ABSTRACT
Chapter 9, ‘The commercialisation of intimacy’, examines the relationship between romance and consumption as outlined in the work of Eva Illouz, and also explores postmodern love, which Illouz sees as captured in Candace Bushnell’s Sex and the City. The chapter thus focuses on the relationship between Sex and the City, consumer culture and postfeminism as an example of one aspect of the commercialisation of intimacy, and considers what a postfeminist woman-centred drama amounts to. The chapter also explores the relationship between postmodern romance and the emergence of the love affair; it also considers the changing nature of love affairs in gendered terms. The chapter looks finally at the sexualisation of modern relationships. This chapter examines feminist theorists’ analysis of the commercialisation of intimacy. Illouz’s Hard Core Romance: Fifty Shades of Grey examines a range of controversial and popular literature which focuses on intimacy.
