CHAPTER 25

SEXUALITY AND EMBODIMENT

Our bodies are the permeable boundary between our representations have proliferated so profoundly,
individual sense of self and the society in which we where evidence and vestiges of sex saturate land-
live. From the most banal bodily acts of life—how scapes from the visual to the virtual, the question of
we dress, the magazines we read, with whom we where and how bodies enter to constitute sexual
sleep—to the big questions of social organization feelings, thoughts, and actions is currently a primary
regarding marriage, family, sexual morality, and sex- one (Attwood, 2007; Coy & Garner, 2012). Embodi-
ual health, the body is always involved in some way. ment theories have enabled us to reformulate
The body is at once our own, something we share research inquiries that are anchored in and about
with others, and also something that is important to bodily experiences of the sexual and of sexuality.
and shaped by the social world. Almost everything Grounded in a set of fundamentally social theories,
about sex is also about the body; sexuality is an embodiment theories and studies depart from much
intrinsic part of an embodied self. Although there is of sexuality research in that they are also inherently
certainly much research that focuses on particular political, that is, they locate and provide insight into
biological functions of sexual bodily parts and phys- how bodies and sexuality, as experienced and made
iological processes associated with, and in some sense of, are not simply natural but exist, are appre-
cases considered to comprise, sexuality, this line of hended, and are understood within social structures
research is predicated on the body as fundamentally of power. These structures imbue bodies and bodily
and exclusively organic and, for the most part, hard- processes with meanings and significance, both
wired (see Chapters 7 and 23, this volume). We inside and out. Embodiment epistemologically
begin the introduction to this chapter by articulating locates the sexual body, and the sexual person who
social concepts of “the body” and their relationship “lives in” any body, in phenomenology, or the ways
to understandings of and research about sexuality. in which people apprehend and experience their
Until very recently, the body has been considered sexual bodies.
a natural object and therefore the domain of the nat- It is ironic to recognize that the notion of how
ural sciences. Conceptualizations of the body as a actual bodies—material, sexual bodies themselves—
production that incorporates the physical and the are experienced or come into being or consciousness
social rather than as a biological—given theories of has been overlooked frequently in current academic
embodiment—have constituted a burgeoning field research on sex and sexuality. The long-established
of inquiry, particularly within the disciplines of approach to studying the sexual body, exemplified
sociology, literature, cultural studies, feminist in the work of Masters and Johnson’s (1966) study
studies, education, and psychology. In an era in of the (human) body’s sexual response cycle, has
which forms of sexual interactions, identities, and been understood exclusively in terms of the body as a

The authors acknowledge the contributions of Gary Dowsett and Duane Duncan to the initial formulations of the chapter, and Jennifer Chmielewski
for assistance with references and manuscript preparation.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/14193-025
APA Handbook of Sexuality and Psychology: Vol. 1. Person-Based Approaches, D. L. Tolman and L. M. Diamond (Editors-in-Chief)
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Copyright © 2014 by the American Psychological Association. All rights reserved.
Tolman, Bowman, and Fahs

biological mechanism, with biological substrates, and the body as a material, biological entity to the body
determined by the body’s biology, a closed-system as a social entity or entities? How do we make sense
paradigm in which context did not matter. The study of the sexual body in the context of, or as an “effect”
of biological substrates of many sexual bodily pro- (an outcome) of, social life? How do we understand
cesses has blossomed and provided critical under- the individual in relation to the social world via
standing of human sexuality (Lloyd, 2006; see the body?
Chapter 7, this volume), whereas other claims have As Plummer (2002, 2012) and Dowsett (1996,
been challenged by researchers whose premise is a 2000) have each argued, the actual desiring, heav-
social understanding of sexual bodily processes, that ing, sexual body is hardly anywhere to be found in
is, the ongoing debates over female sexual dysfunc- sexuality research (see also Schilling, 2003). Ironi-
tion (FSD; Shifren, Brigitta, Russo, Segretti, & cally, the vast majority of sexuality research does not
Johannes, 2008; Tiefer, 2006; see Chapters 8 and 11 have much sex in it; what people actually do, think,
this volume) and gender identity (Stryker, 2006). As and feel when expressing sexual feelings or use their
the beginnings of postmodernism seeped into sexual- bodies in sexual ways, is very rare. Sexuality
ity research, the social construction of sexuality pro- research is for the most part more sanitized than the
vided an alternative way to map and understand messiness of actual sex. As scholarship on embodi-
sexuality, including sexual desire, sexual identities, ment has developed, it in fact has been more theo-
and sexual relationships (Plante, 2006; Tiefer, 2004), retical than empirical and more textual than
and it emerged as a prominent paradigm. New ways involving actual bodies. The plethora of theoretical
of thinking about and conducting research on sex and scholarship on embodiment, however, has begun to
sexuality flourished, challenging the idea that sexual- make possible a growing body of sexuality research
ity was a natural or innate expression of each individ- grounded in or about embodiment that mobilizes
ual’s true self, and drawing attention to the ways in and connects theoretical formulations of embodi-
which sexuality as a field of ideas or discourses con- ment to empirical investigation of sexuality as
stituted truths about subjectivities or lived experience embodied experiences and phenomena. This chapter
or understanding of various aspects of selves (i.e., presents the major embodiment theories and, in par-
Gamson, 2000; Seidman, 1996; see Chapter 3, this ticular, how embodiment in relation to sexuality is
volume). These two lines of theory came to clash as theorized in psychology. We then present a critical
polar opposites through the 1990s (DeLamater & review of a wide range of empirical research on sex-
Hyde, 1998), as the “essentialism–social construc- uality that has utilized these theoretical frameworks
tionism” debates, yielding antithetical understandings to explore the body, embodiment, sex, and sexuality,
of what sexuality was and how it emerged over indi- including gendered sexual bodies, the sexual body
vidual lifetimes and across historical time and human and its parts, the sexual body in action, the sexual
societies. In the eyes of biological determinism (often body across the life span, sexual-minority sexual
referred to as essentialism), sexuality is an essence, an bodies, and the “disobedient” sexual body. Finally,
objective and unchanging set of biological processes. we consider briefly some implications of this rela-
In the eyes of social construction, sexuality is not a tively new knowledge for clinical practice and inter-
fixed essence or inherently determined by biology but ventions as well as for the future of embodiment and
is constituted through social meanings and under- sexuality and how the accomplishments and short-
standings about what sexuality is, how it is expressed, comings of what has been done might be leveraged
and what it means (Tiefer, 2004). The emergence of to expand this new arena of research.
embodiment theories has provided one alternative to
the impasse that these debates generated (Tolman &
WHAT IS EMBODIMENT?
Diamond, 2001; see Chapter 1, this volume). The
very questions that an embodiment lens poses consti- Embodiment refers to the experience of living in,
tute a useful reframing of the mind–body binary that perceiving, and experiencing the world from the
has fractured sexuality research: How do we connect very specific location of our bodies. The concept

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Sexuality and Embodiment

of embodiment within psychology and other social experienced bodies come together to make up the liv-
sciences actually refers to two distinct processes or ing body. In applying Lindemann’s account to a social
phenomena: being embodied and embodying the psychological analysis of sexuality, we can under-
social. These conceptualizations of embodiment are stand the objectified body as the one onto which all
by no means incompatible or mutually exclusive; we societal presumptions (e.g., requirements of mascu-
can rely on both simultaneously, and thereby paint linity and femininity) are projected. Sexual desires as
a much fuller picture of embodiment as it relates to well as sexual pleasures, therefore, can be understood
sexuality (see, e.g., Crossley, 1996; Rubin, 1984). as experienced within the body itself. This is not to
Being embodied refers to an experiential awareness say that bodily sensations are somehow independent
of the feelings and sensations within one’s body, from the realm of the social. Indeed, bodily sensa-
which reflects our corporeality (Grosz, 1994) or the tions are constantly modified, interpreted, and
reality that we “live in skin” (J. Ward, 2002). This informed by the social contexts in which these bod-
awareness can be characterized as lived embodiment, ies exist. A countervailing conception of embodiment
because it refers to the body as we live in it and feel is the notion of intersubjectivity (or derivatization),
it (e.g., see Merleau-Ponty, 1962; Young, 1990). that is, that the body is experienced in relationship to
Merleau-Ponty (1962) described the lived body as a or with another person. In this context, sexual objec-
“body-subject,” meaning that the body itself, not tification is not a form of alienation but a form of
cognition, is capable of genuine experience. That is, personification, such that the sexual bodies of two
the body is not just a passive sensory-data receptor people in a sexual encounter can be sexual subjects
that then relies on our consciousness and cognition and sexual objects, with a mutuality of desire and
to give it meaning, but the body experiences the being desired simultaneously (Cahill, 2011).
world directly because the body is forever entangled Conversely, embodiment can refer to the ways
with the world. He referred to this “body which is our social and historical environments enter into
better informed than we are” as having a “latent and become entangled with our bodies. This social
knowledge” (Merleau-Ponty, 1962, p. 238). Simi- constructionist viewpoint emphasizes the mecha-
larly, Young (1984) suggested that it is possible to nisms by which our bodies come to behave in cer-
“locate consciousness and subjectivity in the body tain normative fashions; in short, by living day to
itself” (p. 161). That is, our bodies themselves expe- day in a society that makes certain demands on our
rience sensations and awareness, rather than simply bodies and psyches, we come to internalize these
collecting external stimuli and information in service norms or discourses and embody them (e.g., see
to a cognitive, meaning-making psyche. Bartky, 1990; Foucault, 1978). These norms and
G. Lindemann (1996) deftly wove social influ- discourses form and inform our bodily feelings,
ences into an understanding of the material, physical behaviors, and comportment, and they constitute
body, by theorizing distinctions between objectified, the phenomenology of embodiment (Bartky, 1990;
experiencing, and experienced bodies. The objectified Bordo, 1993, 2000; Young, 1990). Some theorists
body is the visible, material body that moves through have referred to this concept as social inscription, as
physical and social space. The experiencing body is the body can be understood as a surface onto or into
the sensory (or lived or phenomenological) body, which social norms are written by others or by the
experiencing the environment through the five self. The key psychological theories of embodiment
senses; this lived body has also been described as are the psychodynamic processes of internalization
being in a specific sociocultural context or a body in and dissociation, understood as providing mecha-
situation (Young, 1990, p. 16; see also Moi, 2001). nisms of inscription that are not conscious. These
The experienced body is our cognitive sense of our processes are conceived as relational, that is, the
own bodies, for instance, our understanding of production or experience of the self in relation to
our own pleasure or pain. The experiencing body, specific others or in relation to proximate or distal
then, is the kinesthetic, affective, emotional, and social contexts (Henriques, Hollway, Urwin, Venn, &
desiring body. For Lindemann, the experiencing and Walkerdine, 1998; Ussher, 1989; Young, 1990).

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Embodiment also can constitute conscious ways that power induced compliance not by force but through
we might form or “perform” our bodies as part of more insidious coercive means: via authoritative dis-
the production of identities (Butler, 1994). These courses that regulate social conduct through the
related conceptualizations of embodiment, then, bodies and subjectivities of individuals. As such,
can be characterized as inscribed embodiment. Foucault’s work opened up a distinctly social
It is within these multiple understandings of approach to understanding the body and its place in
embodiment that we review theoretical frameworks social relations, all while problematizing or debunk-
that are used heavily by sexuality researchers and ing the notion that the body is predetermined, ahis-
psychologists primarily working in gender and sexu- torical, or existing materially outside of culture.
ality. Although there has been a useful proliferation Foucault proposed that a set of ideas or dis-
of embodiment theories (i.e., “visible identities,” courses produce and sanction particular practices,
Alcoff, 2005; “bodily imaginaries,” Gatens, 1996; experiences, and identities as normal (or pathologi-
“cyborg bodies,” Haraway, 1991), the work of Fou- cal) and acceptable (or abjected, wrong, and thus
cault and Butler are the foundational theories in “appropriately” marginal). These discourses pro-
which these developments are anchored, and our duce regulation, control, and “surveillance” that
review reflects this emphasis. We also have high- exist, in essence, simultaneously nowhere and
lighted the emerging developments in feminist and everywhere, difficult to pinpoint but reliably effec-
queer theory that have come to play an important tive in shaping and regulating. By discourse, Fou-
role in research on embodiment and sexuality. cault meant not only a way of speaking but also an
integrated way of being and knowing that includes
Foucault and Butler: Production of the body, the mind, and relationships. Hegemonic
Embodied Subjects or dominant discourses exert intangible but forceful
One of Foucault’s anchor projects was the history of pressure to comply with a set of interlocking norms
sexuality (1978) as it connected to the archaeology or ideologies, communicated through language and
of power (1975). Whereas we tend to think of sexu- produced, reproduced, and sanctioned through
ality as a distinct thing that individuals “have,” Fou- practices and institutions that both reflect and enact
cault’s insights suggest an alternative: that sexuality these discourses (Foucault, 1969). Rather than oper-
is in fact a condition of the time and place in which ating through the direct imposition of power and
we live and reflects the dynamic relationship force, discourse regulates conduct, thoughts, and
between sexual bodies, sexual practice, institutional feelings through reliance on socially agreed-on
power, and knowledge. Foucault’s (1966, 1975) authorities sanctioned by the state, such as medicine
work thus has been of enormous value in thinking and the law. In Foucault’s view, power is not a thing
about how bodies and sexuality are socially con- but a relation; power is not simply repressive but
structed. He demonstrated how hegemonic (that is, productive. Foucault’s approach to discourse as
dominant) discourses emerged and continued to social practice provides a way to analyze how bodies
both enable and constrain how bodies might be and sexualities reflect and enact the power relations
experienced and lived, explicating the development of the societies in which they can be seen to exist.
of regulations specifically related to the management This understanding of social organization and
of bodies, including fertility, reproductive health, the development and lived experiences of individu-
and sexuality (Foucault, 1969, 1975). All of these als within it is predicated on the dissolution of the
regulations emerged as key areas of personal life that fixed subject, who presumably enters into social
the state had an interest in regulating. Each of these relations as a whole and biologically determined
concerns produced authoritative discourses related agent. From Foucault’s perspective, there is no such
to personal conduct, against which individuals came fixed subject who precedes his or her meaningful
to evaluate and categorize themselves and others in recognition in discourse; instead, subjectivity must
acts of self-surveillance and self-discipline. Foucault be constituted by the subject in the course of social
(1975) demonstrated how institutional or state relations. He or she “takes up” subject positions in

