Stevi Jackson

Interchanges: Gender, sexuality and heterosexuality: The complexity (and limits) of heteronormativity

According to Steven Seidman, analysts of institutionalized heterosexuality have ‘focused exclusively on its role in regulating homosexuality’ and, while queer approaches theorize how ‘homosexuality gains its coherence in relation to heterosexuality, the impact of regimes of normative heterosexuality on heterosexuality has largely been ignored’ (2005: 40). Over the last decade and more, however, feminists have been analysing how normative heterosexuality affects the lives of heterosexuals (see Wilkinson and Kitzinger, 1993; Richardson, 1996; Jackson, 1999; Ingraham, 1996, 1999). In so doing they have drawn on earlier feminists, such as Charlotte Bunch (1975), Adrienne Rich (1980) and Monique Wittig (1992), who related heterosexuality to the perpetuation of gendered divisions of labour and male appropriation of women’s productive and reproductive capacities. Indeed, Rich’s concept of ‘compulsory heterosexuality’ could be seen as a forerunner of ‘heteronormativity’ and I would like to preserve an often neglected legacy of the former concept: that institutionalized, normative heterosexuality regulates those kept within its boundaries as well as marginalizing and sanctioning those outside them. The term ‘heteronormativity’ has not always captured this double-sided social regulation. Feminists have a vested interest in what goes on within heterosexual relations because we are concerned with the ways in which heterosexuality depends upon and guarantees gender division. Heterosexuality, however, is not a singular, monolithic entity – it exists in many variants. As Seidman points out there are hierarchies of respectability and good citizenship among heterosexuals, and what tends to be valorized as ‘normative’ is a very particular form founded on traditional gender arrangements and lifelong monogamy (see Seidman, 2005: 59–60; see also Seidman, 2002). Thus the analysis of heteronormativity needs to be rethought in terms of what is subject to regulation on both sides of the normatively prescribed boundaries of heterosexuality: both sexuality and gender. With this in mind, this article re-examines the intersections between gender, sexuality in general and heterosexuality in particular. How these terms are defined is clearly consequential for any analysis of linkages between them. There is no consensus on the question of definition, in large

Can't Talk, Won't Talk?: Methodological Issues in Researching Children

In this paper we explore some current issues in, what has come to be called, the new sociology of childhood and how these relate to the process of researching childrens lives in general, and to our own research in particular. We discuss the developmental model of childhood, before going on to explore ideas about children as, on the one hand, inhabiting a relatively autonomous realm and, on the other as part of the same social world as adults but with different sets of competencies. The implications of these differing positions for researching children will be assessed prior to a discussion of the design of our current research, on children and risk, and the wider implications of our reflections on the research process.

Risk and sociocultural theory: Risk anxiety and the social construction of childhood

Introduction The theorization of risk and risk anxiety has, so far, paid scant attention to issues of gender and generation. In particular, there has been little work on childhood in this area, despite the pervasiveness of public anxiety about risks to children. In our everyday world generalized risks, of the kind Beck (1992) associates with the democratization of risk, are deemed more pernicious when they threaten childrens wellbeing. This is evident in responses to a range of ‘risks’ from concerns about food contamination and disease transmission to the threat of violence. The intensity of public anxiety about dangers to children is most marked in extreme and dramatic circumstances, as in the media response to the shooting of sixteen children in the Scottish city of Dunblane in March 1996. Yet the reaction is equally intense when threats come from children, for example when a child commits a violent crime. This is not as paradoxical as it seems for, as we will argue in this chapter, it is not only children who are perceived as being ‘at risk’ but the institution of childhood itself. Childhood is increasingly being constructed as a precious realm under siege from those who would rob children of their childhoods, and as being subverted from within by children who refuse to remain childlike. Our focus here is on risk and risk anxiety in relation to children and, more specifically, on the sexualization of risk and the consequences of this for childrens daily lives. We take it as axiomatic that childhood is socially constructed and that central to this construction is the imputation of ‘specialness’ to children (as particularly cherished beings) and childhood (as a cherished state of being).

Why a materialist feminism is (Still) Possible—and necessary

The title of this paper derives from Christine Delphys (1980) rejoinder to her Marxist critics, formulated at a time when feminist theory was centrally preoccupied with material social inequalities. Since then, we have witnessed the so-called “cultural turn” as a result of which perspectives that focus on social structures, relations, and practices have been sidelined. Not all feminists, however, took this turn, and there have recently been signs of a revival of materialist feminism. In assessing the effects of these theoretical shifts, and in making a case for the continued relevance of materialist feminism, I will focus on the analysis of gender and sexuality. Here, I will argue that a sociologically informed, materialist approach has more to offer feminism than more culturally oriented postmodern and queer perspectives.

Sexual Antinomies in Late Modernity

It is widely assumed that late modern societies are becoming progressively more sexually liberal, regardless of whether this is seen as beneficial or not. However, ‘progress’ in this direction is, in actuality, very uneven and gives rise to a number of antinomies and associated anxieties. For example, in a society where erotic imagery is commonplace in the media, there are still enormous anxieties about preserving children’s sexual ‘innocence’ (i.e. ignorance); gay and lesbian chic exists alongside continued homophobic harassment and violence; queer destabilization of heterosexual norms co-exits with claims for inclusion into homosexual institutions; tolerance of pre-marital, even casual, sex and of marital breakdown and serial relationships coexists with intolerance of teenage pregnancy and the continuing reification of monogamy. This article will explore such tensions, raising questions about the continued ‘special status’ of sexuality and sexual relations.

