Sexual but Not Reproductive: Exploring the Junction and Disjunction of Sexual and Reproductive Rights

Abstract

Although the term "sexual rights" has gained widespread currency, its concrete scope and content have not yet been fully defined. The need for definition is critical not only for promoting governmental accountability but also for ensuring that sexual rights can be claimed by diverse persons around the world. Ironically, the concept of "sexual and reproductive rights" poses a challenge to this effort; practices and people not traditionally addressed by reproductive rights work must be explicitly named and protected. This article considers how international norms have contributed to a gendered regulation of sexuality and of contemporary theories of "socially constructed sexuality," and it proposes a focus on the conditions that contribute to the ability to choose and on the links between sexuality, conduct, identity, social structures, and reproduction. Given the probable politically charged responses, global coalition-building is needed.

Sexual and reproductive rights at the United Nations: frustration or fulfilment?

“…Sexuality, on the other hand, being more recent in its appearance, has been explicitly addressed in the last decade as being socially produced -with advocates joining scholars to argue about both "naturalness" and social construction. 4,5 We have an intuition that naturalization -and even medicalization -of reproduction and heterosexuality encourage fragmentation in claims-making today, overlaid with the specific international legal histories of each.…”

“…For example, campaigns against the unjustness of execution of women accused of heterosexual sex outside of marriage (adultery or fornication) have not called for these to be decriminalized (as an aspect of privacy rights), and others calling for decriminalization of consensual same-sex sexual behaviour remain silent on criminalization of consensual heterosexual sex. 4 This contrasts starkly with the advocacy of opponents of sexual and reproductive rights, such as the Holy See and the Organization of the Islamic Conference and their NGO allies. These entities join the issues up: they link up their opposition to formal equality of rights between the sexes, discussion of gender as distinct and uncoupled from sexed bodies, condemnation of same-sex sexual behaviour as well as abortion, and they are now "defending" a status quo of universally accepted human rights from the "dangers" of sexual rights.…”

Sobre la mirada de género en la salud reproductiva y la construcción social de la maternidad

“…En primer lugar, en la misma línea que Alice Miller (2000), consideramos que el papel de los Estados es crear las condiciones necesarias para que las mujeres y los hombres ejerzan sus derechos sexuales respecto a la elección de si enlazar o no la sexualidad con la reproducción. Esta idea debería permitir, en el marco de las demandas sobre los derechos sexuales, atender con igualdad a una más amplia gama de identidades, prácticas y condiciones sexuales, que actualmente no pueden ser protegidas al tratar a los derechos sexuales como un subconjunto de los derechos reproductivos.…”

Glosario de epidemiología social

“…El heterosexismo, el tipo de discriminación relacionado con la sexualidad, constituye una forma de abrogación de los derechos sexuales (50) y se refiere a las prácticas institucionales e interpersonales mediante las cuales los heterosexuales obtienen privilegios (por ejemplo, el derecho legal a casarse y a tener parejas sexuales del "otro" sexo) y discriminan a las personas que tienen o desean a parejas sexuales del mismo sexo, justificando dichas prácticas mediante ideologías de superioridad, diferencia o desviación innata. De este modo, las experiencias vividas de la sexualidad pueden afectar a la salud a través de vías que implican no solo el contacto sexual (por ejemplo, la diseminación de enfermedades de transmisión sexual), sino también la discriminación y las condiciones materiales de la vida familiar y doméstica (49,50).…”