We became human by becoming equal, by sharing childcare, sharing meat and sexual joy, but with the coming of class societies and class hierarchies systematic patterns of inequality between men and women also appeared. Sexual violence – beatings, rape and abuse – were central to this new class order. So was love, but love now locks us into class hierarchies and sexism. Here, our aim is to explain why sexual experiences and images, and notions of masculinity and femininity differ in different times and places, for which neoliberalism offers a perfect laboratory for such a comparative project.
