Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2015 Sex in China introduces readers to some of the dramatic shifts that have taken place in Chinese sexual behaviours and attitudes, and public discussions of sex, since the 1980s. The book explores what it means to talk about 'sex' in present-day China, where sex and sexuality are more and more visible in everyday life. Elaine Jeffreys and Haiqing Yu situate China's changing sexual culture, and how it is governed, in the socio-political history of the People's Republic of China. They demonstrate that Chinese governmental authorities and policies do not set out strictly to repress 'sex'; they also create spaces for the emergence of new sexual subjects and subjectivities. They discuss the complexities surrounding the ongoing explosion of commentary on sex and sexuality in the PRC, and the emergence of new sexual behaviours and mores. Sex in China offers clear, critical coverage of sex-related issues that are a focus of public concern and debate in China - chapters focus on sex studies; marriage and family planning; youth and sex(iness); gay, lesbian and queer discourses and identities; commercial sex; and HIV/AIDS. This book will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars both of modern China and of sex and sexualities, who wish to understand the role that 'sex' plays in contemporary China.

Expand your knowledgewith theories and concepts that may challenge your assumptions about sexual attraction Human sexuality can be better understood by knowing how sexual psychologies may have evolved throughout the ages. Handbook of the Evolution of Human Sexuality presents a detailed examination of human sexuality, the assumptions about concepts and terms pertaining to sexuality, and the latest theories on the evolution of human sexual attraction. Leading experts explore various aspects of evolutionary theory, with a focus on Evolutionary Psychology (EP). Discussions include mate preferences, mating behavior, mate signaling, pheromones, and same-sex attraction. This comprehensive source also presents three groundbreaking theories of the evolution of same-sex attraction. Handbook of the Evolution of Human Sexuality takes current assumptions about human sexuality, explains each in turn, and then offers fresh perspectives on conventional concepts of sexual orientation. This extensive resource provides ample evidence to argue that researchers should investigate sexual relationships based on a person's characteristics such as personal traits, complementary roles/status, sexual acts, or situational context rather than simply the sex of the partner. The book provides a discussion of evolutionary theory, evolution of human sexual culture, evolution of sexual pleasure, and detailed analysis of assumptions about sexual orientation. The text is carefully referenced. Some of the topics explored by Handbook of the Evolution of Human Sexuality include: links to non-human primate sexual behaviors and the emergence of human (sexual) nature EP research on consensual adult human sexual behaviors studies of evolved male and female mating strategies, mate preferences, and sexual psychologies a brief history of the theory of evolution ancient culture, archeology, and an overview of premodern human sexuality evolutionary history of sexual pleasure human mating strategies development of mate preferences sexual signals, such as distinctive physical features, material wealth, etc. theories of the evolution of same-sex sexual attraction and behavior Primatologist Paul Vasey's observations of female Japanese macaques and their female-female sexual encounterswith an examination of human male-male behavior evolutionary history of female-female affectional bonding with a new theory on the behavior evolutionary history of male-male sexual behaviorwith intriguing thoughts on why it happened evolutionary history of pheromones as chemical messengers much more Handbook of the Evolution of Human Sexuality is an important, thought-provoking resource perfect for evolutionary psychologists, sexologists, educators, researchers, scholars, and graduate students.

This timely volume ventures into the subject of sadomasochism in varied aspects of medieval life. Saint's Lives and mystical treatises provide evidence of failed sadism and empowering masochism. Literary culture in the form of epics and courtly tales preserve stories of eroticised power. These exciting chapters join together to form a picture of medieval culture that is kinky in its practice and deeply psychological at its core. -- .

