This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Women Dancing on the Edge of Time Reframing female (a)sexualities through Zorbitality Sadlier, Aoife Claire Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 07. Oct. 2021 1 Women Dancing on the Edge of Time: Reframing female (a)sexualities through Zorbitality Aoife Sadlier A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, the Department of Culture, Media and Creative Industries, King’s College London 2 Declaration I, Aoife Sadlier, declare that this thesis is my own work. All references have been cited and the word limit does not exceed that prescribed in the College regulations. The copyright of the thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it may me made without proper acknowledgement. The thesis may not be reproduced without prior written consent, but will be made available for public reference in the King’s College London library. 3 Abstract In the early twenty‐first century, asexuality has emerged as a sexual orientation category, defined as a ‘lack’ of sexual attraction. This thesis challenges such a definition, arguing that it erodes individual idiosyncrasies; assumes that everyone is sexual, and that sexuality is immutable; and fails to note that sexual orientation labels are products of patriarchy and capitalism. A study of female (a)sexualities is long overdue. Very little has been written on the topic. Furthermore, with the rise of postfeminism, women are often represented as desiring their sexual objectification, whilst the narratives of asexual‐identified women are in danger of being lost. In response, this thesis poses two questions. Firstly, what are the junctures and disjunctures between discursive representations of female (a)sexualities and women’s engagements with (a)sexualities across their life spans? Secondly, what are the embodied moments when female (a)sexualities are in transition, and in particular, what role do ecstatic collective movement rites play in these shifts? To answer these questions, this thesis employs three methodologies: (i) a two‐ part genealogy, comprising a sociohistorical exploration of female (a)sexualities and alternative narratives, articulated through the literary imaginary, Western and Afro‐diasporic dance and Zumba; (ii) ‘me‐search,’ featuring nine autobiographical passages written between September 2013 and August 2016; and (iii) collective biography workshops with nine women/life history interviews with seven women, conducted from April to June 2015. The data suggested that patriarchal structures constrain women’s collective ecstatic motion. This led to the emergence of a new concept for reframing female (a)sexualities: Zorbitality. Zorbitality is a resistant imaginary, which navigates a threefold process from vulnerability to inner ecstasy and collective ecstatic motion. It harnesses the collective joy of Zumba, a global Latin dance fitness phenomenon, as a central example. Zorbitality features realigned and ever‐ shifting erotic poles, from autoeroticism to polyamory. Ultimately, as a resistant imaginary, Zorbitality challenges representations of ‘asexuality’ as a categorical orientation, by situating collective ecstatic motion as the basis of a feminine libidinal economy, which embodies an ethical openness to otherness. 4 CONTENTS Content Page number Declaration 2 Abstract 3 Preface and acknowledgements 8 Chapter 1: Introduction 12 1.1 ­ Invitation to a dance 12 Research questions 15 1.2 ­ Defining Zorbitality 16 1.3 ­ Zorbital Analysis 19 Time, space, memory 21 1.4 ‐ Methodology 26 1.5 ­ Zorbital formations: Structure of the text 38 Part I: Literature review: Genealogies 45 Introduction 45 Chapter 2: Representing (a)sexualities 47 Introduction 47 2.1 ‐ Psychological and sociological accounts of asexuality 47 Empirical Psychology: Claims to a Universal Truth 47 Cultural Psychology: Challenges to the empirical paradigm 52 Sociological accounts of asexuality 55 2.2 ­ Sorting sex, gender and sexuality 61 The ‘truth’ of sex 61 ‐ The case of Herculine Barbin 65 The genealogy of gender 67 Situating and reconfiguring sexuality 71 ‐ Female (a)sexualities: The forgotten strand of 75 autoeroticism 2.3 ­ A genealogy