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What Does Essayed Mean Sexually Urban Dictionary

When it comes to navigating the world of sexuality and relationships, it’s important to understand the various terms and slang that may pop up. One such term that has gained popularity in recent years is ‘essayed,’ as defined by the Urban Dictionary. So, what does ‘essayed’ mean in a sexual context?

According to the Urban Dictionary, ‘essayed’ refers to the act of exploring or attempting something sexually. It can be used to describe trying out new techniques, positions, or experiences with a partner. Essentially, it’s about experimenting and pushing boundaries in the bedroom.

For example, a couple might decide to essayed a new kink they’ve been curious about, or a person could essayed incorporating toys into their solo play. The term encompasses a wide range of sexual activities and interests, emphasizing the importance of exploration and open communication in sexual relationships.

Case studies have shown that essayed can lead to increased satisfaction and intimacy in relationships. By being open to trying new things and discussing desires with partners, individuals can discover new depths of pleasure and connection. This can help keep relationships exciting and fulfilling over time, preventing stagnation and boredom.

Statistics also support the benefits of essayed in sexual relationships. A survey conducted by a leading relationship research institute found that couples who regularly essayed new activities in the bedroom reported higher levels of sexual satisfaction and overall relationship happiness. This highlights the importance of keeping an open mind and being willing to step outside of one’s comfort zone when it comes to sex.

In conclusion, understanding what ‘essayed’ means in a sexual context can help individuals navigate their relationships and explore new avenues of pleasure. By embracing the spirit of essayed, people can foster greater intimacy, satisfaction, and excitement in their sexual experiences. So don’t be afraid to essayed new things and push the boundaries of your sexual boundaries!

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NEWS... BUT NOT AS YOU KNOW IT

Sex slang glossary: 20 naughty terms from rail to Netflix and Chill

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To quote Salt-N-Pepa, let’s talk about sex , baby. Or, rather, let’s talk about how we talk about sex.

Whether it’s a euphemism used to shy away from talking about a topic that’s too taboo from some, or the complete opposite and a visceral, visual slang term that penetrates the mind, we’ve invented a lot of ways to start discourse around intercourse.   

There’s a popular tidbit about the Inuit people having over 50 words for snow, but we might have them beat for the different terms for sex.

Here, we take a look at some of the favourite phrases used to discuss doing the deed…

What does getting railed mean?

Let’s start off with one of the more uncouth phrases – since Google search results indicate a lot of people are curious as to what this particular saying means.

Getting railed, quite literally, means having sex – or, if you prefer to take the cue from Urban Dictionary, it means the act of having wild, wild sex.

So, making romantic, meaningful love, this is not.

Netflix and Chill

Netflix and chill has become the most common mating call for a modern day audience.

To Netflix and Chill implies putting on Netflix as background noise – or a convincing alibi – as you and your partner(s) engage in a bit of consensual fun.

Some of these terms get their names from the implication that a penis is involved in the act.

Boning is such a term – entering the lexicon most likely as an after-effect to boner becoming a popular term for an erect penis.

D***ing down

If you have been d***ed down, you have had vigorous sex – this one is fairly self-explanatory.

Clapping cheeks

Getting one’s cheeks clapped is a newer term which is rising in popularity.

The name comes from the idea that, when you are in the throes of very intense sex, bum cheeks could make a clapping sound.

Porking is another term people use forhaving sex.

We wouldn’t suggest Googling the term, but there are some who think the term came about because squealing, the sound associated with pigs, is sometimes the sign that sexual partners are having a good time.

The origins of this term should be fairly obvious for anyone with, or who has sex with people with, a penis, sometimes colloquially called a shaft.

Nothing to do with the crime fighting cop.

This is a term most often associated with sexual acts between people who identify as men.

Breeding, or to be bred, generally means having unprotected anal sex.

There are too many to name, but other phrases for having sex that deserve a shoutout include:

• Laying pipe
• Taking the skin boat to tuna town
• Getting drilled
• Nutting/Busting a nut

Euphemisms for having sex   

In Human Nature, Queen of Pop and queen of never shying away from the subject, Madonna proclaimed ‘oops, I didn’t know I couldn’t talk about sex’ – and she was on to something.

Some people are more comfortable using gentler language to avoid any blushes.

Some euphemisms that actually mean having sex include:

• Making love
• Knocking boots
• Hitting the sheets
• Going all the way
• Getting lucky

MORE : Woman reveals how to have an orgasm by rubbing your lower back

MORE : Mindful sex could give your sex life the boost you’ve been looking for

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Pride Month

A guide to gender identity terms.

Laurel Wamsley

"Pronouns are basically how we identify ourselves apart from our name. It's how someone refers to you in conversation," says Mary Emily O'Hara, a communications officer at GLAAD. "And when you're speaking to people, it's a really simple way to affirm their identity." Kaz Fantone for NPR hide caption

"Pronouns are basically how we identify ourselves apart from our name. It's how someone refers to you in conversation," says Mary Emily O'Hara, a communications officer at GLAAD. "And when you're speaking to people, it's a really simple way to affirm their identity."

Issues of equality and acceptance of transgender and nonbinary people — along with challenges to their rights — have become a major topic in the headlines. These issues can involve words and ideas and identities that are new to some.

That's why we've put together a glossary of terms relating to gender identity. Our goal is to help people communicate accurately and respectfully with one another.

Proper use of gender identity terms, including pronouns, is a crucial way to signal courtesy and acceptance. Alex Schmider , associate director of transgender representation at GLAAD, compares using someone's correct pronouns to pronouncing their name correctly – "a way of respecting them and referring to them in a way that's consistent and true to who they are."

Glossary of gender identity terms

This guide was created with help from GLAAD . We also referenced resources from the National Center for Transgender Equality , the Trans Journalists Association , NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists , Human Rights Campaign , InterAct and the American Psychological Association . This guide is not exhaustive, and is Western and U.S.-centric. Other cultures may use different labels and have other conceptions of gender.

One thing to note: Language changes. Some of the terms now in common usage are different from those used in the past to describe similar ideas, identities and experiences. Some people may continue to use terms that are less commonly used now to describe themselves, and some people may use different terms entirely. What's important is recognizing and respecting people as individuals.

Jump to a term: Sex, gender , gender identity , gender expression , cisgender , transgender , nonbinary , agender , gender-expansive , gender transition , gender dysphoria , sexual orientation , intersex

Jump to Pronouns : questions and answers

Sex refers to a person's biological status and is typically assigned at birth, usually on the basis of external anatomy. Sex is typically categorized as male, female or intersex.

Gender is often defined as a social construct of norms, behaviors and roles that varies between societies and over time. Gender is often categorized as male, female or nonbinary.

Gender identity is one's own internal sense of self and their gender, whether that is man, woman, neither or both. Unlike gender expression, gender identity is not outwardly visible to others.

For most people, gender identity aligns with the sex assigned at birth, the American Psychological Association notes. For transgender people, gender identity differs in varying degrees from the sex assigned at birth.

Gender expression is how a person presents gender outwardly, through behavior, clothing, voice or other perceived characteristics. Society identifies these cues as masculine or feminine, although what is considered masculine or feminine changes over time and varies by culture.

Cisgender, or simply cis , is an adjective that describes a person whose gender identity aligns with the sex they were assigned at birth.

Transgender, or simply trans, is an adjective used to describe someone whose gender identity differs from the sex assigned at birth. A transgender man, for example, is someone who was listed as female at birth but whose gender identity is male.

Cisgender and transgender have their origins in Latin-derived prefixes of "cis" and "trans" — cis, meaning "on this side of" and trans, meaning "across from" or "on the other side of." Both adjectives are used to describe experiences of someone's gender identity.

Nonbinary is a term that can be used by people who do not describe themselves or their genders as fitting into the categories of man or woman. A range of terms are used to refer to these experiences; nonbinary and genderqueer are among the terms that are sometimes used.

Agender is an adjective that can describe a person who does not identify as any gender.

Gender-expansive is an adjective that can describe someone with a more flexible gender identity than might be associated with a typical gender binary.

Gender transition is a process a person may take to bring themselves and/or their bodies into alignment with their gender identity. It's not just one step. Transitioning can include any, none or all of the following: telling one's friends, family and co-workers; changing one's name and pronouns; updating legal documents; medical interventions such as hormone therapy; or surgical intervention, often called gender confirmation surgery.

Gender dysphoria refers to psychological distress that results from an incongruence between one's sex assigned at birth and one's gender identity. Not all trans people experience dysphoria, and those who do may experience it at varying levels of intensity.

Gender dysphoria is a diagnosis listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Some argue that such a diagnosis inappropriately pathologizes gender incongruence, while others contend that a diagnosis makes it easier for transgender people to access necessary medical treatment.

Sexual orientation refers to the enduring physical, romantic and/or emotional attraction to members of the same and/or other genders, including lesbian, gay, bisexual and straight orientations.

People don't need to have had specific sexual experiences to know their own sexual orientation. They need not have had any sexual experience at all. They need not be in a relationship, dating or partnered with anyone for their sexual orientation to be validated. For example, if a bisexual woman is partnered with a man, that does not mean she is not still bisexual.

Sexual orientation is separate from gender identity. As GLAAD notes , "Transgender people may be straight, lesbian, gay, bisexual or queer. For example, a person who transitions from male to female and is attracted solely to men would typically identify as a straight woman. A person who transitions from female to male and is attracted solely to men would typically identify as a gay man."

Intersex is an umbrella term used to describe people with differences in reproductive anatomy, chromosomes or hormones that don't fit typical definitions of male and female.

Intersex can refer to a number of natural variations, some of them laid out by InterAct . Being intersex is not the same as being nonbinary or transgender, which are terms typically related to gender identity.

The Picture Show

Nonbinary photographer documents gender dysphoria through a queer lens, pronouns: questions and answers.

What is the role of pronouns in acknowledging someone's gender identity?

Everyone has pronouns that are used when referring to them – and getting those pronouns right is not exclusively a transgender issue.

"Pronouns are basically how we identify ourselves apart from our name. It's how someone refers to you in conversation," says Mary Emily O'Hara , a communications officer at GLAAD. "And when you're speaking to people, it's a really simple way to affirm their identity."

"So, for example, using the correct pronouns for trans and nonbinary youth is a way to let them know that you see them, you affirm them, you accept them and to let them know that they're loved during a time when they're really being targeted by so many discriminatory anti-trans state laws and policies," O'Hara says.

"It's really just about letting someone know that you accept their identity. And it's as simple as that."

Getting the words right is about respect and accuracy, says Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, deputy executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. Kaz Fantone for NPR hide caption

Getting the words right is about respect and accuracy, says Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, deputy executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality.

What's the right way to find out a person's pronouns?

Start by giving your own – for example, "My pronouns are she/her."

"If I was introducing myself to someone, I would say, 'I'm Rodrigo. I use him pronouns. What about you?' " says Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen , deputy executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality.

O'Hara says, "It may feel awkward at first, but eventually it just becomes another one of those get-to-know-you questions."

Should people be asking everyone their pronouns? Or does it depend on the setting?

Knowing each other's pronouns helps you be sure you have accurate information about another person.

How a person appears in terms of gender expression "doesn't indicate anything about what their gender identity is," GLAAD's Schmider says. By sharing pronouns, "you're going to get to know someone a little better."

And while it can be awkward at first, it can quickly become routine.

Heng-Lehtinen notes that the practice of stating one's pronouns at the bottom of an email or during introductions at a meeting can also relieve some headaches for people whose first names are less common or gender ambiguous.

"Sometimes Americans look at a name and are like, 'I have no idea if I'm supposed to say he or she for this name' — not because the person's trans, but just because the name is of a culture that you don't recognize and you genuinely do not know. So having the pronouns listed saves everyone the headache," Heng-Lehtinen says. "It can be really, really quick once you make a habit of it. And I think it saves a lot of embarrassment for everybody."

Might some people be uncomfortable sharing their pronouns in a public setting?

Schmider says for cisgender people, sharing their pronouns is generally pretty easy – so long as they recognize that they have pronouns and know what they are. For others, it could be more difficult to share their pronouns in places where they don't know people.

But there are still benefits in sharing pronouns, he says. "It's an indication that they understand that gender expression does not equal gender identity, that you're not judging people just based on the way they look and making assumptions about their gender beyond what you actually know about them."

How is "they" used as a singular pronoun?

"They" is already commonly used as a singular pronoun when we are talking about someone, and we don't know who they are, O'Hara notes. Using they/them pronouns for someone you do know simply represents "just a little bit of a switch."

"You're just asking someone to not act as if they don't know you, but to remove gendered language from their vocabulary when they're talking about you," O'Hara says.

"I identify as nonbinary myself and I appear feminine. People often assume that my pronouns are she/her. So they will use those. And I'll just gently correct them and say, hey, you know what, my pronouns are they/them just FYI, for future reference or something like that," they say.

O'Hara says their family and friends still struggle with getting the pronouns right — and sometimes O'Hara struggles to remember others' pronouns, too.

"In my community, in the queer community, with a lot of trans and nonbinary people, we all frequently remind each other or remind ourselves. It's a sort of constant mindfulness where you are always catching up a little bit," they say.

"You might know someone for 10 years, and then they let you know their pronouns have changed. It's going to take you a little while to adjust, and that's fine. It's OK to make those mistakes and correct yourself, and it's OK to gently correct someone else."

What if I make a mistake and misgender someone, or use the wrong words?

Simply apologize and move on.

"I think it's perfectly natural to not know the right words to use at first. We're only human. It takes any of us some time to get to know a new concept," Heng-Lehtinen says. "The important thing is to just be interested in continuing to learn. So if you mess up some language, you just say, 'Oh, I'm so sorry,' correct yourself and move forward. No need to make it any more complicated than that. Doing that really simple gesture of apologizing quickly and moving on shows the other person that you care. And that makes a really big difference."

Why are pronouns typically given in the format "she/her" or "they/them" rather than just "she" or "they"?

The different iterations reflect that pronouns change based on how they're used in a sentence. And the "he/him" format is actually shorter than the previously common "he/him/his" format.

"People used to say all three and then it got down to two," Heng-Lehtinen laughs. He says staff at his organization was recently wondering if the custom will eventually shorten to just one pronoun. "There's no real rule about it. It's absolutely just been habit," he says.

Amid Wave Of Anti-Trans Bills, Trans Reporters Say 'Telling Our Own Stories' Is Vital

But he notes a benefit of using he/him and she/her: He and she rhyme. "If somebody just says he or she, I could very easily mishear that and then still get it wrong."

What does it mean if a person uses the pronouns "he/they" or "she/they"?

"That means that the person uses both pronouns, and you can alternate between those when referring to them. So either pronoun would be fine — and ideally mix it up, use both. It just means that they use both pronouns that they're listing," Heng-Lehtinen says.

Schmider says it depends on the person: "For some people, they don't mind those pronouns being interchanged for them. And for some people, they are using one specific pronoun in one context and another set of pronouns in another, dependent on maybe safety or comfortability."

The best approach, Schmider says, is to listen to how people refer to themselves.

Why might someone's name be different than what's listed on their ID?

Heng-Lehtinen notes that there's a perception when a person comes out as transgender, they change their name and that's that. But the reality is a lot more complicated and expensive when it comes to updating your name on government documents.

"It is not the same process as changing your last name when you get married. There is bizarrely a separate set of rules for when you are changing your name in marriage versus changing your name for any other reason. And it's more difficult in the latter," he says.

"When you're transgender, you might not be able to update all of your government IDs, even though you want to," he says. "I've been out for over a decade. I still have not been able to update all of my documents because the policies are so onerous. I've been able to update my driver's license, Social Security card and passport, but I cannot update my birth certificate."

"Just because a transgender person doesn't have their authentic name on their ID doesn't mean it's not the name that they really use every day," he advises. "So just be mindful to refer to people by the name they really use regardless of their driver's license."

NPR's Danielle Nett contributed to this report.

• transgender
• gender identity

60 Sex-Relevant Terms You May Not Know — and Why You Should

As sex-relevant words proliferate, so do our ways of living and loving..

Posted April 6, 2017 | Reviewed by Ekua Hagan

• The Fundamentals of Sex
• Find a sex therapist near me

Matters of sex, relationships, sexual orientation , and gender identity all used to seem much simpler than they are now — even if they really weren’t. Now, the list of letters that used to be limited to LGBT never stops growing.

The additions to all the sexual orientations include some non-sexual , or not very sexual, orientations. We’ve also learned to appreciate orientations other than sexual ones, such as orientations toward relationships. A binary that once seemed utterly self-evident, male vs. female, is now routinely questioned.

Reading a terrific thesis, “Party of One,” by Kristen Bernhardt, woke me up to the proliferation of new concepts relevant to relationships, sexual orientations, gender identities, and more. (Thank you, Kristen.) So I set out to spend an evening gathering some relevant definitions.

Many days later, I was still at it. I admit to shaking my head in exasperation a few times along the way. Ultimately, though, I ended up feeling enormously optimistic . No longer is there just one way to approach sex, love, or relationships that is valued and appreciated.

People who, not so very long ago, may have wondered what was wrong with them now have a new answer: Nothing. People who secretly wondered why romantic relationships were valued above all others can now find validation for their perspective. Maybe they aren’t oddballs, but forward-looking, open-minded, democratic thinkers.

I’ll share definitions for 60 terms — just a sampling of the universe of possibilities that are out there. One of the most comprehensive sources I found was a glossary provided by the University of California at Davis. Unless I specifically mention one of the other sources I drew from, my definitions are from that glossary.

To try to make sense of the 60 terms, I’ve organized them into five sections. Other categorizations would have been possible.

• Sex vs. gender: What’s the difference? And what about sexual orientation vs. gender identity ?
• What is your sexual orientation?
• What kind of attraction do you feel toward other people?
• What is your orientation toward relationships?
• How do you value different relationships?

I. Sex vs. gender: what’s the difference? And what about sexual orientation vs. gender identity?

“Sex” and “gender” aren’t the same.

• Sex (1) is “a medically constructed category often assigned based on the appearance of the genitalia, either in ultrasound or at birth.”
• Gender (2) is “a social construct used to classify a person as a man, woman, or some other identity.”

Remember when we thought there were just two sexes, male and female, and everyone just assumed that anyone born male or female was, in fact, a male or a female? Now it is much more complicated. Here are some of the concepts that challenge those notions:

• Non-binary (3) : “A gender identity and experience that embraces a full universe of expressions and ways of being that resonate for an individual. It may be an active resistance to binary gender expectations and/or an intentional creation of new unbounded ideas of self within the world. For some people who identify as non-binary there may be overlap with other concepts and identities like gender expansive and gender non-conforming.”
• Gender expansive (4) : “An umbrella term used for individuals who broaden their own culture’s commonly held definitions of gender, including expectations for its expression, identities, roles, and/or other perceived gender norms. Gender expansive individuals include those who identify as transgender , as well as anyone else whose gender in some way is seen to be stretching the surrounding society’s notion of gender.”
• Gender non-conforming (5) : “People who do not subscribe to gender expressions or roles expected of them by society.”
• Gender fluid (6) : “A person whose gender identification and presentation shifts, whether within or outside of societal, gender-based expectations. Being fluid in motion between two or more genders.”
• Bigender (7) : “Having two genders, exhibiting cultural characteristics of masculine and feminine roles.”
• Gender queer (8) : “A person whose gender identity and/or gender expression falls outside of the dominant societal norm for their assigned sex, is beyond genders, or is some combination of them.”
• Polygender (9) or Pangender (10) : “Exhibiting characteristics of multiple genders, deliberately refuting the concept of only two genders.”
• Neutrois (11) : “A non-binary gender identity that falls under the genderqueer or transgender umbrellas. There is no one definition of Neutrois, since each person that self-identifies as such experiences their gender differently. The most common ones are: Neutral-gender (12), Null-gender (13), Neither male nor female (14), Genderless (15) and/or Agender (16) .”

At Aeon , Rebecca Reilly-Cooper challenged the notion that gender is a spectrum . At Vox , 12 people explained why the male/female binary doesn’t work for them .

Sexual orientation and gender identity aren’t the same.

• Gender identity (17) : When you say that you are a man or a woman, you are describing your gender identity. Gender identity is “a sense of one’s self as trans,* genderqueer, woman, man, or some other identity, which may or may not correspond with the sex and gender one is assigned at birth.” (For more on trans* and genderqueer, see the section below, “What is your sexual orientation?”) Transgender is a gender orientation; it is also included in the list of letters referring to sexual orientations.
• Sexual orientation (18) : “an enduring emotional, romantic, sexual or affectional attraction or non-attraction to other people.”

II. What is your sexual orientation?

If you are old enough, you may remember a time when “straight” and “gay” (or heterosexual and homosexual) covered all the sexual orientations that got any attention . Gay people were often described as queer (and worse) when the word was still solely a pejorative.

The terms then expanded to include LGBT : lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. A lesbian (19) is “a woman whose primary sexual and affectional orientation is toward people of the same gender.” Although “gay” (20) has often been used to refer to men who are attracted to other men, it is also used more broadly to refer to anyone attracted to someone of the same sex. Bisexuals (21) are attracted to both men and women, though not always to the same degree. Transgender (22) people are also called “trans” (23) or “trans*” (24) (the asterisk “indicates the option to fill in the appropriate label, i.e., Trans man”). The term “describes a wide range of identities and experiences of people whose gender identity and/or expression differs from conventional expectations based on their assigned sex at birth.”

Trans Man and Trans Woman are further explained by the Resource Center at the University of California at San Diego:

• Trans Man/Trans Male (25) : “A female-to-male (FTM) transgender person who was assigned female at birth, but whose gender identity is that of a man.” FTM is sometimes expressed as F2M.
• Trans Woman/Trans Female (26) : “A male-to-female (MTF) transgender person who was assigned male at birth, but whose gender identity is that of a woman.” MTF is sometimes expressed as M2F.

If you are not transgender, you may think that you don’t need a special term. But you have one. You are cisgender (28) : “a gender identity, or performance in a gender role, that society deems to match the person’s assigned sex at birth. The prefix cis- means ‘on this side of’ or ‘not across’.”

The list of letters has continued to expand. The letters added most often are QIA, giving us LGBTQIA .

• Q stands for Queer or for Questioning.
• Queer (29) is a broad label, which can refer to “people whose gender, gender expression and/or sexuality do not conform to dominant expectations.” It is sometimes used even more broadly to refer to “not fitting into norms” of all sorts, including size, physical abilities, and more.
• Questioning (30) is “the process of exploring one’s own gender identity, gender expression, and/or sexual orientation.”
• I is for Intersex (31) : “People who naturally (that is, without any medical intervention) develop primary or secondary sex characteristics that do not fit neatly into society's definitions of male or female… Hermaphrodite (32) is an outdated and inaccurate term that has been used to describe intersex people in the past.”

[Another A word is Allosexual, which is very different from Asexual. Allosexual (36) is “a sexual orientation generally characterized by feeling sexual attraction or a desire for partnered sexuality.”]

[Still another A word — one that does not describe a sexual orientation — is ally. Allyship (37) is “the action of working to end oppression through support of, and as an advocate with and for, a group other than one’s own.”]

There’s more. Among the other letters sometimes added to the list are P and K, giving us LGBTQIAPK .

• P can refer to Pansexual (or Omnisexual) or Polyamorous .
• Pansexual (38) and Omnisexual (39) are “terms used to describe people who have romantic, sexual or affectionate desire for people of all genders and sexes.”
• Polyamory (40) “denotes consensually being in/open to multiple loving relationships at the same time. Some polyamorists (polyamorous people) consider ‘poly’ to be a relationship orientation. Sometimes used as an umbrella term for all forms of ethical, consensual, and loving non-monogamy.”
• K stands for Kink (41) . According to Role/Reboot , “‘K’ would cover those who practice bondage and discipline, dominance-submission and/or sado-masochism, as well as those with an incredibly diverse set of fetishes and preferences.” If you are rolling your eyes, consider this: “According to survey data, around 15% of adults engage in some form of consensual sexual activity along the ‘kink’ spectrum. This is a higher percentage than those who identify as gay or lesbian.”

Not everyone identifies as either sexual or asexual. Some consider asexuality as a spectrum that includes, for example, demisexuals and greysexuals. These definitions are from AVEN :

• Demisexual (42) : “Someone who can only experience sexual attraction after an emotional bond has been formed. This bond does not have to be romantic in nature.”
• Gray-asexual (gray-a) (43) or gray-sexual (44) : “Someone who identifies with the area between asexuality and sexuality, for example because they experience sexual attraction very rarely, only under specific circumstances, or of an intensity so low that it's ignorable.” (Colloquially, sometimes called grey-ace (45) .)

There is also more than one variety of polyamory. An important example is solo polyamory. At Solopoly , Amy Gahran describes it this way:

• Solo polyamory (46) : “What distinguishes solo poly people is that we generally do not have intimate relationships which involve (or are heading toward) primary-style merging of life infrastructure or identity along the lines of the traditional social relationship escalator. For instance, we generally don’t share a home or finances with any intimate partners. Similarly, solo poly people generally don’t identify very strongly as part of a couple (or triad etc.); we prefer to operate and present ourselves as individuals.” As Kristen Bernhardt pointed out in her thesis, solo poly people often say: “I am my own primary partner.”

(For a definition of “relationship elevator,” see the section below, “What is your orientation toward relationships?”)

III. What kind of attraction do you feel toward other people?

Interpersonal attraction is not just sexual. AVEN lists these different kinds of attraction (47) (“emotional force that draws people together”):

• Aesthetic attraction (48) : “Attraction to someone’s appearance, without it being romantic or sexual.”
• Romantic attraction (49) : “Desire of being romantically involved with another person.”
• Sensual attraction (50) : “Desire to have physical non-sexual contact with someone else, like affectionate touching.”
• Sexual attraction (51) : “Desire to have sexual contact with someone else, to share our sexuality with them.”

Asexual is the term used for people who do not feel sexual attraction. Another term, aromantic, describes something different. According to the AVEN wiki :

• Aromantic (52) : “A person who experiences little or no romantic attraction to others. Where romantic people have an emotional need to be with another person in a romantic relationship, aromantics are often satisfied with friendships and other non-romantic relationships.” (Want to know more? Check out these five myths about aromanticism from Buzzfeed .)

People who experience romantic attraction have crushes. Aromantics have squishes. Again, from the AVEN wiki :

• Squish (53) : “Strong desire for some kind of platonic (nonsexual, nonromantic) connection to another person. The concept of a squish is similar in nature to the idea of a ‘friend crush.’ A squish can be towards anyone of any gender and a person may also have many squishes, all of which may be active.”

IV. What is your orientation toward relationships? (For example, do you prefer monogamy? Do you think your relationships should progress in a certain way?)

Many of the alternatives to monogamy fit under the umbrella term of “ethical non-monogamy.”

• Monogamy (54) : “Having only one intimate partner at a time.”
• Consensual non-monogamy ( or ethical non-monogamy) (55) : “all the ways that you can consciously, with agreement and consent from all involved, explore love and sex with multiple people.” (The definition is from Gracie X, who explores six varieties here . Polyamory is just one of them.)

According to the conventional wisdom , romantic relationships are expected to progress in a certain way. That’s called the “ relationship escalator .” Amy Gahran describes it this way:

• Relationship escalator (56) : “The default set of societal expectations for intimate relationships. Partners follow a progressive set of steps, each with visible markers, toward a clear goal. The goal at the top of the Escalator is to achieve a permanently monogamous (sexually and romantically exclusive between two people), cohabitating marriage — legally sanctioned if possible. In many cases, buying a house and having kids is also part of the goal. Partners are expected to remain together at the top of the Escalator until death. The Escalator is the standard by which most people gauge whether a developing intimate relationship is significant, ‘serious,’ good, healthy, committed or worth pursuing or continuing.”

V. How do you value different relationships?

Do you think that everyone should be in a romantic relationship, that everyone wants to be in a romantic relationship, and that such a relationship is more important than any other? Thanks to the philosopher Elizabeth Brake , there’s a name for that assumption, amatonormativity . Importantly, amatonormativity is an assumption, not a fact. A related concept is mononormativity. (The definition below is Robin Bauer’s, as described in Kristen Bernhardt’s thesis.) In the same family of concepts is heteronormativity. (Definition below is from Miriam-Webster .) An entirely different way of thinking about relationships has been described by Andie Nordgren in her concept of “relationship anarchy.”

