ABSTRACT
Sex is a busy space. From sexology’s marginality as a research field, and the marginalisation of people because of their sexuality or sexual identity, there is now a vibrant field of scholarship and diversity in the approaches of its researchers. Liberation movements, including both the gay and women’s movements, took the lead in this change perhaps, although these movements took shape from the 1950s concurrently with a growing scholarly and political concern with overpopulation, the development and promotion of the contraceptive pill, and then, globally, expanded reproductive health programmes. As these movements converged, HIV/AIDS escalated professional interest in sex. The use of condoms for the prevention of HIV, and the search for potent drugs to break its transmission, captured the imaginations and working lives of vast numbers of researchers, and the communities with which they worked. Sexual practice, sexual health and sexual identity became core features of global public health. Yet surprisingly, researchers have paid little attention to the materiality of contraceptive devices and procedures (including abortion), or to the technologies of sexuality, gender and sexual health. This collection begins with this lack.
