BDSM is no longer treated as a manifestation of the darkest twists of the human soul but rather as a sexual activity like many others. Moreover, the philosophy of sex and much of popular culture has come to embrace BDSM for its models of consent, exploration, and freedom. Yet celebrating BDSM without deeper reflection can obscure some serious moral issues. In this chapter, I present an overview of the moral issues raised by BDSM, and I argue that it is reductive (...) to see BDSM as a simple or straightforward model for how to practice egalitarian sex. Yet, BDSM communities grapple with issues of consent, autonomy, and power in important ways, which can help us think through broader issues in sexual ethics. Either way, BDSM must be understood in its full complexity. (shrink)
This paper reconsiders Tommie Shelby's (2016) analysis of procreation in poor black communities. I identify three conceptual frames within which Shelby situates his analysis—feminization, choice-as-control, and moralization. I argue that these frames should be rejected on conceptual, empirical, and moral grounds. As I show, this framing engenders a flawed understanding of poor black women's procreative lives. I propose an alternative framework for reconceiving the relationship between poverty and procreative justice, one oriented around reproductive flourishing instead of reproductive responsibility. More generally, (...) the paper develops a methodological challenge for nonideal moral and political philosophy, especially concerning the obligations of the oppressed. Specifically, I argue that in the absence of descriptive and conceptual accountability, the moral gaze of the philosopher risks preserving, rather than destabilizing, oppressive ideologies. (shrink)
There is hardly any theme in Karl Marx’s theoretical corpus that has garnered as much traction as his theory of fetishism. Ever since Marx introduced the term into his critique of political economy in Capital, fetishism became a field of theoretical force, creating its own gravitational center toward which the interest of later generations of historians, social theorists, and political activists has been pulled. While much ink has been spilled on the specific content and theoretical scope of fetishism in Capital (...) for over one and a half centuries, young Marx’s initial exploration of the term rarely enjoyed critical attention. This is especially true in regard to the period from his early journalism in the Rheinische Zeitung (1842–43) to his Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844. (shrink)
What kind of rhetoric frames French reproductive policy debate? Who does such policies exclude? Through an examination of the “American import” of gender studies, along with an analysis of France’s Catholic heritage and secular politics, I argue that an unwavering belief in sexual difference as the foundation of French society defines the productive reproductive citizen. Sylviane Agacinski is perhaps the most vocal public philosopher who has framed the terms of reproductive policy debate in France, building an oppositional platform to reproductive (...) technology around anthropological assertions of sexual difference. This paper engages with Agacinski to examine rhetorical claims of sexual difference and how such claims delayed passage of France’s revised bioethics legislation that extends access of assisted reproductive technology (ART) to “all women.” Though the “PMA pour toutes” [ART for all women] legislation was eventually passed, such rhetoric motivated the explicit exclusion of all trans person from its extension, thus hardly permitting ART to all women. (shrink)
L’affaire Weinstein et le mouvement #MeToo ont mis la question des violences sexuelles au premier plan. Depuis, le consentement renvoie naturellement au consentement sexuel et amoureux, envisagé comme un sésame de l’égalité entre femmes et hommes. Pourtant, il est bien difficile à définir, et soulève trois problèmes. Le problème juridique, bien connu de celles et ceux qui suivent l’actualité, peut être résumé ainsi: que faire pour que les cas de viol, d’agression et de harcèlement sexuels soient efficacement punis ? Le (...) deuxième problème est moral : comment penser des relations amoureuses et sexuelles qui ne soient pas fondées sur des normes sociales sexistes et inégalitaires ? Enfin, le problème politique : comment ne pas reconduire les injustices de genre qui se manifestent dans les rapports amoureux et sexuels ? La magistrale analyse du consentement que propose Manon Garcia revisite notre héritage philosophique, plongeant au cœur de la tradition libérale, mettant à nu ses impensés et ses limites. De John Locke aux théoriciennes féministes françaises et américaines, en passant par Michel Foucault et les débats sur la pratique du BDSM, c’est une nouvelle cartographie politique de nos vies privées que dessine cet essai novateur. Au terme de ce livre, il s’agira en somme, pour reprendre la formule de Gloria Steinem, d’« érotiser l’égalité » plutôt que la domination : en ce sens, le consentement sexuel, conçu comme conversation érotique, est sans doute l’avenir de l’amour et du sexe. (shrink)
Our autonomy can be compromised by limitations in our capacities, or by the power relationships within which we are embedded. If we insist that real consent requires full autonomy, then virtually no sex will turn out to be consensual. I argue that under conditions of compromised autonomy, consent must be socially and interpersonally scaffolded. To understand consent as an ethically crucial but nonideal concept, we need to think about how it is related to other requirements for ethical sex, such as (...) the ability to exit a situation, trust, safety, broader social support, epistemic standing in the community, and more. (shrink)
