Sexual Ethics

This theme investigates alternative models to the dominant consent-based framework in sexual ethics, emphasizing how power asymmetries, agency, care, and embodied relationality complicate notions of ethical sexual behavior. It specifically focuses on scenarios where conventional consent models falter, such as hierarchical relationships (e.g., graduate student-supervisor), BDSM communities, and casual sex among young people, highlighting the need for nuanced ethical frameworks that incorporate pleasure, care, mutual respect, and relational negotiation.

This theme explores theoretical accounts of sexual morality that go beyond standard consent models by incorporating Kantian concepts such as using a person as a 'thing' versus merely as a 'means,' and liberal commitments emphasizing autonomy and respect for partners. It evaluates how these frameworks address ethical failures in sex—such as sexual perversion, sexual harassment, and problematic sexual desire—and reconcile tensions between autonomy, objectification, and the significance of sexual acts within modern egalitarian ethics.

This theme focuses on the moral considerations regarding sexual autonomy, intimacy, and consent within populations and settings marked by vulnerability or social constraints—such as older adults in residential care, young people negotiating sexual ethics, and culturally religious environments. It addresses how discourses of purity, risk, and morality intersect with individual sexual expression, the role of education, and institutional regulation, underscoring the need for ethical frameworks that respect dignity, autonomy, and plurality of sexual identities and experiences.