This book is of its time: a salvo in the feminist sex wars of the 1980-90s and an angry response to Andrea Dworkin, Catharine MacKinnon, Celia Kitzinger et al. Having grown into adulthood at the height of those so-called sex wars, I've spent some time lately trying to make sense of how they affected both my own relationship with sexuality and the wider cultural landscape.

20 years on, Segal's book is still relevant and powerful. It is dated, with plenty of contemporary references (Thatcherism, Madonna, Clause 28 etc), and a long (slightly exhausting) discussion of psychoanalytic theory (Freud, Lacan, Irigaray) and Foucault (remember how new and exciting all that stuff was back in the 80s?), but I guess that's to be expected (Segal is after all a professor of psychology and gender studies).*

But in addressing the way feminist critiques of heterosexuality often replicate and reinforce traditional conservative narratives of active male aggression and passive female submission, Segal is smart, insightful and scathing. She writes powerfully about the disruptive complexity of desire - whatever our gender and sexuality - arguing that actual, real world heterosexuality is far queerer (in every sense) than the simplistic caricature often conjured up in both feminist and anti-feminist discussions.

At a personal level, I read much of this book with a great sense of relief. Segal's account of the experience of sexuality (at least when it wasn't tangled up in Freudian and post-Freudian psychobabble) felt far closer to my own than anything I've encountered in the Dworkin-Dines feminist tradition (or, for that matter, than much of what I encounter in media in general). Segal's call for a "queering" of our view of heterosexuality resonated strongly with me, as a straight cis-gender man who has never felt like I fit the stereotype of what those labels imply (whether those stereotypes came from Playboy or Broadsheet).

In reality, when you really dig deep, sexuality (like gender) is slippery, fluid and enormously complex. Segal's most welcome contribution is to emphasise this point again and again, and to insist on a genuine respect for the variety and power and fragility of real people's actual experience of sex; to listen openly and honestly to the voices of women (and men) describing their sexual desires, hopes, experiences, fears and disappointments; and to work towards a sexual politics of pleasure and liberation for all.


*It's also interesting to note that Segal occasionally criticises the "political correctness" of some feminists. After all, this book was written at a time when "PC" was a term people on the left used to satirise each other: that particular strain of ideologically driven moralising that can so easily emerge when "the personal is political." It wasn't until the mid-1990s that the right took over the term "PC," using it to belittle everything from health and safety policies and environmental regulations to the whole idea of progressive politics. Which is a shame, because I reckon it would still be a useful corrective for some left-wing activists, if only it hadn't become so weighed down with stupid hateful conservative baggage...

One of the most thorough treatments I've seen on any subject. Segal covers not only the history of sexuality (largely focused on the UK and US sexual revolutions and since), but also their relation to the feminist revolution, the treatment of sexuality by psychoanalysis (esp. Freud and Lacan), sociological perspectives (with a focus on Foucault), and modern discussions of how interrelated issues of gender, sexuality, and power dynamics are. Thorough, yet accessible; highly recommended.

Though the book shows it's age at times (references to Thatcherism, unequal age of consent laws for gay men, and referring to queer/LGBT+ people exclusively as "lesbians and gay men"), this books is nonetheless an accessible and surprisingly relevant history and critique of feminist views of sexuality in the 20th century, and comes to a conclusion (about disentangling perceptions of sex, as well as specific roles and acts, from being coded as a particular gender, or from associating femininity with submission) which shows more nuance than either "yay sex positivity" or "porn culture is evil", even if it does go off on a weird tangent into Freudian psychoanalytic theory for maybe slightly too many pages.

A nice, albeit at times a bit too theoretical, historical overview of feminists’ fight for sexual autonomy and pleasure. Worth the read.

Although it is a bit dense, this book serves as a (really good) history of our attitudes towards sex throughout the second half of the 20th century. It references a tremendous amount of authors to further investigate and gives a clear picture of the various strands of thinking on the subject.