Red Families v. Blue Families identifies a new family model geared for the post-industrial economy. Rooted in the urban middle class, the coasts and the "blue states" in the last three presidential elections, the Blue Family Paradigm emphasizes the importance of women's as well as men's workforce participation, egalitarian gender roles, and the delay of family formation until both parents are emotionally and financially ready. By contrast, the Red Family Paradigm--associated with the Bible Belt, the mountain west, and rural America--rejects these new family norms, viewing the change in moral and sexual values as a crisis. In this world, the prospect of teen childbirth is the necessary deterrent to premarital sex, marriage is a sacred undertaking between a man and a woman, and divorce is society's greatest moral challenge. Yet, the changing economy is rapidly eliminating the stable, blue collar jobs that have historically supported young families, and early marriage and childbearing derail the education needed to prosper. The result is that the areas of the country most committed to traditional values have the highest divorce and teen pregnancy rates, fueling greater calls to reinstill traditional values.
Featuring the groundbreaking research first hailed in The New Yorker, this penetrating book will transform our understanding of contemporary American culture and law. The authors show how the Red-Blue divide goes much deeper than this value system conflict--the Red States have increasingly said "no" to Blue State legal norms, and, as a result, family law has been rent in two. The authors close with a consideration of where these different family systems still overlap, and suggest solutions that permit rebuilding support for both types of families in changing economic circumstances.
Incorporating results from the 2008 election, Red Families v. Blue Families will reshape the debate surrounding the culture wars and the emergence of red and blue America.

Beginning in the early nineteenth century, Cubans migrated to New York City to organize and protest against Spanish colonial rule. While revolutionary wars raged in Cuba, expatriates envisioned, dissected, and redefined meanings of independence and nationhood. An underlying element was the concept of Cubanidad, a shared sense of what it meant to be Cuban. Deeply influenced by discussions of slavery, freedom, masculinity, and United States imperialism, the question of what and who constituted "being Cuban" remained in flux and often, suspect. The first book to explore Cuban racial and sexual politics in New York during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Suspect Freedoms chronicles the largely unexamined and often forgotten history of more than a hundred years of Cuban exile, migration, diaspora, and community formation. Nancy Raquel Mirabal delves into the rich cache of primary sources, archival documents, literary texts, club records, newspapers, photographs, and oral histories to write what Michel Rolph Trouillot has termed an "unthinkable history." Situating this pivotal era within larger theoretical discussions of potential, future, visibility, and belonging, Mirabal shows how these transformations complicated meanings of territoriality, gender, race, power, and labor. She argues that slavery, nation, and the fear that Cuba would become "another Haiti" were critical in the making of early diasporic Cubanidades, and documents how, by the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Afro-Cubans were authors of their own experiences; organizing movements, publishing texts, and establishing important political, revolutionary, and social clubs. Meticulously documented and deftly crafted, Suspect Freedoms unravels a nuanced and vital history.

A book that dispels the myths about those who prefer to go beyond vanilla sex Sadomasochism: Powerful Pleasures is a comprehensive exploration of the entire sexual subculture that lies on the cutting edge of society. The mental health professions and society have marginalized people who practice sadomasochism (SM).This interdisciplinary collection dispels myths surrounding SM, bringing together leading scholars from the fields of sexology, psychology, sociology, and medicine, alongside queer studies and sexual minority advocacy. Experts such as Thomas S. Weinberg, PhD, Susan Wright, MA, Margaret Nichols, PhD, Odd Reiersol, PhD, Svein Skeid, Rebecca F. Plante, PhD, Niklas Nordling, MPsych, and N. Kenneth Sandnabba, PhD, among other stellar authorities, reveal research findings, clinical data, and critical thinking about sexuality that lies beyond vanilla. To gain a broader understanding of human sexuality, the study of SM is crucial for what it reveals about us as sexual beings. The text discusses the results of research into practitioners' behaviors and perspectives, the prevalence of SM behaviors in today's culture, and stresses the need for greater tolerance and understanding. The realization of SM desires and their acceptance are explored in detail. This unflinching look at the world and the people of SM will guide scholars and lay people alike into a more sensitive, sex-friendly viewpoint of the people society calls kinky. Sadomasochism: Powerful Pleasures answers questions such as: What is the nature of SM relationships? What are the values and motives of SM participants? How do mental health professionals regard and treat SM practitioners? Should sadomasochism continue to be classified as a mental illness? What is the legal status of SM and what are the consequences of discrimination against SM practitioners? Does increasing visibility of SM imagery decrease stigma or create added problems? What can ordinary lovers learn from those we have marginalized about the farther reaches of human erotic potential? Sadomasochism: Powerful Pleasures is valuable, insightful reading for mental health professionals, students, sex educators, sex counselors, sex therapists, sex researchers, sexual health workers, sociologists, sexual minority groups, and anyone interested in learning more about the sexual pleasures that lie beyond the traditional.

