Look good, feel good: sexiness and sexual pleasure in neoliberalism

Abstract

This paper explores the connections between sexiness and sexual pleasure for women in neoliberal, postfeminist culture. The first half of the paper is concerned with an examination of the way that ‘looking good’ and ‘feeling good’ are constructed and conflated by sex advice for women. The second half of the paper considers how this discourse is negotiated in women’s accounts, in which they work upon and understand themselves as sexual agents who look and feel good ‘for me’. In conclusion, I argue that working upon the self/body in ways that are intelligible in neoliberalism can be precarious and prone to failure.