Staged Bodies: The Politics of Sex [Edinburgh's Radical Book Fair]

Please check ticket info for this event below, incl. information about access.

When the very skin we’re in and the bodies we live and love in are politicised - read, analysed and consumed - who decides what is mainstream, marginalised or transgressive?

Xuanlin Tham and Alison J Carr examine bodies and sex on stage and screen, in movies burlesque, sex work and more, and talk about what our cultural moment. Join us for a feminist discussion of sex on screen, the performance of sex, the female gaze and how society is shaped by the ways our culture presents sex, sexuality and our very bodies.

– Our Speakers –

Xuanlin Tham is a writer, critic, and curator based in Edinburgh. They write for British GQ, i-D, Little White Lies, AnOther Magazine, and The Skinny, among others, covering culture (and sometimes sports). They curate for Take One Action, an arts organisation harnessing the transformative power of film and storytelling for collective change. Author of: Revolutionary Desires.

Alison J Carr is an artist, mentor, and scholar. She works visually and creates performances, examining bodies on display and the contexts they perform in. Her novella The Night was published in 2022 and will be re-published in 2025 by Peakrill Press. She co-edited Sex on Stage, with Dr Lynn Sally, published by Bloomsbury in 2025. Routledge published her book Viewing Pleasure and Being A Showgirl: How Do I Look? in 2018.

– The Books –

Revolutionary Desires by Xuanlin Tham - Cinema is becoming less and less sexy; yet more and more people are rallying against sex on screen. What could explain this growing anti-sex sentiment among the producers and consumers of screen culture? The sex scene’s intimacies, transgressions, and dedication to pleasure can be uniquely poised to rupture dominant narratives of capitalism and the violences that flow from it. Why is the sex scene, demonised as it is, therefore more politically important and subversive than ever? Revolutionary Desires seeks to answer that question.

Sex on Stage : Performing the Body Politic by Alison J Carr - This is the first collection of original essays, articles, and images from authors, activists, artists, and scholars that grapple with the explicit body and the staging of sex across multiple spaces - from burlesque to drag, to sex work to celebrity culture.

This book uncovers how gender and sexuality collide on stage in dynamic, dramatic, and thought-provoking ways. By taking a broad view of sex and the stage, it tracks influences across the underground, marginalised, and the mainstream, from 'high' contemporary live art to the 'low' of entertainment. Includes interviews, memoir, photo essays, performance scripts, roundtable discussions, flash nonfiction, and the traditional essay.

*Please note that masks will be required at this event ().

*Accessibility: All events will be professionally filmed & livestreamed. The Roxy is wheelchair accessible (including toilets) and we'll have provisions for neurodivergent guests including stims, quiet space and colour-coded lanyards.

*Events are £5 or free -we completely understand paying for one or two events and then getting free spots for others. The Radical Book Fair is entirely bookshop run and ticket sales are vital to keeping the fair sustainable and paying all our speakers so all support is heartily welcome! T

*Featured books: The book & ticket option will select the most recently published book at any given event, if you’re not sure which book you want or don’t want that featured book, then buy a £5 voucher ticket that can be used for any of the books below. There are also DONATION TICKETS which are £10, listed as a 'book', please note these are not redeemable at the fair, and rather a much appreciated contribution to the Fair's running costs,

*If you'd like to help make the book fair accessible to more folks, please consider adding to our pay-it-forward fund .

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Host or Publisher Lighthouse - Edinburgh's Radical Bookshop