Elevate Difference

Reviews tagged Sexuality and society

Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States

In their near-exhaustive catalogue of violence, discrimination, and systematic abuse of LGBT people in the United States, Joey Mogul, Andrea Ritchie, and Kay Whitlock outline the specific ways that the criminalization of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgendered people has perpetuated inequalities not only based on sexual identity but also within the complex interplay of race, class, and gender.

Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade

Who was Sam Steward? Influential professor, ballet enthusiast, S/M practitioner, author of paperback pornos and serious novels, and tattoo artist are just a few of the roles he played in his life. Among his friends were many important cultural and literary figures of the time including Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, Thorton Wilder, Ed Hardy, and Alfred Kinsey, yet he remains virtually unknown today.

Poverty, Charity, and Motherhood: Maternal Societies in Nineteenth-Century France

The women-run organization The Society for Maternal Charity survived more than a hundred years of wars, revolutions, and government changes. Initially the group began because of the number of children being abandoned due to poverty. Not only were these foundlings expensive for the state, but they also had a very high mortality rate. Women’s societies were viewed as more ideal than orphanages and seen as an extension of the women’s domestic sphere.

Homophobias: Lust and Loathing Across Time and Space

Homosexuality seems to always be a topic of interest for researchers, at least in this day and age. Perhaps it is most interesting because sexuality is one of the most private aspects of a person’s life, and nothing seems to generate interest in quite the way that something so mysterious and private can. Homophobia, like homosexuality, varies in degrees of presence, and is often intertwined with the complexities of the cultural, economic, and political workings of the environment it finds itself situated.

First

If Salt ‘N Peppa had written lyrics with the phrase, “Let’s talk about sexuality, baby,” instead of, “Let’s talk about sex, baby,” I wonder if it would still have its legendary pop status. After all, it is easier to talk about sex than it is to talk, or rap, about sexuality. It’s much easier to talk about sex acts than the decision to express one’s sexual development or process of maturity. If talking about sex is socially taboo, save a handful of pop culture, then talking, or rapping, about sexuality is unthinkable.

Moral Panics, Sex Panics: Fear and the Fight over Sexual Rights

The war on drugs. The down low. Rainbow parties. Obamacare death panels. Our society has a crazy way of taking contemporary moral issues and, with a dash of religious fervor and moral superiority and a pinch of media dramatization, blowing them up into large-scale panics.