• Amatonormativity (57) : “The assumption that a central, exclusive, amorous relationship is normal for humans, in that it is a universally shared goal, and that such a relationship is normative, in the sense that it should be aimed at in preference to other relationship types.” (Drake Baer’s discussion of the concept in New York magazine is excellent.)
• Mononormativity (58) : “Based on the taken for granted allegation that monogamy and couple-shaped arranged relationships are the principle of social relations per se, an essential foundation of human existence and the elementary, almost natural pattern of living together.”
• Heteronormative (59) : “Of, relating to, or based on the attitude that heterosexuality is the only normal and natural expression of sexuality.”
• Relationship anarchy (60) : “Relationship anarchists are often highly critical of conventional standards that prioritize romantic and sex-based relationships over non-sexual or non-romantic relationships. Instead, RA seeks to eliminate specific distinctions between or hierarchical valuations of friendship versus love-based relationships, so that love-based relationships are no more valuable than are platonic friendships.”

Bella DePaulo, Ph.D. , an expert on single people, is the author of Single at Heart and other books. She is an Academic Affiliate in Psychological & Brain Sciences, UCSB.

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Feminist Perspectives on Sex and Gender

Feminism is said to be the movement to end women’s oppression (hooks 2000, 26). One possible way to understand ‘woman’ in this claim is to take it as a sex term: ‘woman’ picks out human females and being a human female depends on various biological and anatomical features (like genitalia). Historically many feminists have understood ‘woman’ differently: not as a sex term, but as a gender term that depends on social and cultural factors (like social position). In so doing, they distinguished sex (being female or male) from gender (being a woman or a man), although most ordinary language users appear to treat the two interchangeably. In feminist philosophy, this distinction has generated a lively debate. Central questions include: What does it mean for gender to be distinct from sex, if anything at all? How should we understand the claim that gender depends on social and/or cultural factors? What does it mean to be gendered woman, man, or genderqueer? This entry outlines and discusses distinctly feminist debates on sex and gender considering both historical and more contemporary positions.

1.1 Biological determinism

1.2 gender terminology, 2.1 gender socialisation, 2.2 gender as feminine and masculine personality, 2.3 gender as feminine and masculine sexuality, 3.1.1 particularity argument, 3.1.2 normativity argument, 3.2 is sex classification solely a matter of biology, 3.3 are sex and gender distinct, 3.4 is the sex/gender distinction useful, 4.1.1 gendered social series, 4.1.2 resemblance nominalism, 4.2.1 social subordination and gender, 4.2.2 gender uniessentialism, 4.2.3 gender as positionality, 5. beyond the binary, 6. conclusion, other internet resources, related entries, 1. the sex/gender distinction..

The terms ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ mean different things to different feminist theorists and neither are easy or straightforward to characterise. Sketching out some feminist history of the terms provides a helpful starting point.

Most people ordinarily seem to think that sex and gender are coextensive: women are human females, men are human males. Many feminists have historically disagreed and have endorsed the sex/ gender distinction. Provisionally: ‘sex’ denotes human females and males depending on biological features (chromosomes, sex organs, hormones and other physical features); ‘gender’ denotes women and men depending on social factors (social role, position, behaviour or identity). The main feminist motivation for making this distinction was to counter biological determinism or the view that biology is destiny.

A typical example of a biological determinist view is that of Geddes and Thompson who, in 1889, argued that social, psychological and behavioural traits were caused by metabolic state. Women supposedly conserve energy (being ‘anabolic’) and this makes them passive, conservative, sluggish, stable and uninterested in politics. Men expend their surplus energy (being ‘katabolic’) and this makes them eager, energetic, passionate, variable and, thereby, interested in political and social matters. These biological ‘facts’ about metabolic states were used not only to explain behavioural differences between women and men but also to justify what our social and political arrangements ought to be. More specifically, they were used to argue for withholding from women political rights accorded to men because (according to Geddes and Thompson) “what was decided among the prehistoric Protozoa cannot be annulled by Act of Parliament” (quoted from Moi 1999, 18). It would be inappropriate to grant women political rights, as they are simply not suited to have those rights; it would also be futile since women (due to their biology) would simply not be interested in exercising their political rights. To counter this kind of biological determinism, feminists have argued that behavioural and psychological differences have social, rather than biological, causes. For instance, Simone de Beauvoir famously claimed that one is not born, but rather becomes a woman, and that “social discrimination produces in women moral and intellectual effects so profound that they appear to be caused by nature” (Beauvoir 1972 [original 1949], 18; for more, see the entry on Simone de Beauvoir ). Commonly observed behavioural traits associated with women and men, then, are not caused by anatomy or chromosomes. Rather, they are culturally learned or acquired.

Although biological determinism of the kind endorsed by Geddes and Thompson is nowadays uncommon, the idea that behavioural and psychological differences between women and men have biological causes has not disappeared. In the 1970s, sex differences were used to argue that women should not become airline pilots since they will be hormonally unstable once a month and, therefore, unable to perform their duties as well as men (Rogers 1999, 11). More recently, differences in male and female brains have been said to explain behavioural differences; in particular, the anatomy of corpus callosum, a bundle of nerves that connects the right and left cerebral hemispheres, is thought to be responsible for various psychological and behavioural differences. For instance, in 1992, a Time magazine article surveyed then prominent biological explanations of differences between women and men claiming that women’s thicker corpus callosums could explain what ‘women’s intuition’ is based on and impair women’s ability to perform some specialised visual-spatial skills, like reading maps (Gorman 1992). Anne Fausto-Sterling has questioned the idea that differences in corpus callosums cause behavioural and psychological differences. First, the corpus callosum is a highly variable piece of anatomy; as a result, generalisations about its size, shape and thickness that hold for women and men in general should be viewed with caution. Second, differences in adult human corpus callosums are not found in infants; this may suggest that physical brain differences actually develop as responses to differential treatment. Third, given that visual-spatial skills (like map reading) can be improved by practice, even if women and men’s corpus callosums differ, this does not make the resulting behavioural differences immutable. (Fausto-Sterling 2000b, chapter 5).

In order to distinguish biological differences from social/psychological ones and to talk about the latter, feminists appropriated the term ‘gender’. Psychologists writing on transsexuality were the first to employ gender terminology in this sense. Until the 1960s, ‘gender’ was often used to refer to masculine and feminine words, like le and la in French. However, in order to explain why some people felt that they were ‘trapped in the wrong bodies’, the psychologist Robert Stoller (1968) began using the terms ‘sex’ to pick out biological traits and ‘gender’ to pick out the amount of femininity and masculinity a person exhibited. Although (by and large) a person’s sex and gender complemented each other, separating out these terms seemed to make theoretical sense allowing Stoller to explain the phenomenon of transsexuality: transsexuals’ sex and gender simply don’t match.

Along with psychologists like Stoller, feminists found it useful to distinguish sex and gender. This enabled them to argue that many differences between women and men were socially produced and, therefore, changeable. Gayle Rubin (for instance) uses the phrase ‘sex/gender system’ in order to describe “a set of arrangements by which the biological raw material of human sex and procreation is shaped by human, social intervention” (1975, 165). Rubin employed this system to articulate that “part of social life which is the locus of the oppression of women” (1975, 159) describing gender as the “socially imposed division of the sexes” (1975, 179). Rubin’s thought was that although biological differences are fixed, gender differences are the oppressive results of social interventions that dictate how women and men should behave. Women are oppressed as women and “by having to be women” (Rubin 1975, 204). However, since gender is social, it is thought to be mutable and alterable by political and social reform that would ultimately bring an end to women’s subordination. Feminism should aim to create a “genderless (though not sexless) society, in which one’s sexual anatomy is irrelevant to who one is, what one does, and with whom one makes love” (Rubin 1975, 204).

In some earlier interpretations, like Rubin’s, sex and gender were thought to complement one another. The slogan ‘Gender is the social interpretation of sex’ captures this view. Nicholson calls this ‘the coat-rack view’ of gender: our sexed bodies are like coat racks and “provide the site upon which gender [is] constructed” (1994, 81). Gender conceived of as masculinity and femininity is superimposed upon the ‘coat-rack’ of sex as each society imposes on sexed bodies their cultural conceptions of how males and females should behave. This socially constructs gender differences – or the amount of femininity/masculinity of a person – upon our sexed bodies. That is, according to this interpretation, all humans are either male or female; their sex is fixed. But cultures interpret sexed bodies differently and project different norms on those bodies thereby creating feminine and masculine persons. Distinguishing sex and gender, however, also enables the two to come apart: they are separable in that one can be sexed male and yet be gendered a woman, or vice versa (Haslanger 2000b; Stoljar 1995).

So, this group of feminist arguments against biological determinism suggested that gender differences result from cultural practices and social expectations. Nowadays it is more common to denote this by saying that gender is socially constructed. This means that genders (women and men) and gendered traits (like being nurturing or ambitious) are the “intended or unintended product[s] of a social practice” (Haslanger 1995, 97). But which social practices construct gender, what social construction is and what being of a certain gender amounts to are major feminist controversies. There is no consensus on these issues. (See the entry on intersections between analytic and continental feminism for more on different ways to understand gender.)

2. Gender as socially constructed

One way to interpret Beauvoir’s claim that one is not born but rather becomes a woman is to take it as a claim about gender socialisation: females become women through a process whereby they acquire feminine traits and learn feminine behaviour. Masculinity and femininity are thought to be products of nurture or how individuals are brought up. They are causally constructed (Haslanger 1995, 98): social forces either have a causal role in bringing gendered individuals into existence or (to some substantial sense) shape the way we are qua women and men. And the mechanism of construction is social learning. For instance, Kate Millett takes gender differences to have “essentially cultural, rather than biological bases” that result from differential treatment (1971, 28–9). For her, gender is “the sum total of the parents’, the peers’, and the culture’s notions of what is appropriate to each gender by way of temperament, character, interests, status, worth, gesture, and expression” (Millett 1971, 31). Feminine and masculine gender-norms, however, are problematic in that gendered behaviour conveniently fits with and reinforces women’s subordination so that women are socialised into subordinate social roles: they learn to be passive, ignorant, docile, emotional helpmeets for men (Millett 1971, 26). However, since these roles are simply learned, we can create more equal societies by ‘unlearning’ social roles. That is, feminists should aim to diminish the influence of socialisation.

Social learning theorists hold that a huge array of different influences socialise us as women and men. This being the case, it is extremely difficult to counter gender socialisation. For instance, parents often unconsciously treat their female and male children differently. When parents have been asked to describe their 24- hour old infants, they have done so using gender-stereotypic language: boys are describes as strong, alert and coordinated and girls as tiny, soft and delicate. Parents’ treatment of their infants further reflects these descriptions whether they are aware of this or not (Renzetti & Curran 1992, 32). Some socialisation is more overt: children are often dressed in gender stereotypical clothes and colours (boys are dressed in blue, girls in pink) and parents tend to buy their children gender stereotypical toys. They also (intentionally or not) tend to reinforce certain ‘appropriate’ behaviours. While the precise form of gender socialization has changed since the onset of second-wave feminism, even today girls are discouraged from playing sports like football or from playing ‘rough and tumble’ games and are more likely than boys to be given dolls or cooking toys to play with; boys are told not to ‘cry like a baby’ and are more likely to be given masculine toys like trucks and guns (for more, see Kimmel 2000, 122–126). [ 1 ]

According to social learning theorists, children are also influenced by what they observe in the world around them. This, again, makes countering gender socialisation difficult. For one, children’s books have portrayed males and females in blatantly stereotypical ways: for instance, males as adventurers and leaders, and females as helpers and followers. One way to address gender stereotyping in children’s books has been to portray females in independent roles and males as non-aggressive and nurturing (Renzetti & Curran 1992, 35). Some publishers have attempted an alternative approach by making their characters, for instance, gender-neutral animals or genderless imaginary creatures (like TV’s Teletubbies). However, parents reading books with gender-neutral or genderless characters often undermine the publishers’ efforts by reading them to their children in ways that depict the characters as either feminine or masculine. According to Renzetti and Curran, parents labelled the overwhelming majority of gender-neutral characters masculine whereas those characters that fit feminine gender stereotypes (for instance, by being helpful and caring) were labelled feminine (1992, 35). Socialising influences like these are still thought to send implicit messages regarding how females and males should act and are expected to act shaping us into feminine and masculine persons.

Nancy Chodorow (1978; 1995) has criticised social learning theory as too simplistic to explain gender differences (see also Deaux & Major 1990; Gatens 1996). Instead, she holds that gender is a matter of having feminine and masculine personalities that develop in early infancy as responses to prevalent parenting practices. In particular, gendered personalities develop because women tend to be the primary caretakers of small children. Chodorow holds that because mothers (or other prominent females) tend to care for infants, infant male and female psychic development differs. Crudely put: the mother-daughter relationship differs from the mother-son relationship because mothers are more likely to identify with their daughters than their sons. This unconsciously prompts the mother to encourage her son to psychologically individuate himself from her thereby prompting him to develop well defined and rigid ego boundaries. However, the mother unconsciously discourages the daughter from individuating herself thereby prompting the daughter to develop flexible and blurry ego boundaries. Childhood gender socialisation further builds on and reinforces these unconsciously developed ego boundaries finally producing feminine and masculine persons (1995, 202–206). This perspective has its roots in Freudian psychoanalytic theory, although Chodorow’s approach differs in many ways from Freud’s.

Gendered personalities are supposedly manifested in common gender stereotypical behaviour. Take emotional dependency. Women are stereotypically more emotional and emotionally dependent upon others around them, supposedly finding it difficult to distinguish their own interests and wellbeing from the interests and wellbeing of their children and partners. This is said to be because of their blurry and (somewhat) confused ego boundaries: women find it hard to distinguish their own needs from the needs of those around them because they cannot sufficiently individuate themselves from those close to them. By contrast, men are stereotypically emotionally detached, preferring a career where dispassionate and distanced thinking are virtues. These traits are said to result from men’s well-defined ego boundaries that enable them to prioritise their own needs and interests sometimes at the expense of others’ needs and interests.

Chodorow thinks that these gender differences should and can be changed. Feminine and masculine personalities play a crucial role in women’s oppression since they make females overly attentive to the needs of others and males emotionally deficient. In order to correct the situation, both male and female parents should be equally involved in parenting (Chodorow 1995, 214). This would help in ensuring that children develop sufficiently individuated senses of selves without becoming overly detached, which in turn helps to eradicate common gender stereotypical behaviours.

Catharine MacKinnon develops her theory of gender as a theory of sexuality. Very roughly: the social meaning of sex (gender) is created by sexual objectification of women whereby women are viewed and treated as objects for satisfying men’s desires (MacKinnon 1989). Masculinity is defined as sexual dominance, femininity as sexual submissiveness: genders are “created through the eroticization of dominance and submission. The man/woman difference and the dominance/submission dynamic define each other. This is the social meaning of sex” (MacKinnon 1989, 113). For MacKinnon, gender is constitutively constructed : in defining genders (or masculinity and femininity) we must make reference to social factors (see Haslanger 1995, 98). In particular, we must make reference to the position one occupies in the sexualised dominance/submission dynamic: men occupy the sexually dominant position, women the sexually submissive one. As a result, genders are by definition hierarchical and this hierarchy is fundamentally tied to sexualised power relations. The notion of ‘gender equality’, then, does not make sense to MacKinnon. If sexuality ceased to be a manifestation of dominance, hierarchical genders (that are defined in terms of sexuality) would cease to exist.

So, gender difference for MacKinnon is not a matter of having a particular psychological orientation or behavioural pattern; rather, it is a function of sexuality that is hierarchal in patriarchal societies. This is not to say that men are naturally disposed to sexually objectify women or that women are naturally submissive. Instead, male and female sexualities are socially conditioned: men have been conditioned to find women’s subordination sexy and women have been conditioned to find a particular male version of female sexuality as erotic – one in which it is erotic to be sexually submissive. For MacKinnon, both female and male sexual desires are defined from a male point of view that is conditioned by pornography (MacKinnon 1989, chapter 7). Bluntly put: pornography portrays a false picture of ‘what women want’ suggesting that women in actual fact are and want to be submissive. This conditions men’s sexuality so that they view women’s submission as sexy. And male dominance enforces this male version of sexuality onto women, sometimes by force. MacKinnon’s thought is not that male dominance is a result of social learning (see 2.1.); rather, socialization is an expression of power. That is, socialized differences in masculine and feminine traits, behaviour, and roles are not responsible for power inequalities. Females and males (roughly put) are socialised differently because there are underlying power inequalities. As MacKinnon puts it, ‘dominance’ (power relations) is prior to ‘difference’ (traits, behaviour and roles) (see, MacKinnon 1989, chapter 12). MacKinnon, then, sees legal restrictions on pornography as paramount to ending women’s subordinate status that stems from their gender.

3. Problems with the sex/gender distinction

3.1 is gender uniform.

The positions outlined above share an underlying metaphysical perspective on gender: gender realism . [ 2 ] That is, women as a group are assumed to share some characteristic feature, experience, common condition or criterion that defines their gender and the possession of which makes some individuals women (as opposed to, say, men). All women are thought to differ from all men in this respect (or respects). For example, MacKinnon thought that being treated in sexually objectifying ways is the common condition that defines women’s gender and what women as women share. All women differ from all men in this respect. Further, pointing out females who are not sexually objectified does not provide a counterexample to MacKinnon’s view. Being sexually objectified is constitutive of being a woman; a female who escapes sexual objectification, then, would not count as a woman.

One may want to critique the three accounts outlined by rejecting the particular details of each account. (For instance, see Spelman [1988, chapter 4] for a critique of the details of Chodorow’s view.) A more thoroughgoing critique has been levelled at the general metaphysical perspective of gender realism that underlies these positions. It has come under sustained attack on two grounds: first, that it fails to take into account racial, cultural and class differences between women (particularity argument); second, that it posits a normative ideal of womanhood (normativity argument).

Elizabeth Spelman (1988) has influentially argued against gender realism with her particularity argument. Roughly: gender realists mistakenly assume that gender is constructed independently of race, class, ethnicity and nationality. If gender were separable from, for example, race and class in this manner, all women would experience womanhood in the same way. And this is clearly false. For instance, Harris (1993) and Stone (2007) criticise MacKinnon’s view, that sexual objectification is the common condition that defines women’s gender, for failing to take into account differences in women’s backgrounds that shape their sexuality. The history of racist oppression illustrates that during slavery black women were ‘hypersexualised’ and thought to be always sexually available whereas white women were thought to be pure and sexually virtuous. In fact, the rape of a black woman was thought to be impossible (Harris 1993). So, (the argument goes) sexual objectification cannot serve as the common condition for womanhood since it varies considerably depending on one’s race and class. [ 3 ]

For Spelman, the perspective of ‘white solipsism’ underlies gender realists’ mistake. They assumed that all women share some “golden nugget of womanness” (Spelman 1988, 159) and that the features constitutive of such a nugget are the same for all women regardless of their particular cultural backgrounds. Next, white Western middle-class feminists accounted for the shared features simply by reflecting on the cultural features that condition their gender as women thus supposing that “the womanness underneath the Black woman’s skin is a white woman’s, and deep down inside the Latina woman is an Anglo woman waiting to burst through an obscuring cultural shroud” (Spelman 1988, 13). In so doing, Spelman claims, white middle-class Western feminists passed off their particular view of gender as “a metaphysical truth” (1988, 180) thereby privileging some women while marginalising others. In failing to see the importance of race and class in gender construction, white middle-class Western feminists conflated “the condition of one group of women with the condition of all” (Spelman 1988, 3).

Betty Friedan’s (1963) well-known work is a case in point of white solipsism. [ 4 ] Friedan saw domesticity as the main vehicle of gender oppression and called upon women in general to find jobs outside the home. But she failed to realize that women from less privileged backgrounds, often poor and non-white, already worked outside the home to support their families. Friedan’s suggestion, then, was applicable only to a particular sub-group of women (white middle-class Western housewives). But it was mistakenly taken to apply to all women’s lives — a mistake that was generated by Friedan’s failure to take women’s racial and class differences into account (hooks 2000, 1–3).

Spelman further holds that since social conditioning creates femininity and societies (and sub-groups) that condition it differ from one another, femininity must be differently conditioned in different societies. For her, “females become not simply women but particular kinds of women” (Spelman 1988, 113): white working-class women, black middle-class women, poor Jewish women, wealthy aristocratic European women, and so on.

This line of thought has been extremely influential in feminist philosophy. For instance, Young holds that Spelman has definitively shown that gender realism is untenable (1997, 13). Mikkola (2006) argues that this isn’t so. The arguments Spelman makes do not undermine the idea that there is some characteristic feature, experience, common condition or criterion that defines women’s gender; they simply point out that some particular ways of cashing out what defines womanhood are misguided. So, although Spelman is right to reject those accounts that falsely take the feature that conditions white middle-class Western feminists’ gender to condition women’s gender in general, this leaves open the possibility that women qua women do share something that defines their gender. (See also Haslanger [2000a] for a discussion of why gender realism is not necessarily untenable, and Stoljar [2011] for a discussion of Mikkola’s critique of Spelman.)

Judith Butler critiques the sex/gender distinction on two grounds. They critique gender realism with their normativity argument (1999 [original 1990], chapter 1); they also hold that the sex/gender distinction is unintelligible (this will be discussed in section 3.3.). Butler’s normativity argument is not straightforwardly directed at the metaphysical perspective of gender realism, but rather at its political counterpart: identity politics. This is a form of political mobilization based on membership in some group (e.g. racial, ethnic, cultural, gender) and group membership is thought to be delimited by some common experiences, conditions or features that define the group (Heyes 2000, 58; see also the entry on Identity Politics ). Feminist identity politics, then, presupposes gender realism in that feminist politics is said to be mobilized around women as a group (or category) where membership in this group is fixed by some condition, experience or feature that women supposedly share and that defines their gender.

Butler’s normativity argument makes two claims. The first is akin to Spelman’s particularity argument: unitary gender notions fail to take differences amongst women into account thus failing to recognise “the multiplicity of cultural, social, and political intersections in which the concrete array of ‘women’ are constructed” (Butler 1999, 19–20). In their attempt to undercut biologically deterministic ways of defining what it means to be a woman, feminists inadvertently created new socially constructed accounts of supposedly shared femininity. Butler’s second claim is that such false gender realist accounts are normative. That is, in their attempt to fix feminism’s subject matter, feminists unwittingly defined the term ‘woman’ in a way that implies there is some correct way to be gendered a woman (Butler 1999, 5). That the definition of the term ‘woman’ is fixed supposedly “operates as a policing force which generates and legitimizes certain practices, experiences, etc., and curtails and delegitimizes others” (Nicholson 1998, 293). Following this line of thought, one could say that, for instance, Chodorow’s view of gender suggests that ‘real’ women have feminine personalities and that these are the women feminism should be concerned about. If one does not exhibit a distinctly feminine personality, the implication is that one is not ‘really’ a member of women’s category nor does one properly qualify for feminist political representation.

Butler’s second claim is based on their view that“[i]dentity categories [like that of women] are never merely descriptive, but always normative, and as such, exclusionary” (Butler 1991, 160). That is, the mistake of those feminists Butler critiques was not that they provided the incorrect definition of ‘woman’. Rather, (the argument goes) their mistake was to attempt to define the term ‘woman’ at all. Butler’s view is that ‘woman’ can never be defined in a way that does not prescribe some “unspoken normative requirements” (like having a feminine personality) that women should conform to (Butler 1999, 9). Butler takes this to be a feature of terms like ‘woman’ that purport to pick out (what they call) ‘identity categories’. They seem to assume that ‘woman’ can never be used in a non-ideological way (Moi 1999, 43) and that it will always encode conditions that are not satisfied by everyone we think of as women. Some explanation for this comes from Butler’s view that all processes of drawing categorical distinctions involve evaluative and normative commitments; these in turn involve the exercise of power and reflect the conditions of those who are socially powerful (Witt 1995).

In order to better understand Butler’s critique, consider their account of gender performativity. For them, standard feminist accounts take gendered individuals to have some essential properties qua gendered individuals or a gender core by virtue of which one is either a man or a woman. This view assumes that women and men, qua women and men, are bearers of various essential and accidental attributes where the former secure gendered persons’ persistence through time as so gendered. But according to Butler this view is false: (i) there are no such essential properties, and (ii) gender is an illusion maintained by prevalent power structures. First, feminists are said to think that genders are socially constructed in that they have the following essential attributes (Butler 1999, 24): women are females with feminine behavioural traits, being heterosexuals whose desire is directed at men; men are males with masculine behavioural traits, being heterosexuals whose desire is directed at women. These are the attributes necessary for gendered individuals and those that enable women and men to persist through time as women and men. Individuals have “intelligible genders” (Butler 1999, 23) if they exhibit this sequence of traits in a coherent manner (where sexual desire follows from sexual orientation that in turn follows from feminine/ masculine behaviours thought to follow from biological sex). Social forces in general deem individuals who exhibit in coherent gender sequences (like lesbians) to be doing their gender ‘wrong’ and they actively discourage such sequencing of traits, for instance, via name-calling and overt homophobic discrimination. Think back to what was said above: having a certain conception of what women are like that mirrors the conditions of socially powerful (white, middle-class, heterosexual, Western) women functions to marginalize and police those who do not fit this conception.

These gender cores, supposedly encoding the above traits, however, are nothing more than illusions created by ideals and practices that seek to render gender uniform through heterosexism, the view that heterosexuality is natural and homosexuality is deviant (Butler 1999, 42). Gender cores are constructed as if they somehow naturally belong to women and men thereby creating gender dimorphism or the belief that one must be either a masculine male or a feminine female. But gender dimorphism only serves a heterosexist social order by implying that since women and men are sharply opposed, it is natural to sexually desire the opposite sex or gender.

Further, being feminine and desiring men (for instance) are standardly assumed to be expressions of one’s gender as a woman. Butler denies this and holds that gender is really performative. It is not “a stable identity or locus of agency from which various acts follow; rather, gender is … instituted … through a stylized repetition of [habitual] acts ” (Butler 1999, 179): through wearing certain gender-coded clothing, walking and sitting in certain gender-coded ways, styling one’s hair in gender-coded manner and so on. Gender is not something one is, it is something one does; it is a sequence of acts, a doing rather than a being. And repeatedly engaging in ‘feminising’ and ‘masculinising’ acts congeals gender thereby making people falsely think of gender as something they naturally are . Gender only comes into being through these gendering acts: a female who has sex with men does not express her gender as a woman. This activity (amongst others) makes her gendered a woman.

The constitutive acts that gender individuals create genders as “compelling illusion[s]” (Butler 1990, 271). Our gendered classification scheme is a strong pragmatic construction : social factors wholly determine our use of the scheme and the scheme fails to represent accurately any ‘facts of the matter’ (Haslanger 1995, 100). People think that there are true and real genders, and those deemed to be doing their gender ‘wrong’ are not socially sanctioned. But, genders are true and real only to the extent that they are performed (Butler 1990, 278–9). It does not make sense, then, to say of a male-to-female trans person that s/he is really a man who only appears to be a woman. Instead, males dressing up and acting in ways that are associated with femininity “show that [as Butler suggests] ‘being’ feminine is just a matter of doing certain activities” (Stone 2007, 64). As a result, the trans person’s gender is just as real or true as anyone else’s who is a ‘traditionally’ feminine female or masculine male (Butler 1990, 278). [ 5 ] Without heterosexism that compels people to engage in certain gendering acts, there would not be any genders at all. And ultimately the aim should be to abolish norms that compel people to act in these gendering ways.

For Butler, given that gender is performative, the appropriate response to feminist identity politics involves two things. First, feminists should understand ‘woman’ as open-ended and “a term in process, a becoming, a constructing that cannot rightfully be said to originate or end … it is open to intervention and resignification” (Butler 1999, 43). That is, feminists should not try to define ‘woman’ at all. Second, the category of women “ought not to be the foundation of feminist politics” (Butler 1999, 9). Rather, feminists should focus on providing an account of how power functions and shapes our understandings of womanhood not only in the society at large but also within the feminist movement.

