Social Construction of Sexuality (Contemporary Societies) Book

Though attitudes toward sexuality have changed greatly over the past two centuries, it is still taken for granted that a distinction can be made between natural and unnatural manifestations of sexuality. In The Social Construction of Sexuality, Steven Seidman questions such assumptions and investigates the political and social consequences of privileging certain sexual practices and identities while stigmatizing others. Addressing a range of topics from gay and lesbian identities to sex work, he delves into issues of social control that inform popular beliefs and moral standards. The Social Construction of Sexuality widens the public discussion of the morality and politics of sexuality. With this insightful exploration of society's effect on our sexual choices, Seidman once again makes a significant contribution to the sociological study of sexuality. The Social Construction of Sexuality is part of the Contemporary Societies series, Series Editor, Jeffrey Alexander. This series marks the coming of age of a generation and a discipline. It has been half a century since the world's leading sociologists engaged in a collective effort to make their cutting-edge thinking and research so concise and so widely accessible. What has changed in the meantime? Just about everything! Theoretical hegemony has given way to plurality. Disengagement has given way to relevance, and a provincial focus on America has opened up to the currents of globalization. Running through all these transformations has been the cultural turn, the recognition that meaning dynamics-codes, narratives, metaphors, values, and beliefs-remain central features of even the most contemporary societies. In this series, the world's leading sociologists show how these developments have transformed their specialties. They do so by engaging a genre that has almost disappeared from the social sciences today-the essay. Well-written, clear-minded, and elegant, these brief compositions are major creative endeavors in their own right, even as they bring the ideas of the world's most advanced thinkers into the world of the lay reader.Read More