aAt her best, Moore has a frank, breezy manner that may be partly due to her practical experience outside academe. . . . Sperm Counts is a lively, funny read.a
--Camille Paglia in "The Chronicle Review"

aWhile nearly every point she makes about the hidden significance of sperm is a home run, ultimately, this is an academic sociological study written in an appropriately starchy style. . . . [that] results in a fascinating read packed with conclusions.a -- "City Paper"

aSo fascinating and fresh. . . . Should be required reading for scholars in sexuality/queer studies, womenas and gender studies, social studies of science and cultural studies. . .. Essential.a--"Choice"

aSperm Counts is careful to include the history of semen research, as well as examining its role today. . . . [Moore] approach[es] the topic of semen with precision and diligence.a
--"Bitch"

aCartoon line-drawings of sperm wriggle over each page of text in this dissection of the ways societal views of sperm shape culture. A feminist account backed by sociological and scientific research, Mooreas academic tome is accessible to the masses.a
--"Bust"

Moore has analyzed religious, social, erotic and medical-scientifc investments in sperm, singular and plural.a--"Feminist Review"

aIn Sperm Counts, Moore's new book about the cultural meanings of sperm, she tells this story to illustrate her own childhood naivetA(c) about a substance that, as she now sees it, is far from simple. These days, according to Moore, sperm has tremendous cultural meaning--and looking at it in its many contexts, from children's books to pornography, can tell us a great deal about the skittish state of American masculinity. . . .Sperm Counts is a serious book, and the first on its subject. But it also includes anecdotes from Mooreas life, lending it a more conversational tone than most academic works. The bookas margins are even squiggled with sketches of sperm--flip the pages and they swim around. (This is a subject matter, after all, that requires a certain degree of levity.) Moore happily lists spermatic nicknames (ababy gravy, a agentlemenas relish, a apimp juicea) before skewering, in a later chapter, the burgeoning home sperm-test industry (sample ad slogan: aI donat know how that semen got in my underwear!a).a
--"Salon.com"

a[Moore] examines how sperm is seen through a variety of social lenses, including pornography, sperm banking, childrenas books on reproduction and criminal DNA evidence.a
--"Between the Lines Magazine"

aIrresistable. . . . A really rich read.a
--feministing.com

aIncredibly well researched and captivating read.a
--Girlwithpen.blogspot.com

aA clever yet comprehensive look at the asubstancea of manhood. Moore goes where few scholars dare to tread, and uses bodily fluids as a revealing window through which to observe the current nature of sexuality and gender relations.a
--Michael S. Kimmel, author of "Manhood in America: A Cultural Study"

aSperm Counts is a serious book, and the first on its subject. But it also includes anecdotes from Moore's life, lending it a more conversational tone than most academic works. The book's margins are even squiggled with sketches of sperm -- flip the pages and they swim around. (This is a subject matter, after all, that requires a certain degree of levity.) Moore happily lists spermatic nicknames ("baby gravy," "gentlemen'srelish," "pimp juice") before skewering, in a later chapter, the burgeoning home sperm-test industry (sample ad slogan: "I don't know how that semen got in my underwear!").a
--Salon.com

"In this intriguing feminist sociological account of sperm, Moore takes a subject we think we knew all about and proceeds to examine the multi-dimensional facets of its cultural subtexts. What is so unusual about this provocative book is the way Moore meshes history, technology, medicine, criminology, gender studies, children's books, and porn in her depiction of sperm as a manifestation of masculinity. Sperm Counts is witty, erudite, and informative-- a gem of social constructionist scholarship."
--Judith Lorber, author of "Paradoxes of Gender" and "Breaking the Bowls"

aMoore has crafted a smart and surprisingly funny book about semen. Original and refreshing, Sperm Counts follows the alittle guysa through laboratories, childrenas books, sex work, crime scenes, and bodies, illuminating varied meanings and representations of manhood and masculinity. This is engaged feminist scholarship at its best.a
--Monica J. Casper, author of "The Making of the Unborn Patient: A Social Anatomy of Fetal Surgery"

It has been called sperm, semen, seed, cum, jizz, spunk, gentlemen's relish, and splooge. But however the "tacky, opaque liquid that comes out of the penis" is described, the very act of defining "sperm" and "semen" depends on your point of view. For Lisa Jean Moore, how sperm comes to be known is based on who defines it (a scientist vs. a defense witness, for example), under what social circumstances it is found (a doctor's office vs. a crime scene), and for what purposes it will be used (invitro fertilization vs. DNA analysis). Examining semen historically, medically, and culturally, Sperm Counts is a penetrating exploration of its meaning and power.

