Sexualities and Freedoms

Hosted by CEVI (Centre for Ethics and Value Inquiry)
Faculty of Arts and Philosophy
Ghent University, Blandijnberg 2
9000 Ghent,– Belgium

General Conference Theme: –Sexualities and Freedoms

Sexuality is a nexus in which opposing pressures and strivings clash. It is a field of unescapable contestation, caught between discipline and revolt, governance and unruliness. All societies confine it, while most individuals strive for freedoms and self-determination.

Regulatory, legal, aesthetic, and moral frameworks concerning sexuality lie at the heart of all societies. They affect and structure what are considered permissible and non-permissible sexualities; they define and normalize accepted, ‘'healthy'’ and worthwhile forms of sexuality by setting these off against intolerable, deviant, perverse and pathological, and immoral sexualities. These frameworks are informed by values and norms, cultural backings, images of traditions and histories, and in turn reinforce these. But sexuality is a continuously changing and evolving domain, fuelled by, e.g., emancipatory movements, activism, politics, ethics, social, legal and cultural change, religion, modernisation and globalisation, and economic pressures and developments. It is a domain in which questions and issues of freedoms and liberties, justice and recognition are central. It is a vital aspect of self-determination, identity and well-being. These frameworks enable and disable our sexual freedoms and unfreedoms and provide the canvas against which the notion of sexual liberation and liberatory movements become meaningful. They promote, discourage, delineate and mould our individual sexual agency, identities, intimacies, choices and sexual possibilities.

The question then becomes: How should we frame and thematize sexual freedom? Who may make claims on which sexual freedoms? What are the limits of sexual freedoms? What is the relation between sexual freedom and liberation?  And what is the relation between freedom and liberties on the one hand and notions of 'emancipation'’, '‘progress'’, '‘liberation'’ and the like on the other?

For this conference we would like to focus on the dynamics, forms and contestations of sexual freedoms and unfreedoms, liberties and liberation ranging from the intimate and interpersonal, to the social and the national domain, and beyond: on a global scale.

The conference fee for the full three days is 200 Euros. A concessionary rate is available to students and postgraduates of 150 Euros. The rate for non-presenting delegates is 100 Euros.

About INSEP

INSEP wants to activate a critical dialogue between sexual ethics and politics by connecting them and exploring the ways they can contribute to each other. The sexual is political and just as sexual politics could be enriched by emancipatory ethical thinking, sexual ethics should connect with contemporary sexual activism, politics and practices aiming for the realisation of sexual equalities, liberations and justice. For more info on INSEP please visit:
http://www.insep.ugent.be/
Journal: http://www.budrich-journals.de/index.php/insep

Paul Reynolds
Reader in Sociology and Social Philosophy
Edge Hill University, UK
[email protected]

Tom Claes
Associate Professor of Ethics
Ghent University, Belgium
[email protected]