Recently, I have found myself asking questions about a still-neglected aspect of international relations: sex (the act) and sexuality. What role does sex have in global politics? How do sexualities matter in political economies, sovereignties, foreign policies, wars, and conflicts? The time for a “sex turn” in (feminist) international relations is ripe—sex and sexuality have always been a part of global political interaction, and are becoming increasingly visible. From marriages calculated to maximize territorial control in early-modern Europe to the contemporary debate about equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer populations, taking account of the operation of sexuality is necessary for fully understanding global politics. Recently, political economists, security scholars, feminist theorists, and queer theorists have looked at the ways that not only gender but sex and sexuality impact and constitute global politics—a research program that is, in my opinion, both crucially important and long overdue in IR. Still, like any research program, work on sexuality in global politics includes more and less productive trends.

This review discusses the contributions of two books in the context of thinking about the best practices for and potential contributions of a sex turn for (feminist) IR. Both David Jacobson (in Of Virgins and Martyrs) and Annica Kronsell (in Gender, Sex, and the Postnational Defense) explore questions of the role of sex and sexuality in the security arena, though in very different ways.

Looking at (particularly Swedish) twenty-first-century military practices, Kronsell’s book focuses on the question, “In what ways are gender relations changing in relation to postnational defense?” (p. 5). Using a combination of significant interview research, policy documentation, and feminist theorizing, Kronsell suggests that the era of postnational defense includes both significant continuities with military tradition and important changes, especially in gender relations. Her first chapter pairs general theorization about gender and sexuality in state militarisms with specific histories of Sweden, arguing that the Swedish state expects men to protect women and children (p. 24, citing Jean Elshtain, Women and War, 2005) and women to be “mothers, nurturers, and caretakers” (p. 25). The chapter includes a fascinating account of gender relations in Sweden’s state military and voluntary military organizations. Chapter 2 discusses the Swedish military as an institution of hegemonic masculinity. As the author describes, “women who work in fields dominated by men and masculine norms often find themselves in a paradoxical position” where those institutions “rely on the consent and participation of those excluded” (p. 49, citing R. W. Connell and James Messerschmidt, “Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept,” Gender and Society 19 [2005]: 829–59.), making militarized gender roles “a delicate balancing act” (p. 50). Kronsell suggests that military orders are sustained by regimes of sexuality, even in postnational defense (p. 63). While Sweden’s postnational defense has come to embrace gender inclusiveness, often that inclusiveness is instrumentalized—for representativeness, democratic values, and/or increased military efficiency.

Perhaps as a result, the remainder of the book describes a Swedish military that is full of (sex, gender, and other) complexities.

Chapter 3 describes cosmopolitanism in the postnational defense strategy of contemporary Sweden, where the focus has transitioned from state/national security to human security, focused on peacekeeping for (often distant) others (e.g., p. 74). Kronsell discusses that shift as (voluntarily) feminizing the Swedish military, and suggests that this postnational cosmopolitanism could be seen as foundational for an empathy-inspired feminist military ethic, as called for by IR feminists (p. 88, citing Laura Sjoberg, Gender, Justice, and the Wars in Iraq, 2006). Chapter 4, however, looks more closely at postnational peacekeeping to reveal many continuing gendered contradictions, including, but not limited to, expectations of peacekeeper masculinity, continued prevalence of sexual abuse, and the uneasy inclusion of women. Chapter 5 discusses the many successes and many continued challenges of gender mainstreaming in the Swedish military, examining its work commanding the Nordic Battlegroup as a part of the European Defense and Security Policy (p. 113). Empirically, the book shows both promising developments and continued concerns about gender and sexuality in postnational defense (p. 143). Theoretically, it contributes to thinking about women’s positions as soldiers, to feminist war ethics, and to understanding gender and sexuality in contemporary security structures (p. 147).

Kronsell’s treatment is instructive for a sex turn in (feminist) IR in a number of ways. Gender, Sex, and the Postnational Defense is methodologically both sophisticated and careful. It provides policy-relevant information and rich histories without losing complexity (e.g., the discussion of gender on p. 8). It analyzes not only maleness and femaleness, masculinity and femininity, but also sexuality, homosexuality, and homosociality. Perhaps its biggest strength is that it pairs abstract theory with the complexities of contemporary policy realities, and in so doing contributes to both areas. This is not to say that the book does not have weaknesses—it certainly does. Its analysis would be stronger for a sharper division of discussions about the Swedish military and militarism generally. While the work is impressively conversant in feminist theory and critical masculinity studies, the inclusion of queer theory would enrich it. The parts of the book (e.g., pp. 87–88, 146) that make normative suggestions are less sophisticated and less practical than the empirical policy analysis. Despite those details, though, there is a lot to be learned from Kronsell’s treatment, both about postnational defense and as a model for sexuality studies in security.

