Abstract

During the height of the sexual revolution in the 1960s and 1970s, student, feminist and LGBTQ+ movements challenged traditional norms, promoting new understandings of the body and desire. In parallel, pornography and sexography ceased to be marginal phenomena and became large-scale industries, while the media expanded representations of sexuality, integrating it into mass culture (Puleo, 1998). The introduction of the contraceptive pill promoted the separation between sexuality, procreation, and the institution of marriage, giving women unprecedented control over their fertility. However, it also facilitated the commodification of desire, redefining sex as a leisure activity devoid of meaning beyond that which the individuals involved give it (Perry, 2022). The sex industry promoted a vision of unrestricted pleasure, supported by marketing strategies inspired by the tobacco industry (Dworkin, 1989).

In the following decades, the aestheticization of the body and its integration into the logic of consumption consolidated an industry that turned sexuality into a spectacle. German sexologist Volkmar Sigusch introduced the term “neosexualities” to describe the experimentation and subjectification of desire in contemporary society. According to his argument, in the postmodern era sexuality is no longer restricted by traditional normative models, such as compulsory heterosexuality or gender binarism, but is diversified into multiple forms of relationships and practices. Sigusch (1989) also argues that the body has been recruited for commercial aesthetics and consumption, becoming an object of optimization and exhibition. During the 1980s and 1990s, what he termed the “neosexual revolution” redefined sexuality within a scientific-technological society shaped by the market. This new era is characterized by the dissociation between sexual identity and gender, the search for intense emotions, and the use of prosthetic devices to expand the erotic experience. In this context, sexuality has become the protagonist of a segmented and constantly reinventing market.

Patrick Deen (2018) argues that contemporary corporate ideology fosters a culture of “creative destruction,” in which adaptability becomes a structural requirement. This phenomenon exceeds the workplace, breaking the stability of personal bonds, as the constant demand for innovation and performance erodes trust in community and family structures, contributing to a growing social atomization. This logic of adaptability and immediacy also reconfigures affective relationships, turning them into consumable and disposable goods. As Zygmunt Bauman explains, the paradox of modern relationships lies in the fact that people desire authentic and secure emotional connections, but at the same time fear the loss of individual freedom that real closeness implies (Bauman, 2013).

In this context, this paper argues that the education of sexual desire requires a substantive ethic, capable of generating a language and communication that respond to the complexity of contemporary reality (Reyero, 2021). If we take the U.S. model as a reference, we observe two predominant approaches to sex education. On the one hand, Abstinence Only, condemns all extramarital sexual relations and argues that the promotion of “safe sex” encourages adolescents to engage prematurely in experiences for which they are not psychologically prepared. Comprehensive Sexual Education defends the right to an education based on “safe sexual practices,” but avoids entering into ethical evaluations since plurality precludes a debate beyond minimal consensus. Both models reduce sex education to a problem of control or prevention, without considering its ethical, affective and relational dimension. An educational framework is required that recovers a language capable of understanding sexuality not only from biology or risk regulation, but as a constitutive experience of personal identity, oriented towards intimacy and love (Reyero, 2021).

Method This work is inscribed in the field of theoretical-educational research, adopting an interpretative and critical methodology based fundamentally on documentary analysis from a normative-pedagogical perspective. The objective is to understand the transformations of affective relationships in contemporary times and to reflect on affective education in this context. It is developed on three levels of analysis: First, the neoliberal sexual culture. It examines the process of cultural hypersexualization, with special attention to the ubiquitous proliferation of pornography in the digital era and its impact on the configuration of desire and intimacy, which has led to processes of commodification and depersonalization of affective relationships. Secondly, based on the analysis of documentary materials and secondary studies, the effects of exposure to these contents on subjectivity, expectations about desire, and relational dynamics are explored. Finally, a pedagogical reflection is offered about the neoliberal culture of desire, which may be curtailing our ability to develop a subjective sexuality based on mutual recognition and the construction of meaningful bonds, pointing out the need for an affective education to counteract contemporary dehumanizing tendencies.

Conclusions The depersonalization and commodification of intimacy, driven by neoliberalism, highlight the need to rethink sexuality education as a space for ethical and relational formation. Neoliberal logic, by reducing relationships to exchange and efficiency, fosters a hedonistic view of sexuality that dehumanizes the other, turning desire into a purely self-referential act. This logic hinders the construction of solid bonds, generating fragmented and ephemeral intimacy. At the same time, pornography, increasingly normalized as an educational medium, plays a crucial role in shaping contemporary understandings of sexuality. Far from offering a neutral depiction of desire, pornography reinforces differentiated processes of subjectivization between boys and girls, shaping their expectations and experiences of intimacy in profoundly unequal ways. The pornographic imaginary, often a caricature of violent and performative sexuality, reproduces dynamics of domination and submission that are amplified by digital media. As a result, young people are socialized into a model of sexuality that prioritizes performance over connection, reinforcing gendered power relations and limiting the possibilities for mutual recognition in intimate encounters. However, sexuality cannot be limited to an individualistic act but implies an encounter with the other based on recognition and reciprocity (Scruton, 2018). Human beings need others for their survival and to build themselves as persons. As Scruton (2018) points out, sexual pleasure is not simply about the other but is experienced in the other, which differentiates it from other forms of desire. From an educational perspective, a deep cultural analysis of human relationships in a neoliberal and digital society is essential. Educators must understand the phenomenology of sexuality as mediated by this context to develop pedagogical approaches that resignify affective education. Only by fostering an ethics of care and relational responsibility can education counteract the contemporary depersonalization of intimacy.

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