At the end of 2017, Kristen Roupenian’s short story, Cat Person, went viral. Published at the height of the #MeToo movement, it depicted a ‘toxic date’ and a disturbing sexual encounter between Margot, a college student, and Robert, an older man she meets at work. The story was widely viewed as a relatable denunciation of women’s powerlessness and routine victimization. In this paper, I push against this common reading. I propose an alternative feminist interpretation through the lens of Simone de (...) Beauvoir’s notion of narcissism: a form of alienation that consists in making oneself both the subject and the ultimate project of one’s life. Framing Margot as a narcissist casts her as engaging, not in subtly coerced, undesired sex, but rather in sex that is desired in a tragically alienated way. I argue that Beauvoir’s notion of narcissism is an important tool for feminists today – well beyond the interpretation of Cat Person. It presses us to see systematic subordination not just as something done to women, but also as something women do to themselves. This in turn highlights the neglected role of self-transformation as a key aspect of feminist political resistance. (shrink)
Appeal to women’s experience for moral delineation in theological ethics has been perplexed by the issue of cultural diversity and colonialism as raised by postcolonial critique. This paper aims to examine the debates from Third-World feminism and Christian feminism in dealing with difference and solidarity, leading to the call for contextual analysis and related power mappings. Margaret A. Farley’s proposal for sexual ethics in Just Love will then serve as an example to discuss how the search for common morality among (...) cultural diversity may prevent or reinforce colonial agendas and other privileges. (shrink)
In recent years, scholars have identified a political formation that mobilizes the emancipatory energies of feminism in the service of the expansion of the carceral state. ‘Carceral feminism,’ as it has come to be known, is often portrayed by these scholars as a product of feminist-conservative convergence. Here, I argue that the rise of the SlutWalk movement suggests a more complex genealogy for carceral feminism. By situating SlutWalk in the historico-theoretical context of feminism’s sex wars, I reveal the carceral–feminist impulses (...) roiling beneath its progressive ‘sex-positive’ surface. With its tendency to reduce sexual freedom to expressive freedom, valorize conventional forms of femininity and sexuality, and promote a fundamentally carceral paradigm of sexual freedom, the SlutWalk movement, I argue, is descended from anti-censorship/pro-sex feminism, a liberal-feminist hybrid that emerged out of the convergence of sex-radical feminism and liberalism during the sex wars. When viewed in this light, SlutWalk no longer appears as a sign that feminism’s ‘pleasure’ and ‘danger’ factions have negotiated a long-awaited ‘sex-détente.’ Rather, it stands as a testament to the extent to which feminism’s once radical aspirations in the domain of sexual politics have been supplanted by a tepid, heteronormative, and disquietingly carceral liberal project. (shrink)
I argue that “consent” language presupposes that the contemplated action is or would be at someone else’s behest. When one does something for another reason—for example, when one elects independently to do something, or when one accepts an invitation to do something—it is linguistically inappropriate to describe the actor as “consenting” to it; but it is also inappropriate to describe them as “not consenting” to it. A consequence of this idea is that “consent” is poorly suited to play its canonical (...) central role in contemporary sexual ethics. But this does not mean that nonconsensual sex can be morally permissible. Consent language, I’ll suggest, carries the conventional presupposition that that which is or might be consented to is at someone else’s behest. One implication will be a new kind of support for feminist critiques of consent theory in sexual ethics. (shrink)
The article offers a challenge to, and an invocation of, the values of Lasallian mission against rape culture. It addresses the continuum of violence, from outright misogynistic terrorism to an ongoing threat of assault and harassment, to the normalization of emotional and physical coercion of (primarily) women; and it explores historical responses within the Lasallian tradition to this pervasive problem in society and identifies a few rich resources within its underlying charism for tackling this pernicious evil (the virtue of silence (...) / listening & a paradigm of association). The Lasallian obligation to address rape culture and attitudes of patriarchal normalcy is articulated; and a challenge is issued to actively teach students about healthy relationships, gender norms, and sexuality. Women and men on college campuses need to be willing to engage these difficult but necessary conversations and take responsibility for their part in the transformations needed in society and on college campuses. (shrink)
