Explores the conceptual schema underlying our understanding of reproductive technologies.

The aim of this article is to understand an important passage in the history of the sciences of the psyche: starting from the psychiatric problematization — and the consequent emergence — of the concept and the object called ‘sexuality’ in the second half of the 19th century, it attempts to show a series of continuities and discontinuities between this kind of reasoning and the birth of psychoanalysis in the first years of the 20th century. The particular focus is therefore directed (...) on two texts: Krafft-Ebing’s Psychopathia Sexualis and Freud’s Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. The argument runs along three intertwined axes: (1) an historico-epistemological analysis of the concepts and their transformations in the field of the science of sexuality; (2) an analysis of the power relationships between patients and physicians; and (3) an account of the psychiatric technologies of the self that have as an effect the emergence of new forms of ‘objective’ knowledge of the subject. The broader goal is to trace a map of the simultaneous and correlate coming into being and transformations both of new forms of objects and of new forms of subjects through the mediation of scientific concepts and techniques. (shrink)

There are no technologies at the present time that would allow parents to select the sexual orientation of their children. But what if there were? Some commentators believe that parents should be able to use those techniques so long as they are effective and safe. Others believe that these techniques are unethical because of the dangers they pose to homosexual men and women in general. Both sides point to motives and consequences when trying to analyse the ethics of this (...) question. These arguments are reviewed, and it is concluded that opponents of these technologies have not shown good reason why the law or policy should override parental choice in this matter. In general, therefore, if technologies become available to choose the sexual orientation of children, parents should be allowed to use them, provided they are safe and disrupt no interest of the child. This use will, at the very least, protect homosexual children from parents who do not want them, but it will also allow parents who want homosexual children to make that choice as well. (shrink)

This article brings insights from feminist science and technology studies to bear on recent public debates over the human papillomavirus vaccine, which prevents many cervical cancers, and male circumcision as potential HIV preventive. In the United States, attempts to mandate HPV vaccination have activated intense concerns about female “promiscuity,” whereas talk of promoting circumcision against HIV has triggered scant anxiety about American boys’ sexuality. The authors show how intersections among gender, sexuality, race, and age have shaped responses to these (...) two containment technologies—and how the technologies’ deployment both relies on and reproduces meanings of gender and sexuality that constitute the omnipresent “double standard.” The analysis develops an original feminist sociology of containment, explicating how social relations shape the innovation, reinvention, and use of technologies to contain particular sorts of bodies, fluids, and sexual practices—by whom, under what conditions, and for what purposes. (shrink)

The aim of the present study was to gain a first-person perspective on the experiences of technology-assisted child sexual abuse (TA-CSA), and a deeper understanding of the way it may affect its victims. Seven young women (aged 17–24) with experience of TA-CSA before the age of 18 participated in individual in-depth interviews. The interviews were teller-focused with the aim of capturing the interviewee’s own story about how they made sense of their experiences over time, and what impact the (...) victimization had on them in the short and long terms. Thematic analysis of the interviews revealed a broad range of abusive experiences that had profoundly impacted the individuals’ lives, health and self-concepts. Three dominant themes emerged from the analysis –From thrilling to abusive,Negative effect on health and wellbeing, andA new self after the abuse.From thrilling to abusivecaptures the wide range of experiences described, starting from the child’s own sexual curiosity to descriptions of having been manipulated or threatened into engaging in sexual activity, as well as the sometimes long and complex process of understanding the severity of one’s experiences.Negative effect on health and wellbeingdescribes the victimization’s comprehensive impact on the life and health of the participants, how they blamed themselves for what had happened, and the struggle of having to live with the constant fear of pictures from the abuse resurfacing.A new self after the abusedepicts how the victimization impacted the way participants viewed and thought about themselves in relation to others, and distorted their views of their bodies. The findings are discussed in relation to previous research on both offline CSA and TA-CSA, as well as theoretical and practical implications. (shrink)

