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Complicating Consent Consent has been a consistent theme throughout this module. In the section on Affirmative Consent, we saw that consent cannot be implied, that it must be positive and ongoing, that it can be retracted at any time, and that an unconscious person cannot be deemed consenting, whatever they may have said before theyContinue reading “SUMMARY FOR THE SEX WARS, CONSENT, AND ETHICAL SEX”

“I was a graduate student at the University of Michigan speaking at an academic conference, so I listed my academic affiliation, as was appropriate. Evidently, I should have had the decency to wear a black leather triangle or perhaps a scarlet letter.” Gayle Rubin, “Blood Under the Bridge,” 24 In module 1, you read aContinue reading “ASSIGNED RESOURCES FOR THE SEX WARS, CONSENT, AND ETHICAL SEX”

Introduction This module explores a number of historical and contemporary ethical and political debates about sexuality within feminist theory. It is divided into four parts. First the module will introduce students to what have been called “The Feminist Sex Wars” – a number of divisive disagreements around sexual issues that took place between feminists inContinue reading “BIG IDEAS + LESSON FOR THE SEX WARS, CONSENT, AND ETHICAL SEX”

Foucault, Feminism, and the Sexual Sciences As we saw in the previous module, the first volume of Michel Foucault’s The History of Sexuality provides an influential critique of the “sciences of sex.” In this work, Foucault suggests that there is little that is scientific about the disciplines of psychoanalysis, psychiatry, and sexology that emerged inContinue reading “BIG IDEAS + LESSON FOR THE SCIENCES OF SEX”

Orgasm Inc.: The Strange Science of Women’s Pleasure is a 2009 documentary film by Liz Canner. As she describes in the film, Canner was initially hired to make erotic videos for a pharmaceutical company that was trying to develop a drug for women that would be the market equivalent of Viagra. As we learn inContinue reading “ASSIGNED RESOURCES FOR THE SCIENCES OF SEX”

Sexpertise “It is really weird that doctors should be the reigning experts on sex.” Leonore Tiefer, Sex is Not a Natural Act In challenging the dominant view that sex is a “natural act” or a “biological function” and thus that it is best studied by scientists such as biologists, doctors, and psychiatrists, Foucault and TieferContinue reading “SUMMARY FOR THE SCIENCES OF SEX”

Genealogy The History of Sexuality is not a standard historical text, but rather what Foucault, following Friedrich Nietzsche, called a “genealogy.” For Foucault and Nietzsche, a genealogy is a counter-history, a refutation of a dominant story that we tell about an institution, a phenomenon, or a practice. Genealogies refute teleological versions of history – orContinue reading “BIG IDEAS AND LESSON FOR FROM SEX TO SEXUALITIES”

The first volume of Foucault’s The History of Sexuality is one of the most influential philosophical works of the twentieth century. As Jana Sawicki and Shannon Winnubst write, “Historian of sexuality David Halperin half-jokingly dubbed Foucault the patron saint of this nascent critical project. If Foucault was its saint, The History of Sexuality, Volume I becameContinue reading “ASSIGNED RESOURCES FOR FROM SEX TO SEXUALITIES”

What Has Sexual Identity Done for You Lately? We have seen in this module that Foucault sees sexual identities as social constructs that only emerged in the modern era. This does not mean that the desires people have or the sexual behaviours they engage in are historically novel. What is new is to experience theseContinue reading “SUMMARY FOR FROM SEX TO SEXUALITIES”

Aristotle’s Theory of Conception With this module we shift from what was, at least in Plato, a rather abstract discussion of love to a much more concrete discussion of sex – and of sexual anatomy in particular. Aristotle was Plato’s most famous student, but he diverged from Plato’s teachings in many ways. In particular, whileContinue reading “BIG IDEAS + LESSON FOR GENDER AND SEXUAL REPRODUCTION”