Sex, Love, and Gender is the first volume to present a comprehensive philosophical theory that brings together all of Kant's practical philosophy — found across his works on ethics, justice, anthropology, history, and religion — and provide a critique of emotionally healthy and morally permissible sexual, loving, gendered being. By rethinking Kant's work on human nature and making space for sex, love, and gender within his moral accounts of freedom, the book shows how, despite his austere and even anti-sex, cisist, (...) sexist, and heterosexist reputation, Kant's writings on happiness and virtue (Part I) and right (Part II) in fact yield fertile philosophical ground on which we can explore specific contemporary issues such as abortion, sexual orientation, sexual or gendered identity, marriage, trade in sexual services, and sex- or gender-based oppression. Indeed, Kant's philosophy provides us with resources to appreciate and value the diversity of human ways of loving and the existential importance of our embodied, social selves. Structured on a thematic basis, with introductions to assist those new to Kant's philosophy, this book will be a valuable resource for anyone who cares about these issues and wants to make sense of them. -/- Alternatively: Sex, Love, and Gender identifies a set of possibilities that define human beings’ sexuality. These sets come with their own concepts, which specify how the possibilities are realized and what effects they have on our lives lived together. Partly the task is descriptive. The description has to be plausible. Plausibility comes from the phenomenology (and not the other way around). Partly the task is normative. The normative content also has to be plausible. Plausibility here comes from vindicating the principles that underwrite the possibilities that define human beings’ sexualities and sexual experiences and behaviors lived by human beings and from the philosophical explanations and conclusions that follow. Overall plausibility, then, comes from discursive analysis of alternatives, from a priori argument, and, in the evaluative case, from showing how the Kantian account of a good life fits with reasonable conceptions of goodness consistent with the phenomenology of human lives. Although this exploration leads us, as we will see, to most corners of Kant’s practical philosophy, including his metaethics and metaphysics, the main focus is on an account of human sex, love, and gender explored explicitly with respect to happiness and ethics (virtue) and justice (right). It is because of this focus that the book is divided into two parts: Part 1 (“Human Sexuality and Virtue”) and Part 2 (“Human Sexuality and Right”). (shrink)
Analyzing two harm reduction comics campaigns—one early in the AIDS crisis and one more recent, I explore tensions between queer safer sexual erotics and national discourses of sexual norms/deviation raised by Cindy Patton and William Haver at the height of AIDS discourse theory in 1996, approximately halfway between the comics. Using these theorists’ reflections on the history of AIDS activism/representation as a hinge, I explore the manifestation/transformation a decade later of the ethical, educational, and erotic issues they raise. Both foreground (...) the ways that HIV, safer sex, and/or eroticism pose difficulties for systems of linguistic and visual representation. Combining text and image, comics—a common harm reduction medium—epitomize this representational issue. While the GMHC addresses an immediate need for information about safer sex, Alex attempts to tackle the unrepresentability/unthinkability of safer and/or seropositive sex. Safer Sex Comix, while largely prioritizing directness above formal experimentation, employ strategies of transgressing the borders of the comics panel to emphasize a plethora of lower-risk sexual acts. The most visually inventive moments in Alex represent Alex’s feelings of unintelligbility post-diagnosis, but the comic restricts its representation of sex only to anal intercourse, and it proves unable to visualize alternative formulations of the erotic, turning to more normative narratives and images as earlier, visually explicit unsafe sexual encounters are replaced with more a/illusive representations post-conversion, literalizing the unrepresentability of seropositive erotic life. (shrink)
How are patriarchal regimes perpetuated and reproduced? Kate Manne’s recent work on misogyny aims to provide an answer to this central question. According to her, misogyny is a property of social environments where women perceived as violating patriarchal norms are ‘kept down’ through hostile reactions coming from men, other women and social structures. In this paper, I argue that Manne’s approach is problematically incomplete. I do so by examining a recent puzzling social phenomenon which I call (post-)feminist backlash: the rise (...) of women-led movements reinstating patriarchal practices in the name of feminism. I focus on the example of ‘raunch feminist’ CAKE parties and argue that their pro-patriarchal dimension cannot be adequately explained by misogyny. I propose instead a different story that emphasizes the continued centrality of gender distinctions in our social normative life, even as gendered social meanings become increasingly contested. This triggers meaning vertigo, a distinct form of social anxiety and the reactionary impulse at the heart of (post)-feminist backlash. Meaning vertigo both complicates the answer to Manne’s main question—“why is misogyny still a thing?”—and suggests the need and opportunity for a different kind of feminist political intervention. (shrink)