Sex is an important part of human life. It is a source of pleasure and intimacy, and is integral to many people’s self-identity. This chapter examines the opportunities and challenges posed by the use of AI in how humans express and enact their sexualities. It does so by focusing on three main issues. First, it considers the idea of digisexuality, which according to McArthur and Twist (2017) is the label that should be applied to those ‘whose primary sexual identity (...) comes through the use of technology’, particularly through the use of robotics and AI. While agreeing that this phenomenon is worthy of greater scrutiny, the chapter questions whether it is necessary or socially desirable to see this as a new form of sexual identity. Second, it looks at the role that AI can play in facilitating human-to-human sexual contact, focusing in particular on the use of self-tracking and predictive analytics in optimising sexual and intimate behaviour. There are already a number of apps and services that promise to use AI to do this, but they pose a range of ethical risks that need to be addressed at both an individual and societal level. Finally, it considers the idea that a sophisticated form of AI could be an object of love. Can we be truly intimate with something that has been ‘programmed’ to love us? Contrary to the widely-held view, this chapter argues that this is indeed possible. (shrink)

In response to Gilbert Meilaender 's innovative interpretation of Augustine and of Roman Catholic teaching, the author suggests that Meilaender attributes to Augustine a more positive view of sexual pleasure than the texts will support, that modern Roman Catholic teaching suggests that love should have priority over procreation as a meaning of sex; and that the moral logic of Meilaender's argument does not require a rejection of all reproductive technologies. Nonetheless, the author agrees that a more critical attitude should (...) be adopted toward the reasons for which technologically assisted reproduction is promoted and undertaken, as well as toward its social impact. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to understand if and how interactions with Sexual Robots will modify users’ relational abilities in human-human relations. We first underline that, in today’s scholar discussion on the ‘symbolic argument’, there is no theoretical framework explaining the process of symbolic shift between human-robot interactions (HRI) and human-human interactions (HHI). To clarify the symbolic shift mechanism, we propose the concept of objectual mediation. Moreover, under the lens of Winnicott’s object-relation theory, we argue that HRI can (...) structurally modify users relationality, degrading intersubjective abilities: Sexual Robots may blurry the limit between the ‘internal object’ and the external one. We conclude that, under certain conditions, interactions with Sexual Robots may bring the user back to an infantile object-relation setting, worsening the user ability to manage relational frustration. This will negatively impact on human-human interactions and social values in general. -/- . (shrink)

Frequent observation: sexualities, self‐surveillance, confession and the construction of the active patient Following Foucault’s analyses of the development of the disciplinary power of the medical gaze, this paper describes the themes that are relocating the ‘active patient’ as the central object of health scrutiny by professionals. A key element in these discourses has been the deployment of power through disciplinary knowledge and techniques of social control through ritual forms of confession, thereby positing the patient/client as the subject of self‐surveillance. The (...) individual is also engaged their own sexuality, performativity and ‘truths’ of sexual experience. These Foucauldian insights have constructed the notion of surveillance medicine, whereby with the assistance of professional technologies, not only the patient’s body but also the ‘self’ can be probed through incitement to confess. However, the actor is not docile; resistances to disciplinary techniques are evident and within the professional practices of the clinic, there is resistance to the power of the erotic. The paper draws on recent research on the social construction of male sexualities in the fields of genitourinary practice, and explores how the ceremonial practices of the clinic engage with the rise of surveillance medicine and the medicalisation of everyday life. The individual actor is exhorted to engage in increased sexual and medical self‐surveillance and to be recruited in the project of becoming an ‘active patient’. It concludes with an examination of some of the implications this surveillance of self may have for practitioners in terms of power and the professional lens through which the sexualised, symbolic body is viewed. (shrink)

The ‘born this way’ movement for sexual orientation minority rights is premised on the view that sexual orientation is something that can neither be chosen nor changed. Indeed, current sexual orientation change efforts appear to be both harmful and ineffective. But what if ‘high-tech conversion therapies’ are invented in the future that are effective at changing sexual orientation? The conceptual basis for the movement would collapse. In this chapter, we argue that the threat of HCT should (...) be taken seriously, motivating a change in tactics for proponents of sexual orientation minority rights. We also discuss some of the practical-ethical and public-policy issues surrounding HCT, in case the technology is one day developed. (shrink)

Laing contends that the practice of eugenics has not disappeared. Conceptually related to the utilitarian and Social Darwinist worldview and historically evolving out of the practice of slavery, it led to some of the most spectacular human rights abuses in human history. The compulsory sterilization of and experimentation on those deemed “undesirable” and “unfit” in many technologically developed states like the US, Scandinavia, and Japan, led inexorably and most systematically to Nazi Germany with the elimination of countless millions of people (...) for their race, class, political views, sexuality, religion or disability. Biometric databases exposing one’s medical data, DNA defects, IQ, political views, while in some ways appearing socially useful, demonstrates how vulnerable humans are, not just at the hands of political malfeasors and tyrants but insurance companies, government snoopers, false friends and determined social engineers. (shrink)

