Sensational Flesh

This “lively and enlightening contribution to queer studies” investigates power, race, and gender through the lens of masochism (Darieck Scott, author of Extravagant Abjection).

In everyday language, masochism is usually understood as the desire to abdicate control in exchange for sensation—pleasure, pain, or a combination thereof. Yet at its core, masochism is a site where power, bodies, and society come together. Drawing on rich and varied sources—from nineteenth century sexology, psychoanalysis, and critical theory to literary texts and performance art—Amber Jamilla Musser employs masochism as a diagnostic tool for probing relationships between power and subjectivity.

Engaging with a range of debates about lesbian S&M, racialization, femininity, and disability, as well as key texts such as Sacher-Masoch’s Venus in Furs, Pauline Réage’s The Story of O, and Michel Foucault's History of Sexuality, Musser renders legible the complex ways that masochism has been taken up by queer, feminist, and critical race theories.

Furthering queer theory’s investment in affect and materiality, she proposes “sensation” as an analytical tool for illustrating what it feels like to be embedded in structures of domination such as patriarchy, colonialism, and racism—as well as what it means to embody femininity, blackness, and pain. Sensational Flesh is ultimately about how difference is made material through race, gender, and sexuality and how that materiality is experienced.