Wednesday 29 August 2012 – Abstracts
9:00 - 11:00: REGISTRATION & INTRODUCTORY SESSION
- Registration: Room 216 – second Floor
- Formal Institutional Welcome
- Welcome to the Conference (Tom Claes and Paul Reynolds)
- Academic Program for the Conference and Possible Outputs (Paul Reynolds)
- Conference Activities and Housekeeping (Tom Claes)
(All paper session will be held in room 219, coffee breaks in 216)
11:00 - 13:00: SESSION 1: SEXOLOGY & SEX THERAPY
Sexology in Poland: Emancipating Sex Through Regulation of Gender
Agnieszka Koscianska
Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology
University of Warsaw – Poland
Since the 1970s sexology in Poland has contributed significantly to attitudes and practices related to sexuality and gender. For the last four decades, sexologists have published extensively (articles for popular press, marriage/sex manuals, scholarly books) discussing topics such as sexual norms, sexual techniques, sexual dysfunctions. In this paper, I draw on my research among sexologists in Poland (participant observation during sexological trainings and conferences, interviews with sexologists, analysis of Polish sexological literature) and I focus on how mainstream sexological knowledge defines not only norms related to sexuality but also gender roles. On the one hand, sexologists tell their patients and readers that all forms of consensual sexual activity among adults as well as activities such as masturbation or watching pornography should be accepted and considered “normal.” In this sense, sexology has been contributing to sexual emancipation in a country where both Catholicism and socialism presented sexuality as something shameful and improper. On the other hand, sexologists often refer to sexual difficulties and dysfunctions related to “untraditional” gender roles. In the course of my research, I learned that feminists and career oriented women as well as stay-home-dads might experience relational and sexual difficulties due to lack of femininity and masculinity, respectively (e.g. women might experience what was called premature female orgasm). I argue that by focusing on these dysfunctions sexologists while seemingly emancipating sexuality place it within very “traditional” settings of a certain kind of marriage/relationship (nonheterosexuality is hardly present) and by doing so they biomedicalize certain concepts of gender. In doing so, they contribute to a conservative critique of contemporary changes in gender roles.
Alternative Narratives in Homosexual Aversion Therapy, 1950-1976
Donna Drucker
Topologie der Technik Graduiertenkolleg
Technische Universität Darmstadt
Darmstadt, Germany
The idea of homosexuality as an illness or disease was widespread in the postwar Western world through the mid-1970s. One “treatment” offered for homosexuals was aversion therapy, in which the individual was subject to painful and humiliating treatments so that he or she would associate homosexuality with pain and cease same-sex practices. This largely unsuccessful therapy ended for homosexuality after the rise of gay and lesbian rights movements and the removal of homosexuality as a disorder from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) in 1974. However, there were multiple reactions to the American Psychiatric Association’s decision, aside from the best-known rights progress–oriented narrative. Some physicians gave up aversion therapy for homosexuality only with reluctance. Also, aversion therapy literature contained examples of individuals who found the pain of electroshock treatment sexually stimulating and wanted to continue it for pleasure.
This paper reviews the history of aversion therapy. It then analyzes the possible reasons for the development of these two alternative reactions to the disappearance of homosexual aversion therapy. First, some members of the medical community argued that stopping such treatment limited individual’s desired options for treatment. Those physicians also stated that the medical community caved in to gay and lesbian rights activists’ campaigns against aversion therapy for political, not medical reasons. Second, the presence of pain-seeking individuals flummoxed the medical community into near-silence. The development of pro-aversion therapy arguments by physicians and by sadomasochists would have differed if the APA had not only removed homosexuality as a disorder, but if it also had made human rights-oriented statements supporting the rights of homosexuals to live with dignity, and the rights of all patients to refuse unwanted pain. If they had, it would have been more difficult for physicians to continue pro-aversion therapy arguments and less difficult for sadomasochists to become publicly active members of sexuality communities.
Should Sexologists Become the “New Gods”?
Werner Leys
CEVI
Forensic Psychotherapist
PC Sint-Jan-Baptist, Belgium
In a time where Church no longer seems to have the ability to determine the ethic rules, in a time where everything seems to be measured, people are looking for new “prescribes” in the field of sex. Within the science of sexology there is a narrow focus on doing scientific research and measuring things. How many time do we have to spent on sex,, how many time do we have to spent on foreplay, on the coitus itself and so on. By measuring things a certain discourse is created witch try to capture “normality” or better “the norm”. Although myths perpetuated by therapists that can harm clients are that all people should compare themselves to an objective “norm” a lot of therapists keep doing it.
