seeking help for an essay on desire & eroticism

so i am currently working on an essay discussing desire and eroticism. in a capitalistic and patriarchal society, these ideas have been weaponized in numerous ways that have made us believe that desire is evil and the erotic is taboo.

while yes, it is important to discuss the problems behind these ideas, i believe that we can explore desire and the erotic and how they can empower us individually and collectively. everyone has desired at least one idea or object in their lifetime, it's practically something that we are born with. i am of the belief that pleasure is a right and it's something that everyone deserves.

i also do believe that social media and this idea to cultivate a perfect, "performative" lifestyle is unattainable, unsustainable, and not accessible to everyone. in this day in age, people feel embarrassed or shameful about certain desires or things that relate to their erotic nature, when realistically we need to be leaning into those uncomfortable feelings. desire feeds on tension, which can not feel comfortable to some, but making the (right) move to explore that desire can be rewarding.

please send me articles and post some of your thoughts here! i would love to hear from various perspectives, especially women and the queer community. thank you!

Hi @rainforest!

I’ll name my positionality first: I’m a man, so I don’t want to speak over women or anyone whose relationship to desire has been shaped by misogyny or other forms of surveillance. But I’ve spent a lot of time studying philosophy, and I’d love to offer a few sources that might help.

The first text I’d recommend is Audre Lorde’s "Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power." Lorde argues that the erotic is a source of knowledge, joy, power, and deep feeling. That distinction feels important because patriarchal culture often reduces the erotic to either shame or consumption, when Lorde is talking about something much more expansive - a way of knowing what fulfillment feels like, and therefore refusing lives organized around depletion.

From there, I’d recommend adrienne maree brown’s Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good. Brown builds directly from Lorde and asks what it would mean to treat pleasure, healing, embodiment, and connection as politically serious. I think this is especially useful for your argument because it refuses the idea that liberation must only be sacrifice, pain, discipline, critique, etc. It can also be a method of collective transformation, which is neat.

For the social media / performative lifestyle part, Rosalind Gill’s "Postfeminist Media Culture" could be really useful. Gill writes about how contemporary media often sells empowerment through self-surveillance, like individual choice as something detached from broader systems of capitalism and patriarchy. I remember a lot of talk about makeup / makeover culture. That seems very connected to what you’re saying about the "perfect" lifestyle being unattainable / unequal.

I’d also add bell hooks’ "Eros, Eroticism, and the Pedagogical Process" from Teaching to Transgress. hooks thinks about eros as a life force connected to passion and wholeness, not only sex. Sara Ahmed’s Queer Phenomenology or The Cultural Politics of Emotion could also help, especially if you want to think about shame and how bodies are directed toward or away from certain desires. Legacy Russell’s Glitch Feminism may be helpful, as well, for thinking about the internet and how queer / feminized bodies can resist being made easily consumable under capitalism.

I agree that desire often lives in tension - I think the key question is whether that tension opens us toward fuller agency or whether it has been manufactured by shame. Where did this desire come from? What does it make possible? Who benefits from my shame? What forms of pleasure help me feel more alive and more connected to others?

If you've already read any of these, you're in good shape! Best of luck writing!