Sexualities: Past Reflections, Future Directions

Abstract

With contributions from established and emerging scholars, this collection draws on original research to consider recent theoretical and methodological debates, shifts in law and policy, and social and cultural changes around sexuality. The book bridges identified gaps between theory, research methods and practice, and lived experiences across time and place. It reflects on the current wave of interdisciplinary work, setting out new ways of conceptualizing and researching sexuality and explores persistently marginalized, re-traditionalized and normative sexual practices, subjectivities and identities. This distinctive consideration of innovative contributions from across the humanities and social sciences places emergent debates, enduring legacies and new queries within its 'reflections' and 'futures'. Reflexive sexualities and reflexive sociology / Brian Heaphy -- The affect of methods / Jacqui Gabb -- To pass without hindrance: citizenship, community, diversity, or death / Yvette Taylor -- Telling personal stories in academic research publications: reflexivity, intersubjectivity, and contextual positionalities / Christian Klesse -- Born this way: congenital heterosexuals and the makings of heteroflexibility / Jane Ward -- Straight indiscretions or queer hypocrites: public negotiations of identity and sexual behavior / Eve Shapiro -- The romantic imaginary: compulsory coupledom and single existence / Eleanor Wilkinson -- Re-imagining families of choice / Rachel Jones-Wild -- The politics of sexuality in Portugal: confronting tradition, enacting change / Ana Cristina Santos -- Stirring it up, again: a politics of difference in the new millennium / Sally Hines -- Erotic care: a queer feminist bathhouse and the power of attentive action / Davina Cooper -- Shanghai goes west: a story of the development of a commercial gay scene in China / Camila Bassi -- A radical opening: an exploration of lesbian/queer BDSM public sexual cultures / Corie Hammers -- "Sexing up" bodily aesthetics: notes toward theorizing trans sexuality / Zowie Davy and Eliza Steinbock -- Past, present, and future: exploring the sexual identities of people with learning difficulties / Ruth Garbutt.