The Sexual Self: The Construction of Sexual Scripts

by Stevi Jackson, Ken Plummer, Rebecca F. Plante

In the late 1960s two sociologists, John Gagnon and William Simon, developed the concept of sexual scripts as part of a larger project of treating sexuality like any other social phenomenon. In the end, their vision of social construction turned Kinsey on his head, and their model became the dominant paradigm of social science inquiry into human sexuality, and spurred the development of an entire field of Sexuality Studies. Sexual activity, they argued, was like other social processes, yet one of increasing importance in the construction of the self. Michael Kimmel has gathered together essays from three generations of scholars influenced by this perspective on sexuality. These include many of the foremost social scientists writing and researching sexuality today. The book begins with Kimmel's reflections on the unusual careers of Gagnon and Simon, examines the construction of both sexual identity and sexual behaviors in a variety of settings, and ends with the two of them speaking in their own provocative voices about their perspective in interviews conducted originally for a German journal in 1998.

Genres: Sexuality

304 pages, Paperback

First published July 10, 2007

Reviews

[Zoë · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book very interesting, especially the essay on 'The Social Construction of Heterosexuality' by Pepper Schwartz, which had some revealing things to say about assumptions that we make about sexuality, and Arlene Stein's piece, 'Shapes of Desire', which presented an interesting discussion of how lesbian sexuality is socially constructed.