Using a "follow that sperm" approach, Moore shows how representations of sperm and semen are always in flux, tracing their twisting journeys from male reproductive glands to headline news stories and presidential impeachment trials. Much like the fluid of semen itself can leak onto fabrics and into bodies, its meanings seep into our consciousness over time. Moore's analytic lens yields intriguing observations of how sperm is "spent" and "reabsorbed" as it spurts, swims, and careens through penises, vaginas, test tubes, labs, families, cultures, and politics.

Drawn from fifteen years of research, Sperm Counts examines historical and scientific documents, children's "facts of life" books, pornography, the Internet, forensic transcripts and sex worker narratives to explain how semen got so complicated. Among other things, understanding how we produce, represent, deploy and institutionalize semen-biomedically, socially and culturally-provides valuable new perspectives on the changing social position of men and the evolving meanings of masculinity. Ultimately, as Moore reveals, sperm is intimately involved in not only the physical reproduction of males and females, but in how we come to understand ourselves as men and women.

This three-volume collection focuses on writings by and about cross-dressing women from the early nineteenth century up until the beginning of World War II. In so doing, it provides a new perspective on one of the most decisive periods in the history of feminism.

The anthology brings together for the first time key texts from the sexological and the literary realms, as well as newspaper articles, letters and photographs, which document the phenomenon of cross-dressing women in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century British culture. The collection also includes translations from European texts that impacted on British understandings of cross-dressing during this time.

A fascinating work, each of the volumes is introduced separately with a critical essay, and is divided thematically to include sections devoted to theories, fictions and fictionalisations, and lives. Together, these volumes make available important source material for the history of feminism.

Expanding the Rainbow is the first comprehensive collection of research on the relationships of people who identify as bi+, poly, kinky, asexual, intersex, and/or trans that is written to be accessible to an undergraduate audience. The volume highlights a diverse range of identities, relationship structures, and understandings of bodies, sexualities, and interpersonal relationships. Contributions to the volume include original empirical research, personal narratives and reflections, and theoretical pieces that center the experiences of members of these communities, as well as teaching resources. Collectively, the chapters present a diverse, nuanced, and empirically rich picture of the variety of relationships and identities that individuals are creating in the twenty-first century.

Sexuality is the fifth revised and updated edition of the classic text for understanding human sexuality. This new edition brings the arguments and evidence fully up to date and explores their implication for many topical controversies, around LGBTQ+ rights, the trans experience and gender fluidity, same-sex marriage, sexual autonomy and consent, and the meanings of sexual choice. Since it was first published in the 1980s, Sexuality has been at the cutting edge of the study of the social and historical meanings of sexuality. Blending deep empirical knowledge with theoretical sophistication and an acute sensitivity to the politics of sexuality, the book offers an informed framework for understanding the complexities of sexual life. A key insight of the book is that the ways we think and speak about sexuality make a major contribution to the ways we live it. Sexuality may be rooted in biological possibilities, but it is shaped and experienced through languages and meanings which are inevitably historical and social in nature. The book explores with clarity and precision the invention and re-invention of sexual meanings, the question of what constitutes a true sex and the biological and social roots of sexual difference, the challenges of diversity, the re-making of sexuality as a highly divisive political subject and the implications of the transformation of intimate life in the past few generations. These are seen in the context of profound changes that are re-fashioning the world, especially globalisation, cyber-sex, and the rise of new forms of agency, including among women and LGBTQ+ people, which have fed into new claims for sexual human rights. This new edition of Sexuality will be an indispensable guide for students in the social sciences with an interest in the ever-changing worlds of sexuality.

