Exploring Female Narratives of Sexual Intimacy and the Social Suppression of Desire
- Title
- Exploring Female Narratives of Sexual Intimacy and the Social Suppression of Desire
- Creator
- Rajan S.; Pathak S.
- Description
- Exploring the construction of sexual identities by women, this research attempts to provide an experiential understanding of sexual intimacy in young adulthood through critical narrative analysis of the accounts of ten unmarried cis-gender women, located in the postmodern feminist paradigm and drawing from contemporary psychoanalytic tradition. The study highlighted the lack of discourse on female desire and pleasure (that is not fetishised, penalised, or ostracised) in the hetero-patriarchal socio-cultural fabric of India and how it manifests in the sense of shame, guilt, and self-doubt in the navigation of sexual intimacy. The social matrix, including the influence of family and partner dynamics and cultural and generational differences, was observed to play a prominent role in the evolution of individual perceptions of sexual intimacy. Analysing the narratives through a feminist lens foregrounded the predominance of male satisfaction and pleasure, the sense of obligation towards male partners, the infringement of boundaries and compromise, and the performativity in sexual experiences, thus calling attention to the female struggle of realising and practising sexual agency. The research indicates the need to critically examine the pervasive phallocentrism in the experience of sexual intimacy and the marginalisation of female sexual desire due to the suppression of female sexuality in the patriarchal hierarchy of power distribution. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024.
- Source
- Human Arenas
- Date
- 2024-01-01
- Publisher
- Springer Science and Business Media B.V.
- Subject
- Critical; Desire; Female sexuality; Narrative; Sexual intimacy
- Coverage
- Rajan S., Department of Psychology, CHRIST University, Delhi NCR, India; Pathak S., Department of Psychology, CHRIST University, Delhi NCR, India
- Rights
- Restricted Access
- Relation
- ISSN: 25225804
- Format
- Online
- Language
- English
- Type
- Article
Collection
Citation
Rajan S.; Pathak S., “Exploring Female Narratives of Sexual Intimacy and the Social Suppression of Desire,” CHRIST (Deemed To Be University) Institutional Repository, accessed February 24, 2025, https://archives.christuniversity.in/items/show/13511.