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discourse or can be understood to perform subject people have but something people do, a notion
positions or to be composed of (potentially chang- Butler termed “performativity.” This endless doing
ing, multiple, and contradictory) subjectivities. or practice is regulated by conformity through an
These generally are not conscious acts. The insidi- alignment of sex, gender, and sexuality that she
ousness and effectiveness of the operation of dis- termed “the heterosexual matrix” (Butler, 1990,
courses, especially those that are hegemonic, is that p. 151). The heterosexual matrix demands and
they are not visible as such; it is the very self that organizes individual and social behavior such that
abides by, reproduces, and reinforces the state’s reg- compliant productions of femininity by women,
ulations and interests. Most important, Foucault masculinity by men, and heterosexuality by
demonstrated the “situated nature of subjectivity” everyone, constitute “normal” or what Butler
(Braidotti, 1994, p. 238), that is, that subjectivity is (1993) described as “intelligible”—recognizable or
always constituted in and by specific historical and understandable—embodiment (see also Rich, 1980;
social contexts. Rubin, 1984).
Foucault understood that subjects cannot have Feminist scholars have infused Foucault’s under-
access to the body except through discourses about standing of bodies as produced through regulatory
the body that constrain how we might think about and authoritative discourses with Butler’s notion of
and understand it. Rather than requiring the repres- performativity to argue for the fundamental role of
sion of sexual instincts, the proliferation of discourses heterosexuality as an institutionalized, regulatory
on the management and regulation of sexuality led discourse that functions to produce experiences and
individuals to view themselves as having an innate meanings of gendered bodies (Bordo, 2000).
sexuality, as an extension of their character or true Although Butler’s work has proven foundational to
nature. Foucault’s primary example is the invention contemporary embodiment studies, critics have
of homosexuality as a category of identification for highlighted that Butler’s articulation of the perfor-
men and women who participate in same-sex sexual mativity of embodied practices sometimes leaves
behavior. Before the 1880s, there was no such thing aside the physicality of the body—that is, the ways
as a homosexual person, nor before the 1930s was in which illness, aging, or pregnancy inform identity
there such a term as heterosexual. and experience (Turner, 1995; Longhurst, 2001)—
Although one of the key critiques of Foucault and also fails to consider actual differences between
centers on his silence about gender, many feminist bodies (Schilling, 2003). For instance, Green (2008)
scholars have used, extended, and elaborated Fou- has theorized that sexual desire should be conceptu-
cault’s work in important ways, particularly at the alized at both the micro and macro levels, ideally
intersection of gender and sexuality. The most sig- analyzing the somatization of social relations
nificant contribution is Butler’s (1990) work, which (embodiment), in addition to identifying structural
echoed Foucault’s challenge to biological determin- predictors of sexual desire.
ism and provided an alternative understanding of
gender as a set of embodied social practices. Butler Feminist Theories of Embodiment
(1990) argued that rather than being predestined, Given the history of the male–female binary which
gender and gendered bodies are constituted through has constituted women as “more biological, more
the repeated stylization of highly regulated acts and corporeal, and more natural than men” (Grosz,
practices that, when applied to and through the 1994, p. 14), feminists have developed alternative
body over time, give the appearance of being natu- theoretical frameworks that recognize women’s
ral. She explained the way in which the sexed body corporeality without eliding into a naturalized,
is in fact a product of binary gender discourses, reductionistic, essentialized mind–body dualism that
which she denoted as a “process of materialization attributes minds to men and bodies to women (see
which stabilizes over time to produce the effect of Chapter 2, this volume). Feminists also have power-
boundary, fixity, and surface we call matter” (Butler, fully critiqued the historical association of the body
1993, p. 9). Thus, gender is not something that with a range of “lesser” individuals and statuses,

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Tolman, Bowman, and Fahs

including colonized people, people of color, people Thus, feminist theorists have articulated the spe-
with disabilities, and those living in poverty, ground- cific ways that bodies are under pressure to become
ing these critiques in the concept of intersectionality socially inscribed as female–male or feminine–
(Crenshaw, 1991), whereby every corporeal body is masculine (Bartky, 1990; Bordo, 1993; Young,
situated within, constructed, and experienced 1990). For instance, by regimes of dieting, makeup,
through interlocking and inseparable standpoints exercise, dress, and cosmetic surgery, women, and
constituted by specific structural realities and mean- increasingly men, try to sculpt their bodies into
ings. Embodiment provides a way to understand shapes that reflect the dominant societal norms.
social differences emanating from race, class, and Bartky (1990) explicated how women produce femi-
able-bodiedness as embedded in the flesh, situated in nine embodiment, for instance, by taking norms of
bodies constructed through culturally and histori- femininity into their bodies (i.e., sitting with our
cally specific discourses (Spelman, 1990). Postcolo- legs crossed, taking up as little space as possible);
nial and transnational scholars have drawn attention Young (1990) demonstrated how “throwing like a
to the ways in which racial discourses intersect with girl” is an effect of endemic yet subtle bodily train-
sexuality discourses to constitute some bodies as ing and consequential production of a body through
closer to nature (and thus more sexually dangerous femininity discourses about what female bodies can
and out of control) than others (i.e., Howe & Rigi, and cannot do. Young (1990) outlined how women
2009; Magubane, 2001; Minh-Ha, 1989) learn to experience menstruation as disgusting and
Shildrick and Price (1999) observed that embodi- necessary to hide, and how women learn to appre-
ment theory enables feminist scholars to recognize hend their breasts as objects of (male) desire and
and account for the materiality or physicality of public consumption that require constant manage-
female bodies (and other marginalized bodies), ment, compelling women to experience their breasts
while at the same time interrogating our living-in- as alien and separate from their own sense of inte-
bodies in a social world that informs, forms, and grated feeling and experience. Such disciplinary
organizes how bodies are known and recognized. practices attach not only to the production of appro-
That is, embodiment theory rejects the mind–body priately gendered bodies but also to other aspects of
dualism on which notions of hard-wired sexual dif- bodily identity subjected to social normalization,
ference have been predicated while respecting the such as race. For instance, hair straightening, blue-
materiality and situatedness of women’s bodies as tinted contact lenses, and surgical reconstruction of
they intersect with other structural contexts (see noses and lips exemplify practices that extend the
also de Beauvoir, 1949/2009; Irigaray, 1984). Grosz hegemonic discourse of feminine beauty to “unruly”
(2008) has deepened feminist embodiment theory black bodies.
by stressing “the virtualities, the potentialities,
within biological existence that enable cultural, Queer Theories of Embodiment
social, and historical forces to work with and trans- Queer theorists have highlighted the force of insti-
form that existence” (p. 24). An alternative imagi- tutionalized heterosexuality as heteronormativity,
nary is a “Mobius strip,” whereby mind and body whereby embodying and participating as “properly”
are inextricably entangled (Braidotti, 1994; Fausto- gendered heterosexual men and women is equated
Sterling, 2000; Grosz, 2008) within the specifics of with normality (Sedgwick, 1990). Importantly,
historical and social moments and institutions. queer theories deconstruct the heterosexual–
Feminist theoretical perspectives on embodiment homosexual binary and help illuminate the ways in
provide insight into and understanding of how which non-normative bodies and sexualities help to
patriarchy reproduces itself and regenerates oppres- constitute and consolidate heterosexual bodies and
sion in and through bodies. This work has focused sexual practices as natural, normal, and prior to
explicitly on gender and sexuality as core “vectors” culture; non-normative bodies and sexualities also
for the perpetuation of institutionalized heterosexu- can instigate transformation of the social norms
ality (Bartky, 1990; Bordo, 1993; Butler, 1993). that contain and maintain “proper” sexuality and

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Sexuality and Embodiment

acceptable embodiments (Berlant & Warner, 2000; have been challenged for “overtextualizing” the
Butler, 1994). These processes are produced and body, that is, for focusing so much on the meanings
induced by making sexual acts and human intima- that bodies have taken up through discourses that
cies that are not circumscribed within heteronor- the corporeality or materiality of the body has been
mativity invisible or seen only as maligned or given short shrift (Braidotti, 1994; Grosz, 2008). As
criminalized. Queer theories fuel and explain Connell (1995) noted, “bodies, in their own right as
embodied practices that defy heteronormativity and bodies, do matter” (p. 51).
thus make sexuality and bodies that are not con- Scholarship on sexuality and embodiment comes
tained by its norms into visible, knowable, and from an array of disciplines. These embodiment the-
increasingly recognizable ways of being, such as ories have been useful to social science researchers’
dressing in drag, participating in gay pride parades, investigation of people’s lived experience and under-
and engaging in “flaunting” (Berlant & Warner, standing of where sexuality and embodiment meet
2000). These practices and lived experiences were at the individual, interpersonal, and cultural levels.
described as “epistemologies of the closet” by Sedg- Psychologists have contributed to this growing body
wick (1990), meaning that knowledge about (and of research and have drawn on and often developed
from) such lives, desires, and experiences was shut and complicated psychological theories to articulate
out or shut up rather than pathological or wrong. research questions about sexuality and bodies that
Queer theory and research focuses on decentering are distinctly relevant to the discipline. Psychoana-
and destabilizing socially given or normative stan- lytic concepts have been especially important
dards and identities of sexuality and gender—what mechanisms underlying theorized processes of
has been called “upending categories”—to reveal embodiment. The next section reviews several key
that normalized embodiment is compelled and how psychological theories that are important.
it can be resisted (Halberstam, 1998). Queer theory
emphasizes both the possibility and necessity of
PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES AND
resistance to normative discourses—in particular
THE SEXUAL BODY
through alternative, often previously unnamed,
marginalized or demonized embodied practices. In William James (1890) understood the self, the “I,”
fact, such resistance is necessary for the regulatory as fundamentally embodied: “the world experi-
system of heteronormativity itself to be made visi- enced (otherwise called ‘the field of consciousness’)
ble and has the effect of showing how it can be comes at all times with our body as its center. . .
vulnerable to change. By revealing how heteronor- [e]verything circles around it, and is felt from its
mativity attempts to regulate and contain bodies point of view” (cited in Young, 1990, pp. 89–90).
and sexualities that do not comply, queer theory It could be argued that being embodied—that is,
demonstrates its regulatory function through and living, experiencing, sensing in and through one’s
on bodies (Butler, 1993; Moraga & Anzaldúa, body, and being (in simple terms) connected with
1981). one’s body and through one’s body to oneself and
One way that this theoretical perspective is uti- to others in relational contexts—is an implicit
lized is by unpacking the lived embodied experi- default state of what might be considered psycho-
ences of those who do not or refuse to embody logically healthy. Empirical psychology has been
gendered and heterosexual bodily norms, such as from the mid-1950s until quite recently oriented
fat women (Shaw, 2006), feminine men (Connell, toward inquiry into what is broken, wrong, dysfunc-
1995), masculine women (Halberstam, 1998), and tional, or unhealthy (Gable & Haidt, 2005), espe-
transgender people (Feinberg, 1997) Recent cially in relation to sexuality (Diamond, 2006;
research on embodiment embeds queer theory Rutherford, 2012). Thus, psychological theories relating
within conventional research techniques to examine to embodiment most often have described processes and
messy and unstable multilayered subjectivities states of disembodiment, with an eye toward how to
(Epstein, 1994). Both feminist and queer theorists prevent, cure, or ameliorate disembodiment.

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Tolman, Bowman, and Fahs

Disembodiment is understood in psychology as an 1998), although its applicability to men and ethni-
effect of dissociation. In the literature on sexual cally diverse populations is being evaluated (e.g.,
abuse, for instance, disembodiment has been recog- Hebl, King, & Lin, 2004; Roberts & Gettman,
nized as the outcome of the psyche’s response to 2004). Piran (e.g., Piran & Ross, 2005; Piran &
trauma, the dissociation from knowledge (sensory, Teall, 2012) has developed and tested the develop-
cognitive) that constitutes an ongoing state of dis- mental theory of embodiment, which incorporates
connection from the felt body experience as well as both positive or connected risk and “disrupted”
from particular memories (Freud, 1900; Herman, embodiment and is composed of five factors:
1992; Young, 1990). Embodiment also has been embodiment, body journey, physical freedom versus
understood as a key element of identity or a sense physical corseting, mental freedom versus mental
of self, what is known or experienced “as me” corseting, and social power versus social
(Young, 1990). disempowerment.
Sexual subjectivity has been articulated in psy- Another psychological concept that is salient to
chology as one’s sense, awareness, or knowledge of embodiment is agency or choice. A critical and
one’s perspectives, feelings, beliefs, and desires as a often-contested dimension of embodiment is the
sexual being situated in the body; it has been artic- place of agency and choice in how it is conceptual-
ulated as including sexual body–esteem, entitle- ized. That is, to what extent might conscious pro-
ment to self-pleasure and pleasure from a partner, cesses be involved in what people do or feel or
sexual self-efficacy, sexual agency, and reflection want in, with, or for their bodies, and in what
about sexual behavior (Fine, 1988; Hirschman, ways is embodiment predicated on unconscious
Impett, & Schooler, 2006; Horne & Zimmer- processes? Some feminist theorists have discussed
Gembeck, 2005; Phillips, 2000; Tolman, 1994, agency and choice as key sites of contestation
2002). Identity theories position sexual subjectivity around the body and sexuality (Gill, 2008).
as an ongoing process of constructing and experi- Another area in which the rhetoric of “choice”
encing a coherent sexual self through available dis- appears is in disagreements about Foucault, partic-
courses (e.g., Hammack & Cohler, 2009; Ussher, ularly critiques that his theory lacked the capacity
1989). The theory of self-objectification provides an for an agentic, resistant subject who could articu-
explanation for individuals’ conscious and less con- late and enact counterhegemonic discourses—
scious monitoring and shaping of their bodies to discourses that explicitly challenge or refute what
comply with conventions of “attractive” and “nor- dominant practices or norms determine to be
mal” sexual bodies. This process relies on positing acceptable, normal, or valued (Alcoff, 1988; for a
(for women and gay men) the internalization of a critique of this perspective, see also Lacombe,
“male (desiring) gaze,” such that a person turns her 1996). If bodily experience is constructed by hege-
or his own body into an object, observed not only monic discourses, then are individuals doomed to
by others but also by the self. Rather than existing enact and abide by its regulatory power? The psy-
as a feeling subject, an individual moves a specific chological concept of agency is a capacity to recog-
dimension of the social world from the interper- nize and enact choices, that is, “the ability of
sonal to the intraindividual to organize one’s per- human beings to create viable lives even when
ception of one’s body and bodily experience they are constrained by social forces” (Eitzen, Baca
(Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997; McKinley & Hyde, Zinn, & Gold, 1999, p. 469). The self-determination
1996). This theory was developed to understand theory model of internalization provides a frame-
women’s relationships with their bodies under the work linking the intrapsychic, social, and subjec-
conditions of patriarchy in which their bodies are tive dimensions of agency and choice:
the focus, in practices and in discourses, of male
desire and originally was demonstrated as a part of Individuals may feel autonomous while
women’s and not men’s psychological repertoire meeting social expectations as a result
(Fredrickson, Roberts, Noll, Quinn, & Twenge, of internalization, a process by which