Gender seems to be everywhere in the norms governing our social world: from how to be a good friend and how to walk, to children’s clothes. It is not surprising then that a difficulty in identifying someone’s gender is often a source of discomfort and even anxiety. Numerous theorists, including Judith Butler and Charlotte Witt, have noted that gender is unlike other important social differences, such as professional occupation or religious affiliation. It has a special centrality, ubiquity and importance in (...) social practices. This observation moves us away from the classic philosophical question ‘what is gender?’ towards a more underappreciated one: ‘what is the role of gender’? To answer this question, I introduce the notion of social standing, which refers to our ability to enter into social relations. Social standing distinctions are an important feature of human societies. However, our existing philosophical tools do not adequately capture this notion: it is neither a moral distinction, nor is it reducible to hierarchy. I offer a conception of our entry into social relations as always conditioned by various shared representational assumptions about social subjects. When individuals are anomalous with respect to those assumptions, their social standing is in doubt. This explains important forms of uncommon and peculiar treatment across societies. I argue that forms of social devaluation on the basis of severe and visible disability in our society are central examples of diminished social standing. In our social context, being hard to recognize through the matrix of gender makes one representationally anomalous and imperils one’s social standing. Gender plays a fundamental role because gender legibility is a precondition for full social standing. Gender norms parallel ‘ability norms’ in this respect, linking notions of normalcy in scholarship on gender and in scholarship on disability. Social standing also explains two key phenomena about gender. Firstly, it tells us why our social practices and norms are pervasively gendered. Given the performative and relational nature of gendered positions, this is necessary for constant gender legibility. Secondly, social standing recognition accounts for social anxiety phenomena around gender ambiguity. These phenomena are reactions to anomaly as a threat to our social systems of meaning. In the final part of my dissertation, I consider some political consequences of my view. Understanding this special role of gender allows us to identify a distinct type of backlash to feminist social change that is particularly insidious. It is not driven by the hierarchical investments of the most gender-privileged, but rather by our collective investment in gender as a system of social coordination. I explore 2000s ‘raunch feminism’ to argue for this hypothesis. Gender’s role as a conditioning parameter of social standing puts systematic pressure on all would-be social subjects to be gender legible. This requires that individuals position themselves in recognizably gendered ways within social practices. But when gender differentiation is eroded, this positioning becomes tricky. This gives rise to a disorientation I call ‘meaning vertigo’. Meaning vertigo prompts attempts at reinstating a clear gendered system. In the process, gender equality suffers a serious set-back. To make substantial feminist progress, we must unseat gender from its central position in social domains like sexuality. I suggest that the best way to do this may be by foregrounding other aspects of social identity as systems of social coordination, instead of working on gender directly. (shrink)
This paper shows how amatonormativity and its attendant social pressures converge at the intersections of race, gender, romantic relationality, and sexuality to generate peculiar challenges to polyamorous African American men in American society. Contrary to the view maintained in the “slut-vs-stud” phenomenon, I maintain that the label ‘player’ when applied to polyamorous African American men functions as a pernicious stereotype and has denigrating effects. Specifically, I argue that stereotyping polyamorous African American men as players estranges them from themselves and it (...) constrains their agency by preemptively foreclosing the set of possibilities of what one’s sexual or romantic relational identities can be. (shrink)
This chapter defends a theory of objectification, conceiving of it as a species of what aestheticians have called ‘seeing‐as’, and more specifically, a kind of seeing‐as which to some degree is insensitive to the mind or mental aspects. An advantage of this view is that it covers both sexual and racial objectification, and can also explain how photographic images can objectify their subjects: namely, by encouraging the viewer to view in a way insensitive to the mind or mental aspects of (...) the subject. It also explains in what context objectification to can be harmless. This view is discussed in relation to several others. (shrink)
