“Changes in our understandings of and attitudes to sexuality are both affected by and reflect the larger changes of globalization.” (Altman, 2001)
Needles to say then that the globalization debate is of crucial importance to the project of formulating an emancipatory sexual ethic. Attwood (2006) argues that there is a tightrope to be walked between the models we can make and the (sexual) futures we can imagine.
In my presentation I will analyze and evaluate how these diverse discourses on and theories of globalization have an impact on how globalized sexuality or sexualities are envisioned and evaluated. The idea of globalization generates great controversy. ‘Weak’ theories stress the continuity between the global and capitalist era, interpreting globalization as a development of the capitalist consumptivist paradigm.
Discontinuity (‘strong’) theories stress cultural and communicative factors and fuel hopes that the global era could engender a new sense of cosmopolitanism. Different types of globalization theories single out different processes and markers of globalization and hence point to different markers of globalized sexualities, often leading to different evaluations of ‘global sex.’
Continuity theories focus on the negative sides of the globalization process (trafficking & displacement, prostitution, the creation of a ‘global sexual underclass’…), while discontinuity theories tend to stress the emancipatory tendencies associated with globalization, like sexual health, sexual rights and (global) sexual citizenship. Altman, D., 2001.
Global Sex. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press. Attwood, Feona. 2006. Sexed Up: Theorizing the Sexualization of Culture. Sexualities, 9(1): 77-94.
Conflict of Interest: None disclosed
Financial Support/Funding: Not Applicable
Recorded at the the 19th WAS World Congress for Sexual Health - Sexual Health & Rights: A Global Challenge Göteborg (Sweden) - June 21 – 25, 2009
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