ABSTRACT

From advertising to health education campaigns, sex and sexual imagery now permeate every aspect of culture. Striptease Culture explores the 'sexualization' of contemporary life, relating it to wider changes in post-war society.

Striptease Culture is divided in to three sections:

* Part one – traces the development of pornography, following its movement from elite to mass culture and the contemporary fascination with ‘porno-chic’
* Part two – considers popular cultural forms of sexual representation in the media, moving from backlash elements in straight male culture and changing images of women, to the representation of gays in contemporary film and television
* Part three – looks at the use of sexuality in contemporary art, examinging the artistic ‘striptease’ of Jeff Koons, and others who have used their own naked bodies in their work.

Also considering how feminist and gay artists have employed sexuality in the critique and transformation of patriarchy, the high profile of sexuality as a key contributor to public health education in the era of HIV and AIDS, and the implications of the rise of striptease culture for the future of sexual poltics, Brian McNair has produced an excellent book in the study of gender, sexuality and contemporary culture.

chapter |14 pages

Sex Matters

chapter |19 pages

From Wilde to Wild

The end of patriarchy, or is it all just history repeating?

part |74 pages

Cultural sexualization: from pornosphere to public sphere

chapter |21 pages

Striptease Culture

The sexualization of the public sphere

part |54 pages

Sexual representation

chapter |14 pages

Men Behaving Sadly

The crisis of masculinity?

part |45 pages

The aesthetics of sexual transgression

chapter |12 pages

Men, Sex and Transgression

chapter |12 pages

Queer Culture

chapter |14 pages

Bad Girls

Sexual transgression as feminist strategy

chapter |3 pages

Conclusions