Reproductive medical technology has revolutionized the natural order of human procreation. Accordingly, some have celebrated its advent as a new and liberating determinant of kinship at the global level and advocate it as a right to reproductive health while others have frowned upon it as a vehicle for “guiltless exchange of sexual fluid” and commodification of human gametes. Religious voices from both Christianity and Islam range from unthinking adoption to restrictive use. While utilizing this technology to enable (...) the married couple to have children through the use of their own sexual material is welcome, the use of third party, surrogacy, and reproductive cloning are not in keeping with the sacrosanct principles of kinship, procreation through licit sexual intercourse, and social cohesiveness for building a cohesive family as uphold by both Christianity and Islam. To examine such larger issues emanating from these new ways of human procreation, beyond the question of legality, is a point which legal scholars in both Christianity and Islam, when issuing religious decrees, have not anticipated sufficiently. The article proposes to be an attempt to that end through a qualitative critical content analysis of selected literature written on the subject. (shrink)

The essay approaches the gendered relations of sexual difference and their unsuspected effectsat the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Pará, BelémCampus. Writteninthe first person, it exposes the teacher/researcher's experiences andsharedsituations,glimpsing embodied maps that shout out the violence not confronted at the level of theinstitution. In dialogue with feminist and queer theorists, I seek to expose sexist cardinalpoints and propose an alternative centered on the politicization of prostituted ­ and destitute ­bodies. The conclusion exposes the mutilating (...) framework of a standardizing map that projectslimited futures for students/teachers/technicians who experience reduced diversity. However,it is also an invitation to reimagine ­ through a process of rebellion ­ another collectivecartography, a cartography of. (shrink)

Historically, male sexual fitness was framed by a patriarchal politics of life centred on regeneration, population and nation. In the later 20th century, as successful ageing became promoted by the lifestyle practices of an idealized healthy and active senior citizenry, traditional gerontocratic power over the sexual risks of youth gave way to a medical sexology concerned with sexual functionality across the lifecourse; in particular, erectility. Recently, erectile dysfunction has expanded to become a population-wide health problem with increasingly (...) refined diagnoses based on `phases', `early warning signs' and preventative regimes, especially as Viagra has become so widely available. This article explores a new bodily configuration in the making; arising, on the one hand, from the pharmacological and scientific technologization of male sexuality, and, on the other, from a contemporary politics of life that both contests the late-life ageism of the past and fosters a mid-life ageism in the present. (shrink)

This collection of essays provides a reassessment of the question of sexual difference, taking into account important shifts in feminist thought, post-humanist theories, and queer studies. The contributors offer new and refreshing insights into the complex question of sexual difference from a post-feminist perspective, and how it is reformulated in various related areas of study, such as ontology, epistemology, metaphysics, biology, technology, and mass-media.

Rape and sexual assault are major problems. In the majority of sexual assault cases consent is the central issue. Consent is, to borrow a phrase, the ‘moral magic’ that converts an impermissible act into a permissible one. In recent years, a handful of companies have tried to launch consent apps which aim to educate young people about the nature of sexual consent and allow them to record signals of consent for future verification. Although ostensibly aimed at addressing (...) the problems of rape and sexual assault on university campuses, these apps have attracted a number of critics. In this paper, I subject the phenomenon of consent apps to philosophical scrutiny. I argue that the consent apps that have been launched to date are unhelpful because they fail to address the landscape of ethical and epistemic problems that arise in the typical rape or sexual assault case: they produce distorted and decontextualised records of consent which may in turn exacerbate the other problems associated with rape and sexual assault. Furthermore, because of the tradeoffs involved, it is unlikely that app-based technologies could ever be created that would significantly address the problems of rape and sexual assault. (shrink)

Based on its prevalence, there is an urgent need to better understand the mechanisms, opportunities and risks of sexual interaction in digital contexts that are related with sexual arousal. While there is a growing body of literature on SIDC, there is also a lack of conceptual clarity and classification. Therefore, based on a conceptual analysis, we propose to distinguish between sexual interaction through, via, and with digital technologies. Sexual interactions through digital technologies are face-to-face sexual (...) interactions that have been started digitally or are accompanied by digital technology. Sexual interactions via digital technology are technology-mediated interpersonal sexual interactions. Sexual interactions with digital technology occur when the technology itself has the role of an interaction partner. The three types of SIDC and their respective subtypes are explained and backed up with empirical studies that are grouped according to two major mediators: consent and commerce. Regarding the causes and consequences of the three types of SIDC we suggest a classification that entails biological, psychological, social, economic, and technological factors. Regarding implications of SIDC we suggest to focus on both opportunities and risks for sexual health. The proposed conceptual framework of SIDC is meant to inform future research. (shrink)

