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Sexualities
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DOI: 10.1177/1363460707085448
2008 11: 7 Sexualities
Ken Plummer
Studying Sexualities for a Better World? Ten Years of Sexualities

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What is This?

- Mar 7, 2008 Version of Record >>

by Mximo Fernndez on October 19, 2011 sex.sagepub.com Downloaded from
Abstract This article introduces a special edition of the journal
Sexualities to celebrate its tenth anniversary. It reviews the
development of the journal and inspects its contents over this
time. It looks at topics covered, concepts developed and political
implications. A nal section considers some possible future areas
for analysis and research.
Ken Plummer
University of Essex, UK
Studying Sexualities for a Better
World? Ten Years of Sexualities
We cannot make heaven on earth. What we can do instead is, I
believe, to make life a little less terrible and a little less unjust in
every generation. A good deal can be achieved in this way.
(Karl Popper)
Never doubt that a small committed group of people can change
the world.
(Margaret Mead)
It is 10 years since the journal Sexualities started being published. It came
about to try to capture some of the very exciting new research into sexu-
ality that was being done in the early 1990s. Since the late 1960s and
1970s, a new eld of critical sexualities studies had started to take shape
as a critique of some more mainstream traditions, and by the 1990s it
seemed rmly established. Certainly it is now accessible in a wide range
of texts, centres and journals. If it had a rallying cry it would be to say
that human sexualities are complex social, economic, cultural, political
experiences that are always contingent and changing. Beware of an over
easy reductionism, and an over easy theoretic; and look at the empiri-
cal world of sexual life and work to make the world a better place for all.
This issue of the journal is a special one to celebrate 10 years of trying to
do this.
Editors Introductory Essay
Sexualities Copyright 2008 SAGE Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore)
Vol 11(1/2): 722 DOI: 10.1177/1363460707085448
http://sex.sagepub.com
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In this opening essay, I consider some of this journals achievements
and weaker spots suggesting some of the work that perhaps needs to be
done in the coming years. For the rst section a number of members of
the editorial board were invited to comment on their visions of the
future of either sexual life or Sexualities the journal, or both. We have a
very distinguished team here and their comments are wide ranging and
provoking. For the second section, Rosn Ryan-Flood suggested the idea
of looking at two theorists who have deeply shaped current sexualities
thinking: Michel Foucault and Adrienne Rich. She invited a panel of
scholars young and not so young, and inter-sectionally mixed to
comment on the impact they had made; and they have come up with some
absorbing and rich insights.
In a nal section, a series of articles are presented which capture current
work. The journal has been a huge success in terms of articles waiting to
be published. From this issue, we move over to six issues a year. We have
a backlog of some 15 articles, and we have six more special issues lined up!
So I chose these articles thematically from a wide pool. And I chose the
theme of Gay men at the start of the 21st century. I am a little apolo-
getic about this, but only a little. We have had a number of special issues
and themes around many topics over the past 10 years, but never on this.
More importantly, I see gay men as a signicant contribution because this
topic hints at or foregrounds the spirit of globalization and cosmo-
politanism that I see as one key direction for the future. More signicantly,
they display just how far we have travelled in the past 40 years since the
new ideas of sexualities started to develop. Male gay experience was a little
bit different when I came of age in 1967. The law was just about to change.
Homosexuality was still a sickness. Secrecy, silence, shame abounded. The
gay world led you to a secret world (admittedly vast) of downstairs base-
ments, upstairs corridors, and outsiders bars. Studying it was a solitary
experience. Everything that the articles in this issue talk about suggests a
world we have won, a world that has changed dramatically since my youth,
and one which Jeffrey Weeks has elegantly and strikingly described (Weeks,
2007). We must not be too cheery: but we should sometimes pause to
ponder just how far we have travelled the road, talked the talk, done the
scene and nally arrived at this point. But, as many articles suggest in this
issue, there is still a lot further to go.
The state of play: circa 2000
At the turn of the millennium, I made a short listing of some of the areas
that I sensed had been developed in the eld of sexualities, and as an orien-
tation, it may help to start by reproducing it here. I suggested that at the
start of 2000, we could see the following trends:
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1. The continuing challenges of feminism, anti-racism, the LGBT/Queer
movements, post-colonialism, multi-culturalism and anti-ageism most
of which continue to provide full blown critiques of theory, method and
substance in the study of sexualities and which urge inter-sectionality.
2. The continuing signicance of AIDS/HIV and its role in galvanizing
research, politics and worldwide debates about the meaning of sexu-
alities and the nature of sexual acts. Much of this has been directly
linked to the gay movement and more recently much of it has raised
issues of globalization and the plight of low-income societies.
3. The problematization of heterosexuality. Assumed and taken for
granted in much early research, activists within feminism and within
the queer movement have started to chart the history of this idea (it
appears after homosexuality) and the ways in which its binary split with
homosexuality tends to become an organizing assumption of much
western thought.
