Change What You Want? Sexual Subjectivity and the Politics of Desire
My PhD research project examines how sexuality and sexual desire are related to social forms of oppression and examines what makes them important for subjectivity. For groups that are often not seen as sexual beings in Western society, such as old-aged, plus-sized, pregnant, and/or disabled people, sexual misrecognition is experienced as a misrecognition of their being as such. This shows the broader social importance of claims for sexual recognition and the need for a useful concept of sexual subjectivity. The first chapter is about the relation between recognition and sexual subjectivity: several disablity activists have called for a broader recognition of their sexual subjectivity, and the chapter examines how we shouldinterpret these claims in relation to other calls for recognition. However, some theorists argue that the problem is not so much sexual recognition, but rather the social constitution of sexual desires as such. For example, Amia Srinivasan argues in The Right to Sex (2021) that the social constitution of sexual desires opens up the possibility to critically reflect on these desires. In the second chapter, this project therefore critically examines cultural possibilities to implement a broader recognition of sexual subjectivity through adapting desires (relating to debates in 60’s and 70’s feminism, as well as the current debate sparked by Srinivasan). In chapter 3, I analyse how forms of sexual misrecognition are re-appropriated in queer activism, mobilising misunderstandings of sexual identities and sexual desires to develop new ways of sexual subjectivity (for example in the work of Jose Esteban Muñoz, Lauren Berlant and Lee Edelman). Lastly, the importance of sexual subjectivity is particularly clear in cases of sexual violence. Connecting current debates in feminist theory on consent with debates in queer theory and psychoanalysis on sexuality and transgression, I examine the social constitution of sexual subjectivity in a society where sexual assault is prevalent, thereby unveiling the relationship between sexual subjectivity and sexual violence.

Keywords:
Sexual Subjectivity; Queer Theory; Critical Theory; Disability Studies; Sex Care Work.