RUcore Resource Object
RUcore Resource Object
PDF-1(1.99 MB)
Title“Where angels fear to tread”
NameWarner, Alex Ellis (author), Hewitt, Nancy (chair), Koven, Seth (internal member), Isenberg, Alison (internal member), Echols, Alice (outside member), Rutgers University, Graduate School - New Brunswick,
Degree Date2011-05
Date Created2011
SubjectHistory,
Lesbians—Sexual behavior,
Feminism,
Sadomasochism
DescriptionThis study is the first to document the history of the lesbian sadomasochist (SM) community and demonstrates its impact of the feminist Sex Wars in the United States between 1969 and 1993. Bringing together foundational literature and methods of inquiry from women’s studies, queer theory and the history of other excluded social groups, my dissertation highlights issues of power, resistance and collective identity formation. Drawing on newspaper articles and other published sources, archival research and oral histories, I argue that one cannot understand the history of movements for gender, sexual and sexuality equality without also understanding this issue. This project charts the evolution of feminist sexual theory from the 1960s through the 1990s, illuminates ruptures in feminist and gay/lesbian liberation theory and practice and reveals the history and the long-lasting implications of these debates. I show how lesbian SM helped to shape the pornography debates, the development of both queer theory and the field of sexuality studies and was integral to major shifts in American politics and culture in the last two decades of the twentieth century.
NotePh.D.
NoteIncludes bibliographical references
NoteIncludes vita
Noteby Alex Ellis Warner
Genretheses
Persistent URLhttp://hdl.rutgers.edu/1782.1/rucore10001600001.ETD.000061536
Languageeng
CollectionGraduate School - New Brunswick Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Organization NameRutgers, The State University of New Jersey
RightsThe author owns the copyright to this work.