ABSTRACT
Just as the early development of sexology sought to liberate sexuality from the influence of religious doctrine and religious authority, the social constructionist approach as it emerged during the 1970s and 1980s was an equally conscious attempt to resist the medicalization of sexuality that had become so deeply rooted in the early twentieth century. With the emergence of the HIV epidemic in the early 1980s, however, a rapid remedicalization of approaches to sexuality began to take place within research and as part of the broader social response to the epidemic.
