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The Role of Technology in the Transformation of Sexuality

Kikidis, Savvas (2016) The Role of Technology in the Transformation of Sexuality.

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Abstract:In the present master thesis I aim to describe how technology reshapes and transforms sexuality, but also to present a normative account of how the role of technology in the transformation of sexuality should be addressed as an issue of sexual education. The starting point of my analysis is the split between sex and reproduction. I argue that contraception technologies freed sexuality from the needs of reproduction, played an important role in the emergence of what Anthony Giddens defines as plastic sexuality and in the reordering of sexuality in relations to lifestyles. I then use the work of Don Ihde and Peter-Paul Verbeek in order to present how contraception technologies determine the very possibilities we have for interpreting our sexuality due to their role in our bodily and sensory involvement in a sexual act. My next step is to use Anthony Giddens’ approach towards modernity. I argue that our sexual identities, as part of our self-identities, are reflexively organized in the light of new information and knowledge. I then proceed in introducing pornography. I elaborate on its new cultural position and role and the role of technology in the transformation of pornography, both in qualitative and quantitative terms. I argue that due to the emergence of plastic sexuality and due to the reflexive organization of our sexual-identities, pornography emergence as a source of information about sex and sexuality. By using this analysis I argue that the role of technology in the transformation of sexuality should be addressed as an issue of sexual education and should be understood in connection with plastic sexuality, the reflexive organization of our sexual identities in the conditions of modernity and pornification.
Item Type:Essay (Master)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:08 philosophy
Programme:Philosophy of Science, Technology and Society MSc (60024)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/70619
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