Abstract
This paper examines the potential of visual and multimodal culture to advance feminist sex education that emphasizes female pleasure and agency. Research shows that sexual education remains largely preventative, centring on risks such as sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancy, and sexual violence (Goldfarb, 2021; Ford et al., 2019). Female sexuality is still framed as something to be controlled, trapping young women in social stigmas regardless of whether they engage in sexual activity or abstain (Bey-Cheng, 2019). Sexual scripts continue to cast men as initiators and women as passive participants (Levy-Herz & Rozmarin, 2023), a pattern reinforced by the objectification and pornification of culture (Döring et al., 2024; Csányi et al., 2022). Pleasure-oriented sex education addressing desire, intimacy, and mutuality remains rare (Mahar et al., 2020; Nofar, 2024), while pornography functions as a primary source of sexual learning for many adolescents (O’Kane, 2024; Hakkim, 2022), contributing to the gender pleasure gap (Mahar et al., 2020) and undermining female agency (Vanwesenbeeck et al., 2021). While current debates emphasize critical visual literacy to counter pornography’s negative messages, this paper turns to an earlier visual archive: feminist visual and multimodal culture from the era of the Sexual Revolution. Drawing on feminist artworks, underground magazines, and popular sex manuals, the paper examines how such artifacts can serve as a pedagogical resource for a positive, feminist sex education. Despite the period’s pervasive sexist imagery, it also visually chronicled one of the most significant struggles for women’s sexual rights, anticipating the pedagogical framework we propose.
Presenters
Ya'ara Gil-GlazerSenior Lecturer and Head of the Sexuality Education across the Life Cycle, Department of Education and Department of Multidisciplinary Studies, Tel Hai Academic College, Israel Yael Ben Natan
Research assistant , Sexuality education across the life cycle, Department of Education and Department of Multidisciplinary Studies, Tel Hai Academic Collage , HaZafon, Israel Eva L. Wyss
Professor, German Department, Universität Koblenz, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
The Arts in Social, Political, and Community Life
KEYWORDS
Feminist visual/multimodal culture; Feminist art; Sexuality education; Sexual revolution
