Sexual Citizenship

Sexual citizenship is an increasingly popular framework within which to understand the interconnection between the private conduct of sexual relationships and the public uptake of sexuality as a political, legal, and social issue. The attraction of the concept is that it lays bare the illusion that sex, pleasure, desire, and reproduction are negotiated purely within the private domain. Instead, it allows for seemingly private issues, such as relationships, identity, bodies and behaviours, sexual health and well-being, family formation and diversity, to be connected to public issues such as access to, and quality of, health care provision and other resources, social understandings and reactions to sexualities, and the legal and social right to self-determination. This entry examines sexual citizenship in relation to belonging, its relevance to ...