The paper examines the extent to which philosophical theories about innate sexual dimorphism in the speciés are supported by contemporary biological research. The components of sexual identity are noted and the findings of biological research related to the specific components involved. The paper argues that sexual polymorphism is a more plausible theory, given both the biological findings and the technological advances in the area of sexual determination. The philosophical relevance of this research is then pointed out.

This chapter focuses on Foucault, Butler, and video-sharing on sexual social networking sites. It argues that the use and prevalence of video-sharing technologies on sexual social networking websites has a direct impact on notions of sexual identity. Though sometimes pitted against one another and at times contradictory, the ideas of Michel Foucault and Judith Butler on the nature and expression of sexuality and gender identities in fact gel rather well, and both can help us to gain a (...) deeper and more rounded picture of the impact and importance of the burgeoning phenomenon of internet dating websites in general, and sexual social networking in particular. (shrink)

The sexual revolution that took place in the late 1960s and early 1970s is one of the most profound social changes during the second half of the twentieth century in America. Before the revolution, there existed a norm proscribing premarital sex (PS norm); premarital sex was not accepted. After the sexual revolution, the PS norm no longer existed; premarital sex became accepted. In the literature on how premarital sex became accepted, little attention is given to the institutional change (...) that transpired—the collapse of a sexual norm. This study specifies one micro-mechanism of this social change. Specifically, adopting methodological individualism and the prisoner's dilemma game, I develop a theory that explains how a technological innovation for contraception triggered a change in individuals' perception of premarital sex, which led to their behavioral change. As a result, premarital sex became accepted, and the norm proscribing premarital sex collapsed. I use General Social Survey data to test the hypothesized micro-mechanism of the institutional change. The empirical analysis supports the hypothesis derived from the theory. Based on the above analyses, I discuss two alternative explanations and the issue of teenage pregnancy. (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)

Sara Ahmed’s enquiry on what it means for sexuality to be lived as oriented from the work Queer Phenomenology inspired the art series ‘A Sexual Series’, based on post-humanist theory and asexual experience. Shapes of performative alter egos materialized from a queer cyborg position of technologically enhanced crip experiences (the strong symbolical constructing process of straightening scoliosis surgery). From being a glitch of the past towards a post-individualist future, the artificial intelligence sexbot is a metaphoric, elevated cyborg drag version (...) of the artist to embody asexuality and queer Otherness. Based on multitudes of CUNTraDICKtions to encourage self-reflection, the series explores the complexities of ob/scene and on/scene performances; the position of a sex positive asexual as well as questions of belonging as a naturally artificial rebel. (shrink)

This is an entry that covers the basic issues in the philosophy of sex and sexuality, both conceptual and normative. It is a revised and updated version from the 2018 entry.

Technological measures meant to change sexual orientation are, we have argued elsewhere, deeply alarming, even and indeed especially if they are safe and effective. Here we point out that this in part because they produce a distinctive kind of ‘clinical collective action problem’, a sort of dilemma for individual clinicians and researchers: a treatment which evidently relieves the suffering of particular patients, but in the process contributes to a practice that substantially worsens the conditions that produce this suffering in (...) the first place. We argue that the role obligations of clinicians to relieve the suffering of their patients put them in a poor position to solve this problem, though they can take measures to avoid complicity in the harms that would result from widespread use of individually safe and effective reorientation biotechnology. But in the end the medical community as a whole still seems obligated to provide these measures, if they become technologically feasible. Medical researchers are in a better position to prevent the harms that would result if reorientation techniques were safe, effective and widely available. We argue that the harms attendant on the development of safe and effective re-orientation techniques give researchers reason to avoid ‘applied‘ research aimed at developing these techniques, and to be careful in the conduct of basic orientation research which might be applied in this way. (shrink)

