Sex Matters: The Sexuality and Society Reader (3rd Edition)

This anthology of almost 60 readings--from contemporary scholarly literature, trade books, popular media, as well as contributed articles-- examines the many ways in which human sexuality is socially constructed and regulated behavior, and how it is studied by social scientists.

The Editors

Mindy Stombler, Ph.D., is a senior lecturer of sociology at Georgia State University. Her research interests include the construction of collective identity in fraternity culture, focusing on black and white fraternity little sister programs and gay fraternities. Her research on gay fraternities examines how men negotiate the dual identities of being gay and being Greek and how men in gay fraternities reproduce hegemonic masculinity. Her latest research project examines power relations and oral sex.

Dawn M. Baunach, Ph.D., is an associate professor of sociology at Georgia State University. Her research interests include inequality and stratification, gender and sexuality, work and occupations, and social demography. She is currently studying various sexual attitudes and behaviors, including gay marriage, sexual fluidities, sexual prejudice, and sexual disclosure.

Elisabeth O. Burgess, Ph.D., is Director of the Gerontology Institute and an associate professor of sociology at Georgia State University. Her research interests focus on changes in intimate relations over the life course, including involuntary celibacy, sexuality and aging, and intergenerational relationships. In addition, Dr. Burgess writes on theories of aging and attitudes toward older adults.

Denise Donnelly, Ph.D., is an associate professor of sociology and Senior Faculty Associate for the Advancement of Women at Georgia State University. Her research interests include involuntary celibacy, services to battered women, culturally competent approaches to ending violence, peace in Northern Ireland, and race and gentrification.

Wendy Simonds, Ph.D., is a professor of sociology at Georgia State University. She is author of Abortion at Work: Ideology and Practice in a Feminist Clinic (Rutgers, 1996), Women and Self-Help Culture: Reading between the Lines (Rutgers, 1992), coauthor with Barbara Katz Rothman of Centuries of Solace: Expressions of Maternal Grief in Popular Literature (Temple, 1992), and coauthor with Barbara Katz Rothman and Bari Meltzer Norman of Laboring On: Birth in Transition in the U.S. (Routledge, 2007). She is currently working on a project entitled Queers on Marriage.

Elroi J. Windsor, M.A., is a doctoral candidate in the department of sociology at Georgia State University.  Windsor's current research focuses on surgical body modification and the disparate regulation of its transgender and cisgender consumers.

The Authors

John Archer is a professor and the research coordinator in the School of Psychology at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston, Lancashire of the United Kingdom.

Elizabeth A. Armstrong is an associate professor and the director of undergraduate studies in the department of sociology at Indiana University in Bloomington.

Alison Bain is an associate professor of geography at York University in Ontario, Canada.

Elizabeth Bernstein is an assistant professor of women's studies and sociology at Barnard College, Columbia University in New York City.

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore (www.mattildabernsteinsycamore.com) is the author, most recently, of So Many Ways to Sleep Badly, and the editor of Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity and That’s Revolting! Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation.

Kathleen Bogle is an assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice at La Salle University in Philadelphia.

Heather Boonstra is a senior public policy associate in the Alan Guttmacher Institute’s Washington, D.C. office.

Keith Boykin is the editor of The Daily Voice, a host of the BET television show My Two Cents, a New York Times bestselling author, and a frequent political commentator on CNN and MSNBC.

Allan M. Brandt is the Amalie Moses Kass Professor of the History of Medicine and the Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Virginia Braun is a senior lecturer of psychology at the University of Auckland in New Zealand.

Barbara G. Brents is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Vern L. Bullough was, before his death, a distinguished scholar and author professor emeritus in the history department at California State University in Northside.

Elizabeth Cavalier is a doctoral candidate in the sociology department at Georgia State University.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is one of the thirteen major operating components of the Department of Health and Human Services, which is the principal agency in the U.S. government for protecting the health and safety of all Americans and for providing essential human services.

Anjani Chandra is a researcher at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Greta Christina is editor of the “Best Erotic Comics” annual anthology series.  She has written and edited several other books, and has contributed to numerous magazines, newspapers, and anthologies.  She lives in San Francisco with her wife, Ingrid.  She blogs at gretachristina.typepad.com.

Patricia Hill Collins is an author and distinguished professor of sociology at the University of Maryland in College Park.

David W. Coon is a professor in the college of nursing and health care innovation at Arizona State University in Phoenix.

Robert Darby is an independent scholar and cultural historian with an interest in the history of sexuality and sexual medicine.

Michelle Davies is a senior lecturer in the School of Psychology at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston, Lancashire of the United Kingdom.

Clive M. Davis is a professor emeritus of psychology at Syracuse University in New York.

Phillip W. Davis is an associate professor of sociology at Georgia State University in Atlanta.

John D. DeLamater is a professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

Kathleen Dolan is an associate professor of sociology at North Georgia College and State University in Dahlonega.

Cynthia Enloe is a research professor of international development and social change at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Loree Erickson is a community organizer and porn star academic at York University in Toronto.

Jeffrey Escoffier writes on sexuality, gay history and politics, and social theory and has taught history and politics of sexuality at Universities of California at Berkeley and Davis, Rutgers University, and the New School University.

Amy M. Fasula is a researcher at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Elizabeth Fee is chief of the history of medicine division of the National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health and professor of history of medicine in the School of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.

April L. Few is an associate professor of human development at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg.

Katherine Frank is a honorary research fellow of sociology at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and an adjunct faculty member of the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine.

John H. Gagnon is a distinguished professor emeritus of sociology at the State University of New York in Stony Brook.

Ina May Gaskin is the executive director of the Farm Midwifery Center in Summertown, Tennessee.

Nicola Gavey is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Auckland in New Zealand.

