It can generally be assumed that there are two reasons for people to have sex - to have children and to have fun. This title looks at the fun aspects. In Africa, a lot is known about the sexual and reproductive health aspects of sexulity through large-scale surveys, including the World Fertlity surveys and demographic and health surveys. Furthermore, anthropologists have largely documented the exotic rites de passage and marriage in traditional societies while popular media has, in recent years, made signigifcant inroads in breaking the silence surrounding sexuality. Yet, mcuh remains to be discovered regarding the positive and non-heterosexual expressions of sexuality in Africa. The papers presented in this title are charaterised by a wide-ranging view and tone that is often speculative and best viewed as a provocative introduction to an important field of enquiry, rather han as a state-of-the-art assessment of sexuality in Africa. It is hoped that the chapters will stimulate further thought and research, especially since most make no pretence of offering the final word on the topics they discuss.

In this revised classic text, Segal's overview of theories of masculinity considers continuities and change in hegemonic notions of masculinity and focuses on competing male identities, exemplified in black, ethnic, gay and anti-sexist groups. The contrast in power and privilege across these groups has led many to speak of 'masculinity in crisis'.

You May Be Commitment-Phobic If: You have a mile-long list of requirements for your ideal mate You go from one short-lived relationship to the next You have a habit of dating "unavailable" men You think many of your married friends have settled for less You are constantly blowing "hot" and "cold" in your relationships For years, it was the men who had the monopoly on commitment-phobia. Today, single women are the fastest-growing segment of the population, with over forty-seven million single women in this country and twenty-two million of them between the ages of twenty-five and forty-four. Whatever the reasons -- fear of divorce, increased financial independence, delayed motherhood -- more women than ever no longer feel the urgency, or the ability, to settle down. Lucky for this growing group of women, author and former commitment-phobe Elina Furman has written Kiss and Run, the first-ever book about female commitment anxiety. Filled with fun quizzes, first-person testimonials, and step-by-step action plans, Kiss and Run includes the top-five panic buttons, advice for curbing overanalysis, and tips for fixing negative commitment scripts. You'll also find the seven types of commitment-phobes, including the Nitpicker, the Serial Dater, and the Long-Distance Runner. Based on the stories of more than one hundred women, this straight-talking guide helps single women conquer commitment anxiety and say yes to love.

'Here is an oasis in the desert of the Anglican debate . . .This book is rightly aimed at those who are unresolved on questions about homosexuality. Its contention that these questions are important but should not be church-dividing will ring true with many.' Professor David Ford, Regius Professor of Divinity, University of Cambridge. '... an extremely useful and sympathetic guide for the ordinary lay or clerical reader who wants to learn more about the issue which seems to be pulling the Anglican Communion apart ...' David Jones, former Deputy Director of Oxfam and a member of General Synod. ""An Acceptable Sacrifice?" The answer is simple: No. It is not acceptable for us to discriminate against our brothers and sisters on the basis of sexual orientation just as it was not acceptable for discrimination to exist on the basis of skin colour under Apartheid." Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu

Gloria Filax explores how youth identities have been constructed through dominant and often competing discourses about youth, sexuality, and gender, and how queer youth in the province of Alberta negotiated the contradictions of these discourses. She juxtaposes the voices of queer young people in Alberta with discourses that claim expert knowledge about young people's lives. She also explores what queer youth have to say about their lives in relation to renditions of homosexuality from the Alberta Report, a weekly magazine published in the 1990s that, despite its fiscal marginality, had significant impact on social values in Alberta.