4. The importance of the post-modern as a challenge to any unitary
theory of the truth. Although post-modernism may now be less
fashionable than it was in the 1980s and the 1990s it has left its legacy
both on sexual analysis (where there is no longer any Grand Truth of
the Sexual King Sex has been dethroned) and indeed on the social
organization of sexualities themselves (where they are now more likely
to be seen more in their multiplicities, diversities and local embedded
contexts).
5. The much clearer positioning of reproductive politics and repro-
ductive health within the eld. The rise of new reproductive tech-
nologies in particular has severed the presumed link with biological sex,
and has raised new practices of reproduction without genital sexual
activities. This starts to shift around centuries old understandings of
the purpose of sexual activities and reproductive methods.
6. The concern with both the performativity, the doing of gender and the
nature of sexualities conceived as doing things together. In removing
a broad essentialism from the study of the sexual, we turn more and
more to daily practices of doing sex.
7. An interesting return to, and problematization of, the body and the
corporeal, seeing the need to bring lust and the body back into
sexuality studies whilst not overstating it. Much of the new con-
structionism played down the body, or reduced it to a text. New trends
suggest this is changing (Plummer, 2007).
8. The persistent concern with boundaries, borders, differences and who
is inside/outside. More than anything, this now seems to be the
function of the established skirmishes around queer theory. Whilst
many patterns of samesex relations are becoming normal, others stay
on the agenda of taboo and stigma. The case studies of the paedophile
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and child sexualities will prove instructive here. There are also core
issues of social exclusion and difference, which highlight ethnicity,
class, gender, age, disabilities, nation which are gradually becoming
more focused.
9. The power of the media, representation and what has been called
the media-zation of sexualities. Sexual lives are increasingly lived in
worlds of mediated forms from hip-hop worlds to reality television.
Most centrally here has been the rise of cyber-worlds of sexualities
which come with a whole new language and series of issues. Here
we have a new language that maybe mirrors new forms of sexualities
cyber-porn, cyber-queer, cyber-dating, cyber-stalking, cyber-rape,
cyber-victim, cyber-sex.
10. The centrality of the process of globalization and its impact upon
sexualities, as some groups have more and more, and others less and
less. Access to, and exploitation by, sexual markets is highly differen-
tiated by class, ethnicity, gender. And we could also start to talk of
the global clash of sexual civilizations, to ag important schisms over
gender and sexualities between fundamentalist worlds (Christian,
Muslim and others) and non-fundamentalist worlds.
11. Issues of power and sex continue to be important, and along with this
come new political debates identied as the sexual citizenship
debates, especially as they move more and more into a global concern
with human sexual rights (Plummer, 2004).
In a sense I saw this as being a crude delineation of where the eld was
at the start of the century. How has the journal slotted into this?
Sexualities over 10 years: Looking back
Busy as an editor, there is not much time to reect back on whats been
published and whats been achieved. Indeed, when I am asked questions
about the journals progress, my response has usually been a bit muted:
OK, I suppose is my typical response. Articles come in; they usually get
reviewed in a reasonable time span; normally the response is to revise and
resubmit! Sometime authors do; often they dont. One day (ve times a
year as it happens) I get a copy of the new issue. At one level, like all work,
it is a bit humdrum. And each issue, from my chair, looks much like the
others. It is an important task: getting new ideas and new studies out
there, helping careers move along a little, maybe in an oh-too-grandiose
moment thinking it is adding a bit to humanitys lot in some very, very
small way.
But this pedestrian approach one little thing after another, as Jane
Austen might have remarked was toppled a bit when I came to do my
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analysis of the rst 10 volumes. I started rst by drawing up my themes,
boxes, count levels and tally marks to t into a table like any good social
science researcher should do. And then I jolted: I have spent most of my
life revolting against this absurd quantitative and dehumanizing view of life
which overwhelms the human sciences. And indeed, if there is a hidden
message of the journal and you might like to see if there is any issue where
I broke this tacit rule not a table or number will be in sight! It would
have been ironic indeed if I had broken my own tacit rule, and produced
a quantitative analysis of the journal (if you should want to see one, have
a look at Ford Foundation, 2007). So I simply wallowed around the
journals for a few days immersing, pondering, thinking a lot and feeling
my way into the articles and asking: just what has been going on here?
A little qualitative content analysis/review
So what has the rst 10 years of the journal been all about?
Well, taken as 10 volumes, 43 issues in all, Id say that certain things
stand out. First and foremost, it has provided a space for new ideas and
ndings to be germinated in many spheres of sexual life no holds barred.
