Sexualities, organizations and organization sexualities: Future scenarios and the impact of socio-technologies (a transnational perspective from the global ‘north’)

Abstract

The article opens by briefly reviewing studies of sexuality in and around organizations from the 1970s. These studies showed considerable theoretical, empirical and conceptual development, as in the concept of organization sexuality. Building on this, the article’s first task is to analyse alternative future scenarios for organization sexualities, by way of changing intersections of gender, sexuality and organizational forms. Possible gendered future scenarios are outlined based on, first, gender equality/inequality and, second, gender similarity/difference between women, men and further genders: hyper-patriarchy scenario—men and women becoming more divergent; with greater inequality; late capitalist gender scenario—genders becoming more convergent, with greater inequality; bi-polar scenario—men and women becoming more divergent, with greater equality; postgender scenario—genders becoming more convergent, with greater equality. Somewhat similar scenarios for organization sexualities are elaborated in terms of gender/sexual equality and inequality and sexual/gender similarity and difference: heteropatriarchies scenario—greater sexual/gender difference and greater sexual or sexual/gender inequality; late capitalist sexual scenario—greater sexual/gender similarity and greater sexual or gender/sexual inequality; sexual differentiation scenario—greater sexual/gender difference and greater sexual or sexual/gender equality; sexual blurring scenario—greater sexual/gender similarity and greater sexual or sexual/gender equality. The article’s second task is to addresses the impact of globalizations and transnationalizations, specifically information and communication technologies and other socio-technologies, for future scenarios of organization sexualities. The characteristic affordances of ICTs—technological control, virtual reproducibility, conditional communality, unfinished undecidability—are mapped onto the four scenarios above and the implications outlined.