ABSTRACT

Introducing the New Sexuality Studies: Original Essays is an innovative, reader-friendly collection of essays that introduces the field of sexuality studies to undergraduate students. Examining the social, cultural, and historical dimensions of sexuality, this collection is designed to serve as a comprehensive yet accessible textbook for sexuality courses at the undergraduate level. The fourth edition adds 51 new essays whilst retaining 33 of the most popular essays from previous editions.

It features perspectives that are intersectional, transnational, sex positive, and attentive to historically marginalized groups along multiple axes of inequality, including gender, race, class, ability, body size, religious identity, age, and, of course, sexuality. Essays explore how a wide variety of social institutions, including medicine, religion, the state, and education, shape sexual desires, behaviors, and identities. Sources of, and empirical research on, oppression are discussed, along with modes of resistance, activism, and policy change.

The fourth edition also adds new user-friendly features for students and instructors. Keywords are italicized and defined, and each chapter concludes with review questions to help students ascertain their comprehension of key points. There is also an online annotated table of contents to help readers identify key ideas and concepts at a glance for each chapter.

part 1|89 pages

Laying the foundations

chapter 4|10 pages

Trans categories and the sex/gender/sexuality system

How transforming understandings of sex and gender can shift sexuality

chapter 5|12 pages

Unthinking compulsory sexuality

Introducing asexuality

chapter 6|9 pages

The dos and don'ts of dating

Heterosexual and LGBTQ dating rituals as sexual scripts

chapter 8|7 pages

Method matters

Discovering how early motherhood, monogamy, and social class shape young women's sexuality

chapter 9|10 pages

Suicide is only part of the story

Telling wounded truths about LGBTQ youth

chapter 10|9 pages

Sex positivity

A Black feminist gift

part 2|79 pages

Bodies and behaviors

chapter 12|6 pages

Polishing the pearl

Discoveries of the clitoris

chapter 13|11 pages

But can you ever win?

Genital cosmetic procedures

chapter 15|8 pages

Anal sex

Phallic and other meanings

chapter 17|10 pages

Reconceiving unintended pregnancy

Considering context in sexual and reproductive decision making

chapter 18|8 pages

Sex in later life

Beyond dysfunction and the coital imperative

chapter 19|9 pages

“There's really no reason to settle”

Size acceptance as a path to sexual empowerment

part 3|99 pages

Relating and relationships

chapter 21|5 pages

One is not born a bride

Weddings and the heterosexual imaginary

chapter 22|9 pages

Yes, no, maybe so?

Inequalities in sexual consent and sexual pleasure for young adults

chapter 24|9 pages

Interracial romance

The logic of acceptance and domination

chapter 25|10 pages

Romantic apartheid

Digital sexual racism in online dating

chapter 27|11 pages

Gay racism

The institutional and interactional patterns of racism in gay communities

chapter 28|8 pages

Gender labor, racework, and trans pleasure

Transgender individuals' experiences in intimate relationships

chapter 29|9 pages

“We were on a BREAK!”

Men chasing masculinity and women seeking pleasure in affairs

part 4|93 pages

Sex, gender, and sexuality

chapter 31|9 pages

Intersexy, but fat

On the selective celebration of bodily differences

chapter 32|8 pages

Trans sexualities

Identities, relationships, and desires

chapter 33|8 pages

Adolescent girls' sexuality

Sexual agency and the renovated sexual double standard

chapter 34|10 pages

“There is no such thing as a slut”

Creating and destroying the “good girl” in Taylor Swift's musical persona

chapter 35|8 pages

“Guys are just homophobic”

Rethinking adolescent homophobia and heterosexuality

chapter 36|8 pages

Not “straight,” but still a “man”

Negotiating nonheterosexual masculinities

chapter 37|11 pages

Straight men and women

Hegemonic and counter-hegemonic straightness

chapter 39|11 pages

Sacred and beastly sex

Abstinence pledges and masculinity

chapter 40|9 pages

Heteroflexibility

part 5|82 pages

Social structures and institutions

chapter 41|7 pages

The economy and American marriage

Change and continuity

chapter 42|8 pages

The marriage contract

The legal context of marriage

chapter 43|10 pages

The elusive goal of sexual health

chapter 46|8 pages

The coloniality of sexuality

chapter 47|9 pages

“I am God's creation”

Religion as a positive force in the lives of LGBTQ+ persons of faith

chapter 49|10 pages

Sex education and its failures

From social inequalities to intimate possibilities

part 6|81 pages

Navigating inequalities and oppressions

chapter 52|8 pages

Disrupting dichotomies

Nonbinary sexual identities

chapter 53|7 pages

Creando una familia

LBQ Latinas facilitating bonds through shared race/ethnicity

chapter 54|10 pages

“Heterosexual families do not have to explain themselves”

Heteronormativity in the lives of LGBTQ+ children and parents

chapter 55|8 pages

Intersected lives

Race, class, and gender in lesbian- and gay-affirming Protestant congregations

chapter 56|8 pages

“The thorn in my side”

How ex-gays, ex-ex-gays, and celibate gays negotiate their religious and sexual identities

chapter 58|7 pages

Unspoiling identity

Combating racial and sexual stigma

part 7|80 pages

Sexual cultures, places, and scenes

chapter 59|9 pages

Sexual capital and social inequality

The study of sexual fields

chapter 62|11 pages

“We will always remember”

Reactivating queer places as expressions of grief, solidarity, and protest after Pulse

chapter 64|12 pages

Learning to be queer

College women's sexual fluidity

chapter 65|10 pages

Critical consent

Negotiating consent in trans-les-bi-queer BDSM communities

chapter 66|8 pages

Nurturing through normalizing, endangering through dramatizing

Approaches to adolescent sex and love

part 8|73 pages

Sexual labor and commerce

chapter 68|7 pages

Inclusive pleasure

Feminist sex shops

chapter 69|10 pages

Looks for sale

The impact of aesthetic labor on the self-concepts of men who strip

chapter 71|9 pages

Migrant sex work and trafficking

Sorting them out

chapter 73|8 pages

Sex workers' rights activism in the United States

Navigating the internet in an age of s*x work censorship, state, and corporate surveillance

chapter 74|9 pages

Challenging the controlling images of vamps and victims

Sex worker activism in India

part 9|93 pages

Sexual politics, social movements, and empowerment

chapter 75|8 pages

Sexuality, state, and nation

chapter 80|9 pages

Children's sexual citizenship

chapter 83|10 pages

A public health approach to campus sexual assault prevention

Sexual citizenship, sexual projects, and sexual geographies

chapter 84|10 pages

The ally paradox