Feminist Iconoclasm and the Problem of Eroticism

Abstract

This article is an attempt to stand back from the highly polarized debates over sexual representation within feminism over the last two decades. Setting aside the sterile arguments over the behavioural effects, what emerges from the feminist critique of pornography is arguably a much more general and well founded problematization of heterosexual `eroticism' (i.e. the symbolic meanings attending sexual acts and representations). This discussion explores the key questions which arise around the `problem of eroticism' for those interested in a critical analysis of heterosexuality. How has heterosexual eroticism come to take the form that it does? How might its form be changing? Should eroticism be understood in relation to social or psychic processes? And above all, what should our practical attitude be to the use of eroticism in the new age of gender equality?

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