TY - JOUR AU - Weinberg, Martin PY - 2010/04/26 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - CONSTRUCTING SEXUALITY JF - TRAILS: Teaching Resources and Innovations Library for Sociology JA - TRAILS VL - IS - SE - DO - UR - https://trails.asanet.org/article/view/constructing-sexuality SP - AB - Course Description This course will cover the sources of evolution of the social constructionist perspective and its development in the area of human sexuality: symbolic interactionism (and other interpretive approaches) in the United States, what developed out of the U. S. perspective in England, the influence of the French post-structuralists, the role played by feminist scholars and queer theorists, and the contributions of postmodernism and cultural studies. Students will see how these different origins have complemented one another in a contemporary approach to the study of human sexuality. In terms of substantive content, the course will examine how the constructions (i.e., interpretations, meanings) of various forms and facets of sexuality are related to the evaluator’s historical, cultural, and social location. We will look at the role of power, politics, and discourse in shaping constructions of sexualities and the misconceptions and socially-linked processes that underlie certain traditional interpretations. This analysis casts into relief the role of macro-sociological factors as well as those on the interpersonal level (such as the "slight of hand" used in transforming notions about statistical normality into imputations about psychiatric abnormality -- e.g., most people are heterosexual, so bisexual and gay/lesbian people are psychologically abnormal). A "sex radical pluralist" model of interpretation (one that has been delineated by social constructionists) is proposed as an alternative to the conservative traditional one. The specific sexualities to be discussed include nudism, forms of sex work, intergenerational sex, homosexuality, bisexuality, sexual contact with animals, transgender variations, fetishism, sadomasochism, fisting, urine play, and the playing with and eating of feces. The course will be organized around lectures, guest speakers, audio-visual materials (explicit sexual materials of many of the behaviors listed above), and discussions. If you will be offended by these videos or by explicit sexual language, please do not take this class. ER -