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Sexuality and Embodiment

individuals over time increasingly come femininity requires constant self-surveillance and
to identify with social expectations, so self-objectification, as women internalize an observ-
that subjectively they experience these er’s perspective and endeavor to live up to impossi-
constraints in a highly agentic way, that ble standards of sexual desirability (Fredrickson &
is, in a way that involves a subjective Roberts, 1997; J. Holland et al., 2004). Many femi-
sense of autonomy or choice. (Miller, nists, therefore, have argued that traditional femi-
Das, & Chakravarthy, 2011, p. 46) ninity ideologies play an alienating role in the lives
of women, estranging them from their bodies and
Agency can range from conscious resistance to their sexualities (Bartky, 1990; J. Holland et al.,
oppressive forces or cultural constraints to survival 2004, Tolman, 2002). Indeed, women who endorse
strategies that are neither transformative nor meant traditional femininity ideologies report experienc-
to be. Agency has been conceptualized as “strategies” ing less sexual agency and less comfort with their
of action, ranging from unconscious capitulation bodies during sex (Curtin, Ward, Merriweather, &
that does not intend resistance to the much more Carruthers, 2011). It follows, then, that when
deliberate and organized resistances people engage women are thinking about their bodies during sex
in because they have the agency to do so. Further- (high levels of body consciousness), they have less
more, agency can be exercised as accommodation to, sexual self-esteem (Wiederman, 2000), experience
or resistance toward, norms and structures that man- less sexual pleasure (Sanchez & Kiefer, 2007), have
age, control, and discipline the body (Dillaway, more difficulty achieving orgasm (Sanchez &
2011; Komter, 1989). Currently there is much Kiefer, 2007), and have greater sexual anxiety (Wie-
debate about the place of agency and choice in rela- derman, 2000) and emotional disengagement during
tion to embodiment (Gill, 2008; Peterson, 2010), sex (Yamamiya, Cash, & Thompson, 2006). This
with some scholarship tackling it as a central ques- distancing of women’s psyches from their bodies
tion related to sexuality and embodiment (Albanesi, during sexual encounters may make it difficult for
2009). One of the key questions in this debate is how women to negotiate safe and pleasurable sexual
people’s understanding of their decision making may experiences (Curtin et al., 2011).
be impeded by what appears to be a set of viable Just as femininity plays a key role in regulating
choices that in fact is impoverished (Tolman, 2012). the behaviors and attitudes of women within com-
pulsory heterosexuality (Rich, 1980), traditional
Gendered Sexual Bodies masculine ideals prescribe what sexual activities
In the field of sexuality, femininity traditionally is and desires are acceptable for men (Byers, 1995;
understood as a collection of heteronormative J. Holland, Ramazanoglu, Sharpe, & Thomson, 2003;
scripts, norms, or ideologies that require women J. Holland et al., 2004). Some scholars have even
to suppress their needs and desires (Greene & argued that “heterosexuality is not, as it appears to
Faulkner, 2005; J. Holland, Ramazanoglu, Sharpe, be, masculinity-and-femininity in opposition: it is
& Thomson, 2004), to play “gatekeeper” roles for masculinity” (J. Holland et al., 2004, p. 10). That is,
male desire (Byers, 1995; Gagnon, 1990), and to both women and men alike are held to the standards
remain ignorant about sex in general (Gagnon, of what J. Holland et al. (2004) have described as an
1990; J. Holland et al., 2004). At the same time, internalized “male-in-the-head,” or a hegemonic,
femininity also requires attending to one’s sexual heterosexual masculine observer that resides within
body, as many scholars have pointed to the increas- the minds of all people, submitting us to the
ing pressure on women to “perfect” their genital surveillance of a “male gaze” (J. Holland et al., 2004;
appearances via labiaplasty and other cosmetic pro- Storr, 2000). Within sexuality, traditional ideals of
cedures meant to render women’s genitalia more masculinity both include and demand urgent and
“feminine” by making them more “virginal” or insatiable heterosexual male sexual desire
“childlike” (Braun, 2005; Braun & Kitzinger, 2001; (Falomir-Pichastor, Manuel, & Mugny, 2009;
Sanger, 2009; Tiefer, 2008). Furthermore, Forrest, 2000) as well as an innate knowledge of

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Tolman, Bowman, and Fahs

sexuality that requires no additional learning This suggests that compared with men, women’s
(Kehily, 2001). Masculinity often constructs male feelings about nudity reference cultural scripts that
bodies as dominant (Kehily, 2001; Simpson, 2007) imagine female nudity as only and inherently sexual.
and penetrative (whereas female or feminine bodies Cover (2003) noted that recent slippages have
are receptive; Forrest, 2000). Men’s first experiences occurred between sites once considered “nonsexual”
with (hetero)sexual intercourse may make them feel and sites imbued with the “sexual,” particularly
like they are really “being a man,” and some men communal showers, places where children bathe,
recall very embodied experiences of sexual pleasure and public nude beaches, indicating that our cul-
in which “something mysterious happens all over tural panics surrounding nudity have extended into
your body” (Simpson, 2007, p. 177). Hegemonic sites previously considered nonsexual.
masculinity intersects with race and other social In more specific analyses of sexualized body
identities as, for example, Black men may be pre- parts, women’s breasts have received much attention
sumed to have better sexual performance (Nyanzi, as a site of embodiment and a locus for cultural anx-
Rosenberg-Jallow, Bah & Nyanzi, 2005), thus posi- ieties about small versus large breasts. Millsted and
tioning these men as hypermasculine and, as such, Frith (2003) found that women’s breasts are
more ruled by sexual impulses and thus animalistic invested with social, cultural, and political meanings
and in greater need of social control. that shape women’s understandings of their embod-
ied selves, particularly as they associate self-worth
The Sexual Body and Its Parts with the size of their breasts. After interviewing
Researchers often conceptualize bodies by focusing eight large-breasted women, they concluded that
on the particular social and cultural messages these women experience a mix of feeling feminine
directed at particular parts of the body, particularly and attractive while also recognizing their breasts as
breasts, genitals, and other easily sexualized body appropriated and consumed by others. Echoing
parts. Consequently, a sizeable body of research has these findings, Young (2005) asserted that breasts
emerged that examines the particular anxieties and represent sites of conflict that reveal the depth of
challenges associated with different body parts and patriarchy, as women’s quests toward cosmetic sur-
with conceptualizations of the exposed body. In gen- gery (breast enlargement and postmastectomy pro-
eral, research on sexualized body parts suggests that cedures) link femininity with the size and shape of
compliance with social norms is expected for numer- women’s breasts.
ous regions of the body, whereas deviance from Just as breasts have signified the essence of femi-
social norms elicits rejection and social disapproval. ninity for women, the penis has signified ultimate
Studies examining nudity often have questioned masculinity for men. In the comparable way that
the relationship between individuals and their social small breasts often create anxiety for women, small
contexts, particularly in the public regulation and penises have elicited subjective feelings of distress
personal assessment of the nude female body. Eck for men. The anxiety is caused, in part, by ambiguity
(2003) found that both men and women had readily about what constitutes “small” in a context in which
accessible cultural scripts about the naked female size is imbued with a fundamental gender “perfor-
body (e.g., overt sexualization and acceptance), mance.” Del Rosso’s (2011) online ethnography
whereas the naked male body elicited more diverse found that men who self-identified as having small
and less scripted responses (e.g., feelings of guilt, penises felt more anxiety in face-to-face encounters
rejecting the body). This may influence women’s with partners than in online encounters, perhaps
subjective feelings about their nude bodies, as Wein- suggesting that online sexual exchanges can mediate
berg and Williams (2010a) found that women’s pos- the negative impact of feeling that one has a small
itive feelings about nudity were more strongly penis. Furthermore, as Nugteren et al., (2010) found
associated with sexual behavior and pleasure com- in their study of men seeking treatment for small
pared with men and were strongly mitigated penises, the majority of men found relief with psy-
through positive relationships with their partners. chotherapy, although a small percentage required

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Sexuality and Embodiment

surgery to alleviate the stressors caused by perceived with greater likelihood of seeking gynecological
small penis size. Looking more broadly at social and exams, particularly for women who regularly prac-
cultural trends, both pornography and the rise of the ticed vaginal penetrative intercourse (DeMaria, Hol-
Viagra culture have influenced men’s experiences of lub, & Herbenick, 2011). Associations between
“phallic embodiment,” setting larger (and harder) positive female genital self-image and women’s sex-
standards for “typical” masculinity beyond average ual health and functioning also have been identified
bodies (Loe, 2007; Maddison, 2009; see Volume 2, (Herbenick & Reece, 2010; see Chapter 11, this vol-
Chapter 1, this handbook). ume), as women with more positive feelings toward
Although both men and women face pressures to their genitals reported more frequent vibrator use,
groom body hair in socially scripted ways—often masturbation, genital self-examinations, and gyneco-
with women as completely hairless and men as hairy logical visits (Herbenick et al., 2011).
(or, at most, increasingly “manscaped” (Boroughs, Perhaps because social scripts about the body
Cafri, & Thompson, 2005)—research on body hair remain relatively rigid, particularly for women,
has found that women who deviate from social scripts expectations that women will modify, alter, and
face more severe social punishments and rejection conform their bodies to existing cultural standards
than do men (Fahs, 2011a). With approximately 99% have led to a slew of plastic surgeries promoted to
of women reporting that they had removed body hair women. In addition to pressures women face to
at some point in their lives (Toerien, Wilkinson, & enlarge their breasts, new surgeries target women’s
Choi, 2005), women who do not shave their body genitals, particularly their labia and vaginas. Braun
hair face internal feelings of disgust and external and Tiefer (2010) outlined how trends toward “dis-
appraisals of their bodies as “manly” and unattractive, ease mongering” have created new ways for wom-
suggesting that heterosexist and sexist scripts both en’s self-consciousness to translate into surgical
inform assessments of body hair (Fahs, 2011a). Fur- procedures, including labiaplasties (e.g., removing
thermore, women of color who choose to have body “excess” labial tissue in a manner that produces a
hair face more severe social penalties than White more child-like vulva), vaginal “rejuvenation,” and
women, particularly from family members concerned vaginal tightening. Despite the medical community
with “respectability” (Fahs & Delgado, 2011). Aside finding no medically indicated reason for such sur-
from body hair (i.e., underarm, leg, facial), women geries, a new market of genital surgeries has arisen
have experienced increasing pressures to remove all in the past decade (Braun, 2005). In qualitative
or most of their pubic hair (Tricklebank, Braun, & research on women who underwent a labiaplasty,
Clarke, in press), with younger and partnered women Bramwell, Morland, and Garden (2007) found that
reporting more frequent pubic hair removal than women’s expectations for how a labiaplasty would
older and nonpartnered women (Herbenick, Schick, improve their sex lives did not translate into reality.
Reece, Sanders, & Fortenberry, 2010). Many feminists caution that plastic surgeries can
Researchers also recently identified a new line of instigate urgent and endless renovations of the self
work examining women’s genital self-image, particu- (M. Jones, 2008), with debates emerging about the
larly how women feel about their vulvas and pubic efficacy and agency of women who undergo elective
hair. Roberts and Waters (2004) posited that because plastic surgery. Pitts (1999) has argued that when
media messages convey women’s fundamental unac- mental health discourses dominate discussions
ceptability in their natural state, women internalize about body modification, alternative accounts of
ideas that they need sanitizing, deodorizing, exfoliat- female embodiment become obscured by discus-
ing, and denuding (see also Bartky, 1990). These sions of the “normal” and “pathological” body.
self-objectifying feelings can translate into women’s Schover et al. (1995) studied women who had can-
disgust toward their vaginas, menstrual cycles, and cer and underwent partial mastectomies and mam-
bodily functions. More precisely, researchers have moplasties and found that fewer than 20% of women
developed the Female Genital Self-Image scale, find- reported poor psychosocial adjustment, poor body
ing that more positive genital self-image correlated image, or poor sexual functioning, although women

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Tolman, Bowman, and Fahs

who had elected chemotherapy treatments reported related to their partner’s feelings about it and the
poorer sexual functioning and body image (see social scripts they had internalized about receiving
Chapter 21, this volume). Adding to these debates, oral sex (Bay-Cheng & Fava, 2011; see also Burns,
Gagné and McGaughey (2002) noted that women Futch, & Tolman, 2011)
who underwent elective mammoplasty (i.e., not Similar controversies surrounding the meaning
postcancer reconstruction) felt greater power and of sexual satisfaction and orgasm have also appeared
control over their bodies even while embodying in recent literatures on embodiment. Deciding how
hegemonic ideals of feminine beauty. They argued to measure sexual satisfaction, along with consider-
that cosmetic surgery can empower individual ations about how satisfaction may interact with
women while also reinforcing ideals and norms that social identities and social justice concerns, has been
oppress women as a group. taken up in McClelland’s (2010) call for better
understandings of social and sexual stigmas as ante-
The Sexual Body in Action cedents to sexual satisfaction ratings. Fahs and
Commonly heard phrases like “sexual performance” Swank (2011) found sexual satisfaction and sexual
and “sexual satisfaction” have roots in pathologizing activity as often misaligned. In particular, younger
sexuality and sexual bodies (Irvine, 1990) as well as women, women of color, less educated women, and
in empirical work on these same topics, as scholars lower socioeconomic status women describe having
have examined the sexual body in action. Evaluating low sexual satisfaction and high sexual activity.
the meaning of sexual desire, sexual satisfaction, Social identity variables also appeared as significant
orgasm, sexual performances, and technologies in a recent study by Seal, Smith, Coley, Perry, and
exerted on (or embraced by) the sexual body have all Gamez (2008), who found that age differentials
constituted emerging areas of research in recent years. between partners and the presence of a Black male
Sexual desire constitutes one of the most com- partner predicted more traditional interpersonal
plex and difficult topics to assess, explore, theorize, scripts about sexuality.
and make claims about. As issues of safety, consent, Research on orgasm also has revealed much
pleasure, commitment, taboo, and cultural scripts about the way men and women internalize scripts
about the “erotic” (broadly defined) fuse, research about sexual normality and “acceptable” desires.
on sexual desire provides a window into the com- Fahs (2011b) found that women faked orgasm for
plexity of psychological research on embodiment. a number of reasons, primarily to please their
As a more concrete examination of desire, research (male) partners, to end the encounter (often
has directed much recent attention to the desires because of fatigue), and to seem sexually normal.
and practices of young women. Sieg (2007) noted Jackson and Scott (2007) theorized the gendered
that although young women’s sexualities more dimensions of women faking orgasm and noted
recently often are portrayed as liberating and that the production of fake orgasms signifies the
empowered, young women’s qualitative accounts of quintessential problems of conceptualizing
their experiences reveal discrepancies between their embodiment too broadly: namely, broad sociologi-
relational desires and relational realities in that they cal views on embodiment neglect the more con-
compromised their own needs and desires within crete modes in which material gendered bodies
their heterosexual relationships. Similarly, Back- behave in everyday life. Theoretical accounts of
strom, Armstrong, and Puentes (2012) interviewed orgasm have given new and fruitful direction to the
43 college women about their experiences with cun- study of the sexual body in action. Performance
nilingus and found that women in relationships artist Frueh (2003) explored orgasm as an artistic
could expect and ask for cunnilingus, whereas expression, whereas Jagose (2010) asserted that the
women merely “hooking up” often could not unless fake orgasm reveals the counterfeit nature of het-
they asserted these desires clearly. Furthermore, erosexual sex by showing the pleasures inherent in
women in relationships alternatively found both a queer deconstruction of heterosexual penetrative
pleasure and difficulty with cunnilingus, particularly intercourse.