يتمحور البحث حول نقد صادق جلال العظم للتابوهات، عمومًا، وللتابو الجنسي، خصوصًا، وينطلق البحث من التشديد على أهمية النقد في فكر العظم، على مستويي؛ التنظير له، وممارسته في معظم أو جل أعماله، ليحاول، بعد ذلك، إبراز تلك الممارسة النقدية في ميدان التابوهات عمومًا، وتابو الجنس خصوصًا، وانطلاقًا من ذلك؛ تتمثل الأسئلة الأساسية التي يحاول البحث الإجابة عنها، في الآتي: ما أهمية النقد عمومًا، ونقد التابوهات خصوصًا، في فكر العظم؟ ما العلاقة بين النقد والتحريم، من منظور العظم؟ وإلى أي حدٍّ، وبأي (...) معنىً سعى العظم إلى تجاوز (الخطوط الحمر) في نقده لثالوث التابوهات (الجنس والدين والسياسة)؟ ما الذي ينقده العظم، تحديدًا، في ميدان التابو الجنسي؟ وما هي الإشكاليات الأساسية التي يتضمنها ويثيرها هذا النقد؟ للإجابة عن هذه الأسئلة؛ ستتجسد مقاربتنا المنهجية لنصوص العظم، في ما يمكن تسميته ﺒـ "الهيرمينوطيقا النقدية"؛ فهي هيرمينوطيقا، أو تتّصف بالسمة الهيرمينوطيقية، ليس بسبب بعدها التأويلي الصريح، أو اعتمادها على التأويل فحسب، (فبهذا المعنى، كل مقاربةٍ أو دراسةٍ هي هيرمينوطيقيةٌ، لأنها تأويليةٌ بالضرورة)؛ وإنما بسبب افتراضها، أيضًا، أن هذه النصوص تتضمن دلالاتٍ متكاملةً، تجسِّد كليةً متسقةً أو متناسقة العناصر، يمكن الإمساك بها، انطلاقًا من "المقاصد المعلنة" للكاتب، وعلى هذا الأساس، سنحاول، في عرضنا ومناقشتنا لنقد التابو (الجنسي) عند العظم، أن نستند، بالدرجة الأولى، إلى تنظير العظم نفسه حول هذه المسألة؛ أي إلى أقواله المحدَّدة وآرائه الصريحة في هذا الخصوص، قبل أن نضع هذه الرؤية النظرية في مواجهةٍ ثنائيةٍ: مع ذاتها من جهةٍ، (ضمن إطار ما يمكن تسميته بالنقد المحايث)، ومع انتقادات بعض المفكرين الذين دخلوا في حوارٍ أو سجالٍ معه، ومع رؤيتنا للواقع أو الفكر الذي يحاول العظم دراسته، (في إطار ما يمكن تسميته بالنقد الخارجي)، من جهةٍ أخرى. وهذه المواجهة النقدية المزدوجة مع ما هو محايث لفكر العظم، ومفارقٌ له، هي التي تمثِّل أساس البعد النقديِّ في دراستنا لهذا الفكر. (shrink)
In this existential reading of Kim Kardashian-West's International Women's Day selfie of 2016, I focus on the rise of selfie culture and public discourse around emerging digital representations of women's bodies. The selfie is a relatively new phenomenon, and is particularly curious because of the subject/object paradox it creates; in taking a selfie, a person asserts control over their own image, but at the same time, becomes object in their own gaze. My argument is that selfies, like other assertions of (...) bodily subjectivity in digital spaces, are a threat to patriarchal structures that paint women as immanent, object, as reflected in public discourse around Kardashian-West's International Women's Day selfie. I draw on both Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir's work on subjectivity in existentialism and phenomenology, as well as Amy Shields Dobson's work on post-feminism and young women's projections of self, in order to delineate what it is about the selfie that creates this paradox. I also make reference to the work of Elisabeth Grosz and Frantz Fanon in relation to a colonial hierarchy that prioritises body over mind, as well as Laura Mulvey's work on the male gaze. (shrink)
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer family-making has exploded in many western nations in the past few decades in the midst of growing social acceptance and legal recognition of queer families, as well as increasing options for same-sex reproduction.1 Philosophers and bioethicists have perhaps been late in taking up these issues compared to scholars in other fields concerned with politics, justice, and cultural criticism. And where philosophers and bioethics have taken up these topics, often the moral issues at stake are framed (...) in a manner that implicitly or explicitly holds heterosexual reproduction through intercourse in a committed relationship to be the normal, natural, and morally unquestioned... (shrink)
Respect for autonomy grounds common ethical judgments about why people should be allowed to make decisions for themselves. Under this assumption, it is concerning that a number of feminist conceptions of autonomy present challenges for people with intellectual disabilities. This paper explores some of the most philosophically influential feminist accounts of autonomy and demonstrates how these accounts exclude persons with intellectual disabilities. As a possible solution to these accounts, Laura Davy’s inclusive design approach is presented, which is a revised conception (...) of autonomy that accommodates intellectual disabilities. While Davy’s approach to autonomy views people with intellectual disabilities as autonomous, it encounters limitations in regard to sexual autonomy, which incorporates certain judgments that are intuitively at odds with her recommendations. The remainder of this paper describes some complexities of sexual autonomy and determines why these are problematic for Davy’s account. After analyzing some of the challenges that sexual autonomy presents, I suggest a potential modification for consideration. This modification will allow Davy’s account to address the topic of sexual autonomy for persons with intellectual disabilities. My proposal is a matter of theory following practice. (shrink)
Though feminists are correct to note that conventional standards of sexiness are oppressive, we argue that feminism should reclaim sexiness rather than reject it. We argue for an aesthetic and ethical practice of working to shift from conventional attributions of sexiness to respectful attributions, in which embodied sexual subjects are appreciated in their full individual magnificence. We argue that undertaking this practice is an ethical obligation, since it contributes to the full recognition of others’ humanity. We discuss the relationship of (...) ethical to aesthetic considerations and argue that the respectful notion of sexiness is a genuinely aesthetic one, even though it does not involve assessment in relation to standards. (shrink)
