Revisiting Sexualities in the 21st Century

Book excerpt: Sexual interactions are socially constructed within a historical, social and cultural milieu, and are continually defined and redefined accordingly depending on the surrounding economic, political, moral, and religious social forces. Although the human capacity for sexual expression spans a wide range of variations and permutations, it is nonetheless seriously confined, limited and restricted to only a few “acceptable” forms. Western style “sexual acceptability” is, in turn, determined by the prevailing white, heterosexual standards of patriarchy perpetuated through childhood masculine socialization and adolescent and adult machismo practices. Revisiting Sexualities in the 21st Century examines a whole set of explanatory and definitional issues from the very outset, particularly regarding what may be rightly included and excluded from its provenance and coverage. The contributors to this book are brought together from three different methodological spheres: qualitative, quantitative, and historical/comparative. Each author lays out the traditional parameters of the methodology used in their perspectives of social science research, and openly discusses how they have been applied to the study of hetero sexuality/non-heterosexuality and the ways in which their theory and methodology may be improved. Their contributions outline some of the major theoretical and methodological problems that still confront the study of modern sexualities, while also presenting a selection of theoretical and methodological issues of interest to both new and experienced researchers. This anthology identifies the need in contemporary social and cultural studies for more elaborate understandings of the relations of various masculinities and femininities to power, nation, empire, violence, race, class, and embodiment, and, in doing so, brings together an eclectic, multidisciplinary, and wide-ranging collection of essays. The various contributions to this book will appeal to social scientists (especially sociologists, psychologists and sexologists), biomedical scientists, health professionals and other academic and professional audiences, and students, researchers and instructors of sexuality studies. Undoubtedly, with this collection, sexuality studies comes of age as an academic field.