I have tried not to have any bias per se in the contents of what is selected
though I buzz when I sense something is truly new. (But then the article
often does not match the promise). I am still a little sad that some things
have not been forthcoming (maybe complex areas like intergenerational
sexualities from birth to death, trans-national sexualities, the asexual and
the non-sexual in the sexual world, and deep rich ethnographies of what
is really going on out there). Nevertheless, to simply say what we have
covered is a little mind-boggling. Here goes.
During the course of the rst 10 years we have looked at:
Pornographies and erotica; sex work, sex industry and prostitution; commercial
sex and sex entertainment; mediated sex; sado-masochism; cyber sexualities,
internet and digital sexualities; heterosexuality; male rape, female rape, sexual
violence and anti-rape education; female exhibitionism; HIV and sexual health;
masturbation, intercourse, anal intercourse, fellatio, orgasm; dogging; bare
backing; hints of pederasty and paedophilia; men/women/masculinity/femi-
ninity/ transgender/trans-women; inter-sexuality; the sexualities of the young
and the old; married sex and single sex; sex tourism; sex education; strippers
men and women and exotic dance; pregnant bodies and sexuality; city sex
and rural sex; bisexualities and poly-amory; Viagra; lesbian, gay and queer
studies; circumcision; childrens sex books; migration; couples, gay and lesbian
marriages; sluts; sexual dysfunction; bodies; cosmetic surgery; interracial
intimacy; teenage mothers; contraception; celibacy; corporal punishment,
professional wrestling and drag, fantasy, social movements around gender and
sexuality; sexual politics, sexual citizenship, sexual meanings, sexuality and
nationalism, sex hormones, safe spaces, post-modern sexualities, and sexualities
in the primary school.
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This is quite a syllabus for sexualities studies! And along the way, we
have been welcomed into a wide range of humanly constructed spaces,
including:
social movements, bars, prisons, clinics, schools, discos, trade unions, public
bathrooms, restrooms, bus stops, streets, couples homes, the military, internet
chat rooms, the boy scouts, Christopher Park, circuit parties, the 801 drag
Cabaret, churches, West Hollywood, pride, talk shows, streets and spaces
classied as dangerous, safe, violent, erotic and New Yorks Museum of Sex.
We have been invited to read and watch a whole series of media events
where sexualities are available for our consumption. We have been
guided into:
Queer as folk, Basic Instinct, Body of Evidence, Disclosure, Crash, Ellen, Bad
Girls, Wolfmen, Calendar Ladies, Candida Royale, Billy The Sad Sperm With No
Tail, John Grays Mars and Venus books, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Derek
Jarmans Edward II, Black Lace, gay comic books and classic stag lms, G & L
Magazine in Taiwan, and various life style magazines. We have had comments
on Haworth Press and its discussion of paedophilia (9[4]).
In these global times, we should also not be surprised to nd the journal
roaming around the world. Our sexual tour guides have taken us to:
Africa (South Africa, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Mozambique, Nigeria), Latin America
(Mexico, Brazil. Martinque), China, Hong Kong, Canada, Spain, New Zealand,
Australia, Thailand, Turkey, Sweden, the Innu of Labrador, Japan, Ireland,
Taiwan, Pakistan, Israel. And we have been across sites: visiting Latin men in
New York, Iranians in Canada, Imams in the Netherlands, Macedonian men
meeting Albanian men.
And we have tried not to be too formal or pretentious about the ways in
which we have gathered data. The articles have been hospitable to a range
of methods:
Focus groups, interviews, discourse analysis, participant/observation, auto-
ethnography, case studies, photographic essays, feminist video, cyber-
technologies and internet resources, writing, narrative analysis, literature
reviews.
It is interesting to note what is not here: and I am a bit proud of that.
The articles are neither heavily quantitative nor too abstractly theoretical.
To some extent, the journal may well be marginalized by more main-
stream academic journals and even by the professional sexologists. Sadly,
I doubt if very many authors of the articles in this journal see these groups
as their prime audiences or readership, though I know a few do.
Sexualities, the journal, has also tried not to be too fussy, protective or
isolationist about discipline borders. We live in a world of mobile borders:
so we nd a nice mix of feminists, queer theorists, LGBT studies, cultural
studies, gender studies, sociology, cultural history, literary theory, new
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geography and space thinkers, cultural anthropology, cyber-studies, oral
history, cultural psychology and the like. There really is a new movement
afoot within intellectual life to break beyond the stricter boundary disci-
plines that hardened unwisely in the 19th and 20th centuries. And I am
pleased this journal displays quite a lot of this.
Some pretty striking gures have also strutted its pages: We have met,
inter alia: The Marquis de Sade, Harry Benjamin, James Dean, Krafft-
Ebing, Kinsey, the Marquis of Valada. Amongst the living we have
featured some of the most senior scholars of this eld: Mary McIntosh,
John Gagnon, Dennis Altman and Igor Kon. And we have met some key
cases of modern sexual debate: Monica Lewinsky, Dana Rivers, Brandon
Teena. And I am sad, but also proud, that we have published items that
are amongst the last writing acts of Bill Simon, Edgar Friedenberg,
Hahmmed Shahidian, Tamsin Wilton and Vern Bullough. They all made
huge impacts on their respective elds indeed were world leaders and
are now greatly missed.