Iniaalok ng pag-aaral na ito ang isang panunuring Foucauldian sa pangkasariang karanasan ng babaeng may breast cancer (BRCA). Inihahain din ng mga may-akda ang mga sumusunod na tanong: Paano naaapi ang babaeng may BRCA? Paano hinahamon ng kanyang karanasan ang konsepto ng seksuwalidad? Maaari bang ituring ang kanyang karanasan bilang anyo ng pagbalikwas? Tutugunan ng mga may-akda ang naturang mga tanong gamit ang kapangyarihan-diskurso-seksuwalidad ni Foucault habang ipinapalagay na: (1) matagumpay na naipapakita ng talaangkanan ng seksuwalidad ni Foucault kung paanong (...) ang seksuwalidad, bilang isang diskursibong kontrak, ay ginagamit bilang isang teknik ng pangongontrol, at (2) nabibigyan tayo ni Foucault ng isang paraan ng pag-unawa sa kung papaano tumutugon ang indibidwal sa iba’t ibang sistema ng kontrol, maging ng isang balangkas na makapagpapaliwanag sa maraming relasyong pangkapangyarihan na siyang tumutukoy sa moda ng pag-iral ng indibidwal. Nahahati ang papel na ito sa tatlong pangunahing bahagi: (1) Ang Panunuring Feminista ng Sabjek na Foucauldian, (2) Ang Pangkasariang Karanasan ng Babaeng may BRCA, at (3) Pagbalikwas bilang Diskurso-Konstrak at Binuong Tugon. (shrink)
In recent years, questions regarding the ontological status of the human have been raised with renewed interest and imagination within various fields of critical thought. In the face of biotechnological findings and increasingly advanced technologies that connect as well as disturb settled boundaries, whether geographical or bodily, not to mention philosophical questionings of traditional western humanism, the boundaries of the human subject have been contested. The human body, traditionally imagined as closed and autonomous, has been opened up to a world (...) of forces and agencies that are strange, other and often deeply disturbing when viewed from an anthropocentric standpoint. Rather than close down anxieties concerning such boundary transgressions and ontological uncertainties, scholars – not least within areas such as feminist, posthumanist and queer theory – have argued that here lie possibilities as well as an ethical urgency to rethink the human subject, its world(s) and its others. Indeed, what might it mean to view the world from positions that do not take the pure and autonomous human form as its starting point? And what ethical considerations does such a viewpoint demand of us? (shrink)
This article examines a neglected ancient source for desire between women that nonetheless has a rich reception history in the context of female homoeroticism: the Callisto episode in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The article argues that the relationship between Diana and her hunting companion Callisto can be read as homoerotic and that, unlike many ancient accounts of female-female eroticism, neither character is represented as a tribas (a gender-deviant “woman” with a masculinized body, who seeks to penetrate other women). The Callisto episode is (...) therefore an invaluable piece of evidence for ancient discourses on sexuality exceeding the bounds of the active/passive model. (shrink)
In The Social Construction of Sexuality, Steven Seidman investigates the political and social consequences of privileging certain sexual practices and identities while stigmatizing others. Addressing a range of topics from gay and lesbian identities to sex work, Seidman delves into issues of social control that inform popular beliefs and moral standards. The new Third Edition features three new chapters that focus on the changing cultures of intimacy, the promise and perils of cyber intimacies, and youth struggles to negotiate independence and (...) intimate solidarity. (shrink)
Ancient Greek philosophers, medieval theologians, Enlightenment thinkers, and contemporary humanists alike have debated all aspects of human sexuality, including its purpose, permissibility, normalcy, and risks. _Philosophizing About Sex_ provides a philosophical guide to those longstanding and important debates. Each chapter takes a general issue and shows how ongoing public discussions of sexuality can be illuminated by careful philosophical investigation. Debates over topics such as sexual assault, sexual orientation, sex education, prostitution, and “sexting” involve larger questions about morality, law, science, and (...) politics and cannot be intelligently discussed in isolation from broader issues. By asking deceptively simple questions, this book shows how difficult but important it is to arrive at satisfying answers. (shrink)
In this article, I consider the ideologies that emerge when disability and LGBTQ rights advocates' ubiquitous calls for visibility collide. I argue that contemporary visibility politics encourage the production of post-racial and post-spatial ideologies. In demanding visibility, disability and LGBTQ rights advocates ignore, ironically, visible markers of difference and assume that being “out, loud, and proud” is desirable trans-geographically. I bring together disability studies and queer rural studies—fields that have engaged in remarkably little dialogue—to analyze activist calls for LGBTQ and (...) disability visibility. The discourses evident in such calls transcend movements and virtual spaces and emerge as some of the LGBTQ women in the rural Midwest whom I interviewed discuss their relations to LGBTQ sexuality and disability. I analyze several cases to illustrate how visibility discourses compel the erasure of material bodies, and in the process, render certain experiences obsolete. I close by considering how my critique of visibility discourses might influence critical discussions of identity politics more broadly. (shrink)
In this paper, I respond to the critiques of my book, The Politics of Our Selves: Power, Autonomy, and Gender in Contemporary Critical Theory, made by Nikolas Kompridis, Paul Patton, Allison Weir and Moira Gatens. My response is organized around three overlapping themes that are raised in these four astute papers: a defence of my account of normativity, of my reading of Foucault’s conception of power, and of my analysis of gender subordination/identity.
