ABSTRACT
This chapter serves to highlight feminist theories surrounding the central themes of the book: compulsory heterosexuality and the erasure of female–female sexuality, pornification, postfeminism and the (contested) notion of feminist “waves” throughout history. By exploring these key theoretical concepts, which provide a backdrop for the data analysis, Chapter 1 contextualises the research. Further to this, it underscores the fact that the four main areas of analysis represent key feminist battlegrounds within contemporary sexuality, simultaneously destabilising progress narratives that pretend to women’s sexual empowerment. The chapter makes the case for the importance of interrogating who ultimately benefits from certain sexual representations or paradigms, advocating for the importance of a structural critique and complicating the appearance of choice for women in sexual scenarios.
