Abstract

Activists for feminist, queer, and disability justice commonly describe their work as motivated by an erotic desire to build a different world. This chapter argues that this is not merely a metaphor. Drawing on activist case studies and the work of Audre Lorde, the chapter shows that erotic desire and pleasure in social movements can foster political agency for people targeted by sexual oppression. It traces three political benefits of erotic passion in this context: personal empowerment, communal moral resistance against oppressive norms and justifications, and enhanced political imagination toward a world that supports sexual agency. However, because intimate relationships within movements are often distorted by dominant, pernicious ideologies around sex, these political benefits are only realizable when a movement is organized internally around a relational infrastructure – an ethos – that supports sexual agency and equality, responsive to the needs of those targeted by sexual oppression.