Profit and Pleasure

In Profit and Pleasure , Rosemary Hennessy develops a new understanding of sexual identities as they are linked to lived material realities, capitalism in particular. She points out that sexual identities have always been linked to gender, race, and nationality but these 'identities' themselves are inevitably linked to the structures of capitalism. Hennessy argues that as our world, and the United States in particular, changes, becoming more transnational and global in scope, sexual identities are also changing with it. From this exploration, she further examines the ways that these new identities have led to new forms of commodification of identity as well as the role of sexuality in achieving collective agency for social transformation.