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 understand, research, write about, theorize, and assess the complicated terrain of women’s sexuality.

Keywords

Academia critical feminist sex research danger feminist methods feminist pedagogy pleasure women’s sexuality

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Bay-Cheng

(2009) Beyond trickle-down benefits to research participants. Social Work Research 33(4): 243–247.

Becker-Blease

Freyd

(2006) Research participants telling the truth about their lives. American Psychologist 61(3): 218–226.

Bellamy

Gott

Hinchliff

(2011) Controversies and contentions: A gay man conducting research with women about their understandings of sexuality, sex and sexual problems. Culture, Health & Sexuality 13(6): 699–712.

Cameron-Lewis

Allen

(2013) Teaching pleasure and danger in sexuality education. Sex Education 13(2): 121–132.

Campbell

(2002) Emotionally Involved: The Impact of Researching Rape, New York: Routledge.

Campbell

Adams

Wasco

et al. (2010) ‘What has it been like for you to talk with me today?’ The impact of participating in interview research on rape survivors. Violence Against Women 16(1): 60–83.

Carroll

(2013) Infertile? The emotional labour of sensitive and feminist research methodologies. Qualitative Research 13(5): 546–561.

Carter

(2016) A way to meet queer women? Reflections on sexuality and desire in research. Sexualities 19(1–2): 119–137.

Crabtree

Sapp

(2003) Theoretical, political, and pedagogical challenges in the feminist classroom: Our struggles to walk the walk. College Teaching 51(4): 131–140.

10.

Davis

(2005) Taking sex seriously: Challenges in teaching about sexuality. Teaching Sociology 33(1): 16–31.

11.

Decena CI (2010) Risky lessons: Thinking/viewing/talking sex in the feminist classroom. Films for the Feminist Classroom 2(2). Available at: http://ffc.twu.edu/decena_essay_3_2–2.html (accessed 16 May 2014).

12.

Dewey C (2014) The only guide to Gamergate you will ever need to read. Washington Post, 14 October. Available at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2014/10/14/the-only-guide-to-gamergate-you-will-ever-need-to-read/ (accessed 7 March 2015).

13.

Edwards

Kearns

Calhoun

et al. (2009) College women’s reactions to sexual assault research participation: Is it distressing? Psychology of Women Quarterly 33(2): 225–234.

14.

Fahs

(2011) Dreaded ‘otherness’: Heteronormative patrolling in women’s body hair rebellions. Gender & Society 25(4): 451–472.

15.

Fahs

(2013) Raising bloody hell: Inciting menstrual panics through campus and community activism. In: Fahs

Dudy

Stage

(eds) The Moral Panics of Sexuality, London: Palgrave, pp. 77–91.

16.

Fahs

(2014) Perilous patches and pitstaches: Imagined versus lived experiences of women’s body hair growth. Psychology of Women Quarterly 38(2): 167–180.

17.

Fahs

(2016) Out For Blood: Essays on Menstruation and Resistance, Albany: State University of New York Press.

18.

Fahs

McClelland

(2016) When sex and power collide: An argument for critical sexuality studies. Journal of Sex Research 53(4–5): 392–416.

19.

Fine

(1988) Sexuality, schooling, and adolescent females: The missing discourse of desire. Harvard Educational Review 58(1): 29–54.

20.

Fine

(1994) Dis-stance and other stances: Negotiations of power inside feminist research. In: Gitlin

(ed.) Power and Method: Political Activism and Educational Research, London: Routledge, pp. 13–35.

21.

Gailey

Prohaska

(2011) Power and gender negotiations during interviews with men about sex and sexually degrading practices. Qualitative Research 11(4): 365–380.

22.

García

(2009) Love at first sex: Latina girls’ meanings of virginity loss and relationships. Identities 16(5): 601–621.

23.

Goldberg M (2015) Feminist writers are so besieged by online abuse that some have begun to retire. Washington Post, 19 February. Available at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/online-feminists-increasingly-ask-are-the-psychic-costs-too-much-to-bear/2015/02/19/3dc4ca6c-b7dd–11e4-a200-c008a01a6692_story.html (accessed 22 June 2016).

24.

