Skip to main content
© CCCB, Miquel Taverna, 2018, Photograph courtesy of Irantzu Varela

Tickets are sold out. Tickets for the streaming at the CCCB auditorium on sale.

Libertines and cancelled

Virginie Despentes and Irantzu Varela

From libertinism to the right to sex

Debate

Writer Virginie Despentes speaks with journalist Irantzu Varela about libertinism from a feminist perspective in a conversation moderated by writer Lucía Lijtmaer.

Libertinism was an emancipatory movement against religious constraints. In a period of great empowerment of women, the eighteenth-century bourgeoisie reduced it to the sexual dimension and imposed the idea that, in order to enjoy sex, a victim is needed. From a feminist perspective, it might be said that this was a retrograde step in which the doctrine of belief considered that sex had to happen within a perspective of victimisation. With this historical background in mind, what comparisons can be made with the sexual liberation of the late 1970s that led to the #MeToo era? Why does sex always have to be associated with victimisation and policing of bodies? Why do revolutions become so reactionary that women threaten to take possession of their own bodies? Now, with the advances in women’s rights, sexual freedom, and autonomy of the body, can we do away with the role of victim?

Moderators: Lucía Lijtmaer

Participants: Virginie Despentes, Irantzu Varela

This activity is part of Sade, Libertines and cancelled

Related contents

Virginie Despentes and Irantzu Varela

From libertinism to the right to sex

Writer Virginie Despentes speaks with journalist Irantzu Varela about libertinism from a feminist perspective in a conversation moderated by writer Lucía Lijtmaer.

Watch the video

Other activities as part of

Sade

More information on the exhibition

The Improper

Debate, Meeting and Reading Space

Les amistats perilloses

Based on the book by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. Adapted and directed by Carol López

The Pieces Speak

The exhibition "Sade.Freedom or Evil" as seen by 7 master’s degree students

Bad Sexuality

With Bárbara Ramajo, Lucas Platero and Marta Vusquets

Organised by

Collaborators

With the support of