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Sexecology, also known as ecosexuality, is a radical form of environmental activism based around nature fetishism, the idea of the earth as a lover. It invites people to treat the earth with love rather than see it as an infinite resource to exploit. [1] It was founded by Elizabeth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle, who describe themselves as "two ecosexual artists-in-love", whose manifesto is to make environment activism "more sexy, fun, and diverse". [2] Sexecology employs absurdist humor, performance art and sex-positivity, which Stephens claims "may produce new forms of knowledge that hold potential to alter the future by privileging our desire for the Earth to function with as many diverse, intact and flourishing ecological systems as possible." [3] [4] [5] The couple promote education, events such as the ecosex symposium, and activism, such as protecting the Appalachian Mountains from mountain top removal. [5]
Sexecology conceives of the earth not as a mother, but as a lover. [6] This conceptual shift invites people to engage their bodies and senses in acts of environmental preservation. [3] [ further explanation needed ]
Unlike ecofeminism, sexecology does not see an intrinsic link between women and nature; some of the limitations of ecofeminism which sex ecology indirectly addresses are "the reliance on women's biological functions to establish a connection between women and nature, the uncritical over-privileging of women's experiences, the inappropriateness of designating ideal female characteristics, and the regressive political implications of associating women with nature". [7] "The formulation of an Eco-Sexual identity is a practice of an erotic eco-logic, deconstructing heteronormative constructions of gender, sex, sexuality, and nature in order to continually queer and destabilize identities, actively form and retain spaces of lack that necessitate interdependency, and engage a permeable sensuous self in perpetual sensorial reciprocity with the sensing and sensible more-than-human environment. It is an identity identified by desire rather than a stable essence or being, and it is a desire for the more-than-human environment in which the human subject is sensorially implicit." [5]
Proponents of this movement are called "ecosexuals"; they are unafraid to engage in and embrace their erotic experience with the earth, such as bathing naked, having sex with vegetables or having an orgasm in a waterfall. [1] Stephens describes ecosexuals as people who "... are related to cyborgs and are not afraid of engaging in intercourse with nature and/or with technology for that matter. We make love with the Earth through our senses." [3]
Ecosexuals range from those who use sustainable sex products and like being nude in nature to those who "roll around in the dirt having an orgasm covered in potting soil" and those who "masturbate under a waterfall" [8] "[Sprinkle and Stephens] have officiated wedding ceremonies where they and fellow ecosexuals marry the earth, the moon, and other natural entities" [8] They have also stated that they believe there are over 100,000 people who identify as ecosexual worldwide [8]
Sexecology seeks to direct attention towards “the ways in which sex and sexuality affect the larger nonhuman world.” Ecosexuality is an orientation directed toward the non-human material world. With this direction, ecosexuality makes a bold statement that “these human bodies are part of the nonhuman material world.” The blur between human and non-human entities is essential to Sprinkles and Stephens’ demonstration of sexecology. [9]
Sexecology was influenced by contemporary theories around posthumanism and the relationships between humans and nonhumans. [10]
Elizabeth Stephens has said "Haraway’s work has guided my understanding of the material consequences and the theoretical underpinnings embedded in human/nonhuman relationships that matrix our world. This has helped me understand how human exceptionalism has been constructed and privileged throughout the history of religion and science as well as in other secular practices in western culture. Human exceptionalism, in collaboration with global capitalism, has created the isolated space necessary for the ongoing practices that have produced the dangerously degraded environmental conditions in which we now live. The belief systems and ideologies that allow some people to think that they have the Darwinian survival skill and the rights that accompany those skills to use or destroy other human and non humans is now causing the kind of environmental degradation that affects the whole system sooner or later." [11]
“The Love Art Lab projects aim to instill hope, create an antidote to fear, and act as a call for action.” [12] It is a private demonstration into the work of the two founders of the movement, Sprinkles and Stephens, as the research how to become "lovers with the earth. The performances can be privately booked by contacting the two and are meant to be demonstrational, informative, and "radical." [12]
Sprinkles and Stephens have performed a number of "weddings to the earth" across the world intended to break the barrier between human sexuality and nature. The performances include "Wedding to the Dirt, Wedding to Lake Kallavesi, Wedding to the Coal, Wedding to the Rocks, Wedding to the Snow, Wedding to the Moon, Wedding to the Appalachian Mountains, Wedding to the Earth, and Wedding to the Sea", to date. The intention, according to Sprinkles, is to "…shift the metaphor from ‘Earth as Mother’ to ‘Earth as Lover´" [13]
Sprinkles and Stephens have performed a two women show 25 Ways to Make Love to the Earth (Theatre Piece) at the Kosmos Theatre in Vienna in 2010 to demonstrate how to "make love with the earth", including talking, singing, dancing, and stroking natural objects. The performances are educational as well as self-promoting of the movement. [14]
The aesthetic strategies of sexecology are influenced by Joseph Beuys' concept of social sculpture, which sees art as having the potential to transform society. [15] [16]
"... the production of visible art may effect the production of invisible ideological and class relations. For Joseph Beuys, sculpture and artistic creativity hold the potential to reshape the educational and governmental institutions that produce ideological subjects, as well as social, political, and economic systems. Art, Beuys argues, is the necessary condition for the production of a revolutionary society because it can both unravel the old order and engage everyone in the production of a new social order." [3]
Ecosexuals have engaged in protests against mountaintop removal, as shown in the film "Goodbye Gauley Mountain: An Ecosexual Love Story."
