UC Santa Barbara

This dissertation draws on the philosophical and activist scholarship of feminist ecological thought to reimagine the disciplinary and humanist logic of the Anthropocene, with a focus on ecosexuality. I use the term “feminist ecological thought” to capture the diversity and richness of early and contemporary feminist engagement with environmental concerns, including ecofeminism, feminist new materialism, and queer ecofeminism. The capacity of feminist ecological thought to recognize the interconnectedness of various forms of oppression, including those based on gender, race, class, sexuality, and environmental degradation across both human and more-than-human bodies, makes it an urgent and timely field of inquiry for feminist studies. Through a critical reading of ecosexual artistic practice, this dissertation reveals the ways feminist ecological scholarship advances feminist thinking and environmental activism. Ecosexuality, as most visibly articulated by queer artists Annie Sprinkle and Elizabeth Stephens, radically reimagines our relationship with the Earth by shifting the metaphor of Earth as mother to Earth as lover. Ecosexuals are people who find nature erotic and strive to make sustainability and protecting the Earth against environmental destruction and climate change sexy, pleasurable, and abundantly joyful. The critical ethos of Sprinkle and Stephens’ brand of ecosexuality integrates sex-positive activism and environmental consciousness by asking the Earth to become a lover. Ultimately, by exploring the pleasure politics of ecosexuality, I suggest that Sprinkle and Stephens’ ecosexual performativity offers an alternative to the didacticism and the binary thinking of mainstream environmentalism, thereby transforming ecosexuality into a framework for having an embodied ecological relation with the Earth based on consent and collaboration.