"There are more than twenty-five contributors to the Reader. The sheer pleasure that the contributors provide in the way they bring together brilliantly diverse perspectives to enlarge the limits of one's understanding is not easy to describe. Particularly stimulating among the collection are the pieces by Jeffrey Weeks and Patrick Johnson. The intellectual satisfaction derived from the study of the erotic self and the human struggle and search for meaning and means of communicating meaning is quare indeed A book to read and return from time to time." -The Book Review "This groundbreaking reader will spark the development of new courses in communication and sexuality. Students and teachers wanting to fully understand the constitutive and performative nature of communication will find few other books that meet their needs better than this one." -R. Jeffrey Ringer, St. Cloud University "Sexualities and Communication in Everyday Life provides readers with a useful typology for comprehending the various shifts in thinking about sexual identities and communication that have occurred across time while it also provides a deft synthesis of the major issues and themes. The text puts an excellent breadth of essays--some newly acquired for this book, some previously published and germinal-easily into students' and teachers' hands." -Lesa Lockford, Bowling Green State University Sexualities and Communication in Everyday Life: A Reader is a groundbreaking anthology on the role of communication in the construction and performance of sexualities in interpersonal contexts and in public discourses. Editors Karen E. Lovaas and Mercilee M. Jenkins bring together an interdisciplinary collection which include excerpts from foundational works, recent journal articles, and original pieces written specifically for this text. Key Features: This collection (1) assists students in understanding the intersections of sexuality with other identity constructions; (2) introduces the concepts and implications of queer theory; (3) challenges students to move beyond stereotypical, dichotomous views of homosexual and heterosexual identities and communication styles; and, (4) facilitates students' awareness of and ability to recognize heteronormativity. While most of the readings are written by communication researchers, there are many by scholars from various disciplines including sociology, English, psychology, gender studies, and anthropology. These works also exemplify a variety of research methods, with an emphasis on qualitative research including critical, ethnographic, and performance. An introductory chapter providing a thorough review of literature to date on communication and sexualities is followed by sections on interpersonal contexts and public discourses. There is a logical flow from the foundational materials, to the examinations of sexuality in one's everyday vocabulary, interactions, and relationships, to wider social discourses, to interventions, praxis, and future visions. In addition, discussion questions follow each reading to spark personal reflection and application.

In the first half of the twentieth century, white elites who dominated Virginia politics sought to increase state control over African Americans and lower-class whites, whom they saw as oversexed and lacking sexual self-restraint. In order to reaffirm the existing political and social order, white politicians legalized eugenic sterilization, increased state efforts to control venereal disease and prostitution, cracked down on interracial marriage, and enacted state-wide movie censorship. Providing a detailed picture of the interaction of sexuality, politics, and public policy, Pippa Holloway explores how these measures were passed and enforced. The white elites who sought to expand government's role in regulating sexual behavior had, like most southerners, a tradition of favoring small government, so to justify these new policies, they couched their argument in economic terms: a modern, progressive government could provide optimum conditions for business growth by maintaining a stable social order and a healthy, docile workforce. Holloway's analysis demonstrates that the cultural context that characterized certain populations as sexually dangerous worked in tandem with the political context that denied them the right to vote. This perspective on sexual regulation and the state in Virginia offers further insight into why white elite rule mattered in the development of southern governments.

Placing sexual culture at the center of power relations in Revolutionary-era Philadelphia, Clare A. Lyons uncovers a world where runaway wives challenged their husbands' patriarchal rights and where serial and casual sexual relationships were commonplace. By reading popular representations of sex against actual behavior, Lyons reveals the clash of meanings given to sex and illuminates struggles to recast sexuality in order to eliminate its subversive potential. Sexuality became the vehicle for exploring currents of liberty, freedom, and individualism in the politics of everyday life among groups of early Americans typically excluded from formal systems of governance - women, African Americans, and poor classes of whites. Lyons shows that men and women created a vibrant urban pleasure culture, including the eroticization of print culture, as eighteenth-century readers became fascinated with stories of bastardy, prostitution, seduction, and adultery. In the post-Revolutionary reaction, white middle-class men asserted their authority, Lyons argues, by creating a gender system that simultaneously allowed them the liberty of their passions, constrained middle-class women with virtue, and projected licentiousness onto lower-class whites and African Americans. Lyons's analysis shows how class and racial divisions fostered new constructions of sexuality that served as a foundation for gender. This gendering of sexuality in the new nation was integral to reconstituting social hierarchies and subordinating women and African Americans in the wake of the Revolution.

