Amber Jamilla Musser - "Sensations of Domination: What Critiques of Lesbian S&M Tell us about Queer Theory."

In a moment when some feminists argued that focusing on sexuality was a symptom of the insidious nature of patriarchy and that pornography and promiscuity degraded women by reducing them to sexual objects, lesbian S&M was a highly debated practice. Critics argued that lesbian S&M was about violence and patriarchy while feminists who supported the practice were accused of being blind to its pernicious aspects. Amber Jamilla Musser, Assistant Professor of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Washington University in St. Louis will give a talk on Thursday, November 7th at 5:30 pm revisits these critiques in order to learn more about what it feels like to be embedded in a particular power dynamic. In turn, these sensations of domination reveal new possibilities for queer theory and queer of color critique.