M. Alfredo González is an urban and medical anthropologist, and a long-time HIV activist living in New York City.  He has done research in New York City, South Florida, the Dominican Republic, and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.

Judith Gordon was, before her death, a nursery school teacher and journalist.

Sol Gordon is a professor emeritus of child and family studies at Syracuse University in New York and former director of the university's Institute for Family Research and Education.

Jamison Green is an author, educator, and consultant specializing in transgender and transsexual social, legal, and healthcare issues and policy.

Gary Greenberg has been a practicing psychotherapist for 25 years; he is affiliated with the Human Relations Counseling Service in New London, Connecticut.

Nora Ellen Groce is the Leonard Cheshire Chair of Disability and Inclusive Development in the department of epidemiology and public health at University College London.

Kate Haas is a lawyer living in California.

Laura Hamilton is a graduate student in the department of sociology at Indiana University in Bloomington.

Chong-suk Han is an assistant professor of sociology at Middlebury College in Vermont.

Heather Hartley was, before her death, an associate professor of sociology at Portland State University in Oregon. 

Kathryn Hausbeck is an associate professor of sociology and senior associate dean for graduate studies and academic affairs at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Peter Hennen is an associate professor of sociology at the Ohio State University in Newark.

Jo Jones is a researcher at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Amanda M. Jungels is a doctoral student in the department of sociology at Georgia State University.

Marni Kahn is a doctoral student in the department of sociology at Georgia State University.

Suzanne Kessler is a professor of psychology and dean of the School of Natural and Social Sciences at the State University of New York in Purchase.

Laura Kipnis is a professor in the radio-television-film department at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

David M. Latini is an assistant professor in the Scott Department of Urology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, and the Houston Center for Quality of Care and Utilization Studies at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center.

Edward O. Laumann is the George Herbert Mead Distinguished Service Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago.

Alice Leuchtag is a freelance writer, social worker, counselor, college instructor, and researcher.

Jacob Levenson is an adjunct faculty member of The Journalism School at Columbia University in New York City.

Meika Loe is an associate professor of sociology and anthropology and the women’s studies program at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York.

Lenore Manderson is the Hillel Friedland Fellow in the School of Public Health at the University of the Witwatersrand and a professor in the School of Psychology, Psychiatry and Psychological Medicine at Monash University in Australia.

Naomi B. McCormick was a distinguished teaching professor of psychology at the State University of New York in Plattsburgh, a fellow with the American Psychological Association, and a fellow and past-president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality.

Kirsten McLean is a lecturer in sociology in the School of Political and Social Inquiry at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.

Glenn J. Meaney is a master's candidate the department of psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, Canada.

Chet Meeks was, before his death, an assistant professor of sociology at Georgia State University in Atlanta.

Melinda Miceli is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Hartford in Connecticut.

Robert T. Michael is the Eliakim Hastings Moore distinguished service professor emeritus at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago.

Stuart Michaels is assistant director of curriculum and development and chair of undergraduate studies of the Center for Gender Studies at the University of Chicago.

Kim S. Miller is a researcher at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Lisa Jean Moore is a professor of sociology and women's studies and the coordinator of gender studies at Purchase College of the State University of New York in Purchase. 

William D. Mosher is a demographic statistician at the National Center for Health Statistics.

Joia S. Mukherjee is medical director at Partners in Health, director of the Institute for Health and Social Justice, and assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.

Jeffery S. Mullis is a senior lecturer of sociology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

Adina Nack is an associate professor of sociology at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks.

Joane Nagel is a university distinguished professor of sociology at the University of Kansas in Lawrence.

Catherine Jean Nash is an associate professor of geography at Brock University in Ontario, Canada.

Sumie Okazaki is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.

Amy Palder is a visiting instructor of sociology at Georgia State University.

C.J. Pascoe is an assistant professor of sociology at Colorado College in Colorado Springs.

Rebecca F. Plante is an associate professor of sociology at Ithaca College in New York.

Scott Poulson-Bryant is a founding editor of Vibe magazine.

June Machover Reinisch served as director of the Kinsey Institute and professor in the department of psychology and psychiatry at Indiana University from 1982 until 1993.   Upon her retirement she was named director emerita and member of the Kinsey Institute Board of Trustees.

Dorothy E. Roberts is the Kirkland & Ellis Professor at the Northwestern University School of Law, with a joint appointment as a faculty fellow at the Institute for Policy Research.

Susan Rose is a professor of sociology at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

B.J. Rye is an associate professor of psychology and sexuality, marriage, and family studies and the director of sexuality, marriage, and family studies at St. Jerome's University at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada.

Stephanie A. Sanders is a professor of gender studies and associate director of The Kinsey Institute at Indiana University in Bloomington.

Teela Sanders is a senior lecturer of sociology at Leeds University in the United Kingdom.

Carmine Sarracino is a professor of english at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania.

Kevin M. Scott is the director of the english education program at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania.

Steven Seidman is a professor of sociology at the State University of New York in Albany.

Morgan Sill received her M.A. degree in public health from the University of Michigan.

Amy C. Steinbugler is a visiting assistant professor of sociology at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Dionne P. Stephens is an assistant professor in the departments of psychology and African diaspora studies at Florida International University in Miami.

Karen Sternheimer is a lecturer of sociology at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

Brian Sweeney is an assistant professor of sociology and anthropology at Long Island University, C.W. Post Campus in Brookville, New York.

Melissa Travis is a graduate student in sociology at Georgia State University in Atlanta.

Jayne Walker is a former research student in the School of Psychology at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston, Lancashire of the United Kingdom.

Donna Walton is a certified cognitive behavioral therapist, motivational speaker, and founder of LEGGTalk, Inc.

Jane Ward is an assistant professor of women's studies at the University of California in Riverside.

Jeffrey Wiener is a researcher at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.