Philosophy of Sexuality

Through the lens of feminist speech act theory, this paper argues that artificial intelligence romance systems objectify and subordinate nonvirtual women. AI romance systems treat their users as consumers, offering them relational invulnerability and control over their (usually feminized) digital romantic partner. This paper argues that, though the output of AI chatbots may not generally constitute speech, the framework offered by an AI romance system communicates an unjust perspective on intimate relationships. Through normalizing controlling one’s intimate partner, these systems operate (...) as speakers that rank women as non-player characters and license their oppression, which is unjust even in the absence of empirical harms. Understanding AI romance systems as speakers has implications for policymakers. First, this account helps close the so-called responsibility gap in the operation of an AI system. Second, it places these systems under the purview of institutions’ policies regarding hate speech, suggesting one avenue for arguing that these systems may violate extant policies. Finally, it provides support for the pursuit of empirical research into AI romance systems’ effects on users. (shrink)

With twenty-five essays, fourteen of which are new to this edition, this best-selling volume examines the nature, morality, and social meanings of contemporary sexual phenomena. Topics include sexual desire, masturbation, sex on the Internet, homosexuality, transgender and transsexual issues, rape, and promiscuity. New chapters discuss polyamory, transgender issues, queer issues, paraphilia, drugs and sex, objectification, BDSM, cybersex, and sex and race. Updated and new discussion questions offer students starting points for debate in both the classroom and the bedroom.

Selected Readings in Human Sexuality provides students with a carefully curated selection of readings that highlight specific topics within the spectrum of human sexual behavior. The anthology contains 10 readings that cover various topics, including interracial and interethnic relationships, sexual harassment, human trafficking, changes in sexual behavior throughout the lifespan, and more. The readings have been selected to illustrate the different ways in which human sexuality may be investigated, including systematic reviews of existing literature, case studies, and empirical research. The (...) volume includes research on human sexuality from various countries and cultures, including the Netherlands, Canada, and China, to enrich conversations and provide readers with diverse perspectives. Each reading is accompanied by an introduction highlighting the importance of the reading and a set of discussion prompts to facilitate further examination of the topic. Selected Readings in Human Sexuality is designed to serve as a supplementary reader for courses in human sexual behavior. (shrink)

With twenty-five essays, eight of which are new to this edition, this best-selling volume examines the nature, morality, and social meanings of contemporary sexual phenomena.

Literary Theory and Criminology demonstrates the significance of contemporary literary theory to the discipline of criminology, particularly to those criminologists who are primarily concerned with questions of power, inequality, and harm. Drawing on innovations in philosophical, narrative, cultural, and pulp criminology, it sets out a deconstructive framework as part of a critical criminological critique-praxis. -/- This book comprises eight essays – on globalisation, criminological fiction, poststructuralism, patriarchal political economy, racial capitalism, anthropocidal ecocide, critical theory, and critical praxis – that argue (...) for the value of contemporary literary theory to a critical criminology concerned with the construction of a just and sustainable reality in the face of climate change and other mass harms. This is the first criminology book to engage with literary theory from the perspective of criminology and provides a guide for criminologists who want to deploy literary theory as part of their research programmes. It supersedes existing engagements with poststructuralism in the philosophical criminological tradition because it entails neither a constructionist ontology nor a relativist epistemology. It shows criminologists how literary theory offers the tools to first deconstruct and then reconstruct meaning and value. -/- Literary Theory and Criminology is essential reading for all critical criminological theorists. (shrink)

Bishop Elliott's book is a great tool for defending Catholic sexual ethics as humane and reasonable. His experience representing the Holy See at the United Nations has given him a ring-side seat in the battles showing just how radical the sexual revolutionaries really are. He offers a rare combination of sound theology and practical experience." -- Jennifer Roback Morse [taken from back cover].

