Introduction

This introductory chapter presents the book’s key question: how do queer young women understand and experience gendered sexual selfhood in contemporary post-postfeminist times? This chapter contextualises the inquiry by introducing the theoretical connections between post-feminism and post-gay discourses and considering how these might combine to have a dual influence on queer young women’s sexuality and sexual health. Here, the concept of queer post-feminist sexual citizenship is devised to encapsulate the combined effect of neoliberalism, post-feminism, homonormativity, and queerness on queer young women’s emerging approaches to identity, sex, and health politics. To inform this discussion, this chapter also briefly reviews theoretical literature on sexual citizenship, neoliberalism, and post-feminism, and outlines the feminist research methodology behind the underlying empirical project.