Authoring Sex: Agency, Equality, and Respect within Sexual Interaction

Leadon, Rachel Louise

Full Metadata

Overview

Year:: 2022
Contributor:: Leadon, Rachel Louise (creator); Heck, Richard Kimberly (Advisor); Mason Bizri, Michelle (Reader); Bauer, Nancy (Reader); Brown University. Department of Philosophy (sponsor)
Genre:: theses
Subject:: Sex; Sexual consent; Ethics; gender roles; sexual assault; sexual agency; philosophy of sex
Extent:: ix, 206 p.

Files

Description

Abstract:: There has been increasing attention to the pervasiveness of so-called “bad sex”: apparently consensual sexual encounters that are nonetheless experienced as violating, degrading, and even traumatic. This phenomenon points to two important features of our contemporary sexual culture: (1) It highlights heterosex as a continuing site of gender inequality. (2) It demonstrates the limitations of the dominant consent-focused approach to sexual ethics. One important response to these issues has been to challenge the narrow focus on particular expressions of individual choice in favor of attending more broadly to the socio-political context in which those choices are embedded. However, in addition to the inclusion of external social factors, there is another direction in which the scope of sexual ethics must also be expanded beyond the moment of consent that has received much less discussion. The restriction of ethical attention to the issue of an individual’s choice to engage in a sexual interaction excludes consideration of not only the broader social context, but also the substance of the sexual interaction with which that choice is concerned. I here attend to the complexity of sexual activity as a space within which we act and interact with one another. Doing so, I show, enables us to advance sexual ethics in ways that are crucial to addressing the phenomenon of “bad sex,” as well as the broader gender inequality within heterosex that “bad sex” exemplifies. My discussion makes three main positive contributions to sexual ethics. First, I show that sexual autonomy extends beyond the choice involved in sexual consent to encompass the exercise of a rich kind of autonomy I call free creative authorship over the course and character of one’s sexual activity. Second, I develop a model of robustly egalitarian sexual interaction that provides significant insight into what it means for partners to participate as equals and to relate to one another as equals within sex. Third, I illuminate the nature and ethical character of traditional asymmetrical gender roles within sex and thereby explain a crucial, overlooked aspect of “bad sex.”
Notes:: Thesis (Ph. D.)--Brown University, 2022

Content

Citation

Leadon, Rachel Louise, "Authoring Sex: Agency, Equality, and Respect within Sexual Interaction" (2022). Philosophy Theses and Dissertations. Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library. https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:9t3gpkax/

Relations

Collection:

Philosophy Theses and Dissertations

Theses and Dissertations for the Philosophy department.
...