The Politics of Pleasure

Romance is a political issue. Sponsored by INCOGNI: https://incogni.com/princessweekes With Project 2025's orchestrators poised to gain real power through Trump's election, combined with fears of a TikTok ban and widespread issues with literacy—from basic reading to media and news comprehension—we find ourselves in a paradox: an endless sea of critics, analysts, and reporters covering countless topics, yet a remarkably poor public understanding of these issues. Therefore, on my second-to-last video of 2024, I want to illustrate exactly why romance and smut are political issues. Timestamps 00:00 Backlashes 02:02 Housekeeping! 03:55 Obscene? 14:19 Oscar Wilde 22:23 Radclyffe Hall 29:39 Lady Chatterley's Lover 36:34 BookTok 41:32 Credits Plugs: THE COMIC SHOP! A Workplace Comedy Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cheyennethegeek/the-comic-shop-a-mockumentary-sitcom?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAaY_b_7aTHKa3B_vu0ZkSkuU91G0yepxH4ocFb8nkOwSrBjvy7mamf3LFiw_aem_ooEP3MGLWzskjYJ0vcpE0Q Chasing Chasing Amy Digital Premiere Dec 15th @ 7pm EST: https://watch.eventive.org/chasingchasingamy/play/6747ce291f64c511e374f759 Open Tabs Podcast: https://opentabs.libsyn.com Get The NUANCE MUG: https://store.nebula.tv/collections/princess-weekes Socials: Patreon: www.patreon.com/princessweekes Instagram/Reels: princess_weekes TikTok: PrincessPendulum BlueSky: @princesmweekes.bsky.social Special Thanks to Joey for Editing and Emotional Support. Sources: THE PIRACIES OF "LADY CHATTERLEY'S LOVER": 1928-1950 Jay A. Gertzman The D.H. Lawrence Review, Vol. 19, No. 3 (fall 1987), pp. 267-299 (33 pages) https://www.jstor.org/stable/44233862 The Taint of the Pornographic: Defending (Against) "Lady Chatterley's Lover" J. M. COETZEE Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Winter 1988), pp. 1-11 (11 pages) https://www.jstor.org/stable/24777730 Metaphysics and Sexual Politics in Lawrence's Novels Patrick McHugh College Literature, Vol. 20, No. 2 (Jun., 1993), pp. 83-97 (15 pages) https://www.jstor.org/stable/25112032 A Theory of Scandal: Victorians, Homosexuality, and the Fall of Oscar Wilde Ari Adut American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 111, No. 1 (July 2005), pp. 213-248 (36 pages) https://doi.org/10.1086/428816 // https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/428816 Lesbianism, History, and Censorship: The Well of Loneliness and the Suppressed Randiness of Virginia Woolf's Orlando Adam Parkes https://www.jstor.org/stable/441599 https://lithub.com/the-republicans-project-2025-is-disastrous-for-books/ https://lithub.com/thank-god-for-the-sex-i-found-in-my-mothers-romance-novels/ https://lithub.com/remembering-samuel-roth-the-bookseller-who-defied-americas-obscenity-laws/ https://www.pbs.org/education/blogs/pbs-in-the-classroom/what-is-media-literacy-and-how-can-simple-shifts-center-it/ https://medialiteracynow.org/challenge/what-is-media-literacy/ https://www.britannica.com/topic/Regina-v-Hicklin https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/pill-anthony-comstocks-chastity-laws/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/comstock-act-transform-abortion-debate-180982363/ https://glreview.org/article/1928-out-came-hall-and-woolf/ https://archive.org/details/trialofladychatt0000chro/page/72/mode/2up