Sexualities and Society A Reader

by Weeks, Jeffrey; Holland, Janet; Waites, Matthew

• ISBN13: 9780745622484
• ISBN10: 0745622488
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-01-17
• Publisher: Polity

Summary

Over the past generation there has been a revolution in our understanding of human sexualities. From being on the periphery of historical and scientific studies, sexuality has increasingly come to be seen as close to the heart of our understanding of contemporary societies. Since the 1960s there has been an explosion of new sexual knowledges which have re-shaped the ways in which the erotic is understood. A rich new literature has emerged, often produced by scholars influenced by feminism, lesbian and gay politics and other sexual movements. Sexualities and Society: A Reader offers a selection of the best of recent scholarship, from a range of disciplinary perspectives. Addressing sexualities in global perspective, it introduces some of the most exciting texts in the field, bringing together a collection of compelling contemporary research which will be fascinating to readers worldwide. The chapters are grouped into five sections: social and historical approaches to sexualities; the gender of sexuality; sexual identities; globalization; power and resistance; and sexual values and life experiments. Sexualities and Society will be a valuable resource for students of a range of courses addressing sexuality, including gender studies, feminist studies, the body, lesbian and gay studies and queer studies, aswell as sociology, cultural studies, politics, history and social policy.

Author Biography

Jeffrey Weeks and Janet Holland are at South Bank University. Matthew Waites is at Sheffield University.

Table of Contents

The Contributors	viii
Preface and Acknowledgements	xii
Copyright Acknowledgements	xiv
Publisher's Note	xviii
Introduction	1	(10)
Jeffrey Weeks
Janet Holland
Matthew Waites
Part I Social and Historical Approaches to Sexualities	11	(32)
Sex and the Gender Revolution	14	(8)
Randolph Trumbach
The Postmodernization of Sex	22	(11)
William Simon
Intimate Citizenship and the Culture of Sexual Story Telling	33	(10)
Ken Plummer
Part II The Gender of Sexuality	43	(76)
The Big Picture: Masculinities in Recent World History	46	(11)
R. W. Connell
A Passion for `Sameness'? Sexuality and Gender Accountability	57	(12)
Gillian A. Dunne
Heterosexuality, Heteronormativity and Gender Hierarchy: Some Reflections on Recent Debates	69	(15)
Stevi Jackson
When Bodies Come Together: Power, Control and Desire	84	(11)
Janet Holland
Caroline Ramazanoglu
Sue Sharpe
Rachel Thomson
Only the Literal: the Contradictions of Anti-Pornography Feminism	95	(10)
Lynne Segal
Anomalous Bodies: Transgenderings and Cultural Transformations	105	(14)
Mark Johnson
Part III Sexual Identities	119	(64)
Necessary Fictions: Sexual Identities and the Politics of Diversity	122	(10)
Jeffrey Weeks
Becoming Lesbian: Identity Work and the Performance of Sexuality	132	(11)
Arlene Stein
`I Haven't Seen That in the Kama Sutra': the Sexual Stories of Disabled People	143	(10)
Tom Shakespeare
Postmodern Bisexuality	153	(9)
Merl Storr
Zimbabwean Law and the Production of a White Man's Disease	162	(12)
Oliver Phillips
Not Just (Any) Body Can be a Citizen: the Politics of Law, Sexuality and Postcoloniality in Trinidad and Tobago and the Bahamas	174	(9)
M. Jacqui Alexander
Part IV Globalization, Power and Resistance	183	(58)
Globalization, Political Economy and HIV / AIDS	186	(9)
Dennis Altman
The Land, the Blood and the Passion: the Hindu Far-Right	195	(9)
Chetan Bhatt
Prostitution, Power and Freedom	204	(12)
Julia O'Connell Davidson
Sex and the Open Market	216	(11)
Harriet Evans
Negotiating Reproductive Rights	227	(14)
Rosalind Petchesky
Part V Sexual Values and Life Experiments	241	(47)
Foucault: Aesthetics as Ethics	245	(11)
Lois McNay
Intimacy as Democracy	256	(9)
Anthony Giddens
The Couple: Intimate and Equal?	265	(12)
Lynn Jamieson
The Disappearance of the Modern Homosexual	277	(11)
Henning Bech
Index	288