How many is enough to be a liberated woman? Explorations through women?s magazines and sexual therapist?s best sellers in contemporary Argentina

KARINA FELITTI

Buenos Aires

Congreso; "Sex and the Marketplace: What s Love got to do with it?, IX International Association for the Study of Sexuality, Culture and Society (IASSCS),; 2013

International Association for the Study of Sexuality, Culture and Society (IASSCS) y Grupo de Estudios de Sexualidades (GES), Instituto Gino Germani, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA),

For several decades psychologists and sexual therapists consider that a satisfactory sexual life as a decisive aspect of well being while second wave feminism has settled women s sexual pleasure as an indicator of gender equality. There are different ways to define and evaluate which satisfactory means whereas the market and the media have disseminated in their own terms these definitions. It has not been that long from the recognition of the importance of feminine s orgasm and women s right for achieving it, to the question of how many orgasm are enough to be sexually happy. The same has happened with the question of virginity and the convenience of having premarital sex to the question of how many sexual partners guarantee sexual happiness and qualified a woman as a liberated one and best valued merchandise in the love/erotic market. This paper explores the definitions of sexual happiness and sexual liberation that women s magazines and some sexual therapist s best sellers expose for heterosexual women, focusing in these specific questions, in an historical approach from the early seventies until today.