Abstract
In this thesis, dominating, dichotomous ways of understanding and explaining sex are outlined and questioned. Dichotomous ideas and experiences of sex are sat in connection with the troubling times that the world finds itself in – times that sees a growing need for change on the part of humans. Is it possible for humanity to change if ideas and experiences of sex are justified through a dichotomous logic? Is it possible to embrace non-dichotomous philosophies, such as new-materialism, if we do not also consider sex in non-dichotomous ways? Through a discussion of Karen Barad’s notion of intra-action, this thesis works to acknowledge the already intra-active relationality inherent to dichotomous ideas and experiences of sex, and to suggest an intra-active conceptualization of sex. The project of acknowledgement is part of an affirmative feminist project of conceptualizing different ways of knowing, and being in, the present moment – ways that do not demand of the next moment to be dichotomously understood, while simultaneously working to not deny or negate what exists in the present.