Against influential strands of feminist theory, I argue that there is nothing essentialist or homogenising about the category ‘women’. I show that both intersectional claims that it is impossible to separate out the ‘woman part’ of women, and deconstructionist contentions that the category ‘women’ is a fiction, rest on untenable meta-theoretical assumptions. I posit that a more fruitful way of approaching this disputed category is to treat it as an abstraction. Drawing on the philosophical framework of critical realism I elucidate the nature of the vital and inevitable process of abstraction, as a means of finding a way out of the theoretical and methodological impasse that the ‘ban’ on the category ‘women’ has caused. Contrary to many contemporary feminist theorists, I contend that, although the category ‘women’ does not reflect the whole reality of concrete and particular women, it nevertheless refers to something real, namely the structural position as woman.
In feminist research on sexual violence and victimization, the relationship between discourse and experience has often been at the forefront of intense debates. Poststructuralist scholars have emphasized that the discourses used to name sexual violence may in fact perpetuate the very problem they set out to describe, by freezing women into powerless positions of rapability. Others have likened this sort of argument to anti-feminist trivialization of the pervasively gendered experiential reality to which such discourses refer, highlighting that women’s victimization is not a discursive problem. In this article, I seek to carve out a path that cuts through such polarization by exploring the multifaceted dialectical relationship between, on one hand, gendered discourses on sex and sexual violence and, on the other, people’s reported experiences of these phenomena and, in particular, of the ‘grey area’ between sex and sexual violence; I do this by analysing autobiographical stories from the influential Swedish campaign #prataomdet (#talkaboutit), which emphasized the need for a new language that can do justice to people’s experiences of sexual violence and the grey area between sex and sexual violence.
There is a global trend towards defining sexual violence in terms of non-consent. However, the very concept of sexual consent has proved ambiguous and many scholars highlight the difficulties of distinguishing genuine consent from compliance in the context of a gender regime that constrains women’s ability to say no to male sexual initiatives. But what about men’s experiences of vulnerability and ambiguousness as regards whether their own participation in sex is consensual or not? This issue has often been left out of discussions on consent, since the key problem connected to the issue of consent is arguably some men’s disrespect of girls’ and women’s non-consent. The framing of (non)consent as an issue first and foremost for girls and women is indeed understandable in the light of the gendered patterning of sexual violence; at the same time, it is problematic insofar as it reproduces masculinity constructions that take men’s sexual willingness for granted.
Based on initial findings from an ongoing interview project, the paper explores heterosexual men’s experiences of sexual consent and non-consent and the grey-area in-between. Examples of questions guiding the analysis are: Do the men experience tensions and ambiguities as regards sexual (non)consent? Do they have experiences of participating in unwanted sex? If so, how do they understand such experiences? How is non-consent communicated? Do they sometimes find it difficult to know what they really want? How is this understood? What role does gendered scripts and masculinity constructions play? What role does care and concern for a sexual partner play? What role is played by the gendered nature of the notions of victim and perpetrator?
An assumption guiding the analysis is that, on one hand, there is a gendered structure that empowers men at the cost of women, but that, on the other hand, men too are likely to be vulnerable in the face of powerful scripts of constant male sexual readiness and the expectations they generate. How are we to make sense of the differences and similarities in heterosexual men’s and women’s respective experiences of unwanted sex and the grey-area between wanted and unwanted sex?
While sexual consent is overall embraced as a promising concept centrally organizing feminist analysis and struggle against sexual violence, there are significant contentions related to feminist understandings of consent, revolving around the instability of the notion itself. In this presentation I address what I see as central theoretical themes in feminist discussions on consent, with a focus on tensions regarding how to make sense of the idea of voluntariness on which the concept of consent is based, in light of how gendered power structures constrain women’s freedom. First, I review how feminist contestations of notions of human autonomy and theorizations of structural power challenge the concept of consent. Second, I address how feminist scholars have drawn attention to the overlaps between normative heterosex and sexual violence, thereby destabilizing the boundary between consensual and non-consensual sex. Third, I consider how the notion of a grey area between consent and non-consent stands in a relationship of tension with concerns in the anti-violence movement to draw clear boundaries around the notion of consent. I conclude by suggesting a way of working towards a deepened culture of consent which embraces the ambiguity of sex, sociality and consent.
