XIV—Sexual Orientation: What Is It?

Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 119 (3):295-319 (2019)
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Abstract

I defend an account of sexual orientation, understood as a reflexive disposition to be sexually attracted to people of a particular biological Sex or Sexes. An orientation is identified in terms of two aspects: the Sex of the subject who has the disposition, and whether that Sex is the same as, or different to, the Sex to which the subject is disposed to be attracted. I explore this account in some detail and defend it from several challenges. In doing so, I provide a theoretical framework that justifies our continued reference to Sex-directed sexual orientation as an important means of classifying human subjects.

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Kathleen Stock
University of Sussex

Citations of this work

Sex and Sexuality.Raja Halwani - 2018 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
How to Project a Socially Constructed Sexual Orientation.Peter Finocchiaro - 2021 - Journal of Social Ontology 7 (2):173-203.
Categorical phenomenalism about sexual orientation.T. R. Whitlow & N. G. Laskowski - 2022 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 106 (3):581-596.
Reimagining Transgender.Robin Dembroff - forthcoming - In Talia Bettcher, Perry Zurn, Andrea Pitts & P. J. DiPietro (eds.), Trans Philosophy: Meaning and Mattering. University of Minnesota Press.

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References found in this work

Nature's Metaphysics: Laws and Properties.Alexander Bird - 2007 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Dispositions.Stephen Mumford - 1998 - Oxford, GB: Clarendon Press.
Categories of Art.Kendall L. Walton - 1970 - Philosophical Review 79 (3):334-367.
What Is Sexual Orientation?Robin A. Dembroff - 2016 - Philosophers' Imprint 16.

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