Goodbye Gauley Mountain: An Ecosexual Love Story (2013) is an autoethnographic documentary film by Elizabeth Stephens with Annie Sprinkle about the environmental issue of Mountaintop removal in West Virginia, United States. [17] West Virginia native Stephens returns to her childhood home to create a film that incorporates autobiography, a brief history of the coal industry, an inventory of activist strategies, an eco-sexual mini-manifesto, and finally, an example of the performance art Stephens and Sprinkle often employ to express their ecosexuality. [18] Stephens presents a community struggling to reconcile their love of their natural mountainous environment with the fact that its destruction via MTR provides the local economy. The piece explores the negative consequences of mountaintop removal, both cosmetic and environmental, and culminates in an exploration of ecosexuality, followed by wedding ceremony in which Stephens and Sprinkle "marry" the mountain. “Ecosexuality inserts an ‘erotic’ humor that plays against the horrific subject matter. So far the feedback that I’ve received at film previews makes me realize that these are effective strategies for creating space to briefly cut the feeling of despair that MTR evokes.”
Radical environmentalism is a grass-roots branch of the larger environmental movement that emerged from an ecocentrism-based frustration with the co-option of mainstream environmentalism.
Annie M. Sprinkle is an American certified sexologist, performance artist, former sex worker, and advocate for sex work and health care. Sprinkle has worked as a prostitute, sex educator, feminist stripper, pornographic film actress, and sex film producer and director. In 1996, she became the first known porn star to get a doctoral degree, earning a PhD in human sexuality from the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco. Identifying as ecosexual, Sprinkle is best known for her self-help style of pornography, teaching individuals about pleasure, and for her conventional pornographic film Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle (1981). Through the production of feminist based pornographic content, include understanding of female genitalia and pornography based on women's desires, Sprinkle has contributed to feminist pornography and the larger social movement of feminism; she is also known for contributing to the rise of the post-porn movement and bisexual/lesbian pornography. Sprinkle, a bisexual woman and member of the LGBTQ+ community, married her long-time partner Beth Stephens in Canada on January 14, 2007.
The following outline is provided as an overview and topical guide to green politics:
Fuck for Forest (FFF) is a non-profit environmental organisation founded in 2004 in Norway by Leona Johansson and Tommy Hol Ellingsen. It funds itself through a website of sexually explicit videos and photographs, charging a membership fee for access. A portion of funds are donated to the cause of rescuing the world's rainforests. It is the world's first eco-porn organization and may be the only porn website specifically created to raise money for a cause. The group moved from Oslo, Norway, to Berlin, Germany, following the trial of its founders for having sex in public.
Mountaintop removal mining (MTR), also known as mountaintop mining (MTM), is a form of surface mining at the summit or summit ridge of a mountain. Coal seams are extracted from a mountain by removing the land, or overburden, above the seams. This process is considered to be safer compared to underground mining because the coal seams are accessed from above instead of underground. In the United States, this method of coal mining is conducted in the Appalachian Mountains in the eastern United States. Explosives are used to remove up to 400 vertical feet of mountain to expose underlying coal seams. Excess rock and soil is dumped into nearby valleys, in what are called "holler fills" or "valley fills".
Surface mining, including strip mining, open-pit mining and mountaintop removal mining, is a broad category of mining in which soil and rock overlying the mineral deposit are removed, in contrast to underground mining, in which the overlying rock is left in place, and the mineral is removed through shafts or tunnels.