Bio-heteronormative conceptions of the family have long reinforced a nuclear ideal of the family as a heterosexual marriage, with children who are the genetic progeny of that union. This ideal, however, has also long been resisted in light of recent social developments, exhibited through the increased incidence and acceptance of step-families, donor-conceived families, and so forth. Although to this end some might claim that the bio-heteronormative ideal is not necessary for a social unit to count as a family, a more (...) systematic conceptualization of the family—the kind of family that matters morally—is relatively underexplored in the philosophical literature. This paper makes a start at developing and defending an account of the family that is normatively attractive and in line with the growing prevalence of non-conventional families and methods of family-formation. Our account, which we call a constitutive-affirmative model of the family, takes the family to be constituted by an ongoing process of relevant affective and affirmative relations between the putative family members. (shrink)

The PhD thesis explores the philosophy of sex and raises questions about sexuality and moral concerns through a Foucauldian Perspective. There is a discussion on basic concepts like power, knowledge, discourse, freedom and self. It focuses on establishing Foucault as a distinctive philosopher who sets morals as an agenda of alteration. There is an attempt not only to analyse but also to engage with Foucauldian methodology. Thus, in addition to methodological issues in Foucault’s philosophy and history, the thesis also maps (...) the case of the LGBT movement in the Indian context while referring to the psychoanalytic theory of sexuality in India. (shrink)

Do que estão feitos os nossos corpos? Como estão constituídos os corpos e a sua matéria sexuada? É possível incluir a biotecnologia dentro do repertório de efeitos performativos de gênero? São algumas das perguntas-problemas com as que Martin de Mauro introduz o corpo em cena, em um contexto singular dominado pela renegociação das normativas de sexo e gênero. Se em certo sentido o corpo – expulsado da história, contido como natureza – constituiu o beco sem saída da teoria feminista, tanto (...) em sua versão da diferença como o construtivismo social de gênero, a muito disseminada recepção tanto de Judith Butler quanto de Paul B. Preciado torna necessário interceptar a função narrativa do mesmo em suas produções teóricas. (shrink)

This film is a 44-minute documentary film based around the stories of five eugenics survivor from the province of Alberta, Canada, made as part of the Living Archives on Eugenics in Western Canada project.

The philosophical framework of justice proposed by Nancy Fraser during the 1990s establishes two equally crucial dimensions of justice: redistribution, linked to the allocation of economic goods, and recognition, linked to the assignment of social status. This division makes it possible to distinguish between transformative strategies that intervene in the causes of social injustices and affirmative strategies that focus on their effects. However, the author’s treatment of her notion of “two-dimensional category”, which combines inequalities of redistribution and recognition, has limits (...) for thinking about the functioning of certain systems of social subordination and the situation of certain social groups. In this paper, I will use a queer-crip perspective to argue that both heterocissexism and ableism are two-dimensional categories, since they structure an unequal status system, but also sustain, define, and naturalize the capitalist mode of production and are functional to its distribution of economic goods. This critical review allows us to adapt the Fraserian framework to the current socio-political context. (shrink)

El dualismo perspectivista de Nancy Fraser establece dos dimensiones de la justicia: la redistribución, asociada al reparto de bienes económicos, y el reconocimiento, asociado a la asignación de estatus social. Aunque esta división permite distinguir entre estrategias transformadoras que intervienen en las causas de las injusticias sociales y estrategias afirmativas que se enfocan en sus efectos, el tratamiento que hace la autora de su noción de “categoría bidimensional”, la cual combina desigualdades de redistribución y de reconocimiento, posee límites para pensar (...) la situación de determinados grupos sociales. En este trabajo me serviré de una perspectiva queer-crip para sostener que tanto el heterocisexismo como el capacitismo son categorías bidimensionales, ya que no solo estructuran un sistema de estatus desigual, sino también sustentan, definen y naturalizan el modo de producción capitalista y son funcionales a su distribución de bienes económicos. Esta revisión crítica permite adaptar el marco fraseriano al contexto sociopolítico actual. (shrink)

The dynamic qualities of friendship sometimes require friends to assess their relationship in light of reasons of reciprocity or moral considerations. Friends sustain their relationship partly by assessing the terms of reciprocity. Sometimes friends must also consider how moral reasons bear on their friendship; friends need to resolve occasional clashes between the demands of friendship and rival moral considerations, and friends must sometimes serve as a moral stewards for each other. I discuss how friends may monitor their relationship without undermining (...) the trust and mutual regard appropriate to friends. (shrink)

