Recent accounts of the metaphysics of sexuality have been concerned with capturing our ordinary use of sexuality concepts. I argue that recent dispositionalist accounts of sexuality have succeeded in capturing the “folk concept” of sexuality, but that there are pressing normative reasons to adopt an additional constraint in developing the “target concept” of sexuality. I draw two normative requirements for a target concept of sexuality from recent sociological research about sex and dating. Firs…
Read moreRecent accounts of the metaphysics of sexuality have been concerned with capturing our ordinary use of sexuality concepts. I argue that recent dispositionalist accounts of sexuality have succeeded in capturing the “folk concept” of sexuality, but that there are pressing normative reasons to adopt an additional constraint in developing the “target concept” of sexuality. I draw two normative requirements for a target concept of sexuality from recent sociological research about sex and dating. First, it should explain changes in one’s sexuality that result from a re-interpretation of desire. Second, it should address (mis)interpretations of one’s own desire that misgender people. I address these requirements by offering a metaphysics of sexuality consisting in three parts: 1) the mental states we experience as sexual desire, 2) our interpretations of those desires, and 3) the socially conferred properties of identity that come from group perception and community acceptance.
