Subjection, liberation, and the future

pp. 157-173

in: William Wilkerson, Ambiguity and sexuality, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007

Abstract

I have already explained how agency, a philosophical term for the ability to originate action and freely engage in the world, remains ambiguously bound to our situation and shows itself in the process of forming a sexual identity. Rather than claim that choice happens only at the point of coming out, I argued that we project sexuality long before this critical juncture, so that we "prepare" the data on the basis of which we choose. Yet we prepare these data on the basis of their own meaning, which develops through social interactions and presents us with the very question we must resolve through sexual identity. Hence agency and choice never fully appear in a complete and self-standing form, but they are always tied to situation and do not emerge from this ambiguity.