变都认为是有问题的, 而实际上那些有问题的改变, 往往不会与医疗保健专业人员讨论。这些女性认为, 因为感到尴尬 (她们自己以及医疗保健专业人员都会感到尴尬) 、存在年龄歧视以及谈论老年女性性快感等社会禁忌, 专业人员不会提起性话题。性健康和幸福在女性生活中的地位也对初级保健的讨论造成了阻碍。 结论: 这些调查结果表明, 性别、老龄化和性等社会禁忌对初级保健中性健康和幸福的讨论造成了障碍。要想克服这些障碍, 需要专业人员与患者建立融洽关系, 提供女性医疗保健专业人员以便患者咨询以及医疗保健专业人员不断进行沟通。 影响: 2型糖尿病会对妇女的性健康和幸福产生负面影响。在进行本研究之前, 很少有证据表明患有2型糖尿病的中老年妇女在性保健方面面临障碍。本研究表明, 患有2型糖尿病的中老年妇女可能会遇到在初级保健中被忽视的性健康和幸福问题。此外,还表明妇女希望相关医疗保健专业人员能够对此类问题进行探讨。提高对保健专业人员的认识和培训, 可以更好地为患有2型糖尿病的中年老年妇女提供性健康支持。.

This essay offers a reading of advertisements of wearable technologies, or prostheses, designed to enhance sexual pleasure and physical health in Tibbi Dunya Lahore, an Urdu-language medical period...

Faking orgasm has been identified as a common practice among women and feminist scholars have probed the connections between the socio-cultural meanings associated with faking and heterosex. Expanding on this line of inquiry, feigning sexual pleasure was explored in interviews with 14 women who reported having sex with men. Using a feminist critical discourse analytic approach, we attend to the dilemma that was frequently evoked in women’s accounts. Participants explained that feigning sexual pleasure was done in order to protect their partners’ ego. However, participants also talked about faking orgasm as being problematic in the sense that it was “deceitful” and “dishonest”. These contrasting discursive patterns created a dilemma whereby faking was situated as “necessary” but “dishonest”. As a way of negotiating this dilemma, participants made a distinction between exaggerating sexual pleasure and faking orgasm. We posit that exaggeration can be interpreted as a form of material (during the sexual encounter) and discursive (during accounting of the encounter) disruption of dominant discourses of heterosex such as the orgasmic imperative. Drawing on Annamarie Jagose’s and Hannah Frith’s problematizations of the prevailing tendency to position orgasm as either “authentic” or “fake”, we discuss women’s negotiation of the limited constructions of “real” pleasure.

Introduction Active debate concerns whether male circumcision (MC) affects sexual function, penile sensation, or sexual pleasure. Aim To perform a systematic review examining the effect of MC on these parameters. Methods PRISMA-compliant searches of PubMed, EMBASE, the Cochrane Library, and Google Scholar were performed, with “circumcision” used together with appropriate search terms. Articles meeting the inclusion criteria were rated for quality by the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network system. Main Outcome Measure Evidence rated by quality. Results Searches identified 46 publications containing original data, as well as 4 systematic reviews (2 with meta-analyses), plus 29 critiques of various studies and 15 author replies, which together comprised a total of 94 publications. There was overall consistency in conclusions arising from high- and moderate-quality survey data in randomized clinical trials, systematic reviews and meta-analyses, physiological studies, large longitudinal studies, and cohort studies in diverse populations. Those studies found MC has no or minimal adverse effect on sexual function, sensation, or pleasure, with some finding improvements. A consensus from physiological and histological studies was that the glans and underside of the shaft, not the foreskin, are involved in neurological pathways mediating erogenous sensation. In contrast to the higher quality evidence, data supporting adverse effects of MC on function, sensation, or pleasure were found to be of low quality, as explained in critiques of those studies. Conclusion The consensus of the highest quality literature is that MC has minimal or no adverse effect, and in some studies, it has benefits on sexual functions, sensation, satisfaction, and pleasure for males circumcised neonatally or in adulthood.

In this commentary, we reflect critically on the experience of delivering community-based sexual pleasure workshops for self-defining women in order to share lessons from our practice with others working in sex and sexualities education in higher education or in practice settings. Our discussion about facilitating these workshops in informal learning spaces contributes to the literature on pleasure inclusive sex and sexualities education. Specifically, it highlights the demand for spaces which women can think critically about sexuality and pleasure, and shares women’s perspectives on these workshops. We begin by addressing the context in which we delivered the sexual pleasure workshops and describe what we did and why. Next, we share reflections on what we have learned from delivering these workshops, before concluding with suggestions about what this may mean for pleasure inclusive sex and sexualities education more broadly.