By means of autoethnographic inquiry, the author offers a substantiation of her previous theoretical elaborations on how heterosexual women may liberate themselves from the oppressive contradictions of hetero-love as constellated in contemporary patriarchy.
The paper addresses the ontological, epistemological and political status of intersectional categories, in a general context of categorial destabilization combined with a continued need for addressing collectivities, such as women. Drawing on the meta-theoretical tools of critical realism, I delineate a way of conceptualizing the ontology of intersectional categories which honours their ontological irreducibility and distinctness while avoiding homogenization and fixity. I centre the issue of the separateness versus inseparability of intersectional categories, suggesting that many conflicts in debates about intersectionality could be solved if we become clearer about what we mean by ‘separate’ or ‘inseparable’. The paper offers a (dialectical) critical realist solution to the in/separability tension, pivoting around the claim that things can be both separate and inseparable, at the same time.
In this article I attempt to reconcile two seemingly conflictingtheorizations of love, the one elaborated by Roy Bhaskar as part of hisphilosophy of metaReality and Anna G. Jónasdóttir’s historical materialist-radical feminist theory of ‘love power’. While Bhaskar emphasizes theessentially non-dual character of love, envisioning it as a ‘no-lose situation’,Jónasdóttir stresses the antagonistic features structuring love relationsby conceptualizing love as a productive power of which men tend toexploit women. Rather than seeing these accounts as mutually exclusiveI show that they can be reconciled by aid of the general ontology elaboratedby Bhaskar in his philosophy of metaReality.
Gunnarsson highlights how dialectics can shed light on the relation between love and dominance, foregrounding the crucial role that ontological tensions play in self–other relating.Drawing on Roy Bhaskar’s dialectical critical realist philosophy, she expands on Jessica Benjamin’s analysis of male dominance as well as other feminist work, and elaborates on the necessity of living-with rather than seeking to escape constitutive tensions, if we are to be able to live non-oppressively and sustainably with one another.Gunnarsson also demonstrates how dialectics can account for the fact that life-enhancing impulses are often co-enfolded in oppressive practicesand elaborates on the implications that this has for the prospect of transformation.
The chapter theorizes the tension inherent in contemporary western heterosexual love between, on one hand, norms of gender equality and freedom to choose and, on the other, persisting gender inequality. Focusing on the empirically documented asymmetry in love ‘exchanges’ as such between women and men, I ask how this tendency comes about despite the fact that mutual love is the raison d’être of the relationship, that the ideological context prescribes gender equality and that there are no salient external factors that stop women from breaking up in case they are not satisfied.
My main argument is that, since what we normally (can) expect from women and men differs, what tends to evoke gratitude, appreciation and love is also gendered. Hence, even if an individual man practices reciprocity in love, he will still be structurally advantaged to the extent that his behaviour implies a positive break with what can be expected from men in general. This tends to make the woman more grateful than the man – despite the actual symmetry – and thereby the asymmetry is paradoxically reinstated.
It has long been taboo for feminist theorists to draw on notions of nature in their conceptualizations of gender relations. Objecting to this nature-phobia, I argue that we need to anchor our social theories in explicit notions of the natural necessities on which any social structure draws and must ultimately accommodate. Such a reference to a ‘natural ontological order’ is needed not only for explaining how power structures can get a hold over people, but also for specifying the ways in which the natural necessities impose absolute constraints on the forms that oppressive structures can take, ultimately creating a conatus to getting rid of the oppressive structure. In the human-social realm a crucial aspect of nature is those basic human needs that any society must meet in order to reproduce itself. One such human need that has been theoretically overlooked, although often implicitly assumed, is the need for love. Drawing on Anna G. Jónasdóttir's theory of ‘love power’, I elaborate on the contradictions inherent in the power that men acquire by exploiting women's love, arguing that these contradictions can be understood only with reference to natural necessities.