Sodom on the Thames looks closely at three episodes involving sex between men in late-nineteenth-century England. Morris Kaplan draws on extensive research into court records, contemporary newspaper accounts, personal correspondence and diaries, even a pornographic novel. He focuses on two notorious scandals and one quieter incident.

In 1871, transvestites "Stella" (Ernest Boulton) and "Fanny" (Frederick Park), who had paraded around London's West End followed by enthusiastic admirers, were tried for conspiracy to commit sodomy. In 1889 1890, the "Cleveland Street affair" revealed that telegraph delivery boys had been moonlighting as prostitutes for prominent gentlemen, one of whom fled abroad. In 1871, Eton schoolmaster William Johnson resigned in disgrace, generating shockwaves among the young men in his circle whose romantic attachments lasted throughout their lives. Kaplan shows how profoundly these scandals influenced the trials of Oscar Wilde in 1895 and contributed to growing anxiety about male friendships.

Sodom on the Thames reconstructs these incidents in rich detail and gives a voice to the diverse people involved. It deepens our understanding of late Victorian attitudes toward urban culture, masculinity, and male homoeroticism. Kaplan also explores the implications of such historical narratives for the contemporary politics of sexuality."

Laura Doyle's controversial approach to dating has given thousands of single women everything they need to attract romance, intimacy, and a marriage proposal. A Surrendered Single doesn't have to look for Mr Right - she attracts him. In her popular workshops, Laura Doyle's teachings are simple: when you try to control who asks you out, when a man will call, or corner him into a commitment, you drive him away. When you let him woo you instead, you enjoy the pleasure of being pursued. You feel confident, feminine, and dignified. Dating becomes fun again. Marriage follows. Practical and compassionate, THE SURRENDERED SINGLE is a step-by-step guide that shows you how to: * Ask men to ask you out so that you always have a date * Avoid the remorse of, 'I wish I hadn't said...' * Judge a man's character in 30 days or fewer * Become your best self and attract good men Whether you're recovering from a break-up or divorce, on the dating scene or want your romance to deepen, THE SURRENDERED SINGLE will bring you the relationship you want with a man you love - and who loves you.

With a well-earned reputation for tolerance of both prostitution and miscegenation, New Orleans became known as the Great Southern Babylon in antebellum times. Following the Civil War, a profound alteration in social and economic conditions gradually reshaped the city's sexual culture and erotic commerce. Historian Alecia P. Long traces sex in the Crescent City over fifty years, drawing from Louisiana Supreme Court case testimony to relate intriguing tales of people both obscure and famous whose relationships and actions exemplify the era. Long uncovers a connection between the geographical segregation of prostitution and the rising tide of racial segregation. She offers a compelling explanation of how New Orleans's lucrative sex trade drew tourists from the Bible Belt and beyond even as a nationwide trend toward the commercialization of sex emerged. And she dispels the romanticized smoke and perfume surrounding Storyville to reveal in the reasons for its rise and fall a fascinating corner of southern history. The Great Southern Babylon portrays the complex mosaic of race, gender, sexuality, social class, and commerce in turn-of-the-twentieth-century New Orleans.

A leading expert in human sexuality and the author of Sexational Secrets combines unconventional advice and illuminating anecdotes to explain how to transform one's sex life, discussing such topics as fantasy fulfillment, foreplay, and how to put passion into one's life. Original.