And we have had special issues and special themes on topics including:
Commercial Sex; Sexualities in Southern Africa; Polyamory; Viagra Culture;
New Parenting; Pleasure and Danger Debates; Representations and Lived
Experiences; Sexualities, Identities and Space; Representations and Media Sexu-
ality; The Catholic Church and Paedophila; and The Clinton-Lewinsky Affair.
And nally, there has also been one spoof article from Michael Kimmel
(in case you did not notice, see Volume 9, No. 1 a great teaching essay!).
Sexualities: Imaginations and politics
This is not a journal to assess by the straight-standard academic conven-
tions of reliability, validity and falsication. We are all, I think, a little bit
more knowing than that. We know about and often have lived the crisis
of representation, feminist epistemologies, critical theory, reexive
methodology, storytelling and the narrative turn, queer methodology, the
resurgence of humanism, critical pedagogy, and many other positions in the
social sciences that challenge, yet remain outside of, the mainstream
(Plummer, 2005a). Now, I am certainly not saying that reliability, validity
and so on are bad things: in fact, quite the opposite. I like to think we
realize their importance but see the ways in which many mainstream
methodologies are used in clichd, restrictive, narrowing and often politi-
cally questionable ways; and that the time has come to search out our
understandings of sexualities in different kinds of way. It is all a bit risky, of
course, but as we are constantly being told anyway, these are risky times.
One way to think about the articles in Sexualities, then, is through their
contribution to what might be called the sexual imagination (or in a
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language I like less the sexual imaginaries). There are many ways in
which this can be done, but let me suggest just two. The rst I might call
the growth of sensitizing concepts. The second is the political implications
of the work.
Generating sensitizing concepts about sexualities
I have always looked for the good phrase that may help us see the world a
bit differently. Herbert Blumer, that inspirational sociologist, calls these
sensitizing concepts and says that they sensitise perception and reveal the
object in new aspect (Blumer, 1969[1930]: 164). Others opt for the
signicance of metaphor. I recall being stunned by Timothy Benekes Men
on Rape (1982), which revealed the power of rape through the metaphors
of male sexual talk. It was a book that was rich with the resonance of
language and power. And at about the same time I also read Andrea
Dworkins Pornography a classic on the use of language in sex (Dworkin,
1981). The two books left a lasting impact on me; not because of their
high owing theory (which they did not have) but because of their use of
language to convey ideas. We have to be very careful about the words we
use for they anticipate future social worlds and social actions. Indeed,
thinking about my own major books, I can see now that I have always gone
for this key idea. It is amusing to me to think (if not a little indulgent!)
that my lifes work can be summed up in my book titles: I have been trying
to understand Sexual Stigma (Plummer, 1975), especially the case of the
Making of the Modern Homosexual (Plummer, 1981) and subsequent
Modern Homosexualities (Plummer, 1992), through Documents of Life
(Plummer, 2001[1983]) and Telling Sexual Stories (Plummer, 1995) in
order to reach towards Intimate Citizenship (Plummer, 2003)! Little
sensitizing concepts, it seems, can shape whole books.
So following this idea, I looked back over the rst 10 years of the
journal and found a number of wonderful ideas that can shift the imagin-
ation, organize ideas and take us further. How about these to build upon?
First, we are becoming certain kinds of person: we had better be careful
who we wish to become. Amongst the candidates are the civilized homo-
sexual (Murray, 10[1]),
1
the designer whore (Andres, 6[34]), the
fuzzy matrix of my type (Knapp and Simon, 4[2]), the butch woman
inside James Dean (Cartier, 6[34]), the transsexual teacher (Cavnagah,
6[34]) and those with liminal transgender identities (Wilson, 5[4]). We
are engaging with intersex citizenship (Grabham, 10[1]) and bisexual
promiscuity (Klesse, 8[4]).
It seems we are also constructing and moving around a number of
spaces. The spaces of sexualities suggest cosmopolitan sexual cultures
(Farrer, 2[2]), the hedonistic student culture framework (Hollways and
Jefferson, 1[4]), sex zones (Hubbard, 4[1]), a post-lesbian world
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(Farquahar, 3[2]) and a post closet world (Epstein, 3[1]). Indeed, post-
modernizing closets (Reynolds, 2[3]) is a theme of an important debate
(Seidman et al.). In much of this, space becomes a production polemic
(Canlon, 7[4]).
