Peak Libido: Sex, Ecology, and the Collapse of Desire

Drawing on the work of a wide range of thinkers from Georges Bataille to Donna Haraway, Pettman explores the implications of peak libido, linking this development to the new cultural interest in eco-sexuality, polyamory, and other cases of the ‘greening of the libido’. The advent of the Anthropocene leads to the decline of eros, the weakening of the link between sexual pleasure and human reproduction, and thus, potentially, to human extinction. This account is premised on a simple but startling observation: the decline of libido among the world’s population closely tracks the destruction of environments worldwide. What is the carbon footprint of your libido?