Many people, including many feminists, have ordinarily taken sex ascriptions to be solely a matter of biology with no social or cultural dimension. It is commonplace to think that there are only two sexes and that biological sex classifications are utterly unproblematic. By contrast, some feminists have argued that sex classifications are not unproblematic and that they are not solely a matter of biology. In order to make sense of this, it is helpful to distinguish object- and idea-construction (see Haslanger 2003b for more): social forces can be said to construct certain kinds of objects (e.g. sexed bodies or gendered individuals) and certain kinds of ideas (e.g. sex or gender concepts). First, take the object-construction of sexed bodies. Secondary sex characteristics, or the physiological and biological features commonly associated with males and females, are affected by social practices. In some societies, females’ lower social status has meant that they have been fed less and so, the lack of nutrition has had the effect of making them smaller in size (Jaggar 1983, 37). Uniformity in muscular shape, size and strength within sex categories is not caused entirely by biological factors, but depends heavily on exercise opportunities: if males and females were allowed the same exercise opportunities and equal encouragement to exercise, it is thought that bodily dimorphism would diminish (Fausto-Sterling 1993a, 218). A number of medical phenomena involving bones (like osteoporosis) have social causes directly related to expectations about gender, women’s diet and their exercise opportunities (Fausto-Sterling 2005). These examples suggest that physiological features thought to be sex-specific traits not affected by social and cultural factors are, after all, to some extent products of social conditioning. Social conditioning, then, shapes our biology.

Second, take the idea-construction of sex concepts. Our concept of sex is said to be a product of social forces in the sense that what counts as sex is shaped by social meanings. Standardly, those with XX-chromosomes, ovaries that produce large egg cells, female genitalia, a relatively high proportion of ‘female’ hormones, and other secondary sex characteristics (relatively small body size, less body hair) count as biologically female. Those with XY-chromosomes, testes that produce small sperm cells, male genitalia, a relatively high proportion of ‘male’ hormones and other secondary sex traits (relatively large body size, significant amounts of body hair) count as male. This understanding is fairly recent. The prevalent scientific view from Ancient Greeks until the late 18 th century, did not consider female and male sexes to be distinct categories with specific traits; instead, a ‘one-sex model’ held that males and females were members of the same sex category. Females’ genitals were thought to be the same as males’ but simply directed inside the body; ovaries and testes (for instance) were referred to by the same term and whether the term referred to the former or the latter was made clear by the context (Laqueur 1990, 4). It was not until the late 1700s that scientists began to think of female and male anatomies as radically different moving away from the ‘one-sex model’ of a single sex spectrum to the (nowadays prevalent) ‘two-sex model’ of sexual dimorphism. (For an alternative view, see King 2013.)

Fausto-Sterling has argued that this ‘two-sex model’ isn’t straightforward either (1993b; 2000a; 2000b). Based on a meta-study of empirical medical research, she estimates that 1.7% of population fail to neatly fall within the usual sex classifications possessing various combinations of different sex characteristics (Fausto-Sterling 2000a, 20). In her earlier work, she claimed that intersex individuals make up (at least) three further sex classes: ‘herms’ who possess one testis and one ovary; ‘merms’ who possess testes, some aspects of female genitalia but no ovaries; and ‘ferms’ who have ovaries, some aspects of male genitalia but no testes (Fausto-Sterling 1993b, 21). (In her [2000a], Fausto-Sterling notes that these labels were put forward tongue–in–cheek.) Recognition of intersex people suggests that feminists (and society at large) are wrong to think that humans are either female or male.

To illustrate further the idea-construction of sex, consider the case of the athlete Maria Patiño. Patiño has female genitalia, has always considered herself to be female and was considered so by others. However, she was discovered to have XY chromosomes and was barred from competing in women’s sports (Fausto-Sterling 2000b, 1–3). Patiño’s genitalia were at odds with her chromosomes and the latter were taken to determine her sex. Patiño successfully fought to be recognised as a female athlete arguing that her chromosomes alone were not sufficient to not make her female. Intersex people, like Patiño, illustrate that our understandings of sex differ and suggest that there is no immediately obvious way to settle what sex amounts to purely biologically or scientifically. Deciding what sex is involves evaluative judgements that are influenced by social factors.

Insofar as our cultural conceptions affect our understandings of sex, feminists must be much more careful about sex classifications and rethink what sex amounts to (Stone 2007, chapter 1). More specifically, intersex people illustrate that sex traits associated with females and males need not always go together and that individuals can have some mixture of these traits. This suggests to Stone that sex is a cluster concept: it is sufficient to satisfy enough of the sex features that tend to cluster together in order to count as being of a particular sex. But, one need not satisfy all of those features or some arbitrarily chosen supposedly necessary sex feature, like chromosomes (Stone 2007, 44). This makes sex a matter of degree and sex classifications should take place on a spectrum: one can be more or less female/male but there is no sharp distinction between the two. Further, intersex people (along with trans people) are located at the centre of the sex spectrum and in many cases their sex will be indeterminate (Stone 2007).

More recently, Ayala and Vasilyeva (2015) have argued for an inclusive and extended conception of sex: just as certain tools can be seen to extend our minds beyond the limits of our brains (e.g. white canes), other tools (like dildos) can extend our sex beyond our bodily boundaries. This view aims to motivate the idea that what counts as sex should not be determined by looking inwards at genitalia or other anatomical features. In a different vein, Ásta (2018) argues that sex is a conferred social property. This follows her more general conferralist framework to analyse all social properties: properties that are conferred by others thereby generating a social status that consists in contextually specific constraints and enablements on individual behaviour. The general schema for conferred properties is as follows (Ásta 2018, 8):

Conferred property: what property is conferred. Who: who the subjects are. What: what attitude, state, or action of the subjects matter. When: under what conditions the conferral takes place. Base property: what the subjects are attempting to track (consciously or not), if anything.

With being of a certain sex (e.g. male, female) in mind, Ásta holds that it is a conferred property that merely aims to track physical features. Hence sex is a social – or in fact, an institutional – property rather than a natural one. The schema for sex goes as follows (72):

Conferred property: being female, male. Who: legal authorities, drawing on the expert opinion of doctors, other medical personnel. What: “the recording of a sex in official documents ... The judgment of the doctors (and others) as to what sex role might be the most fitting, given the biological characteristics present.” When: at birth or after surgery/ hormonal treatment. Base property: “the aim is to track as many sex-stereotypical characteristics as possible, and doctors perform surgery in cases where that might help bring the physical characteristics more in line with the stereotype of male and female.”

This (among other things) offers a debunking analysis of sex: it may appear to be a natural property, but on the conferralist analysis is better understood as a conferred legal status. Ásta holds that gender too is a conferred property, but contra the discussion in the following section, she does not think that this collapses the distinction between sex and gender: sex and gender are differently conferred albeit both satisfying the general schema noted above. Nonetheless, on the conferralist framework what underlies both sex and gender is the idea of social construction as social significance: sex-stereotypical characteristics are taken to be socially significant context specifically, whereby they become the basis for conferring sex onto individuals and this brings with it various constraints and enablements on individuals and their behaviour. This fits object- and idea-constructions introduced above, although offers a different general framework to analyse the matter at hand.

In addition to arguing against identity politics and for gender performativity, Butler holds that distinguishing biological sex from social gender is unintelligible. For them, both are socially constructed:

If the immutable character of sex is contested, perhaps this construct called ‘sex’ is as culturally constructed as gender; indeed, perhaps it was always already gender, with the consequence that the distinction between sex and gender turns out to be no distinction at all. (Butler 1999, 10–11)

(Butler is not alone in claiming that there are no tenable distinctions between nature/culture, biology/construction and sex/gender. See also: Antony 1998; Gatens 1996; Grosz 1994; Prokhovnik 1999.) Butler makes two different claims in the passage cited: that sex is a social construction, and that sex is gender. To unpack their view, consider the two claims in turn. First, the idea that sex is a social construct, for Butler, boils down to the view that our sexed bodies are also performative and, so, they have “no ontological status apart from the various acts which constitute [their] reality” (1999, 173). Prima facie , this implausibly implies that female and male bodies do not have independent existence and that if gendering activities ceased, so would physical bodies. This is not Butler’s claim; rather, their position is that bodies viewed as the material foundations on which gender is constructed, are themselves constructed as if they provide such material foundations (Butler 1993). Cultural conceptions about gender figure in “the very apparatus of production whereby sexes themselves are established” (Butler 1999, 11).

For Butler, sexed bodies never exist outside social meanings and how we understand gender shapes how we understand sex (1999, 139). Sexed bodies are not empty matter on which gender is constructed and sex categories are not picked out on the basis of objective features of the world. Instead, our sexed bodies are themselves discursively constructed : they are the way they are, at least to a substantial extent, because of what is attributed to sexed bodies and how they are classified (for discursive construction, see Haslanger 1995, 99). Sex assignment (calling someone female or male) is normative (Butler 1993, 1). [ 6 ] When the doctor calls a newly born infant a girl or a boy, s/he is not making a descriptive claim, but a normative one. In fact, the doctor is performing an illocutionary speech act (see the entry on Speech Acts ). In effect, the doctor’s utterance makes infants into girls or boys. We, then, engage in activities that make it seem as if sexes naturally come in two and that being female or male is an objective feature of the world, rather than being a consequence of certain constitutive acts (that is, rather than being performative). And this is what Butler means in saying that physical bodies never exist outside cultural and social meanings, and that sex is as socially constructed as gender. They do not deny that physical bodies exist. But, they take our understanding of this existence to be a product of social conditioning: social conditioning makes the existence of physical bodies intelligible to us by discursively constructing sexed bodies through certain constitutive acts. (For a helpful introduction to Butler’s views, see Salih 2002.)

For Butler, sex assignment is always in some sense oppressive. Again, this appears to be because of Butler’s general suspicion of classification: sex classification can never be merely descriptive but always has a normative element reflecting evaluative claims of those who are powerful. Conducting a feminist genealogy of the body (or examining why sexed bodies are thought to come naturally as female and male), then, should ground feminist practice (Butler 1993, 28–9). Feminists should examine and uncover ways in which social construction and certain acts that constitute sex shape our understandings of sexed bodies, what kinds of meanings bodies acquire and which practices and illocutionary speech acts ‘make’ our bodies into sexes. Doing so enables feminists to identity how sexed bodies are socially constructed in order to resist such construction.

However, given what was said above, it is far from obvious what we should make of Butler’s claim that sex “was always already gender” (1999, 11). Stone (2007) takes this to mean that sex is gender but goes on to question it arguing that the social construction of both sex and gender does not make sex identical to gender. According to Stone, it would be more accurate for Butler to say that claims about sex imply gender norms. That is, many claims about sex traits (like ‘females are physically weaker than males’) actually carry implications about how women and men are expected to behave. To some extent the claim describes certain facts. But, it also implies that females are not expected to do much heavy lifting and that they would probably not be good at it. So, claims about sex are not identical to claims about gender; rather, they imply claims about gender norms (Stone 2007, 70).

Some feminists hold that the sex/gender distinction is not useful. For a start, it is thought to reflect politically problematic dualistic thinking that undercuts feminist aims: the distinction is taken to reflect and replicate androcentric oppositions between (for instance) mind/body, culture/nature and reason/emotion that have been used to justify women’s oppression (e.g. Grosz 1994; Prokhovnik 1999). The thought is that in oppositions like these, one term is always superior to the other and that the devalued term is usually associated with women (Lloyd 1993). For instance, human subjectivity and agency are identified with the mind but since women are usually identified with their bodies, they are devalued as human subjects and agents. The opposition between mind and body is said to further map on to other distinctions, like reason/emotion, culture/nature, rational/irrational, where one side of each distinction is devalued (one’s bodily features are usually valued less that one’s mind, rationality is usually valued more than irrationality) and women are associated with the devalued terms: they are thought to be closer to bodily features and nature than men, to be irrational, emotional and so on. This is said to be evident (for instance) in job interviews. Men are treated as gender-neutral persons and not asked whether they are planning to take time off to have a family. By contrast, that women face such queries illustrates that they are associated more closely than men with bodily features to do with procreation (Prokhovnik 1999, 126). The opposition between mind and body, then, is thought to map onto the opposition between men and women.

Now, the mind/body dualism is also said to map onto the sex/gender distinction (Grosz 1994; Prokhovnik 1999). The idea is that gender maps onto mind, sex onto body. Although not used by those endorsing this view, the basic idea can be summed by the slogan ‘Gender is between the ears, sex is between the legs’: the implication is that, while sex is immutable, gender is something individuals have control over – it is something we can alter and change through individual choices. However, since women are said to be more closely associated with biological features (and so, to map onto the body side of the mind/body distinction) and men are treated as gender-neutral persons (mapping onto the mind side), the implication is that “man equals gender, which is associated with mind and choice, freedom from body, autonomy, and with the public real; while woman equals sex, associated with the body, reproduction, ‘natural’ rhythms and the private realm” (Prokhovnik 1999, 103). This is said to render the sex/gender distinction inherently repressive and to drain it of any potential for emancipation: rather than facilitating gender role choice for women, it “actually functions to reinforce their association with body, sex, and involuntary ‘natural’ rhythms” (Prokhovnik 1999, 103). Contrary to what feminists like Rubin argued, the sex/gender distinction cannot be used as a theoretical tool that dissociates conceptions of womanhood from biological and reproductive features.

Moi has further argued that the sex/gender distinction is useless given certain theoretical goals (1999, chapter 1). This is not to say that it is utterly worthless; according to Moi, the sex/gender distinction worked well to show that the historically prevalent biological determinism was false. However, for her, the distinction does no useful work “when it comes to producing a good theory of subjectivity” (1999, 6) and “a concrete, historical understanding of what it means to be a woman (or a man) in a given society” (1999, 4–5). That is, the 1960s distinction understood sex as fixed by biology without any cultural or historical dimensions. This understanding, however, ignores lived experiences and embodiment as aspects of womanhood (and manhood) by separating sex from gender and insisting that womanhood is to do with the latter. Rather, embodiment must be included in one’s theory that tries to figure out what it is to be a woman (or a man).

Mikkola (2011) argues that the sex/gender distinction, which underlies views like Rubin’s and MacKinnon’s, has certain unintuitive and undesirable ontological commitments that render the distinction politically unhelpful. First, claiming that gender is socially constructed implies that the existence of women and men is a mind-dependent matter. This suggests that we can do away with women and men simply by altering some social practices, conventions or conditions on which gender depends (whatever those are). However, ordinary social agents find this unintuitive given that (ordinarily) sex and gender are not distinguished. Second, claiming that gender is a product of oppressive social forces suggests that doing away with women and men should be feminism’s political goal. But this harbours ontologically undesirable commitments since many ordinary social agents view their gender to be a source of positive value. So, feminism seems to want to do away with something that should not be done away with, which is unlikely to motivate social agents to act in ways that aim at gender justice. Given these problems, Mikkola argues that feminists should give up the distinction on practical political grounds.

Tomas Bogardus (2020) has argued in an even more radical sense against the sex/gender distinction: as things stand, he holds, feminist philosophers have merely assumed and asserted that the distinction exists, instead of having offered good arguments for the distinction. In other words, feminist philosophers allegedly have yet to offer good reasons to think that ‘woman’ does not simply pick out adult human females. Alex Byrne (2020) argues in a similar vein: the term ‘woman’ does not pick out a social kind as feminist philosophers have “assumed”. Instead, “women are adult human females–nothing more, and nothing less” (2020, 3801). Byrne offers six considerations to ground this AHF (adult, human, female) conception.

• It reproduces the dictionary definition of ‘woman’.
• One would expect English to have a word that picks out the category adult human female, and ‘woman’ is the only candidate.
• AHF explains how we sometimes know that an individual is a woman, despite knowing nothing else relevant about her other than the fact that she is an adult human female.
• AHF stands or falls with the analogous thesis for girls, which can be supported independently.
• AHF predicts the correct verdict in cases of gender role reversal.
• AHF is supported by the fact that ‘woman’ and ‘female’ are often appropriately used as stylistic variants of each other, even in hyperintensional contexts.

Robin Dembroff (2021) responds to Byrne and highlights various problems with Byrne’s argument. First, framing: Byrne assumes from the start that gender terms like ‘woman’ have a single invariant meaning thereby failing to discuss the possibility of terms like ‘woman’ having multiple meanings – something that is a familiar claim made by feminist theorists from various disciplines. Moreover, Byrne (according to Dembroff) assumes without argument that there is a single, universal category of woman – again, something that has been extensively discussed and critiqued by feminist philosophers and theorists. Second, Byrne’s conception of the ‘dominant’ meaning of woman is said to be cherry-picked and it ignores a wealth of contexts outside of philosophy (like the media and the law) where ‘woman’ has a meaning other than AHF . Third, Byrne’s own distinction between biological and social categories fails to establish what he intended to establish: namely, that ‘woman’ picks out a biological rather than a social kind. Hence, Dembroff holds, Byrne’s case fails by its own lights. Byrne (2021) responds to Dembroff’s critique.

Others such as ‘gender critical feminists’ also hold views about the sex/gender distinction in a spirit similar to Bogardus and Byrne. For example, Holly Lawford-Smith (2021) takes the prevalent sex/gender distinction, where ‘female’/‘male’ are used as sex terms and ‘woman’/’man’ as gender terms, not to be helpful. Instead, she takes all of these to be sex terms and holds that (the norms of) femininity/masculinity refer to gender normativity. Because much of the gender critical feminists’ discussion that philosophers have engaged in has taken place in social media, public fora, and other sources outside academic philosophy, this entry will not focus on these discussions.

4. Women as a group

The various critiques of the sex/gender distinction have called into question the viability of the category women . Feminism is the movement to end the oppression women as a group face. But, how should the category of women be understood if feminists accept the above arguments that gender construction is not uniform, that a sharp distinction between biological sex and social gender is false or (at least) not useful, and that various features associated with women play a role in what it is to be a woman, none of which are individually necessary and jointly sufficient (like a variety of social roles, positions, behaviours, traits, bodily features and experiences)? Feminists must be able to address cultural and social differences in gender construction if feminism is to be a genuinely inclusive movement and be careful not to posit commonalities that mask important ways in which women qua women differ. These concerns (among others) have generated a situation where (as Linda Alcoff puts it) feminists aim to speak and make political demands in the name of women, at the same time rejecting the idea that there is a unified category of women (2006, 152). If feminist critiques of the category women are successful, then what (if anything) binds women together, what is it to be a woman, and what kinds of demands can feminists make on behalf of women?

Many have found the fragmentation of the category of women problematic for political reasons (e.g. Alcoff 2006; Bach 2012; Benhabib 1992; Frye 1996; Haslanger 2000b; Heyes 2000; Martin 1994; Mikkola 2007; Stoljar 1995; Stone 2004; Tanesini 1996; Young 1997; Zack 2005). For instance, Young holds that accounts like Spelman’s reduce the category of women to a gerrymandered collection of individuals with nothing to bind them together (1997, 20). Black women differ from white women but members of both groups also differ from one another with respect to nationality, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation and economic position; that is, wealthy white women differ from working-class white women due to their economic and class positions. These sub-groups are themselves diverse: for instance, some working-class white women in Northern Ireland are starkly divided along religious lines. So if we accept Spelman’s position, we risk ending up with individual women and nothing to bind them together. And this is problematic: in order to respond to oppression of women in general, feminists must understand them as a category in some sense. Young writes that without doing so “it is not possible to conceptualize oppression as a systematic, structured, institutional process” (1997, 17). Some, then, take the articulation of an inclusive category of women to be the prerequisite for effective feminist politics and a rich literature has emerged that aims to conceptualise women as a group or a collective (e.g. Alcoff 2006; Ásta 2011; Frye 1996; 2011; Haslanger 2000b; Heyes 2000; Stoljar 1995, 2011; Young 1997; Zack 2005). Articulations of this category can be divided into those that are: (a) gender nominalist — positions that deny there is something women qua women share and that seek to unify women’s social kind by appealing to something external to women; and (b) gender realist — positions that take there to be something women qua women share (although these realist positions differ significantly from those outlined in Section 2). Below we will review some influential gender nominalist and gender realist positions. Before doing so, it is worth noting that not everyone is convinced that attempts to articulate an inclusive category of women can succeed or that worries about what it is to be a woman are in need of being resolved. Mikkola (2016) argues that feminist politics need not rely on overcoming (what she calls) the ‘gender controversy’: that feminists must settle the meaning of gender concepts and articulate a way to ground women’s social kind membership. As she sees it, disputes about ‘what it is to be a woman’ have become theoretically bankrupt and intractable, which has generated an analytical impasse that looks unsurpassable. Instead, Mikkola argues for giving up the quest, which in any case in her view poses no serious political obstacles.

Elizabeth Barnes (2020) responds to the need to offer an inclusive conception of gender somewhat differently, although she endorses the need for feminism to be inclusive particularly of trans people. Barnes holds that typically philosophical theories of gender aim to offer an account of what it is to be a woman (or man, genderqueer, etc.), where such an account is presumed to provide necessary and sufficient conditions for being a woman or an account of our gender terms’ extensions. But, she holds, it is a mistake to expect our theories of gender to do so. For Barnes, a project that offers a metaphysics of gender “should be understood as the project of theorizing what it is —if anything— about the social world that ultimately explains gender” (2020, 706). This project is not equivalent to one that aims to define gender terms or elucidate the application conditions for natural language gender terms though.

4.1 Gender nominalism

Iris Young argues that unless there is “some sense in which ‘woman’ is the name of a social collective [that feminism represents], there is nothing specific to feminist politics” (1997, 13). In order to make the category women intelligible, she argues that women make up a series: a particular kind of social collective “whose members are unified passively by the objects their actions are oriented around and/or by the objectified results of the material effects of the actions of the other” (Young 1997, 23). A series is distinct from a group in that, whereas members of groups are thought to self-consciously share certain goals, projects, traits and/ or self-conceptions, members of series pursue their own individual ends without necessarily having anything at all in common. Young holds that women are not bound together by a shared feature or experience (or set of features and experiences) since she takes Spelman’s particularity argument to have established definitely that no such feature exists (1997, 13; see also: Frye 1996; Heyes 2000). Instead, women’s category is unified by certain practico-inert realities or the ways in which women’s lives and their actions are oriented around certain objects and everyday realities (Young 1997, 23–4). For example, bus commuters make up a series unified through their individual actions being organised around the same practico-inert objects of the bus and the practice of public transport. Women make up a series unified through women’s lives and actions being organised around certain practico-inert objects and realities that position them as women .

Young identifies two broad groups of such practico-inert objects and realities. First, phenomena associated with female bodies (physical facts), biological processes that take place in female bodies (menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth) and social rules associated with these biological processes (social rules of menstruation, for instance). Second, gender-coded objects and practices: pronouns, verbal and visual representations of gender, gender-coded artefacts and social spaces, clothes, cosmetics, tools and furniture. So, women make up a series since their lives and actions are organised around female bodies and certain gender-coded objects. Their series is bound together passively and the unity is “not one that arises from the individuals called women” (Young 1997, 32).

Although Young’s proposal purports to be a response to Spelman’s worries, Stone has questioned whether it is, after all, susceptible to the particularity argument: ultimately, on Young’s view, something women as women share (their practico-inert realities) binds them together (Stone 2004).

Natalie Stoljar holds that unless the category of women is unified, feminist action on behalf of women cannot be justified (1995, 282). Stoljar too is persuaded by the thought that women qua women do not share anything unitary. This prompts her to argue for resemblance nominalism. This is the view that a certain kind of resemblance relation holds between entities of a particular type (for more on resemblance nominalism, see Armstrong 1989, 39–58). Stoljar is not alone in arguing for resemblance relations to make sense of women as a category; others have also done so, usually appealing to Wittgenstein’s ‘family resemblance’ relations (Alcoff 1988; Green & Radford Curry 1991; Heyes 2000; Munro 2006). Stoljar relies more on Price’s resemblance nominalism whereby x is a member of some type F only if x resembles some paradigm or exemplar of F sufficiently closely (Price 1953, 20). For instance, the type of red entities is unified by some chosen red paradigms so that only those entities that sufficiently resemble the paradigms count as red. The type (or category) of women, then, is unified by some chosen woman paradigms so that those who sufficiently resemble the woman paradigms count as women (Stoljar 1995, 284).

Semantic considerations about the concept woman suggest to Stoljar that resemblance nominalism should be endorsed (Stoljar 2000, 28). It seems unlikely that the concept is applied on the basis of some single social feature all and only women possess. By contrast, woman is a cluster concept and our attributions of womanhood pick out “different arrangements of features in different individuals” (Stoljar 2000, 27). More specifically, they pick out the following clusters of features: (a) Female sex; (b) Phenomenological features: menstruation, female sexual experience, child-birth, breast-feeding, fear of walking on the streets at night or fear of rape; (c) Certain roles: wearing typically female clothing, being oppressed on the basis of one’s sex or undertaking care-work; (d) Gender attribution: “calling oneself a woman, being called a woman” (Stoljar 1995, 283–4). For Stoljar, attributions of womanhood are to do with a variety of traits and experiences: those that feminists have historically termed ‘gender traits’ (like social, behavioural, psychological traits) and those termed ‘sex traits’. Nonetheless, she holds that since the concept woman applies to (at least some) trans persons, one can be a woman without being female (Stoljar 1995, 282).

The cluster concept woman does not, however, straightforwardly provide the criterion for picking out the category of women. Rather, the four clusters of features that the concept picks out help single out woman paradigms that in turn help single out the category of women. First, any individual who possesses a feature from at least three of the four clusters mentioned will count as an exemplar of the category. For instance, an African-American with primary and secondary female sex characteristics, who describes herself as a woman and is oppressed on the basis of her sex, along with a white European hermaphrodite brought up ‘as a girl’, who engages in female roles and has female phenomenological features despite lacking female sex characteristics, will count as woman paradigms (Stoljar 1995, 284). [ 7 ] Second, any individual who resembles “any of the paradigms sufficiently closely (on Price’s account, as closely as [the paradigms] resemble each other) will be a member of the resemblance class ‘woman’” (Stoljar 1995, 284). That is, what delimits membership in the category of women is that one resembles sufficiently a woman paradigm.

4.2 Neo-gender realism

In a series of articles collected in her 2012 book, Sally Haslanger argues for a way to define the concept woman that is politically useful, serving as a tool in feminist fights against sexism, and that shows woman to be a social (not a biological) notion. More specifically, Haslanger argues that gender is a matter of occupying either a subordinate or a privileged social position. In some articles, Haslanger is arguing for a revisionary analysis of the concept woman (2000b; 2003a; 2003b). Elsewhere she suggests that her analysis may not be that revisionary after all (2005; 2006). Consider the former argument first. Haslanger’s analysis is, in her terms, ameliorative: it aims to elucidate which gender concepts best help feminists achieve their legitimate purposes thereby elucidating those concepts feminists should be using (Haslanger 2000b, 33). [ 8 ] Now, feminists need gender terminology in order to fight sexist injustices (Haslanger 2000b, 36). In particular, they need gender terms to identify, explain and talk about persistent social inequalities between males and females. Haslanger’s analysis of gender begins with the recognition that females and males differ in two respects: physically and in their social positions. Societies in general tend to “privilege individuals with male bodies” (Haslanger 2000b, 38) so that the social positions they subsequently occupy are better than the social positions of those with female bodies. And this generates persistent sexist injustices. With this in mind, Haslanger specifies how she understands genders:

S is a woman iff [by definition] S is systematically subordinated along some dimension (economic, political, legal, social, etc.), and S is ‘marked’ as a target for this treatment by observed or imagined bodily features presumed to be evidence of a female’s biological role in reproduction.

S is a man iff [by definition] S is systematically privileged along some dimension (economic, political, legal, social, etc.), and S is ‘marked’ as a target for this treatment by observed or imagined bodily features presumed to be evidence of a male’s biological role in reproduction. (2003a, 6–7)

These are constitutive of being a woman and a man: what makes calling S a woman apt, is that S is oppressed on sex-marked grounds; what makes calling S a man apt, is that S is privileged on sex-marked grounds.