We are up to all kinds of sexual doings. Apparently, we are confronting
the the routinization of homosexuality (Adam, (2[1])) and compulsory
sex/compulsory great sex (Potts,1[2]). We are eroticizing the anus
(Ying-Ho and Tsang, 3[3]), sexing up the subject (Sanders, 9[4]) and
sexing the belly (Huntley, 3[3]). There has also been a sexualization of
corporal punishment (Butt and Hearn, 1[2]).
We talk an awful lot about sex, and in the process we nd a lot of
discourses at work such as the science/ction of sex (Potts, 1[2]), the
fag discourse (Pascoe, 8[3]), McSex (Potts, 1[2]), the queering of sexual
scripts (Muchler, 3[1]), the orgasmic imperative (Potts, 3[1]) and
mouth-rules (Thorogood, 3[2]). Feminism is seen as a language of
entitlement and liberation (Sonnet, 2[2]). We learn of gay and lesbian
standpoint lms (Dean, 10[2]), ethical erotics (Varmony, 8[4]), abstract
intimacies (Stones, 2[2]) and polygamic races, poly-hegemonic
masculinities, progressive polyamory (Haritaworn, Lin and Klesse, 9[5]).
All of this is closely linked to the social meanings of sex. And here we
have seen the meanings of sex in the countryside Hillier 2[1], in the city,
on fantasy islands (Diaz, 2[1]). We know a little about the meanings of
risky sex, corporal punishment, leathersex as religion (Joshi, 6[3]). Sexu-
ality is seen as a labour of love (Cacchioni, 10[2]); we can talk of the
aesthetics of orgasm (Frueh, 6[34]), and the signicance of a kiss (Ussher
and Mooney-Somers, 3[2]). And just what is my sperm in shining armour?
Through all this, we go on nding sexuality lodged in deep fears,
hetero-normativity and sexual hatred. There are the sexual antimonies of
late modernity (Jackson and Scott) and gender panic theories (Adam,
1[4]).We nd that there is a disgust at the borders of desire (Johnson,
7[2]) and a haunting heterosexuality (Johnson, 7[2]). A fellatio
epidemic (Curtis and Hunt, 10[1]) has been played out in Canada, and
resistance strategies of heteropolarity (Stewart, 2[3]) have been
deployed. We live with a spermatic hierarchy (Moore, 6[34]) and with
visibility as privilege (Steinbugler, 8[4]).
We are also engaged in a number of social processes: look out for the
project of gay identity (Murray, 10[1]), coming out as the teenage
daughter of a lesbian mother (Paechter, 3[4]), coming out of the coming
out story (Jolly, 4[4]), life-styling HIV (Kane, 4[2]), sex and world-
making (Shephard, 6[34]), incorporating the ineffable body (Westhover,
8[3]), female sexual subjectivity as a generative project (Bryant and
Schoeld, 10[2]), the pinking of Viagra culture (Hartley, 9[3]), sexu-
alities in movement (Lambveski, 8[5]), circumcision through the lens of
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gender theory (Harrison, 5[3]), mobile desire (Adkins, 3[2]), and the
fact[?] that bisexuality is post-modern (Storr, 2[3]).
The politics of sexualities
One of the cornerstones of the new critical sexualities theories has always
been a concern with power. Since it largely grew out of the new social
movements around sexual politics in the early 1970s, this is not surpris-
ing. The study of sexuality needs always to be seen as a political practice;
the doing of sexualities is always embroiled in power relations; the writing
about sexualities will always bring policy, political and public projects.
There are fairly obvious ways in which Sexualities has looked at power
and sexualities. The concern over Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton
attracted world stage attention in the mid-1990s and it became a special
concern of the journal at that time. Likewise, the scandals over paedophilia
in the Catholic Church attracted world-wide attention a little later; and
we added a little to the din of talk about it. Likewise, the work of various
social movements has also been of interest the work of the womens
movement, lesbian and gay movements, the queer movement, the Travesti
Brazil, the transgender movement and the new polyamory movement.
The tensions within and across them remain a ceaseless source of conict
and interest to researchers and activists.
Much of the politics raised through the journal has a long history.
Topics like pornography, sex education, contraception, rape and gay and
lesbian concerns have seasoned histories, and articles have hopefully
provided new and stimulating ways of thinking about old tensions. The
politics of transgression also has a long history going back to de Sade and
before, and it continues to provide its own subterranean tradition to the
whole of sexuality research. Part of this, since the late 1980s, has been
queer theory a border-crossing exercise, challenging normativity in all
its aspects. Issues such as the politics of identity and the pleasure and
danger debates were being discussed (and practised!) a quarter of a
century ago, but still provoke attention. (In one special issue, the feminist
debates of the 1980s were revisited).
Some themes, however, were just developing when the journal started.
Ten years on, they are now quite well-dened and entering a period of
rich development and renement. These areas include:
The politics of intimate citizenship: citizenship is transformed from a
rather straightforward bundle of rights and responsibilities over voting,
welfare and so on but is transformed to a more complex relational,
processual (for example) series of rights and responsibilities some of
which invade the ways in which we live our personal lives (Plummer,
2003, 2006).