As the technology for ectogenesis continues to advance, the ethical implications of such developments should be thoroughly and proactively explored. The possibility of full ectogenesis remains hypothetical at present, and myriad concerns regarding the safety and efficacy of the technology must be evaluated and addressed, while pressing moral considerations should be fully deliberated. However, it is conceivable that the technology may become sufficiently well established in the future and that eventually full ectogenesis might be deemed ethically acceptable (...) as a reproductive alternative to gestation within a human womb under certain circumstances. If the safety and efficacy of full ectogenesis are established, if ethical dilemmas are sufficiently well addressed, and if the technology is offered as a reproductive option to cisgender heterosexual individuals or couples desiring to become parents, there is a moral obligation grounded in social justice to ensure that full ectogenesis be made available to individuals or couples identifying as members of sexual‐ or gender‐minority groups who likewise seek to pursue parenthood. We examine the history of access to current family‐building options, including assisted reproductive technology, surrogacy and adoption, for these populations and conclude that in the absence of robust empirical evidence suggesting an increased risk of harm to children of individuals and couples who identify as members of sexual‐ or gender‐minority groups, equitable access to ectogenesis as a pathway to parenthood for sexual and gender minorities must be assured as a matter of reproductive justice. (shrink)

In this paper we propose the notion of “subjective reference” as a conceptual tool that explains how and why human-robot sexual interactions could reframe users approach to human-human sexual interactions. First, we introduce the current debate about Sexual Robotics, situated in the wider discussion about Social Robots, stating the urgency of a regulative framework. We underline the importance of a social-relational approach, mostly concerned about Social Robots impact in human social structures. Then, we point out the absence (...) of a precise framework conceptualizing why Social Robots, and Sexual Robots in particular, may modify users’ sociality and relationality. Within a psychological framework, we propose to consider Sexual Robots as “subjective references”, namely objects symbolically referring to human subjects: we claim that, for the user experience, every action performed upon a Sexual Robot is symbolically directed toward a human subject, including degrading and violent practices. This shifting mechanism may transfer the user relational setting from human-robot interactions to human-human interactions. (shrink)

This essay discusses the moral costs and benefits of sexual technology. It starts with first-wave sexual technology, such as dating apps, messaging apps, and social networks, and then discusses second-wave sexual technology, which offers users more immersive experiences, such as virtual reality and sex robots. The paper argues that, overall, such technologies provide more benefits than they incur costs. Finally, the paper discusses the rise of a new identity—digisexuality, explaining that digisexuals are people who (...) consider sexual technology an essential part of who they are, and who might forego relationships with other people. The paper argues that the development of this new identity is a good thing, and that reasons against it are not convincing. (shrink)

In this paper, we assess the impact of extended reality technologies as they relate to sexual forms of harassment. We begin with a brief history of the nature of sexual harassment itself. We then offer an account of extended reality technologies focusing specifically on psychological and hardware elements most likely to comprise what has been referred to as “the metaverse”. Although different forms of virtual spaces exist (i.e., private, semi-private, and public), we focus on public social metaverse spaces. (...) We do this to better explain how the concept of sexual harassment must be adjusted to such spaces and how approaches aimed at mitigating harassment must be sensitive to the type of metaverse spaces users utilize. We then offer a typology of sexual harassment for the metaverse focusing on three distinct forms of sexual harassment: (1) invariant (2) mixed variance or modified and (3) unique or metaverse specific. Although existing normative and legal frameworks may function well with respect to the first and, possibly, second forms of harassment, we argue such frameworks will not helpfully address metaverse-specific harassment. Ultimately, the changing nature of privately owned public spaces (POPS) which metaverses are likely to represent pose distinct ethical and regulatory challenges. (shrink)

This collection of essays provides a reassessment of the question of sexual difference, taking into account important shifts in feminist thought, post-humanist theories, and queer studies. The contributors offer new and refreshing insights into the complex question of sexual difference from a post-feminist perspective, and how it is reformulated in various related areas of study, such as ontology, epistemology, metaphysics, biology, technology, and mass-media.

