Pathways to Pleasure and Protection: Exploring Embodiment, Desire, and Entitlement to Pleasure as Predictors of Black and White Young Women’s Sexual Agency

Sexual agency is a fundamental dimension of sexual subjectivity and well-being. Research and theory suggest that it functions in the service of both protection from harm and enabling sexual pleasure. However, sexual agency can be difficult for women to navigate in a social landscape in which feminin...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychology of women quarterly 2020-09, Vol.44 (3), p.307-322
Main Authors: Chmielewski, Jennifer F., Bowman, Christin P., Tolman, Deborah L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Black people
College students
Discourses
Embodiment
Entitlement
Femininity
Feminism
Feminist psychology
Heterosexuality
Path analysis
Pleasure
Psychology
Race
Secondary school teachers
Sexual aggression
Sexual behavior
Sexual desire
Sexuality
Social forces
Subjectivity
Womens studies
Young women
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Sexual agency is a fundamental dimension of sexual subjectivity and well-being. Research and theory suggest that it functions in the service of both protection from harm and enabling sexual pleasure. However, sexual agency can be difficult for women to navigate in a social landscape in which femininity ideologies remain powerful social forces, operating in racialized ways. We examined how embodiment, sexual desire, and entitlement to sexual pleasure were associated with sexual agency in the service of protection (i.e., condom use and refusing unwanted sex) and pleasure (i.e., asking for what one wants from a sexual partner) for Black and White heterosexual college women using path analysis and path invariance testing. We found that across race, women’s embodiment was associated with greater comfort with their sexual desire, which in turn was associated with greater entitlement to sexual pleasure and sexual agency in service of both pleasure and protection. While Black and White women evidenced similar levels of both forms of agency, Black participants’ agency in the service of protection was unrelated to their entitlement to sexual pleasure. We discuss these findings in light of racialized discourses of women’s sexuality and the importance of understanding sexual desire as anchored in the body and enabling young women’s sexual agency.
ISSN:0361-6843
1471-6402
DOI:10.1177/0361684320917395