Globally, rates of sexual violence remain unacceptably high, with disproportionate effects on women and girls. While most scholars and practitioners uniformly concur about the scope of the problem, there is currently little agreement about how to prevent sexual violence before it occurs.Drawing on diverse disciplines such as criminology, education, health promotion, law, psychology, social work, socio-legal studies, sociology and women's studies, this book provides the first interdisciplinary collection on the primary prevention of sexual violence. The volume addresses the key causes or determinants of sexual violence, including cultural attitudes, values, beliefs and norms, as well as systemic gender-based inequalities that create the conditions underlying much violence against women. Including contributions from internationally renowned experts in the field, the volume critically investigates the theoretical underpinnings of prevention work, describing and analysing the limits and possibilities of primary prevention strategies 'on the ground'. The chapters collectively examine the role that structural violence and gender inequality play in fostering a 'culture' of sexual violence, and reflect on the relationship between macro and micro levels for understanding both sexual violence perpetration and prevention.This book will be a key resource for scholars, practitioners and policymakers involved in the fields of sexual violence prevention, education, law, family violence, and child sexual abuse.Including contributions from Victoria L. Banyard (University of New Hampshire, USA), Alison Cares (Assumption College, USA), Moira Carmody (University of Western Sydney, Australia), Gillian Fletcher (La Trobe Univeristy, Australia), Wendy Larcombe (University of Melbourne, Australia), Claire Maxwell (University of London, UK), Mary M. Moynihan (University of New Hampshire, USA), Bob Pease (Deakin University, Australia) and Antonia Quadara (Australian Institute of Family Studies, Australia).

One woman's secret journal completely changes her marriage in this hilarious and biting memoir--the inspiration for the Netflix Original Series SEX/LIFE. School psychologists aren't supposed to write books about sex. Doing so would be considered "unethical" and "a fireable offense." Lucky for you, ethics was never my strong suit. Sex/Life: 44 Chapters About 4 Men is a laugh-out-loud funny and brutally honest look at female sexuality, as told through the razor-sharp lens of domesticated bad girl BB Easton. No one and nothing is off limits as BB revisits the ex-boyfriends--a sadistic tattoo artist, a punk rock parolee, and a heavy metal bass player--that led her to finally find true love with a straight-laced, drop-dead-gorgeous . . . accountant. After settling down and starting a family with her perfectly vanilla "husbot," Ken, BB finds herself longing for the reckless passion she had in her youth. She begins to write about these escapades in a secret journal, just for fun, but when Ken starts to act out the words on the pages, BB realizes that she might have stumbled upon the holy grail of behavior modification techniques. The psychological dance that ensues is nothing short of hilarious as BB wields her journal like a blowtorch, trying to light a fire under her cold, distant partner. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but in the end, BB learns that the man she was trying so hard to change was perfect for her all along. To view a comprehensive content warning, please visit the author's website.

Sexual risk behaviors have inspired profound ideas and effective teamwork. But as the early history of AIDS demonstrates, when sexual practice is part of the equation, the same bold thinkers may be stymied, or just silent. Safe sex and monogamy have been proposed as answers to a gamut of social problems, but there is frequently little consensus on what these terms mean.

Sexual Partnering, Sexual Practices, and Health replaces myth and stereotype with meticulously documented findings on real people and their behaviors in their social, environmental, and individual contexts. Author Sana Loue examines the range of partnerships not only in the U.S. but also Europe and the developing world, focusing on both consenting relationships and exploitative sexual interactions:

- Varieties of monogamy between consenting adults

- Relationships involving multiple adult partners

- Incest, pedophilia, and child marriage

- Sex work, trafficking, and pornography

- Fetishes and related behaviors

All chapters cogently address the health issues that arise from these arrangements, concluding with implications for research, prevention, and intervention.

Throughout, Loue argues for a common language across disciplines and challenges her readersa "therapists, health care providers, and policymakers alikea "to rethink their assumptions about clients, their health needs, and the communities they represent.

"Dr. Loue's work is a truly significant scholarly contribution to a topic too often characterized by pseudo-science and ideological distortions. "Sexual Partnering, Sexual Practices, and Health" should prove an invaluable resource for researchers and community practitioners alike inhelping understand dimensions of sexual practice, and designing more effective approaches to sexual health and violence prevention."

