Abstract
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, interpersonally and intrapsychically and addresses the actualities of everyday social practices and is therefore ideally suited to grappling with the complexities of contemporary sexual life.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 811-826 |
| Number of pages | 16 |
| Journal | Sociology |
| Volume | 44 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Oct 2010 |
Keywords
- feminism
- gender
- interactionism
- John Gagnon
- sexuality
- sexual scripts
- sociology
- William Simon