In this article I will revisit the question of what I term the continuum of heteronormative sexual interactions, that is, the idea that purportedly ethically acceptable heterosexual interactions are conceptually, ethically, and politically associated with instances of sexual violence. Spurred by recent work by psychologist Nicola , I conclude that some of my earlier critiques of Catharine MacKinnon's theoretical linkages between sexual violence and normative heterosex are wanting. In addition, neither MacKinnon's theory nor my critique of it seem up to (...) the task of providing an ethical account of the examples of “unjust sex” that Gavey has described. I come to the conclusion that an ethical analysis of sexual interactions requires a focus on sexual desire, but that desire cannot take on the by now heavily criticized role of consent. Rather than looking for the presence or absence of sexual desire prior to sexual encounters as a kind of ethical certification of them, we ought instead to focus on the efficacy of that sexual desire, that is, its ability (or lack thereof) to shape an encounter in substantial and meaningful ways. (shrink)
In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:“More or Less Raped”:Foucault, Causality, and Feminist Critiques of Sexual ViolenceKelly H. BallI say “freedom of sexual choice” and not “freedom of sexual acts” because there are sexual acts like rape which should not be permitted.… I don’t think we should have as our objective some sort of absolute freedom or total liberty of sexual action.—Michel Foucault, Ethics, Subjectivity, and TruthCausality in the subject, the unconscious of the subject, (...) the truth of the subject in the other who knows, the knowledge he holds unbeknown to him, all this found an opportunity to deploy itself in the discourse of sex.—Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Volume I: An IntroductionMost Feminist Readers Of Foucault are familiar with the case of the “simple farmhand,” Charles Jouy, whom Foucault briefly mentions in The History of Sexuality, Volume I (henceforth Sexuality One). The case of Charles Jouy and [End Page 52 ] Sophie Adam (the relatively unknown name of the “little girl” from whom Jouy “obtained a few caresses”) is instructive for Foucault, as it illustrates both the epistemic shifts and changing technologies of power—specifically the emergence of sexuality—during the late nineteenth century (Foucault 1990, 31). By the time Foucault published Sexuality One in 1976 (translated and published in English in 1978), he had already spent considerable time analyzing the Jouy-Adam case. In his 1974-75 lectures at the College de France, Les Anormaux, Foucault delivered an extended analysis of the case resulting from archival research he undertook at the Bibliotheque Nationale de France. The infamously brief 1978 appearance of the case in Sexuality One, then, is only a distilled version of the case that references Foucault’s earlier argument in Les Anormaux about the expansion of sexuality as a productive technology of power-knowledge-pleasure. 1Much of the feminist response to Foucault’s use of the Jouy-Adam case in Sexuality One is bound up with obstacles of time and translation. While Sexuality One was published in English in 1978, Foucault’s 1974–75 lectures, Les Anormaux, were not published in French until 1999, and the English translation, Abnormal, only appeared in 2003. Clearly, this translation and publishing timeline complicates the reception of Foucault’s thinking about the production and regulation of sexuality for many American readers. The relatively late appearance of Abnormal has limited Anglophone feminist theorists’ ability to engage Foucault’s theories about sexuality and violence more extensively.With few exceptions, feminists have been overwhelmingly critical of what they view as Foucault’s reductive presentation of the Jouy-Adam case and his blindness to sexual violence in Sexuality One. 2 Linda Martín Alcoff’s 1996 essay “Dangerous Pleasures: The Politics of Pedophilia” is representative of this trend. The feminist concerns Alcoff raises regarding Foucault and the Jouy-Adam case both precede her essay and persist in more recent feminist analyses. Still, the essay remains symptomatic of how feminist theorists have responded generally to Foucault’s comments on sexual violence and specifically to his comments regarding the desexualization of rape. 3 Alcoff buttresses her critique of Foucault’s presentation of the Jouy-Adam case in Sexuality One by referring to his comments on children, sexual violence, and pedophilia in a transcript of a collective interview with Jean Danet and Guy Hocquenghem, “Sexual Morality and the Law” (Alcoff 1996, 102-106). 4 Her critique in “Dangerous Pleasures” centers on preserving a feminist capacity to determine what counts as violence and make judgments accordingly. The fact that this discussion has endured for more than thirty years (beginning with Monique Plaza’s 1981 response to Sexuality One) speaks to the persistence of sexual violence against women and children as a feminist concern. 5 That concern is somewhat at odds with Foucault’s conception of sexuality as a productive mode of modern biopower. [End Page 53]Reading athwart Alcoff and the feminist tradition she represents, I argue here that the practice of making judgments about sexual violence relies upon a concept of causality that is an extension of the modern framework of power-knowledge-pleasure. I do so by focusing on Foucault’s more detailed account of the Jouy-Adam case In Abnormal. Indeed, reading... (shrink)
On November 4, 2008 California voters passed Proposition 8, and accordingly same-sex marriage was banned under the state constitution. Proposition 8 is now being considered by the Supreme Court. The proposition has sparked national debate about the nature of the relationship between the state and citizens’ sexuality and corresponding rights; calling into question the practice of allocating rights and privileges on the basis of sexuality and family form. Proponents of the proposition, who can be classified as predominantly socially conservative, want (...) to maintain the status and privileges of marriage for heterosexuals; arguing that allowing same-sex marriage threatens the legitimacy, sanctity and strength of traditional heterosexual marriage . This article examines the extent to which three Californian pro-same-sex marriage organizations (Equality California, Join the Impact, and the Courage Campaign) have challenged and/or appropriated social conservative and neoliberal discourses in their effort to gain access to the rights and privileges that are currently administered through marriage. (shrink)
This paper examines the relationship between disability and “queerness.” I argue that the hostility frequently expressed against both disabled and queer individuals is a function of fear of the undecidability of the body. I draw on feminist, queer, and disability theory to help us understand this phenomenon and suggest that these different kinds of theories have a complementary relationship. That is, feminist and queer theory help us see how this fear works, disability theory helps us see why it exists.
