Affording pleasure: the role of objects in women’s and AFAB individuals’ sexual self-knowledge and pleasure

Abstract

ABSTRACT Although historically stigmatized, women’s participation in the sex toy industry is significantly linked to their sexual autonomy, and women’s use of sex toys for sexual pleasure is prevalent. In this analysis, we consider how these important market practices are built upon practices established outside the erotic market in early life. More specifically, we reveal how women’s and AFAB (Assigned-Female-At-Birth) individuals’ early-life encounters with household objects prefigure their adult consumption of sex toys. Using the theory of affordances, we demonstrate that the pursuit of sexual pleasure is a perceptual learning process, beginning long before individuals enter the erotic industry as consumers, and continuing throughout their lifecourse with both “erotic” and “non-erotic” objects. This study draws from life history narrative data collected in 2019–2020 from 30 participants, with 26 out of 30 participants identifying as LGBTQIA+. These data permit a “follow-the-body” analytical approach that highlights the ways sexual discovery is perceptual, embodied, improvisational, and cumulative.