Just sex

Thesis

There are inequalities in the sexual sphere. Some are desired. Others struggle to find a partner, let alone someone with whom they could share a home or a life. While these problems tend to be treated as private, they often have a social basis. The ways in which we organise our societies’ major institutions have profound implications for our intimate lives. Liberal egalitarians typically demand a social environment where we can stand in relationships of equality with others and make genuinely valuable choices. Yet, they have not explored under what conditions the sexual sphere could be justified to all. In exploring this question, this thesis draws on sociology, epidemiology, and science and technology studies. It develops a contractualist theory of social justice on which institutions should be such that individuals are provided with the sexual bases of self-respect. This entails the realisation of three claims in the sexual sphere: to non-interference, equal standing, and choice improvement. The claim to non-interference is explicated by a principle on which people are not to be wrongfully interfered with. The claim to equal standing is explicated by a distributive principle of opportunities to develop ‘sexual standing’. A person has sexual standing if some relevant others consider her a potential partner in a non-degrading way. The claim to choice improvement is explicated by a distributive principle of opportunities to follow ‘sexual life plans’: plans for some duration of a person’s life involving reciprocal, non-degrading sexual relationships.

The thesis’s extension of contractualism into the sexual sphere shows the importance of accounting for the effects of social norms on people’s choices and the interests they have in being able to make valuable choices in the sexual sphere, which contractualists have hitherto neglected. The thesis develops its principles with the help of three empirical case studies: gender-selective migration to cities, PrEP rollout policy in HIV prevention, and online dating applications. Committed to a view of sex as bound up with what we owe to each other, this thesis combines queer and feminist theory with liberal principles to show that we can approach inequalities in intimate relationships as moral and political matters without moralising or interfering.

Authors: Kugelberg, E

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-b71npb4nb
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Subjects: Political science; Feminist theory--Political aspects; Sex; Philosophy