The sociology of sexualities, as a burgeoning field of sociology, has generated exciting theoretical developments. Through a project that denaturalizes, de-stigmatizes, and de-pathologizes the normative system and knowledge about human sexualities, sociologists have challenged essentialist and taken-for-granted understandings of sexualities, shedding light on the ways in which sexualities are socially (re)produced, negotiated, challenged, and transformed. This session invites papers that use classical and/or contemporary sociological theories and/or theoretical approaches and frameworks to examine how sexual actors negotiate collective social/sexual lives and social institutions and oppressive structures shaped people’s sexual scripts of scenarios, interpersonal interactions, and intrapsychic fantasies. On top of continuing thinking through Foucault, Bourdieu, Butler, and Rubin’s theories, recent applications of globalization/transnationalism theories, digital sociology, queer of colour critiques, de/post-colonialism, anti-LGBTQ right-wing politics, critical disability theories, and more further expand the sociology of sexualities to explore the intersectional inequalities, resistance, and opportunities of change for justice.
We welcome papers using innovative approaches to theorize how forms of (sexual) social stratification and hierarchies of desirability shape sexual actors’ experiences and chances of partnering, which, conversely, are structuring and structured by the power inequalities and oppressive matrix. This session aims to generate further conversation among scholars across different subfields in sociology, especially those intended to bring crip theory, queer theory, post-colonialism, Black feminist thoughts, anti-racism and critical race/ethnicity theory, critical Indigenous studies, queer Asias/Pacific/Islanders critiques, and other theoretical perspectives to this body of literature.