In Spain, on May 15, 2011, a movement against austerity measures began. In a time when representative democracies were under threat, 15M came to life as a virtuous and democratic response to the slide into far-right populism and authoritarianism. More than a social movement, 15M became a mode of being with transformative, democratizing potential. In Democracy Here and Now, Pablo Ouziel offers a grounded analysis of 15M. At the time of the movement and during the ensuing encampments, Ouziel travelled extensively, speaking to participants, and keeping an ongoing record of his conversations. Presenting an original participatory mode of research, the book reveals six types of intersubjective, "joining hands" relationships that 15M has brought into being and works to carry on in creative ways. The book shows how the movement's way of being and temporality persists in Spain following the square occupations, while 15M citizens continue to learn and move forward in less perceptible ways. Democracy Here and Now sheds light on a deeply relational, intersectional, and eco-social mode of democracy, and shows how 15M's ongoing democratization practices are exemplary of similar grassroots movements around the world, broadening our understandings of what it means to be democratic in the here and now.

The nineteenth century was a golden age for those people known variously as sodomites, Uranians, monosexuals, and homosexuals. Long before Stonewall and Gay Pride, there was such a thing as gay culture, and it was recognized throughout Europe and America. Graham Robb, brilliant biographer of Balzac, Hugo, and Rimbaud, examines how homosexuals were treated by society and finds a tale of surprising tolerance. He describes the lives of gay men and women: how they discovered their sexuality and accepted or disguised it; how they came out; how they made contact with like-minded people. He also includes a fascinating investigation of the encrypted homosexuality of such famous nineteenth-century sleuths as Edgar Allan Poe's Auguste Dupin and Sherlock Holmes himself (with glances forward in time to Batman and J. Edgar Hoover). Finally, Strangers addresses crucial questions of gay culture, including the riddle of its relationship to religion: Why were homosexuals created with feelings that the Creator supposedly condemns? This is a landmark work, full of tolerant wisdom, fresh research, and surprises.

'One of the great social historians of our time. No one else makes history this fun' Amanda Foreman 'How Was It For You? subtly but powerfully subverts complacent male assumptions about a legendary decade' David Kynaston -------------------------------- "A feeling that we could do whatever we liked swept through us in the 60s . . ." The sixties: a decade of space travel, utopian dreams and - above all - sexual revolution. It liberated a generation. But mostly men. Meet dollybird Mavis, debutante Kristina, bunny girl Patsy, industrial campaigner Mary and countercultural Caroline. From Carnaby Street to Merseyside, white gloves to Black is Beautiful, their stories illustrate a turbulent power struggle, throwing an unsparing spotlight on morals, drugs, race, bomb culture and sex. This is a moving, shocking book about tearing up the world and starting again. It's about peace, love and psychedelia, but also misogyny, violation and discrimination, in a decade discovering a new cause: equality. And women would never be the same again. -------------------------------- 'Sparkling . . . there is a wonderfully diverse range of voices . . . we have a long way to go, but reading this book made me grateful for how far we have come' Daisy Goodwin, The Sunday Times 'An absorbing study of an extraordinary age. Beautifully written and intensively researched' Selina Hastings

Among our greatest leaders are those driven by impulses they cannot completely control - by lust. Lust is not, however, an abstraction, it has definition. Definition that, given the impact of leaders who lust, is essential to extract. This book identifies six types of lust with which leaders are linked: 1. Power: the ceaseless craving to control. 2. Money: the limitless desire to accrue great wealth. 3. Sex: the constant hunt for sexual gratification. 4. Success: the unstoppable need to achieve. 5. Legitimacy: the tireless claim to identity and equity. 6. Legacy: the endless quest to leave a permanent imprint. Each of the core chapters focuses on different lusts and features a cast of characters who bring lust to life. In the real world leaders who lust can and often do have an enduring impact. This book therefore is counterintuitive - it focuses not on moderation, but on immoderation.

Lynne Huffer's ambitious inquiry redresses the rift between feminist and queer theory, traversing the space of a new, post-moral sexual ethics that includes pleasure, desire, connection, and betrayal. She begins by balancing queer theorists' politics of sexual freedoms with a moralizing feminist politics that views sexuality as harm. Drawing on the best insights from both traditions, she builds an ethics centered on eros, following Michel Foucault's ethics as a practice of freedom and Luce Irigaray's lyrical articulation of an ethics of sexual difference.