The thesis offers a theoretical account of how and why, in contemporary western societies characterized by formal-legal equality and women’s relative economic independence, women continue to be subordinated to men through sexuality and love. By means of an innovative application of Roy Bhaskar’s critical realism, dialectical critical realism and philosophy of metaReality, it investigates and elaborates Anna G. Jónasdóttir’s claim that men tend to exploit women of their ‘love power’. Also, the thesis advances a critique of the state of affairs of contemporary feminist theory, demonstrating that the meta-theoretical framework of critical realism offers tools that can counter the poststructuralist hegemony in feminist theory.
Part I engages in a comprehensive evaluation of Catharine MacKinnon’s, Judith Butler’s and Jónasdóttir’s theorizations of sexuality and gendered power. Insofar as the works of these theorists represent different philosophical paradigms, this critique opens up a discussion of more general meta-theoretical issues, which are elaborated in Part II, where poststructuralist feminist positions are challenged. Following Jónasdóttir’s broadening of the concept of sexuality so as to essentially include practices of love, in Part III the focus of the thesis is shifted from sexuality to love. Here a dialectical deepening and partial recasting of Jónasdóttir’s work is offered, by means of an application of dialectical critical realism and the philosophy of metaReality.
The thesis outlines a feminist dialectical-realist depth ontology of love, sexuality and power, which constitutes an alternative to dominant discursive approaches to sexuality and attributes to love its proper place in our existence as sexual human creatures. Although the thesis makes a case for the tenacity of female subordination in and through sexuality and love, it ends on a more optimistic note, by offering a model of how women can break the shackles of love.
Hur går det till när människor kommer överens om att ha sex? Hur vet de att den andra verkligen vill? Och vad är det som gör att det ibland är svårt att dra en tydlig gräns mellan samtyckesbaserat sex och övergrepp? Samtyckesdynamiker undersöker dessa frågor på basis av ingående och djupt personliga intervjuer med tjugo bi-,homo- och heterosexuella kvinnor och män. Boken tar avstamp i den juridiska definitionen av sexuellt samtycke som frivilligtdeltagande men vidgar diskussionen till en vidare moralisk och sociologisk sfär. Den gråzonsproblematik som utgör ett centralt tema i boken kretsar kring det faktum att det inte alltid är självklart var gränsen går mellan att ha sex frivilligt eller mot sin vilja.
Samtyckesdynamiker riktar sig till lärare, forskare och studenter i sexologi, genusvetenskap, sociologi, socialt arbete, psykologi och juridik, som intresserar sig för sexualitet och sexuellt våld, samt till personer som arbetar med sexualupplysning och våldsprevention.
Intervju med tre unga, heterosexuella feminister.
