Theorizing Pleasure: New Directions in Black Feminist Studies

• DOI: 10.1353/fem.2012.0008
• Publication Date: 2022-01-02T14:35:43Z
• Authors: Jennifer C. Nash
• Keywords: Scrutiny; Personhood; Popular culture; Silence

TheorizingPleasure: New Directionsin Black FeministStudies Jennifer C. Nash Books Discussed in This Article Erotic Revolutionaries: Women, Sexuality, and Popular Culture. By Shayne Lee. Lanham, MD: Hamilton Books, 2010. Beyond the Lady: Sexuality African American Middle Class. Lisa B. Thompson. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009. Unequal Desires: Race Capital Stripping Industry. Siobhan Brooks. Albany: State York Mutha Is Half a Word: Intersections Folklore, Vernacular, Myth, Queerness Female L. H. Stallings. Columbus: Ohio 2007. women's sexuality has routinely been described "as an absence.'" Hortense Spiller's oft-quoted lines analogizing black women to "the beached whales sexual universe, unvoiced, misseen, not doing, awaiting their verb" poignantly capture this absence, registering paucity cultural space for claim agency articulate complex personhood.2 More than that, femi nist scholars have long documented "culture dissemblance," where "creatfe] appearance disclosure, or openness about themselves ... while actually remaining enigma,"3 argued that adopted "politics silence" respectability" shield female body from scrutiny.4 FeministStudies38, no. 2 (Summer 2012). © 2012 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 507 508 Of course, as strategic silences protect bodies scrutiny, there women—both activists scholars—attempting break silence, countering dominant intellectual tradition insisting on pleasures longings. Audre Lorde's now canonical celebration erotic, Alice Walker's description womanist's love "other women, sexually and/or nonsexually," Tricia Rose's Longingto Tell, collection histo ries, all epitomize critical ruptures silence surrounding The texts are subject review part rupture, describing sexualities pleasures; Stallings notes, these "longing tell," they aretelling.5 Lee's EroticRevolutionaries ends with revealing confession. He writes, "I like my feminism complex, perplexingly diverse, open contradiction" (123). It is moment echoes Joan Morgan, Rebecca Walker, Jones, many other contemporary feminists who champion "a brave enough fuck grays."6 confession explicitly positions his book Third Wave7 feminist text, one invested crafting paradox multiplicity "hallmarks sexuality."8 Revolutionaries ambitiously weaves together Wave nism, pro-sex feminism, scripting theory celebrate erotically transformative figures popular culture. sub-jects at heart book—including urban erotica writer Zane, singer Beyonce Knowles, tennis player Serena Williams, television host Tyra Banks—are producers "defile traditional prescriptions prudence inaugu rate scripts carve new spaces eroticism free dom" (128). They are, according Lee, erotic revolutionaries cast aside demands respectability instead cele brate agency. analysis depends theory, which he draws John Gagnon William Simon's Sexual Conduct:The SocialSources ofHumanSexuality. Scripting allows Lee argue both can craft presence might allow production scripts, ones high light "sexual subjects, actors, agents" (7). 509 Although tends new, more liberating, reading suggests deploy simple declarations argues Beyonce's oeuvre reveals paradoxical terrain; it locus "comfort, excitement, exuberance" (21) potentially "destructive power capacity to...