Charlotte Shane's 2024 essay examines sexual culture amid digital abundance and political constraints

Charlotte Shane's 2024 essay, published by ArtReview, analyzes contemporary sexual culture, noting a paradoxical abundance of digital erotica alongside widespread dissatisfaction. The piece highlights platforms like OnlyFans, TikTok, Grindr, and Feeld expanding their reach, while literary works such as Miranda July's All Fours and Tony Tulathimutte's Rejection feature graphic sex scenes. Shane observes that despite this proliferation, mainstream U.S. media often focuses on sexual absence, with young women depicted as disruptors. Social media discussions reveal common experiences of non-consensual acts and asymmetrical relationships. The author points to political factors, including abortion restrictions and denial of gender-affirming care, as tools of social control that impact sexual autonomy. Shane references the 4B movement in South Korea and Jenny Brown's 2019 book Birth Strike for context. While acknowledging intimate, positive experiences shared online, the essay concludes that 2024 pushed society toward further abjection, with sex entangled in broader crises like homelessness and climate change. Shane is a New York-based writer, author of An Honest Woman (2024) and Prostitute Laundry (2015).