This article explores both the sexual desires and pleasure in the context of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) use among gays, bisexuals and other men who have sex with men (GBMSM). Our main findings suggest that individuals were assuming notions of natural and unnatural sex, while these categories were linked to condomless sex, acquisitions of sexually transmission infections (STIs) and their perceptions of intimacy. Individuals also believed they could enhance pleasure and desire by acknowledging their inner subjectivity and societal positions associated with PrEP. We argue that the individuals play a positive and conflicting ethic towards sex while on PrEP.

El presente estudio pretende elaborar una definición integral del placer sexual que —además del componente bio- fisiológico que suele considerarse para describirlo— considere los aspectos psicológicos individuales, sociales rela- cionales y comportamientos sexuales específicos que se llevan a cabo para experimentarlo. Participaron 67 mujeres y 77 hombres en edades entre 25 y 35 años, habitantes de la Ciudad de México. Se siguió el protocolo de las Redes Semánticas Naturales Modificadas (Reyes-Lagunes, 1993) y con base en los resultados obtenidos se elaboró una defini- ción que cumple con integrar las cuatro categorías definidoras encontradas: actividad sexual, respuesta sexual humana, afectividad y percepciones. Se encuentra una alta correlación entre la forma que hombres y mujeres significan el placer sexual pues en los núcleos de la red obtenidos para cada sexo se observa que, para ambos grupos, la “pareja”, el “amor” y el “orgasmo” son las principales definidoras del placer sexual.

El presente estudio pretende elaborar una definición integral del placer sexual que —además del componente biofisiológico que suele considerarse para describirlo— considere los aspectos psicológicos individuales, sociales relacionales y comportamientos sexuales específicos que se llevan a cabo para experimentarlo. Participaron 67 mujeres y 77 hombres en edades entre 25 y 35 años, habitantes de la Ciudad de México. Se siguió el protocolo de las Redes Semánticas Naturales Modificadas (Reyes Lagunes, 1993) y con base en los resultados obtenidos se elaboró una definición que cumple con integrar las cuatro categorías definidoras encontradas: actividad sexual, respuesta sexual humana, afectividad y percepciones. Se encuentra una alta correlación entre la forma que hombres y mujeres significan el placer sexual pues en los núcleos de la red obtenidos para cada sexo se observa que, para ambos grupos, la “pareja”, el “amor” y el “orgasmo” son las principales definidoras del placer sexual.

Next to its benefits for HIV prevention, PrEP may have psychosocial benefits relating to improved quality of sex life. The aim of the current study was to investigate the onset of changes in the quality of sex life and sexual pleasure of PrEP users in the first months of commencing PrEP use. Moreover, we investigated what factors were related to the quality of sex life of PrEP users. We recruited 145 participants via the Dutch PrEP-advocacy website PrEPnu.nl, and they received follow-up questionnaires after three and six months. We found that PrEP users reported an increase in the quality of their sex life, which was related to reduced fear of HIV since they started using PrEP but not to decreased condom use. PrEP users were more interested in experimenting with sex practices, but they did not always feel more desirable as a sex partner because of PrEP use. Health-care providers and health promotion campaigns could emphasize the positive effects of PrEP on the quality of sex life, in addition to the HIV-preventive effects of PrEP, to decrease PrEP stigma and increase PrEP uptake.

Studies have consistently found that there is a gendered orgasm gap, with men experiencing orgasm more frequently than women in heterosexual sexual encounters. This literature review aims to highlight the current state of research on orgasm equality and to explore the reasons underlying this orgasm gap. Our review of recently published studies indicates that the gendered orgasm gap still exists today. Additionally, these studies underscore how sociocultural factors can contribute to the differences in reported orgasm frequency between men and women in heterosexual encounters. This review suggests that our cultural prioritization of penile-vaginal intercourse over more clitorally focused sexual activities is linked to the gendered orgasm gap. Additional related contributing sociocultural factors may include women’s lack of entitlement to partnered sexual pleasure, societal scripts about masculinity, and women’s cognitive distractions during partnered sex. Recommendations to increase orgasm equality are discussed.