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Along these lines, embodiment researchers have performances of male sexuality, Jewkes and Morrell
examined, theoretically and empirically, the notion (2010) found that enacting black African manhood
of performances of the sexual body. Although the that emphasized toughness, strength, and prodigious
concept of “sexual performance” has a long history sexual success was associated with more sexual risk-
in sexuality research and therapy (i.e., Kaplan, taking, as men resisted condoms and HIV treatment,
1974), the performance of the sexual body in action whereas women who espoused this perspective were
refers to productions and enactments of certain more tolerant of infidelity and violence. In a more
forms of embodiment rather than achievement by subversive example, Shapiro’s (2007) study of drag
specific body parts. The ways people consume sexu- kings found that intentional transgressive perfor-
ality and perform sexuality has cast a wide net, cap- mances of gender encouraged interrogation, play,
turing research not only on body norms but also and adoption of new social roles, as gender perfor-
sexual desire, practices, and feelings. As Weber mances formed the basis for “oppositional commu-
(1998) argued, sexual performances can expand nities” of differently embodied selves.
widely (e.g., the nation state) or remain incredibly Sexual performances are beholden to their partic-
detailed and small (e.g., the individual orgasm). In ular social and political contexts, particularly as women
particular, embodiment researchers have captured adopt new ways to attract the sexually endorsing male
the ways women manage others’ anxieties about gaze. An increasing number of studies have interro-
their bodies by performing their own bodies within gated the phenomenon of women engaging in
certain socially prescribed limits. Fahs (2011a) same-sex eroticism for the viewing benefit of men
argued that much of contemporary women’s sexual- (Diamond, 2005). Just as Fahs (2009) theorized this
ity reflects the simultaneously liberating and disem- “performative bisexuality” as a potentially new man-
powering aspects of sexual performance, particularly ifestation of compulsory heterosexuality, Hamilton
when women fake orgasms, pretend bisexuality at (2007) also found that college women affiliated with
parties in front of men, discuss female Viagra, and the Greek party scene catered to male sexual desire
minimize sexual coercion and violence as “okay” or by performing interest in same-sex eroticism and by
“not really rape.” Women learn to manage their rejecting lesbians because of their assumed disinter-
identities and “do gender” (West & Zimmerman, est in garnering men’s sexual attention. Yost and
1987) in particular ways that conform to, and rebel McCarthy (2012) found that 33% of college women
against, cultural and social expectations. Berkowitz had engaged in same-sex kissing at college parties,
(2006) found that women and men manage their while 69% of college men and women had observed
self-presentation and negotiate gender performances this behavior. High levels of alcohol consumption,
even in adult novelty stores, where people both pressure to engage in same-sex kissing, heterosexist
enact and resist hegemonic masculinity, femininity, attitudes, and the belief that college is a time for
and compulsory heterosexuality. experimentation predicted greater likelihood of
Ultimately, questions have arisen about the bene- women engaging in public same-sex eroticism at
fits and problems of adhering to traditional perfor- college parties (see Chapter 20, this volume).
mances of gender and sexuality, particularly for the As a more literal example of the performing sex-
embodied self. In a review of the empirical literature, ual body, sexualized dancing also has appeared in
Sanchez, Fetterolf, and Rudman (2012) found that the contemporary literatures on women’s embodi-
traditional gender role adherence had negative con- ment. Regehr (2012) has theorized the increasing
sequences for women’s sexuality and led to more popularity of recreational burlesque dancing as
sexual problems and less sexual satisfaction. When enhancing women’s feelings of empowerment and
women internalized traditional connections between self-efficacy even while connecting to a history of
sexuality and male power, and when men enacted women offering their bodies for men’s visual con-
such connections, both men and women experi- sumption (e.g., pornography and strip clubs). In an
enced less rewarding and authentic sexual expres- interview study of young women contestants on a
sions (see Chapter 2, this volume). To address other burlesque reality television show in which they

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Tolman, Bowman, and Fahs

spent 6 weeks learning techniques to perform, Angulo-Olaiz (2009) found that Latina women
Regehr found that some of the women shifted from struggled with prioritizing sexual health because of
an exclusive focus on looking at their bodies to gendered perceptions of love and motherhood,
beginning to feel more sexy or sexy once again associations between commitment and sexual risk-
through engagement in a sexualized practice that taking, and unequal access to economic opportunities.
was new to them. She found that by the final perfor- In discussions of sexual safety and condom use,
mance, these women were more focused on their women as the carriers of disease have appeared
own embodied experiences, with an imagined view- frequently, particularly in discussions of the HPV
ership that was present but also receded as their vaccine (Carpenter & Casper, 2009). Analyzing
own practice had developed. Looking at sexualized research findings on safer heterosexual practices,
dancing at college parties, Ronen (2010) described Vitellone (2002) found that heterosexual masculine
this dancing in less liberating terms, finding that self-identity, rather than avoidance of disease or
men initiated sexual “grinding” more often than risk, plays a key role in the creation of discourse
women and thus reproduced systematic gender surrounding condoms.
inequalities by limiting women’s access to agency Technologies of sexual embodiment can be
and pleasure because of men’s control of, and intru- understood as medical or technological efforts to
sion into, women’s space. In this dancing, women create particular kinds of desires, appearances, or
had to privilege men’s pleasures over their own sexual norms as enacted onto the embodied female
while confirming men’s higher status. Similar argu- self. As a quintessential example, the rise of Viagra
ments could be made for the appropriation of strip- (Loe, 2006) and experimentation with female Viagra
ping into “strip aerobics,” as it packages “women’s and sexual performance drugs (e.g., flibanerin, silde-
empowerment” within the guise of something that nafil; Fahs, 2011a) exemplify the medicalization of
reveals the “everyday” aspects of sexual exploitation sexual performance. Feminists, particularly Tiefer
(Whitehead & Kurz, 2009). (2004), have devoted significant critical attention to
Performances of sexuality also can extend into the widespread advertisement and dispersion of
the realm of reproductive technology, as ideas about Viagra, noting that it prescribes not only medical-
gender and power infuse medical understandings of ized erections but also incites desire for “overperfor-
the body and its processes. Embodiment scholars mance,” while ignoring the sociocultural bases of
have found clear connections among gender, sexual desire and performance. Demonstrating the
embodiment, and reproductive control. Carpenter necessity of seeing Viagra as socially situated,
and Casper (2009) examined public debates about Castro-Vásquez (2006) posited that the introduction
the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, known of Viagra in Japan coincided with anxieties about
to prevent many cervical cancers, and found that pollution, men’s unwillingness to perform their
attempts to mandate HPV vaccination have activated “appropriate” gender roles, decreased adherence to
intense concerns about adolescent girls’ “promiscu- marriage norms, and declining birth rates. A similar
ity,” whereas discourses surrounding the promotion study of New Zealand men conducted by Grace,
of male circumcision to prevent HIV have not trig- Potts, Gavey, and Vares (2006) found that Viagra
gered similar anxieties around boys’ sexuality. Such connects with men seeing their partner’s pleasure as
technologies also can become a mechanism to repro- a measure of success and their own sexuality as
duce meanings of gender and sexuality as they inter- based in performance. Conversely, Loe (2004)
act with age and race. Along these lines, Lowe found that women in the United States did not view
(2005) found that although women can access con- Viagra as universally positive, as some aging women
traceptive technologies and assert bodily autonomy were becoming less interested in sex at the same
by controlling their reproduction, this conflicts with time as their longtime partners were now having
dynamics present in heterosexual couplings that pharmaceutically induced erections.
demand attention to, and concern with, men’s pref- Lifestyle drugs that refashion the body according
erences and needs, sometimes at women’s expense. to socially acceptable or socially demanded criteria

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Sexuality and Embodiment

carry with them the need for caution and concern by differ more than had been previously assumed
those who advocate social views of sexuality. Mar- (McHugh, 2006; Tiefer, 2006; see also Chapters 7
shall (2006) cautioned that Viagra represents not and 8, this volume). The New View campaign, a
only the medicalization of sexuality but also the group of feminist researchers, activists, and thera-
expansion of consumer culture and the manufac- pists who work on female sexuality, has articulated
tured notion of the “sexual expert” who decides a critical stance toward the medicalization of wom-
what “normal” sexual functioning looks like, thus en’s sexual problems (Cacchioni, 2007; Tiefer, 2001,
normalizing and defining dysfunction according to 2010). The campaign has fought against the increas-
pharmaceutical priorities. Mamo and Fishman ingly automatic and first response to women’s con-
(2001) argued that Viagra, much like antidepres- cerns with their sexual bodies to be medicalizing
sants, performs ideological work and reinforces tra- women’s desires, orgasms, or physiological func-
ditional notions of hegemonic masculinity (e.g., tioning. The campaign claims that such medicaliza-
erection as “manly”). Marshall (2006) noted that tion of women’s bodies obfuscates and suppresses
Viagra has created new standards for male virility by more complex understandings of women’s sexual
distorting the naturally occurring declines in virility functioning. Hartley (2006) reported that for drug
that coincide with age. Nuancing this claim, Went- companies to effectively create a market for FSD
zell (2011) studied Mexican men from different gen- drugs, they had to problematize or “disease” the
erations and noted that younger men expressed vicissitudes of women’s sexuality while also promot-
more interest in Viagra than older men, although ing off-label uses of men’s Viagra to women. Conse-
these younger men wanted to use it to sustain posi- quently, drug companies have promoted FSD as
tive marital sexual attachments rather than in the increasingly widespread and have worked to infuse
service of machismo. Still, opportunities for resis- mainstream media with ideas about the “failing”
tance to these medically reinforced social scripts female sexual body (Hartley & Tiefer, 2003). Recog-
abound, as some have found ways to subvert the nizing that what constitutes “normal” sexual func-
intended uses of Viagra in meaningful ways. Holt tioning for women is complex and ambiguous at
(2009) found that medical understandings of Viagra best (see Chapter 8, this volume), an embodied
as a drug guaranteed to produce erectile perfor- analysis of the social underpinnings of the market
mance compared with gay men’s recreational use of for drugs demonstrates how discourses about sexual
Viagra produces questions about the public health bodies can be leveraged into bodily experience, indi-
and social understandings of safe sex and “good” sex vidual and social practices, and social policy.
within different subcultures of men. Potts (2004)
theorized that although Viagra has created new defi-
THE SEXUAL BODY ACROSS THE LIFE
nitions of “normal” sexuality, its inconsistent ability
SPAN
to induce consistent erections and the failure of
female Viagra underscore the necessity for experi- As sexuality develops across the life span, so does
mentation, creativity, and transformation in the the sexual body itself. Corporeal changes in physiol-
erotic realm. ogy and hormones are infused with social meanings.
As a note on the future of the performing sexual Social meanings and corporeality shift inextricably
body, the development of, and failure to gain U.S. over the course of a life. Embodiment itself is both
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for, continuous, as embodied processes are always
female sexual desire disorder drugs have illuminated already infused in the development of sexuality, and
additional gendered debates about the medicaliza- dynamic in form and experience.
tion of sexuality. More than a decade has passed
since the FDA approved Viagra for men in 1998, and Childhood
a successful female counterpart has yet to be pro- Studies of childhood sexuality are generally few and
duced (Hartley, 2006; Tiefer, 2006), suggesting that far between (Sandfort & Rademakers, 2000; see
sexual dysfunction among men and women may Chapter 14, this volume), and they tend to focus

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Tolman, Bowman, and Fahs

almost exclusively on sexual abuse (Bancroft, 2003; In one study of young children’s body awareness
Ryan, 2000). Other weaknesses of this literature and physical intimacy (Rademakers, Laan, &
include an overreliance on retrospective accounts Straver, 2003), researchers interviewed 31 children
(Graham, 2003) and an overemphasis on charting 8 to 9 years old and their parents, about romping,
and tabulating the specific behaviors in which chil- cuddling, and being in love. Most children enjoyed
dren engage (Friedrich, 2003). Although some stud- cuddling because of the bodily sensations or feeling
ies have begun to focus on children’s sexual identities of safety they felt, and many more of the children
and sexual cultures, and in particular have explored than their parents said that children need cuddling;
how heteronormativity organizes these aspects of more than half said they had been in love, said it
sexuality as early as the childhood years (Renold, was positive, “nice,” “fun,” and a “tickling sensa-
2005), inquiry into embodied dimensions of child- tion” (Rademakers et al., 2003, p. 124). When
hood sexuality remains scarce. Because the notion of shown a naked same-sexed body, all children were
childhood sexuality poses a profound threat to hege- able to identify what were “pleasant” parts for them,
monic notions of childhood as a time of innocence, with fewer indicating “exciting”; even fewer indi-
children are denied knowledge about sexuality and cated that genitals, bottom, or anus were either
any form of sexual citizenship (Angelides, 2004; “exciting” or “pleasant” parts of their own bodies.
Renold, 2005; Robinson, 2012). The prohibition on No gender differences were identified. Although
knowledge of childhood sexuality extends to chil- there is evidence that both boys and girls masturbate
dren’s apprehension of their own bodily feelings in childhood (Strachan & Staples, 2012), there is
(Lamb, 2001; Sandfort & Rademakers, 2000). We little inquiry into what these experiences feel like for
know little about whether children’s embodied feel- them, in either prospective or retrospective reports.
ings, experiences of arousal, and genital sensations Herdt and McClintock (2000) have argued for a
can even be considered sexual (Ryan, 2000), and “magical age of 10,” when awareness of sexual feel-
what expected development of these bodily sensa- ings and attractions as distinctly sexual—and the
tions and experiences entails (Lamb & Coakley, emergence of unequivocally sexual subjectivity—is
1993). Western societies generally relegate children’s associated with an interplay between adrenarche
sexual feelings to a liminal developmental state called (maturational increase in adrenal androgen produc-
“emerging sexuality” (Renold, 2005, p. 37), which tion) and changing cultural meanings and roles. In
prepares the child for adult sexuality but is itself their formulation, these braided developments mark
inherently incomplete. There is disagreement about the prepubertal shift from childhood to adolescent
whether children’s sexual play is actually sexual or sexuality. Although their theory is anchored in an
just another form of play (Renold, 2005; Robinson, overview of cross-cultural studies, no systematic or
2012) or evidence of sexual abuse (Hyde, 2003). We empirical work has confirmed this model, specifi-
also do not understand the degree to which children’s cally the critical role that they posit for adrenal
developing cognitive capacities shape their capacity androgens in this transition.
for making meaning of pleasurable feelings in the
body as sexual (Robinson, 2012). In the few studies Adolescence
that have incorporated questions about children’s The body offers and has been imbued with meanings
bodily experiences of sexuality, it remains difficult to associated with the emergence of adult sexuality
resolve these questions. Some studies have traced over the course of adolescence. One key and
how girls transition from child to adolescent in mid- increasingly troubled bodily focus has been the loss
dle school, by repositioning these subjectivities of virginity, typically defined, and instantly problem-
through embodied activities, such as from “innocent atized, as the first experience of sexual intercourse.
play” to the “heterosexualization of boy-girl friend- Even the term “loss” has been challenged as
ships” (Renold, 2006, p. 495), in which girls begin to positioning this experience as both passive and
experience and engage with boys as potential boy- commodified. The emergence of “secondary virginity”
friends rather than playmates (see also Hauge, 2009). is an exquisite case in point, a reclamation discourse