of female (a)sexualities 80 Navigating feminisms past and present 80 ‐ The frigid woman: The subject of psychoanalysis 84 ­ The single woman: The subject of postfeminism 86 2.4 ­ Concluding remarks 89 5 Chapter 3: Zorbital Framework: Towards a theory of Zorbitality 90 Introduction 90 3.1 ­ The Zorbital Literary Imaginary 91 Woolf’s The Voyage Out 92 Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time 98 Towards the Zorbital Imaginary 102 3.2 ­ Reconfiguring Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring 103 Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring 104 Reconfiguring the Rite through Zorbitality: 107 Katherine Dunham’s Rites de Passage Towards a Zorbital framework for dance 110 3.3 ­ Situating Zumba: Western colonisation and the loss of 112 collective ecstasy Evoking Dionysus 112 Western colonisation and the suppression of Dionysus 114 The relationship between collective ecstasy and sexuality 117 3.4 ­ Dionysus meets neoliberalism: Reframing female 119 (a)sexualities through Zorbitality Reaching Zorbitality 120 Zumba as a lifestyle choice: Marketing collective joy 123 Meeting Dionysus: ZIN Academy and Believe 127 ‐ ZIN Academy, 10­11 July 2015 127 ­ Believe, 11 July 2015 129 Zumba as a central example of Zorbitality 130 (i) Zumba as an asexual space 130 (ii) Zumba as a celebration of the autoerotic body 132 (iii) Zumba as an invocation of West African collective 133 danced rites 3.5 ­ Concluding remarks 135 Part II: Me­search 137 Introduction 137 Chapter 4: Dancing to sustainable futures: Zorbitality as process 139 4.1 ­ Exegesis for creative work 139 4.2 ­ Vulnerability: The wound of possibility 143 Autobiographical passage 1: My earliest dance memory 143 Autobiographical passage 2: ‘I’ve got life’ (!) 144 Autobiographical passage 3: The Postfeminist Blues 151 6 4.3 ­ Cultivating inner ecstasy: Identities in flux 154 Autobiographical passage 4: Dancing at the edge of sea and sky 155 Autobiographical passage 5: Back on land 157 4.4 ­ Zorbitality: The collective ecstatic motion of Zumba 163 Autobiographical passage 6: The Chosen One 164 Autobiographical passage 7: Let’s Tango 167 Autobiographical passage 8: The girl who danced herself to life 170 ­ Zumba: Becoming my dance 172 Autobiographical passage 9: Dancing on the edge of time 174 4.5 ­ Concluding remarks 178 Part III: Collective Biography 179 Introduction 179 Chapter 5: Discovering resistant rhythms: From vulnerability to 183 inner ecstasy Introduction 183 Vulnerability 184 5.1 ­ Becoming Automaton 184 5.2 ­ Murder on the dance floor 192 Inner ecstasy 199 5.3 ­ Zorbitality’s erotic poles: From autoeroticism to polyamory 199 One’s body ‐ one’s temple: Female autoeroticism 199 Polyamory: An ethical openness to all 204 Linking autoeroticism and polyamory 209 5.4 ­ Zorbitality through transformational moments 211 5.5 ­ Concluding remarks 220 Chapter 6: Zorbitality in action: Reaching collective 223 ecstatic motion Introduction 223 Vulnerability, inner ecstasy, collective ecstatic motion: Reimagining a 224 colonial relation 6.1 ­ Reimagining the indigenous subject: Movement, 226 transformation, choice 7 6.2 ­ Finding Zorbitality 238 Evoking Dionysus: Martha’s transformative process 243 6.3 ­ Defying Stravinsky’s Sacrificial Dance: Evoking West African 246 rites 6.4 ­ Concluding remarks 254 Chapter 7: Conclusion: Women dancing on the edge of time 256 Introduction 256 7.1 ­ A reflection on methodology 257 Transforming personal narratives through Afro‐diasporic 257 rhythms The role of the imagination and the absence of the visual 261 7.2 ­ Navigating the links between chapters, methodologies, 263 and Zorbital processes Zorbital Flows 267 ­ Zorbital Flow 1: A Transformative Moment 268 ­ Zorbital Flow 2: Partial Zorbital Process (i) 269 ­ Zorbital Flow 3: Partial Zorbital Process (ii) 270 ­ Zorbital Flow 4: Reverse Zorbital Process 271 ­ Zorbital Flow 5: A Resistant Imaginary 272 7.3 ­ Zorbitality as a resistant imaginary 273 Autobiographical passage: Message from the edge 273 7.4 ­ And for the future 277 Coda: Moving On 280 Bibliography 283 8 Preface and acknowledgements Preface These moments and movements are not towards the transformation of ourselves