Summary The dramatics of Simona Semenič always emerge through an autobiographical declarative position, they moult through the body. The position of the author, a woman, mother, an artist with an unsettled medical care status, self-employed in culture, an epileptic and smoker is inscribed in them. This holds especially true for the Victim trilogy (I, Victim; The Second Time) which toys with the relation between the bodily and the pathology of the political, between reality and fiction, and between the performative and the dramatic. The text addresses the eventfulness of her textual positions which are most commonly spread through her solo self-performances of the biopolitics of everyday life, as well as through the installation of texts in space which try to give texts a different form of existence. I also consider the juiciness of her texts through which she plays with the Slovene language and gives it some sort of fundamental vibrancy as well as the unreserved zeal that strolls along the taboos of inhibited sexuality and male-female relations, and nonchalantly reveals the production and autonomy of the 'female' sexual pleasure.

It is important to understand how people experience pleasure and sexual satisfaction with a partner, as these phenomena can impact how they view their relationships, themselves, as well as the role...

We aimed to assess, among a U.S. probability sample of adult women: (1) the prevalence of, and reasons given for, faking and no longer faking orgasm, (2) women's histories of sexual non-communication and reasons for non-communication, (3) associations between sexual non-communication and sexual satisfaction and faking orgasm, (4) associations between specific sexual communication and recent sexual satisfaction, and (5) associations between specific sexual communication and faking orgasm. Respondents were 1008 adult women ages 18-94 from the GfK KnowledgePanel (a nationally representative probability sample of non-institutionalized and English-speaking adults), who completed a confidential Internet-based survey. Although 58.8% of female respondents reported having ever faked/pretended orgasm, 67.3% of those who had ever faked orgasm no longer did. Women who continued to fake orgasms were more likely to indicate embarrassment talking about sex with their partner in explicit ways and were less likely to agree that they and their partner are able to talk specifically about what makes sex more pleasurable for them. More than half (55.4%) of women reported they had wanted to communicate with a partner regarding sex but decided not to; the most common reasons were not wanting to hurt a partner's feelings (42.4%), not feeling comfortable going into detail (40.2%), and embarrassment (37.7%). Greater self-reported sexual satisfaction was associated with more comfortable sexual communication. Study findings and implications for professionals are discussed in the context of adult sexual development and learning. This includes growing more comfortable talking with a partner about sexual preferences and sexual pleasure.

Western Christianity had a long history of polemics against Islam. That included rejecting Muhammad’s idea of paradise as excessively «carnal». In the mid-15th century, three members of the Roman curia took differing approaches to the Otto-mans as Muslims. Pius II tried to persuade the sultan to give up Islam, offering him a «better» paradise. Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa sought evidence of the gospels in the Qur’an, but he rejected the Prophet’s «carnal» view of the afterlife. Cardinal Juan de Torquemada, a Dominican, offered a more thorough and negative view of Islam, denouncing carnality but also treating the Qur’anic description of paradise as impossi-ble, requiring an unending multiplication of locations in the afterlife for devout Muslims. Torquemada also offered a Thomistic view of the risen body as incapable not just of sexual pleasure but a free from worldly suffering.

Sexual pleasure is complex, not only due to the many ways that it manifests in private, but also in the multiple meanings assigned to it. Sexual pleasure continues to exist in relation to taboo and...

Sex education within the formal bounds of school curricula or clinic consultation is traditionally conceived as age-appropriate and accurate information, delivered by a sanctioned adult such as a n...

Penile-vaginal intercourse (PVI) is the most common partnered (hetero)sexual behaviour in North America. Many women participate in PVI but do not acquire the clitoral stimulation they may need to o...

Understanding how young women experience pornography is a modern imperative in promoting sexual health. There has been, until now, no Australian research exploring what pornography means to women in relation to sexual pleasure. We conducted in-depth interviews with 27 women from around Australia. A thematic analysis of their accounts, supported by narrative theory, revealed that pornography both enhanced and interfered with pleasure. Women described pornography’s contributions to the enhancement of pleasure through solo pleasure, shared viewing with partners, discovering new sexual preferences, and reassurance about body appearance. Pornography was constructed as interfering with pleasure through its misrepresentation (of bodies, sexual acts, and expression of pleasure), women’s concern for actors’ wellbeing, and its disruption of intimacy. Accounts were consistent with women’s place in a culture that subordinates female pleasure to male pleasure. It was evident in women’s accounts that pornography plays complex, dynamic roles in the production of pleasure, acting in the domains of physiology, psychology, relationships, ethics, society, and culture.