Gut Reactions to Matters of the Heart: Reflections on Rationality, Irrationality and Sexuality:

The aim of this paper is to analyse tensions between the concepts of rationality and irrationality as they are deployed in modern discourses around heterosexuality. These discourses, we argue, are profoundly gendered and often contradictory. On the one hand, the pursuit of sexual pleasure is seen as a rational life goal, to be integrated into consciously constructed and commodified lifestyles and identity choices. On the other, sexuality is still seen as ‘special’ and spontaneous – an intractable inner drive which is not amenable to rational management. We seek to trace the genealogy of these discourses, arguing that heterosexual relations have been subject to increased rationalisation from the nineteenth century onwards: a process we call ‘the Taylorisation of sex’. In the process, rational sex has been defined largely in masculine terms. We consider whether this has changed and whether there has been a shift to ‘post-Fordist’ forms of sexuality permitting greater diversity and flexibility. We conclude, however, that there has been no radical break, but rather an intensification of pre-existing trends in which sex, and increasingly emotions as well, continue to be subject to rational management while always threatening to exceed the bounds of manageability.

The Personal Is Still Political: Heterosexuality, Feminism and Monogamy

Both of us came to feminism as young women in the 1970s, a time when feminists were almost universally critical not only of marriage itself, but also of monogamy. While influenced by the so-called ‘sexual revolution’, feminists sought radically to reformulate it in ways that contested men’s traditional privileges, afforded women greater sexual autonomy and enabled them to resist sexual exploitation and coercion. The theory and practice of non-monogamy were, at that time, central to the politics of the personal, seen as a challenge to oppressive heterosexual relationships – both by lesbian and heterosexual feminists. Now, in an era of ostensibly greater sexual freedom, when pre-marital heterosex is no longer widely condemned, when marriage is far less likely to be lifelong, when gay, lesbian and bisexual relationships are far more visible, the critique of monogamy has become so muted as to be almost inaudible. It barely featured, for example, in feminist debates about heterosexuality in the 1990s (Robinson, 1997). For some, like ourselves, the critique of monogamy remains central to living as heterosexual feminists while challenging the institutionalization of heterosexuality. This does not mean we have never compromised our convictions. One of us was once married, but was not monogamous for long; the other never married, but has cohabited and once did, for a time, concede to monogamy – a decision now sincerely regretted. We have both found that, in the context of a changing sexual-political climate, sustaining, or even supporting, non-monogamy brings new challenges. We both feel strongly however that the issue is a political one which affects our practice and our views about relationships, whether we have no sexual partner, one, or more than one at any given time. The feminist critique of monogamy was initially closely related to the critique of marriage. In western societies monogamy was central to the marriage contract

Faking like a woman? Towards an interpretive theorization of sexual pleasure

This article explores the possibility of developing a feminist approach to gendered and sexual embodiment which is rooted in the pragmatist/interactionist tradition derived from G.H. Mead, but which in turn develops this perspective by inflecting it through more recent feminist thinking. In so doing we seek to rebalance some of the rather abstract work on gender and embodiment by focusing on an instance of ‘heterosexual’ everyday/night life – the production of the female orgasm. Through engaging with feminist and interactionist work, we develop an approach to embodied sexual pleasure that emphasizes the sociality of sexual practices and of reflexive sexual selves. We argue that sexual practices and experiences must be understood in social context, taking account of the situatedness of sex as well as wider socio-cultural processes – the production of sexual desire and sexual pleasure (or their non-production) always entails interpretive, interactional processes.

Embodying Orgasm: Gendered Power Relations and Sexual Pleasure

Abstract In this paper we discuss the potential for developing a feminist approach to womens sexual embodiment via an exploration of heterosexual sexuality. We contest both pre-social, biological accounts of sexuality and supra-social accounts: those that fail to locate desire and pleasure in their social context. In so doing we seek to avoid more abstract forms of social constructionism by analysing gendered, sexual bodies in interaction and bodies as located in material social relations and practices. In focusing on sexual pleasure we will contest dis-embodied, asocial formulations of desire and consider how desire and pleasure may be reflexively understood in the context of everyday/everynight sexual practices. Taking orgasm as a paradigmatic case, we will consider the relationships between the ways in which womens orgasm is conventionally represented and the social construction of “faked” and “authentic” orgasms.

Rehabilitating Interactionism for a Feminist Sociology of Sexuality

In this article we seek to rehabilitate the radical insights of the pragmatist/interactionist tradition and to establish its continued relevance to a distinctively sociological and feminist analysis of sexuality. We argue for the importance of the contribution of Gagnon and Simon in arguing for a fully social understanding of sexuality. We offer an account of the process whereby interactionism has been rendered all but invisible and make a case for recovering its insights. We argue that interactionism accounts for the processes through which sexuality is constituted culturally, inter-personally and intrapsychically and addresses the actualities of everyday social practices and is therefore ideally suited to grappling with the complexities of contemporary sexual life.