Book Review: A New Way of Looking at Trauma and Sexuality

Radical alternatives to consent and trauma.

Arguing that we have become culturally obsessed with healing trauma, Sexuality Beyond Consent calls attention to what traumatized subjects do with their pain. The erotics of racism offers a paradigmatic example of how what is proximal to violation may become an unexpected site of flourishing. Central to the transformational possibilities of trauma is a queer form of consent, limit consent, that is not about guarding the self but about risking experience. Saketopoulou thereby shows why sexualities beyond consent may be worth risking-and how risk can solicit the future.

Moving between clinical and cultural case studies, Saketopoulou takes up theatrical and cinematic works such as Slave Play and The Night Porter, to chart how trauma and sexuality join forces to surge through the aesthetic domain. Putting the psychoanalytic theory of Jean Laplanche in conversation with queer of color critique, performance studies, and philosophy, Sexuality Beyond Consent proposes that enduring the strange in ourselves, not to master trauma but to rub up against it, can open us up to encounters with opacity. The book concludes by theorizing currents of sadism that, when pursued ethically, can animate unique forms of interpersonal and social care.

Goodreads Synopsis

Overall Rating

5/5

Quick Take

Sexuality Beyond Consent: Risk, Race, Traumatophilia by Avgi Saketopoulou is a thorough and unique addition to the discussion on trauma and methods of what we do with the trauma we experience. Saketopoulou provides readers with a full examination of limit-consent, which encourages risk rather than protection, and explores how sexuality can be used to explore personal trauma. While the book was hard for me to understand at times because I had not heard of many of the terms and needed to research them, it opened my mind to an alternative to healing trauma that is sure to become a new area of exploration in the therapeutic field.

Tell Me More

Filled with case studies and examples, Sexuality Beyond Consent: Risk, Race, Traumatophilia by Avgi Saketopoulou opens up the discussion on trauma and how sexuality can be a way of exploring our trauma rather than focusing on healing it. It is a risky addition to the field, but one that is so important.

While the book is deeply academic, Saketopoulou tries to make the terms and discussions accessible. It did take me a few reads to understand what Saketopoulou was trying to portray, and for that I wish that the book was easier to understand to reach a wider reader base. However, I did give this book five stars because the discussion and new ideas on how to handle trauma and how trauma can be connected to sexuality was groundbreaking. It will inform my work in the mental health field.

Academic readers interested in learning about alternative ways to handle trauma and how sexuality can be linked to handling trauma will be enlightened by Sexuality Beyond Consent: Risk, Race, Traumatophilia by Avgi Saketopoulou. It is a heavily researched tome, and one that has the power to change the mental health field.

Make a one-time donation

Thank you so much for your support! It means the world to me.

DonateMake a monthly donation

Your contribution is appreciated.

Donate monthlyMake a yearly donation

Your contribution is appreciated.

Donate yearly