Sex, Ethics, and Pleasure Politics
Muhlenberg College Center for Ethics 2013-2014
Although sexual activity is a central part of socialization and identity formation, sexual behavior is generally considered a private matter, and is seldom examined critically in the public sphere. Universities are no exception; college students - regardless of whether they choose to have sex - are immersed in a campus culture in which ‘private’ sexual beliefs and behaviors shape the ‘public’ undergraduate social experience, and yet the uncritical attitudes that shape these beliefs and behaviors are rarely interrogated or considered within an ethical frame. The 2013-2014 Center for Ethics theme, “Sex, Ethics, and Pleasure Politics” aims to develop a comprehensive sexual ethics for the campus community: How do differing moral, political, and sociological attitudes toward sexuality shape our ethics? How do these attitudes enrich or inhibit the possibility of sexual pleasure? How do attitudes about pleasure, the body, identity, and individuality define what sorts of sexual activity will be considered permissible or impermissible? Is pleasure something that we ought to pursue and promote? What is our ethical responsibility to the pleasure of others? How might a comprehensive sexual ethics cause us to rethink our understanding of justice and interpersonal responsibility?
Through public talks and discussions, this theme will build an ethical conversation centered on interpersonal sexual behavior as well as the political, scientific, religious, aesthetic, and legal forces that shape the permissibility and impermissibility of sexual acts. Our understanding of sexuality reflects how our society at any given period is organized, how it represents and ‘naturalizes’ sex, and how it comes to define the boundary of public and private space, the moral underpinnings of intimate and/or reproductive behavior, and the essential categories of sexual identity. Therefore, the ways in which we practice sex raise deep ethical questions about how we will regulate the economic reach of sexual industries, define normative sexual ethics, respond to sexual violence, and identify and pathologize sexual deviance. This programming theme will explore how culture, race, gender, class, technology, and language can simultaneously both constrain and create greater opportunities for sexual acts, interpersonal intimacy, and pleasure-seeking.
The 2013-2014 Center for Ethics program is co-directed by , Professor of Biology.
FALL 2013 PROGRAM BROCHURE (PDF)
SPRING 2014 PROGRAM BROCHURE (PDF)
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Fall Program
Tuesday September 10, 2013
7:30 PM Miller Forum, Moyer Hall
How should we talk about sex at Muhlenberg?
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Campus panel moderated by Lanethea Matthews, (Associate Professor of Political Science), and featuring Mel Ferrara '15, Corey Goff (Director of Athletics), Randy Helm (President of the College), Robin Riley-Casey (Director of Multicultural Life), and Alan Tjeltveit (Professor of Psychology).
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Wednesday October 16, 2013
7:00 PM Seegers Event Space
Students Talk Sex -
A Muhlenberg student-produced panel discussion about sex on campus organized by Adam Karp, Zach Zimmerman, Rianna Sommers, and featuring Josh Weiss, Gabrielle Field, Ron Christian, Nathan Frick, and Katie Skwirut.
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Wednesday October 23, 2013
7:00 PM Miller Forum, Moyer Hall"Of Sex, Sin and Other Taboos: A Short Course in Censorship from Ancient Times to the Foreseeable Future"
Since 1997, Joan E. Bertin has been Executive Director of the National Coalition Against Censorship, a group of more than 50 national non-profit organizations dedicated to promoting freedom of speech and expression. She addresses the history of the First Amendment, censorship, restrictions on sexually explicit speech, child pornography, political speech, government secrecy, broadcast decency, and censorship of science and sex education.
The Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow
Tuesday October 29, 2013
7:00 PM Seeger's Union Event Space"Race, Gender, and Reproductive Technologies: The New Biopolitics"
Tuesday November 5, 2013
7:30 PM Miller Forum, Moyer Hall
"From Babies to Gender Identity: New ways to think about an Old Problem"
The nature v. nurture paradigm is an outmoded way of thinking about human development. But what can replace it? In this talk Dr. Fausto-Sterling will introduce the basic concepts of dynamic systems and apply them to the early differentiation of gender identity.
