What does unsexing mean?
Unsexing is the act of taking something out of its sexual character or, more literally, removing sexual attributes or reproductive function. In contemporary critical and cultural use, it can describe editing explicit material from a film, book, or advertisement, or stripping a voice, image, or design of sexual or gender-coded associations. In biological and medical contexts, it refers to castration, emasculation, or neutering. The term is uncommon outside specialist, medical, and critical discussion, so its appearance often signals either a technical process or a deliberate challenge to sexual or gender norms. Because unsexing can refer both to an irreversible bodily intervention and to a figurative cultural edit, it requires context to interpret. It is worth knowing as a vivid example of how the combination of un-, sex, and -ing can express both physical transformation and the removal of sexual meaning.
verbTo make something less sexual in character or appeal; also, literally, to deprive a person or animal of sexual attributes or function.
- To remove sexual content, appeal, associations, or explicitness from a text, performance, image, or other work.
- To deprive a person or animal of sexual characteristics or function; to castrate or emasculate.
"The film director was criticized for unsexing the original by removing its explicit scenes."
"The veterinarian explained the risks of unsexing the male dog."
"The editor was accused of unsexing the novel by deleting its explicit passages."
Unsexing can mean everything from neutering an animal to draining a film of its sexual charge.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does unsexing come from?
Unsexing is a modern English formation built from un- (“reverse, remove, or deprive of”), sex, and the present-participle suffix -ing. Its lexical base continues Latin sexus (“sex”), the source of English sexual, sexuality, and other sex- derivatives; un- adds the idea of removal or deprivation. The verb unsex developed in the literal sense of removing sexual attributes, while figurative uses extend that idea to taking away sexual content, appeal, or associations.
Related word forms
How unsexing is actually used
Relatively uncommon outside specialist, medical, critical, and editorial contexts. Literal uses may be clinical or graphic, while figurative uses often concern cultural or artistic changes and can carry a deliberately challenging tone.