-Earl Pike, Executive Director, AIDS Taskforce of Greater Cleveland

When A Return to Modestywas first published in 1999, it began an important and much-needed national conversation. Wendy Shalit persuasively argued that modesty is not some hang-up we should set out to cure, but rather a wonderful instinct that, if rediscovered and given the right social support, has the power to transform society. Now, in this newly revised edition, Shalit backs up her claim with the latest trends and research to prove that the issue is just as pressing today as ever. Unfortunately, many problems Shalit originally explored, such as date rape, harassment, and most alarmingly, the sexualisation of young girls, have only become more prevalent. Where once a young woman was ashamed of her sexual experience, today she is ashamed of her sexual inexperience. And as we continue to push the limits of what is accepted behaviour, the pressure to overcome embarrassment and discard all sense of modesty is greater than ever. A Return to Modestyis a deeply personal account as well as a fascinating intellectual exploration into everything from seventeenth-century manners to the 1948 tune "Baby, It's Cold Outside." Beholden neither to social conservatives nor to feminists, Shalit reminds us that modesty is not prudery, but a natural instinct-and one that may be able to save us from ourselves.

"Gay Men's Relationships Across the Life Course" examines the life stories of a rich, diverse sample of gay men from nine major international cities. Their relationship stories throw light on gay communities in Auckland, Melbourneand Sydney, as well as those in Hong Kong, London and Mumbai, Los Angeles, Manchester and New York, comparing old, established patterns of gay life with new, emerging patterns of, for example, fatherhood, friendship, and marriage. This book examines the propensity of gay men first, to conform to existing, mostly heterosexual patterns of relationships and second, to create relationships that more closely suit their circumstances and needs.

The period of young adulthood, from ages 18 to 23, is popularly considered the most sexualized in life. But is it true? What do we really know about the sexual lives of young people today?
Premarital Sex in America combines illuminating personal stories and comprehensive research surveys to provide the fullest portrait of heterosexuality among young adults ever produced. Mark Regnerus and Jeremy Uecker draw upon a wealth of survey data as well as scores of in-depth interviews with young adults from around the country, both in and out of college. Digging underneath stereotypes and unexamined assumptions, the authors offer compelling--and often surprising--answers to such questions as: How do the emotional aspects of sexual relations differ between young men and women? What role do political orientations play in their sexual relations? How have online dating and social networking sites affected the relationships of emerging adults? Why are young people today waiting so much longer to marry? How prevalent are nontraditional forms of sex, and what do people think of them? To better understand what drives the sexual behaviors of emerging adults, Regnerus and Uecker pay special attention to two important concepts: sexual scripts, the unwritten and often unconscious rules that guide sexual behavior and attitudes; and sexual economics, a theory which suggests that the relative scarcity of men on college campuses contributes to the "hookup" culture by allowing men to diminish their level of commitment and thereby lower the "price" they have to "pay" for sex.
For anyone wishing to understand how sexual relations between young adults have changed and are changing, Premarital Sex in America will serve as a touchstone for years to come.

Since the 1980s, neoliberalism has had a major impact on social life and, in turn, research in the social sciences. Emerging from the crisis of the Keynesian welfare state, neoliberalism describes a social transformation that has impacted relationships between citizens and the state, consumers and the market, and individuals and groups. Neoliberal Contentions offers original essays that explore neoliberalism in its various guises. It includes chapters on economic policy and restructuring, resource extraction, multiculturalism and equality, migration and citizenship, health reform, housing policy, and 2SLGBTQ communities. Drawing on the work of influential Canadian political economist Janine Brodie, the contributors use Brodie's scholarship as a springboard for their own distinct analyses of pressing political and social issues. Acknowledging neoliberalism's crises, failures, and contradictions, this collection contends with neoliberalism by "diagnosing the present," situating the phenomenon within a broader historical and political-economic context and observing instances in which neoliberal rationality is reinforced as well as resisted.

