Screwed

When it comes to sex and desire, women are screwed.

In film, on the page, in fashion, and in everyday life, women’s desire is routinely shown as subordinate to men’s — when it isn’t suppressed altogether. Lili Boisvert argues that there is one dominant principle behind heterosexual encounters: that desire is a male phenomenon and women are merely its object. To change this alienating system, she contends, we must start by facing it head-on.

From clothing to flirting, from our fascination with youth and innocence to the orgasm gap, every aspect of women’s lives is dictated by their status as sex objects. Is it any wonder that they are feeling sexually unfulfilled? In a series of explorations of what desire looks like under patriarchy, Screwed sketches the contours of what could be true sexual liberation for women, inside — and outside — the bedroom.

A sex-positive, feminist look at female desire, how it is silenced, suppressed, and misrepresented, and what true sexual liberation looks like

Combats the misogynist concept of desire as an impulse that originates with men and treats women as its objects

Author is the host of Sexplora on ICI Explora and co-creator of feminist web-series Les Brutes on Télé-Québec

Addresses inequality within heterosexual relationships