Tom Claes (University of Gent)
Sexual Rights / Sexual Politics
The post WWII era has seen the emergence of a widely embraced human rights discourse
and activism. Human rights were later on applied to specific groups and specific sectors,
such as women’s and children’s rights and rights pertaining to labour and to sexuality. The
formulation of so-called ‘sexual rights’ is one of the latest developments and they are now
widely mobilized in sexual activism and development policies.

Progressive activists and movements of all stripes have enthusiastically embraced this rightsbased
sexual politics of equality and agency. But it has recently come under increased
scrutiny and has been heavily criticized as an overly individualistic and decontextualized
stance that obfuscates the impact of the wider neo-liberal economic and political context. A
sexual politics of freedom and choice, it is claimed, fails properly to account for structural and
cultural gender or for power imbalances, precariousness and vulnerabilities. It also is unable
to problematize the intensifying marketization and commodification of sexuality, and leads to
a politics and ethics of freedom and tolerance (often couched in terms of ‘citizenship’,
‘agency’, ‘empowerment’ and ‘choice’) over a politics and ethics of solidarity and care.

In my talk I will critically evaluate these allegations and weigh the pros and cons of a sexual
rights-based sexual politics. I shall argue that a sexual rights and health agenda - the often
correct criticism notwithstanding - still has huge emancipatory potential and when properly
connected to issues of gender, social and economic justice can serve as the basis for the
development of a notion and practice of sexual justice.

Tom Claes is Associate Professor of Ethics at the Department of Philosophy & Moral Science
at Ghent University. Since 2012 he has been the director of CEVI - Center for Ethics and
Value Inquiry (CEVI), Ghent University. Together with Paul Reynolds (Edge Hill University, UK)
he is network leader and founding member of INSEP - International Network for Sexual Ethics
& Politics (http://www.insep.ugent.be/). He is also a member of GCGS - Ghent Centre for
Global Studies (http://www.globalstudies.ugent.be/) and co-promoter of the Ghent-based
Academic Network for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Policy, bringing together
SRHR activists and policymakers from more than ten countries world-wide. He teaches and
publishes on ethics, sexuality and globalisation. His main research focus is on issues of
consent, the globalisation of sexuality, sex work and trafficking. He is currently exploring new
approaches to the formulation of a theory of sexual justice based on sexual health and rights
discourses and activism.