Abstract
AbstractTracing historical as well as current understandings that contribute to shape discourses of sexual rights, this article aims to show how particular understandings of sexuality interact in the discursive production of Sweden as a modern, rational and liberal nation. Inspired by recent developments in queer theory, I engage in a broader critique of how understandings of sexuality intersect with notions of gender, class, “race”/ethnicity and national identity. With departure in three historical points of impact for the development of sexual rights, I provide a historical contextualization to tease out the specific features of sexual rights’ discourses in this context. Guided by an interest to study how particular discourses of sexual rights come to retain a status as legitimate and “true”, I then conduct a close reading of a graphic novel, as well as of the reception of this novel. Finding that normative understandings of love and sexuality in mainstream culture sustain their status by a selective in...
Highlights
Tracing historical as well as current understandings that contribute to shape discourses of sexual rights, this article aims to show how particular understandings of sexuality interact in the discursive production of Sweden as a modern, rational and liberal nation
What can we learn today from the depiction of Sweden in the late 1960s as the land of sin? And how does that fit with the characterization of Sweden in the 1990s as a women friendly nation? Clearly, in western societies, discourses of sexual rights and gender equality are linked with wider understandings of modernity, rationality and liberalism
Tracing the historically variegated origins of present-day discourses of sexual rights in Sweden, this article examines how notions of sexuality and sexual rights come to retain their status as acceptable and true. It shows that normative understandings of love and sexuality in mainstream culture sustain their dominance by a selective inclusion of more radical views
Summary
Sexual democracy In the 1950s and 1960s, an image of Sweden as a sexually liberated country and of Swedish women as sexually willing was produced internationally. 467), in which birth control, abortion, promiscuity and sexual frivolity was described as indispensable rights in Sweden These international reactions predated the more heated debates that took place in Sweden during the 1960s, shaped in relation to the political discussions about the pornography legislation that subsequently was taken in 1971 The emergence of what was described as a progressive discourse around sexual and gender liberation continued to put its imprint on the image of Sweden as a modern and rational country. The alleged progressive politics for increased equality—producing the image of Sweden as modern and rational—was composed by contradictory features, combining “emancipation and discipline [...] liberty and servitude” (Glover & Marklund, 2009, p. 508); an ambivalent and politically loaded project of social engineering, in which sexuality became a biopolitical tool for shaping processes of normalization
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
