How sexual empowerment gets in the way of liberation: A case study of a Turkish immigrant woman.

Abstract

The current widely regaled and increasingly familiar story about women's sexual empowerment is a woman "taking ownership" of her own sexuality, making her own choices, and knowing her own desires and needs. I draw from critical sexuality studies, psychodynamic theory, and transnational feminism, aligning myself with work theorized in the intersections of sexuality, migration, and ethnicity to understand how Leyla, a young Turkish woman who immigrated to New York, navigates sexual empowerment. Using the Listening Guide (LG) method of narrative analysis, I discovered that Leyla participates in what she calls "categorizing," splitting women along the contradictory binary line of slutshaming and empowerment (Tolman, 2018). "Sexual empowerment" leaves her with a dilemma of wanting to be sexually empowered yet avoid being categorized, and her solution to this psychological bind is to have a "subtle sexuality," which delicately hides her sexuality. This solution serves as protection, it in fact keeps her from precisely what she wants: embodied experiences of power and desire. Leyla's case, illustrative of many others whom I have interviewed, reveals how "sexual empowerment" can get in the way of liberation. This analysis reveals how the neoliberal, "do it yourself" empowerment discourse pushes heterosexual women into nonsolution solutions that allow them some room to come up for air, yet not enough room for play, desire, and freedom. Uncovering these psychological logics that constitute nonsolution solutions makes these systemic binds visible, which is a necessary step in finding liberatory pathways.