Full dataset - Resisting normative sexual subjectivities: A discourse analysis of how feminist alternative media re-shape constructions of women’s sexual desire

Mainstream media representations of women’s sexual desire typically limit possibilities for sexual agency and embodied pleasure. This occurs when they foreground the importance of men’s sexual gratification, prioritise heteronormativity, exclude diverse identities and bodies, and frame women’s desire as an individualised project of the self. What is not known, is if feminist alternative digital media disrupt and resist these normative constructions of women’s sexual desire, how they might do so, and with what possibilities for readers’ agentic sexual subjectivity construction. Addressing these questions, we conducted a discourse analysis of 55 online articles from self-identified feminist online publications examining constructions of women’s sexual desire. We identified two dominant constructions of desire. The first construction, “desire is diverse”, relates to an expanded representation of who can be sexually desiring and how. The second construction, “desire is political”, locates desire within wider social critique and as a tool for social change. These indicate a potential broadening of women’s sexual agency but ultimately are undercut by neoliberal discourses of individual self-work and self-improvement.