10/01/2023, 18.00
14/02/2023, 20.00
11/04/2023, 17.00
09/05/2023, 18.00
13/05/2013, 18.00
Škratova čitalnica, Trg prekomorskih brigad 1, Ljubljana
02/03/2023
08/03/2023
The New Post Office, Ljubljana
On the first The Power of Pleasure sessionin January, a feminist reading club meeting between The Sisterhood of the Proud Dolphin and Maska, the implementation of the topic»pleasure in feminism as a reparatory practice« was discussed. Discussion coordinated by Klara Otorepec and Pia Brezavšček was focused on the book of essays by the socialist feminist Alexandra Kollontai. The debate’s anchoring point was the topic of »love« and »comradeship« in socialism as working-class interest that is in accordance with equity, freedom and solidarity that goes beyond romantic love and is banning the notion of traditional family as monogamous unit of partners and their children. It was agreed that although the notion of class should be revisited, these hundred-year-old findings seem very relevant today. Equity, freedom, and solidarity also seem to be the bases for thinking about pleasure.
The group decided to look further into the topic of pleasure by readdressing a book from the 80’s: Female desire by Rosalind Coward. The intention was to look into what was of interest to the local publishers in Slovenia at that point in time and see what has changed in one generation. For future readings, the book that is being translated at Maska was chosen: Catherine Malabou’s Pleasure erased and for one of the next meetings a discussion will be focused on Tjaša Črnigoj’s performance Sexual education.
On the second meeting in March, the group was reading the book Female desire by Rosalind Coward. It was discussed that female pleasure is perceived as a preconceived notion imposed upon women, reinforcing patriarchal structures. It emphasized women not being recognized as proprietors of their own pleasures. The exploration of the sexualized gaze of men towards women highlighted its role in subordination, questioning how women respond to or resist this gaze.
The conversation also addressed the emotional and sexual labor expected in heterosexual relationships, pondering the potential sexualization of feminist activism and the scarcity of male feminists. The debate extended to the paradoxes of objectifying male bodies and changes in billboard advertising from the 80s, while the portrayal of the female body remained largely unchanged. Contributing to various subject matters, there was a debate on why makeup is (not) warn and a discussion on the fictional concept of “maternal instinct”. The book offered many topics that are still very relevant and debatable and a good introduction to the research on pleasure in feminism.
The next meeting took place at the lecture-performances by Tjaša Črnigoj. Sex Education II, Ability and Games, premiered on the 2nd and 8th March 2023 and made a foundation for further discussion.
Lecture-performances set the tone of the next meeting in April when the group met with the artist Tjaša Črnigoj. They discussed her sensitive and ethical methodology and relationship towards the topics (Diagnosis – about Vaginismus, Consentire – about consent, Ability – about the sexuality of physically impaired women, Games – about BDSM practices) and the interviewees during the process. There was a burning discussion about the term radical feminism and different historical feminism from which we can take something but are not necessarily worth reproducing in whole.
This meeting initiated the reading of the first part of the Slovene translation of Catherine Malabou’s book Pleasure Erased, translated by Sonja Dular. There was a discussion about normality and sexuality connected to the book that was read.
On the fifth reading club meeting in May the group further discussed the first part of Slovene translation of Pleasure erased: Clitoris unthought.
The topics of the conversation were focused primarily on the difference between the symbolic and anatomical meaning of the organ clitoris, the history of the discourse about clitoris and the fame around the difference between clitoral and vaginal orgasm in psychoanalysis. An important subject was also the upbringing of (female) children regarding their exploration of sexual pleasure and the related taboos. One of the participants studied obstetric violence, so the discussion included how in medicine the organ clitoris is not treated as a functional organ and how women’s reproductive health is still reduced to the ability to reproduce. The conversation enveloped how these topics are tackled in the book and how they connect to the author’s other concepts, such as plasticity.
The sixth reading club meeting of The Sisterhood of the Proud Dolphin and Maska’s Power of Pleasure team, analysed the second part of the Slovene translation of the Pleasure erased book.
The debate was centered around the eroticism of discourse and emancipation that is not necessarily connected to the mainstream representation of power as masculine. Further, they discussed the distinction between »femaleness and femininity« and discussed transfeminism extensively. The personal experiences of the participants played an important role in the evolution of the discussion. The meeting was followed up by Klara Otorepec’s recap of the methodologies that are implicit in the reading club meetings.