Katy Pilcher

Katy is interested in the ways that gender and sexual power relations are negotiated, and resisted, in different spaces and in relation to a variety of embodied practices. Her main research interest is in women's experiences and consumption practices within 'sexual' leisure spaces.

Katy is an ethnographer and visual sociologist who has undertaken research projects relating to erotic dance; sex work; the practice of orgasmic meditation; ageing and everyday life; ageing, racism and digital exclusion; and creative pedagogies. Her three most recent projects include a BA/Leverhulme-funded project entitled ‘Empowering Pleasures? ‘Sexual’ Leisure Spaces For Women’ (P.I); a project on Ageing and Digital Exclusion, funded by Research England (C.I); and research into the sexual health needs of ‘online’ sex workers in Birmingham for University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (C.I). Katy’s research monograph Erotic Performance and Spectatorship: New Frontiers in Erotic Dance was published in 2017 (Routledge), and she has co-edited two books: Embodying Religion, Gender and Sexuality (2021, Routledge, with Sarah Jane Page); and Queer Sex Work (2015, Routledge, with Mary Laing and Nicola Smith), which brings together insights from sex workers, academics, practitioners and activists.