Gender and Sexuality Studies

Abstract

Feminist sexual ethics moreso than other moral philosophy approaches focuses on the contextual embodiment of the moral subject to determine normative standards of ethical behavior. Sexual behaviors or various gendered and sexually intimate practices in virtual reality raise significant questions about embodiment, its extension or lack there of, and the unrealiability of contextual markers to assess social power dynamics. Queer feminist sexual ethics that forefront gender fluidity and values-based ethical decision-making for oneself and in actions toward an other or any other will be explored as possible creative ethical approaches. Questions to be explored are: how various sensory experiences in VR provide affective feedback and shape moral socio-emotional responses in and sexual and gender identity of users? How are power dynamics assessed when cultural markers of one’s offline embodiment can be radically altered for one’s online appearance? What are the possibilities and pitfalls for disrupting or reinforcing gender and sexual stereotypes? Is sex or intimacy in a VR space to be understood as “real” and thus requiring ethical standards of evaluation; in other words, is there moral harm and social goods that come from VR sexual and gender expression, relationships, and behaviors (even if with an avatar or bot)? Given the features of digital technology that make it flexible, adaptive, and networked, queer feminist sexual ethics for digital spaces needs to balance static normative claims with fluid and innovative approaches. This requires expansive understandings of embodiment, robust notions of the ethical other, and a further queering of sexuality and gender.

Biography

Kate Ott, PhD is a feminist religious ethicist with research specializations in digital technology, sexual and gender, children and youth, and professional sexual ethics. She serve as the Stead Professor of Christian Social Ethics and Director of the Stead Center for Ethics and Values at Garret-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL as well as a lecturer at Yale Divinity School in New Have, CT. She is author of Sex, Tech, and Faith: Ethics for a Digital Age (2022) and Christian Ethics for a Digital Age (2018).