ABSTRACT
This chapter draws particularly on Alan Warde's influential sociological elaboration of practice theory, and his development of it in relation to consumption, which in turn extends the work of Schatzski and Reckwitz. It brings Warde's account into dialogue with that of Gagnon and Simon in order to explore the contribution that practice theory might make to a sociological understanding of everyday sexual conduct. Both practice theory and interactionism emphasise the learnt, acquired basis of human social conduct. Interactionism is centrally concerned with the reflexive social self as both constituted through and enabling interaction as well as with the inherent meaningfulness of human conduct. The concept of sexual scripts allows for the complexity, fluidity and diversity of sexual activity through the intrapsychic, interpersonal and cultural dimensions of scripting and thus the interplay between "the agentic individual, the interactional situation and the surrounding sociocultural order".