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The politics of representation: older ideas about censorship are modied
with a much more sophisticated understanding of the visual and looking.
The politics of discourse: the deconstructive turn (and linked
cultural/post-modern turn) made all language problematic, and the
shapes of our talk and debate became inherently formed through
power relations.
The politics of space and time: space and time are no longer givens
to be taken for granted and worked within. Instead political processes
work to shape space and time.
The politics of bodies: again bodies are not givens. Bodies, from the old
population controls and surveillance through the new body regimes
and on to the politics of life itself all become managed, regulated,
structured through power relations.
The politics of visibility, space and public culture: closely linked to a
number of the foregoing areas, is an emerging interest in how issues,
events, bodies, people can or cannot be recognized. How does public
and private life get shaped? What political processes make the visible
invisible and the invisible visible?
The politics of emotion: increasingly the signicance of feeling from
shame to revenge is seen to play a role in both political actions and
our responses to politics.
Looking ahead: Visions of sexualities
Finally, certain gaps in the journal have become noticeable to me, and I
would hope that the journal can look increasingly at some of these issues
over the next 10 years.
First, there is a need to return to the material world. Researchers into
sexualities live largely in a world of language, discourse, and meaning, and
that is good. After all, the origins of the journal lay in questioning some
of the crude, mechanistic, biological accounts of sexuality that exist quite
widely. I do not wish to resuscitate the hoary old constructionessentialist
debate (now, in my head at least, over 40 years old). Always, it seems, the
two ideas hang together and have proved very useful in galvanizing
debate, thinking and research. There is no denying some signicant
biological and psychic desires at work; there is equally no denying that
there are profound historical, social and cultural forces always at work in
sexualities. The social always invades the personal. But, and this is my
point, the economic and material do too. It is true that there is interest
in the commercialization of sex and the sexual markets that have been
developed for this (see: Agustn,10[4]). Nevertheless, on balance, one of
the most signicant gaps in the journal has been any deep concern with
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the material world. There are major social inequalities across the world
of class, ethnicity, gender, age and so on and the journal has hardly
addressed any of these.
Some years back Nancy Fraser (1997) suggested that there was a need
to bridge the politics of recognition (which was, in the early 1990s,
becoming very popular) with the politics of redistribution (which was
somewhat fading from view). It was an urgent and important plea. But
somehow sexuality scholars have not generally learned much from it; and
continue with the politics of difference over the politics of equality. But
these strands of thinking and practice have never, in my view, been truly
at odds. It is another one of the many false polarities that academics often
like to make (myself included!). I would dearly love to see articles that
speak about sexualities under the rule of abject poverty and sexualities as
lived and imagined on the terrorist battleeld. I would like to know more
about the sexualities of the super-rich when contrasted with those of the
bottom billion. How do we fuck and caress and kiss when living
homeless, on the street, in abject poverty, down and out with the weight
of the world: with wasted lives? Are there inequalities in sexualities that
mirror inequalities in economic life; or are the best things in life free?!
Despite all the talk about inter-sectionality, we really do not hear much
about class these days (Plummer, 2005b).
Second, the life cycle calls. Our studies in the main have been of the
young and the middle aged. There is only one major article on the sexu-
alities of the elderly in the rst 10 years of Sexualities! But since the
elderly is now a signicantly growing group world-wide, it is odd that we
know relatively little about the sexualities of older people. It is time for a
new critical sexual gerontology! But if there is little about older people,
there is less still about the very young. Childhood has always been a taboo
area. It is often linked to the sphere of paedophilia, which really is the only
main area of sexuality that remains utterly taboo cut off from funds,
publication, research development and just waiting to stigmatize anyone
who dares to take a different voice. Stevi Jacksons pioneering work a
quarter of a century ago in this eld needs taking further (Jackson, 1982).
The journal Sexualities has touched on this topic lightly at a few points;
but so far there have been no major contributions. People who write
about this area seem to need not just academic and intellectual talent, but
also a rather special kind of bravado and bravery. Few seem forthcoming.
Next there are some themes that have certainly been developed in Sexu-
alities, but which we do not quite take far enough. Globalization is every-
where; it has been a major theme of social science work over the past
decade, and there are key texts which study the globalization of sexu-
alities (e.g. Altman, 2001; Binnie, 2004; Basu et al., 2001). But at the
same time, much work remains relatively parochial. There is a tendency
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to study different cultures, but it is not just studies of different cultures
that are being called for. Rather the need is to see how different cultures
interpenetrate and interconnect with each other. I recall Ulrich Becks
famous line that from now on, nothing that happens on our planet is only
a limited local event. To some extent, the rich, post-modern, metro-
politan male gay world exemplies this as it swirls around the world
through internet, dance parties and hybridic identities. And, much more
darkly, so too does the world of international sex trafcking as it peddles
in global dehumanization, violence and exploitation. Overall, everything
we touch nowadays needs a wider and deeper analysis, connecting sexu-
alities through a ceaseless stream of different but interpenetrating cultures
(See Matthew Waites on this in this issue).
