Knowra Sexual politics Sexual politics Sexual politics describes how power relations shape sexuality, sexual norms, and intimate life, including who controls bodies, desire, and sexual representation.
Sexuality : A dimension of human life involving sexual desire, identity, behavior, and relationships. Sexual politics concerns how power organizes this broader domain.
Kate Millett : An American feminist writer whose 1970 book Sexual Politics analyzed power in literature and gender relations. Her book gave this concept a prominent feminist formulation.
Michel Foucault : A French philosopher and historian who analyzed power, knowledge, institutions, and sexuality. His work recast sexuality as something produced through discourse and institutions.
Sexual liberation : The pursuit of greater freedom from restrictive norms and controls over sexual expression. It emphasizes emancipation, while sexual politics also studies how power persists within freedom.
Marital rape : Nonconsensual sexual intercourse by a spouse, recognized as a crime in many legal systems. Its legal history exposes assumptions that marriage grants sexual access.
Heteronormativity : The assumption that heterosexuality is normal and that gender follows a binary, complementary order. It makes one model of desire appear natural and socially authoritative.
Second-wave feminism : A feminist movement from the 1960s through the 1980s focused on legal, social, and cultural inequality. Its debates made private life and sexuality subjects of political analysis.
Judith Butler : An American philosopher known for influential work on gender, performativity, and queer theory. Their account of gender performativity reshaped debates about sexual norms.
Social constructionism : The view that social categories and meanings are produced through historical and cultural processes. It explains sexual norms as historically made rather than simply given.
Comstock laws : Nineteenth-century United States laws that restricted the circulation of materials deemed obscene, including contraception information. They demonstrate state control over sexual knowledge and reproductive choices.
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