Theorizing Sexuality

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

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 an agenda.

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.