EN
“Barbarella’s sexuality has no hermeneutic density; it is not indexed to a specifically psychic life that would provide the contents for a confessional (e.g., psychoanalytic) narrative. Barbarella’s sexuality is instead shaped by her status as citizen of the Sun System, conforming to the principles of liberal democracy. Barbarella is […] what I call a liberal sexual subject, a subject for whom sexuality is not indexed to psychic interiority but instead assumes its significance in relation to concepts of social contract, public sphere, and nation, within the framework of a broadly defined liberalism.”
Damon R. Young