Selling Women's Sexual Liberation. Middle class white women sex consumptions in contemporary Argentina

Since the 1950s psychologists and sexual therapists have considered that a satisfactory sexual life is a decisive aspect of well-being, while second wave feminism settled women’s sexual pleasure as an indicator of gender equality. There are different ways to define and evaluate satisfaction induced by discourses from the marketplace and the media. Sex toys, sexual self-help books, erotic literature such as 50 Shadows of Grey, pole dance classes, sexual couching, sexy lingerie, are some of the products that middle class white women consume in Western cites. The right to achieve sexual pleasure announced in the sixties is nowadays organized according the language of efficiency from the business world. The question of how many orgasms guarantee sexual happiness, how many sexual partners qualify a woman as a liberated one become important in a love/erotic marketplace that valorizes sexiness and sexual experience. This paper analyses the definitions of sexual happiness and sexual liberation, and their links with business culture, the commodification of sex and feminist debates about sex in contemporary Argentina. I analyze the dynamics and women’s interaction in strip tease classes, schools of seduction and sex, BDSM lessons for 50 Shades of Grey readers and sex toys parties in Buenos Aires.