- Conversation Analysis, Language, and Sexuality
- Corpus Linguistics and Sexuality
- Critical Discourse Studies of Language and Sexuality
- Talk About Intimate Subjects: Ethnographic Approaches to Language, Gender, and Sexuality
- Linguistic Landscapes of Language and Sexuality
- Mediated Discourse Analysis in Language and Sexuality Research
- Semantics and Pragmatics: Blurring Boundaries and Constructing Contexts
- The Semiotics of Love
- From “Gay Lisp” to “Fierce Queen”: The Sociophonetics of Sexuality’s Most Iconic Variable
- Aging and Chronic Illness in Language and Sexuality
- Animacy as a Sexual Device
- Powerful Inscriptions: On the Semiotic Phenomenology of BDSM
- Sexuality and Bilingualism
- Bisexuality: Narrating Sexual Fluidity
- Categorization and Indexicality in Language and Sexuality Research
- Trash: Language, Sexuality, and Social Class
- Diasporic Sexual Citizenship: Queer Language, (Im)Possible Subjects, and Transfiliation
- Mediatizing Sex: Sexting and/as Digital Discourse
- Language, Disability, and Breast Cancer
- Language and Embodied Sexuality
- Gay (White) Male Speech and the E(race)sure of Identity
- Indexicality of Grammar: The Case of Japanese Transgender Speakers
- Hate in language, Hate and Language
- A Critical Encyclopedia of Heterosex
- Preadolescence: Social Status and the Heterosexual Market
- Discourses of Disease: The Lifeworld, the Healthworld, and HIV/AIDS
- Language, Sexuality, History
- Semiotics of Homonationalism
- Homophobia and the Media: A Sample Critical Discourse Analysis
- Language and Intimate Relations
- Queer Thinking about Language Learning: Current Research and Future Directions
- Lesbian Identity Construction
- Queering School Literacy Practices: Interventionist Approaches
- Sexual Stylistics
- Narratives of Queer Migration
- Language and Sexual Normativity
- Queer Performativity
- Neoliberal Pleasure: Intimate Talk about Female Sexual Experience
- Populist Discourse and Desire for Social Justice
- Who Speaks for Porn?
- Pronouns and Gender in Language
- At the Crossroads of Language, Race, and Sexuality
- Religious Speech and Silence about Sexuality
- Reproduction and Language
- Doing Tricks: Affordances and Challenges for a Sociolinguistics of Sex Work
- Sexual Harassment, Speech Acts, and Public Secrets in U.S. Higher Education
- Language and Sexual Politics: Discursive Negotiations of Belonging
- Language and Sexual Violence in the Legal System: “He Said/She Said” Accounts and Beyond
- The Signs of Deaf Female Masculinity: Styles of Gendering/Queering ASL
- The “Gay Voice” and “Brospeak”: Toward a Systematic Model of Stance
- Sexual Stigma: Markedness, Taboo, Containment, and Emergence
- Transgender Language, Transgender Moment: Toward a Trans Linguistics
- Sexuality and Translation: Rewriting Identities and Desires
Abstract and Keywords
Sociolinguists have investigated the language of sexual violence and consent at length, but sexual pleasure remains largely overlooked. Sexual pleasure has often been forgotten in the battle against rape culture, but this discussion centers it. First, relevant concepts from the sociolinguistic scholarship are positioned alongside queer feminist conceptions of sexual pleasure. The discussion then turns to New Zealand case studies of conversations in intimate friendships about sexual pleasure to demonstrate how navigating conflicting discourses transforms sexual pleasure into a neoliberal project. A critical response is offered in a consideration of pleasure activism and how further sociolinguistic attention can harness the political power of pleasure. Sexual pleasure is a significant contributor to advancing sexual liberation, and sociolinguistic efforts to understand these complexities are important. Without paying attention to how sexual experiences are made sense of in intimate conversations, there is a risk of ensnaring pleasure in traps of faux empowerment discourse and neoliberal constraints.
Keywords: empowerment, feminism, intimacy, neoliberal, queer, sexual pleasure, New Zealand
School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, Victoria University of Wellington
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- Conversation Analysis, Language, and Sexuality
- Corpus Linguistics and Sexuality
- Critical Discourse Studies of Language and Sexuality
- Talk About Intimate Subjects: Ethnographic Approaches to Language, Gender, and Sexuality
- Linguistic Landscapes of Language and Sexuality
- Mediated Discourse Analysis in Language and Sexuality Research
- Semantics and Pragmatics: Blurring Boundaries and Constructing Contexts
- The Semiotics of Love
- From “Gay Lisp” to “Fierce Queen”: The Sociophonetics of Sexuality’s Most Iconic Variable
- Aging and Chronic Illness in Language and Sexuality
- Animacy as a Sexual Device
- Powerful Inscriptions: On the Semiotic Phenomenology of BDSM
- Sexuality and Bilingualism
- Bisexuality: Narrating Sexual Fluidity
- Categorization and Indexicality in Language and Sexuality Research
- Trash: Language, Sexuality, and Social Class
- Diasporic Sexual Citizenship: Queer Language, (Im)Possible Subjects, and Transfiliation
- Mediatizing Sex: Sexting and/as Digital Discourse
- Language, Disability, and Breast Cancer
- Language and Embodied Sexuality
- Gay (White) Male Speech and the E(race)sure of Identity
- Indexicality of Grammar: The Case of Japanese Transgender Speakers
- Hate in language, Hate and Language
- A Critical Encyclopedia of Heterosex
- Preadolescence: Social Status and the Heterosexual Market
- Discourses of Disease: The Lifeworld, the Healthworld, and HIV/AIDS
- Language, Sexuality, History
- Semiotics of Homonationalism
- Homophobia and the Media: A Sample Critical Discourse Analysis
- Language and Intimate Relations
- Queer Thinking about Language Learning: Current Research and Future Directions
- Lesbian Identity Construction
- Queering School Literacy Practices: Interventionist Approaches
- Sexual Stylistics
- Narratives of Queer Migration
- Language and Sexual Normativity
- Queer Performativity
- Neoliberal Pleasure: Intimate Talk about Female Sexual Experience
- Populist Discourse and Desire for Social Justice
- Who Speaks for Porn?
- Pronouns and Gender in Language
- At the Crossroads of Language, Race, and Sexuality
- Religious Speech and Silence about Sexuality
- Reproduction and Language
- Doing Tricks: Affordances and Challenges for a Sociolinguistics of Sex Work
- Sexual Harassment, Speech Acts, and Public Secrets in U.S. Higher Education
- Language and Sexual Politics: Discursive Negotiations of Belonging
- Language and Sexual Violence in the Legal System: “He Said/She Said” Accounts and Beyond
- The Signs of Deaf Female Masculinity: Styles of Gendering/Queering ASL
- The “Gay Voice” and “Brospeak”: Toward a Systematic Model of Stance
- Sexual Stigma: Markedness, Taboo, Containment, and Emergence
- Transgender Language, Transgender Moment: Toward a Trans Linguistics
- Sexuality and Translation: Rewriting Identities and Desires