How Pleasure Dismantles the Patriarchy
My mission is to help people experience more pleasure in their bodies. And why not?! Feeling good feels good, and that’s good, right? It is! And pleasure for pleasure’s sake is good enough, but I’d also love to fill you in on some of the cultural context that drives me to make this my life’s work. This is a little heady, so bear with me.
Pleasure holds enormous transformational power, both for individuals and also for our culture collectively. Shedding shame and fully enjoying sexual pleasure are revolutionary acts because in our patriarchal culture pleasure generally comes wrapped up in shame. Every time you indulge in pleasure without shame, you chip away at the power of the patriarchy, which is good for you and for all of us! Thanks in advance for your generous contribution to the cause ;)
Patriarchy means a society in which men hold more power and enjoy more privilege while women and other non-male genders are underprivileged and/or oppressed. We put “the” before it because at this point in time, The Patriarchy is global, and here in the U.S. it has persisted through at least four “waves” of feminism. We’ve come a long way, but dismantling this beast is a process, and it ain’t over yet.
Our patriarchal culture gives us all some complicated and confusing messages about sex. To begin with, everyone is assumed to be heterosexual, which leaves queer folks left out and erased. This is obviously harmful, and it has also meant that queer communities have developed some healthier countercultures out of necessity. More on that later.
So I’m going to sketch out some of the messages about sexuality that we get from the dominant culture. I’m sure these messages will sound familiar, and they may have varying levels of sway on your particular life experience at this point. You may have rejected a lot of this stuff long ago—especially if you hold a marginalized gender or sexual identity. The folks who are most susceptible to the power of these cultural messages are those who live closest to the cultural norm: cisgendered, heterosexual, monogamous, and vanilla (not kinky). However, these messages impact everyone to some degree, and they provide something to push against when building counterculture.
The primary cultural message for people socialized as women is to look sexy (in order to attract men)—but don’t look too sexy or you’re a whore and/or inviting sexual assault. When a woman has sex with a man, she’s responsible for seeing that he has a good time, that she’s fun and satisfying and not too demanding. The question of whether or not women want or enjoy sexual pleasure is secondary.
By contrast, people socialized as men are expected to want and enjoy sex—especially with stereotypically sexy-looking women—and they are expected to achieve sexual satisfaction (including orgasm with ejaculation). Men are socialized to expect that they will be able to have sex, as long as they play their part in the prescribed sexual script.
Here's how the script goes: Men are the sexual instigators (they “make the first move”), boundary testers/pushers, and in the worst cases aggressors. Women play the role of gatekeeper, whose job it is to either consent or not, to resist the come-ons of horny men, and to remain vigilant to protect themselves from sexual aggression. Consent is framed in terms of one partner seeking consent and the other granting it (in heterosexual encounters, it’s most often men seeking and women granting).
Is any of this sounding familiar??
About to get headier, and it’s worth it! Stay with me! In this sexual script, men are the subjects (they have agency and are pursuing their desires) and women are the objects (they look sexy to attract men, and they either consent to fulfill a man’s desires or not). When people talk about the “objectification of women” this is how it happens. Women are the objects of men’s sexual desires (rather than the subjects of their own).
This unequal power dynamic is central to “rape culture,” in which men feel entitled to have sex with women, regardless of what women want. It also puts a lot of pressure on men to make a move, but in a respectful (not creepy) way, which sometimes feels next to impossible. Following this sexual script does not make for awesome sex for anyone, and it tragically sometimes results in nonconsensual and traumatic sexual encounters.
In order to shift this toxic dynamic, all sexual partners of all genders need to be subjects of their own desire rather than objects of someone else’s. And in order for women to transform from sexual objects into sexual subjects, their pleasure needs to matter.
If you have a vulva, or if you’re having sex with someone who does, learning how to stimulate the full extent of the clitoris (internal and external) is very important since the clitoris is the primary pleasure organ for people with vulvas. Perhaps you’ve heard before that most women require direct clitoral stimulation in order to reach orgasm (true). Have you ever heard anyone say that most men require direct penile stimulation to reach orgasm? It sounds ridiculous, right? Of course most (not all) people with penises require direct stimulation of the penis to reach orgasm. And of course most (not all) people with clitorises require direct stimulation of the clitoris to reach orgasm.
One more important point: In order for women to experience as much pleasure as men during heterosexual sex, our cultural definition of sex needs to change. Many people use the word “sex” to mean penis-in-vagina (PiV) intercourse, which is an activity that is extremely effective for stimulating the penis and much less effective for stimulating the clitoris. Sexual activities that stimulate the clitoris (for example manual touching and cunnilingus) are often included in “foreplay,” so called because it is play that comes before the main event (intercourse). And how do we know when sex is over? Generally, it’s when the man orgasms with a penile ejaculation and loses energy and interest in sex. Centering female pleasure means decentering intercourse. PiV intercourse becomes one optional part of a sexual encounter, along with many other also pleasurable options.
Do you see how female pleasure needs to matter in order to change the power dynamics in our sexual interactions? But how do people learn about this? Even “comprehensive” sexuality education in public schools in the U.S. doesn’t include information about sexual pleasure. Aims of sex ed are generally to postpone sexual activity, prevent “teen pregnancy” and STIs, and since the Me Too movement to advocate for consent in order to prevent sexual violence. School-based sex ed programs generally don’t include anything that could be construed as encouraging sexual activity, so pleasure is pretty much out. Since pleasure is the only known purpose of the clitoris, there’s no reason to even mention it in a sex ed class that doesn’t cover pleasure. And although consent is stressed in lots of sex ed these days, it’s generally framed as (mainly men) asking and (mainly women) granting permission rather than a complex negotiation between equals who are both fully empowered subjects of their own desires.
Many queer communities are way ahead of the dominant culture when it comes to relational power dynamics, pleasure equality, and nuanced consent conversations. When the people involved are two people who are both the same gender, more than two people in a polyamorous relationship, people whose genders differ from their sex assigned at birth, people engaged in power exchange and other kinky relational dynamics… when identities and relationships diverge from the cultural norm, the dominant cultural scripts just don’t fit. Although some aspects of the dominant sexual script can absolutely show up in queer relationships, various queer communities have also come up with countercultural narratives and customs that are more pleasure inclusive and shame resistant. The patriarchy is arguably the hardest on the queer community, and the resistance is the strongest and most creative.
People of all identities can do our part to resist patriarchal norms and expectations by getting to know our own sexual wants, likes, and dislikes so that we can approach sex as fully embodied subjects of our own desires. Then we’re able to meet our sexual partners as equal subjects of their own desires, which can make for some seriously magical win-win wahoo pleasurable sex! Experiencing pleasure without shame is possibly the most delicious way to dismantle the patriarchy. Yes please!
Pleasure Activism, by Adrienne Maree Brown, had an impactful influence on my understanding of pleasure as a means to dismantle the patriarchy.
©️2025 Sarah Goodrich, Goodrich Sexuality Education, LLC. All rights reserved.