Golden S (2012) ‘How to be gay’: U. of Michigan professor caused major controversy with course called ‘How to be gay.’ A dozen years later, he has written a book on the same topic. Inside Higher Ed. Available at: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/08/22/new-gay-studies-book-grew-out-especially-controversial-college-class (accessed 1 December 2015).

25.

González-López

(2005) Erotic Journeys: Mexican Immigrants and Their Sex Lives, Berkeley: University of California Press.

26.

González-López

(2010) Heterosexuality exposed: Some feminist sociological reflections on heterosexual sex and romance in U.S. Latina/o communities. In: Asencio

(ed.) Latina/o Sexualities: Probing Powers, Passions, Practices and Policies, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, pp. 103–116.

27.

Grenz

(2005) Intersections of sex and power in research on prostitution: A female researcher interviewing male heterosexual clients. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 30(4): 2091–2113.

28.

Gutfeld G (2014) What qualifies as campus rebellion these days? Fox News, 8 July. Available at: http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/the-five/article/2014/07/08/gutfeld-what-qualifies-campus-rebellion-these-days (accessed 28 April 2015).

29.

Gutiérrez

Muhs

Niemann

González

et al. (2012) Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia, Logan: Utah State University.

30.

Halperin DM (1996) A response from David Halperin to Dennis Altman. Australian Humanities Review. Available at: http://australianhumanitiesreview.org/emuse/Globalqueering/halperin.html (accessed 1 May 2015).

31.

Halperin

(2002) Deviant teaching. Michigan Feminist Studies 16: 1–30.

32.

Hayfield

Huxley

(2015) Insider and outsider perspectives: Reflections on researcher identities in research with lesbian and bisexual women. Qualitative Research in Psychology 12(2): 91–106.

33.

Irvine

(2004) Talk About Sex: The Battles Over Sex Education in the United States, Berkeley: University of California Press.

34.

Irvine

(2014) Is sexuality research ‘dirty work’? Institutionalized stigma in the production of sexual knowledge. Sexualities 17(5–6): 632–656.

35.

Jenkins

Baird

(2002) Secondary traumatic stress and vicarious trauma: A validational study. Journal of Traumatic Stress 15(5): 423–432.

36.

Jerreat J (2014) University offers female students extra credit for not shaving their armpits. Daily Mail UK, 4 July. Available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article–2680903/University-offers-female-students-extra-credit-not-shaving-armpits-deal-open-boys-body-completely-hair-free-10-weeks.html (accessed 12 May 2015).

37.

LaSala

Jenkins

Wheeler

et al. (2008) LGBT faculty, research, and researchers: Risks and rewards. Journal of Gay & Lesbian Social Services 20(3): 253–267.

38.

Laumann

Michael

Gagnon

(1994) A political history of the national sex survey of adults. Family Planning Perspectives 26(1): 34–38.

39.

Lickus J (2014) The great ASU social hair experiment. Huffington Post, 10 July. Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jay-lickus/the-great-asu-social-hair_b_5572253.html (accessed 12 May 2015).

40.

McClelland

(2017) Vulnerable listening: Possibilities and challenges of doing qualitative research. Qualitative Psychology 17: 2326–3601.

41.

McCormack

(2014) Is sexuality research ‘dirty work’? Sexualities 17(5–6): 674–676.

42.

Messner

(1996) Studying up on sex. Sociology of Sport Journal 13(3): 221–237.

43.

Miller-Young

(2010a) Putting hypersexuality to work: Black women and illicit eroticism in pornography. Sexualities 13(2): 219–235.

44.

Miller-Young M (2010b) The pedagogy of pornography: Teaching hardcore media in a feminist studies classroom. Films for the Feminist Classroom 2(2). Available at: http://ffc.twu.edu/issue_2–2/miller-young_essay_1_2–2.html (accessed 10 May 2015).

45.

Mustanski

(2011) Ethical and regulatory issues with conducting sexuality research with LGBT adolescents: A call to action for a scientifically informed approach. Archives of Sexual Behavior 40(4): 673–686.

46.

Myers

(2000) Empathic listening: Reports on the experience of being heard. Journal of Humanistic Psychology 40(2): 148–173.

47.

Oakley

(1981) Interviewing women: A contradiction in terms. In: Roberts

(ed.) Doing Feminist Research, New York: Routledge, pp. 30–61.