Anne Fausto-Sterling, Nancy Duke Lewis Professor of Biology and Women’s Studies, Brown University
Most recent publication: Sex/Gender: Biology in a Social World, a comprehensive examination of the scientific efforts to study sexual behavior, an argument for the scientific construction of sexuality, and a critical re-appraisal of dualisms that drive scientific investigation (sex/gender, nature/nurture, real/constructed)
Scholarly foci: dynamic systems theory; biology of sexuality and gender; developmental biology; sex-related differences in infants and toddlers
Tuesday November 12, 2013
7:30 PM Empie Theatre, Center for the Arts: coming of age in the South, religion, sex, transgenderism, love stories, and coming out. Johnson embodies these and others' stories in the show.
Scholarly foci: first-person ethnographic performance; documentary theatre; race, gender, and sexuality in performance
Co-sponsored by Africana Studies, Art, and Theatre and Dance.Sunday November 24, 2013
11 AM - 6:30 PM New York CityTrip to the MUSEUM OF SEX in New York City
Students, faculty and staff are invited on a trip to visit the Museum of Sex at 233 Fifth Ave. in New York City. Bus leaves from the Center for the Arts on Chew Street at 11 AM and will leave New York City at 6:30 PM to return to Muhlenberg College. The bus is free for Muhlenberg students, faculty and staff. You are responsible for your own admission ticket to the museum, although a group rate ticket of $12 plus tax may be arranged in advance. The trip is offered in conjunction with Dr. Kim Gallon's History 146 class. Bus seats are limited! In order to reserve a seat on the bus you must EMAIL Dr. Kim Gallon.
Spring Program
Wednesday January 22, 2014
7:00 p.m. Seegers Great Room
“The Role of International Organizations Against Human Trafficking in Helping the Survivors of Human Trafficking”Gerhard Rattai is the founder of Two and a Half Miles, an organization that funds and strengthens the leaders and organizations that rescue women and girls from sex-trafficking and rehabilitate and reintegrate them into society through meaningful and sustainable employment.Sponsored by International Studies.Monday January 27, 2014
7:30 PM Miller Forum Moyer Hall
"Sex is Too Important To Be Left to the Pornographers"
Linda Williams, Professor of Film, University of California - Berkeley
Most recent publication: Screening Sex, a history of the representation and concealment of sex in the movies
Scholarly foci: history and critical analysis of melodrama, horror, and pornography in film; psychoanalysis and Surrealist cinema; race and film
Co-sponsored by Film Studies.Tuesday February 11, 2014
"Sex, Stigmatization & Violence"
7:30 PM Seegers Event Space
Three panelists will address the sociopolitical factors that contribute to the stigmatization of women’s sexuality and reproductive rights:
Tuesday March 18, 2014
7:30 PM Miller Forum Moyer Hall"Gender, Bug Sex, and the Scala Naturae"
Thursday March 20, 20147:00 PM Miller Forum Moyer Hall
"Asian Americans and Sex"
Calvin Sun
How does our generation of Asian Americans view sex and sexuality? Where do our attitudes to sex really come from? How are changing gender roles in today's generation affecting the way we approach dating, relationships and the power dynamics related to sex?"Co-sponsored by Asian Students Association, Multicultural Life and Sociology/Anthropology.Tuesday April 29, 2014
7:30 PM Miller Forum Moyer Hall
"Beyond Urban Myths and Sex Panics: Research with Survivors of Trafficking into Forced Labor"
Denise Brennan, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Georgetown University
Most recent publication: What s Love Got to Do with It?: Transnational Desires and Sex Tourism in the Dominican Republic
Scholarly foci: sex industry in the Dominican Republic; connection between large structural forces in the globalized economy and their effects on individuals in a sex-tourist destination
