Decolonising sexual pleasure: elevating Global South narratives in sexual health

This paper seeks to challenge the dominance of Global North frameworks in international work on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), arguing that decolonising this work requires centring Global South knowledge, lived experience, and culturally grounded understandings of sexuality, including sexual pleasure. Decolonisation is here understood as dismantling inequitable power relations, shifting epistemic authority away from Global North institutions, and prioritising Indigenous, local, and self-determined practices. Writing from within Global North academic institutions, we offer a reflexive critique that acknowledges the tension of advocating for decolonial change from inside the very systems that are under examination. We examine how dominant models have shaped SRHR research, policy, and practice, often limiting responsiveness to, and engagement with, Global South communities. Drawing on examples from Māori communities, Somalia, and West Africa, we demonstrate how culturally driven approaches that integrate pleasure and wellness can challenge inequality, broaden understandings and measures of sexual health, and open pathways to sexual liberation. In doing this, the commentary contributes to that reimagining by using real-world examples to show what becomes possible when pleasure and Global South narratives are centred - transforming how knowledge is produced, how research questions are framed, and how interventions are designed and implemented.