Through this theoretical lens, Huffer examines everyday experiences of ethical connection and failure connected to sex, including queer sexual practices, sodomy laws, interracial love, pornography, and work-life balance. Her approach complicates sexual identities while challenging the epistemological foundations of subjectivity. She rethinks ethics "beyond good and evil" without underestimating, as some queer theorists have done, the persistence of what Foucault calls the "catastrophe" of morality. Elaborating a thinking-feeling ethics of the other, Huffer encourages contemporary intellectuals to reshape sexual morality from within, defining an ethical space that is both poetically suggestive and politically relevant, both conceptually daring and grounded in common sexual experience.

Alternative Histories of the Self investigates how people re-imagined the idea of the unique self in the period from 1762 to 1917. Some used the notion of the unique self to justify their gender and sexual transgression, but others rejected the notion of the unique self and instead demanded the sacrifice of the self for the good of society. The substantial introductory chapter places these themes in the cultural context of the long 19th century, but the book as a whole represents an alternative method for studying the self. Instead of focusing on the thoughts of great thinkers, this book explores how five unusual individuals twisted conventional ideas of the self as they interpreted their own lives. These subjects include: * The Chevalier/e d'Eon, a renegade diplomat who was outed as a woman * Anne Lister, who wrote coded diaries about her attraction to women * Richard Johnson, who secretly criticized the empire that he served * James Hinton, a Victorian doctor who publicly advocated philanthropy and privately supported polygamy * Edith Ellis, a socialist lesbian who celebrated the 'abnormal' These five case studies are skilfully used to explore how the notion of the unique individual was used to make sense of sexual or gender non-conformity. Yet this queer reading will go beyond same-sex desire to analyse the issue of secrets and privacy; for instance, what stigma did men who practiced or advocated unconventional relationships with women incur? Finally, Clark ties these unusual lives to the wider questions of ethics and social justice: did those who questioned sexual conventions challenge political traditions as well? This is a highly innovative study that will be of interest to intellectual historians of modern Britain and Europe, as well as historians of gender and sexuality.

Throughout the United States, groups of individuals have been confronting the issues surrounding sexually explicit materials. Many have concurred in their perceptions of what is pornographic, have assessed pornography to be a problem our society must deal with, and have made organized efforts within their communities to stop or restrict the commercial availability of such materials. Citizens for Decency is an examination of two antipornography crusades, one in the Midwest and the other in the Southwest. It examines the evolution and impact of such crusades, the satisfaction derived from participating, and the relevant characteristics of the participants and their opponents. It is the first systematic, comprehensive, and theory-oriented study of antipornography crusades and one of the few studies that analyze movements to resist change. The book begins with the assumption that the term pornography is a value judgment and that the labeling of sexually explicit materials as "pornographic" can be adequately understood only in the wider context of sociological and psychological structures and processes. In approaching the antipornography crusades, Louis A. Zurcher and R. George Kirkpatrick gathered data by observation and document search and by interviews with persons well informed about and central to the crusades. Their examination of the organizations that directed the two movements is particularly extensive, and their comparative analysis of the two organizations allows them to determine which features are the most important, how these characteristics interact, and what their relationship is to the symbolic crusade. Among their important findings, the authors show that antipornography crusaders are people discontent with their status who have mobilized to protect the dominance and prestige of their traditional life styles. The participants in the crusades are shown to differ from their opponents in a number of significant ways. In the final chapters, the authors analyze their findings with reference to social movement theory and offer predictions concerning future symbolic crusades.

In this groundbreaking collection, editors Daina Ramey Berry and Leslie M. Harris place sexuality at the center of slavery studies in the Americas (the United States, the Caribbean, and South America). While scholars have marginalized or simply overlooked the importance of sexual practices in most mainstream studies of slavery, Berry and Harris argue here that sexual intimacy constituted a core terrain of struggle between slaveholders and the enslaved. These essays explore consensual sexual intimacy and expression within slave communities, as well as sexual relationships across lines of race, status, and power. Contributors explore sexuality as a tool of control, exploitation, and repression and as an expression of autonomy, resistance, and defiance.