A fourth area that seems to be not quite there yet in our understand-
ing is the ubiquitous contemporary world of cyber-sexualities and, indeed,
cyber-research. We had articles on this in our rst volume, and we have
regularly had such contributions. There are two more brilliant examples
of it in this issue. But what I dont think we have quite come to terms
with is that this really now is the age of cyber-sex. For large sectors of the
world now it is simply a backdrop presence and taken for granted in sexual
lives. For many, contemporary sexualities is cyber-sexualities. It is no
longer just coming or waiting around the corner; it is here, loud, clear
and not going away. It is profoundly shaking the ways in which human
sexualities are taking place, and it raises many political and public arenas
for heated debate. Cyber-sex may well and truly be here; understanding
lags behind it quite a bit (see Jeff Hearn in this issue).
And whilst we talk of cyber-sex, it may be important to raise one
specic form of sexuality hardly discussed at all: the pervasive sexuality
of masturbation and self-stimulation. It is perhaps the most pervasive
form of sexualities in all of world history and at the current moment. But
we would hardly know it. For both men and women it is a widespread
occurrence that is hardly ever analysed. There are useful starts being
published (Laqueur, 2003), but just how this sits in the new worlds of
cyber-sexualities is not really understood. It just seems to me that cyber-
space facilitates an awful lot of body stimulations of different kinds, and
yet it is not something we know much about. (As a quick aside and at a
different point in the sexualities spectrum, there is also asexuality and
the asexual movement about which we know very little.)
Sixth, I am also aware of the neglect of many important new theoreti-
cal developments. The worlds of Foucault and early feminism (Adrienne
Rich), or even Gagnon and Simon, are well over 30 years old. Even
Butlers key founding works are nearly 20 years old. In this issue we look
at some of their continuing legacies, which are clearly rich and important.
But I wonder about the signicance of some others. Recent years have
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seen mobility theory, complexity theory, the public sociology debate and
so forth. Let me give just one example amongst many: the work of Martha
Nussbaum, who is generally considered to be one of the worlds leading
philosophers. There is some passing reference sometimes to her major
book, Sex and Social Justice (1999), but there seems to be little recog-
nition of her broader theory (though I note in passing that my dear old
friend and colleague, Jeffrey Weeks does use her at the end of his most
recent work). Many feminists and development theorists work with her
ideas but inside the sexualities eld of studies she is not mentioned much.
Yet her core concerns lie with human ourishing and capabilities in a
world of fairness and justice. She grounds her work globally and empiri-
cally, and is straight talking. Her passion to make the world a better and
more equal place for all is clear to see. And her relevance to sexualities
studies remains unexplored. How do capabilities link to the sexual life?
Are these capabilities preconditions for the good sexual life? Or are they
in part shaped by our sexual experience? Each capability seems to directly
link up to our sexual life: bodily health, bodily integrity, emotions, play,
afliations, self respect and our senses, for example, are all there at the
heart of sexual life. How, she asks, can such human capabilities ourish
and lead to well being; in different ways in different societies?
Much of her work leads directly to a concern with a decent world
culture (Nussbaum, 2006: 1317). A linked idea that could be developed
within sexuality studies would be that of cosmopolitanism. The idea is a
complex one with a long history and many forms: in sum it means citizens
of the cosmos. It is neither globalization nor multiculturalism. Nor does
it mean to suggest, as it sometimes is made to, a kind of sophistication,
even superior life style (usually associated with metropolitan living) an
elitist cosmopolitanism. Nor does it mean the peddling of kind
commercial sexuality as in Cosmopolitan magazine. This is a commercial
cosmopolitanism. I mean none of these. What I do mean is the ability
an attitude to sense and empathize with a range of different positions
in the world, many of which you will profoundly disagree with, and to
seek out some common ways of living around them, and moving on. I
realize this would be anathema to many; and so be it.
Ulrich Beck has argued that the human condition has itself become
cosmopolitan (2006: 2) and I am not sure of this. But I do agree with
him that cosmopolitanism brings with it a certain kind of empathy. We
learn to take the perspectives of others. We know we cannot live in worlds
without some kind of borders however widely they may be stretched
and negotiated. And we live with the ideas that local, national, ethnic,
religious and cosmopolitan cultures and traditions interpenetrate, inter-
connect and intermingle cosmopolitanism without provincialism is
empty, provincialism without cosmopolitanism is blind (Beck, 2006: 7).
