In recent years, our understanding of sexuality has been transformed—by new ideas of consent, by awareness of systemic violence, and by recognition of how erotic imagination has been shaped by domination. In this landscape, where abusive sexuality is exposed and a “sad flesh” is mourned, Aurore Vincenti offers a radical exploration of desire beyond the simple binary of “power relations” versus the “eroticization of equality.” Her book charts new paths for feeling, connecting, and imagining sexuality in a world craving change.
Auore Vincenti invites us to return to the source of desire, where the body resonates sensually and sensitively with the world. Drawing on her work in somatic sexual education and re-education—helping people reconnect with desire or their bodies after sexual violence—she blends phenomenology, queer feminist thought, and what she calls “Living” philosophy. She emphasizes mutual listening, not only in words but, above all, in the flesh.
Linking theory with practice, Aurore Vincenti traces the experiential paths of philosophers and thinkers who engage the senses: Baptiste Morizot tracking wolves, Anna L. Tsing smelling mushrooms, Paul B. Preciado exploring drag king practices. Through experimentation with the body, she shows how we can open ourselves to new experiences, reflections, and ways of being.
Sensitive, provocative, and deeply human, this book envisions sexual education as a cultivation of vitality, a path toward intimacy, and a form of tender resistance against a world driven by performance and productivity.