Haslanger’s ameliorative analysis is counterintuitive in that females who are not sex-marked for oppression, do not count as women. At least arguably, the Queen of England is not oppressed on sex-marked grounds and so, would not count as a woman on Haslanger’s definition. And, similarly, all males who are not privileged would not count as men. This might suggest that Haslanger’s analysis should be rejected in that it does not capture what language users have in mind when applying gender terms. However, Haslanger argues that this is not a reason to reject the definitions, which she takes to be revisionary: they are not meant to capture our intuitive gender terms. In response, Mikkola (2009) has argued that revisionary analyses of gender concepts, like Haslanger’s, are both politically unhelpful and philosophically unnecessary.

Note also that Haslanger’s proposal is eliminativist: gender justice would eradicate gender, since it would abolish those sexist social structures responsible for sex-marked oppression and privilege. If sexist oppression were to cease, women and men would no longer exist (although there would still be males and females). Not all feminists endorse such an eliminativist view though. Stone holds that Haslanger does not leave any room for positively revaluing what it is to be a woman: since Haslanger defines woman in terms of subordination,

any woman who challenges her subordinate status must by definition be challenging her status as a woman, even if she does not intend to … positive change to our gender norms would involve getting rid of the (necessarily subordinate) feminine gender. (Stone 2007, 160)

But according to Stone this is not only undesirable – one should be able to challenge subordination without having to challenge one’s status as a woman. It is also false: “because norms of femininity can be and constantly are being revised, women can be women without thereby being subordinate” (Stone 2007, 162; Mikkola [2016] too argues that Haslanger’s eliminativism is troublesome).

Theodore Bach holds that Haslanger’s eliminativism is undesirable on other grounds, and that Haslanger’s position faces another more serious problem. Feminism faces the following worries (among others):

Representation problem : “if there is no real group of ‘women’, then it is incoherent to make moral claims and advance political policies on behalf of women” (Bach 2012, 234). Commonality problems : (1) There is no feature that all women cross-culturally and transhistorically share. (2) Delimiting women’s social kind with the help of some essential property privileges those who possess it, and marginalizes those who do not (Bach 2012, 235).

According to Bach, Haslanger’s strategy to resolve these problems appeals to ‘social objectivism’. First, we define women “according to a suitably abstract relational property” (Bach 2012, 236), which avoids the commonality problems. Second, Haslanger employs “an ontologically thin notion of ‘objectivity’” (Bach 2012, 236) that answers the representation problem. Haslanger’s solution (Bach holds) is specifically to argue that women make up an objective type because women are objectively similar to one another, and not simply classified together given our background conceptual schemes. Bach claims though that Haslanger’s account is not objective enough, and we should on political grounds “provide a stronger ontological characterization of the genders men and women according to which they are natural kinds with explanatory essences” (Bach 2012, 238). He thus proposes that women make up a natural kind with a historical essence:

The essential property of women, in virtue of which an individual is a member of the kind ‘women,’ is participation in a lineage of women. In order to exemplify this relational property, an individual must be a reproduction of ancestral women, in which case she must have undergone the ontogenetic processes through which a historical gender system replicates women. (Bach 2012, 271)

In short, one is not a woman due to shared surface properties with other women (like occupying a subordinate social position). Rather, one is a woman because one has the right history: one has undergone the ubiquitous ontogenetic process of gender socialization. Thinking about gender in this way supposedly provides a stronger kind unity than Haslanger’s that simply appeals to shared surface properties.

Not everyone agrees; Mikkola (2020) argues that Bach’s metaphysical picture has internal tensions that render it puzzling and that Bach’s metaphysics does not provide good responses to the commonality and presentation problems. The historically essentialist view also has anti-trans implications. After all, trans women who have not undergone female gender socialization won’t count as women on his view (Mikkola [2016, 2020] develops this line of critique in more detail). More worryingly, trans women will count as men contrary to their self-identification. Both Bettcher (2013) and Jenkins (2016) consider the importance of gender self-identification. Bettcher argues that there is more than one ‘correct’ way to understand womanhood: at the very least, the dominant (mainstream), and the resistant (trans) conceptions. Dominant views like that of Bach’s tend to erase trans people’s experiences and to marginalize trans women within feminist movements. Rather than trans women having to defend their self-identifying claims, these claims should be taken at face value right from the start. And so, Bettcher holds, “in analyzing the meaning of terms such as ‘woman,’ it is inappropriate to dismiss alternative ways in which those terms are actually used in trans subcultures; such usage needs to be taken into consideration as part of the analysis” (2013, 235).

Specifically with Haslanger in mind and in a similar vein, Jenkins (2016) discusses how Haslanger’s revisionary approach unduly excludes some trans women from women’s social kind. On Jenkins’s view, Haslanger’s ameliorative methodology in fact yields more than one satisfying target concept: one that “corresponds to Haslanger’s proposed concept and captures the sense of gender as an imposed social class”; another that “captures the sense of gender as a lived identity” (Jenkins 2016, 397). The latter of these allows us to include trans women into women’s social kind, who on Haslanger’s social class approach to gender would inappropriately have been excluded. (See Andler 2017 for the view that Jenkins’s purportedly inclusive conception of gender is still not fully inclusive. Jenkins 2018 responds to this charge and develops the notion of gender identity still further.)

In addition to her revisionary argument, Haslanger has suggested that her ameliorative analysis of woman may not be as revisionary as it first seems (2005, 2006). Although successful in their reference fixing, ordinary language users do not always know precisely what they are talking about. Our language use may be skewed by oppressive ideologies that can “mislead us about the content of our own thoughts” (Haslanger 2005, 12). Although her gender terminology is not intuitive, this could simply be because oppressive ideologies mislead us about the meanings of our gender terms. Our everyday gender terminology might mean something utterly different from what we think it means; and we could be entirely ignorant of this. Perhaps Haslanger’s analysis, then, has captured our everyday gender vocabulary revealing to us the terms that we actually employ: we may be applying ‘woman’ in our everyday language on the basis of sex-marked subordination whether we take ourselves to be doing so or not. If this is so, Haslanger’s gender terminology is not radically revisionist.

Saul (2006) argues that, despite it being possible that we unknowingly apply ‘woman’ on the basis of social subordination, it is extremely difficult to show that this is the case. This would require showing that the gender terminology we in fact employ is Haslanger’s proposed gender terminology. But discovering the grounds on which we apply everyday gender terms is extremely difficult precisely because they are applied in various and idiosyncratic ways (Saul 2006, 129). Haslanger, then, needs to do more in order to show that her analysis is non-revisionary.

Charlotte Witt (2011a; 2011b) argues for a particular sort of gender essentialism, which Witt terms ‘uniessentialism’. Her motivation and starting point is the following: many ordinary social agents report gender being essential to them and claim that they would be a different person were they of a different sex/gender. Uniessentialism attempts to understand and articulate this. However, Witt’s work departs in important respects from the earlier (so-called) essentialist or gender realist positions discussed in Section 2: Witt does not posit some essential property of womanhood of the kind discussed above, which failed to take women’s differences into account. Further, uniessentialism differs significantly from those position developed in response to the problem of how we should conceive of women’s social kind. It is not about solving the standard dispute between gender nominalists and gender realists, or about articulating some supposedly shared property that binds women together and provides a theoretical ground for feminist political solidarity. Rather, uniessentialism aims to make good the widely held belief that gender is constitutive of who we are. [ 9 ]

Uniessentialism is a sort of individual essentialism. Traditionally philosophers distinguish between kind and individual essentialisms: the former examines what binds members of a kind together and what do all members of some kind have in common qua members of that kind. The latter asks: what makes an individual the individual it is. We can further distinguish two sorts of individual essentialisms: Kripkean identity essentialism and Aristotelian uniessentialism. The former asks: what makes an individual that individual? The latter, however, asks a slightly different question: what explains the unity of individuals? What explains that an individual entity exists over and above the sum total of its constituent parts? (The standard feminist debate over gender nominalism and gender realism has largely been about kind essentialism. Being about individual essentialism, Witt’s uniessentialism departs in an important way from the standard debate.) From the two individual essentialisms, Witt endorses the Aristotelian one. On this view, certain functional essences have a unifying role: these essences are responsible for the fact that material parts constitute a new individual, rather than just a lump of stuff or a collection of particles. Witt’s example is of a house: the essential house-functional property (what the entity is for, what its purpose is) unifies the different material parts of a house so that there is a house, and not just a collection of house-constituting particles (2011a, 6). Gender (being a woman/a man) functions in a similar fashion and provides “the principle of normative unity” that organizes, unifies and determines the roles of social individuals (Witt 2011a, 73). Due to this, gender is a uniessential property of social individuals.

It is important to clarify the notions of gender and social individuality that Witt employs. First, gender is a social position that “cluster[s] around the engendering function … women conceive and bear … men beget” (Witt 2011a, 40). These are women and men’s socially mediated reproductive functions (Witt 2011a, 29) and they differ from the biological function of reproduction, which roughly corresponds to sex on the standard sex/gender distinction. Witt writes: “to be a woman is to be recognized to have a particular function in engendering, to be a man is to be recognized to have a different function in engendering” (2011a, 39). Second, Witt distinguishes persons (those who possess self-consciousness), human beings (those who are biologically human) and social individuals (those who occupy social positions synchronically and diachronically). These ontological categories are not equivalent in that they possess different persistence and identity conditions. Social individuals are bound by social normativity, human beings by biological normativity. These normativities differ in two respects: first, social norms differ from one culture to the next whereas biological norms do not; second, unlike biological normativity, social normativity requires “the recognition by others that an agent is both responsive to and evaluable under a social norm” (Witt 2011a, 19). Thus, being a social individual is not equivalent to being a human being. Further, Witt takes personhood to be defined in terms of intrinsic psychological states of self-awareness and self-consciousness. However, social individuality is defined in terms of the extrinsic feature of occupying a social position, which depends for its existence on a social world. So, the two are not equivalent: personhood is essentially about intrinsic features and could exist without a social world, whereas social individuality is essentially about extrinsic features that could not exist without a social world.

Witt’s gender essentialist argument crucially pertains to social individuals , not to persons or human beings: saying that persons or human beings are gendered would be a category mistake. But why is gender essential to social individuals? For Witt, social individuals are those who occupy positions in social reality. Further, “social positions have norms or social roles associated with them; a social role is what an individual who occupies a given social position is responsive to and evaluable under” (Witt 2011a, 59). However, qua social individuals, we occupy multiple social positions at once and over time: we can be women, mothers, immigrants, sisters, academics, wives, community organisers and team-sport coaches synchronically and diachronically. Now, the issue for Witt is what unifies these positions so that a social individual is constituted. After all, a bundle of social position occupancies does not make for an individual (just as a bundle of properties like being white , cube-shaped and sweet do not make for a sugar cube). For Witt, this unifying role is undertaken by gender (being a woman or a man): it is

a pervasive and fundamental social position that unifies and determines all other social positions both synchronically and diachronically. It unifies them not physically, but by providing a principle of normative unity. (2011a, 19–20)

By ‘normative unity’, Witt means the following: given our social roles and social position occupancies, we are responsive to various sets of social norms. These norms are “complex patterns of behaviour and practices that constitute what one ought to do in a situation given one’s social position(s) and one’s social context” (Witt 2011a, 82). The sets of norms can conflict: the norms of motherhood can (and do) conflict with the norms of being an academic philosopher. However, in order for this conflict to exist, the norms must be binding on a single social individual. Witt, then, asks: what explains the existence and unity of the social individual who is subject to conflicting social norms? The answer is gender.

Gender is not just a social role that unifies social individuals. Witt takes it to be the social role — as she puts it, it is the mega social role that unifies social agents. First, gender is a mega social role if it satisfies two conditions (and Witt claims that it does): (1) if it provides the principle of synchronic and diachronic unity of social individuals, and (2) if it inflects and defines a broad range of other social roles. Gender satisfies the first in usually being a life-long social position: a social individual persists just as long as their gendered social position persists. Further, Witt maintains, trans people are not counterexamples to this claim: transitioning entails that the old social individual has ceased to exist and a new one has come into being. And this is consistent with the same person persisting and undergoing social individual change via transitioning. Gender satisfies the second condition too. It inflects other social roles, like being a parent or a professional. The expectations attached to these social roles differ depending on the agent’s gender, since gender imposes different social norms to govern the execution of the further social roles. Now, gender — as opposed to some other social category, like race — is not just a mega social role; it is the unifying mega social role. Cross-cultural and trans-historical considerations support this view. Witt claims that patriarchy is a social universal (2011a, 98). By contrast, racial categorisation varies historically and cross-culturally, and racial oppression is not a universal feature of human cultures. Thus, gender has a better claim to being the social role that is uniessential to social individuals. This account of gender essentialism not only explains social agents’ connectedness to their gender, but it also provides a helpful way to conceive of women’s agency — something that is central to feminist politics.

Linda Alcoff holds that feminism faces an identity crisis: the category of women is feminism’s starting point, but various critiques about gender have fragmented the category and it is not clear how feminists should understand what it is to be a woman (2006, chapter 5). In response, Alcoff develops an account of gender as positionality whereby “gender is, among other things, a position one occupies and from which one can act politically” (2006, 148). In particular, she takes one’s social position to foster the development of specifically gendered identities (or self-conceptions): “The very subjectivity (or subjective experience of being a woman) and the very identity of women are constituted by women’s position” (Alcoff 2006, 148). Alcoff holds that there is an objective basis for distinguishing individuals on the grounds of (actual or expected) reproductive roles:

Women and men are differentiated by virtue of their different relationship of possibility to biological reproduction, with biological reproduction referring to conceiving, giving birth, and breast-feeding, involving one’s body . (Alcoff 2006, 172, italics in original)

The thought is that those standardly classified as biologically female, although they may not actually be able to reproduce, will encounter “a different set of practices, expectations, and feelings in regard to reproduction” than those standardly classified as male (Alcoff 2006, 172). Further, this differential relation to the possibility of reproduction is used as the basis for many cultural and social phenomena that position women and men: it can be

the basis of a variety of social segregations, it can engender the development of differential forms of embodiment experienced throughout life, and it can generate a wide variety of affective responses, from pride, delight, shame, guilt, regret, or great relief from having successfully avoided reproduction. (Alcoff 2006, 172)

Reproduction, then, is an objective basis for distinguishing individuals that takes on a cultural dimension in that it positions women and men differently: depending on the kind of body one has, one’s lived experience will differ. And this fosters the construction of gendered social identities: one’s role in reproduction helps configure how one is socially positioned and this conditions the development of specifically gendered social identities.

Since women are socially positioned in various different contexts, “there is no gender essence all women share” (Alcoff 2006, 147–8). Nonetheless, Alcoff acknowledges that her account is akin to the original 1960s sex/gender distinction insofar as sex difference (understood in terms of the objective division of reproductive labour) provides the foundation for certain cultural arrangements (the development of a gendered social identity). But, with the benefit of hindsight

we can see that maintaining a distinction between the objective category of sexed identity and the varied and culturally contingent practices of gender does not presume an absolute distinction of the old-fashioned sort between culture and a reified nature. (Alcoff 2006, 175)

That is, her view avoids the implausible claim that sex is exclusively to do with nature and gender with culture. Rather, the distinction on the basis of reproductive possibilities shapes and is shaped by the sorts of cultural and social phenomena (like varieties of social segregation) these possibilities gives rise to. For instance, technological interventions can alter sex differences illustrating that this is the case (Alcoff 2006, 175). Women’s specifically gendered social identities that are constituted by their context dependent positions, then, provide the starting point for feminist politics.

Recently Robin Dembroff (2020) has argued that existing metaphysical accounts of gender fail to address non-binary gender identities. This generates two concerns. First, metaphysical accounts of gender (like the ones outlined in previous sections) are insufficient for capturing those who reject binary gender categorisation where people are either men or women. In so doing, these accounts are not satisfying as explanations of gender understood in a more expansive sense that goes beyond the binary. Second, the failure to understand non-binary gender identities contributes to a form of epistemic injustice called ‘hermeneutical injustice’: it feeds into a collective failure to comprehend and analyse concepts and practices that undergird non-binary classification schemes, thereby impeding on one’s ability to fully understand themselves. To overcome these problems, Dembroff suggests an account of genderqueer that they call ‘critical gender kind’:

a kind whose members collectively destabilize one or more elements of dominant gender ideology. Genderqueer, on my proposed model, is a category whose members collectively destabilize the binary axis, or the idea that the only possible genders are the exclusive and exhaustive kinds men and women. (2020, 2)

Note that Dembroff’s position is not to be confused with ‘gender critical feminist’ positions like those noted above, which are critical of the prevalent feminist focus on gender, as opposed to sex, kinds. Dembroff understands genderqueer as a gender kind, but one that is critical of dominant binary understandings of gender.

Dembroff identifies two modes of destabilising the gender binary: principled and existential. Principled destabilising “stems from or otherwise expresses individuals’ social or political commitments regarding gender norms, practices, and structures”, while existential destabilising “stems from or otherwise expresses individuals’ felt or desired gender roles, embodiment, and/or categorization” (2020, 13). These modes are not mutually exclusive, and they can help us understand the difference between allies and members of genderqueer kinds: “While both resist dominant gender ideology, members of [genderqueer] kinds resist (at least in part) due to felt or desired gender categorization that deviates from dominant expectations, norms, and assumptions” (2020, 14). These modes of destabilisation also enable us to formulate an understanding of non-critical gender kinds that binary understandings of women and men’s kinds exemplify. Dembroff defines these kinds as follows:

For a given kind X , X is a non-critical gender kind relative to a given society iff X ’s members collectively restabilize one or more elements of the dominant gender ideology in that society. (2020, 14)

Dembroff’s understanding of critical and non-critical gender kinds importantly makes gender kind membership something more and other than a mere psychological phenomenon. To engage in collectively destabilising or restabilising dominant gender normativity and ideology, we need more than mere attitudes or mental states – resisting or maintaining such normativity requires action as well. In so doing, Dembroff puts their position forward as an alternative to two existing internalist positions about gender. First, to Jennifer McKitrick’s (2015) view whereby gender is dispositional: in a context where someone is disposed to behave in ways that would be taken by others to be indicative of (e.g.) womanhood, the person has a woman’s gender identity. Second, to Jenkin’s (2016, 2018) position that takes an individual’s gender identity to be dependent on which gender-specific norms the person experiences as being relevant to them. On this view, someone is a woman if the person experiences norms associated with women to be relevant to the person in the particular social context that they are in. Neither of these positions well-captures non-binary identities, Dembroff argues, which motivates the account of genderqueer identities as critical gender kinds.

As Dembroff acknowledges, substantive philosophical work on non-binary gender identities is still developing. However, it is important to note that analytic philosophers are beginning to engage in gender metaphysics that goes beyond the binary.

This entry first looked at feminist objections to biological determinism and the claim that gender is socially constructed. Next, it examined feminist critiques of prevalent understandings of gender and sex, and the distinction itself. In response to these concerns, the entry looked at how a unified women’s category could be articulated for feminist political purposes. This illustrated that gender metaphysics — or what it is to be a woman or a man or a genderqueer person — is still very much a live issue. And although contemporary feminist philosophical debates have questioned some of the tenets and details of the original 1960s sex/gender distinction, most still hold onto the view that gender is about social factors and that it is (in some sense) distinct from biological sex. The jury is still out on what the best, the most useful, or (even) the correct definition of gender is.

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Beauvoir, Simone de | feminist philosophy, approaches: intersections between analytic and continental philosophy | feminist philosophy, topics: perspectives on reproduction and the family | feminist philosophy, topics: perspectives on the self | homosexuality | identity politics | speech acts

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I am very grateful to Tuukka Asplund, Jenny Saul, Alison Stone and Nancy Tuana for their extremely helpful and detailed comments when writing this entry.

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Sexuality explained

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• Sexuality is diverse, and there are many different types. It can take time to figure out the sexuality that fits you best. And your sexuality can change over time. 
• Coming to terms with your sexuality can be a very liberating, exciting and positive experience.
• Sexuality is an important part of who you are. There is no right or wrong, it’s about what’s right for you. 
• Some people have a hard time accepting others who are different to themselves. If someone gives you a hard time about your sexuality, it’s good to talk to someone about it. You don’t need to deal with it by yourself.  

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Different types of sexuality, discrimination based on sexuality, sexuality and mental health, helping someone struggling with their sexuality and mental health, where to get help.

Sexuality is not about who you have sex with, or how often you have it. Sexuality is about your sexual feelings, thoughts, attractions and behaviours towards other people. You can find other people physically, sexually or emotionally attractive, and all those things are a part of your sexuality. Sexuality is diverse and personal, and it is an important part of who you are. Discovering your sexuality can be a very liberating, exciting and positive experience. Some people experience discrimination due to their sexuality. If someone gives you a hard time about your sexuality, it’s good to talk to someone about it.

Sometimes, it can take time to figure out the sexuality that fits you best. And your sexuality can change over time. It can be confusing; so don’t worry if you are unsure. You might be drawn to men or to women, to both or to neither. There is no right or wrong – it’s about what’s right for you. And while there are common terms to describe different types of sexuality, you don’t have to adopt a label to describe yourself.

Heterosexual and homosexual

Most people are attracted to the opposite sex – boys who like girls, and women who like men, for example. These people are heterosexual, or ‘straight’. Some people are attracted to the same sex. These people are homosexual. Around 10 per cent of young Australians experience same-sex attraction, most during puberty. ‘Lesbian’ is the common term for people who identify as women and are same-sex attracted. ‘Gay’ is the most common term for people who identify as men and are same-sex attracted, although women identifying as lesbian also sometimes use this word. The Better Health Channel has more information on lesbian sexuality and gay male sexuality .

Sexuality can be more complicated than being straight or gay. Some people are attracted to both men and women, and are known as bisexual. Bisexual does not mean the attraction is evenly weighted – a person may have stronger feelings for one gender than another. And this can vary depending on who they meet. There are different kinds of bisexuality. Some people who are attracted to men and women still consider themselves to be mainly straight or gay. Or they might have sexual feelings towards both genders but only have intercourse with one. Other people see sexual attraction as more grey than black and white. These people find everyday labels too rigid. Some prefer to identify as ‘queer’. And others use the term ‘pan’, or ‘pansexual’, to show they are attracted to different kinds of people no matter what their gender, identity or expression. There are many differences between individuals, so bisexuality is a general term only. You can read more about it at the Better Health Channel’s page on bisexuality .

A person who identifies as asexual (‘ace’ for short) is someone who does not experience, or experiences very little, sexual attraction. Asexuality is not a choice, like abstinence (where someone chooses not to have sex with anyone, whether they are attracted to them or not). Asexuality is a sexual orientation, like homosexuality or heterosexuality. Some people may strongly identify with being asexual, except for a few infrequent experiences of sexual attraction (grey-asexuality). Some people feel sexual attraction only after they develop a strong emotional bond with someone (this is known as demisexuality). Other people experience asexuality in a range of other ways.

Equality and freedom from discrimination are fundamental human rights that belong to all people. In most states in Australia, including Victoria, it is against the law to discriminate against someone because of their sexual orientation, gender identity or lawful sexual activity. However, discrimination can still occur. If you think you have been discriminated against External Link or victimised because of your sexuality ( or a range of other reasons External Link ) contact the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission External Link . For information on the legal obligations of employers regarding discrimination based on sexual identity, see the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission External Link webpage on equal opportunity practice guidelines.

LGBTIQA+ people have an increased risk of depression, anxiety, substance abuse, homelessness, self-harming and suicidal thoughts, compared with the general population. This is particularly true of young LGBTIQA+ people who are coming to terms with their sexuality and experiencing victimisation and bullying at school. Some of the stressful experiences that can affect the mental health of an LGBTIQA+ person are:

• feeling different from other people
• being bullied (verbally or physically)
• feeling pressure to deny or change their sexuality
• feeling worried about coming out, and then being rejected or isolated
• feeling unsupported or misunderstood.

These pressures are on top of all the other stuff people have to deal with in life such as managing school, finding a job, forming relationships and making sense of your identity and place in the world.

If you are worried that someone you know has a mental health problem, look out for changes in their mood, behaviour, relationships, appetite, sleep patterns, coping and thinking. If these changes last more than a couple of weeks, talk to them about getting help. A good place to start is their doctor, or a phone or online service such as QLife External Link , beyondblue External Link or eheadspace External Link (for young people). If you are struggling with your own sexuality:

• Get support if you’re finding it hard to cope. Try talking to someone you trust – a friend, relative, doctor or counsellor, or use a helpline such as QLife External Link , beyondblue External Link or eheadspace External Link .
• Don’t hang around someone if they are abusive to you.
• Remember, there is no rush to figure out your sexuality. Take your time. And don’t feel pressured to put a label on it.
• If you think you’re gay but you don’t want to ‘come out’, it’s okay. If you want, you can read more about coming out External Link .

For information about your rights:

• Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission External Link

If you want to talk to someone, chat online, or find out more about LGBTIQA+ issues:

• QLife External Link (counselling and referral service for LGBTIQA+ people) – Tel. 1800 184 527
• headspace External Link (mental health service for ages 12–25) – Tel. 1800 650 890
• ReachOut External Link (youth mental health service)
• Beyond Blue External Link (for anyone feeling depressed or anxious) – Tel. 1300 22 4636
• Lifeline External Link (support for anyone having a personal crisis) – Tel. 13 11 14
• Kids Helpline External Link Tel. 1800 55 1800
• Switchboard External Link Tel. 1800 184 527 (telephone counselling, information and referrals)
• Suicide Call Back Service External Link Tel. 1300 659 467 (for anyone thinking about suicide)
• ACON External Link (for LGBTIQA+ health and HIV prevention and support)
• PFLAG Australia External Link (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays)
• A parent’s guide to their child’s sexuality External Link , headspace National Youth Mental Health Foundation, Department of Health, Australian Government.
• Sexual orientation, gender identity and intersex status discrimination External Link , Australian Human Rights Commission.
• All about being gay External Link , ReachOut, Australia.
• Factors affecting LGBTI people External Link , Beyond Blue, Australia.
• A language guide: trans and gender diverse inclusion External Link , 2017, ACON.
• The difference between sex, sexuality and gender External Link , ReachOut, Australia.
• Transgender and transsexuality External Link , Youth Central.
• Understanding your sexuality External Link , ReachOut, Australia.
• What does it mean to be asexual External Link ?, 2017, Minus18.
• Sexuality External Link , 2017, Jean Hailes for Women’s Health.

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Back to Dmytro Taranovsky's home page . Author: Dmytro Taranovsky Date: 2007-2012 Last Modified: July 10, 2012 (Last Small Change: September 17, 2015)

An Essay about Sex

List of Sections: The Nature of Sexual Feelings , Sex in an Ideal Society , Sex and the Law , Morality and Sex , Cultural Beliefs about Sex , Sex versus Drugs , Sex and Fundamental Rights

The Nature of Sexual Feelings

Sexual feelings are defined as feelings with a very strong localized physical pleasure component, or feelings that are closely connected/associated with such feelings. Evolutionary, sexual feelings are closely connected with reproduction; however, the connection is not ordinarily a part of the feeling. Sexual feelings are closely connected towards love and attraction, but these are not necessary for feelings to be sexual. As with all feelings, the essence and identity of sexual feelings lies in the understanding and perception of the feelings. As such, sexual pleasure cannot exist without an appropriate mental context. For example, otherwise pleasant feelings may be not truly enjoyable when the sex is coerced, and the victim may be confused over whether he or she enjoyed the encounter. It is also possible for a victim to enjoy the physical feelings, yet suffer much more from the emotional distress.

Sexual conduct refers to conduct with a sufficient nexus to sexual feelings. Throughout this essay, sex will be used to mean touching with intense sexual feelings, especially touching by another person. This differs somewhat from the standard usage. In particular masturbation, especially mutual masturbation, is treated as a type of sex. The term "sexual intercourse" is used in the conventional way.

