Book contents
- The Cambridge World History of Sexualities
- The Cambridge World History of Sexualities
- The Cambridge World History of Sexualities
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures in Volume IV
- Contributors to Volume IV
- Editors’ Preface to the Series
- 1 Sexuality and Capitalism
- 2 Colonialism and Modern Sexuality
- 3 Gender, Migration, and Sexuality in the Modern World
- 4 ‘Pornography’, ‘Obscenity’, and the Suppression of Libertine Literature
- 5 Sexuality and the Print Media in the Modern World
- 6 Eugenics, Public Health, and Modern Sexuality
- 7 Sexuality and Consumerism in the Modern World: The Business of Pleasure
- 8 Sex Education in the Modern World
- 9 Birth Control and Reproductive Rights in the Modern World
- 10 The Impact of the World Wars on Modern Sexuality
- 11 Sexualities and Dictatorships of the Twentieth Century
- 12 Sexuality in Post-war Liberal Democracies
- 13 The Sexual Revolution
- 14 Sex Tourism: Fluid Borders of Meanings and Practices
- 15 The History of AIDS since 1981: Medicine, Politics, and Societies in a Pandemic
- 16 Sex Trafficking in the Modern World
- 17 Sex, Law, and Domestic Violence against Women in the Modern World
- 18 Sexuality under Attack Now
- Index
- Contents to Volumes I, II, and III
- References
7 - Sexuality and Consumerism in the Modern World: The Business of Pleasure
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 April 2024
- The Cambridge World History of Sexualities
- The Cambridge World History of Sexualities
- The Cambridge World History of Sexualities
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures in Volume IV
- Contributors to Volume IV
- Editors’ Preface to the Series
- 1 Sexuality and Capitalism
- 2 Colonialism and Modern Sexuality
- 3 Gender, Migration, and Sexuality in the Modern World
- 4 ‘Pornography’, ‘Obscenity’, and the Suppression of Libertine Literature
- 5 Sexuality and the Print Media in the Modern World
- 6 Eugenics, Public Health, and Modern Sexuality
- 7 Sexuality and Consumerism in the Modern World: The Business of Pleasure
- 8 Sex Education in the Modern World
- 9 Birth Control and Reproductive Rights in the Modern World
- 10 The Impact of the World Wars on Modern Sexuality
- 11 Sexualities and Dictatorships of the Twentieth Century
- 12 Sexuality in Post-war Liberal Democracies
- 13 The Sexual Revolution
- 14 Sex Tourism: Fluid Borders of Meanings and Practices
- 15 The History of AIDS since 1981: Medicine, Politics, and Societies in a Pandemic
- 16 Sex Trafficking in the Modern World
- 17 Sex, Law, and Domestic Violence against Women in the Modern World
- 18 Sexuality under Attack Now
- Index
- Contents to Volumes I, II, and III
- References
Summary
Focused on metropolitan consumer centres in which new sexual identities were bought and sold, this chapter explores how mass-market businesses stimulated, satisfied, and contained female desires, often at the same time. Consumer behaviours are a nexus of bodily and psychic desires understood through a language of seduction. Since the mid-nineteenth century, businesses have channelled, commodified, and promoted female sexuality to sell new products, shopping spaces, and leisure activities. Cities offered both licit and illicit, sexual and consumer pleasures. Their urban geographies are the living proof of our argument that in modern capitalist societies, sexuality is a commodity, commodities often are erotic, and the spaces and communities in which they are exchanged contribute to the making of consumer and sexual subjectivities. The marketing of eros therefore did not simply emerge with the twentieth-century sexual revolution, but rather was central to the history of modern capitalism. By examining the overlapping histories of the marketing of female consumer and sexual pleasures in diverse places, this chapter explores the role of sex and sexiness in the modern marketplace and challenges liberal assumptions about agency, liberation, and progress embedded in the history of the sexual revolutions of the late twentieth century.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge World History of Sexualities , pp. 136 - 158Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024