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arising out of the abstinence-only movement disembodiment required and produced by enacting
whereby both girls and boys who have had sexual practices of proper femininity, regimes of dress and
intercourse could proclaim the status of virginity diet, and subsequent alienation from their material
contingent on their desire and commitment to not or sensate bodies yielded pressure on girls to be pas-
having sex overriding their bodily history sive objects of others’ sexual desire (J. Holland &
(Loewenson, Ireland, & Resnick, 2004). Ramazanoglu, 1994).
Most of the literature on embodied adolescent They found that girls’ concern about their reputa-
sexuality has focused on girls’ experiences, primar- tions and having to contend with both the specter
ily because this literature rests on cultural assump- and experience of sexual coercion and violence (see
tions that adolescent boys’ sexual experiences are also Burns et al., 2011; Tolman, 1994, 2002) pro-
predicated on bodily (and unbridled) sexual desire duced at best struggles with their sexual feelings and
and the complementary assumption of girls either responses. For some, “normal sex” did not include a
not having or not acting on their own sexual feel- girl’s sexual pleasure but did require faking orgasm;
ings (Fine, 1988; J. Holland & Thomson, 2010; Tol- one girl expressed her surprise at having a real
man, 2006). These discursive studies are organized orgasm, when she had understood faking as part of
by questions of how young people “take up” subject “normal sex.” These authors’ notion of “the male in
positions, identified by how they describe their the head,” those heteronormative demands of a set
experiences, that is, what discourses they use to of sexual practices predicated on patriarchal surveil-
make sense of their sexual and relational experi- lance and organization of sexuality around male sex-
ences. Other studies within this conceptual context ual needs, dominated the accounts they heard. J.
address how young people experience, make mean- Holland et al. (2004) did hear of girls’ resistance to
ing of, and negotiate their sexual desires and other embodied femininity in the realm of sexual practices
dimensions of sexual experiences. This research sit- in this research. More often, “experiential empower-
uates girls’ and boys’ embodied practices within the ment,” that is, enacted within and through the body,
theoretical framework of heteronormativity, investi- was overridden by “intellectual empowerment,” in
gating how constructions of femininity and mascu- which girls’ belief in their ability to choose sexual
linity underpin and shape their individual bodily agency was difficult to play out. Enactments of
experiences (e.g., Epstein, Calzo, Smiler, & Ward, “good” and “bad” girl performances, through sexual-
2009; Impett, Henson, Breines, Schooler, & Tol- ized clothing to explicit sexual agency, have been
man, 2011). Another set of questions is how adoles- found to fluctuate between stark and ambiguous,
cents constitute, are constituted by, and also resist with girls balancing the benefits and costs of these
heteronormativity in and via their bodies in their mutually reinforcing embodiments and also main-
(primarily heterosexual) relationships (Hauge, taining ambiguity about meanings (Gleeson & Frith,
2009; Maxwell & Aggleton, 2010; Renold & 2004; Hauge, 2009). Interviews with young men
Ringrose, 2011). have revealed the tensions between the variability in
In particular, this line of research has investi- their actual bodily sexual feelings and the flat yet
gated how feminine heterosexual practices embody powerful message of being “up for it” all the time
the power relations through which masculinity (J. Holland & Thomson, 2010). These researchers
and femininity are constructed (Burns et al., 2011; noted the difficulty of discerning embodied sexual
J. Holland, Ramazanoglu, Sharpe, & Thomson, experience through talk, given the limited language
1994; J. Holland et al. 2004; Martin, 1996; Pascoe, for, and social condemnation and even titillation of,
2007; Tolman, 2002). J. Holland et al. (1994) found talking explicitly about sex and sexual activity. In a
that for most of the 150 diverse young women in recent reflection on the continuity and changes in
their narrative study, who for the most part pro- young people’s sexual experiences, J. Holland and
vided disembodied accounts of sexual experience, Thomson (2010) found that although the cultural
they heard “points of tension where physical bodies milieu is far more sexualized than it was a decade
interrupt idealized relationships” (p. 23). The ago, with pornography being part of the mainstream,

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sexual diversity being visible, and information about found that young women with a stronger sense of
condoms and contraception being more available, self as sexual were more likely to experience sexual
for young people, negotiating heterosexuality satisfaction. Ringrose (2013) suggested that narra-
remains “fragile and uncertain” (p. 348). tives told by early adolescent girls in individual
The array of discourses about the bodies and sex- interviews and mixed-ethnicity focus groups reflect
ualities of girls, and to some extent, boys, of diverse combinations of simultaneous resistance to and
ethnicities and socioeconomic statuses has been desire for sexual subjectivities predicated on being
explicated in this area of research (French, 2012). the object of a male sexual gaze, undergirded by the
Tolman (2002; Tolman & Szalacha, 1999) found possible presence of their own desires. Maxwell and
continuities and distinctions in the desire narratives Aggleton (2012) examined how young women
of girls in urban and suburban contexts in which described and understood their own bodies in their
(urban) Black and Latina girls’ negotiation of sexual and relational encounters with boys. The
assumed hypersexuality was evident in their strug- majority of young women in the study described
gles to embody their sexuality and (suburban) sexually feeling bodies, including “sparks” and “sex-
White girls navigated assumptions of an absence of ual tensions” in their narratives (Maxwell & Aggle-
sexual feelings in their own bodies. Curtis (2009) ton, 2012, p. 314). Acting in relation to their
described “the geography of girls’ sexual pleasure” physical responses for and to another person, partic-
(p. 151) in her study of girls’ sexuality on Nevis ipants narrated confidence and a sense of their bod-
using surveys, focus groups, and individual inter- ies as powerful. Maxwell and Aggleton suggested
views with girls ages 12–17 years old. Focusing on that these narratives reflect these girls’ bodies as pro-
the context of a changing social landscape in which viding a space for becoming more knowledgeable
new discourses and images of female sexual pleasure and comfortable with their sexuality and grounding
infuse traditional beliefs about sex and women’s sex- their choices about how they wanted to be sexual.
uality, she found that girls described experiences of They concluded that these narratives illuminate four
intense physical sexual pleasure in an array of sexual agentic practices within and beyond sexual interac-
contexts—the first willingly bestowed kiss, the tions anchored in these girls’ bodily sexual experi-
negotiation of sexual progression with overeager ences: assertive, refusing, proactive, and
boyfriends, and the endurance of the pain of first interrogative strategies.
intercourse. Although sexual pleasure wove through Although there is now a fast-growing literature
these girls’ narratives, sexual coercion often on the development of gay, lesbian, and bisexual
anchored their stories (see also, Fine & McClelland, identity construction (Diamond, 2005; Thompson
2006; Tolman, 1994; Vance, 1984). That is, embod- & Morgan, 2008; see Chapters 19 and 20, this vol-
ied sexual pleasure for these young women was clear ume), including uses of the body to construct and
and present even as they engaged in experiences that convey resistance to heteronormative expectations
they resisted or did not want. to produce these identities, actual sexual experi-
Another line of research has investigated sexual ences of sexual-minority young (or older) people
subjectivity, the sense and experience of the self as have received insufficient attention by researchers.
sexual, which is predicated in part on experience Diamond’s developmental study of 89 sexual-
anchored in the body and has been considered in minority women over a 10-year period identified
relation to sexual health. Curtin et al. (2011) “fluidity” in women’s sexuality, such that their
observed that concerns about body image or dis- attractions and behaviors changed over time, sug-
comfort with one’s body can make it difficult to gesting shifting embodied sexual feelings. She con-
experience one’s own body and sexual pleasure in cluded that many women’s desires may not be fixed
sexual activity. They found a relationship between on a particularly gendered object. In comparison,
diverse young women objectifying their own bodies the research on young sexual-minority men’s emerg-
and both body comfort and body self-consciousness ing sexual desire indicates more stability in desire
around sexual partners. Impett and Tolman (2006) for other men (e.g., Ainsworth & Baumeister, 2012).

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Boislard & Zimmer-Gembeck (2011) found that about their own sexuality (see the section Body-
young women with a history of same-sex sexual Related Disobedience later in this chapter).
experience and a monogamous steady partner McClelland (2011) has problematized our knowl-
reported a greater sense of entitlement to self-pleasure edge of sexual satisfaction among marginalized pop-
and more self-efficacy in their sexual pleasure. ulations not only because of inadequate sampling
but because assumptions of sexual entitlement (to
Adulthood bodily pleasure in particular) infuse the very items
Most of this chapter is about embodiment and sexu- of scales used to measure bodily satisfaction.
ality among adults, but several specific dimensions Dimensions and parts of the sexual body that are
can be noted from a life span perspective. Expecta- taken up in reproduction also have been studied
tions that sexual practices become associated with (see Chapter 23, this volume). Roberts and Waters
bodily sexual satisfaction, especially for women, (2004) observed that mandates of femininity
consolidate for adults. Some research has demon- demanding that women keep their bodies sanitized
strated associations for women between their feel- and deodorized mean that menstruation must be
ings about their bodies and their experiences of their “kept under wraps” (p. 5). Roberts (2004) found
sexual desire or arousal, that is, their feelings in that the more women self-objectified, that is, viewed
their bodies, whereas some research has demon- themselves as sexual objects, the more likely they
strated positive perceptions of one’s body and were to associate their menstruating bodies with dis-
increases in levels in sexual desire, especially in gust, shame, and embarrassment. Although the phe-
midlife and as women age (Woertman & Brink, nomenon of women’s pregnant bodies becoming
2012). In her clinical and theoretical work, Young newly sexualized in the media has been elaborated
(1990) elaborated explicitly how dissociation (Oliver, 2010), experiences of their own bodies as
induced by sexual trauma can produce disembodi- sexual (e.g., having sexual desires or feelings) dur-
ment among women, particularly dissociation or ing pregnancy have not been studied. In a study of
disconnection from sexual feelings. Sanchez and White breastfeeding mothers, Reich (2011) found
Kiefer (2007) found that body shame led to sexual women having to negotiate even potential exposure
self-consciousness during intercourse, which in turn of their breasts in public as a violation of norms of
predicted lower sexual arousability and less sexual femininity and sexuality, in which case the embodi-
satisfaction. These studies did not investigate differ- ment of their breasts as providing sustenance to
ences by race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. Ques- their babies ironically violated the sanctioned
tions of embodiment are raised rather than embodiment of their breasts as providing sexual
explained by these findings. In general, whereas excitement as objects of desire. In a phenomenologi-
bodily sexual feelings associated with sexual orien- cal study of menopausal hot flashes, Dillaway
tation has been an area of study (see the section The (2011) found, among primarily heterosexual, Black
Sexual Body in Action earlier in this chapter), and White women from a range of socioeconomic
explicit experiences of the actual (i.e., “the heaving, backgrounds, that the physical sensation, while
sweating”) body engaged in sexual expression have mostly intense, was less distressing than the visibil-
been studied even less among heterosexuals. ity and sense of loss of bodily control. In addition,
Although “controlling images” (Collins, 1990) of these women also felt they had violated cultural
Black and Latina women’s sexuality have been expli- norms of proper female comportment, what Dilla-
cated (e.g., Miller-Young, 2010, M. Ward & Wyatt, way called “nontransformative acts of agency”
1994; Zavella, 2008), the impact of those stereotypes (2011, p. 205), managing the evidence of this bodily
on experiences of embodied sex itself among people change in their individual bodies but not purpose-
of color is largely unexplored. Shildrick (2005) has fully refusing to comply with restrictive cultural
delineated the anxiety that bodily disconformity and norms. Middle-class White women also reported
limited bodily control characterizing disabled people that having their bodies become menopausal was a
and their sexuality incites in able-bodied individuals positive experience, liberating them from concerns

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about contraception and ushering in greater sexual evident sexuality of older people. For instance, some
enjoyment (Dillaway, 2005; Loe, 2004). older women report active resistance to stereotypes
In a single study of the association between being and cultural mandates about the inevitability of low
nude and experiencing sexual pleasure among 184 sexual interest in late life and the increasing asexual-
heterosexual men and women, Weinberg and Wil- ity of the aging body. In fact, Loe (2004) found that
liams (2010a) found that comfort with one’s nude some aging heterosexual women continue to pursue
body was associated with a sexually expansive point pleasure, for example reporting regular vibrator use,
of view but with sexual pleasure only for women. and also reporting frustration because of a lack of
They also found that women’s feeling objectified male sexual partners and men’s loss of sexual func-
interfered with their sexual intimacy and pleasure. tion. These studies contradict the notion that older
They explained these feelings in part as an effect of women are more interested in cuddling and emo-
structured gender inequality and acknowledged the tional intimacy than sexual pleasure. Quite to the
study’s race and age limitations. Although there is contrary, one woman noted that “cuddling gets you
research on gay men’s sexual embodiment (see the hot and bothered and you need a man down there”
section Sexual-Minority Men’s Sexual Embodiment (Loe, 2004, p. 308). Even as new representations of
later in this chapter), there is surprisingly little aging bodies as “sexy oldies” are emerging, older and
study of heterosexual men’s embodiment of sexual- more repressive notions persist. One study found
ity (Marshall & Katz, 2002), outside of medicalized that older women (ages 45–89) in a focus group
sexual function (see the section Body-Related Dis- study reacted with disgust to open discussions and
obedience later in this chapter). In their study, representations of sexuality in later life, finding these
Weinberg and Williams (2010a) found that images “unwatchable” (Vares, 2009, p. 520).
although some men felt self-conscious about penis Dickerson and Rousseau (2009) describe aging Black
size, their experiences of their bodies as sexual were women’s sexuality as obsolescent, their bodies ren-
not affected. In one study of men’s experience of dered invisible in the sexual landscape. There is an
masturbation for in vitro fertilization semen collec- absence of research on aging lesbian, gay, and bisex-
tion, Inhorn (2007) found this process especially ual people’s experiences with their sexual bodies.
anxiety provoking for Muslim men, for whom mas-
turbation is an act of impurity (see also Moore,
SEXUAL-MINORITY SEXUAL BODIES
2007). Sperm itself is a new disembodied commod-
ity that is ironically very much of the body of indi- The sexual bodies of sexual-minority people consti-
vidual (sexual) men but is now accessible outside of tute compelling material challenges to compulsory
sexual relationships through sperm banking, pro- heterosexuality. By demanding and enacting sexual-
ducing a panicked disembodiment of fatherhood ity, sexual expression, and gender expression that
among some and freedom of choice about a variety elude and defy the terms of heterosexuality, sexual-
of reproductive technologies (and embodiments) minority sexual bodies demonstrate and demand
among others (Moore, 2007). recognition of the variability of sexuality. Regardless
Sexuality among aging adults has become an of debates about the etiology of sexual-minority sex-
emergent area of study, as social norms have ualities, embodiments outside of heterosexuality
changed to represent greater acceptance of sexuality raise fundamental questions about its legitimacy and
in late life, and as consumer markets have endeav- justification (see Chapter 18, this volume).
ored to create and sustain a new target population
for sexuality-related products and services (Katz & Sexual-Minority Men’s Sexual
Marshall, 2003; see Chapter 17, this volume). Apart Embodiment
from research related to sexual dysfunction, some Traditional notions of power in sexual relationships
research on older women’s sexual embodiment finds draw on ideals of masculinity and femininity within
a mix of resistance to stereotypes of declining sexual heterosexual couplings. Conventional understand-
interest as well as growing discomfort with the ings of sexuality, when applied to sexual-minority