Introduction -- Karl Marx's concept of alienation -- Objectification, alienation, and estrangement -- Other origins of alienation and objectification -- Marx's account of alienation : from early to late -- The alienated object of production : commodity fetishism -- The alienated means of production : machine fetishism -- Machines and the transformation of work -- Marx's energeticist turn -- The first law of thermodynamics -- From arbeit to arbeitskraft -- The second law of thermodynamics -- Machines in the communist future (...) -- Technology and the boundaries of nature -- Material wealth and value : the Grundrisse's fragment on machines -- The strife between technology and capital : the fall in the rate of profit -- Enjoyment not value : challenging the logic of exhaustion -- Man himself as fixed capital -- Class kinship and the redistribution of the means of production -- Machines in the capitalist reality -- Between thermodynamics and humanism : approaching capital -- Machinery as an historical category of production -- Machines, trains, and other capitalist monsters -- Rough, foul-mouthed boys : women's monstrous laboring bodies -- Wage labor and race -- Wage labor and sexuality -- Machinery and revolution -- Alienation beyond Marx -- Science and technology in Marx's excerpt notebooks -- Karl Marx and Charles Babbage -- Machines and temporality : the treadmill effect and free time -- Technophobia and technophilia -- Technophobia and twentieth-century theory. (shrink)

This case study takes place in the context of a large corporate technology services firm. It explores the question of what constitutes sexual harassment as well as how best to draft a no-tolerance policy. The scenario examines behaviors that may or may not be considered illegal, the responsibility of all employees to foster a harassment-free environment, and what an effective no-tolerance policy might look like that minimizes possible conflicts of interest. Students are given an opportunity to reflect on (...) several issues, including how the agents should act situationally, and how the policy might best be (re)designed and implemented going forward. (shrink)

The Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus is famous for having turned botany into a systematic discipline, through his classification systems—most notably the sexual system—and his nomenclature. Throughout his life, Linnaeus experimented with various paper technologies designed to display information synoptically. The list took pride of place among these and is also the common element of more complex representations he produced, such as genera descriptions and his “natural system.” Taking clues from the anthropology of writing, this essay seeks to demonstrate that (...) lists can be considered as genuine research technologies. They possess a potential to generate research problems of their own but also pose limitations to inquiries that can be overcome only by the use of new media. (shrink)

Birds produce different types of sounds in different contexts such as begging for food in youngsters, alerting to a danger, defending a territory or attracting a sexual partner. About half of the bird species are able to transform their vocalizations through imitation, improvisation or invention of sounds. Here we review the different experimental procedures that have been used to study the learning capacities of birds in the vocal domain and in the auditory domain, with a particular emphasis on recent (...) technological developments. Nowadays, it is possible to record individual vocalizations of birds living in social groups or to record continuously the vocal ontogeny of birdsong. In conditioning experiments, new paradigms have successfully replaced food rewards with a socio-sexual reward. It is possible to engage in vocal interactions with a bird using dedicated computer systems. In both the laboratory and more recently in the field, different techniques have been used to train young oscine songbirds to learn from acoustic models. The use of virtual social environments and robots as social agents are also promising avenues. All together, these new techniques will permit researchers to explore more deeply the umwelt of bird species. (shrink)

Many people believe that a person's sexual orientation is genetic. Given the widespread prejudice against, and hatred of, homosexuals in many societies, it seems likely that many parents will be interested in using genetic technologies to prevent the birth of children who will not be heterosexual. This paper considers the moral and legal implications of such procedures (whether or not they would work). It is argued that the availability of procedures to select the sexual orientation of children would (...) contribute to discrimination and prejudice against lesbians, gay men and bisexuals and, more generally, undermine the maintenance of a just society. These effects carry significant weight in determining whether genetic technologies should be developed and whether their use is, or should be, legally permissible and morally acceptable. (shrink)

Drug testing is widely deployed in the United States throughout the public and private sectors. This case study uses two emergent drug-testing technologies—hair analysis and the sweat patch—as examples of techniques of governance that should be subjected to the political equivalent of strict scrutiny. The article contributes to conceptual debates in science and technology studies, arguing that the study of social structure and subject formation should be integral rather than epiphenomenal to analysis in the transdisciplinary field of science and (...) technology studies. The article contextualizes the development and deployment of drug-testing technologies within the structural and epistemological categories of racial and ethnic difference, gender, sexuality, and class formation. Conflicts between proponents of the technologies and critical advocates who seek to constrain their use mark sites of productive theoretical engagement with structural sociology, racial formation theory, critical race theory, and feminist critique.1 Finally, the article demonstrates how STS analyses can contribute to the struggles of strategic counterpublics as they advocate for changing the meaning and material consequences of suspect technologies. (shrink)