In “Friendship Amongst the Self-Sufficient: Epicurus” (this Journal, Vol. 2, No. 2, June 2001), Andrew Mitchell explores the Epicurean view of the relationship between self-sufficiency and friendship by contrasting it with the views of Aristotle and the Stoics. Epicurus, Aristotle, and the Stoics do indeed have interestingly different views on friendship that are well worth comparing. Yet Mitchell’s characterization of Aristotelian friendship is misleading, his account of Stoic friendship is inaccurate, and his interpretation of Epicurean friendship is curiously imaginative but (...) ultimately rather strange. (shrink)

Volume 1. Égypte antique, Grèce antique, Empire romain, judaïsme, islam, Perse mazdéenne, hindouisme -- volume 2. Des débuts du christianisme à aujourd'hui.

In this essay, we aim to provide an overview of the political and philosophical issues pertaining to asexuality. The first section, “What Is Asexuality?,” offers an account of asexuality. The second section, “Asexuality as a Unique Sexual Orientation,” argues that asexuality should be understood as a unique sexual orientation. The third section, “Asexuality and Oppression,” discusses the various forms of oppression facing asexual persons today. The fourth section, “The Goods of Asexuality,” articulates some goods that asexuality brings to human lives, (...) and we do this with an eye toward conceiving of asexuality as something other than a mere deficit. (shrink)

A collection of essays (the first appearing in 2001, the second and third, appearing in expanded form (the form translated here) in 2006), translated into English.

What is sexual orientation? The contemporary consensus among philosophers is that it is a disposition. Unsurprisingly, recent debates about the metaphysics of sexual orientation are almost entirely intramural. Behavioral dispositionalists argue that sexual orientation is a disposition to behave sexually. Desire dispositionalists argue that it is a disposition to desire sexually. We argue that sexual orientation is not best understood in terms of dispositions to behave or dispositions to desire before arguing that dispositions tout court fail to illuminate sexual orientation. (...) We then introduce and defend the idea that sexual orientation is best understood in terms of categorical phenomenal properties of sexual arousal. (shrink)

A collection of historical essays on human sexuality.

One of the standard examples in contemporary moral psychology originates in the works of social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. He treats people's responses to the story of Julie and Mark, two siblings who decide to have casual, consensual, protected sex, as facts of human morality, providing evidence for his social intuitionist approach to moral judgements. We argue that Haidt's description of the facts of the story and the reactions of the respondents as ‘morally dumbfounded’ presupposes a view about moral reasoning that (...) is more substantial than he acknowledges. Drawing on the philosophical work by Iris Murdoch and Cora Diamond, we explore how different descriptions of human morality, sexuality, and family relations engage us in evaluations about distinctive features of human life and language that go deeper than Haidt envisages. Thus, we show the need to attend to the concepts used to describe the facts of human moral psychology and the pictures of morality these concepts reveal about the researcher's own understanding of moral experience. This points to the particular responsibility any researcher into human moral psychology has for ensuring that the descriptions they offer are attuned to the complexities of the lives of those they form theories about and that these do not appear conceptually confounding. (shrink)

In this article, I critique the commonly accepted distinction between commercial and altruistic surrogacy arrangements. The moral legitimacy of surrogacy, I claim, does not hinge on whether it is paid (‘commercial’) or unpaid (‘altruistic’); rather, it is best determined by appraisal of virtue-abiding conditions constitutive of the surrogacy arrangement. I begin my article by problematising the prevailing commercial/altruistic distinction; next, I demonstrate that an assessment of the virtue-abiding or non-virtue-abiding features of a surrogacy is crucial to navigating questions about the (...) moral legitimacy of surrogacy; in the final part, I reject other moral heuristics that might be proposed as alternatives to the commercial/altruistic dichotomy, and reiterate that a virtue-ethical framework is the most suitable way forward. (shrink)