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Sexuality and Embodiment

men, would suggest that more masculine men desire, arousal, or pleasure and safe sex practices.
should occupy the “top” or penetrative position dur- The Internet and social networking websites increas-
ing anal sex, whereas less masculine men or femi- ingly have been employed by men seeking other men
nine men occupy the “bottom” or receptive position with whom to engage in sexual activities (Dowsett
(Hoppe, 2011; Kippax & Smith, 2001). Thus, “tops” et al., 2008; see Volume 2, Chapter 3, this handbook).
may be presumed to hold more power than “bot- Men using this technology often enact inscribed
toms,” and this position is assumed to be one of embodiment in their performances of masculinity
domination (Kippax & Smith, 2001). Although and “macho talk” in their interactions with other
many sexual-minority men have fear or anxiety users and, indeed, following Butler (1990), do gay
about being anally penetrated (Middelthon, 2002), (Dowsett et al., 2008; White, 2010).
it also can be considered masculine and powerful to
“take it like a man” as the “bottom” (Dowsett, Wil- Sexual-Minority Women’s Sexual
liams, Ventuneac, & Carballo-Dieguez, 2008; Mid- Embodiment
delthon, 2002; Ridge, 2004), and these “bottoms” Unlike the empirical research on sexual-minority
expressed feelings of embodied pleasure that they men, sexuality research focused on sexual-minority
attributed to the very act of pleasing their partners women is decidedly less sexually embodied. That is,
and giving up their power (Hoppe, 2011). although the research on sexual-minority men
Power is also visible in the sexualized body focuses on actual bodies in sexual acts (e.g., “tops”
images of sexual-minority men (Kong, 2002; Pyle & vs. “bottoms,” power dynamics during sex, negotiat-
Klein, 2011). Traditionally, the gay male community ing desire and condom use during sex), and how
has valued and rewarded male bodies that are these acts are interpreted by the actors, research on
young, White, thin, muscular, and hairless (Duncan, sexual-minority women’s embodied sex lives
2010; Kong, 2002; Poon & Ho, 2008; Pyle & Klein, remains sparse. The following research focuses
2011). Despite the fact that these narrow prescrip- mainly on how sexual-minority women relate to
tions may facilitate body image dissatisfaction their social worlds rather than to one another. This
among sexual-minority men (Duncan, 2010), in is a shortcoming in the literature on sexual minori-
recent years, sexual-minority men whose bodies do ties’ sexual embodiment and likely reflects the wide-
not conform to this ideal, or who are attracted to spread bias in research on same-sex sexuality toward
men whose bodies do not fit this ideal, have created male sexuality.
alternative spaces for sexual expression (Pyle & In a fashion complementary to sexual-minority
Klein, 2011; Shiu-Ki, 2004). In this way, “chubs,” men, sexual-minority women are socialized in a cul-
“bears,” and “chasers”—as well as non-White, hairy, ture that values traditional notions of heterosexual
or other male bodies that do not conform—challenge performance and especially normative femininity
the existing power dynamics within the gay male among women (Rooke, 2007). Within the lesbian
community (Pyle & Klein, 2011). community, however, a variety of socially inscribed
In attempting to limit the spread of HIV and prac- gender performances have come into acceptance,
tice safe sex, sexual-minority men, regardless of including “butch” (more “masculine” gender pre-
serostatus, must monitor their embodied feelings of sentations) and “femme” (more “feminine” gender
sexual desire and pleasure. Sexual-minority men fre- presentations; J. Walker, Golub, Bimbi, & Parson,
quently articulate that they are not solely interested 2012). Sexual-minority women are sometimes com-
in sexual pleasure but also crave intimacy, love, and plicit in gender policing: “gaydar,” or the ability for
romance (Slavin, 2009). As condom use is seen as sexual-minority women to identify one another,
detracting from intimacy (Dowsett et al., 2008; Vil- often relies on bodily performances of female mas-
laamil & Jociles, 2011), spontaneity (Davis, 2002), culinity, which excludes sexual-minority women
and pleasure (Davis, 2002; Dowsett, 2003; Villaamil & with feminine or conventionally heterosexual gen-
Jociles, 2011), sexual-minority men sometimes find it der presentations (Levitt & Horne, 2008; L. Walker,
difficult to negotiate a balance between intense sexual 2001). Gender presentations often are assumed to

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Tolman, Bowman, and Fahs

translate to sexual behaviors among sexual-minority nearly nonexistent. One possible explanation for
women, in that “butch” women are presumed to be this dearth is that “sexual embodiment” is a concept
more sexually aggressive, and “femme” women are that refers to bodies in sexual relationships and that
presumed to be more receptive. These stereotypes for bisexually identified men and women, unless
are not supported by the research, however, which they are having sex with men and women simultane-
instead suggests that sexual behaviors among ously, each individual sexual relationship they may
sexual-minority women are fluid across labels or have likely would be with either a man or a woman.
gender-specific identities and socially inscribed These embodied sexual experiences, then, might fall
embodiments of gender (J. Walker et al., 2012). into the literatures on either gay and lesbian sexual
Sexual-minority women historically have been embodiment or heterosexual embodiment. Still,
denied legitimacy through discourses that render some empirical work specifically has explored bisex-
invisible the possibilities of eroticism between uals’ experiences, especially those of women. Dia-
women (Farquhar, 2000; Rooke, 2007). For exam- mond’s (2008) work on sexual fluidity demonstrates
ple, defining female–female sex has been challeng- that mixed patterns of attraction (i.e., to both men
ing, with sexual activity between women often and women) are more common than exclusive
conceived as mutual genital stimulation (Rothblum, same-sex attractions and that even lesbian-identified
1994). This definition overlooks many other impor- women tended to report bisexual experiences and
tant erotic behaviors pursued between women behaviors as time went on. Some of the women
(Rothblum, 1994) ranging from kissing (Ussher & Diamond (2008) studied described themselves as
Mooney-Somers, 2000) to bondage and exhibition- “attracted to ‘the person, not the gender’” (p. 172),
ism (Tomassilli, Golub, Bimbi, & Parsons, 2009). suggesting that current notions of sexual orientation
The concepts of choice and agency play out in might be too focused on gender as an organizing
the lives of sexual-minority women in unique ways. construct. In a narrative study of four in-depth cases
Some scholars have argued that female–female rela- of women with bisexual patterns of attraction, Ham-
tionships exemplify female sexual agency in sexual- mack, Thompson, and Pilecki (2009) illuminated
minority women’s ability to choose a wider range of how shifting embodied feelings of desire for both
supportive and intimate partners and network struc- men and women can infuse young women’s negotia-
tures than those who fit neatly into heterosexual tion of rigid sexual identity categories with unique
norms (Weeks, Heaphy, & Donovan, 2001) and that complexity and can render the body a source of con-
sexual-minority women are more able to attend to fusion and questioning rather than clarification.
their own sexual desires rather than to the desires of
someone else (Hammers, 2008). Still, others demon- The Sexual Body in Society and the Media
strate how such agency is moderated by social class One of the key debates in which embodiment and
(McDermott, 2009), race (Tomassilli et al., 2009), sexuality are embroiled is how the increasing wide-
and other social factors (Blackwood, 2005; Ham- spread commodification and objectification of sexual
mers, 2008; Pasko, 2010). Nevertheless, women bodies, in particular through sexualization and in
with a history of same-sex sexual experience tend to pornography, informs people’s experiences and nego-
have higher sexual entitlement and sexual self-efficacy tiations of their sexuality (Garner, 2012). As the
overall (Boislard & Zimmer-Gembeck, 2011). divide between pornography and mainstream depic-
Although we have used the phrase “sexual- tions of sexuality evaporates (McNair, 1996), current
minority” instead of lesbian to include the full range arguments center less on questions about morality
of individuals with same-sex attractions and behav- and more on questions about the possible implica-
ior, regardless of identification, it bears noting that tions of pornography for people’s own changing
the vast majority of research on sexual minorities experiences of their sexuality (Corsianos, 2007;
has focused on openly identified lesbians and openly Garlick, 2011; see Volume 2, Chapter 1, this hand-
identified gay men. The literature on sexual embodi- book) and on sexual aesthetics (Attwood, 2007). An
ment among bisexually identified individuals is intensified focus on looks and physical appearance is

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Sexuality and Embodiment

displacing attention to embodied feelings (Frost, (Nowatzki & Morry, 2009). Sanchez and Kiefer
2005; Tolman, 2002, 2012). In the global context in (2007) found that body shame in women was linked
which Western media and sexual representations more strongly to greater sexual problems than in
now circulate, this shift is extending beyond the West men, including lower sexual arousability, less ability
and affecting people transnationally (De Casanova, to reach orgasm, and having less pleasure from
2004; Howe & Rigi, 2009; see Volume 2, Chapter 9, physical intimacy. These changes were mediated by
this handbook). In 2007, the American Psychological sexual self-consciousness, regardless of relationship
Association’s (APA) Task Force on the Sexualization status or age. Focusing attention during sexual
of Girls released its report on the state of knowledge encounters on how one looks rather than on how
about this growing phenomenon. The report defined one feels can lead to diminished sexual pleasure
sexualization as (a) a person’s value comes only from (Wiederman, 2000, 2001). A woman who has been
his or her sexual appeal or behavior, to the exclusion socialized to dissociate from her own sexual arousal
of other characteristics; (b) a person is held to a stan- and desire may find it difficult to be aware of her
dard that equates physical attractiveness (narrowly desires, to assert her desires, or to feel entitled to
defined) with being sexy; (c) a person is sexually satisfaction in sexual situations (Brotto, Heiman, &
objectified—that is, made into a thing for others’ sex- Tolman, 2009; see Chapter 8, this volume).
ual use rather than seen as a person with the capacity The process of self-sexualization, apprehending
for independent action and decision-making; and (d) and experiencing the self as a sexual object for the
sexuality is inappropriately imposed upon a person desire of others or for commodification by the self,
(APA, Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls, 2007, has received growing empirical attention (Roberts &
p. 1). The report yielded a notable increase in Zurbriggen, 2012). For instance, self-sexualization
research on sexualization and its impact and ignited has been associated with African American girls’
public debate and discussion, within and beyond the increased focus on looks and beauty (Gordon, 2008).
academy (e.g., Bragg, Buckingham, Russell, & Complicated questions about what constitutes self-
Willett, 2011; Egan & Hawkes, 2008). The explosion sexualization have been raised as well, illuminating
of online pornography has meant that it has become the liminality of experiences of empowerment that
accessible and pertinent to how people think, learn attach to bodily expression associated with sexuality.
and imagine possibilities for their own sexual experi- For instance, pole dancing is a wildly popular physi-
ence (Owens, Behun, Manning, & Reed, 2012; Short, cal fitness activity that underscores and relies on how
Black, Smith, Wetterneck, & Wells, 2012). looking youthfully sexy and performing a very par-
One line of inquiry in psychology is how sexual- ticular bodily trope trumps feeling sexy or even sex-
ization reflects or affects current modes of sexual ual (Donaghue, Whitehead, & Kurz, 2011).
being, behavior, or experience, and if so, whether Ironically, pole dancing takes advantage of the dis-
those manifestations are positive or problematic, connection from their bodies that many women have
particularly for women. Given that women who feel in the wake of their own sexual socialization and the
more positively about their bodies have been found societal context of the sexualization of girls (Tolman,
to express more comfort with their own sexual feel- 2012). Yet research also has demonstrated the com-
ings (Ackard, Kearney-Cooke, & Peterson, 2000; plexity of how pole dancing as exercise makes
Trapnell, Meston, & Gorzalka, 1997; Wiederman, ambiguous its association with sexual display, and
2000), the power of sexualization to diminish or thus it may entail for women a reworking of a prac-
negatively affect women’s feelings about their bodies tice for sexual titillation with feelings of power in
raises important questions about women’s sexual one’s body and, possibly because of this ambiguity,
embodiment. For instance, narrow sociocultural feeling powerful or sexy without the physical pres-
ideas of women’s sexual attractiveness predict wom- ence of a male audience, perhaps through the context
en’s sexual intentions about and their acceptance of of a space safe from an actual sexualizing gaze
different types of sexual behavior, hindering their (S. Holland & Attwood, 2009). The question, how-
subjective experience of their own sexuality ever, of whether experience of embodied feelings of

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power in this particular context may carry over beyond subjectification”; that is, rather than being shown as
a given moment and space into women’s sexual lives passive objects of desire, these young women (and
remains contested and unexplored (Tolman, 2012). only these young women) are portrayed as being
Another realm of psychological research on sex- active “subjects” of their own sexuality. Rather than
ualization is phenomenological, seeking to under- being “liberating,” however, such portraits may con-
stand how an increasingly sexualized mainstream stitute a new set of limiting mandates about how
landscape shapes embodied experiences of sexual- young women should express or appear to express
ity. Analysis of public discourses and representa- their sexuality that is anchored in the “midriff-
tions, by which increasingly sexualizing and bearing,” actively desiring young woman, requiring a
pornographic sentiments are communicated and toned but not too strong body that looks youthful
circulated, are critical to understanding how lived but should not be too physically capable (Fahs,
experience may be constructed (Bartky, 1990; 2009). Yet Attwood (2011), in a study of women’s
Hardy, 2009). This research primarily is composed digital representations of their sexuality in interactive
of content and discursive analyses of sexualized new media, identifies new sexual femininities that
images, especially their meanings for different con- defy simple binaries of passive object and active sub-
stituencies, although much of the research has cen- ject, with women producing themselves as sexual
tered on girls’ and women’s bodies (Brookes & actors as “camgirls” or depicting sexually defiant
Kelly, 2009; Fabrianesi, Jones, & Reid, 2008; Her- women in “altporn.” The question of whether or how
nandez, 2009; Merskin, 2004; Sanger, 2009), For these women’s own bodily sexual feelings inform or
instance, Goodin, Denberg, Murnen, and Smolak result from these subversive acts of representation is
(2011) evaluated the presence of sexualizing cloth- an important next step in understanding the inter-
ing for girls on the websites of 15 popular stores and play between representations of others’ sexual bodies
found that 30% of images had sexualizing qualities and how people experience their own sexual bodies.
(“garments worn to enhance, exaggerate, call atten- The participation of boys and men in these pro-
tion to, or accentuate the curves or angles of any ductions may incite their sexual feelings, despite the
part of the body . . . to arouse interest of physical duality of their dedicated purpose of creating mar-
intimacy from others,” p. 5), with the highest being ketable images and not identifying as men who
for “tween” markets. Joshi, Peter, and Valkenberg objectify women (Garner, 2012). Representations of
(2011) evaluated representations of sexual wanting sexiness in middle age are becoming extensive,
(expressing sexual urges and sexual desires or promising both a challenge to narrow conventions
expressing their own sexual wishes) in an analysis of female attractiveness and a new repressive regime
of U.S. and Dutch teen magazines, finding that in for women as they age (Tally, 2006; Vares, 2009).
the U.S. coverage, boys’ sexual wanting received Representations of “lesbian” sexual performance are
more attention than girls’ sexual wanting, whereas more pervasive, but there is no research on how
in the Dutch coverage sexual wanting was depicted such representations are experienced by sexual-
equally often for boys and girls (see Volume 2, minority women. These performances of same-sex
Chapter 12, this handbook). desire may constitute “heteroflexibility,” wherein
Some research has focused on whether and how women’s same-sex kissing or touching as a public
girls in particular are attempting or preferring a par- endeavor produces an embodiment of male sexual
ticular kind of “sexy” body (Coy, 2009a; Ringrose, fantasy to consolidate a heterosexual identity (Dia-
2010). For instance, in one study, young girls pre- mond, 2005; Fahs, 2009). There is no evidence to
sented with girls wearing sexualized clothing versus date that these experiences reflect or incorporate
nonsexualized clothing indicated that they greatly embodied sexual desire, feelings, or responses,
preferred the former, both for their ideal self and for although the emergence of “bi-curiosity” as an intel-
being popular (Starr & Ferguson, 2012). Gill (2009) ligible identity may reflect or enable exploration or
suggested that White, heterosexual young women experience of actual erotic pleasure and enjoyment
have shifted from sexual objectification to “sexual rather than being just a function of pressure alone.