This article explores how technological interventions into animal bodies refigure the borders of political community, in assemblage with sexuality, race, nation, and species. To this end, the article reconceptualizes “feral” as a biopolitical figure that unsettles categorical divisions such as culture/nature, domestic/wild, and belonging/exclusion. Alongside the theoretical development of “feral,” I extend the discussion to two sites: the use of long-tail macaques for bio-defense research in the post-9/11 United States and the transspecies intimacy and feral violence/justice in the South Korean (...) film Howling. This article pursues two overarching questions. First, how do such biopolitical operations implicate the biomedical and biotechnological interventions into these animals? And second, what kind of feral affects and trajectories emerge from these events at the intersections of species, race, sexuality, and nation? I argue that the feral as a biopolitical concept helps us to engage with the dynamics between the capturing biopower and the escaping bodies in the contemporary biopolitical landscape. (shrink)

Astract Sex investigates the impact of advances in contemporary science and information technology on conceptions of sex. Evolutionary theory and the technologies of viral information transfer, cloning and genetic engineering are changing the way we think about human sex, reproduction and the communication of genetic information. Abstract Sex presents a philosophical exploration of this new world of sexual, informatic and capitalist multiplicity, of the accelerated mutation of nature and culture.

The blindness to ontological questioning in feminist theory has left a lacuna in scholarly study that Touching Thought—a study at the intersection of ontological meditation and feminist theorizing on sexual difference—seeks to fill. Ellen Mortensen's new work critiques the language and theoretical pathways of contemporary feminist theorists such as Judith Butler, Rosi Braidotti, Elizabeth Grosz, Luce Irigaray, Theresa de Lauretis, and Donna Haraway to reveal a problematic predilection for technological language at the expense of ontological inquiry. The volume ranges (...) across feminist epistemology and ethics, the politics of performativity, the aesthetics of body/power, and the question of sexual difference and concludes with an examination of the different philosophical and theoretical attempts at undertaking an ontological questioning of sexual difference. This foundational work will serve as preparation for scholars of feminist and queer theory and continental philosophy seeking alternative pathways of feminist thought that encourage fundamental thinking on the subject of individual freedom. (shrink)

Sexuality education is fundamental in higher and tertiary education institutions (HTEIs). Evidence suggests that its effective education is through translations into the first language of learners. However, in global and multilingual cultural communities such as HTEIs, the foundations for these translations are still a researchable area. Notably, in HTEIs adolescents, young adults and adults co-exist and therefore, any translations must be toned to balance across these groups. The aim of this study was to establish strategies that could enable sexuality educators (...) to effectively transfer information that is steeped in indigenous language, religious and cultural meaning without precipitating stigma and taboo issues. The study setting was the National University of Science and Technology where a cross section of indigenous cultures, languages and religions co-existed with other global cultures. A University Community-based Participatory Research (CBPR) methodology was administered by the researchers using a Delphi research approach to students and staff. Multilingual, multilayered, multireligious, and multicultural nature of the setting presented serious challenges that compromised the prevention of stigma and taboo issues when dealing with sexuality education. We recommend that the strategy to present sexuality education in indigenous languages to the generality of HTEIs population should, in the first instance, involve systematic identification of appropriate interventions that are religious, cultural, and language-specific. Contribution: This research reveals paramount ethical and religious violations that have a potential to precipitate opportunistic sexual relationships that may lead to impediments in capacity building for learners. This research can be utilised by academics on the field of Practical Theology, specifically youth ministry and pastoral care. (shrink)