In this paper I’d like to examine why we need a discourse as this, why we need “prescriptions of the norm”. On the other hand I will examine why creating a discourse seems to be important for sexology.
The French philosopher Michel Foucault says that one of the consequences of creating discourses is that the subject does not longer exist outside the discourse. So people have to undergo the discourse for being able to exist. Discourses contain rules of inclusion, exclusion and classification. They create statements and rules. By creating discourse we can get the possibility to classify normality and paraphilia or perversion. Scientific research is very important, but we have to ask ourselves what to do with the data collected from it. That’s because knowledge can be translated in terms of power.
The French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan created his discourse theory. In his theory he distinguishes four types. In Lacan’s symbolic system I think it is important for sexologists not to start from “the discourse of the master”. Because within this system the sexologist is situated as the master and producer of knowledge. Instead, in the “the analytic discourse” the client has the ability to operate in the field in a “competent” manner.
I will conclude by saying that sexologists have to say a lot about sexuality. The way they are “using” the discourse makes that they don’t have to take the role of the “new Gods”.
Sex Therapy on TV. Analysis of the WAS & EFS Guiding Ethical Principles
Sam Geuens
CEVI, Moral Counselor at AZ St. Elisabeth – Herentals
Sexologist at Multidisciplinary Therapeutic Practice Mol Wezel & Praktijk voor Seksuologie (GGZ), Belgium & the Netherlands
Board Member of the Flemish Society for Sexology (VVS), Belgium
Sexual health & sexual well-being as concepts are becoming more and more central to the field of sexology, and with good reason. Sexual satisfaction had been identified in research spanning decades as an important contributing factor to overall wellbeing (see, eg, Traupmann, 1982; Doi & Thelen, 1993; Kaptein et all., 2008). Sadly the prevalence of sexual & relationship problems and sexual dysfunctions is still alarmingly high. For Western European countries the numbers vary between 20% and 45% (see eg Read, King & Watson, 1997; Bakker & Vanwesenbeek, 2006; DeRogatis & Burnett, 2008; Kedde, Leusink & Verheij, 2011).
Given the prevalence of sexual problems it’s imperative that people can fall back on professional help; sexual & couple therapy.
Today, even as sexology becomes ever more known as a therapeutic discipline, taking the step to consult a sexologist remains difficult. Sexologists are aware of the need to lower the threshold for those seeking help for their sexual problems. But how to go about this in today’s globalised, multimedia driven society?
By examining the World Associations for Sexual Health & European Federation for Sexology’s Guiding Ethical Principles – the binding deontological code for most clinical sexologists – this paper will examine whether bringing sex therapy to the public by practicing or simulating it on television is ethically justifiable.
13:00 - 14:00: LUNCH BREAK
14:00 - 15:00: DISCUSSION SESSION 2: SEXOLOGY AND NORMALCY
Position Paper 1: Is Self-Regulation the Key to Understanding and Treating Paraphilia (Effectively)?
Luk Gijs
Institute for Family and Sexuality Sciences
KU Leuven, Belgium
Since the first edition of DSM (1952) sexual deviations, later relabeled as the paraphilias, were classified as a mental disorder. The implication of this classification is that the goal of treatment is ideally the cure of the disorder. Although the DSM classification of the paraphilias is quite controversial, many people think that the DSM is a good guide for the treatment of paraphilias.
However, at least two other alternatives are influential. One is the perspective that the goal of treatment is consensual sexual behavior (regardless the content of the paraphilia) . The other is the view that the guiding principle for the treatment of parahilias are the goals of the patient/client. Both perspectives emphasize self-regulation as the key to effective treatment of the paraphilias.
It will be argued that none of the mentioned approaches gives us much insight into the development, characteristics, and meaning of the paraphlias. Furthermore, there is very little evidence for the effectiveness of current treatments of paraphilias.
Position Paper 2: Paraphilia, Paraphilic Disorder, and the Risk of Harm
Andreas De Block
Institute of Philosophy
KU Leuven, Belgium
DSM-V seems to be keen on making the distinction between sexual deviance and mental disorder, or between harmless and harmful paraphilias, more explicit. This distinction is far from new. In fact, most of the editions of the DSM, perhaps excluding DSM-II, allowed for the possibility that some paraphilias were not mental disorders. The distinction between paraphilias and Paraphilic Disorders may not be new, but it does emphasize that non-normative sexuality need not necessarily be a mental disorder – an insight that, in earlier editions of the DSM, was often contradicted or blurred by the actual descriptions and diagnostic criteria relating to the paraphilias. In my contribution, I will give a historically informed philosophical assessment of the proposed distinction. More specifically, I will argue that even after more than half a century of diagnosing the paraphilias, DSM-V will not have the final word on a topic that has been haunting psychiatry ever since the publication of Krafft-Ebing’s Psychopathia Sexualis.
