Sexual Politics

Abstract

AbstractSexual politics was defined by the feminist Kate Millett in 1970 as encompassing the contestation of power‐structured relationships with respect to sex, gender, and sexuality, and in relation to the social system of patriarchy. Sexual politics thus politicized sociology in its approach to such inequalities, particularly in what was considered private or personal life. The women's liberation movement and the gay liberation movement brought new sets of concerns about power relationships into the social sciences. In more recent years sexual politics has broadened to encompass a range of issues including transgenderism, intersex status, pornography, sadomasochism, sexual violence and abuse, and pedophilia. Queer politics has emerged as one approach, with associated queer theory, focused on challenging the privileged status of heterosexuality. Globally sexual politics is increasingly structured by the effects of sexual nationalisms deployed by governments, which selectively deploy gender and sexuality. International organizations including the Commonwealth thus increasingly become sites of struggle for transnational activists and movements in sexual politics. However, some argue that homonationalisms in some more wealthy countries selectively affirm certain human rights, and engage international institutions, in ways which maintain inequalities of power between the global north and global south.