Justifying Sex: The Place of Women's Sexuality on a Social Justice Agenda

Within popular and professional discourses, consideration of women's sexuality often centers on its dangers and difficulties: unintended pregnancy, infection, varying forms of coercion and objectification, and sexual dysfunction. Such rhetoric is so persistent that sexuality itself is often perceived as inherently risky and dangerous. The present article challenges this equation by arguing that women's sexual vulnerability is attributable to social injustice and inequality on the basis of gender, heteronormativity, class, and race, rather than sexuality itself. The emerging interdisciplinary movement toward positive sexuality, including the relevance of desire and pleasure to social justice and social change, is reviewed with particular attention to the ways in which social work is especially well suited to assume a positive, social justice orientation to women's sexuality.