48.

Parker

Gagnon

(2013) Conceiving Sexuality: Approaches to Sex Research in a Postmodern World, New York: Routledge.

49.

Parreñas Shimizu

(2007) The Hypersexuality of Race: Performing Asian/American Women on Screen and Scene, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

50.

Pascoe

(2007) What if a guy hits on you? Intersections of gender, sexuality, and age in fieldwork with adolescents. In: Best

(ed.) Representing Youth: Methodological Issues in Critical Youth Studies, New York: New York University Press, pp. 226–246.

51.

Pearlman

Saakvitne

(1995) Trauma and the Therapist: Countertransference and Vicarious Traumatization in Psychotherapy with Incest Survivors, New York: W.W. Norton & Co.

52.

Plante

(2006) Sexual spanking, the self, and the construction of deviance. Journal of Homosexuality 50(2–3): 59–79.

53.

Plante

(2007) In search of sexual subjectivities: Exploring the sociological construction of sexual selves. In: Kimmel

(ed.) The Sexual Self: The Construction of Sexual Scripts, Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, pp. 31–48.

54.

Plante RF (2012) Taboo revisited: Challenges of the erotic field. In: 82nd Eastern Sociological Society Annual Meeting, New York, 23–26 February.

55.

Plante

(2014) Sex in some cities: Explorations of AIDS/HIV education and hooking up. In: Odell

White

(eds) Sociologists in Action, (2nd edn). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publishing, pp. 171–175.

56.

Presser

(2014) Negotiating power and narrative in research: Implications for feminist methodology. Signs 30(4): 2067–2090.

57.

Rice

(2009) Imagining the Other? Ethical challenges of researching and writing women's embodied lives. Feminism & Psychology 19(2): 245–266.

58.

Ringrose

Renold

(2014) ‘F** k rape!’: Exploring affective intensities in a feminist research assemblage. Qualitative Inquiry 20(6): 772–780.

59.

Seidman

(1990) The power of desire and the danger of pleasure: Victorian sexuality reconsidered. Journal of Social History 24(1): 47–67.

60.

Senn

Desmarais

(2006) A new wrinkle on an old concern: Are the new ethics review requirements for explicit warnings in consent forms affecting the results of sexuality? Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality 15(3–4): 123–132.

61.

Smith

(2009) Pleasure and distance: Exploring sexual cultures in the classroom. Sexualities 12(5): 568–585.

62.

Sprague

Massoni

(2005) Student evaluations and gendered expectations: What we can’t count can hurt us. Sex Roles 53(11–12): 779–793.

63.

Stephens

Phillips

(2005) Integrating Black feminist thought into conceptual frameworks of African American adolescent women’s sexual scripting processes. Sexualities, Evolution & Gender 7(1): 37–55.

64.

Taylor

Raeburn

(1995) Identity politics as high-risk activism: Career consequences for lesbian, gay, and bisexual sociologists. Social Problems 42(2): 252–273.

65.

Thomas E (2014) ASU professor offers extra credit for hairy armpits. Huffington Post, 7 July. Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/07/asu-no-shave-extra-credit-hairy-armpits_n_5564372.html (accessed 1 May 2015).

66.

Thomas

Williams

(2016) Getting off on sex research: A methodological commentary on the sexual desires of sex researchers. Sexualities 19(1–2): 83–97.

67.

Udry

(1993) The politics of sex research. Journal of Sex Research 30(2): 103–110.

68.

Vance

(1984) Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality, New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul Books.

69.

Vance

(1993) More danger, more pleasure. A decade after the Barnard sexuality conference. New York Law School Law Review 38: 289–317.

70.

Warner

(2004) Towards a queer research methodology. Qualitative Research in Psychology 1(4): 321–337.

71.

Weatherall

Gavey

Potts

(2002) Whose words are they anyway? Feminism & Psychology 12(4): 531–539.

72.

White

(2006) Psychology meets women’s studies, greets black studies, treats queer studies: Teaching diversity and sexuality across disciplines. Feminist Teacher 16(3): 205–215.

73.

Whitley

(2015) Trans*-subjectivity: Exploring research positionality in the field. Qualitative Sociology Review 11(4): 66–80.