French Literature Reviews - 2026
A. Destais, Feminine Eros
Literary Theory, Linguistics and Stylistics
Alexandra Destais
Feminine Eros. From Story of O to Fifty Shades of Grey
Klincksieck Editions
January 15, 2014
304 pp.
EAN13: 9782252039113
25.00 EUR
Publisher's Description:
For centuries, due to the taboos surrounding their sexuality, women developed a privileged cultural complicity with the art of loving, to the detriment of exploring their own eroticism. Long excluded from the erotic genre, which was deemed incompatible with their gender identity, pioneering female writers nevertheless dared to seize upon it in the 20th century without, however, disavowing their connection to the sentimental code of love. With Story of O, their scandalous entry into a field made by and for men occurred through a dark Eros, as if they could not love without submitting, surrendering, or relinquishing themselves. Today, female literary eroticism is becoming increasingly popularized. But while Pauline Réage's “amour fou” becomes a mere matter of “negotiation” in Fifty Shades of Grey, other female authors are restoring meaning to the senses, re-enchanting sex, and recreating taboos to revitalize the defining keyword of the feminine Eros: desire…
Table of Contents:
Definitional Prelude
Chapter I. Dark Feminine Eros
Chapter II. Solar Feminine Eroticism
Chapter III. Women and Pornography
Chapter IV. Re-enchanting Sexuality
In Conclusion: In Praise of Disquiet
Bibliography
Index
With a PhD in literature and a doctoral thesis on female literary eroticism in the 20th century, speaker Alexandra Destais hosts the “Women and Society” meetings at the Université Populaire de Caen. She is also a gender equality officer for the Ministry of Women's Rights. Feminine Eros is her first book.
This critical study investigates how women writers have navigated and reshaped the traditionally male-dominated genre of erotic literature. Tracing the evolution from mid-twentieth-century taboos to contemporary pop-culture phenomena, the author examines the tension between sentimental romantic codes and transgressive desires. By analyzing key texts, the book sheds light on the historical exclusion of female authors from the exploration of physical pleasure and maps their gradual reclamation of erotic agency through various literary strategies and evolving cultural frameworks.
The volume will interest scholars and readers of gender studies, modern French literature, and cultural history who wish to understand the changing representations of female sexuality. It provides valuable context for examining contemporary debates around pornography, romance, and autonomy in writing. Researchers exploring the intersection of feminism, literary history, and the sociology of the text will find this rigorous academic inquiry a helpful resource for contextualizing how modern authors redefine the boundaries of intimacy and desire in print.
Meeting and debate with the author on February 1st in Caen, see details here