Anarchism and sexuality

Anarchism – derived from the Greek ‘no chief’, but understood as ‘without ruler’ (Dupuis-Deri, 2012) – can be understood as both a political theory and an ethos of opposition to authority. Anarchism as a commitment to challenging external authority can be usefully applied as a framework to sexuality to think about how sexuality is shaped coercively, by norms and by laws, how normalized models of sexuality may benefit some over others, and how power and domination operates in and through sexuality. Anarchist approaches to sexuality can be implicit, in the form of activism and practices enacted in anarchist communities or in relationships between anarchists, as well as explicit in the form of anarchist literature and theory that reflects on the relationship between the political ideal of anarchism as self-determination or lack of oppression, and sexuality. Issues addressed include interrogating and challenging the coercive aspects of gendered power and inequality in sex and sexuality, the subordination of same-sex attraction and promotion of heteronormativity, interrogation of the institution of marriage, monogamy and support for ‘free love’ and non-monogamy, interrogation of sexual practices that are promoted and those that are demonized, and most recently, consent and sexual assault and violence prevention and response. This chapter will chart these from a variety of historical eras and geographical locations, from ‘classical anarchist’ germinal writings about anarchism and heterosexual marriage from Europe, Russia, South America, and North America, to contemporary international queer anarchist movements throughout the world including Argentina and Occupied Palestine and Israel. While many contemporary anarchist thinkers and movements now use the language of ‘intersectionality’, one of the strengths of anarchism as an analytical framework is that it offers a way to think about oppressive power and its resistance that can be applied across different axes simultaneously. A key point of divergence that will be drawn out is the different ways that thinkers and activists have conceptualized the nature (or ontology) of sexuality, and the implications that has had for their visions for anarchist sexuality and their aims around applying anarchist principles to it