This essay explores how working-class lives are represented in the poetry of three American women poets, Jan Beatty, Sandra Cisneros, and Wanda Coleman. It discusses how their working-class backgrounds affect their poetics, and shows how their poetry shares a sense of defiance, communicated through imagery of violence, labor, and sexual pleasure, responding to societal and institutional limitations placed on working-class women. Portrayals of sexual pleasure in their work resist the confines of capitalism while challenging gender and cultural norms. Their poetry conveys a sense of solidarity among working-class people and, through references to the others’ work, solidarity with each other.

Purpose of the Review The World Health Association declared COVID-19 a pandemic more than 1 year ago. We conducted a systematic review of the literature on the topic of women’s sexual health during the pandemic, with a focus on sexual function and sexual pleasure. Our aim is to describe current findings and to discuss implications for women’s sexual health during this period. Recent Findings Thirty-four articles, from 18 countries, were identified. These studies addressed topics ranging from individual aspects, such as cognitive, emotional, and personality factors affecting sexuality during the pandemic, to contextual factors, including relationship, childrearing, and employment status in this period. Summary Research identified a deterioration of women’s sexual function across countries, with an emphasis on sexual desire. Most studies found decreases in the frequency of sexual intercourse during the pandemic and increases in solitary sexual behavior. Many women also experienced declines in sexual satisfaction and relationship satisfaction. Findings suggested that gender inequalities contributed to lower indices of sexual function and satisfaction, and might have exacerbated the pleasure gap between men and women.

A systematic review of literature on the relationship between consumption of pornography and sexual pleasure found two approaches. One examines masturbatory pleasure produced by engagement with pornography and finds that both men and women take pleasure from pornography consumption (although for women in particular this can create conflicting reactions). A second, more dominant, approach investigates whether pornography consumption is associated with subsequent sexual pleasure with a partner. It is notable that even in a sample of articles curated to understand pleasure, there is more research into satisfaction than pleasure and, in particular, relationship satisfaction.

Sociolinguists have investigated the language of sexual violence and consent at length, but sexual pleasure remains largely overlooked. Sexual pleasure has often been forgotten in the battle against rape culture, but this discussion centers it. First, relevant concepts from the sociolinguistic scholarship are positioned alongside queer feminist conceptions of sexual pleasure. The discussion then turns to New Zealand case studies of conversations in intimate friendships about sexual pleasure to demonstrate how navigating conflicting discourses transforms sexual pleasure into a neoliberal project. A critical response is offered in a consideration of pleasure activism and how further sociolinguistic attention can harness the political power of pleasure. Sexual pleasure is a significant contributor to advancing sexual liberation, and sociolinguistic efforts to understand these complexities are important. Without paying attention to how sexual experiences are made sense of in intimate conversations, there is a risk of ensnaring pleasure in traps of faux empowerment discourse and neoliberal constraints.

Sexual distress is a core characteristic of sexual dysfunction, however, little is known about its correlates. In the current study, we aimed to contribute to the understanding of both sexual distress and its positive counterpart, sexual pleasure, by taking a transdiagnostic approach to sexual distress using two types of repetitive negative thinking: worry and rumination. Because sexual activity mostly occurs in a dyadic context, we also looked at the potential mediating effect of co-worry and co-rumination, and we used them as mediators. Our preliminary exploratory quantitative study used a cross-sectional design, with a sample of 206 partnered heterosexual people. We used path analysis with parallel mediation, with structural equation modelling being performed using lavaan designed for R environment. Overall, our results show that repetitive negative thinking is associated with both sexual distress and sexual pleasure, and that neither co-rumination nor co-worry mediates these associations. The exception is the indirect effect of rumination on sexual pleasure that is mediated by co-rumination. These results demonstrate that a transdiagnostic approach to sexual distress is a new field worth exploring, and they contribute to establishing the relevance of a cognitive approach to sexual dysfunction.

This chapter explores how sex, sexual pleasure, and sexuality are essential to the romance genre. It examines the tensions between feminist approaches and assumptions about what sex in romance novels represent in terms of women’s (dis)empowerment. Drawing on Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s work, this chapter undertakes a reparative reading of romance to argue that the genre offers a type of fantasy space for working through issues of sexual desire in a patriarchal world. It offers directions for future research in examining sexuality in popular romance fiction.

Este artículo analiza las obras que he realizado entre el 2006 y el 2019 poniendo énfasis en la descripción de mis procesos creativos y los resultados. Así mismo indago en las metodologías y estrategias que utilizo en mi producción artística. Mis intereses giran en torno a lo público y lo privado, la sexualidad, el feminismo, el empoderamiento y el derecho al placer sexual. Entre mis referentes teóricos más importantes se encuentran: Camille Paglia, Virgine Despentes, Beatriz Preciado e Itziar Ziga.