15:00 - 15:30: COFFEE BREAK
15:30 - 17:00: SESSION 3: AUTONOMY
Sexual Literacy and Education
Alicja Geschinska
CEVI
Ghent University, Belgium
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Moving Away from Personhood: Fortifying the Pro-Choice Position
Joseph Novak
Cleveland state University
USA
Given the recent outbreak of personhood legislation proposals, the pro-choice movement is in need of a defense of abortion that forgoes discussing personhood altogether. In this essay, I argue for a shift in the pro-choice rhetoric to a defense of abortion that focuses a broader moral issue: we should consider abortion as an expression of a woman’s bodily autonomy that allows us to move towards reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies and/or children. I aim to demonstrate the shortcomings of a defense of abortion based on a denial of fetal personhood and why an argument from bodily autonomy is likely to better serve the pro-choice movement. I conclude with a discussion of the practical implications of my argument as well as what other pro-choice arguments may look like that support the proposed new rhetorical direction.
Complying or Resisting? Reconfiguring Autonomy in Women’s Commitment to ‘Honour’
Sophie Withaeckx
Department of philosophy and moral science
RHEA – Centre for Gender & Diversity
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
Descriptions and explanations of men’s and women’s behaviour in cases of honour-based violence are often informed by specific understandings of the concepts of autonomy, agency and gender equality, as developed in Western liberal theory. Conditional upon a desire to realise one’s own life plan, to be free from coercion and to strive towards individuation, these understandings appear unhelpful when confronted with immigrant women who are neither victimized by, nor vehemently resisting restrictive sexual norms and practices within their communities. Analogously, an understanding of gender equality informed by an essentially western conception of what constitutes sexual freedom, will inevitably result in disproportionally disqualifying non-western cultural practices as unequal, thereby effectively silencing the variety of views of non-western women.
Recent re-interpretations of autonomy, as developed by Marilyn Friedman and Martha Nussbaum, have conceded that even in oppressive environments, women are able to critically reflect and may legitimately endorse patriarchal norms and values. This position however risks an uncritical acceptance of women’s choices as valuable once certain procedural conditions for autonomy have been fulfilled, thereby failing to further question the detrimental implications these choices may have for women’s rights and gender equality.
Recognizing the challenges posed by a multicultural society characterised by an increasing variation in sexual ethics and practices, this paper will explore how notions of autonomy, agency and gender equality could be expanded so as to include a larger variety of views on what constitutes sexual freedom and equality. It is argued that an abandoning of a biased liberal-secular view on what constitutes gender equality, does not preclude a normative commitment to the safeguarding of women’s rights. Rather than making ‘autonomous choice’ the central concern however, analysis should focus on how the content of individual choices is shaped by socio-political contexts which (re)produce unequal power relations.
17:00 - 17:15: COMFORT BREAK
17:15 - 18:30: SESSION 4: PLENARY LECTURE
Andrea Dworkin: a Reassessment
Bob Brecher
Faculty of Arts
CAPPE – Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics & Ethics
University of Brighton, UK
For a few years in the 1980s, Andrea Dworkin’s Pornography: Men Possessing Women appeared to have changed the intellectual landscape – as well as some people’s lives. Pornography, she argued, not only constitutes violence against women; it constitutes also the main conduit for such violence, of which rape is at once the prime example and the central image. In short, it is patriarchy’s most powerful weapon. Given that, feminists’ single most important task is to deal with pornography. By the early 1990s, however, the consensus had become that her project was a diversion, both politically and intellectually. Today, who would argue that pornography is a crucial political issue?
I shall argue that Dworkin has in fact a great deal to teach us – perhaps even more today, as we are going through the neo-liberal revolution, than thirty years ago. Her argument is not a causal one, despite in places reading as if it were. The legal route she chose as the ground on which to fight may well be a dead end, but that does nothing to undermine the force of her analysis. Nor does the fact that she makes arguments that might not be recognized as professionally philosophical or social scientific undermine their substantive force. It may even be that pornography itself is not the sole key she thought it was to understanding and dealing with political realities; but even if that were so, the form of her analysis, far from rhetorical and/or fallacious, is exactly what is needed to counter the depredations of neo-liberal “common sense”. That she herself found it difficult to find a language beyond that of liberalism to express her argument is no reason either for ignoring or misinterpreting it.
18:30 - 19:30: DRINKS (Room 216)
