In contemporary psychoanalysis, it has become popular to accuse the clinical field of hating sex, hating pleasure, and being generally – both in its theory and in its techniques – hostile and averse to sex and sexuality. Although this isn’t a particularly new argument – French psychoanalysis has been accusing American psychoanalysis of this in one form or another for the past seventy-five years - the argument has taken on new momentum with the popularization of queer theory, and alongside recent attempts to radicalize psychoanalytic theory and practice. In this presentation, Dr. Ashtor will challenge this popular argument by showing that it depends on a simplistic version of queer theory that totally misrecognizes its radical potential. In so doing, she will demonstrate that to the extent we are afraid of sexuality it may have less to do with sensational, exotic or shattering sex, but sexuality in relation to otherness, desire that thrusts and propels us toward others in ways we can’t comprehend and can’t quite escape. She will draw on Laplanche’s account of “enlarged sexuality” to elaborate “erotophobia” as the denial of enlarged sexuality.