The motivation or ability to experience pleasure has been scarcely studied in celiac disease (CeD). We aimed to investigate the hedonistic feelings/anhedonia and sexual pleasure in CeD patients on a gluten-free diet (GFD) compared to controls. We recruited adult CeD patients at follow-up consecutively visited from April 2017 to April 2018 and controls from the hospital staff and friends of CeD patients. Participants completed the Snaith–Hamilton Pleasure Scale, measuring the levels of anhedonia, and answered three questions about physical contact, sexual activity, and modification of their life on a GFD. We included 178 CeD patients and 173 healthy controls. Seventeen patients (9.5%) and fourteen controls (8.1%) had anhedonia. We did not find any correlation between the presence of anhedonia and the length in years of GFD neither with the dietary compliance and age at the test. 10.7% patients and 8.7% controls reported of not having pleasure in physical contact and 5.06% CeD and 3.5% controls in feeling attraction for another person; 36.56% said a worsening of their life on a GFD. Our results show that CeD patients on a GFD are similar to controls in anhedonia and sexual problems, despite one-third reported a worsening of their life.

Heterosexual sex, foremost its gender-power dynamics, is embedded in and informed by the socio-historical context in which it occurs. While safer sexual communication skills are well documented as key to the success of sexual and reproductive health programming and education, communication skills about the positive aspects of sexuality such as sexual pleasure are often limited if not absent. Using data from in-depth qualitative interviews with men and women aged 26-39 from a diverse set of backgrounds in Cape Town, South Africa, this study examines the ways in which gender-power dynamics manifest in negotiations of HIV and pregnancy prevention and sexual pleasure in the intimate spaces of heterosex. Findings fall under three themes: 1) condom negotiation as a replacement for other aspects of sexual communication; 2) self-efficacy in negotiating prevention and negotiating one's own sexual pleasure; and 3) the integral role men play in heterosexual encounters in the facilitation of women's sexual autonomy and women's sexual pleasure. This study contributes to research not only examining the positive and more nuanced realities of heterosex in the South African context, but also argues for the need to integrate positive aspects of sexuality into sexual and reproductive health programming in general.

This essay queries the limits and possibilities of hearing women’s sexual pleasure amidst the noise of the orgasmic imperative. I underpin this query with the assumption that listening (a complex f...

Medical male circumcision (MMC) has expanded in sub-Saharan Africa, yet uptake remains sub-optimal. We sought to understand women’s perceptions of and influence on MMC in Rakai, Uganda. We conducted in-depth interviews with 27 women in fishing and trading communities, including women married to circumcised and uncircumcised men, single women, and sex workers. Data analysis followed a team-based framework approach. All female participants preferred circumcised men because of perceived reduced HIV and sexually transmitted infection (STI) risk, improved penile hygiene, and increased sexual pleasure. Perceived negative aspects included abstinence during wound healing, potentially increased male sexual risk behaviors, fear of being blamed for HIV acquisition, and economic insecurity due to time off work. Participants felt women could persuade their partners to be circumcised, accompany them to the clinic, refuse sex with uncircumcised men, and participate in community MMC activities. Findings support women’s important role in MMC acceptance.

St Augustine believed that, in the Garden of Eden, being fruitful and multiplying would have involved a form of robotic, desire-free sex. That view is often quoted as if it had passed, uncontested,...

Bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism (BDSM) both fascinates and repulses. While some are fascinated by its images of leather-clad mistresses and masters inflicting pain on willing slaves for sexual pleasure (Yes Master!), they are often also repulsed because BDSM also evokes images of sadistic Nazis and serial killers. The chic images associated with the BDSM lifestyle seem to be more palatable (a light whipping, a gentle handcuffing), but actual BDSM practices (foot worship, impact play) are still not acceptable, and BDSM is most commonly associated with deviance. Despite this negative perception of BDSM by some people, there is a thriving BDSM scene in South Africa, and participants in BDSM communities show their belonging through a specific set of verbal and non-verbal tropes. In this article, I analyse these tropes using the ‘queer theory method’ as a theoretical springboard which allows me to engage with the multimodal meanings of BDSM bodies without being confined to essentialist, stereotyped or identity-based ideas about the intersection of gender, sexuality, and race.