Agency Is Everywhere, but Agency Is Not Enough: A Conceptual Analysis of Young Women's Sexual Agency

Journal of Sex Research
Laina Y Bay-Cheng

Abstract

Through a conceptual analysis of sexual agency, I consider the limitations and distortions of what we typically recognize as agency and whom we recognize as agents. I argue that the dominant perspective of sexual agency as an outward performance of an internal attribute both: underestimates its presence, blinding us to the many manifestations of agency, including among girls imagined to have none; and overestimates its potency, insinuating that individual will is enough to fend off sexual vulnerability forged by social injustice. Instead, I recommend a theoretical lens that permits us to see girls' sexual agency as a matter of fact, evident even among those who are compelled by social and material conditions to exercise it through sexual compliance, compromise, and concession. Accepting sexual agency as ubiquitous among young women can help reorient attention and action away from changing girls and instead toward changing the pervasive, systemic threats to their well-being, sexual and otherwise.

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Citations

May 22, 2020·Pediatric Allergy and Immunology : Official Publication of the European Society of Pediatric Allergy and Immunology·Montserrat Alvaro-LozanoMarta Vazquez-Ortiz
Mar 3, 2021·Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities : JARID·Hannah G Ginn
Oct 27, 2020·Journal of Sex Research·Susan StregaHelga Kristín Hallgrímsdóttir
Nov 18, 2021·Journal of Sex Research·Laina Y Bay-ChengAlyssa N Zucker

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