Abstract

When feminists speak about sexuality, they sometimes refer to social and political power structure, sometimes to procreation, others speak about pleasure practices or subcultures and even others refer to questions of identity. Taking the example of the body, these disparities in feminist thought regarding sexuality become even more evident. In this chapter I would like to retrace some of the ways in which the body has been thought of in feminist theories on sexuality, discussing first the body in feminist struggles with psychoanalysis. Second, I will address the ways in which the feminist sex wars brought the topic of pleasure back into feminist views on sexuality and gender and, third, I would like to present more recent perspectives on the sexual body including the questions of race and of validity. Can we still find revolutionary potential in our sexual and desiring bodies today?