ABSTRACT
Romantic love has been eulogised as a radical force for gender equality, especially as it has developed in the twentieth century in Western societies. This chapter argues that the focus on individual romantic love as a radical force is misplaced. It offers a feminist 'new materialism' of the affective economy, using but modifying idea of 'sex-affective production' with insights from Teresa Brennan's theory of the transmission of affects. The chapter outlines an ontology of the affective economy as a source of domination and emancipation. The logics of capitalist production and any affective economy governed by patriarchal norms are different. While women may be more oppressed by a patriarchal affective economy, men are also oppressed by being denied the possibility of more positive ways to attain peer love. Practices of collective love or solidarity love enact freedom for the group in practices of self-determination, which empower the participants and create an expansive affect that reaches out to allies in non-indigenous communities.