As the definition suggests, sexual feelings are not special. The primary difference between sexual and non-sexual feelings is cultural, and the primary non-cultural difference is in the magnitude of the feelings. Consequently, the correct morality for sex is similar to morality for ordinary non-sexual massage. Although sexual feelings may be very strong, sexual behavior can quickly become a normal part of life, with the person's personality largely undisturbed.

Sexual feelings are likely to be stronger when equivalent stimulation is done by another person rather than oneself because with stimulation by another person, you lack a mental preimage of the feelings. Feelings are likely to be stronger when having sex first time (assuming that the physical behavior is equivalent to subsequent times) because of lack of mental constructs to deal with the feelings, and similarly for particular sexual behaviors/situations.

Physical feelings from comparable physical contact tend to be stronger in children partly because to some extent the strength of feelings is relative to other feelings experienced, and partly because of a reduced capacity to internalize feelings into routine mental constructs. (However, biological changes such as puberty may make analogous stimulation incomparable.)

The strength of sexual feelings can create a temporary mental state of altered reality. Basic properties of objects such as shape and color will be remain the same, but the perception will be different, the sexual experience will be the dominant feeling, and the physical world may appear less real.

Physical risks of sexual behaviors are not discussed here. The reader is encouraged to learn about the risks elsewhere, especially if the reader is planning on having sex. Here, it suffices to note that strong sexual feelings and interactions are often physically safe.

Most people in most situations sexually prefer a person of opposite sex. (By contrast, on average people tend to socialize with people of the same sex.) However, it is not possible for one to be sexually attracted to just males or to just females. Sexual orientation is a matter of degree, and your primary sexual orientation does not extend to all possible situations.

On an abstract level, homosexuality has the benefits of equality and inclusiveness. Specifically, in homosexual sex, (when desired) one partner can have approximately the same physical experience as the other. Furthermore, mutual attraction is possible even if there are more than two people. However, there are practical advantages to heterosexuality, such as are diversity (having two types of bodies may provide richer experience), certain biological adaptations, commonness of partners, cultural acceptance, and possibility of procreation.

Sexual feelings are on average pleasurable, but even then, they are not just pleasure. Sexual feelings contain other components and may even include significant pain.

Sexual urges are sexual feelings with a significant desire/suffering component: desire for sexual feelings, and suffering from lack of these sexual feelings. Sexual urges can be satisfied by creating these sexual feelings, usually through some type of genital massage (such as masturbation or sexual intercourse). Sexual urges are generally caused by sex-related thoughts and feelings and can be quite strong. For many people, sexual urges occur quite frequently. Although sexual urges involve suffering or something closely related to suffering, they may have pleasurable aspects as well. Suffering is necessary for pleasure to exist, and sexual pleasure is not an exception. When done in moderation, unfulfilled sexual desire and sexual abstinence can increase sexual pleasure.

Sex in an Ideal Society

Eventually, technological advances may make human biology irrelevant, but until then, sex as we know it will play an important role. Here is my vision of its role. The role represents both freedom and restraint.

On the one hand, sex is practiced openly, publicly, and casually. Sex is guilt-free. Most people are not shy about soliciting strangers for sex. Exchange of sex for money or favors is generally accepted. The right of everyone to have sex is respected both by law and private parties. Among other things, parents do not prevent children from having sex. A spouse does not get mad when the husband or wife has some casual extramarital sex. Sexual images are uncensored.

On the other hand, a majority are in (mostly) monogamous relationships. The family as we know it continues to be important. Sex is practiced in moderation, with people confident in declining it. The right to privacy and individual objections to sex and even (to a reasonable extent) sexual images are respected. Generally, no money is exchanged for sex--sex is generally enjoyable to both/all participants.

While humans will eventually transcend biological bodies, sex-like experiences will likely remain because of their emotional value. Future technology will overcome the limitations of wrong gender and of physical ugliness that currently prevent people from enjoying sex with each other.

Sex and the Law

Consent to sex.

• The conduct has no unacceptable physical risks (including any physical pain that persists after the activity).
• The conduct can be terminated immediately upon request.
• The person is either aware of the feelings that the interaction will involve, or the feelings are introduced gradually and the person is not deceived about the feelings involved.
• The conduct is not in exchange for money or other consideration, and the person knows that (see the next subsection about sex for money).
• The person is not deceived about the benefits of the conduct, or about any suffering that occurs during the conduct.
• The person is conscious and is readily capable of making and communicating an objection and knows or expects that an objection will be honored.
• The person makes no objection to the conduct or all objections are honored.
• The person affirmatively grants consent.
• Physical risks should be acceptable in sex if they are acceptable in other activities such as sports. Which physical risks are acceptable strongly depends on the presence of informed consent (or partial informed consent) to such risks. Psychological risks are excluded here since psychological harm is caused primarily by thoughts, and the right to have harmful thoughts is protected by the core freedom of thought. In addition, the concept of psychological risk is too amorphous, and psychological risks of safe consensual sex are mostly cultural and unpredictable.
• The second requirement refers to the technical ability to stop the conduct, and is usually satisfied for sex. By contrast, most mind altering drug use does not meet this requirement since drug effects ignore the user's request to become sober.
• Given the strength of sexual feelings, even with the availability of immediate termination, an additional protection is needed, namely a basic understanding of what feelings to expect. The person has to understand the feelings well enough to decide whether they are enjoyable or otherwise evaluate the feelings. Understanding the expected feelings as if from memory is sufficient. Also, gradual introduction of feelings in a state where the person is ready to object is sufficient, as the person is given ample opportunity to evaluate the feelings. However, a person may not be deceived into painful sex through a misleading promise of pleasure at the end. Real moral or psychological understanding of the feelings is not required; as of 2012, very few people have such understanding.
• Money can be a strong coercive force.
• It is not acceptable to trick a person into having sex by fabricating various benefits of sex (such as "sex will make you rich", "sex will make your skin beautiful"). 'Benefits' is construed broadly to include moral benefits and benefits to third parties. Moreover, deception can be indirect.
• Without an expectation that an objection will be honored and not trigger penalties, a person may be unlikely to object even to unwanted sex. Also, some psychological states make a person unlikely to object; if a person in such a state is unlikely to object to moderate pain, the person may be deemed incapable of objecting to sex. Also, a person may be incapable of objecting if he or she does not connect the sexual act with the other's intent; an example is when the person is deceived into believing that the sexual touching is unintentional.
• This is the basic element of consent.
• The requirement of affirmative agreement should be waived in the ordinary case where the person is expected to enjoy conduct and there are no special risks.
• In defining legal consent, the key factor is what the person is consenting to. In case of safe sex, the consent is to the immediate feeling. The issue of informed consent arises in case of tangible harm that cannot be undone. Because safe sex involves no such harm, consent to sex is treated more like consent to an amusement park ride than a consent to surgery. No intelligence test is required for consent to safe sex.
• Meeting the conditions of legal consent may require communication, explaining to the person certain aspects of the interaction.
• It is difficult for a person having sex the first time or having a new sexual experience to know exactly how it will feel, which necessitates the right to introduce unexpected feelings gradually. However, sudden sexual conduct (even when an objection is immediately honored) can still be criminalized; without affirmative consent, touching should be started gradually. Conditions (2) and (3)--to the extent they are required by law--may not be construed so as to prohibit ordinary orgasm, including the first orgasm.
• Videotaping and other recording of sexual interaction should be permitted if all participants are given a fair notice. In cases of sexual abuse, recording without notice should be permitted. Such recordings are, among other things, useful to secure a criminal conviction.
• Although explanation of psychological risks and of cultural perception of the conduct should not be required, it is a nice thing to do anyway.
• An affirmative 'yes' to sex should not ordinarily be required since much of clearly consensual sex is done without it. In addition, if one person is unsure of whether to have sex, a common practice is to introduce sexual touching/behavior gradually, letting the person decide on the limits as the interaction proceeds.
• A person can be indirectly deceived about the benefits of sex from claims (even such as "everyone your age has had sex") that imply a special benefit without explicitly stating it. Moreover, even in the absence of a specific claim, deception can occur through the presence of a special trust to act only in beneficial (or otherwise special) ways. Doctors, parents, teachers, and police officers are commonly entrusted in this way. Religious deception should be handled carefully so as to protect both the right to persuade a person to a religion, and the right not to be deceived into sex. Deception about things other than the benefits of sex should not invalidate the consent to sex (provided the other conditions of consent are met). However, such deception (for example, slander about the person's other sexual partners) can in certain cases be treated as a separate offense.
• The penalty for sex without legal consent should be determined on a case-by-case basis, some violations are much more serious than others. People should not be punished for activity that they non-negligently and in good-faith believed to be safe consensual sex.
• The eight proposed conditions are sufficient but not always necessary for consent. However, since sexual feelings may be unbearably strong, the right not to have sex (including the right to terminate an ongoing sex) is fundamental, and as such must be honored. Forced sex is unacceptable even in the rare cases when it is enjoyable and beneficial to the victim (even if such enjoyment and benefit was the intended and likely result). Consent refers to choice and will and is different from desire (which refers to feelings). Thus sex may be consensual but unwanted (legal) or wanted but nonconsensual (unlikely, but still illegal and unacceptable). Also, consent cannot be given retroactively. Sexual stimulation may be a permissible side-effect of a necessary treatment for a physical illness. However, forced sex may not be used as a treatment for mental illness, even if it is "medically" necessary and the person is a danger to self or others.
• Bondage role-playing should be permitted as long as the consent conditions are met. In such role-play, it is not necessary for word "No" to count as an objection provided that both of the following are met (a) given the totality of circumstances, the person does not appear to object, and (b) the person is clearly capable of giving a genuine objection.
• Deprivation of sex should not ordinarily be used as punishment. However, some punishment, such as incarceration, properly involves physical segregation and the corresponding deprivation of sex.
• Intoxicated persons should not be prohibited from having safe consensual sex. A later regret of sex is not very different from regret of a number of other choices the person may have made while being intoxicated.
• A person should be allowed to make directions about possible sex in case the person becomes unconscious. The legal default should be no sex, except perhaps in narrow circumstances (such as some cases waking up one's sexual partner through sexual contact).
• Laws about sex should ideally be written in age neutral terms.
• Infant circumcision that is not medically necessary should be criminalized, without religious exceptions. Circumcision amounts to a permanent body mutilation. One's religion is not a legal excuse to harm other people.
• Although infants cannot be meaningfully give consent, they can still give a positive or a negative response. Genital stimulation of infants by parents and other authorized caretakers should be permitted provided that the immediate response is positive and the stimulation is harmless or beneficial to the infant.
• Corporal punishment (by parents, educators, and other people) must not be permitted. This is a matter of fundamental rights. The fundamental freedom from physical restraint includes the right to engage in safe consensual physical interaction (excluding commerce). This right applies to people of limited intelligence and experience (such as children) and to conduct that is traditionally regarded as immoral (such as sex). However, there is more to consent than lack of objection. In addition to the eight conditions, it is probably constitutional to require provision (but not understanding) of reasonable additional information clearly specified by the law. Parents must not be permitted to violate the children's fundamental rights, including the right to engage in safe consensual sex. Distribution of all information (including pornography) to all people is protected by the fundamental right of freedom of expression.

Sex for Money

Because sex for money is commercial, and because of the inherent risk of coercion, such sex is not (in my opinion) constitutionally protected. However, a ban on prostitution would be unwise. Instead, laws may require (using more specific phrasing than here) that (1) sex is consensual, (2) sex is physically safe, (3) the payment is fair, and (4) all involved parties receive appropriate information, and know what the compensation is. Part of the fairness involves the right to terminate the sexual conduct at any time without undue penalty. Non-monetary compensation may be used provided that it is not based on special authority of one person. Use of special authority as compensation should ordinarily be prohibited. For example, the government may not shorten someone's jail term in exchange for sex.

A contract to abstain from sex should not ordinarily be enforceable, as such contract is in tension with the fundamental freedom to physical interaction.

When both people and rational and informed, their relationship is (usually) mutually beneficial even if it involves monetary exchange. Informal use of sex in exchange for something is very common, and cannot, consistent with fundamental rights, be entirely prohibited. For example, a person may terminate a friendship (and its benefits) in part because of a lack of sexual satisfaction. Much of pornography production involves paying actors to have sex. Also, many people, including children, rely on money from sex to buy food and other necessities; these people cannot reasonably be expected to stop having sex for money.

Sex Education

Public nudity and indecent exposure.

In deciding to what extent to prohibit nudity, indecent exposure, and outdoor sex, the enjoyment of the participants should be weighted against the offense to the observers. In evaluating offensiveness, one should consider the offense from ugliness of the appearance, rather than the moral offense from violating cultural norms. Considerations of offensives should be significantly discounted because the viewer can avert his or her eyes, and because there is no right not be offended. Moreover, because the sole reason for prohibition is visual offensives, indecent exposure should be treated as pure speech, thus magnifying the value of the perpetrator's interests.

Nudity should be legal in most outdoor areas, including inside cities. Nudity is a natural state of the human body, and is comfortable for sunbathing and swimming. Nudity can be very beautiful, and is frequently used in art. The right to be without clothing is an important freedom that should be respected. The right to nudity should include the right to have an erection (erections can arise spontaneously and prohibiting them would cause anxiety and limit freedom).

Outdoor sex should be legal when it is done discreetly, "not in your face". While there are substantial offensiveness considerations, they are ordinarily outweighed by the liberty of the participants, as the right to have sex is part of the freedom from physical restraint and sex can be one of the most meaningful activities humans engage in. Current (as of 2012) laws may effectively require postponement of sex for hours (or worse) and otherwise impair sex.

Morality and Sex

Introduction.

In the section "Morality and Sex", I list various recommendations relating to sex. These recommendations are directed to the present society rather than a hypothetical society with correct views about sex. The reader should keep in mind that I am not perfect and can make mistakes.

The essay does not advise you whether to have sex. The decision whether to have sex is a personal manner, and it is ordinarily wrong to pressure people to have sex. Moreover, to the extent that sex is enjoyable and without impediments, people usually end up having sex, so it is unnecessary to advise here for people to have sex.

The main reason to have non-reproductive sex is that sex can be a source of happiness. In addition to directly causing happiness, sex can enrich one's experience and promote human bonds. (This essay does not discuss whether and when to have children.) I subscribe to utilitarian theory of morality. The good is to maximize happiness, with equal consideration of everyone's interests.

However, in receiving pleasure, there is a risk of other activities becoming less enjoyable, which decreases (and can even reverse) the net effect of the pleasure. The key is to have sexual pleasure in a meaningful and enriching way.

Sexual conduct has no moral significance beyond the feelings that it causes. (Here, the feelings include long-term feelings as well, such as suffering from a disease.) Sexual feelings have no moral significance beyond the significance attached to them by the mind. For example, when sexual feelings are perceived as pleasurable and without negative connotations, their presence (all other things being equal) is good.

Different societies have attached various moral and religious significance to sex. Examples include "sex is wife's sacred duty to the husband", "boys should be masculine and girls feminine", and "homosexuality is wrong". These beliefs are wrong, and ultimately, irrational. However, there are sufficient historical reasons for their prevalence.

Morality and Law

In ordinary cases, you should respect the law. In choosing to break the law, you should evaluate its effect on you and (with equal consideration of interests) on other people, and then apply a strong weighting towards compliance with the law. The weighting towards compliance is decreased if the law is routinely ignored and unenforced, or if the law is profoundly unjust or irrational or inconsistent with important freedoms.

A List of Suggestions

• It is important to learn about sex.
• Sexual relationships with love and commitment are likely to be more fulfilling than anonymous purely sexual encounters.
• It is very difficult to learn how sex feels without trying it. It is difficult to know whether one would enjoy sex without trying it. A reasonable suggestion is to try sexual conduct to gain understanding and to see whether sex is something that you like.
• Sexual relationships should ordinarily be non-exclusive. Do not pressure your partner to not have sexual relationships with other people.
• Try to be open about your feelings and relationships. It is especially important to be open with your partner about your feelings. However, to the extent that you may be discriminated against because of erroneous beliefs other people have about sex, you should balance this factor against the natural benefits of openness.
• You should ordinarily respect your commitments to keep someone's sexual interactions and preferences private. This is not an absolute rule, particularly in cases of sexual abuse. You can also discuss the relationships anonymously. Ordinarily, you have a right not to disclose you sexual preferences and activities, and ordinary you should not pressure other people to reveal their sexual preferences and conduct. It may be best to be assertive about your right to sexual privacy.
• Relationships where one party does not like sexual conduct but accepts it as a debt of friendship are likely to be unfulfilling and problematic. Consider making such a relationship non-sexual. If you and your partner choose to continue the sexual relationship, then make sure you both understand the role of sex in the relationship, and consider whether using explicit compensation for sex is better.
• Following your sexual orientation--even if it is considered unacceptable in your society--can lead to great joy and emotional fulfillment. If seeking counseling about sex, it is important that the counselor accepts your sexual orientation.
• If you have strong deeply held beliefs against sex, then consider them as an important argument against sex since your enjoyment of sex may be marred by guilt and anxiety. You may want to delay sex until you resolve these (erroneous) beliefs. However, it is important to learn about sex, even if such learning is expressly contrary to your religion. If objecting to sex for moral reasons, then state your objection early. By waiting until the latest possible moment, you may find your morals compromised.
• Sexual intercourse need not be the best way to achieve sexual satisfaction. Other possibilities include solo and mutual masturbation, which can be done in a variety of ways. (Masturbation tends to have much lower physical risks then sexual intercourse. In this essay, masturbation is treated as a type of sex.)
• Sex is sometimes wrong. Here are some valid reasons against sex - you may not enjoy sex, especially if it is done in a wrong way or with a wrong person - a longer interval between instances of sex can make sex more enjoyable - sex may involve physical risks (direct injury, pregnancy, sexual transmitted diseases) - guilt and shame you may have about sex (however, it is important for you to resolve these feelings) - the society may discriminate against you (or your partner) for having sex - your partner does not consent, has valid reasons against sex, or believes that the particular instance of sex is wrong. A person's moral opposition to sexual conduct should be given due respect and not ignored. - your partner expects sex to imply commitment of a kind that you do not wish to make
• Spiritual relationships can be stronger than even very strong (physical) sexual feelings. It is wrong to explicitly limit your relationships to (for example) people of a particular sex. While sexual attractiveness is frequently an important factor in one's relationships, other factors can be more important.

Morality of Adult-Child Sex

• As the more powerful and knowledgeable person, you have a duty to ensure morality of the relationship.
• Ensure that the relationship is consensual.
• Chronological age of the child is not relevant per se. What is relevant are the child's understanding, the societal views of sex with children, and the child's sexual preferences and anatomy.
• Avoid conduct with unacceptable physical risks. It may be best to avoid conduct with significant physical risks.
• You may have to keep your conduct secret (even from the child's parents and counselors), and instruct the child to do the same. Even in the absence of criminal prosecution, both you and the child may be discriminated against if the relationship becomes known.
• Since the relationship is secret, you will have to provide any necessary counseling to the child. Provide appropriate counseling before, during, and after the sexual conduct.
• If you are in a position of authority over the child, some counseling may even be necessary to ensure that the relationship is truly consensual.
• Do not have the relationship if you believe it to be wrong.
• Convince the child that the conduct is morally right before doing it. Do not have sex with the child if you fail to convince the child that the conduct is right. If child later feels guilty and betrayed, serious psychological harm may follow, even if he or she enjoyed the sexual experience. Also, make sure that the child wants the sexual relationship. It make take time for a child to overcome his or her irrational opposition to sex.
• Explain the nature of the child's sexual feelings to the best of your ability. Also, if appropriate, explain that other people are wrong in their condemnation of adult-child sex. A partial explanation may sound like "Genital massage is like ordinary massage. However, your feelings will be much stronger. It will feel very good. If it feels weird, just relax and enjoy it, or ask me to slow down. Contrary to what others may have told you, there is nothing wrong with these feelings or with such massage. It is harmless. If you don't like it, just tell me to stop. Do you want to do it?"
• Do not deceive the child. Do not make false statements like [as of 2012] "Genital fondling is a standard component of therapeutic massage."
• The risks of such a relationship include legal punishment and social discrimination, and for the child, harm from his or her erroneous beliefs related to the relationship. However, the existence of such relationships adds to the richness of the human experience, and such relationships are a source of joy for millions of children and adults worldwide.
• If you pay a child to have sex, then - ensure that the payment is fair and that the transaction (sex plus payment) is in the child's best interests - ensure that the child understands what the payment is - ensure that the payment is concrete and is not part of any special authority you may have over the child - if necessary, explain to the child that getting paid to have sex is OK, and is consistent with human dignity, and is not like selling one's body, etc. - If you act as the child's parent, then paying the child to have sex with you is probably a bad idea. - Even if the above conditions are met, this does not necessarily mean that the conduct is right.
• The above need not fully apply if the child is the one initiating sexual conduct, or if the child has sufficient experience.
• Verify that your participation is consensual. If not, then it is child sexual abuse. For victims of sexual abuse, a good coping strategy is to try to make the best of the experience. Also, counseling with a qualified person is important (however, unfortunately, current reporting regulations may deny you the option of keeping the sexual relationship confidential).
• In choosing whether to have sex, you are exercising your fundamental right to privacy, which is a part of your fundamental right to be free from arbitrary physical restraint. Your privacy is yours to keep or share. You have a right not to have sex, and if you do have sex, to set your limits, and to decide whether to allow recording of the sex for others to enjoy.
• Be careful if the adult only appears to care about you sexually. Trust and emotional connection are important.
• Do not accept alcohol, tobacco, or other recreational drugs from the adult. An adult offering you recreational drugs is probably disregarding your well-being; beware of such adults.
• Verify that the interaction is physically safe; some adults are reckless about this.
• Do not consent to sexual conduct that you do not want.
• If you feel overwhelmed with feelings, then consider asking the other person to stop. Ponder and contemplate your feelings and then decide whether to proceed.
• Do not tell other people (including parents and counselors) about your sexual relationship unless it amounts to sexual abuse, with the exception of those people who are likely to accept your relationship.
• On the other hand, do not hesitate to discuss your feelings with the adult, and with other people whom you can trust to keep your secret.
• Take time to think about what happened, but do not become obsessed with it. Sexual feelings are a healthy part of life, but should not be the dominant part.
• If you like the experience and choose it continue, then take a positive exploratory attitude toward your new feelings. Societies are often irrational about sex. Sex is not a guilty pleasure, and it does not make you impure.
• Be cautious and discreet about initiating sexual conduct with other people. Many people do not like it or have moral objections to it.
• Legal issues aside, getting paid to have sex is OK. However, do not let what may be a sudden access to money by a corrupting influence over you; moral corruption hurts not only other people but yourself as well.

Cultural Beliefs about Sex

The belief that sex is evil.

• Given the central role of sex plays in reproduction (and hence in societal survival), and given the intense feelings accompanying sex, sexual intercourse (whether or not it can lead to reproduction) is viewed as a special class of conduct, with its own moral rules and restrictions.
• Human nature--and romantic love, in particular--has a tendency towards monogamy. This may cause sexual monogamy to be viewed as the best state. Moreover, human nature (for evolutionary reasons) has a tendency towards disapproval of sex between a marriage partner and a third person. This may cause the society to consider such relationships immoral. Treating sex outside marriage as evil may help to channel sexual energy towards raising families. The evolutionary tendency is to disapprove of extramarital sex by your spouse (especially if you are heterosexual male) but not yourself: Extramarital sex by your spouse may cause you or your spouse to spend resources to raise a child who does not have your DNA. However, with contraception and paternity testing, this reason is less valid today.
• Sexual feelings are (in many cases) so exceptionally strong and pleasant that they impair the judgment and cause people to discount other moral considerations when seeking sex. Treating sex as immoral acts as a counterweight against the bias towards having sex. (Sex-related impairment of judgment may also be considered evil in itself.) Because of the strength of sexual feelings, people continue to have sex in the face of social opposition. Such defiance can increase the harshness of the societal intolerance as the society tries to take stronger measures.
• Because genitals are concealed in many cultures, and because genitals look different from the rest of the body, genitals may appear very ugly (as if they are abnormal) to many people. This causes a visceral aversion to most forms of sexual conduct, especially towards "unnatural" sex. Homosexual sex may be seen as contrary to the traditional gender norms.

Opposition to Adult-child Sex

• The primary mechanism of harm is moral conflict. The children involved often believe that they have done something wrong and therefore feel guilt or shame. This is reinforced by the society having a negative attitude toward sex (and by the need to keep sex secret). Moreover, if the child believes that the adult was wrong in choosing to have sex, the child may feel betrayed by the adult, and suffer from this feeling. Such harm is particularly strong if, for example, the adult is a priest who is otherwise preaching abstinence until marriage, or if the adult is a parent or a caretaker. The strength of both sexual feelings and sexual taboos magnifies the moral conflict.
• Given the current legal and social climate, adult-child sexual relationships are usually secret, which denies the child of opportunity to discuss and resolve the issues with the relationship.
• If the relationship becomes known, then the child may suffer from discrimination, as well as from the likely termination of the emotional relationship with the adult.
• Additionally, some types of sexual interaction involve substantial physical risks.
• On an individual level, people tend to follow the society in their beliefs, and are pressured by the society not to say that adult-child sex is often good for children.
• Adult-child sex is viscerally viewed as horrible and immoral, and therefore harmful.
• For children, having consensual sex with adults is correlated with being physically, emotionally, and sexually abused. Statistically, adults who like sex with children are more likely to select children who have been abused: Protecting children from abuse often includes "protecting" them from sex, so children protected from abuse are less likely to have sex with adults. Since the predominant moral view is that adult-child sex is wrong, adults who have sex with children are more likely to do what they or the society think is wrong, and hence are more likely to harm the children. Also, sexual abuse can break a child's moral opposition to sex and can cause the child to learn that sex feels good, which makes the child more likely to have consensual sex.
• When the relationship becomes known, the children involved are expected to behave like victims, and therefore they may behave that way, which leads to the appearance of harm (and can lead to actual harm as well).
• The media often fails to separate consensual from non-consensual adult-child sex, causing the public to conflate the two. Non-consensual sex is often very harmful.
• Most importantly, in the present society, notifying the public about the relationship would mean that the relationship will be terminated and the adult (and quite often, the child) punished or otherwise harmed. Consequently, the children are only likely to report the relationship if they view it as harmful or immoral, creating a strong sampling bias toward harmful cases.
• Adults are supposed to supervise children, and therefore be in control of children. A child will not (or should not) say "No" to an adult. Children (especially victims of sexual abuse) may fail to object to non-consensual sex because they are not aware of their right to object. Correspondingly, adult-child sex is viewed as much more objectionable than sexual play between children. For example, many people believe that it is normal and morally fine for a 10-year old boy to masturbate, and at the same time support mandatory prison terms for adults who massage genitals of 10-year old boys.
• Children do not really understand the meaning and moral implications of sex and therefore their consent is invalid. The view is that the children do not understand that sex is a poison for the soul, and thus adult-child sex is no more consensual than unknowing ingestion of poison.
• Sexual desires can cloud children's judgment. A sexual urge can short-circuit their consideration of the moral elements of sex and of the physical risks.
• Some sexual interaction involves physical risks which many children are ill-equipped to evaluate.
• The typical limitations of children's judgment are (it is argued) universally applicable to all children. Alternatively, because sex with children is so wrong, rational and informed children will always say 'no', so all children who say 'yes' are deceived, seduced, or coerced into sex.

Sex versus Drugs

Sex and drugs are often grouped together because both of them are considered by many to be immoral, both involve aspects that many find disgusting, both can be very harmful, both can involve strong pleasure, and both can cause an altered state of consciousness where normal concerns are suppressed. Such grouping leads some people to believe that since sex is moral, so are drugs. This belief is wrong.

• drugs are harmful
• drugs are addictive
• drugs impair judgment to the point of making their users temporarily less human. Once the drug is taken, this impairment is not consensual, that is it continues regardless of whether the user wants it.
• sex is not harmful
• sex is not physically addictive (but all good things can be psychologically addictive)
• sex is consensual
• sexual desire tends to be self-limiting in that a person will want to spend only a small portion of his or her time having sex.

Sex and Fundamental Rights

This section is not a general essay on fundamental rights. Instead, it is a detailed explanation of fundamental rights related to sex. Fundamental rights are a difficult topic, and parts of this section are more abstract than other sections.

