Anti-communal, Anti-egalitarian, Anti-nurturing, Anti-loving: Sex and the 'Irredeemable' in Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon

The work of Andrea Dworkin and Catharine A. MacKinnon on sex and sexuality has often been posed as adversary to the development of queer theory. Leo Bersani, in particular, is critical of the normative ambitions of their work, which he sees firstly as trying to ‘redeem’ sex acts themselves, and secondly as advocating for sexuality as a site of potential for social transformation. In this article, I argue that this is a misreading of their work. Drawing on Dworkin's wide body of writing, and MacKinnon early essays in Signs, I suggest that their work makes no such case for sex or sexuality. Rather, by bringing their analysis into conversation with Halberstam's recent work on ‘shadow feminism’, I contend that Dworkin and MacKinnon's antisocial, anti-pastoral and distinctly anti-normative vision of sex and sexuality shares many of the same features of queer theory, ultimately advocating for sex as ‘irredeemable’

A multidimensional view? Evaluating the different and combined contributions of diaries and interviews in an exploration of asexual identities and intimacies

This article evaluates the relative contributions of diaries and interviews in multiple methods qualitative research exploring asexual identities and intimacies. Differentiated by three core differences: reflective time-frame (the day just had/lifetime), context (alone/with researcher) and mode (written/verbal), these methods had the potential to generate a multidimensional view of our topics. Using five cases in which data from both interviews and diaries were collected, this article explores how the intermeshed issues of identity and intimacy were constructed in each method, as well as reflecting on what was gained by their combination. Our analysis leads us to conclude that multiple methods do not always produce a fuller or a more rounded picture of individual participants’ lives. Nevertheless, the decision to collect data using different strategies did increase our chances of finding a method that suited individual participants, whether in style or focus

Rethinking asexuality: a symbolic interactionist account

This article aims to contribute a Symbolic Interactionist approach to the study of asexuality. Previous research in psychology, sexology and sociology has had an individualized focus, which has downplayed the interactive and relational dimensions of asexual identities. In order to capture such elements we demonstrate the relevance of some key Symbolic Interactionist concepts: meaning, negotiation, social selfhood and trajectory. In doing so, we suggest it is possible to see asexual identity as a process of becoming within the context of negotiation with intimate others