CFP: Whither Sexual Ethics and Politics?

First International Conference of the International Network for Sexual Ethics and Politics

5-7 September, 2011
Ghent, Belgium

Sexual ethics and politics lie at the core of how we understand and practice our sexual lives. They 
form the basis from which we understand and engage with diverse and different sexualities. Our 
explicit as well as implicit ethical thinking and feeling about sexuality is a significant way of 
understanding, analysing, evaluating and judging sexuality as a personal, public and social 
construct, exploring ascriptions of both positive and negative values to sexual practices that have 
impacts on those who do them and on societies in which they are done. Sexual ethics provides a means 
of reasoning about what is pathologised, prejudiced against and discriminated against and what is 
held up as healthy, virtuous and legitimate. Sexual ethics seeks to cut through discursive silences, 
aesthetic impressions, poorly reasoned judgements and illegitimate and oppressive state and public 
responses to erotic pleasures and desires. It forms the basis not simply for analyses of the 
vagaries and ills of contemporary moral values, legal rules and political and cultural discourse on 
sexuality; it allows us to explore and creatively imagine better values, discourse and rules in more 
enlightened societies. And this is, by its very nature, a political process. 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 at the realisation of 
sexual equality and justice.

Conceived in this way, sexual ethics and politics are a way of grappling with and critically 
thinking through the problems and possibilities of our sexual  lives – with the many and diverse 
ways we think and respond to our and other people’s sexualities and the context of sexual rights and 
justice, and key developments such as sexual commerce and work, sexual health and illness, sexual 
liberty and repression.

We see sexual ethics as a critical and discursive enterprise, informed by transdisciplinary 
approaches but characterised by the application of reasoned deliberation and judgement and ethical 
thinking in sexual scholarship. Ethical discourse on sexuality is enriched by the insights brought 
by both empirical and theoretical work, and by concrete legal, cultural, social, social 
psychological and political analyses as well as philosophical engagement.

This conference seeks papers, presentations and panels focusing on conceptual and theoretical 
debates, cultural and political analysis and empirical studies from which conceptual, ethical and 
political conclusions are drawn. Whilst we welcome a wide and diverse range of papers, we are 
particularly keen to encourage submissions on the following three themes:

     * Sexual politics, sexual citizenship, sexual rights and sexual (in)justice
     * The scope and limits of legal regulations and socio-cultural change and activism as 
emancipatory tools
     * New philosophical and ethical thinking on questions of sexual morality

INSEP sees the value in the fullest range of approaches to the study of sexual ethics and politics, 
including: gendered and feminist perspectives; distinctive lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and 
transsexual perspectives; queer perspectives; and approaches from more general positions such as 
liberalism, Marxism and democratic theory. The 2011 conference seeks to be an inclusive space of 
debate, welcoming dialogue and vigorous debate, but not sectarianism.

Please submit 300 word paper abstracts and 500 words panel proposals by 10 June 2011. Presenters 
will expect to present their papers within 20 minutes in order to maximise time for discussion. 
Abstracts may be sent to [log in to unmask] Submitters will be notified by 17 June 2011 if 
their proposals have been accepted.

The conference fee will be 150 Euros, payable between June 17th and  and July 15th. For more 
information on the conference and on INSEP, please visit http://www.insep.ugent.be/.

For informal discussion of proposals, please contact the conference organisers.

Paul Reynolds
Reader in Sociology and Social Philosophy
Edge Hill University, UK
[log in to unmask]

Tom Claes
Associate Professor of Ethics
Ghent University, Belgium
[log in to unmask]

Ps. Prospective participants may wish to stay in Belgium for the European Geographies of Sexualities 
Conference, 8th – 10th September 2011, Hogeschool-Universiteit Brussel (see: http://ssqrg.net/ for 
more info & CFP)