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Sexuality and Embodiment

One particular debate in which embodiment has of the Internet as a site for constructing and experi-
emerged is the relationship between sexualization encing male and female bodies by real women and
and sexual empowerment. On one side of the debate men both reproduces gendered sexual bodily norms
is the contention that sexualized images may reflect and emerges as a forum for resistance to them (Alex-
and provide cultural space for a more assertive and ias, Kountria, & Tsekeris, 2011). More racial diver-
entitled or empowered sexuality, trumping tradi- sity is accompanied by less variation in the shapes
tional conceptions of appropriately feminine sexual- of women’s bodies in porn—now thinner, larger
ity (Lamb, 2010; Peterson, 2010). Others argue that chested, with surgically or digitally altered labia—
sexualization may reinstantiate and invigorate gen- with ramifications for real women’s dissatisfaction
der inequalities in sexual interactions and that a with or concern about their material bodies (Tib-
sense of sexual empowerment that does not embody bals, 2010). In one study of women’s self-published
one’s own sexual feelings may be problematic (Fahs, porn sites, DeVoss (2002) found that women are
2009; Gavey, 2012; Tolman, 2012). Egan and “inserting their embodied subjectivities into public
Hawkes (2008) suggested that an unintended conse- space” (p. 75), thus challenging notions of female
quence of the current debate is that sexualization is sexual submission and production for male
framed as deterministic and restrictive regarding pleasure.
young women’s sexuality, although others have Cyberspace is one of the new frontiers of the
argued for young women’s subversion and resistance intersections among sexuality, media, and embodi-
to an objectified sexuality under these conditions ment; the concept of the cyborg subject, wherein
(e.g., Attwood, 2007). Teasing apart the complex, bodies and technology meet and comingle, ushers in
contradictory, and commercial dimensions of the new conceptions of the body and challenges the very
“new sexual empowerment” means raising chal- terms of what constitutes a material body (Haraway,
lenges about what is missing from it—women’s 1991). Cybersexuality (i.e., sexual behavior, desires,
embodied sexual pleasure as an anchor to sexual and bodies transmitted online and imbued with sen-
subjectivity and real choices that flesh out rather sations and attitudes that mimic so-called real bod-
than laminate female sexual agency. Evans, Riley, ies and sexualities) has appeared more forcefully in
and Shankar (2010) suggested the concept of new recent years. In one sense, cybersex has been impli-
“technologies of sexiness” (p. 119), whereby women cated in, enacted in, and constructed through medi-
could utilize the contradictory yet proliferating dis- ations of sexual media (van Doorn, 2011; Waskul,
courses about women’s sexuality to construct sub- 2002). van Doorn (2011) explored how virtual per-
versive sexual subjectivities, eluding the formances of gender, sexuality, and embodiment
disembodiment attached to sexualization (see also become materialized in digital space and may inform
Coy, 2009b). actual signification of gender norms, sexual identi-
A long history of research on the impact of por- ties, and even what is understood as sexual practice,
nography on sexuality has yielded inconsistent evi- particularly for engagement with heteronormativity.
dence (Segal, 1992). However, the explosion of the Eklund (2011) explored how the online game
availability and possibility for new forms of engage- World of Warcraft imbues players with gender and
ment with porn through the Internet, a specific and sexuality scripts and makes way for numerous queer
increasingly salient context, has yielded more spe- performances, even while seemingly promoting het-
cific research on pornography’s interplay with erosexual exchanges between players. Looking at
embodied sexuality. Rather than simply investigat- social networking sites, Ringrose (2011) argued that
ing whether viewing porn has negative effects on because mainstream online spaces demand and
sexual behavior, sexual arousal, or sexual self- assume heterosexuality, they create new and intensi-
appraisal, more recent research on pornography fied gendered and sexualized identities among
focuses on the ways in which people produce, con- young people. The ambiguous boundary and inter-
sume, and integrate it into their daily lives (van play between behavior in cyberspace and offline has
Doorn, 2011; Wilson-Kovacs, 2009). The emergence inspired empirical questions about online sexual

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Tolman, Bowman, and Fahs

embodiments and actual bodies. Analyzing harass- engage material bodies. Alapack, Blichfeldt, and
ment on social networking sites, Ybarra and Mitchell Elden (2005) observed that as virtual sex “wins the
(2008) found that although social networking sites war between desire and technology,” neglect of “live
do create contexts for unwanted sexual solicitation, embodiment” proliferates (p. 52). In an ethnogra-
problems of disembodying and harassing youth and phy of trading “sexpics” on an online site, Slater
teens extend far beyond the reach of cyberspace. In (1998) found that rather than a realm of deconstruc-
a study of relationship and marriage possibilities tion and ideal possibilities, participants exerted tre-
between men in the United States and women in mendous energy attempting to refix bodies and
other countries, Constable (2007) raised the ques- identities in search of material forms of authenticity.
tion of how cultural and structural differences pres- Even as disembodiment motives for online chatting
ent challenges to expectations generated online have been associated with loneliness, depression,
through sexual images and talk and offline realities. and diminished social support, when used as a tech-
Although there is a depth of textual analysis of nology for social connection, online engagement can
cybersex (e.g., Campbell, 2004; R. Jones, 2008; Wol- lead to offline connectivity (Kang, 2007), suggesting
mark, 1999), the material sexual body has received a potential line of inquiry for cybersex and its multi-
far less scholarly attention, in part because digital ple embodiments.
bodies raise questions about what an intelligible
body is. There is some research on how cyberspace
THE DISOBEDIENT SEXUAL BODY
provides a new venue for individual exploration and
construction of what constitutes embodied erotic Bodies that do not reflect or refuse to conform to
experience that challenges the everyday conception either explicit or unwritten hegemonies of normality
of what is named erotic. For instance, in a study of or acceptability are often declared “not sexual.”
online gay chat communities for gay self-identified Notions of which bodies are eligible to be sexual are
bears and muscle worshippers that constitute a entangled with the material diversities of bodies that
sexual space, Campbell (2004) demarcated the defy such criteria. There are many people who are
centrality of the physical body in social relations assumed not to be sexual or disallowed status as
through these online interactions. As Waskul (2002) sexual people predicated on what we are calling
noted, cybersex involving videos becomes an “disobedient” embodiments in such hierarchies of
embodied experience that creates both a viewed normality who refute and resist this exclusion. We
object and an experienced subject, yet he did not review three types of such disobedience: body
address the experiencing sexual subject. Attwood related, sexuality related, and gender related.
(2002) suggested that new media technologies may
render a kind of “autosexuality” (p. 101), in which Body-Related Disobedience
sex with other people (i.e., their bodies) is replaced When a person’s physical body becomes ill, he or
by fundamentally disembodied sex that brings less she must negotiate many changes in his or her sex-
danger, less mess, and less inconvenience. Yet she is ual activities. Cancer patients, for example, often
one of the few scholars to recognize the engagement feel that the body that they had once mastered now
of the material body in cybersex; in her assessment enslaves them (Waskul & van der Riet, 2002) or
of the sexualization of culture, she provided an feels “invaded” by an alien (Mairs, 1997). Similarly,
explicit anecdotal description of a woman’s bodily people who have limited or no bladder or bowel
sexual response at the abrupt end of an online sex control have an acute awareness of the proximity of
chat, offline physical frustration at coming close to their excretory organs to their anatomical sites of
orgasm. The “heaving body” does not appear to be sexual pleasure (Koch, Kralik, & Eastwood, 2002;
a topic of research but rather an illustration of how Manderson, 2005). For these people, as well as for
cyberspace and media complicate what constitutes women who experience chronic vulvar pain, good
sex and how questions about sexual identities have communication with one’s sexual partner and part-
dominated research on cybersex, which have yet to ner receptivity to different “sexual scripts” is crucial

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Sexuality and Embodiment

to maintaining a satisfying sex life (Koch et al., the traditional methods of achieving sexual pleasure
2002; Labuski, 2011). (Tepper, 2000), or may even happily embrace an
Women who have been treated for breast cancer asexual identity (Kim, 2011). For example, some
experience many changes in their sexualities, often people redefine for themselves what an orgasm
related specifically to their bodies (Emilee, Ussher, & should be or feel like and explore nongenital or non-
Perz, 2010). Because of the intense nature of the ejaculatory orgasms that may be centralized in other
treatment regimen for breast cancer, women experi- areas of the body, such as the lips or mouth (Guldin,
ence a range of changes in sexual functioning, includ- 2000). Disabled men may choose to focus not on
ing disruptions in arousal, lubrication, orgasm, sexual their difficulty maintaining an erection but instead
desire, and sexual pleasure (Emilee et al., 2010). on their prowess in giving partners oral sex or plea-
Women who have undergone mastectomies may pre- surable manual stimulation, thus improving their
sume (often wrongly) that their sexual partners will feelings of self-worth (Guldin, 2000).
be repulsed by their changed bodies (Sheppard & Overweight or fat people in our culture often are
Ely, 2008). Similarly, in the case of testicular or pros- judged to be physically unattractive and are
tate cancer among men, many men feel that the loss assumed, therefore, to find sexuality problematic
of a testicle or the inability to maintain an erection (Bess, 1997). These stereotypes are more stringently
signifies a loss in masculinity, and they worry that applied to women than men, as our society is more
their sexual function will be forever compromised accepting of large or fat men and even equates male
(Gurevich, Bishop, Bower, Malka, & Nyhof-Young, largeness with strength and power (Bess, 1997). Fat
2004; Kelly, 2004). Even in cases in which men expe- men and women report fewer sexual partners than
rience impotence as a result of cancer treatment, people with healthy weights (Bajos, Wellings,
some men discover new avenues to sexual satisfac- Laborde, & Moreau, 2010), which may be a result of
tion, including redefining intimacy and exploring a self-conscious fear of rejection and internalization
non-penile-penetrative erotic behaviors (Oliffe, of social stigmas about obesity (Bess, 1997). Fat men
2005). Regardless of the specific bodily ailment, the in particular are more likely to report sexual dys-
psychological impact men and women experience as function (Bajos et al., 2010) and report less sexual
a result of their illnesses depends greatly on the social desire and fewer erotic fantasies than men with more
and relational contexts in which these individuals average weights (Jagstaidt, Golay, & Pasini, 1997).
engage in sexual behaviors (Emilee et al., 2010). Many people who have undergone bariatric surgery
People with physical disabilities often are desexu- feel they are more sexually attractive after surgery
alized actively in Western culture (Erickson, 2010; (Camps, Zervos, Goode, & Rosemurgy, 1996), and
Guldin, 2000; Kim, 2011; Shildrick, 2007). Women some also enjoy sex more (Camps et al., 1996; Kinzl
with disabilities have reported as much sexual desire et al., 2001). Sexual satisfaction, however, is not
(Nosek et al., 2001; Vansteenwegen et al., 2003) and contingent on body weight; the outdated theory that
sexual motivation (Vansteenwegen et al., 2003) as fat individuals eat to avoid sex is not supported by
nondisabled women, but they report significantly the literature (Bess, 1997). Although fatness is not
lower sexual satisfaction overall (Nosek et al., 2001; always associated with or a result of a less healthy
Vansteenwegen et al., 2003). Disabled people often lifestyle or eating habits, the fat body often is under-
internalize cultural ideals of what a “sexy body” stood as diseased, pathological, sexually unattract-
should look like (Guldin, 2000) or what “real sex” ive, and asexual (Braziel & LeBesco, 2001; Murray,
should be (Tepper, 2000), and in feeling that they do 2004; Rothblum, Solovay, & Wann, 2009). As Mur-
not measure up to these ideas, they may experience ray noted, “[a fat woman is] expected to deny [her]
feelings of inadequacy or emotional pain (Guldin, own sexual desires and identity because [her] body
2000; Tepper, 2000). These people’s sexualities are stands as an ‘embolism’ (Sedgwick, 1993, p. 217) . . .
not overdetermined by such societal ideals, however, between [her] sexuality and [her] society” (p. 239)
and many disabled people view themselves as sexy and that fat women are denied sexual subjectivity
(Erickson, 2010; Guldin, 2000), find alternatives to and desirability outside of being fetishized objects.