Le sexe est le plus grand des vides de la philosophie. Il est arrivé, dans certains textes notoires, de nous trouver à deux doigts du délit porno-philosophique. Mais les penseurs ont, à ce moment-là, fermé les volets de leur imaginaire. Pourtant, chaque position sexuelle, chaque pratique, chacun des états dans lequel le sexe nous met, correspond à une conception philosophique de la chose. Ainsi, l'ouvrage prend le parti d'étudier sexe et philosophie du point de vue du sujet sexuel : " (...) Je baise donc je suis ", en quelque sorte. De nombreuses questions peuvent ainsi être reprises sous l'angle de l'interrogation philosophique : la levrette ne serait-elle pas l'expression symbolique d'un retour à l'état de nature tel qu'il a été vu par Rousseau et le 69 celle d'un nouveau " contrat social "... sexuel? Si, pour Simone de Beauvoir, " on ne naît pas femme, mais on le devient ", alors la position de l'Andromaque aide-t-elle à devenir femme? Et l'usage du sextoy relève-t-il de ce qu'Heidegger nomme, à propos de l'objet technique, la modification de notre rapport à la nature? Après le succès de Rock'n Philo, Francis Métivier poursuit avec intelligence et pertinence sa réflexion philosophique. Il est accompagné dans cet exercice d'Ovidie, réalisatrice, écrivain et ancienne actrice pornographique, dont il a été le professeur de philosophie. (shrink)

이 논문에서는 자유주의 성윤리로서 제시되어온 기존의 입장들이 검토되고, 그 안에서 발견되는 긴장, 혼란, 그리고 한계들이 지적된다. 그리고 최종적으로이런 문제점들을 제거할 수 있는 이론적 자원을 갖춘 자유주의 성윤리가 새롭게 제안될 것이다. 이렇게 제안된 새로운 자유주의는 자유주의 담론이 가진 본래 취지를더 선명히 드러내며, 자유주의 성윤리에 대한 혼란과 오해를 줄일 수 있다. 첫째, 나는 자유주의가 비판의 대상으로 삼았던 보수주의 성윤리를 검토한다. 나는 여기서 보수주의 성윤리의 대표적인 네 가지 이론적 원천들을 검토하며 그 한계를 지적하지만, 그것들을 완전히 폐기하지는 않는다. 이것은 충분히 자유주의 성윤리 담론을 새롭게 (...) 구성할 좋은 이론적 자원을 보유하고 있기 때문이다. 둘째, 나는 자유주의 성윤리의 등장과 그 내적 혼란에 대해 검토한다. 기존의 자유주의 성윤리는 쾌락의 어법과 자율성의 어법을 동시에 포함하며 등장한다. 나는 이 두 어법이 친화적으로 보이지만 늘 상호 일관적으로 공존하지는 않는다는 점을 지적할것이다. 기존의 자유주의 성윤리는 쾌락의 어법에 좀 더 기울면서 자율성의 많은측면들을 훼손하기에 이른다. 나는 기존의 자유주의 성윤리가, 보수주의가 지닌 본질론들을 비판하면서도 그 스스로 또 다른 본질론을 견지하고 있고 그로 인해 몇가지 문제점이 발생하게 됨을 지적할 것이다. 그리고 더 나아가 나는 기존의 자유주의 성윤리가 성관계 당사자들만의 미시적 관계에 집중하고 그들을 둘러싼 사회구조적, 맥락적 성격에 대해서 고려하지 않는다는 점을 지적할 것이다. 마지막으로 나는 새로운 자유주의 성윤리를 제안한다. 그것은 기존의 자유주의성윤리가 견지하였던 본질론과 변태론을 거부하고 ‘개인적 목적론’의 정립을 제시한다. 단, 여기서 ‘개인적 목적론’은 정의(justice) 담론과 함께 제시되어야 한다. 정의 담론이 ‘개인적 목적론’들의 한계를 설정하는 역할을 하기 때문이다. 이 때 가장그럴듯한 정의 담론은 어떤 성격을 지녀야 하는지도 밝혀질 것이다. 이렇게 정립된새로운 자유주의 성윤리는 쾌락 중심적이고 남성 중심적이고 미시적 관계 중심적인 내용을 벗어나 자율성 중심적이고 여성적 관점을 고려하고 거시적 관점을 고려한 내용들을 제시한다. (shrink)

