TY - JOUR
T1 - How to creatively theorise the wonder of erotica
T2 - a womanist’s poetic manifesto on sexual desire and pleasure
AU - Ohito, Esther O.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - Theory provokes and stimulates. This theoretical essay blurs the boundaries between academic and creative non-fiction writing to illustrate Black women artists mining self-serving economies of embodied, affective pleasure by crafting womanist erotica, that is, Black woman/girl-centred, eros-charged art, music, and literature. I play with words to produce a polyvocal diptych essay theorising the wonder of womanist erotica and elucidating my politics, perspectives and practices as a Black woman(ist) creative writer and educator concerned with Black women and girls’ sex education. My illumination of, and indulgence in, corporeal pleasure is underpinned by knowledge of (a) the pain that characterises many Black women and girls’ educational and schooling experiences broadly, but also specifically with regards to sex education; and (b) the racialised, gendered, and culturally situated feeling of shame that arises for many during sexual play, that is, during our participation in sexually (self-)gratifying acts. Hence, I offer a potent(ially) viscerally pleasurable reading experience while aiming to deepen intellectual and embodied understandings of the empowering rapture that womanist erotica can ignite. In addition to naming and (re)claiming sexual desire as a prerogative, I think through womanist erotica as a tool for excavating a spiritually rooted erotic economy of (self-)pleasure.
AB - Theory provokes and stimulates. This theoretical essay blurs the boundaries between academic and creative non-fiction writing to illustrate Black women artists mining self-serving economies of embodied, affective pleasure by crafting womanist erotica, that is, Black woman/girl-centred, eros-charged art, music, and literature. I play with words to produce a polyvocal diptych essay theorising the wonder of womanist erotica and elucidating my politics, perspectives and practices as a Black woman(ist) creative writer and educator concerned with Black women and girls’ sex education. My illumination of, and indulgence in, corporeal pleasure is underpinned by knowledge of (a) the pain that characterises many Black women and girls’ educational and schooling experiences broadly, but also specifically with regards to sex education; and (b) the racialised, gendered, and culturally situated feeling of shame that arises for many during sexual play, that is, during our participation in sexually (self-)gratifying acts. Hence, I offer a potent(ially) viscerally pleasurable reading experience while aiming to deepen intellectual and embodied understandings of the empowering rapture that womanist erotica can ignite. In addition to naming and (re)claiming sexual desire as a prerogative, I think through womanist erotica as a tool for excavating a spiritually rooted erotic economy of (self-)pleasure.
KW - Black women and girls
KW - Womanism
KW - erotica
KW - race and gender
KW - sex education teaching guide
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85131549911&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85131549911&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/14681811.2022.2082398
DO - 10.1080/14681811.2022.2082398
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85131549911
SN - 1468-1811
VL - 23
SP - 245
EP - 253
JO - Sex Education
JF - Sex Education
IS - 3
ER -