Lynne Huffer's ambitious inquiry redresses the rift between feminist and queer theory, traversing the space of a new, post-moral sexual ethics that includes pleasure, desire, connection, and betrayal. She begins by balancing queer theorists' politics of sexual freedoms with a moralizing feminist politics that views sexuality as harm. Drawing on the best insights from both traditions, she builds an ethics centered on eros, following Michel Foucault's ethics as a practice of freedom and Luce Irigaray's lyrical articulation of an ethics of (...) sexual difference. Through this theoretical lens, Huffer examines everyday experiences of ethical connection and failure connected to sex, including queer sexual practices, sodomy laws, interracial love, pornography, and work-life balance. Her approach complicates sexual identities while challenging the epistemological foundations of subjectivity. She rethinks ethics "beyond good and evil" without underestimating, as some queer theorists have done, the persistence of what Foucault calls the "catastrophe" of morality. Elaborating a thinking-feeling ethics of the other, Huffer encourages contemporary intellectuals to reshape sexual morality from within, defining an ethical space that is both poetically suggestive and politically relevant, both conceptually daring and grounded in common sexual experience. (shrink)
Gender, race, and sexuality are not just identities; they are also systems of social organization – i.e., systems of privilege and oppression. This article addresses two main ways privilege and oppression (e.g., racism, misogyny, heteronormativity) are relevant topics in and for philosophical aesthetics: (i) the role of the aesthetic in privilege and oppression, and (ii) the role of philosophical aesthetics, as a discipline and a body of texts, in constructing and naturalizing relations of privilege and oppression (i.e., white heteropatriarchy). The (...) first part addresses how systems of privilege and oppression use the aesthetic. I will discuss various ways race, gender, and sexuality, as both embodied identities and broader social institutions, work with and through “the aesthetic”. The second part addresses racism and (hetero) sexism in the discipline of aesthetics. Both in its history and its present practice aesthetics’apparent neutrality on questions of privilege and oppression is actually evidence of its investment in systems of privilege and oppression. (shrink)
In Feminist, Queer, Crip Alison Kafer imagines a different future for disability and disabled bodies. Challenging the ways in which ideas about the future and time have been deployed in the service of compulsory able-bodiedness and able-mindedness, Kafer rejects the idea of disability as a pre-determined limit. She juxtaposes theories, movements, and identities such as environmental justice, reproductive justice, cyborg theory, transgender politics, and disability that are typically discussed in isolation and envisions new possibilities for crip futures and feminist/queer/crip alliances. (...) This bold book goes against the grain of normalization and promotes a political framework for a more just world. (shrink)
In the Nordic countries, at a time when women have only recently won the right to their own bodies and to a sexuality of their own and for themselves, women nevertheless fake orgasms. Moreover, a .
Bridging the gap between feminist studies of motherhood and queer theory, Mothering Queerly, Queering Motherhood articulates a provocative philosophy of queer kinship that need not be rooted in lesbian or gay sexual identities. Working from an interdisciplinary framework that incorporates feminist philosophy and queer, psychoanalytic, poststructuralist, and postcolonial theories, Shelley M. Park offers a powerful critique of an ideology she terms monomaternalism. Despite widespread cultural insistence that every child should have one—and only one—“real” mother, many contemporary family constellations do not (...) fit this mandate. Park highlights the negative consequences of this ideology and demonstrates how families created through open adoption, same-sex parenting, divorce, and plural marriage can be sites of resistance. Drawing from personal experiences as both an adoptive and a biological mother and juxtaposing these autobiographical reflections with critical readings of cultural texts representing multi-mother families, Park advocates a new understanding of postmodern families as potentially queer coalitional assemblages held together by a mixture of affection and critical reflection premised on difference. (shrink)