As state-of-art technology can create artificial images that are indistinguishable from real ones, it is urgent to understand whether believing that a picture is real or not has some import over affective phenomena such as sexual arousal. Thus, in two pre-registered online studies, we tested whether 60 images depicting models in underwear elicited higher self-reported sexual arousal when believed to be (N = 57) or presented as (N = 108) real photographs as opposed to artificially generated. In (...) both cases, Realness correlated with significantly higher scores on self-reported sexual arousal. Consistently with the literature on downregulation of emotional response to fictional works, our result indicates that sexual images that are perceived to be fake are less arousing than those believed to portray real people. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the debate about the utilization of new reproductive technologies in Brazil, and the paths taken in the Brazilian National Congress in an attempt to draw up legislation to regulate the clinical practice of human assisted reproduction. British documents, such as the Warnock Report and Human Fertilization and Embriology Authority (HFEA) are used for thorough reference. The analysis of the Law Projects in the National Congress, the Resolution by the Federal Medicine Council, Resolution 196/96 and documents by (...) the Ministério Público (Public Prosecution Office), suppled the bases for the discussion. The principal question involved is the observation of different technical and moral prientations that influence the conduct of the issue in the legislative process. It is possible to observe that the main focus of the projects relates to the rights and interests of the children, to those possibly benefited by the technique and to embryo reduction. Very little attention has been directed to the issues of sexual and reproductive rights and to the health of the women submitted to the new reproductive techologies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Sexual Ethics: A Theological Introduction by Todd A. Salzman and Michael G. Lawler, and: Making Love Just: Sexual Ethics for Perplexing Times by Marvin M. EllisonDarryl W. StephensReview of Sexual Ethics: A Theological Introduction TODD A. SALZMAN and MICHAEL G. LAWLER Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2012. 280 pp. $26.95Review of Making Love Just: Sexual Ethics for Perplexing Times MARVIN M. ELLISON Minneapolis: Fortress (...) Press, 2012. 176 pp. $18.00Intended for “the general educated Catholic population” (xiii), Sexual Ethics: A Theological Introduction (SE) is a masterfully abridged version of the authors’ award-winning 2008 book, The Sexual Person: Toward a Renewed Catholic Anthropology (TSP). Nearly all of the text of Sexual Ethics is common to both volumes, much of it edited for a broader audience. Omitted in Sexual Ethics are about seventy pages presenting contemporary debates between the methods and anthropologies of traditionalists and revisionists (most of TSP chapters 2 and 3). New in Sexual Ethics are “Questions for Reflection” at the end of each chapter and a brief discussion of “conscience” (xxv–xxvi).In both books, the authors offer a “historically conscious and revisionist approach” to Catholic sexual morality (SE, 221). Beginning with “two magisterial principles” in “Catholic moral, sexual tradition”—procreation and the confines of marriage—the authors note different theological bases for these principles—nature and reason, respectively (xiii–xiv)—and propose a significant shift in focus from the “‘nature’ of the act” to “the meaning of the act for the human person” (xvii). Chapter 1, which could stand on its own, provides a helpful, “brief history” of “sexual morality in the Catholic tradition,” undergirding the authors’ historical (in contrast with a classicist) approach. In chapter 2, the theological crux of the argument, Todd Salzman and Michael Lawler proceed to explore methodological developments and tensions in magisterial teaching, choosing “the principle of the human person adequately considered,” theologically articulated in Gaudium et spes, as the basis for their proposal of a “unitive sexual anthropology” (47). This holistic anthropological approach to the sexual person attempts to shift the magisterium’s “focus on acts and absolute norms” in sexual ethics to a method more akin to its social ethics, focusing on general principles, interrelationships, and the common good (59). Central to their [End Page 226] argument is a reworking of the concept of complementarity purged “of every suggestion of either gender or sexual inequality” (63). The remainder of the book illustrates “how these principles apply in real, concrete, particular human relationships” (87).To critique the argument of Sexual Ethics necessarily implicates The Sexual Person, which is beyond the scope of this review. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to ask whether the same argument presented as a “renewed Catholic anthropology” (in TSP) for professional theologians functions equally well as a “theological introduction” to sexual ethics (in SE) for a lay (nonscholarly) audience. Chapter 6, “Artificial Reproductive Technologies,” is the most successful in this regard, exploring a range of ethical concerns (e.g., means versus ends, burden of proof, presumptions against, appropriate cautions, and consideration of the common good) to arrive at a qualified expansion of magisterial teaching, which becomes a guide to personal discernment. Other topics in Sexual Ethics include marriage and contraception (chapter 3), cohabitation and premarital sexuality (chapter 4), and homosexuality (chapter 5).Overall, Sexual Ethics functions better as an introduction to Catholic sexual teaching and moral anthropology than as an introduction to sexual ethics. For example, reworking the concept of “complementarity”—despite the authors’ inclination “to abandon both the word and the idea” (63)—may be necessary for reconstructing Catholic tradition, but is not necessarily the most helpful starting point for sexual ethics. Sexual Ethics will be challenging for readers lacking theological training and will be of most interest to those already committed to and invested in magisterial teaching. My recommendation would be to use The Sexual Person as a teacher’s guide when assigning Sexual Ethics. By any measure, these books present a brilliant, careful, and sophisticated scholarly argument that revises Catholic sexual teaching in important and faithful ways.In Making Love Just: Sexual Ethics for Perplexing Times (MLJ), Marvin Ellison provides an accessible, engaging introduction to sexual ethics for... (shrink)