David Jacobson’s Of Virgins and Martyrs also addresses questions of sexuality in security, though from a very different perspective. After suggesting that “women and sex are enduring motifs more generally in war and conflict,” from the portrayal of war “as an act of sexual violence” to “the seemingly universal constant of rape” (p. 1), Jacobson notes that “women’s sexuality has extraordinary play in the world today . . . as the casus belli, an incendiary of the violence itself” (p. 1). Starting from this thesis, he suggests that it is sex at the heart of the conflict between Islam and the West (p. 3), and that this conflict about sexuality reverberates both among Islamic sects and in immigrant communities in the West.

Jacobson’s book accounts for “the prominence of gender and sexuality in global rifts” (p. 15) in four parts. Part I addresses the role of the body, suggesting biblical roots of patriarchy (Chapter 1), crediting Western Europe with the idea that women can control their own bodies (Chapter 2), and relating Islamic gender conservativism to Arab tribalism (Chapter 3). Part II argues that globalization has benefited women at men’s expense in labor markets (Chapter 4), and has provided women the ability to express both their agency and empowered sexuality through fashion (Chapter 5). Jacobson characterizes free sexuality as a positive expression of agency, but as a threat to tribalism and Islamic fundamentalism. Following that logic, in Part III he traces an Islamist backlash to the evolution of women’s rights through globalization, both in society generally (Chapter 6) and in Islamist scholarship (Chapter 7). Part IV turns from clashes between Islam and the West to conflicts between Islamic people and Westerners in the West, arguing that immigrant communities within Europe express their rejection of European culture through the control of female sexuality, and that European multiculturalist policies tolerate that control (Chapter 8). After providing statistics about unrest in poor, immigrant, and Islamic neighborhoods (Chapter 9), the author compares the British and French models for dealing with sex, sexuality, and cultural differences, suggesting that the French model is preferable, and perhaps universalizable (Chapter 10). The book concludes that (control over) women’s embodied sexuality is at the center of many global rifts, and can be traced to the tribalism and radicalism of Islamic culture.

Of Virgins and Martyrs is broad-ranging and ambitious, and based on the (correct) observation that sexuality matters in conflict. The story it tells appeals to many people’s views of global politics. Unfortunately, whether it is a mischaracterization of Judith Butler’s arguments about the body (p. 14), problematic readings of the burka (p. 97), or an oversimplified, heterosexist reading of eroticism (p. 95), the book consistently bypasses the complexities of the concepts it includes, as well as the existence and substance of scholarly work on those complexities. Jacobson provides an account of gender and the burka (p. 97), an anthropology of prostitution (p. 84), and a (heterosexist) account of erotic capital (p. 95), all without substantive or formal reference to significant literatures on those complex relationships. These and other oversimplifications allow him to suggest that “women’s status defines competing moral visions of society” (back cover), when an accurate description would tell a much more complicated story. While the book includes rich retellings of many important historical stories, and is incredibly well written, it falls short of being either a contribution to or an example for a sex turn in (feminist) international relations.

Reading these two books next to each other suggests some lessons that can be learned for how to study sexuality in war and conflict (and perhaps for global politics more generally). First, it is important to see sexuality as a key force in global politics. Second, in so doing, it is important to ask the big questions: What is the role of sexuality in global political economy? War and conflict? How does it relate to gender, race, religion, nationality, and other forces in global politics? To capitalism, militarism, or democracy? Third, it is important to ask those questions carefully, and in dialogue with relevant debates about the issues both in political science and outside of it, lest, as we learn with Jacobson, shallow analysis leads to problematic conclusions. Fourth, as we learn with Kronsell, a feminist curiosity (e.g., Cynthia Enloe, The Curious Feminist: Searching for Women in a New Age of Empire, 2004) can serve as a guide to both asking nuanced questions and providing theoretically and practically useful answers. With these guidelines as a starting point, a “sex turn” in (feminist) international relations could produce significant insight into the politics of sexuality and the sexuality of politics.