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"We’re like the sex CPR dummies”: Young women’s understandings of (hetero)sexual pleasure in university accommodation
Abstract
In this article, we explore the discourses that affect young women’s experiences of (hetero)sexual pleasure, drawing on data from focus groups with young women and young men who lived within a university residential setting in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Here we focus on the gendered understandings among the participants that prioritise men’s sexual pleasure and largely position women as the means of achieving that pleasure. The young women spoke of multiple barriers to gaining equality during (hetero)sexual experiences, with key issues being the coital imperative and women’s supposed sexual passivity. In challenging these barriers, the young women described various tactics used to resist their subordinate position. However, the women often placed the onus of responsibility for dismantling these barriers on themselves, thus bearing the burden of responsibility for not only young men’s sexual pleasure but also their own.
Type
Journal Article
Type of thesis
Series
Citation
Brown, J., Schmidt, J., & Robertson, N. (2017). ‘We’re like the sex CPR dummies”: Young women’s understandings of (hetero)sexual pleasure in university accommodation. Feminism & Psychology, -online, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959353517742500
Date
2017
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Degree
Supervisors
Rights
This is an author’s accepted version of an article published in the journal: Feminism & Psychology. © The Authors 2017