Latex and Lingerie

Merl Storr Senior Lecturer in Sociology,University of East London

• Contents List of Figures Acknowledgements 1 Introducing Ann Summers The Ann Summers Party Plan Ann Summers @ a typical party plan? Researching Ann Summers Liquorice allsorts 'The No 1 Fun Company' Personality, skill and emotional labour 'Young mums' Ann Summers as post-feminist fun Hidden depths About this book 2 'The Ultimate Girls' Night In' Conceptualising Homosociality Male homosociality Female homosociality Ann Summers and Female Homosociality Helping women to serve the interests of men Being one of the girls Lesbophobia Summary and Conclusion 3 Objects of Desire Ann Summers Parties for Men? She Likes Men Feeling sexy Men in uniform @ 'hello boys!' 'All that's Missing in the Man!' The penis and the phallus Pass my penis Feel it, believe it! Summary and Conclusion 4 Feminine Bodies, Feminine Pleasures The Heterosexual Female Erogenous Body at Ann Summers Parties Technique and interior zones Technique and exterior zones Erogenous functions The Female Homosocial Body at Ann Summers Parties The homosocial body's oral pleasures The homosocial body's vocal pleasures The homosocial body's tactile pleasures The homosocial body's visual pleasures Summary and Conclusion 5 Classy Lingerie Peeling the Lemon Homosocial Underwear The girls go shopping Luxury/utility Sleaze/respectability Eroticism/domesticity Summary and Conclusion 6 Conclusion References Index

This is a fascinating book, almost impossible to put down. It explores how the contemporary contradiction generated by post-feminist rhetoric is both produced and partially resolved through the marketing and practice of Ann Summers parties. These parties play with the dynamic of useless men and liberated women, offering sex toys as the solution to the power gap; they promote hegemonic masculinity as inevitable whilst ridiculing it at the same time. This book shows that sex toys are symbolically central to current power formations in gender and class relations. I can guarantee that you will learn a lot from this book. Professor Beverley Skeggs, Department of Sociology, University of Manchester 'Meticulously researched, and written with great verve and style, Latex and Lingerie makes a major contribution to our understanding of heterosexual femininities. It shows how being 'one of the girls' is constructed around manifold exclusions of class, sexuality, 'race' and ethnicity, and how the 'fun' on offer in Anne Summers parties is of a distinctly post-feminist variety. Storr has fashioned a highly original analysis of female homosociality that takes both its pleasures and its problems seriously. This is an extremely important book that is destined to become a classic in the fields of gender, sexuality and cultural studies. Rosalind Gill, Gender Institute, London School of Economics ...Storr makes and excellent contribution to debates in taste and consumption, describing the formation of class as a process rather than a static definition...[T]his work is an excellent example of how products, their design, marketing and consumption, are at the fore of social theoretical debate. Alison Clarke, Journal of Design History