ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that sexual desire, or being desired, is not solely a private matter: for many, being excluded from the romantic realm has political origins and political implications. Sexual desires are, to some extent, socially constructed according to systems of oppression and domination. In being rooted in past and lingering oppression, such desires both trade on, and are likely to reproduce, injustice. For example, subordinately racialized groups are often excluded from the romantic realm or can face desire that is predicated upon their racialized identity. Such racial sexual preferences (RSPs) are objectionable due to the reproduction of race and racial stereotypes that is primed to occur through their expression, and due to the unequal socioeconomic outcomes produced by romantic exclusion. Yet, tensions emerge when we consider why racial sexual exclusion might be objectionable, but excluding people based on their sex/gender and sexual orientation does not seem to be. The chapter argues that sex/gender exclusion also turns out to be rooted in desire that has been formed under conditions of oppression. It will be shown, however, that the implications of such a political conceptualization of desire are complex.