Fundamental rights are the indispensable rights of the people in the civilized society. Fundamental rights exist independently of the government or popular will, and laws that contradict them are illegitimate. Protection of fundamental rights should be written in the Constitution so that the rights can be enforced through judicial review, and whenever possible, existing Constitutions should be construed to protect all fundamental rights. The United States Constitution protects all fundamental rights through the guarantee of due process, "no person shall be ... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law" (with the exception of proportional representation for the Senate and for the presidential election).

A collection of rights

• prohibitions on distribution of certain information and ideas (such as child pornography) to certain people (such as children) (excluding reasonable non-disclosure agreements).
• prohibitions on safe consensual sex (excluding commerce)
• prohibitions on recording of sex when all participants give consent
• blanket prohibitions on nudity and sex in forests and other such public places, excluding cases with reckless disregard for the offensiveness of the conduct.
• laws requiring reporting of the above activities
• laws requiring parental notification or permission for exercise of children's fundamental rights
• general prohibitions on condoms or sex toys

The first right is the core of the freedom of speech. Freedom of speech includes the right to communicate arbitrary information to an arbitrary person. (Note: Reasonable penalties for breaking reasonable non-disclosure agreements may often be imposed since the person has agreed to the penalty through signing the agreement, provided that appropriate safeguards are met.) Freedom of speech is a necessary component of any democratic society. Information is equivalent to an integer or a binary sequence that encodes information. Thus, information is logically separate from claims about information. False claims are not (at least not always) constitutionally protected.

The right to receive information includes the right to view the information in visual form. For the blind, an analogue of visual image is high-resolution tactile stimulation. This right is necessary due to the limitation of typical human cognitive skills. It is very difficult to fully appreciate a painting just by reading its verbal description or by viewing a binary sequence that encodes the full picture. Some argue that conceivably, some visual pattern will directly cause fatal brain hemorrhage or some other such severe harm. However, the right to view information in visual form should still be construed categorically since

• It is very unlikely such harmful pictures actually exist.
• Given the nature of the human brain, it is difficult to separate harm of understanding of the picture from harm that occurs independent of the understanding. In both cases, feelings can cause physical distress, and the government must not be permitted to censor visual display of a picture based on harm from its understanding. Thus, misery (and even suicide or physical illness) from falling in love based on a picture cannot be grounds to prohibit its visual display.
• Categorical protection gives security and freedom that a partial protection lacks.

The third prohibition is invalid since the videotaping does no harm except through recording of information. To protect freedom of speech, the government is prohibited from arbitrarily suppressing information gathering. Thus, videotaping may not be prohibited unless an information source is privileged. However, a person is entitled to ownership of his or her body, and that right includes allowing collection of information about the body. This is particularly true for videotaping since it records only those pieces of information that are available anyway--the benefit of videotaping over remembering and telling is rather the easiness, reliability, and completeness of the recording.

The fourth prohibition is invalid since it serves no legitimate governmental purpose. The fact that the activity takes publicly is irrelevant if there is no overriding danger of unwilling persons being offended in a visceral way. Some amount and risk of visual offensiveness must be tolerated to protect fundamental rights. The government's sole interest is visual expressiveness of the act, and therefore the act receives substantial protection from the freedom of speech.

The fifth prohibition violates the right to privacy. The right to privacy is necessary to protect against discrimination by private people or misguided governmental officials. For example, by keeping sex private, a person may be protected from being fired from his or her job.

The sixth prohibition is invalid since fundamental rights may not be violated by any authority. Parental consent cannot be required for having safe consensual sex.

The right to manufacture, sell, and use condoms (consistent with general laws about business, safety, and manufacturing) is fundamental since a ban on condoms would be arbitrary but for the impermissible governmental interest in suppressing sex. A general ban on sex toys is similarly invalid.

The second prohibition is a particularly difficult one to analyze, and is the subject of the next section.

Freedom from Physical Restraint

The nature and scope of freedom from physical restraint.

Although freedom of communication is at the center of liberty, biological humans are more than just communicating entities. They have bodies, which are essential for survival, and thus protected through fundamental rights. Even if the issues of health are set aside, governmental control of human bodies would amount to a power too great and potential for coercion too strong to be acceptable. Thus, freedom to control one's body is (subject to certain restrictions) fundamental. This control implies freedom from arbitrary physical restraint, such as the right (again, with restrictions) not to have one's hands tied behind the back. The core scope of freedom from physical restraint is the right to choose the location and position of the body and its parts, both the location in itself, and the location relative to other people. This right (as explained below) in turn implies a right to engage in private physically safe consensual physical interaction.

However, while fundamental, physical freedom of the body is by itself too broad to be granted as an absolute right. The resolution to this dilemma is to analyze potential government interests and their effect on the liberty to determine the permissible legal grounds for restraint. Then, within the scope of these grounds, but not outside of them, governmental interests are balanced against the liberty of the person. The resolution is discussed below.

One legitimate interest is to prevent harm to other people. The harm need not be physical harm; for example (in some cases) unwanted sensory input can be prohibited. However, the relationship to harm must be sufficiently direct. For example, the government may not restrain person A because B threatens to kill C (or B) if A is not restrained.

The government also has an interest in protecting a person from causing physical harm to himself or herself, and it may (in some cases) restrain the person accordingly. This power is necessary to prevent victims from being coerced or deceived into committing suicide. However, the restrictions must be narrowly tailored. For example, when an activity is unsafe but for acceptable safety equipment (such as condoms), the government may not overreact and prohibit both the activity (on safety grounds) and the equipment since a more narrowly tailored regulation would be to require the equipment to be used. Moreover, if activity is protected, the government may not indirectly deter it by prohibiting the safety equipment (that would have been clearly legal but for the deterrence interest). If the danger is from a (human) third party, the government may (sometimes) restrict the person's location with respect to the third party (ex. prevent a meeting if the person is likely to be killed) and require other safety measures, but the government may not prohibit conduct merely because the third party is opposed to it, even in cases of clear and present danger (for example, A may not be prohibited from having sex with B even if C is likely to kill A because of the sex provided that the sex does not make it physically easier for C to kill A).

Especially with regard to children, the government -- in combination with parents/guardians -- has an interest that much (but not all) of the person's time is spent valuably (for example, for education). In pursuit of this interest, a reasonable limitation may sometimes be imposed on the timing and duration of interactions so as not to displace other valuable activities.

A restriction of interactions with other people as a natural consequence of incarceration or analogous punishment may also be imposed. However, the consequence must be a natural one. For example, in the absence of a physical danger, the government may not prohibit back massage as a condition of probation. Restraint to a certain body position (such as having hands tied) may not be used as punishment (as opposed to a reasonable restraint) because of unacceptable danger of cruelty and coercion.

The physical freedom includes a liberty interest in tools that enable the freedom. For example, the government may not prohibit walking canes to discourage the weak from walking, nor may the government prohibit sex toys to discourage sex.

Also, the government interests must be balanced against the significance of the restraint imposed. Safety regulations on sexual activity (ordinarily) must not be arbitrarily severe compared to generally applicable regulations (such as safety regulations in sports).

Human interactions are within the literal scope of freedom from physical restraint. Human interaction that goes beyond communication is central to the lives of biological humans. In consensual interactions, in so far as a certain movement of person B is intended by A, then with respect to harm to A, it is qualitatively similar to that movement being done by A. Thus, the government may not ordinarily prohibit the movement of B on the ground of harm to A beyond the government's capacity to prohibit A's movement on the ground of self-harm. (However, at least with respect to the policy, there are exceptions. For example prohibiting killing on request while permitting suicide is reasonable because it helps to ensure that the intent to kill/die comes from the victim.)

While physical harm provides a legal limitation on the freedom from physical restraint, consensual mental harm does not. The notion of mental harm is too amorphous and its scope too broad for the freedom from physical restraint to receive needed protection if there is a psychological harm exception to the freedom. While physical harm is clear, even profound mental changes can easily be morally unclear. While following certain rules prevents physical harm, the sources of mental harm are endless. Finally, mental harm comes essentially from thoughts, which are protected by the freedom of thought and thus outside of government regulation.

Appraisal of psychological consequences may not be required

Nor may the government require here an appraisal of the psychological consequences. Freedom generally implies freedom to act irrationally. The power to require an appraisal of certain consequences implies a power to suppress based on those consequences. It is one thing to require that certain (easily available) information be provided, but appraisal requires more. The requirement of appraisal implies a possible prohibition on the conduct if (1) the person does not understand the consequences stated, or (2) the person unreasonably disbelieves the stated consequences, or (3) the person is unreasonable in producing a decision based on these consequences.

These requirements are so flexible and open-ended that a hypothetical society of hyperintelligent beings could easily construe them so strictly as to effectively prohibit ordinary humans on Earth from giving informed consent to anything serious. For example, understanding the consequences may require an ability to research foreseeable consequences, as well as sufficient intelligence, linguistic ability, and background knowledge to understand the text. Properly reaching a decision may require integrating the moral value function over the space of possible consequences--something that few ordinary humans actually do.

In addition, the notion of being unreasonable is sufficiently ephemeral so as to permit the judges (even judges in advanced societies) to classify many true beliefs as unreasonable. For example, in a purely atheist society, evangelical Christianity may be misdiagnosed as schizophrenia (in particular, as bizarre delusions that cause significant mental distress).

Moreover, if the government could prohibit an action because of inability to understand the consequences, then presumably the government could prohibit the action when the consequences are unknown since in both cases, the person makes the decision without understanding the likely consequences.

Finally, psychological consequences are exceptionally difficult to predict, understand, and appraise, thus magnifying the danger of requiring informed consent to psychological harm. Informed consent is best described not in binary terms but as a matter of degree. The above is not intended to disparage the ordinary use of informed consent to balance interests, but merely its use as a qualification on a categorical right. The degree to which the consent is informed is important, for example, with regard to elective surgery.

Mental harm and physical harm

Finally, we address attempts to characterize psychological consequences as physical ones, thereby obviating the right to be touched in a psychologically harmful way. It is argued that all mental processes are physical processes in the brain and that therefore all psychological harm is brain damage. However, there is a qualitative difference between affecting brain through a physical injury, and affecting the brain through consensual sensory input. The government has a broad authority to regulate the former, but only a narrow authority to regulate the later. The difference is the mechanism by which the brain is affected. Moreover, while brain trauma can easily be characterized as harmful, the effect of sensory input is much more subtle and whether it is harmful or beneficial is usually a value judgment, not a medical one.

I do not believe that the right to choose sensory input is categorical. For example, the government may prohibit intentional self-inducement of brain seizures through flashing lights. However, such authority must be construed in a very narrow way. First the harm must be an inherent neurological harm and not a consequence of the person's or society's appraisal of the feelings or behaviors. Second, the government bears the burden of proving that the harm is inherent neurological harm. Third, even if the above conditions are met, the governmental action is subject to strict scrutiny review with respect to this harm. (Note: If technology creates new and qualitatively different types of sensory input, the government may have a broader authority with respect to these new types of input.) These conditions are necessary to deny governmental authority to prohibit on the basis of psychological harm. The burden of proof requirement is somewhat analogous to the requirement that a person must be proved guilty before being punished for a crime.

I am not aware of any case of consensual touching (with no direct physical harm) with normal persons where these conditions are met. Certainly, daily sexual stimulation to orgasm does not constitute such harm even if the orgasm is unusually powerful and even if the subject is a young child. (A conceivable exception is the presence of certain rare brain conditions; however, having a level of sexual desire comparable to that of a normal adolescent does not constitute such a condition.) Psychologists generally agree that masturbation in children is not inherently harmful to the brain (an exception is psychologists with a religious agenda). Millions of years of evolution have ensured that affectionate touch has a nurturing value, and that masturbation is not harmful. Moreover, the difference between self-massage of genitals and such massage (including oral stimulation) by an adult is primarily a mental one. (At the least, there is no proof of inherent neurological harm arising from the physical differences in the mechanism of touching.) Thus, guilt, anger, shame, powerlessness, and other such alleged dangers of consensual adult-child sex arise because of thoughts about the feelings rather than through involuntary low-level reactions to the signals emitted by the sensory neurons. Therefore, these consequences do not deprive the act of its constitutional protection.

An example of protected action

To illustrate the extent of the fundamental rights, here is an example of a protected action. A man performs oral sex on an ordinary seven year old boy about once a day. Sometimes, the boy performs oral sex on the man. Sometimes the man massages and penetrates the boy's anus with a lubricated finger. There is no unacceptable physical risk. The boy agrees to the sex because it feels good and recklessly disregards (or just does not understand) the usual warnings about possible psychological harm from adult-child sex. The parents of the boy object to the sex, but the boy chooses to do it anyway.

• The example is deliberately sexual and involves a child since the conflict between fundamental rights and current practice is greatest in sexual behavior, particularly with respect to children.
• Penetration is included in the right of relative positioning of one body relative to another.
• The interaction would be protected even if the adult is the child's parent or caretaker.
• The interaction would be protected even if there are additional (consenting) persons involved.
• The interaction would be protected even if the boy had orgasms.
• Videotaping of the activity would be protected if the boy agrees to it and understands the general nature of videotaping. An ordinary 7 year old is clearly capable of that. Specific understanding of the likely consequences of videotaping cannot be required.
• Fundamental rights are (predominantly) rights to make choices. Full exercise of the freedom from arbitrary physical restraint requires a (conscious) choice to act in that way. There is a wide disagreement between people on the point at which the human organism (or its soul) becomes sentient, or starts to make choices, or even about the nature of human choices. I will not address the disagreement here other than to state the following: Most children are fully conscious and are capable of making genuine choices before their seventh birthday. While 7-year old children may understand less than adults, they are not living in a non-sentient or in a dreamlike state. Also, one's consistent inclination to choose in a certain way merely indicates a preference and does not make the choice less genuine. In the example, the choice of the boy to have sex can be inferred from the clear appearance of such choice.

Consent to orgasm

We conclude this essay on a more immediately entertaining topic. So positive is the experience of orgasm, that the issue of consent to orgasm is often overlooked. A ban on orgasm would be silly for practical reasons, but here we are concerned with orgasm as a fundamental right.

Orgasm presents special issues of consent because

• Orgasm is involuntary, and thus it will continue regardless of the will of the person.
• The feelings during the orgasm may be extremely intense, and conscious thought may be suppressed during orgasm.
• For the first orgasm, the person may not know how it will feel.

However, the presence of a significant consequence does not automatically negate the fundamental right. Instead, a balancing of the interests must be performed. For the combination of the following reasons, an ordinary orgasm (including the first orgasm) is constitutionally protected:

• Although orgasm is involuntary, the physical stimulation as an act is voluntary. Orgasm is not under control of another person and is thus different from forced sex. Moreover, withdrawal of consent during the orgasm will dramatically diminish the usual mental impact of the orgasm. Suppression of conscious thought during orgasm is to a large extent a voluntary consequence as the person concentrates on the feelings. Additionally, since orgasm often takes place in a relaxed environment (such as in bed), a person's reduced responsiveness to the environment is fine. After all, most people spend hours sleeping in bed.
• Orgasm is a biologically natural and ordinarily a psychologically harmless event.
• The intensity of the feelings is compensated for by the short duration of the orgasm.
• For a majority of people, orgasm is an overwhelmingly positive experience.
• The naturalness and usefulness of the orgasm as the sexual climax, and the pleasure and intensity of the feelings magnifies the person's interests in having an orgasm.
• A person who previously had an orgasm can ordinarily appraise the feelings to decide whether to have an orgasm. This appraisal overrides the governmental interests against the orgasm.
• For the first orgasm, the issue of consent is exacerbated because the person may not know how it will feel. However, the person has a special interest in having the first orgasm because (1) by having an orgasm, the person will learn how it will feel, (2) the first orgasm is necessary for any subsequent orgasms. Also, there is no unacceptable risk of unbearable pain.
• The above analysis of orgasm is confirmed by the practically complete lack of legislation that ban orgasm in particular (as opposed to sexual stimulation in general).

Comprehensive sexuality education: For healthy, informed and empowered learners

Did you know that only 37% of young people in sub-Saharan Africa can demonstrate comprehensive knowledge about HIV prevention and transmission? And two out of three girls in many countries lack the knowledge they need as they enter puberty and begin menstruating? Early marriage and early and unintended pregnancy are global concerns for girls’ health and education: in East and Southern Africa pregnancy rates range 15-25%, some of the highest in the world. These are some of the reasons why quality comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) is essential for learners’ health, knowledge and empowerment. 

What is comprehensive sexuality education or CSE?

Comprehensive sexuality education - or the many other ways this may be referred to - is a curriculum-based process of teaching and learning about the cognitive, emotional, physical and social aspects of sexuality. It aims to equip children and young people with knowledge, skills, attitudes and values that empowers them to realize their health, well-being and dignity; develop respectful social and sexual relationships; consider how their choices affect their own well-being and that of others; and understand and ensure the protection of their rights throughout their lives.

CSE presents sexuality with a positive approach, emphasizing values such as respect, inclusion, non-discrimination, equality, empathy, responsibility and reciprocity. It reinforces healthy and positive values about bodies, puberty, relationships, sex and family life.

How can CSE transform young people’s lives?

Too many young people receive confusing and conflicting information about puberty, relationships, love and sex, as they make the transition from childhood to adulthood. A growing number of studies show that young people are turning to the digital environment as a key source of information about sexuality.

Applying a learner-centered approach, CSE is adapted to the age and developmental stage of the learner. Learners in lower grades are introduced to simple concepts such as family, respect and kindness, while older learners get to tackle more complex concepts such as gender-based violence, sexual consent, HIV testing, and pregnancy.

When delivered well and combined with access to necessary sexual and reproductive health services, CSE empowers young people to make informed decisions about relationships and sexuality and navigate a world where gender-based violence, gender inequality, early and unintended pregnancies, HIV and other sexually transmitted infections still pose serious risks to their health and well-being. It also helps to keep children safe from abuse by teaching them about their bodies and how to change practices that lead girls to become pregnant before they are ready.

Equally, a lack of high-quality, age-appropriate sexuality and relationship education may leave children and young people vulnerable to harmful sexual behaviours and sexual exploitation.

What does the evidence say about CSE?

The evidence on the impact of CSE is clear:

• Sexuality education has positive effects, including increasing young people’s knowledge and improving their attitudes related to sexual and reproductive health and behaviors.
• Sexuality education leads to learners delaying the age of sexual initiation, increasing the use of condoms and other contraceptives when they are sexually active, increasing their knowledge about their bodies and relationships, decreasing their risk-taking, and decreasing the frequency of unprotected sex.
• Programmes that promote abstinence as the only option have been found to be ineffective in delaying sexual initiation, reducing the frequency of sex or reducing the number of sexual partners. To achieve positive change and reduce early or unintended pregnancies, education about sexuality, reproductive health and contraception must be wide-ranging.
• CSE is five times more likely to be successful in preventing unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections when it pays explicit attention to the topics of gender and power
• Parents and family members are a primary source of information, values formation, care and support for children. Sexuality education has the most impact when school-based programmes are complemented with the involvement of parents and teachers, training institutes and youth-friendly services .

How does UNESCO work to advance learners' health and education?

Countries have increasingly acknowledged the importance of equipping young people with the knowledge, skills and attitudes to develop and sustain positive, healthy relationships and protect themselves from unsafe situations.

UNESCO believes that with CSE, young people learn to treat each other with respect and dignity from an early age and gain skills for better decision making, communications, and critical analysis. They learn they can talk to an adult they trust when they are confused about their bodies, relationships and values. They learn to think about what is right and safe for them and how to avoid coercion, sexually transmitted infections including HIV, and early and unintended pregnancy, and where to go for help. They learn to identify what violence against children and women looks like, including sexual violence, and to understand injustice based on gender. They learn to uphold universal values of equality, love and kindness.

In its International Technical Guidance on Sexuality Education , UNESCO and other UN partners have laid out pathways for quality CSE to promote health and well-being, respect for human rights and gender equality, and empower children and young people to lead healthy, safe and productive lives. An online toolkit was developed by UNESCO to facilitate the design and implementation of CSE programmes at national level, as well as at local and school level. A tool for the review and assessment of national sexuality education programmes is also available. Governments, development partners or civil society organizations will find this useful. Guidance for delivering CSE in out-of-school settings is also available.

Through its flagship programme, Our rights, Our lives, Our future (O3) , UNESCO has reached over 30 million learners in 33 countries across sub-Saharan Africa with life skills and sexuality education, in safer learning environments. O3 Plus is now also reaching and supporting learners in higher education institutions.

To strengthen coordination among the UN community, development partners and civil society, UNESCO is co-convening the Global partnership forum on CSE together with UNFPA. With over 65 organizations in its fold, the partnership forum provides a structured platform for intensified collaboration, exchange of information and good practices, research, youth advocacy and leadership, and evidence-based policies and programmes.

Good quality CSE delivery demands up to date research and evidence to inform policy and implementation . UNESCO regularly conducts reviews of national policies and programmes – a report found that while 85% of countries have policies that are supportive of sexuality education, significant gaps remain between policy and curricula reviewed. Research on the quality of sexuality education has also been undertaken, including on CSE and persons with disabilities in Asia and East and Southern Africa .

How are young people and CSE faring in the digital space?

More young people than ever before are turning to digital spaces for information on bodies, relationships and sexuality, interested in the privacy and anonymity the online world can offer. UNESCO found that, in a year, 71% of youth aged 15-24 sought sexuality education and information online.

With the rapid expansion in digital information and education, the sexuality education landscape is changing . Children and young people are increasingly exposed to a broad range of content online some of which may be incomplete, poorly informed or harmful.

UNESCO and its Institute of Information Technologies in Education (IITE) work with young people and content creators to develop digital sexuality education tools that are of good quality, relevant and include appropriate content. More research and investment are needed to understand the effectiveness and impact of digital sexuality education, and how it can complement curriculum-based initiatives. Part of the solution is enabling young people themselves to take the lead on this, as they are no longer passive consumers and are thinking in sophisticated ways about digital technology.

A foundation for life and love

• Safe, seen and included: report on school-based sexuality education
• International Technical Guidance on Sexuality Education
• Safe, seen and included: inclusion and diversity within sexuality education; briefing note
• Comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) country profiles
• Evidence gaps and research needs in comprehensive sexuality education: technical brief
• The journey towards comprehensive sexuality education: global status report
• Definition of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) thematic indicator 4.7.2: Percentage of schools that provided life skills-based HIV and sexuality education within the previous academic year
• From ideas to action: addressing barriers to comprehensive sexuality education in the classroom
• Facing the facts: the case for comprehensive sexuality education
• UNESCO strategy on education for health and well-being
• UNESCO Health and education resource centre
• Campaign: A foundation for life and love
• UNESCO’s work on health and education

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1.10: The Psychology of Human Sexuality

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Northwest Vista College

Sexuality is one of the fundamental drives behind everyone’s feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. It defines the means of biological reproduction, describes psychological and sociological representations of self, and orients a person’s attraction to others. Further, it shapes the brain and body to be pleasure-seeking. Yet, as important as sexuality is to being human, it is often viewed as a taboo topic for personal or scientific inquiry.

Learning Objectives

• Explain how scientists study human sexuality.
• Share a definition of human sexuality.
• Distinguish between sex, gender, and sexual orientation.
• Review common and alternative sexual behaviors.
• Appraise how pleasure, sexual behaviors, and consent are intertwined.

Introduction

Sex makes the world go around: It makes babies bond, children giggle, adolescents flirt, and adults have babies. It is addressed in the holy books of the world’s great religions, and it infiltrates every part of society. It influences the way we dress, joke, and talk. In many ways, sex defines who we are. It is so important, the eminent neuropsychologist Karl Pribram (1958) described sex as one of four basic human drive states. Drive states motivate us to accomplish goals. They are linked to our survival. According to Pribram, feeding, fighting, fleeing, and sex are the four drives behind every thought, feeling, and behavior. Since these drives are so closely associated with our psychological and physical health, you might assume people would study, understand, and discuss them openly. Your assumption would be generally correct for three of the four drives (Malacane & Beckmeyer, 2016). Can you guess which drive is the least understood and openly discussed?

This module presents an opportunity for you to think openly and objectively about sex. Without shame or taboo, using science as a lens, we examine fundamental aspects of human sexuality—including gender, sexual orientation, fantasies, behaviors, paraphilias, and sexual consent.

The History of Scientific Investigations of Sex

The history of human sexuality is as long as human history itself—200,000+ years and counting (Antón & Swisher, 2004). For almost as long as we have been having sex, we have been creating art, writing, and talking about it. Some of the earliest recovered artifacts from ancient cultures are thought to be fertility totems. The Hindu Kama Sutra (400 BCE to 200 CE)—an ancient text discussing love, desire, and pleasure—includes a how-to manual for having sexual intercourse. Rules, advice, and stories about sex are also contained in the Muslim Qur’an , Jewish Torah, and Christian Bible .

By contrast, people have been scientifically investigating sex for only about 125 years. The first scientific investigations of sex employed the case study method of research. Using this method, the English physician Henry Havelock Ellis (1859-1939) examined diverse topics within sexuality, including arousal and masturbation. From 1897 to 1923, his findings were published in a seven-volume set of books titled Studies in the Psychology of Sex. Among his most noteworthy findings is that transgender people are distinct from homosexual people. Ellis’s studies led him to be an advocate of equal rights for women and comprehensive human sexuality education in public schools.

Using case studies, the Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) is credited with being the first scientist to link sex to healthy development and to recognize humans as being sexual throughout their lifespans, including childhood (Freud, 1905). Freud (1923) argued that people progress through five stages of psychosexual development : oral, anal, phallic, latent, and genital. According to Freud, each of these stages could be passed through in a healthy or unhealthy manner. In unhealthy manners, people might develop psychological problems, such as frigidity, impotence, or anal-retentiveness.

The American biologist Alfred Kinsey (1894-1956) is commonly referred to as the father of human sexuality research. Kinsey was a world-renowned expert on wasps but later changed his focus to the study of humans. This shift happened because he wanted to teach a course on marriage but found data on human sexual behavior lacking. He believed that sexual knowledge was the product of guesswork and had never really been studied systematically or in an unbiased way. He decided to collect information himself using the survey method , and set a goal of interviewing 100 thousand people about their sexual histories. Although he fell short of his goal, he still managed to collect 18 thousand interviews! Many “behind closed doors” behaviors investigated by contemporary scientists are based on Kinsey’s seminal work.

Today, a broad range of scientific research on sexuality continues. It’s a topic that spans various disciplines, including anthropology, biology, neurology, psychology, and sociology.

Sex, Gender, and Sexual Orientation: Three Different Parts of You

Applying for a credit card or filling out a job application requires your name, address, and birth-date. Additionally, applications usually ask for your sex or gender. It’s common for us to use the terms “sex” and “gender” interchangeably. However, in modern usage, these terms are distinct from one another.

Sex describes means of biological reproduction. Sex includes sexual organs, such as ovaries—defining what it is to be a female—or testes—defining what it is to be a male. Interestingly, biological sex is not as easily defined or determined as you might expect (see the section on variations in sex, below). By contrast, the term gender describes psychological ( gender identity ) and sociological ( gender role ) representations of biological sex. At an early age, we begin learning cultural norms for what is considered masculine and feminine. For example, children may associate long hair or dresses with femininity. Later in life, as adults, we often conform to these norms by behaving in gender-specific ways: as men, we build houses; as women, we bake cookies (Marshall, 1989; Money et al., 1955; Weinraub et al., 1984).

Because cultures change over time, so too do ideas about gender. For example, European and American cultures today associate pink with femininity and blue with masculinity. However, less than a century ago, these same cultures were swaddling baby boys in pink, because of its masculine associations with “blood and war,” and dressing little girls in blue, because of its feminine associations with the Virgin Mary (Kimmel, 1996).

Sex and gender are important aspects of a person’s identity. However, they do not tell us about a person’s sexual orientation (Rule & Ambady, 2008). Sexual orientation refers to a person’s sexual attraction to others. Within the context of sexual orientation, sexual attraction refers to a person’s capacity to arouse the sexual interest of another, or, conversely, the sexual interest one person feels toward another.

