Welcome to the Gender Studies Advanced seminar (Högre seminariet) where Dr Valerie De Craene, Geography, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, presents her work on the methodological and ethical aspects of researching sex.

What does it mean to live and work as a sex researcher—within institutions not always built for emotional labor, embodied knowledge, erotic subjectivities, or queer and feminist critique? In this seminar, Valerie De Craene explores the subtle and often invisible ways that researching gender and sexuality shapes the everyday lives of academics: from navigating desire, care, and discomfort, to managing institutional norms and the performance of legitimacy. Drawing on De Craene's own work in geography of sexualities and slow science, she reflects on the ethics, boundaries, and politics of being a “sex researcher” today—not just in the field, but in all sorts of places inside, outside and a-side academia.