ABSTRACT
Aspectre is haunting the world of sexuality: the fact of sexual diversity. Sexual rights can be said to be concerned with three sets of practices: practices of identity; erotic practices; and practices of relating. At least 90% of UK undergraduate sociology courses have modules on sexuality, lesbian and gay studies, queer studies and the like. The challenge is to find a balance between a recognition of individual needs and desires, mutual responsibilities, sensitivity to difference, and at least a minimum agreement on common human standards. Sexuality may always have been an arena of moral and cultural conflict, but in contemporary societies sexuality is becoming an increasingly central and explicitly debated issue in mainstream cultural conflicts and political debates over values and citizenship. The complex ways in which gender is constructed, and reinforced and set in patterns of dominance and subordination through the institutionalisation of heterosexuality, is central to developing understanding of sexualities and sexual cultures.