'GORGEOUS, VIVIDLY ALIVE' NEW YORK TIMES 'BOLD, HONEST AND SUPERBLY WELL-WRITTEN' ANDRE ACIMAN, AUTHOR OF CALL ME BY YOUR NAME 'GRACEFUL AND SOUL-BARING' MELANIE REID, THE TIMES 'WHAT A GIFT . . . HAS THE RIGOR AND PRECISION OF JOAN DIDION AND MAGGIE NELSON AND A FORTHRIGHT HUMOR AND NAKED TRUTH ALL OF ITS OWN.' SARAH RUHL, AUTHOR OF SMILE I am in a bar in Brooklyn listening to two men, my friends, discuss whether or not my life was worth living. So begins Chloe Cooper Jones's bold account of moving through the world in a body that looks different than most. Born with a rare congenital condition called sacral agenesis, she must contend not only with her own physical pain, but the emotional discomfort of others. It is only when she unexpectedly becomes a mother that she confronts the demand to live life fully, propelling her on a journey across the globe, reclaiming the spaces she'd been denied, and denied herself. From Roman sculptures to a Beyonce concert, from a tennis tournament to the Cambodian Killing Fields, Jones interrogates the myths of beauty with spiky intelligence, aesthetic philosophy, love and humor, inviting us to find a new way of seeing.

Ellis's mother is angry because he's been watching porn. Sheron says she hates her body. Mitchell's upset because Jack doesn't want to have sex with him... Sex affects everything. It may not be the single most important thing in a young person's life, but it's always important and a crucial means by which young people try to understand themselves, whether they're in sexual relationships, on the brink of sexual relationships or watching from afar. Yet sex and sexuality are subjects that many adults (including parents, counsellors, teachers and other professionals) are wary of talking about with young people. This book is about helping young people feel less anxious about sex and sexuality. It's also about helping professionals feel more confident. Weaving case material with theory and discussion, Nick Luxmoore describes vividly the dilemmas faced by so many young people and suggests ways of supporting them effectively at such a crucial and sensitive time in their lives.

When it comes to sex and desire, women are screwed. In film, on the page, in fashion, and in everyday life, women's desire is routinely shown as subordinate to men's - when it isn't suppressed altogether. Lili Boisvert argues that there is one dominant principle behind heterosexual encounters: that desire is a male phenomenon and women are merely its object. To change this alienating system, she contends, we must start by facing it head-on. From clothing to flirting, from our fascination with youth and innocence to the orgasm gap, every aspect of women's lives is dictated by their status as sex objects. Is it any wonder that they are feeling sexually unfulfilled? In a series of explorations of what desire looks like under patriarchy, Screwed sketches the contours of what could be true sexual liberation for women, inside - and outside - the bedroom.

Freewheeling sexuality and gender experimentation defined the social and moral landscape of 1890s San Francisco. Middle class whites crafting titillating narratives on topics such as high divorce rates, mannish women, and extramarital sex centered Chinese and Japanese immigrants in particular. Amy Sueyoshi draws on everything from newspapers to felony case files to oral histories in order to examine how whites' pursuit of gender and sexual fulfillment gave rise to racial caricatures. As she reveals, white reporters, writers, artists, and others conflated Chinese and Japanese, previously seen as two races, into one. There emerged the Oriental-a single pan-Asian American stereotype weighted with sexual and gender meaning. Sueyoshi bridges feminist, queer, and ethnic studies to show how the white quest to forge new frontiers in gender and sexual freedom reinforced-and spawned-racial inequality through the ever evolving Oriental. Informed and fascinating, Discriminating Sex reconsiders the origins and expression of racial stereotyping in an American city.