An examination into aspects of the sexual as depicted in a variety of medieval texts, from Chaucer and Malory to romance and alchemical treatises. It is often said that the past is a foreign country where they do things differently, and perhaps no type of "doing" is more fascinating than sexual desires and behaviours. Our modern view of medieval sexuality is characterised bya polarising dichotomy between the swooning love-struck knights and ladies of romance on one hand, and the darkly imagined and misogyny of an unenlightened "medieval" sexuality on the other. British medieval sexual culture also exhibits such dualities through the influential paradigms of sinner or saint, virgin or whore, and protector or defiler of women. However, such sexual identities are rarely coherent or stable, and it is in the grey areas, the interstices between normative modes of sexuality, that we find the most compelling instances of erotic frisson and sexual expression. This collection of essays brings together a wide-ranging discussion of the sexual possibilitiesand fantasies of medieval Britain as they manifest themselves in the literature of the period. Taking as their matter texts and authors as diverse as Chaucer, Gower, Dunbar, Malory, alchemical treatises, and romances, the contributions reveal a surprising variety of attitudes, strategies and sexual subject positions. Amanda Hopkins teaches in English and French at the University of Warwick; Robert Allen Rouse is Associate Professor of English atthe University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; Cory James Rushton is Associate Professor of English at St Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, Canada. Contributors: Aisling Byrne, Anna Caughey, Kristina Hildebrand, Amy S. Kaufman, Yvette Kisor, Megan G. Leitch, Cynthea Masson, Hannah Priest, Samantha J. Rayner, Robert Allen Rouse, Cory James Rushton, Amy N. Vines

Transnational films that represent intimacy and inequality produce new experiences that result in the displacement of the universal spectator, in a redefinition of the power of cinema for today's global audiences. The Proximity of Other Skins examines transnational films that achieve global prominence in presenting a different cinematic language of love and sex. Author Celine Parrenas Shimizu traverses independent films by Gina Kim and Ramona Diaz to the global cinema of Laurent Cantet, Park Chan-wook and Cannes award-winning director Brilliante Mendoza and their representations of transnational intimacies. In doing so, she addresses unexpected encounters in the global movement of people and goods within their geopolitical, historical, and cultural contexts. In these celebrated films that move across continents, she finds ways to expand our definition of intimacy, including explicit sex and relations that go beyond sex, enabling us the opportunity to theorize how people now live together in many spheres of contemporary life. Readers can then better understand how intimacy can affirm and express love, but also alienate and oppress, revealing the loneliness, pain, and suffering within transnational, national, and personal relations of power and hierarchy. In studying representations of intimacy, the book calls to expand our vocabulary of moving images and its role in redefining care work and affective relations between people across difference and inequality. The book addresses cinematic intimacies between husbands/wives/lovers, understanding between sex workers and clients, close familiarity between rich and poor, and new affinities between citizen and refugee and laborer and capitalist.

This book offers a radically new reading of Dickens and his major works. It demonstrates that, rather than representing a largely conventional, conservative view of sexuality and gender, he presents a distinctly queer corpus, everywhere fascinated by the diversity of gender roles, the expandability of notions of the family, and the complex multiplicity of sexual desire. The book examines the long overlooked figures of bachelor fathers, martially resistant men, and male nurses. It explores Dickens's attention to a longing, not to reproduce, but to nurture, his interest in healing touch, and his articulation, over the course of his career, of homoerotic desire.
Holly Furneaux places Dickens's writing in a broad literary and social context, alongside authors including Bulwer-Lytton, Tennyson, Braddon, Collins, and Whitman, to make a case for Dickens's central position in queer literary history. Examining novels, poetry, life-writing, journalism, and legal and political debates, Queer Dickens argues that this eminent Victorian can direct us to the ways in which his culture could, and did, comfortably accommodate homoeroticism and families of choice. Further, it contends that Dickens's portrayals of nurturing masculinity and his concern with touch and affect between men challenge what we have been used to thinking about Victorian ideals of maleness.
Queer Dickens intervenes in current debates about the Victorians (neither so punitive nor so prudish as we once imagined) and about the methodologies of the histories of the family and of sexuality. It makes the case for a more optimistic, nurturing, and life-affirming trajectory in queer theory.