Until the 1970s the history of sexuality was a marginalized practice. Today it is a flourishing field, increasingly integrated into the mainstream and producing innovative insights into the ways in which societies shape and are shaped by sexual values, norms, identities and desires. In this book, Jeffrey Weeks, one of the leading international scholars in the subject, sets out clearly and concisely how sexual history has developed, and its implications for our understanding of the ways we live today. The emergence (...) of a new wave of feminism and lesbian and gay activism in the 1970s transformed the subject, heavily influenced by new trends in social and cultural history, radical sociological insights and the impact of Michel Foucault’s work. The result was an increasing emphasis on the historical shaping of sexuality, and on the existence of many different sexual meanings and cultures on a global scale. With chapters on, amongst others, lesbian, gay and queer history, feminist sexual history, the mainstreaming of sexual history, and the globalization of sexual history, What is Sexual History? is an indispensable guide to these developments. (shrink)

Countersexual society -- Countersexual reversal practices -- Theories -- Countersexual reading exercise -- On philosophy as a better way of taking it in the ass: deleuze and "molecular homosexuality.

Après deux millénaires de culpabilité chrétienne, on pourrait penser que la liberté de mœurs s'est imposée, or aucune liberté ne va sans angoisse. Afin de dissoudre cette angoisse de la sexualité, d'en éclairer les zones d'ombre, d'en annuler les déterminismes, la société contemporaine s'est lancée dans une folle entreprise : l'encadrer, comme tout échange, par les formes contractuelles des normes juridiques. Mais le contrat peut-il s'appliquer à la sexualité?? A-t-il les moyens de clarifier la relation humaine la plus intime qui (...) soit, de résoudre toutes les tensions liées au contact avec l'altérité?? Cédric Lagandré reprend le débat du statut culturel de la sexualité en Occident pour défendre, sur le socle du consentement mutuel, sa nature nécessairement infra-juridique. On ne peut accéder innocemment à la sexualité, non au sens où le désir sexuel serait moralement coupable, mais au sens où il implique un vertige, une angoisse et une mise à nu. La forme juridique, loin de civiliser la sexualité, l'enferme donc dans un cadre défini par la prostitution, et ne la repousse pas moins que la pornographie dans le registre trivial du besoin. L'effort contemporain pour passer l'intégralité du réel au crible des catégories juridiques ne peut donc qu'échouer devant l'ordre du symbolique: l'obscurité du désir rend la sexualité insaisissable à toute volonté de l'encadrer par la règle. (shrink)

Michel Foucault's The History of Sexuality-the first volume of which was published in 1976-exerts a vast influence across the humanities and social sciences. However, Foucault's interest in the history of sexuality began as early as the 1960s, when he taught two courses on the subject. These lectures offer crucial insight into the development of Foucault's thought yet have remained unpublished until recently. This book presents Foucault's lectures on sexuality for the first time in English. In the first series, held at (...) the University of Clermont-Ferrand in 1964, Foucault asks how sexuality comes to be constituted as a scientific body of knowledge within Western culture and why it derived from the analysis of "perversions"-morbidity, homosexuality, fetishism. The subsequent course, held at the experimental university at Vincennes in 1969, shows how Foucault's theories were reoriented by the events of May 1968; he refocuses on the regulatory nature of the discourse of sexuality and how it serves economic, social, and political ends. Examining creators of political and literary utopias in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, from Sade to Fourier to Marcuse, who attempted to integrate "natural" sexualities, including transgressive forms, into social and economic life, Foucault elaborates a double critique of the naturalization and the liberation of sexuality. Together, the lectures span a range of interests, from abnormality to heterotopias to ideology, and they offer an unprecedented glimpse into the evolution of Foucault's transformative thinking on sexuality. (shrink)