EU Sexual Citizenship: Sex Beyond the Internal Market

Abstract

This paper is forthcoming as a chapter in D. Kochenov (ed.), EU Citizenship and Federalism: The Role of Rights (Cambridge University Press, 2015). The central idea builds on the popular sociological concept of sexual citizenship, assuming its link to the cluster of specific sexual rights. Such sexual rights address multiple identities based on gender, sexual orientation and other broader aspects of sexuality (including, inter alia, consumption of pornography and sex work). The author applies this broad paradigm of sexual citizenship towards federalizing evolution of EU citizenship. The result of such a critical investigation demonstrates that EU citizenship offers not only a novel transnational vision of peoplehood. It equally entails governance of sexual rights as a part and parcel of mobile European project through vertical channels of EU sexual citizenship.

Keywords: EU citizenship, sexual citizenship, gender equality, sex trade, LGBT rights