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Tolman, Bowman, and Fahs

Pitman (1999) observed that for fat lesbians, inter- on the notion of the feeling sexual body as normal.
nalizing both homophobia and fat hatred can yield The fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical
complex dissatisfaction with their sexual bodies as Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), however,
well as their bodies more generally. introduces an absence of distress about lack of sexual
desire as contraindicating a diagnosis of HSDD.
Sexuality-Related Disobedience There has been a recent explosion of websites dedi-
Reported sexual dysfunction among men and cated to the asexual community, providing much
women has become widespread, largely because needed space for discussion online. Within the acad-
Western culture has convinced people that sexuality emy, however, very scholars have taken up asexual-
is “natural” and therefore no learning should be nec- ity as an area of investigation, with a few exceptions
essary to produce high levels of pleasure and satis- in the past 5 to 10 years. Asexuality traditionally has
faction (Tiefer, 2006). This conceptualization of been pathologized as, for example, sexual aversion
sexuality as automatic and unlearned predisposes disorder or HSDD, rather than studied as an accept-
people to feel that if they are experiencing any dis- able self-chosen identity (Prause & Graham, 2007;
turbances or dissatisfaction in desire, performance, Scherrer, 2008), although this increasingly is chang-
or pleasure, this must be a simple medical problem ing in the literature (Boaert, 2004). Individuals who
with a simple medical solution (Tiefer, 2006). The self-identify as asexual may have diverse reasons for
biomedical model of sexual dysfunction sets the doing so and may understand their asexuality in a
stage for pharmaceutical production and leverage of variety of ways, ranging from regarding sex apatheti-
a specific dysfunction discourse that frames sexual cally to feeling complete disgust at the prospect of
dissatisfaction as exclusively biological in nature and sex (Carrigan, 2011). Many asexuals make an
curable with “magic bullet” approaches (Cacchioni, explicit distinction between the ideas of romance and
2007; McHugh, 2006; Moynihan, 2003; Tiefer, sexuality, feeling that emotional attraction, compan-
2006). This increasingly popular discourse of sexual ionship, and romance are desirable within relation-
difficulty is especially problematic for women, as ships but that sex is not (Brotto, Knudson, Inskip,
FSD and hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) Rhodes, & Erskine, 2010; Scherrer, 2008). Develop-
have remained hard to define (Moynihan, 2003; mentally, asexuals may express that they always have
Tiefer, 2006; see Chapter 8, this volume). Because felt that they were somehow different from their
FSD and HSDD have been based on the assumption peers who feel sexual attraction, and that this feeling
that females experience biologically parallel sexual of difference led them to believe something was
problems to those of men (Hartley, 2006; McHugh, wrong with them, until they discovered the concept
2006), some have argued that these diagnoses are an (and sometimes the community) of asexuality
example of starting with a non-evidence-based pre- (Brotto et al., 2010; Carrigan, 2011; Scherrer, 2008).
supposed “condition” and then trying to produce Masturbation has proven to be a site of variability
confirmatory evidence through research—often among asexuals, as some people feel no desire for sex
without success (Mayor, 2004; McHugh, 2006). with others or with themselves, whereas other people
Similar challenges surrounding the debates about find masturbation occasionally satisfying and consis-
sexual dysfunction also influence academic under- tent with their asexual identities (Prause & Graham,
standings of asexuality (generally defined as a lack of 2007; Scherrer, 2008). Additionally, some individu-
sexual attraction; Carrigan, 2011): Is sexual desire, als, who do not identify as asexual, nevertheless find
arousal, or behavior most important? Is sexual desire fulfillment in romantic relationships that lack a
the same as sexual attraction? Can any of this be sexual component, and this pattern, in particular
understood without exploring the social and psycho- among women (e.g., Boston marriages) has been
logical contexts within which it takes place (Carri- documented for centuries (Rothblum & Brehony,
gan, 2011; Scherrer, 2008)? An absence of sexual 1993; Smith-Rosenberg, 1975).
feelings of any kind generally has been assumed to Sexual dysfunction and asexuality are not the
signal sexual or psychological problems, predicated only sites in which individuals challenge normative

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Sexuality and Embodiment

frameworks for healthy sexuality. People who have become increasingly trendy, the topic has
engage in exhibitionist or sadomasochistic sexual become more prevalent in mainstream magazines,
practices, for example, also resist social and medical mainstream booksellers, and mainstream advertise-
norms. According to the DSM-IV, exhibitionism is ments (Hanna, 2001). Yet Weiss (2006) found in a
still considered a mental disorder that involves study employing surveys, focus groups, and inter-
exposing one’s genitals to a stranger (American Psy- views that current practices of accepting sadomas-
chiatric Association, 1994), and the vast majority ochism through normalization or understanding it
of the literature pertaining to exhibitionism has through pathologization both reinforce privileges
focused on men (Hugh-Jones et al., 2005). The of normative sexuality (see Chapter 9, this volume).
pathologization of exhibitionist behavior has been
supported by theories regarding faulty brain chemis- Gender-Related Disobedience
try as well as psychodynamic processes, such as cas- Many people experience their bodies and their gen-
tration anxiety (Hugh-Jones et al., 2005). Recent ders in ways that do not conform to traditional under-
work on exhibitionism, however, has focused more standings of male–female or masculine–feminine.
on the performative nature of exhibitionism and has Transgender individuals (those whose gender presen-
shown that much exhibitionism is evident online tation does not conform to conventional notions of
and on websites where people can post naked or masculinity or femininity and may run counter to
erotic pictures of themselves for others to view for their own biological assignment as male or female),
their own personal enjoyment (Hugh-Jones et al., including but not exclusively transsexuals (those who
2005). Female exhibitionists who post on these feel that their psychological sex does not match the
websites report feeling powerful and socially sup- sex they were assigned at birth, and who desire bodily
ported (Hugh-Jones et al., 2005), demonstrating modifications to bring these into alignment), may or
that women who exhibit may use the practice as a may not actually use these terms to understand their
means to sexual empowerment. There is no research genders. Some gender-nonconforming individuals
on embodied sexuality in sex club contexts, where prefer such gender identifications as “butch” or
performing and consuming exhibitionism is “femme” (Valentine, 2007) or simply may identify
condoned. themselves as their preferred gender without refer-
Sadomasochism in particular and BDSM prac- ence to any “trans” identities (Wilson, 2002). Trans-
tices in general (including bondage and discipline, gender individuals experience their sexualities in
dominance and submission, and sadism and mas- unique ways, especially because the medical expecta-
ochism) have been similarly pathologized histori- tion of any transition is that an individual will become
cally (American Psychiatric Association, 1994). a heterosexual man or woman (Pardo, 2011; see
On-the-ground and online communities of sadomas- Chapter 24, this volume). Many transgender people
ochists actively reject the idea that their style of challenge compulsory heterosexuality (Rich, 1980) at
kinky sex is harmful, and instead they focus on the point of both lived and inscribed embodiment, in
mutually consenting partners and communication as that they understand their sexual attractions as dis-
most important (Langdridge & Butt, 2004; Weiss & tinct from the bodies assigned a gender at birth, and
Weiss, 2011). Sadomasochistic practices rely heavily therefore they “subvert the cultural assumption that
on extreme performances of power, domination, and sex between male- and female-bodied individuals
submission socially inscribed on the body, and this equals heterosexuality” (Rich, 1980, p. 109; Hines,
performativity may mirror traditional understand- 2007; Schleifer, 2006). For example, many female-to-
ings of masculinity and femininity (D. Lindemann, male transsexuals change their sexual orientation
2011). Furthermore, as some scholars have pointed after transitioning or find themselves attracted to both
out, lived embodied links between pleasure and pain men and women (Dozier, 2005; Schleifer, 2006). Cis-
are not uncommon (Deckha, 2011). Sexual perfor- gender people (those whose preferred gender matches
mances of sadomasochism may not exist solely on the gender they were assigned at birth) who are sexu-
the fringes of society. As sadomasochistic practices ally attracted to transgender people may construct

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Tolman, Bowman, and Fahs

unique sexual desires on the basis of their own sexual enough to contribute meaningfully to the discussion
orientations (Weinberg & Williams, 2010b). For and explicitly consent to any surgical procedures
example, in a study of cisgender men who were sexu- (Woodhouse, 2004). Additionally, many of these
ally interested in transwomen (in this study defined as individuals now reject the label “intersex,” because
male-to-female transsexuals who retain their penises), of its negative associations with terms like “her-
those who identified as heterosexual tended to ignore maphrodite,” or because they may feel that “inter-
the transwoman’s penis, whereas bisexually oriented sex” was something “done to” them and therefore
men incorporated the transwoman’s penis into the not a part of their chosen identity (Grabham, 2007;
sexual experience (Weinberg & Williams, 2010b). Koyama, n.d.).
People who are born with atypical or ambiguous
genitalia (referred to as “intersex,” although less fre- Interventions for Embodiment
quently currently than in the past) also must navi- A number of researchers have proposed various
gate gender norms and expectations in their interventions to assist and support people who are
expressions of their sexualities. Often, intersex experiencing challenges or difficulties with sexuality
infants, who are born with ambiguous genitalia that as social inscription on the body or as living experi-
do not fit into the presumed binary framework of ence of the body. Sensate approaches to sex therapy,
sex, are understood by doctors to require “correc- in which the therapist guides the client, either as an
tive” or “reparative” surgery to “fix” the atypical individual or as a couple, to refocus and, in essence,
sexual bodies (Kessler, 2002; Roen, 2008). It is most reconnect with their physical sexual feelings and
common for an infant born with an atypically small responses, can be understood as a form of embodi-
penis or an atypically large clitoris to be surgically ment intervention and continues to be a central
altered to fit into one or the other side of the sex approach to sexual distress (see Chapter 8, this vol-
binary, and these corrective procedures often entail ume). An embodiment lens may underscore that a
numerous follow-up surgeries over the course of purely mechanistic approach is impoverished or
development (Minto, Liao, Woodhouse, Ransley, & may not be appropriate depending on the complaint.
Creighton, 2003). Ironically, since the incidence of Therapeutic work connecting embodiment and psy-
ambiguous genitalia in the population has been esti- chotherapy has been particularly successful in treat-
mated to be as high as 2% (Blackless et al., 2000), it ing disorders like anorexia and bulimia,
seems that the occurrence of intersexuality is rela- posttraumatic stress disorder, and childhood sexual
tively common (Roen, 2008). There is debate about abuse. Lester (1997) argued that to successfully treat
these surgeries, with some critiquing this practice as anorexia, therapists should deconstruct notions of
“correcting” ambiguous bodies to match “intelligi- “inside” and “outside” to allow the patient to experi-
ble” bodies that fit into an essentialized gender ence a connection with their own bodies. Similarly,
binary (Kessler, 2002; Roen, 2008) and others not- Langmuir, Kirsh, and Classen (2012) suggested that
ing that such surgeries frequently are required for sensorimotor psychotherapy—in which patients use
physical or psychological reasons (Creighton & their bodies actively to improve body awareness and
Liao, 2004; Holmes, 2002; Woodhouse, 2004). to decrease dissociation—can successfully treat
Infants who undergo surgical procedures may have trauma disorders. Adding a more psychoanalytic
compromised sexual functioning as adults (Minto et twist, Baker-Pitts (2007) argued that female thera-
al., 2003). For example, people who had undergone pists can use their patients’ projections about both
feminizing surgery as infants and were then living as the therapists’ and patients’ bodies to grapple more
adult females had more difficulty achieving orgasm intensely with defense mechanisms of dependency
than individuals who had not had surgery (Creigh- and broader projections made onto the female body.
ton & Liao, 2004; Minto et al., 2003). Results such Research also has worked to establish the embodied
as these have prompted medical professionals to bases of existing psychotherapy processes. Dekeyser,
take much greater care in surgical decisions, often Elliott, and Leijssen’s (2009) work on empathy argued
delaying genital surgeries until a person is old for empathy as a cooperative, dialogical process

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vividly grounded in the body. More expansively, Chapter 1, this volume). For instance, evidence from
Phelan (2009) analyzed the benefits and contraindi- men recovering a sexual life following treatment for
cations of therapists and patients touching before, prostate cancer suggests that all of us may generate
during, or after psychotherapy sessions, finding a new capacities for sexual feeling and expression fol-
wide range of outcomes depending on the reasons lowing the loss of other capacities or valued practices
for touch, the patient’s perceptions of touch, cul- (Litwin, Melmed, & Nakazon, 2001). The con-
tural and religious considerations, and rationale straints on our ability to do so are likely to be as
for touch. Ultimately, issues of embodiment in much social as they are physical and psychological.
psychotherapy—for the therapists and their Diamond (2005) has suggested applying dynamical
patients—can serve as meaningful interventions systems theory (DST) to our understanding of wom-
when working with clients with a range of com- en’s same-sex sexuality development. She argued that
plaints and disorders. DST, in explaining how interactions among internal
and external features of experience produce abrupt
transitions, new patterns, and sensitivity to fluctua-
CONCLUSION AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS
tions, accounts for the changing patterns she identi-
This chapter demonstrated how a lens of embodi- fied in this population. It is possible that DST may
ment offers a unique and important understanding provide a way to understand embodiment of sexual-
of sexuality. Leveraging and building from embodi- ity among other groups and practices, providing a
ment theories, researchers have generated a new and roadmap to the interplay between our physicality
substantive body of research predicated on the phys- and our relational, environmental, and cultural con-
icality of sexuality that is foundationally social texts characterized by shifting discursive, sociopoliti-
rather than biologically deterministic. Reviewing the cal, and historic dimensions. These examples
prominent theories that guide thought and research demonstrate the ways in which thinking of the mind
on embodiment, we have provided both broad and body as separate, or of bodies as independent
strokes about and intimate looks into knowledge from society, limits our potential for understanding
about sexual bodies that are situated in time, space, sexuality. Embodiment theories provide tools for
action, and society. In particular, the chapter observing, posing, and investigating daring and diffi-
focused attention on intersections of embodied sex- cult questions about sexuality that can contribute to
uality and psychology. This relatively new line of resisting oppressive binaries that so many bodies and
research both includes psychology and has much to psyches labor under, struggle, subvert, or resist.
offer the discipline. The chapter has argued that Looking forward, we imagine many new threads
developing these lines of inquiry within psychology of research on embodiment and sexuality. In partic-
will constitute a significant contribution to the ular, future research can interrogate the limitations
understanding of sexuality. It concludes with sug- of the “rhetoric of choice” and agency with regard to
gestions for future directions. sexual decision making, particularly as debates
Recent work from neuroscience supports embodi- intensify about which kinds of embodiment, and
ment theory as a useful framework for social science which embodied expressions, signify “liberation”
research, suggesting that the body in and beyond and “empowerment” and which signify the internal-
sexuality research is seen as more plastic, with “hard ization of oppression (and negative stereotypes).
wiring” incorporating the environmental contexts in More nuanced work that theorizes the body into
which it develops, exists, performs, and malfunctions contemporary cultural narratives, such as strip
(Cromby, 2004; see Chapter 7, this volume ). This clubs, commodification of sex, and the untethering
work not only challenges the debate between of sex from morally determined and condoned con-
“nature” and “nurture” but also offers further evi- texts, and that leverages these theories in posing and
dence that the interactionist perspective embedded answering the innovative research questions that
in embodiment theory enables it as a functional con- will emerge represents the potent future of research
ceptual framework (Tolman & Diamond, 2001; see on embodiment. We foresee that embodiment

789
Tolman, Bowman, and Fahs

research likely will venture more and more into American Psychological Association, Task Force on the
thinking about and theorizing nonconforming bod- Sexualization of Girls. (2007). Report of the APA Task
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