Sexual Citizenship And Social Change

"There has been enormous change in social and state acceptance regarding sex and sexualities over the last thirty years or so in the West, with an apparent new acceptance and openness towards diverse sexual practices and sexualities. Much of this change has come about through community claims for rights grounded in critical social theory and the language of citizenship. While accepting that much of this critique has been valuable in advancing rights for sexual minorities, Sexual Citizenship and Social Change raises the spectre that the mode of critique itself may now have become problematic. To this end, this book examines the use and abuse of critique in contemporary sexuality scholarship and associated activism and presents an argument that a new danger for contemporary sexual life emerges from an excess of critique. This implicates a particular form of critique that is detached, and unfettered, set loose from the usual anchor of tradition. What is most dangerous of all with this excess of unfettered critique is that it emerges from within minority sexual communities (and their allies), not from the usual conservative opposition to progressive change. Even the most ostensibly well-meaning critic - and associated critique - can become problematic when their arguments are detached from tradition. So, while recognising there is proven value in critique, it has limits, and we are arguably witness to some sensible limits being breached. While other authors focus their critical efforts on resistance to change and the limitations of tradition, Sexual Citizenship and Social Change takes on critique itself"--

Over the last thirty years in the West, there has been enormous change in social and state acceptance regarding sex and sexualities, with an apparent new acceptance and openness towards diverse sexual practices and sexualities. Much of this change has come about through community claims for rights grounded in critical social theory and the language of citizenship. While accepting that much of the critique has been valuable in advancing rights for sexual minorities, Sexual Citizenship and Social Change argues that the mode of critique itself may become problematic. Examining the use and abuse of critique in contemporary sexuality scholarship and associated activism, Darren Langdridge implicates a particular form of critique that is detached, unfettered, and set loose from the usual anchor of tradition. Even the most ostensibly well-meaning critic--and associated critique--can become problematic when their arguments are detached from tradition. Further, the book shows that this unrestrained excess of critique is particularly dangerous because it emerges from within minority sexual communities and their allies, not from the usual conservative opposition to progressive change. Theoretically and empirically grounded, Sexual Citizenship and Social Change draws on ideas and findings from psychology, sociology, politics, and philosophy and offers a radical challenge to the unfettered adoption of a critical approach in sexualities scholarship and activism. It highlights why we need to shine a critical lens on critique itself, while also anchoring it in a more constructive relationship with its natural opposite: tradition.

This book explores the relationship between social movements, sexual citizenship and change in Southern Europe. Providing a comparative analysis about LGBT issues in Italy, Spain and Portugal, it discusses how activism can generate legal, political and cultural impact in post-dictatorial, Catholic and EU-focused countries.

The notion of citizenship, with its balancing of rights and responsibilities, has become a dominant way of articulating sexual politics today. In The Sexual Citizen, David Bell and Jon Binnie critically explore the notion of sexual citizenship as a way to think through the ever-changing political, legal, social and cultural landscapes of sexuality. The book examines sexual citizenship in a number of key sites of contemporary sexual politics (the market, marriage, the military, the city, the family) and focuses on a number of key theoretical debates on sexuality in relation to consumption, space and globalization. Critiquing existing theories of sexuality and citizenship, and drawing on a wide range of theoretical perspectives, The Sexual Citizen addresses both the promises and limitations of using the discourses of citizenship in the context of contemporary sexual politics. The Sexual Citizen will be of interest to students and academics in lesbian and gay studies, politics, legal studies, sociology, cultural studies and geography

Sexual citizenship has become a key concept in the social sciences. It describes the rights and responsibilities of citizens in sexual and intimate life, including debates over equal marriage and women's human rights, as well as shaping thinking about citizenship more generally. But what does it mean in a continually changing political landscape of gender and sexuality? In this timely intervention, Diane Richardson examines the normative underpinnings and varied critiques of sexual citizenship, asking what they mean for its future conceptual and empirical development, as well as for political activism. Clearly written, the book shows how the field of sexuality and citizenship connects to a range of important areas of debate including understandings of nationalism, identity, neoliberalism, equality, governmentality, individualization, colonialism, human rights, globalization and economic justice. Ultimately this book calls for a critical rethink of sexual citizenship. Illustrating her argument with examples drawn from across the globe, Richardson contends that this is essential if scholars want to understand the sexual politics that made the field of sexuality and citizenship studies what it is today, and to enable future analyses of the sexual inequalities that continue to mark the global order.

Solo parenting, in vitro fertilization, surrogate mothers, gay and lesbian families, cloning and the prospect of �designer babies,� Viagra and the morning-after pill, HIV/AIDS, the global porn industry, on-line dating services, virtual sex--whether for better of worse, our intimate lives are in the throes of dramatic change. In this thought-provoking study, sociologist Ken Plummer examines the transformations taking place in the realm of intimacy and the conflicts--the �intimate troubles�--to which these changes constantly give rise. In surveying the intimate possibilities now available to us and the issues swirling around them, Plummer focuses especially on the overlap of public and private. Increasingly, our most private decisions are bound up with public institutions such as legal codes, the medical system, or the media. What impact does the increasingly public character of personal life have on our sense of ourselves and on how we view our own intimate choices? To navigate our way through a world in which people�s private lives are so often subject to public scrutiny and debate, and in which the public sphere is increasingly pluralized and contested, we must broaden our understanding of what it means to be a citizen. Through the idea of "intimate citizenship," Plummer sets an important agenda for the years to come.

What does ‘sexual citizenship’ mean in practice for people with mobility impairments who may need professional support to engage in sexual activity? The book explores this subject through empirical investigation based on case studies conducted in four countries – Sweden, England, Australia and the Netherlands – and develops the abstract notion of ‘sexual citizenship’ to make it practically relevant to disabled people, professionals in disability services and policy-makers. Through a cross-national approach, it demonstrates the variability of how sexual rights are understood and their culturally specific nature. It also shows how the personal is indeed political: states’ different policy approaches change the outcomes for disabled people in terms of support to explore and express their sexualities. By proposing a model of sexual facilitation that can be used in policy development, to better cater to disabled service users’ needs as well as furthering the theoretical understanding of sexual rights and sexual citizenship, this book will be of interest to professionals in disability services and policy-makers as well as academics and students working in the following subject areas: Disability Studies, Sociology, Social Policy, Sexuality Studies/Sexology, Social Work, Nursing, Occupational Therapy and Public Health.

This book is an innovative and critical contribution to the study of the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) people in the context of Europe. Combining legal and Foucauldian approaches, it investigates the ways in which current discourses about LGBTIQ rights in Europe are tightly bound to contemporary debates about national and trans-national citizenship. The author defines and analyzes the concept of 'multisexual citizenship' to illustrate new, flexible forms of sexual and gendered citizenship that could radically transform practices of citizenship and the current human rights framework in Europe. She does this by combining critical deconstructions of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights with ethnographic observations and sociological analysis. This interdisciplinary work will appeal to sociologists, lawyers and researchers of gender and LGBTIQ rights.