While some argue that sexual attraction is primarily driven by reproduction (e.g., Geary, 1998), empirical studies point to pleasure as the primary force behind our sex drive. For example, in a survey of college students who were asked, “Why do people have sex?” respondents gave more than 230 unique responses, most of which were related to pleasure rather than reproduction (Meston & Buss, 2007). Here’s a thought-experiment to further demonstrate how reproduction has relatively little to do with driving sexual attraction: Add the number of times you’ve had and hope to have sex during your lifetime. With this number in mind, consider how many times the goal was (or will be) for reproduction versus how many it was (or will be) for pleasure. Which number is greater?

Although a person’s intimate behavior may have sexual fluidity —changing due to circumstances (Diamond, 2009)—sexual orientations are relatively stable over one’s lifespan, and are genetically rooted (Frankowski, 2004). One method of measuring these genetic roots is the sexual orientation concordance rate (SOCR). An SOCR is the probability that a pair of individuals has the same sexual orientation. SOCRs are calculated and compared between people who share the same genetics ( monozygotic twins , 99%); some of the same genetics ( dizygotic twins , 50%); siblings (50%); and non-related people, randomly selected from the population. Researchers find SOCRs are highest for monozygotic twins; and SOCRs for dizygotic twins, siblings, and randomly-selected pairs do not significantly differ from one another (Bailey et al. 2016; Kendler et al., 2000). Because sexual orientation is a hotly debated issue, an appreciation of the genetic aspects of attraction can be an important piece of this dialogue.

On Being Normal: Variations in Sex, Gender, and Sexual Orientation

“ Only the human mind invents categories and tries to force facts into separated pigeon-holes. The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects. The sooner we learn this concerning human sexual behavior, the sooner we shall reach a sound understanding of the realities of sex. ” (Kinsey, Pomeroy, & Martin, 1948, pp. 638–639)

We live in an era when sex, gender, and sexual orientation are controversial religious and political issues. Some nations have laws against homosexuality, while others have laws protecting same-sex marriages. At a time when there seems to be little agreement among religious and political groups, it makes sense to wonder, “What is normal?” and, “Who decides?”

The international scientific and medical communities (e.g., World Health Organization, World Medical Association, World Psychiatric Association, Association for Psychological Science) view variations of sex, gender, and sexual orientation as normal. Furthermore, variations of sex, gender, and sexual orientation occur naturally throughout the animal kingdom. More than 500 animal species have homosexual or bisexual orientations (Lehrer, 2006). More than 65,000 animal species are intersex —born with either an absence or some combination of male and female reproductive organs, sex hormones, or sex chromosomes (Jarne & Auld, 2006). In humans, intersex individuals make up about two percent—more than 150 million people—of the world’s population (Blackless et al., 2000). There are dozens of intersex conditions, such as Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome and Turner’s Syndrome (Lee et al., 2006). The term “syndrome” can be misleading; although intersex individuals may have physical limitations (e.g., about a third of Turner’s individuals have heart defects; Matura et al., 2007), they otherwise lead relatively normal intellectual, personal, and social lives. In any case, intersex individuals demonstrate the diverse variations of biological sex.

Just as biological sex varies more widely than is commonly thought, so too does gender. Cisgender individuals’ gender identities correspond with their birth sexes, whereas transgender individuals’ gender identities do not correspond with their birth sexes. Because gender is so deeply ingrained culturally, rates of transgender individuals vary widely around the world (see Table 1).

Although incidence rates of transgender individuals differ significantly between cultures, transgender females (TGFs) —whose birth sex was male—are by far the most frequent type of transgender individuals in any culture. Of the 18 countries studied by Meier and Labuski (2013), 16 of them had higher rates of TGFs than transgender males (TGMs) —whose birth sex was female— and the 18 country TGF to TGM ratio was 3 to 1. TGFs have diverse levels of androgyny —having both feminine and masculine characteristics. For example, five percent of the Samoan population are TGFs referred to as fa'afafine , who range in androgyny from mostly masculine to mostly feminine (Tan, 2016); in Pakistan, India, Nepal, and Bangladesh, TGFs are referred to as hijras, recognized by their governments as a third gender, and range in androgyny from only having a few masculine characteristics to being entirely feminine (Pasquesoone, 2014); and as many as six percent of biological males living in Oaxaca, Mexico are TGFs referred to as muxes , who range in androgyny from mostly masculine to mostly feminine (Stephen, 2002).

Sexual orientation is as diverse as gender identity. Instead of thinking of sexual orientation as being two categories—homosexual and heterosexual—Kinsey argued that it’s a continuum (Kinsey, Pomeroy, & Martin, 1948). He measured orientation on a continuum, using a 7-point Likert scale called the Heterosexual-Homosexual Rating Scale, in which 0 is exclusively heterosexual , 3 is bisexual , and 6 is exclusively homosexual . Later researchers using this method have found 18% to 39% of Europeans and Americans identifying as somewhere between heterosexual and homosexual (Lucas et al., 2017; YouGov.com, 2015). These percentages drop dramatically (0.5% to 1.9%) when researchers force individuals to respond using only two categories (Copen, Chandra, & Febo-Vazquez, 2016; Gates, 2011).

What Are You Doing? A Brief Guide to Sexual Behavior

Just as we may wonder what characterizes particular gender or sexual orientations as “normal,” we might have similar questions about sexual behaviors. What is considered sexually normal depends on culture. Some cultures are sexually-restrictive—such as one extreme example off the coast of Ireland, studied in the mid-20th century, known as the island of Inis Beag . The inhabitants of Inis Beag detested nudity and viewed sex as a necessary evil for the sole purpose of reproduction. They wore clothes when they bathed and even while having sex. Further, sex education was nonexistent, as was breast feeding (Messenger, 1989). By contrast, Mangaians , of the South Pacific island of A’ua’u, are an example of a highly sexually-permissive culture. Young Mangaian boys are encouraged to masturbate. By age 13, they’re instructed by older males on how to sexually perform and maximize orgasms for themselves and their partners. When the boys are a bit older, this formal instruction is replaced with hands-on coaching by older females. Young girls are also expected to explore their sexuality and develop a breadth of sexual knowledge before marriage (Marshall & Suggs, 1971). These cultures make clear that what are considered sexually normal behaviors depends on time and place.

Sexual behaviors are linked to, but distinct from, fantasies. Leitenberg and Henning (1995) define sexual fantasies as “any mental imagery that is sexually arousing.” One of the more common fantasies is the replacement fantasy —fantasizing about someone other than one’s current partner (Hicks & Leitenberg, 2001). In addition, more than 50% of people have forced-sex fantasies (Critelli & Bivona, 2008). However, this does not mean most of us want to be cheating on our partners or be involved in sexual assault. Sexual fantasies are not equal to sexual behaviors.

Sexual fantasies are often a context for the sexual behavior of masturbation —tactile (physical) stimulation of the body for sexual pleasure. Historically, masturbation has earned a bad reputation; it’s been described as “self-abuse,” and falsely associated with causing adverse side effects, such as hairy palms, acne, blindness, insanity, and even death (Kellogg, 1888). However, empirical evidence links masturbation to increased levels of sexual and marital satisfaction, and physical and psychological health (Hurlburt & Whitaker, 1991; Levin, 2007). There is even evidence that masturbation significantly decreases the risk of developing prostate cancer among males over the age of 50 (Dimitropoulou et al., 2009). Masturbation is common among males and females in the U.S. Robbins et al. (2011) found that 74% of males and 48% of females reported masturbating. However, frequency of masturbation is affected by culture. An Australian study found that only 58% of males and 42% of females reported masturbating (Smith, Rosenthal, & Reichler, 1996). Further, rates of reported masturbation by males and females in India are even lower, at 46% and 13%, respectively (Ramadugu et al., 2011).

Coital sex is the term for vaginal-penile intercourse, which occurs for about 3 to 13 minutes on average—though its duration and frequency decrease with age (Corty & Guardiani, 2008; Smith et al., 2012). Traditionally, people are known as “virgins” before they engage in coital sex, and have “lost” their virginity afterwards. Durex (2005) found the average age of first coital experiences across 41 different countries to be 17 years, with a low of 16 (Iceland), and a high of 20 (India). There is tremendous variation regarding frequency of coital sex. For example, the average number of times per year a person in Greece (138) or France (120) engages in coital sex is between 1.6 and 3 times greater than in India (75) or Japan (45; Durex, 2005).

Oral sex includes cunnilingus —oral stimulation of the female’s external sex organs, and fellatio —oral stimulation of the male’s external sex organs. The prevalence of oral sex widely differs between cultures—with Western cultures, such as the U.S., Canada, and Austria, reporting higher rates (greater than 75%); and Eastern and African cultures, such as Japan and Nigeria, reporting lower rates (less than 10%; Copen, Chandra, & Febo-Vazquez, 2016; Malacad & Hess, 2010; Wylie, 2009). Not only are there differences between cultures regarding how many people engage in oral sex, there are differences in its very definition. For example, most college students in the U.S. do not believe cunnilingus or fellatio are sexual behaviors—and more than a third of college students believe oral sex is a form of abstinence (Barnett et al., 2017; Horan, Phillips, & Hagan, 1998; Sanders & Reinisch, 1999).

Anal sex refers to penetration of the anus by an object. Anal sex is not exclusively a “homosexual behavior.” The anus has extensive sensory-nerve innervation and is often experienced as an erogenous zone, no matter where a person is on the Heterosexual-Homosexual Rating Scale (Cordeau et al., 2014). When heterosexual people are asked about their sexual behaviors, more than a third (about 40%) of both males and females report having had anal sex at some time during their life (Chandra, Mosher, & Copen, 2011; Copen, Chandra, & Febo-Vazquez, 2016). Comparatively, when homosexual men are asked about their most recent sexual behaviors, more than a third (37%) report having had anal sex (Rosenberger et al., 2011). Like heterosexual people, homosexual people engage in a variety of sexual behaviors, the most frequent being masturbation, romantic kissing, and oral sex (Rosenberger et al., 2011). The prevalence of anal sex widely differs between cultures. For example, people in Greece and Italy report high rates of anal sex (greater than 50%), whereas people in China and India report low rates of anal sex (less than 15%; Durex, 2005).

In contrast to “more common” sexual behaviors, there is a vast array of alternative sexual behaviors. Some of these behaviors, such as voyeurism , exhibitionism , and pedophilia are classified in the DSM as paraphilic disorders —behaviors that victimize and cause harm to others or one’s self (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Sadism —inflicting pain upon another person to experience pleasure for one’s self—and masochism —receiving pain from another person to experience pleasure for one’s self—are also classified in the DSM as paraphilic disorders. However, if an individual consensually engages in these behaviors, the term “disorder” is replaced with the term “interest.” Janus and Janus (1993) found that 14% of males and 11% of females have engaged in some form of sadism and/or masochism.

Sexual Consent

Clearly, people engage in a multitude of behaviors whose variety is limited only by our own imaginations. Further, our standards for what’s normal differs substantially from culture to culture. However, there is one aspect of sexual behavior that is universally acceptable—indeed, fundamental and necessary. At the heart of what qualifies as sexually “normal” is the concept of consent. Sexual consent refers to the voluntary, conscious, and empathic participation in a sexual act, which can be withdrawn at any time (Jozkowski & Peterson, 2013). Sexual consent is the baseline for what are considered normal —acceptable and healthy—behaviors; whereas, nonconsensual sex—i.e., forced, pressured or unconscious participation—is unacceptable and unhealthy. When engaging in sexual behaviors with a partner, a clear and explicit understanding of your boundaries, as well as your partner’s boundaries, is essential. We recommend safer-sex practices , such as condoms, honesty, and communication, whenever you engage in a sexual act. Discussing likes, dislikes, and limits prior to sexual exploration reduces the likelihood of miscommunication and misjudging nonverbal cues. In the heat of the moment, things are not always what they seem. For example, Kristen Jozkowski and her colleagues (2014) found that females tend to use verbal strategies of consent, whereas males tend to rely on nonverbal indications of consent. Awareness of this basic mismatch between heterosexual couples’ exchanges of consent may proactively reduce miscommunication and unwanted sexual advances.

The universal principles of pleasure, sexual behaviors, and consent are intertwined. Consent is the foundation on which sexual activity needs to be built. Understanding and practicing empathic consent requires sexual literacy and an ability to effectively communicate desires and limits, as well as to respect others’ parameters.

Considering the amount of attention people give to the topic of sex, it’s surprising how little most actually know about it. Historically, people’s beliefs about sexuality have emerged as having absolute moral, physical, and psychological boundaries. The truth is, sex is less concrete than most people assume. Gender and sexual orientation, for example, are not either/or categories. Instead, they are continuums. Similarly, sexual fantasies and behaviors vary greatly by individual and culture. Ultimately, open discussions about sexual identity and sexual practices will help people better understand themselves, others, and the world around them.

Acknowledgements

The authors are indebted to Robert Biswas-Diener, Trina Cowan, Kara Paige, and Liz Wright for editing drafts of this module.

Outside Resources

Discussion Questions

• Of the four basic human drive states Karl Pribram describes as being linked to our survival, why do you think the sex drive is the least likely to be openly and objectively addressed?
• How might you go about scientifically investigating attitudes and behaviors regarding masturbation across various cultures?
• Discuss the three different parts of you as described by this module.
• How would you define “natural” human sexual behavior with respect to sex, gender, and sexual orientation? How does nature (i.e., the animal kingdom) help us define what is considered natural?
• Why do humans feel compelled to categorize themselves and others based on their sex, gender, and sexual orientation? What would the world be like if these categories were removed?
• How has culture influenced your sexual attitudes and behaviors?
• The concept of sexual consent is seemingly simple; however, as this module presents, it is oftentimes skewed or ignored. Identify at least three factors that contribute to the complexities of consent, and how these factors might best be addressed to reduce unwanted sexual advances.
• American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.
• Antón, S. C., & Swisher III, C. C. (2004). Early dispersals of homo from Africa. Annual Review of Anthropology , 33, 271–296.
• Bailey, J. M., Vasey, P. L., Diamond, L. M., Breedlove, S. M., Vilain, E., & Epprecht, M. (2016). Sexual orientation, controversy, and science. Psychological Science in the Public Interest , 17, 45-101
• Barnett, M. D., Fleck, L. K., Marsden, A. D., & Martin, K. J. (2017). Sexual semantics: The meanings of sex, virginity, and abstinence for university students. Personality and Individual Differences , 106, 203–208.
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What Does It Mean to Be Sapiosexual?

How intelligence can be the most attractive trait to some people

Candis McDow is from Atlanta, GA, and has been a mental health advocate since 2014. She has lived experience and charges to bring awareness to the oblivious and provide hope to peers.

Carly Snyder, MD is a reproductive and perinatal psychiatrist who combines traditional psychiatry with integrative medicine-based treatments.

Verywell / Laura Porter

What It Means to Be Sapiosexual

• Signs of Sapiosexuality
• Where to Meet
• Sapiosexual vs. Demisexual
• Effect on Relationships

Sapiosexuality is a type of sexuality that involves being more attracted by the contents of a person's mind than by the appearance of their body. To feel sexually attracted to another person, a sapiosexual person must first feel intellectually stimulated. Intelligence is often the first quality a person notices in a potential partner.

The word sapiosexual originated from the Latin root word 'sapien,' which means wise, and 'sexualis,' which means sexual. Sapiosexual is still a fairly new word, as Merriam-Webster's first known use of the word was in 2004. According to research, between 1% and 8% of people aged 18 to 35 may be sapiosexuals.

Anyone can identify as sapiosexual, including both heterosexuals and LGBTQIA+ people. This means that people who identify as sapiosexual may be straight, gay, asexual, or another identity.

At a Glance

Many people find intelligence attractive, but someone who is sapiosexual has a much stronger sexual interest in this quality. They may only feel attracted to someone if they feel intellectually stimulated by a potential partner. Keep reading to learn more about what it means to be sapiosexual, how to determine if you are sapiosexual, and ways to meet other sapiosexuals.

For people who are sapiosexual, the way another person thinks is a highly appealing quality. It is the intellect that stimulates sexual attraction. Let's take a look at what it means to be sapiosexual.

It Starts With the Brain

Because attraction is centered on the intellect or how a person's mind works, people who are sapiosexual do not feel attraction until their mind feels stimulated by a potential partner. There is no lust, liking, wanting, or sexual gratification unless the brain has been stimulated on an intellectual level first.

Anyone Can Be Sapiosexual

Unlike gender-specific restrictions, sapiosexuality has no limitations. You can like men, women, trans people, bisexual people, or any person of any gender or sexual identity . You are free to be attracted to whomever you choose.

Sapiosexual people are attracted to and focus on the inner workings of a person's mind more so than the other person's exterior.

Sexuality Becomes Less of an Entity

When sapiosexuals are in search of a partner, they focus more on their potential mate's intelligence instead of their looks. This means that superficial qualities like body shape, size, or facial features take a backseat.

Because intelligence is valued more than looks, sapiosexuals people may be more likely to show their attraction for others in ways that aren't focused on appearance.

Criticisms of Sapiosexuality

Sapiosexuality is a relatively new term and is not without some controversy.  Some have argued that it is not a legitimate orientation but a type of attraction .

People who describe themselves as sapiosexual, however, suggest that intelligence is more than just a quality they appreciate in a partner—it's the primary factor driving their sexual attraction, just as some might be drawn to an attractive body or a beautiful face.

Some critics also note that people who identify as sapiosexual are not subjected to the marginalization and discrimination that people of diverse sexual and gender identities face.

Others have suggested that sapiosexuality is both pretentious and discriminatory. The term has been criticized as being both ableist and Euro-centric . The focus on intelligence implies that people base their attraction on cognitive abilities and devalues those who may be disabled, neurodivergent, or have less access to formal education.

It also focuses on Western-centric measures of intelligence without acknowledging other forms of intelligence and intellectual curiosity.

Signs You Might Be Sapiosexual

Let's take a look at some of the common attributes of sapiosexuality. If you find yourself agreeing with the majority of the following statements, there is a chance you are sapiosexual.

You Prefer Deep Conversations

You might be sapiosexual if there's nothing better to you than engaging in a complex, stimulating conversation. This often means that you will find yourself attracted to others who can effectively express themselves clearly and listen to you do the same.

You Believe Intelligence Is Sexier Than a Beach Bod

Sapiosexuals value an intelligent mind over a physically attractive body. So, if you're more interested in what a person's beliefs are, what they stand for, and you're excited to learn about their morals, values, interests, then you might be sapiosexual.

Your Ideal First Date Is a Cozy Bookstore

If you prefer quiet dates with no distractions or interruptions so you can engage in a compelling conversation with a potential mate—you're might be sapiosexual. Likewise, sapiosexual individuals will likely prefer a smaller intimate setting for a first date over a bar or lounge.

Best Places to Meet Sapiosexual People

While it's not hard to determine if you are sapiosexual, finding like-minded individuals is not always so easy.

For most, clubs, bars, lounges, concerts, and sporting events are key places to meet single people, but if you're interested in finding people who share your love of deep conversations , knowledge, and learning, keep reading for some location suggestions.

At the Library

There's no better place to meet an intellectually-stimulating person than at a library. You two can pick some books, find a nice little nook, and get to know one another. And the best part? It's free!

The internet affords a multitude of opportunities for meeting people. For example, you can try online dating, connecting with new people on social media, or you can try taking online classes (creative writing, cooking, photography, etc.).

Also, there are meet-up groups to do activities with people with similar interests, and there are even forums created specifically for people with certain interests. The possibilities are endless online !

Through a Friend of a Friend

This old-school aspect can still work in your favor. Sapiosexual people usually have a hard time finding compatible matches, but friends can be great resources.

You may have a friend that knows a friend that is the perfect match for you. So don't count your friends out; having them assist in your love life may be a great idea.

At Your Favorite Restaurant

Have you ever taken yourself out on a date? If you haven't, here's why it's the best thing to do. First of all, there's no wait, and second of all, people gravitate towards others who are confident enough to take themselves out on a date.

If you go solo to one of your favorite restaurants, you might meet another single person who also loves that restaurant. Then, you can both sit down and talk about why you love it so much. It's always fun to connect over a shared love of food.

Doing Your Favorite Pasttime

Meeting people while pursuing your passions and favorite leisure-time activities is one of the best ways to meet like-minded people. Whatever makes the dopamine flow generously is where you should go to meet your ideal person.

People who identify as sapiosexual often like seclusion and pampering, so places like the spa, hair salons, nail shops, yoga studios, museums, art galleries, plays, and live music venues are great places to look for other singles if you're in the market for a new partner.

How Does Sapiosexual Differ From Demisexual?

So how does being sapiosexual differ from being demisexual ? Where sapiosexuality is focused on intellectual attraction, demisexuality is about needing to form an emotional bond with someone before feeling sexually or romantically attracted to them.  

A person who is sapiosexual may feel attracted to a person immediately if they feel intellectually stimulated by that person's thoughts, ideas, or conversation. A person who is demisexual, on the other hand, needs to get to know the person better and form an emotional connection before they start to feel attracted.

How Does Being Sapiosexual Impact Relationships

If you or your partner are sapiosexual, you might notice some of the following effects on how you relate to one another in your relationship:

• You might communicate differently : Because attraction is based on feeling intellectually stimulated, participating in mentally engaging activities will be an important part of your relationship.
• It might pressure your partner : Research has found that people who identify as sapiosexual tend to be most attracted to people with above-average IQ scores. This can put pressure on the other person to live up to your expectations.
• Intellectually stimulating activities help you feel closer : You might bond best by doing things that stimulate your mind. Fun date ideas might involve attending a lecture, having a deep conversation over dinner, or choosing a novel to read together.
• Things may progress more slowly : Because it often takes longer to get to know a person and truly engage with them on an intellectual level, the pace of your relationship may move slower than those who base their attraction on physical features.

If you've determined that you're sapiosexual, then you're another step closer to understanding yourself and identifying what you want in a potential partner. When you know who you are and what you want out of a relationship, you'll likely find more success in your dating life.

If you're struggling to come to terms with your identity, consider reaching out to a mental health professional .

Gignac GE, Darbyshire J, Ooi M. Some people are attracted sexually to intelligence: A psychometric evaluation of sapiosexuality. Intelligence . 2018;66:98-111. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2017.11.009

Situmorang DDB. 'If you think that smart is sexy, you must be a sapiosexual!': a new knowledge in sex education about sapiosexual .  J Public Health (Oxf) . Published online February 10, 2024. doi:10.1093/pubmed/fdae021

GLAAD. Explore the spectrum: Guide to finding your ace community .

By Candis McDow Candis has been a mental health advocate since 2014. She has written several articles about mental illness, and her memoir Half the Battle (available on Amazon and candisymcdow.com) encompasses her journey of living with bipolar disorder.

Cramming for an exam isn’t the best way to learn – but if you have to do it, here’s how

Senior Teaching Fellow in Education, University of Strathclyde

Disclosure statement

Jonathan Firth does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

University of Strathclyde provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK.

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Around the country, school and university students are hitting the books in preparation for exams. If you are in this position, you may find yourself trying to memorise information that you first learned a long time ago and have completely forgotten – or that you didn’t actually learn effectively in the first place.

Unfortunately, cramming is a very inefficient way to properly learn. But sometimes it’s necessary to pass an exam. And you can incorporate what we know about how learning works into your revision to make it more effective.

Read more: Exams: seven tips for coping with revision stress

A great deal of research evidence on how memory works over time shows that we forget new information very quickly at first, after which the process of forgetting slows down.

In practice, this means that very compressed study schedules lead to a catastrophic amount of forgetting.

A better option is to space out learning a particular topic more gradually and over a longer period. This is called the “spacing effect” and it leads to skills and knowledge being retained better, and for longer.

Research has found that we remember information better when we leave a gap of time between first studying something and revisiting it, rather than doing so straight away. This even works for short timescales – a delay of a few seconds when trying to learn a small piece of information, such as a pair of words, for instance. And it also works when the delay between study sessions is much longer .

In the classroom , spacing out practice could mean reviewing and practising material the next day, or delaying homework by a couple of weeks, rather than revisiting it as soon as possible. As a rule, psychologists have suggested that the best time to re-study material is when it is on the verge of being forgotten – not before, but also not after.

But this isn’t how things are learned across the school year. When students get to exam time, they have forgotten much of what was previously studied.

Better cramming

When it comes to actually learning – being able to remember information over the long term and apply it to new situations – cramming doesn’t work. We can hardly call it “learning” if information is forgotten a month later. But if you need to pass an exam, cramming can lead to a boost in temporary performance. What’s more, you can incorporate the spacing effect into your cramming to make it more efficient.

It’s better to space practising knowledge of a particular topic out over weeks, so if you have that long before a key exam, plan your revision schedule so you cover topics more than once. Rather than allocating one block of two hours for a particular topic, study it for one hour this week and then for another hour in a week or so’s time.

If you don’t have that much time, it’s still worth incorporating smaller gaps between practice sessions. If your exam is tomorrow, practice key topics in the morning today and then again in the evening.

Learning is also more effective if you actively retrieve information from your memory, rather than re-reading or underlining your notes. A good way to do this, incorporating the spacing effect, is to take practice tests. Revise a topic from your notes or textbook, take a half-hour break, and then take a practice test without help from your books.

An even simpler technique is a “brain dump” . After studying and taking a break, write down everything you can remember about the topic on a blank sheet of paper without checking your notes.

Change the way we teach

A shift in teaching practices may be needed to avoid students having to cram material they only half-remember before exams.

But my research suggests that teachers tend to agree with the idea that consolidation of a topic should happen as soon as possible, rather than spacing out practice in ways that would actually be more effective.

Teachers are overburdened and make heroic efforts with the time they have. But incorporating the spacing effect into teaching needn’t require radical changes to how teachers operate. Often, it’s as simple as doing the same thing on a different schedule .

Research has shown the most effective way to combine practice testing and the spacing effect is to engage in practice testing in the initial class, followed by at least three practice opportunities at widely spaced intervals. This is quite possible within the typical pattern of the school year.

For example, after the initial class, further practice could come via a homework task after a few days’ delay, then some kind of test or mock exam after a further gap of time. The revision period before exams would then be the third opportunity for consolidation.

Building effective self-testing and delayed practice into education would spell less stress and less ineffective cramming. Exam time would be for consolidation, rather than re-learning things that have been forgotten. The outcome would be better long-term retention of important knowledge and skills. As a bonus, school students would also gain a better insight into how to study effectively.

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The Best Sex Advice Might Also Be the Hardest to Follow

Some couples would rather get divorced than talk openly about their intimate lives.

By Catherine Pearson

As a reporter who covers sex and intimacy, I spend a lot of time listening to experts extol the virtues of open, honest communication. To have good sex — and to keep having good sex over time — couples must be willing to talk about it , they say.

But some people would rather leave their relationships than have those conversations, said Jeffrey Chernin, a marriage and family therapist and the author of “Achieving Intimacy: How to Have a Loving Relationship That Lasts” — especially if things in the bedroom aren’t going particularly well.

“One of the things I often say to couples who are having trouble is: ‘I wish there was another way through this,’” he said. “But the only way I know to have a better sex life, or to resume your sex life, is to discuss it.”

Dr. Chernin acknowledged how stressful those conversations can be, sometimes deteriorating into finger-pointing, belittling or stonewalling. That said, these suggestions may help.

Embrace the awkwardness.

It’s common for partners to have trouble talking about intimacy and desire. Research suggests that even in long-term relationships, people know only about 60 percent of what their partner likes sexually, and only about 25 percent of what they don’t like.

Cyndi Darnell, a sex and relationships therapist in New York City, said her patients frequently tell her that talking about sex is “awkward” — which is especially true “if you’ve spent months or years avoiding it,” she said.

“We’ve been tricked into believing sex is natural,” she added. “But, if it were easy and natural, people wouldn’t struggle with it as much as they do.”

She mentioned one couple she worked with, both in their 50s, who hadn’t had sex in years. Every time they talked about it, they fought. So they sought outside help to get past their embarrassment and anger.

