Theorising Sexuality

Erscheinungsjahr 2010
ISBN: 978-0-335-24041-8
Verlag: Open University Press

Buch, Englisch

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 Sexuality is 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.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Jackson, Stevi

Scott, Sue

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein Gesellschaftstheorie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction: The case for the sociality of sexuality

Conceptualizing sexuality: From kinsey to queer and beyond

Feminist engagements: politicizing the personal and engendering theory

Modernity and its discontents

Is heterosexuality still compulsory?

Risk, governance and surveillance: the boundaries of childhood

The sexual self in late modernity

Embodied practices and sexual pleasure

Concluding thoughts on ordinary sexuality

Über Autor(innen)

Stevi Jackson is Professor of Women's Studies at the University of York, UK. She has published extensively on sexuality, especially heterosexuality, and on feminist theory.

Sue Scott is Pro Vice Chancellor at Glasgow Caledonian University, having previously been Professor of Sociology at Stirling and Durham Universities and Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences at Keele University, UK. She has published widely in the area of gender, sexuality and risk, particularly in relation to young people.