Rights, responsibilities and citizenship in heterosexual women’s talk about sex: promoting women’s sexual health and safety

Abstract

This paper draws on qualitative data from eighteen interviews with heterosexual women about their experiences of sex with men. Drawing on ideals of individualism and free choice, women construct a citizenship discourse in which they and others are positioned as active sexual subjects with rights and responsibilities to sexual choice, pleasure and fulfilment. Critical examination of respondents’ discourse reveals how it is profoundly gendered, based on masculine forms of sexual desire and masculine understandings of pleasure. The paper argues that, despite its gendered nature, the inherent reciprocity of the citizenship discourse (as produced through the link between rights and responsibilities) generates the possibility for women to negotiate their sexual freedom and promote their sexual health and safety.

Key Words:

• sociology
• feminine sexuality
• heterosexual
• citizenship
• discourse