In therapy, they realized that they had only been focused on penetration, but the husband was really longing for closeness and tenderness. And once the wife realized that her husband was not going to “pounce on her” whenever she cuddled with him, they were able to be more sensual with each other — and to talk about what they like to do and why, Ms. Darnell said. But it took a spirit of willingness, curiosity and acceptance.

Death to ‘We need to talk.’

It may be possible to temper the dread that often accompanies these conversations, if you approach them sensitively. “When a partner says, ‘We need to talk,’ Dr. Chernin said, “the other person feels like, ‘I’m going to the principal’s office.’”

Instead, try to:

Focus on problem-solving together

That means saying something like: “On the one hand, I know how difficult this is for us to talk about,” Dr. Chernin said. “On the other hand, I think it’s important for our marriage or for our relationship to be able to have some discussions about our sex life.”

Then ask: “What can we do about it?”

Prepare questions ahead of time

A script offers scaffolding, Ms. Darnell said. She suggested prompts like: “Our relationship is really important to me, and I’d like for sex to be part of it (again). I was curious if that is something you’d be into also?”

Bring in some positives

Maggie Bennett-Brown, a research fellow at the Kinsey Institute and an assistant professor at Texas Tech University, said “it doesn’t have to be explicit.” Maybe you tell your partner that you like it when he hugs you or plans a romantic night on the town.

If it has been a while since you were intimate, it can help to reminisce — and that can segue into a deeper question. “If people have never had a conversation about: ‘What do you enjoy?’ that’s a good first step,” Dr. Bennett-Brown said.

Be mindful of your timing

Be careful about initiating a discussion about sex while in bed, Dr. Chernin said, particularly if you are being critical. (Though some couples may find it easier to talk about sex when they are basking in the afterglow, he said.)

“Think about a conversation as a series of discussions,” Dr. Chernin said. “That way, you’re not putting too much pressure on yourself or your partner.”

Know when to talk to a professional.

If your partner is unwilling to talk — or if the conversation feels painful, not just uncomfortable, Ms. Darnell said — a sex therapist or couples counselor may be able to help mediate.

She did not downplay how high-stakes these conversations can be. But she added that sex may not always be a necessary component of a satisfying romantic relationship.

“One of the questions I often ask my couples for whom sex is a tenuous and difficult issue is: Does this relationship have to be sexual?” she said. She worked with one couple in their 30s and 40s who realized they liked engaging in flirty banter, but did not want to move beyond that. “Permission to not have sex at this phase of their relationship was huge — and a relief,” she said.

“Sex is about so much more than just what we do when our pants are off,” she said.

Catherine Pearson is a Times reporter who writes about families and relationships. More about Catherine Pearson

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We asked sex therapists and researchers to share a myth about sex they wished would go away. Here’s what they said .

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https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2024/05/16/new-rshe-guidance-what-it-means-for-sex-education-lessons-in-schools/

New RSHE guidance: What it means for sex education lessons in schools

R elationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) is a subject taught at both primary and secondary school.  

In 2020, Relationships and Sex Education was made compulsory for all secondary school pupils in England and Health Education compulsory for all pupils in state-funded schools.  

Last year, the Prime Minister and Education Secretary brought forward the first review of the curriculum following reports of pupils being taught inappropriate content in RSHE in some schools.  

The review was informed by the advice of an independent panel of experts. The results of the review and updated guidance for consultation has now been published.   

We are now asking for views from parents, schools and others before the guidance is finalised. You can find the consultation here .   

What is new in the updated curriculum?  

Following the panel’s advice, w e’re introducing age limits, to ensure children aren’t being taught about sensitive and complex subjects before they are ready to fully understand them.    

We are also making clear that the concept of gender identity – the sense a person may have of their own gender, whether male, female or a number of other categories   – is highly contested and should not be taught. This is in line with the cautious approach taken in our gu idance on gender questioning children.  

Along with other factors, teaching this theory in the classroom could prompt some children to start to question their gender when they may not have done so otherwise, and is a complex theory for children to understand.   

The facts about biological sex and gender reassignment will still be taught.  

The guidance for schools also contains a new section on transparency with parents, making it absolutely clear that parents have a legal right to know what their children are being taught in RSHE and can request to see teaching materials.   

In addition, we’re seeking views on adding several new subjects to the curriculum, and more detail on others. These include:   

• Suicide prevention  
• Sexual harassment and sexual violence  
• L oneliness  
• The prevalence of 'deepfakes’  
• Healthy behaviours during pregnancy, as well as miscarriage  
• Illegal online behaviours including drug and knife supply  
• The dangers of vaping   
• Menstrual and gynaecological health including endometriosis, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and heavy menstrual bleeding.  

What are the age limits?   

In primary school, we’ve set out that subjects such as the risks about online gaming, social media and scams should not be taught before year 3.   

Puberty shouldn’t be taught before year 4, whilst sex education shouldn’t be taught before year 5, in line with what pupils learn about conception and birth as part of the national curriculum for science.  

In secondary school, issues regarding sexual harassment shouldn’t be taught before year 7, direct references to suicide before year 8 and any explicit discussion of sexual activity before year 9.  

Do schools have to follow the guidance?  

Following the consultation, the guidance will be statutory, which means schools must follow it unless there are exceptional circumstances.   

There is some flexibility w ithin the age ratings, as schools will sometimes need to respond to questions from pupils about age-restricted content, if they come up earlier within their school community.   

In these circumstances, schools are instructed to make sure that teaching is limited to the essential facts without going into unnecessary details, and parents should be informed.  

When will schools start teaching this?  

School s will be able to use the guidance as soon as we publish the final version later this year.   

However, schools will need time to make changes to their curriculum, so we will allow an implementation period before the guidance comes into force.     

What can parents do with these resources once they have been shared?

This guidance has openness with parents at its heart. Parents are not able to veto curriculum content, but they should be able to see what their children are being taught, which gives them the opportunity to raise issues or concerns through the school’s own processes, if they want to.

Parents can also share copyrighted materials they have received from their school more widely under certain circumstances.

If they are not able to understand materials without assistance, parents can share the materials with translators to help them understand the content, on the basis that the material is not shared further.

Copyrighted material can also be shared under the law for so-called ‘fair dealing’ - for the purposes of quotation, criticism or review, which could include sharing for the purpose of making a complaint about the material.

This could consist of sharing with friends, families, faith leaders, lawyers, school organisations, governing bodies and trustees, local authorities, Ofsted and the media.  In each case, the sharing of the material must be proportionate and accompanied by an acknowledgment of the author and its ownership.

Under the same principle, parents can also share relevant extracts of materials with the general public, but except in cases where the material is very small, it is unlikely that it would be lawful to share the entirety of the material.

These principles would apply to any material which is being made available for teaching in schools, even if that material was provided subject to confidentiality restrictions.

Do all children have to learn RSHE?  

Parents still have the right to withdraw their child from sex education, but not from the essential content covered in relationships educatio n.  

You may also be interested in:

• Education Secretary's letter to parents: You have the right to see RSHE lesson material
• Sex education: What is RSHE and can parents access curriculum materials?
• What do children and young people learn in relationship, sex and health education

Tags: age ratings , Gender , Relationships and Sex Education , RSHE , sex ed , Sex education

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• Vaccination
• Tools and Resources
• Clinical Overview
• Perinatal Provider Clinical Overview
• Clinical Signs and Symptoms
• Clinical Testing and Diagnosis
• Clinical Care and Treatment
• Responding to HBV Exposures in Health Care Settings
• Vaccine Administration
• Viral Hepatitis
• Hepatitis A
• Hepatitis C
• Viral Hepatitis Statistics & Surveillance

Clinical Testing and Diagnosis for Hepatitis B

• CDC published updated recommendations among adults for hepatitis B screening and testing in 2023 that are complementary to the 2022 Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) vaccine recommendations for hepatitis B.
• The recommendations consider a simpler and less stigmatizing implementation strategy than previous risk-based hepatitis B virus (HBV) screening recommendations among adults.

Why it’s important

More than half of people with hepatitis B are unaware of their infection status, and approximately 50%–70% of people with acute hepatitis B are asymptomatic 1 . Without testing, people with hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection can unknowingly transmit the virus to others.

Chronic HBV infection can lead to substantial morbidity and mortality but is detectable before the development of severe liver disease using reliable and inexpensive screening tests. Routine monitoring and treatment for chronic HBV infection can reduce morbidity and mortality, supporting the importance of early detection of HBV infection.

In addition, although not quantifiable, management of chronic infection through prevention efforts can prevent further transmission to others.

Read more on the rationale for the new recommendations .

For the public‎

How to make decisions on whether to test or screen.

Screening generally refers to serologic testing of asymptomatic people not known to be at increased risk for exposure to HBV.

Testing generally refers to serologic testing of people with symptoms or those who are at increased risk for exposure to HBV.

CDC recommends screening all adults aged 18 and older for hepatitis B at least once in their lifetime using a triple panel test. To ensure increased access to testing, anyone who requests HBV testing should receive it regardless of disclosure of risk. Many people might be reluctant to disclose stigmatizing risks.

CDC recommends testing all infants born to HBsAg-positive people for HBsAg and antibody to hepatitis B surface antigen (anti-HBs) seromarkers.

Pregnant people

CDC recommends HBV screening for HBsAg for all pregnant people during each pregnancy, preferably in the first trimester, regardless of vaccination status or history of testing. Pregnant people with a history of appropriately timed triple panel screening without subsequent risk for exposure to HBV (no new HBV exposures since triple panel screening) only need HBsAg screening.

People at increased risk

CDC recommends testing susceptible people periodically, regardless of age, with ongoing risk for exposures while risk for exposures persists. This includes:

• People with a history of sexually transmitted infections or multiple sex partners.
• People with history of past or current HCV infection.
• People incarcerated or formerly incarcerated in a jail, prison, or other detention setting.
• Infants born to HBsAg-positive people.
• People born in regions  with HBV infection prevalence of 2% or more.
• US-born people not vaccinated as infants whose parents were born in  geographic regions  with HBsAg prevalence of 8% or more.
• People who inject drugs or have a history of injection drug use.
• People with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection.
• Men who have sex with men.
• Household contacts or former household contacts of people with known HBV infection.
• People who have shared needles with or engaged in sexual contact with people with known HBV infection.
• People on maintenance dialysis, including in-center or home hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis.
• People with elevated liver enzymes.

Susceptible people include those who have never been infected with HBV and either did not complete a hepatitis B vaccine (HepB) series per ACIP recommendations or who are known to be vaccine nonresponders.

Recommended tests

CDC now* recommends use of the triple panel test, which includes testing for:

• Total antibody to hepatitis B core antigen (total anti-HBc)

Any periodic follow-up testing can use tests as appropriate based on the results of the triple panel.

*Prior guidance recommended a single test of HBsAg.

Other resources

• Medscape: Driving Hepatitis B Management: Universal Screening and Vaccination in Primary Care

How to interpret test results

Different serologic markers or combinations of markers are used to identify different phases of HBV infection. They determine whether a patient has acute or chronic HBV infection, is immune to HBV as a result of prior infection or vaccination, or is susceptible to infection. Markers include:

• HBsAg : HBsAg is a protein on the surface of HBV that can be detected in high levels in serum during acute or chronic HBV infection. The presence of HBsAg indicates that the person is infectious, except when it might be transiently positive within 30 days after a dose of HepB vaccine. The body normally produces antibodies to HBsAg as part of the normal immune response to infection. HBsAg is the antigen used to make HepB vaccine.
• Anti-HBs : The presence of anti-HBs is generally interpreted as indicating recovery and immunity from HBV infection. Anti-HBs also develops in a person who has been successfully vaccinated against hepatitis B. Among vaccine responders who complete a vaccine series, anti-HBs levels can decline over time; however, the majority remain immune and will mount a response when exposed to HBV.
• Anti-HBc : Anti-HBc appears at the onset of symptoms in acute hepatitis B, is a measure of both immunoglobulin M (IgM) and immunoglobulin G (IgG), and persists for life. The presence of total anti-HBc indicates previous or ongoing infection with HBV in an undefined time frame. People who have immunity to hepatitis B from a vaccine do not develop anti-HBc.
• IgM anti-HBc : IgM anti-HBc positivity indicates recent infection with HBV (within less than 6 months). Its presence indicates acute infection. IgM anti-HBc should be ordered only when acute HBV infection is a concern.
• Hepatitis B Serology Training

How to diagnose hepatitis B

The presence of the total anti-HBc antigen is needed to diagnose a patient with a hepatitis B infection. The results of the HBsAg, anti-HBs, and IgM anti-HBc tests indicate a patient’s type of hepatitis B and if they have developed immunity.

• University of Washington:  Core Concepts — HBV Screening, Testing, and Diagnosis

What to do next

CDC recommends that people who are diagnosed with hepatitis B be provided with:

• Medical evaluation (by either a primary care clinician or specialist for chronic liver diseases) including treatment and monitoring.
• Supportive care for their symptoms as needed.

For more CDC information on recommendations for testing, management, and treatment of hepatitis B, see Hepatitis B Clinical Care & Treatment .

Reporting cases

The National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System (NNDSS) lists acute, chronic, and perinatal hepatitis B as nationally notifiable conditions.

You should report cases of suspected health care-associated HBV infection to state and local public health authorities for prompt investigation and response.

When you report a case, you will need an event code corresponding to the hepatitis B condition. You can reclassify cases if needed, as long as the changes occur before surveillance data are finalized each year.

National event codes:

• Acute hepatitis B: 10100
• Perinatal hepatitis B : 10104
• Chronic hepatitis B: 10105

In 2024, The Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists updated the surveillance case definitions for acute and chronic hepatitis B (HBV). These definitions are used to determine how to classify and report cases to the CDC. Surveillance data is in turn used to monitor trends in disease incidence, understand the burden of hepatitis B in the community, determine risk behaviors or exposures, identify outbreaks, and assess opportunities for prevention. For the most current guidance, see: Viral Hepatitis Surveillance and Case Management Guidance for State, Territorial, and Local Health Departments

• University of Washington Infectious Diseases & Assessment (IDEA) program – HBV Screening, Testing, and Diagnosis
• Screening and Testing for Hepatitis B Virus Infection: CDC Recommendations — United States, 2023
• Prevention of Hepatitis B Virus Infection in the United States: Recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices | MMWR | CDC
• Kodani M, Schillie SF. Chapter 4: Hepatitis B. In: Roush S, Baldy LM, Kirkconnell Hall MA, eds. Manual for the Surveillance of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases, 2020 .
• * IgM anti-HBc also might be positive in persons with chronic infection during severe HBV infection flares or reactivation.
• † Immune if anti-HBs concentration is >10 mIU/mL after vaccine series completion.
• ‡ Anti-HBs concentrations might wane over time among vaccine responders. People with a documented, complete HepB vaccine series typically do not need to be revaccinated, except for special populations like patients on  hemodialysis or health care personnel .

Hepatitis B

Hepatitis B is a vaccine-preventable liver infection caused by the hepatitis B virus (HBV). HBV information for both the public and health professionals.

For Everyone

Health care providers.

What Is a Capstone Project vs. Thesis

As students near the end of their academic journey, they encounter a crucial project called the capstone – a culmination of all they've learned. But what exactly is a capstone project? 

This article aims to demystify capstone projects, explaining what they are, why they matter, and what you can expect when you embark on this final academic endeavor.

Capstone Project Meaning

A capstone project is a comprehensive, culminating academic endeavor undertaken by students typically in their final year of study. 

It synthesizes their learning experiences, requiring students to apply the knowledge, skills, and competencies gained throughout their academic journey. A capstone project aims to address a real-world problem or explore a topic of interest in depth. 

As interdisciplinary papers, capstone projects encourage critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity. They allow students to showcase their mastery of their field of study and demonstrate their readiness for future academic or professional pursuits.

Now that we’ve defined what is a capstone project, let’s discuss its importance in the academic landscape. In case you have short-form compositions to handle, simply say, ‘ do my essay for me ,’ and our writers will take care of your workload.

Why Is a Capstone Project Important

A capstone project is crucial because it allows students to combine everything they've learned in school and apply it to real-life situations or big problems. 

It's like the ultimate test of what they know and can do. By working on these projects, students get hands-on experience, learn to think critically and figure out how to solve tough problems. 

Plus, it's a chance to show off their skills and prove they're ready for whatever comes next, whether that's starting a career or going on to more schooling.

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What Is the Purpose of a Capstone Project

Here are three key purposes of a capstone project:

Integration of Knowledge and Skills

Capstones often require students to draw upon the knowledge and skills they have acquired throughout their academic program. The importance of capstone project lies in helping students synthesize what they have learned and apply it to a real-world problem or project. 

This integration helps students demonstrate their proficiency and readiness for graduation or entry into their chosen profession.

Culmination of Learning

Capstone projects culminate a student's academic journey, allowing them to apply theoretical knowledge to real-world scenarios. 

tackling a significant project or problem, students demonstrate their understanding of concepts and their ability to translate them into practical solutions, reinforcing their learning journey.

Professional Development

Capstone projects allow students to develop skills relevant to their future careers. These projects can also be tangible examples of their capabilities to potential employers or graduate programs.

Whether it's conducting research, presenting findings, or collaborating with peers, students gain valuable experience that enhances their professional readiness. 

Types of Capstone Projects

Capstones vary widely depending on the academic discipline, institution, and specific program requirements. Here are some common types:

What Is the Difference Between a Thesis and a Capstone Project

Here's a breakdown of the key differences between a thesis and a capstone project:

How to Write a Capstone Project

Let's dive into the specifics with actionable and meaningful steps for writing a capstone project:

1. Select a Pertinent Topic

Identify a topic that aligns with your academic interests, program requirements, and real-world relevance. Consider issues or challenges within your field that merit further exploration or solution. 

Conduct thorough research to ensure the topic is both feasible and significant. Here are some brilliant capstone ideas for your inspiration.

2. Define Clear Objectives

Clearly articulate the objectives of your capstone project. What specific outcomes do you aim to achieve? 

Whether it's solving a problem, answering a research question, or developing a product, ensure your objectives are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART).

3. Conduct Comprehensive Research

Dive deep into existing literature, theories, and empirical evidence related to your chosen topic. Identify gaps, controversies, or areas for further investigation. 

Synthesize relevant findings and insights to inform the development of your project and provide a solid foundation for your analysis or implementation.

4. Develop a Structured Plan

What is a capstone project in college without a rigid structure? Outline a comprehensive plan for your capstone project, including key milestones, tasks, and deadlines. 

Break down the project into manageable phases, such as literature review, data collection, analysis, and presentation. Establish clear criteria for success and regularly monitor progress to stay on track.

5. Implement Methodological Rigor

If your project involves research, ensure methodological rigor by selecting appropriate research methods, tools, and techniques. 

Develop a detailed research design or project plan that addresses key methodological considerations, such as sampling, data collection, analysis, and validity. Adhere to ethical guidelines and best practices throughout the research process.

6. Analyze and Interpret Findings

Analyze your data or findings using appropriate analytical techniques and tools. Interpret the results in relation to your research questions or objectives, highlighting key patterns, trends, or insights. 

Critically evaluate the significance and implications of your findings within the broader context of your field or industry.

7. Communicate Effectively

Present your capstone project clearly, concisely, and compellingly. Whether it's a written report, presentation, or multimedia deliverable, tailor your communication style to your target audience. Clearly articulate your research questions, methodology, findings, and conclusions. 

Use visuals, examples, and real-world applications to enhance understanding and engagement. Be prepared to defend your project and answer questions from peers, faculty, or stakeholders.

In wrapping up, what is a capstone project? It’s like the grand finale of your academic journey, where all the knowledge and skills you've acquired come together in one big project. 

It's not just about passing a test or getting a grade – it's about proving you've got what it takes to make a real difference in the world. So, if you ever need capstone project help , our writers will gladly lend you a hand in no time.

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What Is a Capstone Project in College?

How to do a capstone project, how long does a capstone project take to complete.

Annie Lambert

specializes in creating authoritative content on marketing, business, and finance, with a versatile ability to handle any essay type and dissertations. With a Master’s degree in Business Administration and a passion for social issues, her writing not only educates but also inspires action. On EssayPro blog, Annie delivers detailed guides and thought-provoking discussions on pressing economic and social topics. When not writing, she’s a guest speaker at various business seminars.

is an expert in nursing and healthcare, with a strong background in history, law, and literature. Holding advanced degrees in nursing and public health, his analytical approach and comprehensive knowledge help students navigate complex topics. On EssayPro blog, Adam provides insightful articles on everything from historical analysis to the intricacies of healthcare policies. In his downtime, he enjoys historical documentaries and volunteering at local clinics.

• T. (2023, June 16). What Is a Capstone Project? National University. https://www.nu.edu/blog/what-is-a-capstone-project/
• Lukins, S. (2024, May 12). What is a capstone project? And why is it important? Top Universities. https://www.topuniversities.com/student-info/careers-advice-articles/what-capstone-project-why-it-important
• Capstone Project vs. Thesis: What’s the Difference? (2021, December 9). UAGC. https://www.uagc.edu/blog/capstone-project-vs-thesis-whats-difference

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What These Stories About Samuel Alito’s “Provocative” Flags Are Really About

No, john roberts is not going to do anything about this one either..

It’s easy to be furious at Samuel Alito, who has recently racked up yet another petty personal grievance display over, of all things, flags. Last week saw the earthquake report that his wife flew a flag upside down—signaling either that the country is in danger or that the election was stolen—in the days after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. This week,   the New York Times further reports that Alito was flying an “Appeal to Heaven” flag at his New Jersey beach house this past summer. That flag is not merely another Jan. 6 signifier but is also rooted in John Locke’s “appeal to heaven,” meaning “a responsibility to rebel, even use violence, to overthrow unjust rule.”

In some ways, this is another very ridiculous, very 2024 story about the lengths to which ostensible adults will go toward owning the libs, and one justice’s fantastically bad judgment and cluelessness about the appearance of impropriety. But this is not even about Samuel Alito. Neither, actually, was the bombshell report about his alleged leak of the outcome of the Hobby Lobby decision in 2014 to wealthy religious Supreme Court lobbyists about Samuel Alito. To expend energy railing against this one petty, petty little man is to inveigh against the symptom as opposed to the problem.

It is just as easy to be enraged at Clarence Thomas and his myriad and corrosive ethics violations. His wife has texted with Mark Meadows over what she believed to be a stolen 2020 election, tried to encourage state legislators to support a slate of dummy electors, attended part of the “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6, and testified before the Jan. 6 committee that she still believed that that election had been stolen. And Thomas has declined to recuse himself from the three Jan. 6 cases heard at the high court this year. But again, this is not about Ginni or Clarence Thomas. Expending energy hopelessly trying to shame Clarence Thomas or Samuel Alito is an act of incalculable futility.

It is not even, I fear, about Chief Justice John Roberts, who might have, in a different time and under different circumstances, been the type of history-minded leader who would have dealt with this shameless and flagrant squandering of the court’s reputation as a serious body. After all, Roberts once told Jeffrey Rosen in the Atlantic, “The Court is also ripe for a similar refocus on functioning as an institution, because if it doesn’t it’s going to lose its credibility and legitimacy as an institution.” But that chief justice left the chat at least a decade ago. In failing to act, over and over, he has been a powerful actor.

In Legitimacy Roberts’ stead we have been left with yet another defensive , thin-skinned thunderer about judicial independence and a longtime coddler of insurrectionists and grifters. Which is why calling on Roberts to take a page from Chief Justice Earl Warren’s playbook and use his moral authority to do something about Alito and Thomas—as Warren once did about Abe Fortas—is almost as futile as calling for him to put real teeth into an ethics code or conduct a meaningful investigation of the Dobbs leak. Roberts, respectfully, has long ago made the decision that he is simply one coequal vote among nine. He neither wants nor possesses the authority to rein in the MAGA justices. He may vote as though he cares about court legitimacy, but he chief justices like the harassed mother of a kid throwing a tantrum at Safeway—all shrugs and eye rolls. We can and should demand that Roberts account for what he knew and when he knew it, but Roberts will not solve the problem he has allowed to fester and grow.

So if the real problem here is not Sam Alito, or Clarence Thomas, or John Roberts, why have we wasted years of ink and umbrage and energy trying to change their behavior? Alito and Thomas will not be recusing themselves from either Fisher or the Trump immunity case. The chief justice will not be urging them to do so. No lawyer arguing in front of the court will, as Sherrilyn Ifill has been urging , demand a recusal or an investigation of justices with blatant conflicts of interest hearing these Jan. 6 cases because, as Noah Bookbinder of CREW recently told us on the Amicus podcast, to ask the very people you want to cast votes for you to find themselves conflicted is rank insanity. “The system of leaving it up to litigants to challenge justices as potentially conflicted doesn’t make any sense,” Bookbinder said. “Of course that’s not going to work. And leaving justices to make that determination doesn’t make any sense. You need to have some kind of outside body who can evaluate those kinds of questions.”

Who, who, who might that outside body be? Tapping my chin—you tap yours.

Bookbinder’s answer points beautifully to the real problem: We have a judicial enterprise that rules over us with absolutely no one ruling over it. Nobody should be all that surprised that Sen. Dick Durbin has announced that the Senate Judiciary Committee will not launch a probe into Alito’s recent conduct. The Senate has also been trying to unearth the financing for Thomas’ quarter-million-dollar, salt-of-the-earth RV, amid other ethics violations, and Leonard Leo has declined to comply with subpoenas related to it. Yes, the Senate should be acting to resolve this problem, but that seems to have largely stalled at “Ask them to recuse.”

So, just to review, this isn’t really a Sam Alito problem, or a Clarence Thomas problem, or a John Roberts problem—but it also isn’t even a Senate-Dems-who-can’t-muster-the-energy-to-close-the-deal problem.

No, I have come to conclude that this is an us problem. Because rather than hurling ourselves headlong into the “Alito Must Recuse” brick wall of “yeah, no,” we need to dedicate the upcoming election cycle, and the attendant election news cycle, to a discussion of the courts. Not just Alito or Thomas, who happen to go to work every day at the court, and not just Dobbs and gun control, which happen to have come out of the very same court, but the connection between those two tales: what it means to have a Supreme Court that is functionally immune from political pressure, from internal norms of behavior, from judicial ethics and disclosure constraints, and from congressional oversight, and why that is deeply dangerous. More so, why justices who were placed on the court to behave as well-compensated partisan politicians would do so in public as well as on paper. Until we do that, Alito will continue to fly around the world, giving speeches about his triumph in Dobbs and Thomas will keep taking gifts and failing to disclose them. That won’t be the end of the Supreme Court story; it will be just the start of it.

My friend Jennifer Rubin unspooled a call for Democrats to run in November on the promise of abortion rights and court and filibuster reform. That too will be a start. But Donald Trump is already training us to accept the argument that presidents need to be able to order the assassination of their rivals, and Alito is training us to tolerate the notion that if we don’t grant presidents immunity for such acts, they won’t agree to peacefully leave office. In the span of a week, Alito has also trained us to accept that justices can fly whatever inciting and ideological symbols they like, even if the guys who work in the SCOTUS mailroom can’t, because justices are also the recipients of blanket immunity. The problem with these arguments about offering immunity to bad actors is that you can metabolize the helplessness almost as rapidly as you metabolize the idea of immunity itself. It’s not merely the idea that law is for suckers that we have normalized in this precarious moment—it’s the tragic collective conclusion that there is nothing to be done about the fact that the light is really flashing red right now.

An imperial court is the problem, not Martha-Ann Alito’s childish tantrums and not whatever her husband will tell Fox News tomorrow about how the haters made him fly a Christian nationalist flag as the court took on the mifepristone case. Please don’t let the rapid riptides of the news cycle or the sense that God wants us all to live under the fist of an imperial court forever and ever, amen, distract from the fact that term limits, court expansion, an inspector general, and filibuster reform, all of this is possible, and none of it is happening in the wake of the Alito flag revelations, just as none of it was happening when Ginni Thomas showed up at an insurrection rally. The court is hearing cases on the docket while some justices are living life off the docket that prove one thing only: that institutional immunity is not so much taken as silently and invisibly conferred. If we have learned anything at all in the recent past, it’s that it’s also contagious.