To Örebro University

Den Sverigebaserade historiematerialistiska feministiska teoretikern Anna G. Jónasdóttir är mest känd för sitt begrepp kärlekskraft, som hon ser som en grundläggande, exploaterbar mänsklig kapacitet jämförbar med men distinkt från arbetskraft. Kärlek, menar Jónasdóttir, är en produktiv, livgivande kraft och praktik med både omsorgsmässiga och erotiska komponenter, som behöver tas på teoretiskt allvar som oreducerbar faktor av historisk betydelse. Utifrån en unik läsning av de historiematerialistiska premisserna och en respekt för radikalfeministiska frågeställningar argumenterar Jónasdóttir för att den könsdistinkta materiella basen för kvinnors underordning i formellt jämställda patriarkat står att finna i mäns exploatering av kvinnors kärlek.

Kapitlet introducerar Jónasdóttirs bidrag med fokus på två teman som behandlas i hennes senare arbeten (2009–2023). Först redogör jag för hennes tolkning av Marx och Engels skrivningar om historiematerialismens grundläggande premisser och visar hur den underbygger en analys av kön och makt som skiljer sig från marxianska feministiska analyser fokuserade på omsorg och arbete. Därnäst visar jag på den ökade relevansen av Jónasdóttirs analys av kärlek inom ett marxistiskt ramverk. Huvudargumentet här är att människors förmåga till och behov av kärlek (i bred bemärkelse) får en alltmer framträdande roll som exploaterbar – och därmed revolutionärt betydelsefull – mänsklig kapacitet, i och med kapitalismens och patriarkatets utvecklingstendenser.

How does sexual consent work? How do we know that another person really wants to have sex with us? Why do people sometimes give in to sex that they are not in the mood for? And how come it is sometimes difficult to draw a sharp line between sex and assault? Dynamics of Sexual Consent addresses these questions based on deeply personal interviews with 20 Swedish women and men of various ages and sexual orientations. In doing so, it contributes to understandings of sexual consent and sexual grey areas through its combination of conceptual rigour, analytical detail and empirical richness.

While starting in the legal definition of consent as voluntary participation, the book broadens the discussion to a wider sociological and philosophical sphere where gendered power dynamics and relational dependencies challenge simplistic understandings of voluntariness. Contesting tendencies to see miscommunication as the key problem related to consent, it shows that emotional aspects are often the main factor standing in the way of genuinely consensual interactions. While the analysis is informed by a gender perspective emphasizing the gendered power asymmetries of heterosexuality, it also foregrounds men’s vulnerability and the power dynamics of samesex interactions. A key argument of the book is that, given the contextual and ambiguous nature of sexual interactions, it is impossible to delineate unequivocal and concretely applicable guidelines for what counts as consent. To compensate for the lack of universal, fail-safe rules, what is needed is an intensified collective reflection on consent and sexual grey areas, which can make individuals better equipped to identify and respect their own and others’ boundaries.

An empirically rich and conceptually sophisticated contribution to understanding of sexual consent and sexual grey areas, Dynamics of Sexual Consent will be of interest to scholars and students of gender studies, sociology and criminology.

This in-depth, thoughtful guest piece by Lena Gunnarsson explores how consent unfolds in the relational, affective and ambiguous terrain of real sexual encounters. Her analysis resonates strongly with the Safe Uncertainty framework, which argues that relationships and intimacy cannot be reduced to fixed rules or binary scripts. In both educational and practice settings, young people – and adults – need support to navigate the shifting interplay of desire, influence, vulnerability and expectation, including the dynamic and relational dimensions that this blog so clearly illuminates.

Rather than offering reassuring certainties (“always do X”, “never do Y”), Safe Uncertainty encourages educators to hold space for the very complexities this blog describes: moments when desire changes, ambivalence is hard to name, emotions shape decisions, and relational needs influence actions. It also helps practitioners work with the relational and cultural contexts that shape young people’s sense of agency, comfort and constraint.

This blog invites readers to consider consent as not just a boundary but also a dynamic, relational process that requires emotional literacy, attunement and reflective conversation as much as legal clarity.

There is a growing field of research dedicated to online incel communities, gathering men identifying as involuntary celibates or ‘incels’. A distinctive aspect of the incelosphere is the elaborate ‘theoretical framework’ communicated in the forums, portraying incel men as voiceless losers at a (hetero)sexual market ruled by women and biologically superior men. While the content of this incel worldview is relatively well-studied, a notable gap exists in the examination of the way knowledge production taking place within these communities is epistemologically legitimized. This article aims to fill this void by scrutinizing the epistemic logics and practices used by members at incel forums to validate their knowledge production on gender relations. By shedding light on how incels mobilize science as well as counter-hegemonic forms of knowledge production to legitimize their knowledge claims, the article offers a nuanced understanding of the intricate relation between the knowledge production of movements and counter-movements. This exploration can, we believe, form a basis for challenging and contesting claims made by incels.

Presentation vid GAVIS (Gender and Violence in Social Work), Linnéuniversitetet, 14 februari 2025.

Although singlehood is a desired lifestyle for an increasing number of heterosexual women and men, many are involuntarily single, struggling to find a partner. Meanwhile, popular debates about dating are sharply polarized along gendered lines. While “incels” see themselves as victims on a dating market ruled by women, relatively mainstreamed feminist sensibilities frame heterosexuality as marked by men's power. This article investigates how Swedish heterosexual long-term involuntary singles experience and make sense of the gendered conditions of contemporary dating. Addressing the tendency in online dating for women to receive significantly more attention and responses from men than men do from women, we reveal substantial tensions in how the participants understand this gendered dynamic, with the men tending to interpret it as a matter of women's power, while the women's experiences and perspectives complicate this notion considerably. By identifying some key mechanisms involved in producing these divergences in women's and men's perspectives, our analysis deepens understandings of contemporary gendered conflicts around love, while also shedding light on the antifeminist dynamics of the incel community.

The internet has given rise to an informational landscape that challenges epistemological hierarchies between experts and lay people. Tensions regarding how to address the growing flora of counter-authority claims are pertinent in the context of health, where warnings about misinformation co-exist with notions of patient empowerment. This context accentuates the importance of revitalizing conceptualizations of how to assess the validity of knowledge claims. In this article, we put critical realist discussions on judgemental rationality into conversation with the case of a group of women who claim that the contraceptive copper IUD may lead to side effects of a kind not recognized by medical authorities. Tracing our own path from radical uncertainty to regarding the women’s claims as a plausible hypothesis, we identify what we deem to be strengths and weaknesses of the women’s claims and pinpoint the judgementally rational grounds for this assessment.

There is a growing field of research dedicated to online incel communities, gathering men identifying as involuntary celibates or ‘incels’. A distinctive aspect of the incelosphere is the elaborate ‘theoretical framework’ communicated in the forums, portraying incel men as voiceless losers at a (hetero)sexual market ruled by women and biologically superior men. While the content of this incel worldview is relatively well-studied, a notable gap exists in the examination of the way knowledge production taking place within these communities is epistemologically legitimized. This article aims to fill this void by scrutinizing the epistemic logics and practices used by members at incel forums to validate their knowledge production on gender relations. By shedding light on how incels mobilize science as well as counter-hegemonic forms of knowledge production to legitimize their knowledge claims, the article offers a nuanced understanding of the intricate relation between the knowledge production of movements and counter-movements. This exploration can, we believe, form a basis for challenging and contesting claims made by incels.

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.