With the global proliferation of ‘sugar dating’ websites, the phenomenon of sugar dating is increasingly debated. Sugar dating is described by the sites themselves as dating arrangements based on an exchange of intimacy and companionship for financial or other forms of support. Since sex is often part of these arrangements, claims are widespread – while disputed – that sugar dating amounts to prostitution. My own and Sofia Strid’s research shows that although sugar dating indeed constitutes an expansion of the sex industry, it also challenges common divisions between ‘regular’ relationships and sexual commerce. The way that many sugar dating arrangements are located at the border of the transactional and the authentic calls for new conceptualizations of the meaning of commercialization in the sphere of intimacy. This paper draws on semi-structured interviews and a survey questionnaire with Swedish ‘sugar daddies’ and female ‘sugar babies’ with experience of heterosexual sugar dating. It addresses a theme that emerges in the accounts of both ‘sugar babies’ and ‘sugar daddies’: the compensated form of dating offered by the sugar dating contract is described as positively experienced by several participants due to its bounded character, as compared to regular romantic relationships and dating. Previous research on the so-called girlfriend experience, an increasingly popular service offered by some escort sex workers, has highlighted that many male purchasers of sex appreciate the bounded form of intimacy offered in these encounters. The girlfriend experience provides an experience of genuine or quasi-genuine mutuality but without the demands, responsibilities and vulnerabilities that come with uncompensated relationships. The ‘sugar babies’ participating in our study reported a wide variety of experiences of sugar dating, including unequivocally negative experiences. However, a theme that stands out as interesting in our data is that not only the ‘sugar daddies’ but also several of the ‘sugar baby’ participants indicated an appreciation of the bounded form of intimacy that they felt was offered in sugar dating arrangements: a lack of demands and emotional involvement was described as positive aspects of sugar dating as compared to non-compensated dating. In this paper this theme is analysed in light of neoliberal transformations of social relationships bolstering an instrumentalizing attitude to relationships including sex and intimacy. Drawing on Eva Illouz’s work on the contemporary structural conditions of love, I address the participants’ reported appreciation of the bounded and contractual features of sugar dating arrangements as mirroring the fact of an increasingly precarious regular dating ‘market’, where vulnerability and uncertainty prevail. I also draw on Antony Giddens’ notion of the pure relationship, conceptualizing the preference for a contractual intimate arrangement regulated by objective, external factors (material compensation) as a way of avoiding the vulnerabilities of a pure relationship based solely on the parties’ subjective experience that the relationship is intrinsically satisfying.
The proliferation of "sugar dating" websites, facilitating transactional relationships between a "sugar baby" and a "sugar daddy," raises new questions about the reconfigured relationship between intimacy and economy in the contemporary Global North. By encouraging people to approach sex and intimacy through a logic of exchange, sugar dating has been claimed to represent the culmination of a broader trend towards a "marketization" of intimacy. Based on semi-structured interviews, this article analyzes Swedish "sugar babies"' investment in a transactional approach to intimate interactions with men, focusing on the emotional rewards that they associate with the transactional setup of sugar dating. While the participants' transactional approach to intimacy is bolstered by the cultural dispersal of a neoliberal rationality into ever more domains of life, I argue that its deeper roots need to be sought in the precarious conditions of contemporary intimacy. Drawing in particular on the work of Eva Illouz, I claim that the women's embracement of a transactional approach to heterosexual sex and intimacy may be read as a defensive tactic of seeking to gain control over the flows of intimate interaction in light of the (gendered) insecurities and vulnerabilities of the contemporary market of intimacy.
The Contradictions of Love: Towards a feminist-realist ontology of sociosexuality offers a robust and multifaceted theoretical account of how, in contemporary western societies, women continue to be subordinated to men through sexual love. The book defends and elaborates Anna G. Jónasdóttir’s thesis that men tend to exploit women of their ‘love power’, by means of an innovative application of critical realism, dialectical critical realism and the philosophy of metaReality. Gunnarson also offers a critique of the state of affairs of contemporary feminist theory.
The author demonstrates that the meta-theoretical framework of critical realism offers the tools that can counter the poststructuralist hegemony still prevailing in feminist theory. On a general level, The Contradictions of Love attempts at reconciling theoretical positions which tend to appear in opposition to one another. In particular, it offers a way of bridging the gap between the notion of love as a locus of exploitation and that of love as a force which can conquer oppression.
This book is a unique and timely contribution in the field of feminist theory, in that it offers the first elaborate assessment and development of Jónasdóttir’s important but relatively sidestepped work, and in that it counters poststructuralist trends from the point of view of a robust critical realist framework that has hitherto been spectacularly absent in feminist theory, although it offers solutions to metatheoretical problems at the forefront of feminist debates; in the field of critical realism broadly defined, in that it elaborates on crucial ontological themes of (dialectical) critical realism and the philosophy of metaReality via a discussion of the issues of love, sexuality, gender and power; and finally, in the field of love studies, in that it offers a sophisticated account of how gender asymmetries prevail in love despite norms of gender equality and reciprocity, and in that it reconciles feminist, conflict-oriented perspectives on love with notions of love as transcending conflict.