Florida International University FIU Digital Commons FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations University Graduate School 3-29-2019 Transnational Sex-Positive Play Parties: The Sexual Politics of Care for Community-Making at a Kinky Salon Christina Bazzaroni Florida International University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd Part of the Gender and Sexuality Commons, Human Geography Commons, Leisure Studies Commons, Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Other Geography Commons, Politics and Social Change Commons, Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons, and the Women's Studies Commons Recommended Citation Bazzaroni, Christina, "Transnational Sex-Positive Play Parties: The Sexual Politics of Care for Community- Making at a Kinky Salon" (2019). FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 4050. https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/4050 This work is brought to you for free and open access by the University Graduate School at FIU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of FIU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY Miami, Florida TRANSNATIONAL SEX-POSITIVE PLAY PARTIES: THE SEXUAL POLITICS OF CARE FOR COMMUNITY-MAKING AT A KINKY SALON A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in GLOBAL AND SOCIOCULTURAL STUDIES by Christina Nicol Bazzaroni 2019 To: Dean John F. Stack, Jr. Steven J. Green School of International & Public Affairs This dissertation, written by Christina Nicol Bazzaroni, and entitled Transnational Sex- Positive Play Parties: The Sexual Politics of Care for Community-Making at a Kinky Salon, having been approved in respect to style and intellectual content, is referred to you for judgment. We have read this dissertation and recommend that it be approved. ______________________________________________ Andrea Queeley ______________________________________________ Laurie Shrage ______________________________________________ Benjamin Smith ______________________________________________ Caroline Faria, Co-major Professor ______________________________________________ Jean Muteba Rahier, Co-major Professor Date of Defense: March 29, 2019 The dissertation of Christina Nicol Bazzaroni is approved. _____________________________________________ Dean John F. Stack, Jr. Steven J. Green School of International & Public Affairs _____________________________________________ Andrés G. Gil Vice President for Research and Economic Development and Dean of the University Graduate School Florida International University, 2019 ii © Copyright 2019 by Christina Nicol Bazzaroni All rights reserved. iii DEDICATION To my parents, thank you. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am honored and humbled to extend my gratitude to all those who supported me in obtaining my graduate degree. First, I thank the Florida International University, University Graduate School, for awarding me the Dissertation Year Fellowship. This fellowship helped me to write this manuscript and graduate, supported, in a timely manner. Next, I thank my chair, Professor Jean Muteba Rahier. Dr. Rahier has been instrumental in every step of my academic success, providing me valuable personal and professional guidance and support. Thank you also to my co-chair, Professor Caroline Faria. Dr. Faria has shaped my understandings of what feminist geographies may be, exciting me to go in the direction I have. Both Dr. Faria and Dr. Rahier have been generous and supportive allies throughout this process. Without their encouragement this project would not have been completed, I am very grateful to you both. I also want to thank my dissertation committee: Professor Ben Smith, Professor Andrea Queeley, and Professor Laurie Shrage. Your commitment to my completion is deeply appreciated. I also want to thank fellow colleagues I have met and become enduring friends with while on my academic journey, your support and encouragement has mattered greatly. And finally, I extend immense gratitude to all the people that made this work possible, your warmth, trust and enthusiasm has been humbling and enriching. Thank you all for all you have taught me on this journey. v ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION TRANSNATIONAL SEX-POSITIVE PLAY PARTIES: THE SEXUAL POLITICS OF CARE FOR COMMUNITY-MAKING AT A KINKY SALON by Christina Nicol Bazzaroni Florida International University, 2019 Miami, Florida Professor Jean Muteba Rahier, Co-Major Professor Professor Caroline Faria, Co-Major Professor To date, feminist geographers and geographers of sexualities have yet to fully interrogate post sexual revolution society. In this dissertation I examine the politics of sex-positive play parties, through the case study of Kinky Salon (KS) – a global organization that claims to catalyze a contemporary sex culture revolution. This project expands on previous feminist geography and geographies of sexualities scholarship centering queer, kinky sex, demonstrating that non-normative sexual practices are informed by and contribute to sexual revolution legacies. I extend feminist geographies’ theorizing of affect and emotion to show how sexual intimacies are care-work, with the emotional power to bring about relation-building and sexual understanding. In doing so, play-based sex-positive politics are highlighted as a framework to promote community, and resistance against norms that constrain sexually deviant bodies. This project highlights the complexities of sex-based efforts at social change, which I show continue to reflect inequalities in society even as they seek to transform it. I vi begin by asking: What is so political about playful sex? Answering this guiding question required a multi-sited, mixed methodological, ethnographic approach, to undertake a feminist geographical exploration of embodied sexuality, play, and care as activism. It took two years of field research to gain trust among members of a sex-positive community. I conducted fifty-three semi-structured interviews, and countless hours of informal conversations, proving crucial to my overall understanding of sex-positive culture. Time spent in the field was enriched by observant-participation as a volunteer, culminating in a transnational tour of a global community. The data collected underscores the political contestations of inclusivity ethics and the transnational spread of sex culture aimed at changing discourses about deviant sex. I show that play is constructed as transformative for community members who adopt activist non-normative care practices that require new theorizing of sexual subjectivity. This project brings together geographies of sexualities and feminist geographies to move them forward. By revealing how affect, emotion, and intimacy, are co-constituted, I suggest that there is an opportunity to more fully explore what care ethics has to offer sexuality studies. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. INTRODUCTION & LITERATURE REVIEW: Sex parties as spaces for political play: Community-making and sexual revolution through Kinky Salon ……..…...1 Introduction …………………………………………………………………….....1 Intellectual setting: Situating the challenges and potentials of sex-positive culture ………………………………………………………………………….....3 Contextualizing sexual revolutions and their legacies.............................................4 Geographies of sexuality: Constructing sexual dissidents and cultural diasporas…………………………………………………………………………10 Playing with a politics of care: Toward an affective, sex culture activism praxis …………...………………………………………………………19 Research Objectives ……………………………………………………………..25 What is Kinky Salon and how does it work to influence sex culture? ………….27 Chapter summaries ……………………………………………………………...37 Endnotes ………………………………………………………………………....40 II. METHODOLOGY & METHODS: The embodied researcher in a sexualized field....44 Introduction: A project in the making, journeying to the topic …………………44 Feminist methods in geography: Coming to terms with intangible geographies ..45 Sexuality research and self-care: Understanding fieldwork as a site of deep reflexivity………………………………………………………………………...48 Creating boundaries: Negotiating intimacy and emotional entanglements in the field ………………………………………………………………………….51 Managing the stigma and potential for shame in doing sexuality research ……..57 Feminist methods in action ……………………………………………………...57 Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………67 Endnotes …………………………………………………………………………69 III. THE POLITICS OF PLAY: Negotiating power, connection, and transformation in a sexual community ………..……………………………………….………. 71 Introduction …………………………………………………………………….. 71 Intellectual setting and methods …………………………...…………………….72 Establishing the playground rules: What is so political about playful sex? …….77 Negotiating power and connection: The policing of play ……………………… 90 The transformative potentials of sex-positive community and playful sex ……..98 The marginalizing potentials of cultivating inclusive, sexual community …….107 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………..115 Endnotes ………………………………………………………………………..117 IV. CONSTRUCTING CARE IN SEX CULTURE: Reimagining revolutionary change one educated orgasm at a time? ………..…………………..…………..119 viii Introduction …………………………………………………………………… 119 Intellectual setting and methods ……………………………………………......120 Reimagining sexual revolution as softcore activism through a politics of care ……………….……………………………………………….123 Enacting care ethics through radical acts