Theorising Sexuality

by Jackson, Stevi; Scott, Sue

• ISBN13: 9780335218240
• ISBN10: 0335218245
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-03-01
• Publisher: Open Univ Pr

Summary

This book surveys and evaluates the sociological contribution to the study of sexuality. It not only maps major theoretical shifts and debates, but also offers a unique examination of the topic that emphasises the sociality of sexuality. In particular, it considers the institutional, biographical and interactional contexts of our sexual lives as well as the cultural significance and everyday practice of sexuality.The authors contest not only popular understandings of sexuality as natural, but also psychoanalytic explanations and forms of analysis that privilege the cultural construction of sexuality over its everyday social accomplishment. In particular, they challenge the 'specialness' of sexuality within contemporary culture, arguing that sexuality is better understood as a routine part of everyday social life.The book confronts the anxieties associated with sexuality in the late modern, western world and engages with wider debates on social transformations in late modernity. As such, it provides both an overview of the field of sexuality as well as setting a new agenda for debating the topic.Theorizing Sexualityis key reading for students, researchers and academics interested in theories of sexuality, gender and intimacy and anyone concerned with the social conditions that inform our sexual identities.

Author Biography

Stevi Jackson is Professor of Women’s Studies at the University of York, UK. She is the author of Childhood and Sexuality (1982) and Heterosexuality in Question (1999).

Sue Scott is Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Keele, UK. She has published widely in the area of young people and sexuality and edited a number of collections including Body Matters with DHJ Morgan (1993). Together Stevi Jackson and Sue Scott have edited Feminism and Sexuality (1996) and Gender: A Sociological Reader (2002) as well as numerous journal articles on intimacy and sexuality.

Table of Contents

Series editor's foreword	p. ix
Acknowledgements	p. xiii
Publishers' acknowledgements	p. xv
Introduction: the case for the sociality of sexuality	p. 1
Conceptualizing sexuality: from Kinsey to queer and beyond	p. 5
Feminist engagements: politicizing the personal and engendering theory	p. 24
Modernity and its discontents	p. 50
Is heterosexuality still compulsory?	p. 74
Risk, governance and surveillance: the boundaries of childhood	p. 101
The sexual self in late modernity	p. 121
Embodied practices and sexual pleasure	p. 139
Concluding thoughts on ordinary sexuality	p. 161
References	p. 167
Index	p. 185
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