Ecofascism is a term used to describe individuals and groups which combine environmentalism with fascism.
Ecospirituality connects the science of ecology with spirituality. It brings together religion and environmental activism. Ecospirituality has been defined as "a manifestation of the spiritual connection between human beings and the environment." The new millennium and the modern ecological crisis has created a need for environmentally based religion and spirituality. Ecospirituality is understood by some practitioners and scholars as one result of people wanting to free themselves from a consumeristic and materialistic society. Ecospirituality has been critiqued for being an umbrella term for concepts such as deep ecology, ecofeminism, and nature religion.
Ariel Salleh is an Australian sociologist who writes on humanity-nature relations, political ecology, social change movements, and ecofeminism.
Deep ecology is an environmental philosophy that promotes the inherent worth of all living beings regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs, and the restructuring of modern human societies in accordance with such ideas.
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Marti Kheel was a vegan ecofeminist activist scholar credited with founding Feminists for Animal Rights (FAR) in California in 1982. She authored several books in deep ecology and ecofeminism, including Nature Ethics: An Ecofeminist Perspective and several widely cited articles in college courses and related scholarship, such as "The Liberation of Nature: A Circular Affair", "From Heroic to Holistic Ethics: The Ecofeminist Challenge", and "From Healing Herbs to Deadly Drugs: Western Medicine's War Against the Natural World". She was a long-time vegan in diet, lifestyle, and philosophical commitments, working out her understanding of its implications in every area of our human relationships with nature and its constituents, and she found a wide audience for those deep reflections. Reportedly, she had pursued a raw vegan diet later in her life. Her pioneering scholarship in ecofeminist ethics is foundational for continuing work in these fields.
Ecofeminism is a branch of feminism and political ecology. Ecofeminist thinkers draw on the concept of gender to analyse the relationships between humans and the natural world. The term was coined by the French writer Françoise d'Eaubonne in her book Le Féminisme ou la Mort (1974). Ecofeminist theory asserts a feminist perspective of Green politics that calls for an egalitarian, collaborative society in which there is no one dominant group. Today, there are several branches of ecofeminism, with varying approaches and analyses, including liberal ecofeminism, spiritual/cultural ecofeminism, and social/socialist ecofeminism. Interpretations of ecofeminism and how it might be applied to social thought include ecofeminist art, social justice and political philosophy, religion, contemporary feminism, and poetry.
Elizabeth M. "Beth" Stephens is an American filmmaker, artist, sculptor, photographer, professor and two time Chair of the Art Department at UC Santa Cruz. Stephens, who describes herself as "ecosexual", collaborates with her wife since 2002, ecosexual artist, radical sex educator, and performer Annie Sprinkle.
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Vegetarian ecofeminism is an activist and academic movement which states that all types of oppression are linked and must be eradicated, with a focus on including the domination of humans over nonhuman animals. Through the feminist concept known as intersectionality, it is recognized that sexism, racism, classism, and other forms of inter human discrimination are all connected. Vegetarian ecofeminism aims to include the domination of not only the environment but also of nonhuman animals to the list. Vegetarian ecofeminism is part of the academic and philosophical field of ecofeminism, which states that the ways in which the privileged dominates the oppressed should include the way humans dominate nature. A major theme within ecofeminism is the belief that there is a strong connection between the domination of women and the domination of nature, and that both must be eradicated in order to end oppression.
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Douglas A. Vakoch is an American astrobiologist, search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) researcher, psychologist, and president of METI International, a nonprofit research and educational organization devoted to transmitting intentional signals to extraterrestrial civilizations. Vakoch led METI's participation in Sónar Calling GJ 273b, which transmitted a series of interstellar messages to Luyten's Star, located 12.4 light years from Earth. Vakoch advocates ongoing transmission projects, arguing that this does not increase risks of an alien invasion as suggested by British cosmologist Stephen Hawking. He has participated in several SETI observation programs, and after sixteen years at the SETI Institute, where he was director of Interstellar Message Composition, Vakoch founded METI International. He has edited over a dozen books in SETI, astrobiology, the psychology of space exploration, and ecocriticism. He is general editor of two-book series in ecocriticism and in the intersection of space and society. Vakoch has appeared widely on television and radio as a commentator on SETI and astrobiology. He is an emeritus professor of clinical psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS).
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