From global discourse to local action: the makings of a sexual rights movement?

Abstract

This paper focuses on the development of discourses around sexual rights, linking tendencies in official global dialogues with national and local realities. Recognizing some of the factors that have facilitated or impeded discourses and action to promote sexual rights around the world, we explore the principles and processes of framing sexual rights and sexual citizenship. We consider political opportunity and the mobilization of resources as important as cultural and emotional interpretations of sexual rights in conceptualizing a "sexual rights movement". Throughout the paper we question whether a movement based on solidarity can be forged between different social movements (i.e., feminist movements, HIV/AIDS movements, LGBT movements, etc.) that are advocating for distinct sexual rights. While theoretically sexual rights range from protection from sexual violation to the celebration of sexual pleasure, in reality the agendas of sexual rights movements are still largely fragmented, heteronormative, and focused on negative rights.<br>Este artigo enfoca o desenvolvimento de discursos que circundam os direitos sexuais juntando tendências em diálogos globais oficiais com realidades nacionais e locais. Reconhecendo alguns fatores que têm facilitado ou impedido discursos e ações que promovam direitos sexuais ao redor do mundo, nós exploramos os princípios e processos onde se enquadram os direitos sexuais e a cidadania sexual. Nós consideramos que as oportunidades políticas e a mobilização de recursos são tão importantes para a conceitualização de um movimento pelos direitos sexuais quanto as interpretações culturais e emocionais dos direitos sexuais. Ao longo deste artigo, nós questionamos se um movimento baseado na solidariedade pode ser forjado entre movimentos diferentes (por exemplo, movimentos feministas, HIV/Aids, movimentos GLBT, etc.) que estão reivindicando direitos sexuais distintos. Enquanto teoricamente os direitos sexuais vão desde a proteção da violação sexual até a celebração do prazer sexual, na realidade, as agendas dos movimentos pelos direitos sexuais estão ainda muito fragmentadas, heteronormativas e enfocadas em direitos negativos

Sexual rights for marginalized populations.

“…This study also highlights the direct and intricate ways in which the intra-and interpersonal are strongly influenced by the structural. Garcia and Parker (2006) consider how sociocultural norms, political opportunities, and framings of rights contribute to the theoretical conceptualization and development of sexual rights movements that are defined by global discourses, local contexts, and lived experiences. This section draws heavily on Garcia and Parker's casting of sexual rights as a movement, although we focus less on sexual rights as a top-down approach from the global to local and emphasize the cyclical and discursiveness of sexual rights as an articulation between the global and local (Tarrow, 1998 (2010) explained the importance and insights gleaned from understanding gay and lesbian social movements that first appeared in Latin America in the 1970s as a consequence, in part, of regional and national political histories and local specificities rather than stemming largely from the influence of the United States and other western countries (Carrillo, 2011).…”

Reinventing Sexual Scripts: Sexuality and Social Change in the Twenty-First Century (The 2008 John H. Gagnon Distinguished Lecture on Sexuality, Modernity and Change)

“…As John Gagnon and other such thinkers have demonstrated so clearly, the idea of sexual pleasure, its definitions, its language, and its expression all typically come from below rather than from above. Social, cultural, religious, biomedical, scientific, and other nonstate actors are primarily responsible for respecting (or not) the right to sexual pleasure by adhering (or not) to fundamental principles of social inclusion, freedom, and human dignity (Garcia and Parker 2006). This aspect of sexuality is one of the central limitations of a sexual rights framework-but there are promises as well.…”

“…The rhetoric of rights loses its meaning if it is applied arbitrarily or differentially. The idea of sexual rights, in contrast, takes into account the importance of affording citizenship to all people, regardless of their sexuality or gender identity (Garcia and Parker 2006).…”

“…Some, albeit limited, research (see Garcia and Parker 2006;Hardee et al 1999) has examined the impact at the country level of the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, as well as a number of succeeding conferences on sexual and reproductive rights, and generally has found only very minimal changes in the form of legal codes and national policies. Looking beyond what can be easily measured or qualified allows identifying a number of other, perhaps less obvious influences.…”

Definiciones divergentes de la estrategia de visibilidad en el movimiento LGTB cordobés

“…5 Legislación provincial que corresponde al fuero administrativo, a través de la cual se criminaliza discrecionalmente conductas enmarcadas bajo el término de "infracción" o "contravención". (García y Parker, 2006). Teóricas/os y activistas feministas, postfeministas, lésbicas, gays y queer han advertido el carácter patriarcal y heteronormativo de las construcciones dominantes de ciudadanía: si el arquetipo liberal de ciudadano ha sido pensado principalmente como burgués, varón, blanco, adulto, soldado y reproductor (Benedicto y Morán, 2003;Isin y Wood, 1999), entonces numerosos sectores de la población pueden identificarse como grupos subalternos (mujeres, homosexuales, transgéneros, bisexuales, jóvenes, etc.)…”