Politics of Pleasure [6-weeks, $180 Suggested]

Instructor: Dahiya | Wednesdays May 12-June 16 | 7:00-9:00 PM ET

This seminar begins from the premise that pleasure—the capacity of our bodies to feel and experience sensation and excitement—has a political nature, and that, as of now, all people do not have equal access to pleasure. Culture has long told us that pleasure is sexual, and yet some people are not supposed to enjoy sex. More than that, we’ve been told that only specific kinds of sexual experiences should be pleasurable, and others are pathological.

In this class we will investigate the role of popular culture in prescribing our concept of pleasure, as well as the ways that the logics of race and gender proscribe it. We will ask: what conceptions of pleasure are ready-made for us in popular culture? What are the racial and gendered logics of pleasure? Why are some bodies hyper-sexualized in culture, and how does this over-sexualization affect one’s ability to actually engage and feel pleasure? How can we understand what feminist historian Rachel P. Maines calls the technology of orgasm? What motivated radical feminist Anne Koedt to write her 1968 essay “The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm?” How have we heavily internalized a heteronormative idea of pleasure, and how might we queer what we understand pleasure to be and the ways we experience pleasure? And finally, thinking with black lesbian poet Audre Lorde, in her essay “the uses of the erotic,” Lorde writes that the erotic is so feared “and so often relegated to the bedroom alone, when it is recognized at all. For once we begin to feel deeply all the aspects of our lives, we begin to demand from ourselves and from our life-pursuits that they feel in accordance with that joy which we know ourselves to be capable of.” Thinking with Lorde, we will consider what political potential lies within the erotic, and how might we harness it to transform ourselves and our world?

We depend on a mix of direct student donations and supplemental donations to make all classes pay-what-you-can. Please pick the pricing tier that corresponds with your needs and that you are able to pay now. If you would like to pay in installments, make your first payment now and make a note on your check-out form. If you would like to donate more later in the term, you can always come back and use the “Make a One Time Donation” button! To use a full scholarship, just pick the $3 tier to cover site/processor fees. 

If at any point up to 48 hours before your first class session you realize you will be unable to take the class, we will work with you to reallocate your funds to a future class, to another student’s scholarship, or refund it. After classes begin, we are only able to make partial refunds and adjustments.