ABSTRACT
Leisure studies is in need of a riskier research agenda! In an effort to encourage this direction, this chapter outlines a research agenda and suggests that scholarship in leisure studies should strive to take substantive, theoretical, and/or methodological risks. Masturbation that occurs at home is different than masturbation at a porn theatre. Cruising in a bathhouse or a sex club – privatized sexual spaces – is different than cruising in a public park. Sex has a complex relationship to politics, and sexual identities and practices that were once taboo may become normative, and thus may be used to support racist or otherwise anti-social justice agendas. People need to pay close attention to how sex is mobilized within political contexts. Leisure researchers also need to pay attention to how communities are formed around sexual practices and sexual spaces. As a set of social relations, it is crucial that people approach sex as an interdisciplinary object.
