Description
Book SynopsisSexual orientation and how we might understand it is a topic that arouses significant controversy. Is sexual orientation a natural or social phenomenon? Are categories such as 'queer' and 'straight' essential to the human condition or dependent on contingent cultural practices? Whilst such questions have been considered from the perspectives of sociology and gender studies, they remain relatively underexplored from a philosophical standpoint.
In this book, Matthew Andler breaks new ground examining the metaphysics of sexuality. Distinguishing sexual orientation and sexual identity, he asks why only certain aspects of sexuality count as sexual orientations, arguing that sexual dispositions can only become sexual orientations in virtue of being related to heteropatriarchal kinship structures.
He then turns to sexual identity, arguing that the categories âqueerâ and âstraightâ are grounded in the political function of sexuality cultures as resisting and/or entrenching heter
