Penile Imperialism: The Male Sex Right and Women’s Subordination | (PDF Chapter Introduction)
In this Introduction, Sheila Jeffreys outlines the main arguments and contents of the book. It explains that women live under penile imperialism, a regime in which men are assumed to have a ‘sex right’ of access to the bodies of women and girls which is delineated by sexologists, the scientists of sex, protected by governments and the law, and reproduced in culture. It argues that penile imperialism profoundly harms the human rights of women and girls to privacy and dignity, to freedom of movement and expression, to political representation and to opportunities. The book argues that the ‘sexual revolution’ of the 1960s and 1970s unleashed a specifically male sexual liberation which created a sense amongst many groups of men that they should be able to realise their ‘sexual freedom’, a freedom which generally involves being able to sexually use women and children.
16 pages | 581 KB