Monica waits in the Anti-Venereal Medical Service of the Zona Galactica, the legal, state-run brothel where she works in Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico. Surrounded by other sex workers, she clutches the Sanitary Control Cards that deem her registered with the city, disease-free, and able to work. On the other side of the world, Min stands singing karaoke with one of her regular clients, warily eyeing the door lest a raid by the anti-trafficking Public Security Bureau disrupt their evening by placing one or both of them in jail. Whether in Mexico or China, sex work-related public policy varies considerably from one community to the next. A range of policies dictate what is permissible, many of them intending to keep sex workers themselves healthy and free from harm. Yet often, policies with particular goals end up having completely different consequences. Policing Pleasure examines cross-cultural public policies related to sex work, bringing together ethnographic studies from around the world-from South Africa to India-to offer a nuanced critique of national and municipal approaches to regulating sex work. Contributors offer new theoretical and methodological perspectives that move beyond already well-established debates between "abolitionists" and "sex workers' rights advocates" to document both the intention of public policies on sex work and their actual impact upon those who sell sex, those who buy sex, and public health more generally.

Recently, with the number of students from higher education and K-12 settings committing suicide, it is apparent that homophobia and homophobic bullying are tremendous problems in our schools and universities. However, educators are unclear about an appropriate process for addressing these challenges. In this book, Jones postulates that we must begin exploring the culture of educational environments as they relate to sexual difference, in order to begin conceptualizing ways in which we may begin to address homophobia and heteronormativity. To that end, this book addresses how educators (at all levels) must begin examining how their concepts about different sexual identities are "normalized" through socializing processes and schooling. In doing so, this book examines how individuals construct meanings about homophobia and hate language through "contextual oppositions, " how educational environments maintain a ''false tolerance" when claiming to be tolerant of different sexual identities, how a hierarchy of hate language exists in educational environments, among other issues related to creating safe places for all students. In essence, the book attempts to "un"normalize society's constructions of sexual identity by deconstructing the social norms.

Intimacy between blacks and whites in the United States is a crucial point of inquiry because this color line has historically been the most rigorously surveilled and restricted. Because of this history, social scientists use interracial intimacy as a barometer of the social distance between racial groups, and view growing numbers of interracial couples as evidence of racial progress. But are interracial couples really able to carve out a 'raceless' intimate sphere? Or are interracial relationships microcosms of broader-level racial hierarchies? In this book, Amy Steinbugler challenges the widespread assumption that interracial intimacy represents the ultimate erasure of racial differences. She finds that while interracial partners may be more racially progressive, they are not necessarily enlightened subjects who have managed to get beyond race. Instead, for many partners interracial intimacy represents not the end, but the beginning of a sustained process of negotiating racial differences. Using qualitative interviews and ethnographic case studies with both heterosexual and same-sex black/white couples, Steinbugler explores the social practices through which interracial partners respond to and negotiate racial difference in their relationship, what she calls "racework." Even though these processes unfolded in very similar ways for every interracial partner she interviewed, racial identities and attitudes remained generally stable and issues of power and privilege crept into even the most ordinary situations. Intimacy, Steinbugler finds, does not necessarily erode racial differences. In addition, the interviews with same-sex interracial couples-a topic on which there is very little research-allow Steinbulger to examine for the first time how everyday racial practices are shaped by sexuality and gender. Our racial present is a complex mix of enduring inequalities and new cultural messages. Beyond Loving adeptly examines how interracial couples experience race in their everyday lives and how they engage one another to address fundamental questions about the significance of race in contemporary life.

The second half of the nineteenth and the early years of the twentieth century saw a growing preoccupation with sexual perversion: in particular homosexuality, sadism, masochism, fetishism, voyeurism and exhibitionism. Charting the intellectual history of the construction of the perversions in German, French and English sexology in this period, Anna Schaffnerexplores the decisive role played by literary representations of deviant sexualities in the formation of sexological knowledge. Just as sexologists, including Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Alfred Binet, Havelock Ellis, Magnus Hirschfeld, Iwan Bloch and Sigmund Freud, relied upon the literary, so major modernist writers such as Georges Bataille, Franz Kafka, D.H. Lawrence, Thomas Mann and Marcel Proust were in turn influenced by sexological conceptions. Focusing on the interdisciplinary exchanges between literature and sexology, Schaffner illuminates the pivotal role these modernists played in re-evaluating the perversions and paving the way for the transformation of the idea of sexual deviance into that of sexual difference