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And nally all this leads me back to the importance of narratives and
stories. To empathize requires listening and looking. Telling stories is our
clue to the different lives that people lead. What we need are more stories
and more dialogues between them all. In part, this journal was set up to
help this process a little. I hope in the coming years, it will continue to
do this.
Note
1. The references attached to these titles refer to specic authors and editions of
the journal Sexualities: Studies in Culture and Society, Volumes 110.
References
Altman, Dennis (2001) Global Sex. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Basu, Amrita, Grewal, Inderpal, Kaplan, Caren, Malkki, Liisa (eds) (2001)
Globalisation and Gender, Signs (special issue) 26(4) summer: 9431314.
Beck, Ulrich (2006) Cosmopolitan Vision. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Beneke, Timothy (1982) Men on Rape: What They Have to Say About Sexual
Violence. New York: St Martins Press.
Binnie, Jon (2004) The Globalization of Sexuality. London: SAGE.
Blumer, Hebert (1969[1930]) Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Dworkin, Andrea (1981) Pornography: Men Possessing Women. New York: Perigree.
Ford Foundation (2007) Peer Review Project: Editors Report. New York: Ford
Foundation Publication.
Fraser, Nancy (1997) Justice Interruptus: Critical Reections on the Postsocialist
Condition. London: Routledge.
Jackson, Stevi (1982) Childhood and Sexuality. Oxford: Blackwell.
Lacqueuer, Thomas (2003) Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation.
London: Zone Books.
Nussbaum, Martha (1999) Sex and Social Justice. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Nussbaum, Martha (2006) Reply: In Defence of Global Political Liberalism,
Development and Change: Forum 2006 37(6) November: 1227334.
Plummer, Ken (1981) The Making of the Modern Homosexual. London:
Hutchinson.
Plummer, Ken (2001[1983]) Documents of Life-2: An Invitation to Critical
Humanism. London: Sage.
Plummer, Ken (1975) Sexual Stigma: An Interactionist Account. London:
Routledge.
Plummer, Ken (1992) Modern Homosexualities. London: Routledge.
Plummer, Ken (1995) Telling Sexual Stories: Power, Change and Social World.
London: Routledge.
Plummer, Ken (2003) Intimate Citizenship: Private Decisions and Public
Dialogues. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Plummer, Ken (2004) Social Worlds, Social Change and The New Sexualities
Theories, in Belinda Brooks-Gordon, Loraine Gelsthorpe, Martin Johnson
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and Andrew Bainham (eds) Sexuality Repositioned: Diversity and the Law,
pp. 3964. Oxford: Hart.
Plummer, Ken (2005a) Critical Humanism and Queer Theory: Living with the
Tensions, in Norman K. Denzin and Yvonne Lincoln (eds) Handbook of
Qualitative Research 3rd edition. London: SAGE.
Plummer, Ken (2005b) Intimate Citizenship in an Unjust World, in Mary
Romero and Eric Margolis The Blackwell Companion to Social Inequality,
pp. 75100. Oxford: Blackwell.
Plummer, Ken (2006) Rights Work: Constructing Lesbian, Gay and Sexual
Rights in Late Modern Times, in Lydia Morris (ed.) Rights, pp. 15267.
London: Routledge.
Plummer, Ken (2007) Queers, Bodies and Post-Modern Sexualities: A Note on
Revisiting the Sexual, in M. Kimmel (ed.) The Sexual Self (Essays in Honour
of John Gagnon). Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press (reprinted from
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Weeks, Jeffrey (2007) The World we Have Won. London: Routledge.
An indulgent personal epilogue
Some readers may have heard that I have been seriously ill for the past
three years. I was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver in February 2005,
and had a liver transplant two years later. I am now almost back to normal
(what!?), except I now move around with a new liver from an 18-year-old
to whom I am truly thankful. Many people were unbelievably kind to me
during this period, and I wont name names. But I do wish to thank all
those at Kings College Hospital London for their skill and loving care; and
for the many friends across the world that supported me and loved me
through this time. But two people I must name. One is my dear life partner
of some 30 years, Everard Longland, who literally stopped his own life and
devoted his to mine: he is truly my guardian angel (a curious, but useful
phrase for an agnostic why should the heavens have all the joy?). The
other is the journal administrator and subeditor, Agnes Skamballis, without
whom the journal would probably have ceased to be. She has already spent
many years being the human face of the journal to all who have contacted
it and over the past two years she took over work that was way beyond her
job description and casually performed it with great cheer. Unfortunately,
just as I was recovering, she herself became very ill and went to hospital
for major surgery. There were problems; she has survived them though
as I write she is still in hospital (four months after she arrived). Agnes is
always into the life enhancing business, and she exudes her usual energy,
compassion and positive attitude to life from her bed. She may have to
return to Sexualities wheel-chair bound; but return she will. I thank her so
much for everything.
Ken Plummer
Wivenhoe, September 2007
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