Abstract
Bianchi’s Sexuality: From Intimacy to Politics examines the issues relating to sexuality within the political setting of post-communist Slovakia. This book aims to answer politically provocative questions that are understudied within the strictly Catholic and post-communist academic community in Slovakia. Drawing on more than 25 years of research, this book discusses the relationship between human sexuality as a subset to human intimacy, its relationship in the political debate as a political commodity and sexual health.
The first part, Sexual Subjectivity, is primarily a psychologically oriented chapter where the author presents a uniform and comprehensive summary of sexual discourse and introduces his own research attempting to answer the question ‘What does sex mean to people’ (p. 23). Considering the limited qualitative research within the subjective meanings of sex, Bianchi introduces his own research, a comparative study of Ingham’s 1996 research on the subjective meaning of sex. Here, the author broadens the research focusing not only on heterosexual young adults but also on men who have sex with men. Of particular interest to Bianchi is the notion of ‘sexual debut’ as a crucial part of the sexual experience. In this regard, the author engages with data exclusively from Slovakia and the Czech Republic as he believes that understanding the complexities relating to sexual debut can further navigate the advances in sexual education and sexual health promotion.
Part two: Intimacy and Sexuality is a sociological exploration drawing on 30 years of research on the transformation of intimacy, the relationship between intimacy and sexuality, and the diversity in sexual phenomenology. The author eloquently presents an extensive account of the historical evolution in both psychological and sociological discourses on intimacy and successfully defends his thesis on the transmutation of intimacy from the relationship substance into the identity substance.
Sexual Health or why it is important to talk about healthy sex and not only sexual health is the central question of the third part of this book. Bianchi opens this chapter by observing the overinvolvement, conformity and the ties of Christianity to the national identity of Slovak individuals. Christianity enjoys widespread support in Slovakia and often affects decisions and thinking, not only in the political and public spheres but also within the academic community. To counteract the position of conservative religion within the realm of the academy, Bianchi asks how men have sex with men in his own research and highlights the wide variety and diversity in homosexual experiences. In this section, the author also introduces his research on the Roma community and the perception on the cultural notion on seduction, as well as his research on the boundaries of wanted and unwanted sex between young adults. Bianchi brings attention to the importance of focusing on boundaries of wanted and unwanted sex since approximately 30% of young adults in Slovakia experience some form of sexual aggression or victimisation (p. 115).
The final chapter is particularly relevant for Slovakia as issues regarding sexuality, sexual freedom and abortion rights are at the centre of national, political and societal debate. In Citizenship and sexuality, Bianchi points out the current state of the discourse in Slovakia could lead to sexuality being used as property within the political scene (p. 133). Exploring the question of the need for new norms in sexualities, Bianchi discusses the theories of morality; sexual, intimate and cultural citizenship; demand for recognition; and the politics of identity. The author effectively creates a basis for his proposition that the evolution of human sexuality should affect the regulations in modern politics and society. In the last section, Bianchi focuses on the historical development of the institution of marriage, its relationship to Christianity and the LGBT community. Bianchi worries that the role of marriage as a reproducer of normative heterosexual and ‘appropriately’ gendered citizens can have a negative effect on the Slovak queer members as the parliament continues to lobby against LGBT marriage.
Throughout the book, Bianchi highlights the political and societal challenges and the current state in the perception of sexuality in Slovakia, such as the current exploitation of debate, both in the public and private sphere. In his last section, Bianchi tries to advance the research in the intimate sexuality discourse by offering recommendations that could lead to a positive shift in sexuality and democratisation of society in the future. These recommendations include, but are not limited to, proposing to focus on the development of the debates that can have a direct effect on the lives of minorities, as well as the re-implementation of sexual education as a part of the school curriculum. The final suggestion is the need for support for research on sexuality, sexual health and to study the critical issues that are currently under-researched within the academic community in Slovakia.
Overall, Sexuality: From Intimacy to Politics represents a welcome theoretical and methodological groundwork for the engagement in the ongoing and developing discussion of sexuality both in the academic and political spheres in Slovakia.
