Consent, the holy grail since #metoo. Women should state loudly and clearly what they want, because that would solve all problems. Right? Author of Tomorrow Sex will be good again, Katherine Angel, questions the idea of consent. Can women in today’s culture really know, let alone say, what they want? Using research, literature, pornography and films, she shows how power and violence implicitly affect us. De Balie enters into conversation with the British academic and writer. What conclusions does Angel draw, and how can we learn from them?
In today’s crucial moment of renewed attention to violence and power, Angel urges that we rethink sex, pleasure and autonomy without any illusions about perfect self-knowledge. Only then will we fulfil Michel Foulcault’s teasing promise, in 1976, that ‘tomorrow sex will be good again’.
About the speakers
Katherine Angel is a Britisch researcher, writer and teacher. She wrote Daddy Issues: Love and Hate in the Time of Patriarchy, Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again, and Unmastered: A Book on Desire, Most Difficult to Tell. She teaches creative and critical writing at the University of London, and her writing has appeared in Granta, The White Review, and Los Angeles Review of Books, among other publications.
Lotte Houwink ten Cate (1990) is a historian and writer. She is currently completing her PhD at Columbia University in New York. Her dissertation examines 1970s feminist thought and praxis, and the transformation of violence against women—in public perception, social science, and the law—from a private matter to a state concern. Beginning in October 2023, Lotte will be a Past & Present Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of Historical Research in London. She frequently contributes to NRC, and her book about the historical and contempory tensions between feminism and heterosexuality will be published by De Bezige Bij in 2025.
Elise van Alderen (1978) is a sexologist, medical doctor, and the author of the book Wellust (Atlas Contact, 2023). Her expertise is the treatment of sexual problems in women. Elise’s mission – and the motivation for her book – is to help women free themselves from the restrictions placed on them sexually, so that they can shape their sexuality according to their own beliefs and desires.
In her liberating book Wellust Elise guides women on their way to sexual autonomy. It is based on her education, years of work experience, and the stories of the hundreds of women she has treated in her practice.
Sprekers
Soon in De Balie
Onze sprekers analyseren de essentiële thema’s en het gedachtegoed dat toneelschrijver Bertolt Brecht aansnijdt.
We vertonen tijdens dit programma, een nieuw werk van Ronald Ophuis. Geen verbeelding van de gewelddadige mens, maar de vredelievende mens.
