Bernadette Barton is an American sociologist and author. She is professor of Sociology and Director of Gender Studies at Morehead State University. [1]
Queer theory is a field of post-structuralist critical theory that emerged in the early 1990s out of queer studies and women's studies.
Sexual objectification is the act of treating a person solely as an object of sexual desire. Objectification more broadly means treating a person as a commodity or an object without regard to their personality or dignity. Objectification is most commonly examined at the level of a society, but can also refer to the behavior of individuals and is a type of dehumanization.
Double penetration is a term that usually refers to a vaginal and anal sex act involving one penis penetrating a vagina while another penetrates the anus. It could also refer to the simultaneous penetration of either a vagina or an anus by two penises or objects.
A stripper or exotic dancer is a person whose occupation involves performing striptease in a public adult entertainment venue such as a strip club. At times, a stripper may be hired to perform at private events.
A strip club is a venue where strippers provide adult entertainment, predominantly in the form of striptease or other erotic dances. Strip clubs typically adopt a nightclub or bar style, and can also adopt a theatre or cabaret-style. American-style strip clubs began to appear outside North America after World War II, arriving in Asia in the late 1980s and Europe in 1978, where they competed against the local English and French styles of striptease and erotic performances.
Male prostitution is a form of sex work consisting of act or practice of men providing sexual services in return for payment. Although clients can be of any gender, the vast majority are older males looking to fulfill their sexual needs. Male prostitutes have been far less studied than female prostitutes by researchers. Even so, male prostitution has an extensive history including regulation through homosexuality, conceptual developments on sexuality, and the HIV/AIDS epidemic impact. In the last century, male sex work has seen various advancements such as popularizing new sexual acts, methods of exchange, and carving out a spot in cinema.
Peterson Toscano is a playwright, actor, Bible scholar, blogger, podcaster, advocate against global warming, and gay rights activist. Toscano spent nearly two decades undergoing ex-gay treatment and conversion therapy before accepting his sexual orientation and coming out as a gay man. He has since shared his experiences internationally through various media outlets, especially plays. His talks and performances use comedy and storytelling to explore LGBTQ issues, religion, and climate change.
Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture is a 2005 book by Ariel Levy that critiques the highly sexualized American culture in which women are objectified, objectify one another, and are encouraged to objectify themselves. Levy refers to this as "raunch culture".
Gilbert H. Herdt is Emeritus Professor of Human Sexuality Studies and Anthropology and a Founder of the Department of Sexuality Studies and National Sexuality Resource Center at San Francisco State University. He founded the Summer Institute on Sexuality and Society at the University of Amsterdam (1996). He founded the PhD Program in Human Sexuality at the California Institute for Integral Studies, San Francisco (2013). He conducted long term field work among the Sambia people of Papua New Guinea, and has written widely on the nature and variation in human sexual expression in Papua New Guinea, Melanesia, and across culture.
The relationship between religion and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people can vary greatly across time and place, within and between different religions and sects, and regarding different forms of homosexuality, bisexuality, non-binary, and transgender identities. More generally, the relationship between religion and sexuality ranges widely among and within them, from giving sex and sexuality a rather negative connotation to believing that sex is the highest expression of the divine.
Two-spirit is a contemporary pan-Indian umbrella term used by some Indigenous North Americans to describe Native people who fulfill a traditional third-gender social role in their communities.
Faye Ginsburg is an American anthropologist who has devoted her life to the exploration of different cultures and individuals’ styles of life. Ginsburg has published ethnographies about her fieldwork experiences in the U.S., Canada and Australia. The intercultural connections in her ethnographies have contributed to the fields of anthropology and sociology because they allow readers to understand other cultures through her narratives. Currently, she is an anthropology professor at New York University and the director of the Center for Media, Culture and History at NYU.
Eric Anderson is an American sociologist and sexologist specializing in adolescent men's gender and sexualities. He holds the position of Professor of Masculinities, Sexualities and Sport at the University of Winchester, in England. His research has been recognized for excellence by the British Academy of Social Sciences and he is an elected Fellow of the International Academy of Sex Research. Anderson is an advocate for the inclusion of gay men in sport and is America's first openly gay high-school coach, having come out at Huntington Beach High School, the same high-school that produced the nation's first openly gay, professional team sport athlete, Robbie Rogers who recently played for LA Galaxy.
William Bradford Wilcox is an American sociologist. He serves as director of the National Marriage Project and professor of sociology at the University of Virginia, senior fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, and a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He is author of Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization
Feminist views on sexuality widely vary. Many feminists, particularly radical feminists, are highly critical of what they see as sexual objectification and sexual exploitation in the media and society. Radical feminists are often opposed to the sex industry, including opposition to prostitution and pornography. Other feminists define themselves as sex-positive feminists and believe that a wide variety of expressions of female sexuality can be empowering to women when they are freely chosen. Some feminists support efforts to reform the sex industry to become less sexist, such as the feminist pornography movement.
A feminist stripper is a professional exotic dancer who does not conform to the stereotypes associated with exotic dancers, and instead identifies positively with the identity of stripper. Feminist strippers are sex-positive feminists who view their profession as a choice and a career field. Feminist strippers interact with their profession in a positive manner and view it as a female-centric form of power by asserting their autonomy and by making informed decisions in regard to the regulation of their bodies.
Pornification is the absorption by mainstream culture of styles or content of the sex industry and the sexualisation of Western culture, sometimes referred to as raunch culture. Pornification, particularly the use of sexualised images of women, is said to demonstrate "how patriarchal power operates in the field of gender representation". In Women in Popular Culture, Marion Meyers argues that the portrayal of women in modern society is primarily influenced by "the mainstreaming of pornography and its resultant hypersexualization of women and girls, and the commodification of those images for a global market". Pornification also features in discussions of post-feminism by Ariel Levy, Natasha Walter, Feona Attwood, and Brian McNair. Pornography began to move into mainstream culture in the second half of the 20th century, now known as the Golden Age of Porn. Several Golden Age films referred to mainstream film titles, including "Alice in Wonderland" (1976), "Flesh Gordon" (1974), "The Opening of Misty Beethoven" (1976) and "Through the Looking Glass" (1976). Pornification is a product of the widespread availability of porn on the internet.
The African-American LGBT community, otherwise referred to as the Black American LGBT community, is part of the overall LGBTQ culture and overall African-American culture. The initialism LGBT stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender.
Jane Ward' is an American scholar, feminist, and author.
Suzanna Danuta Walters is the director of the Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program and professor of sociology at Northeastern University, Boston. She is also the editor-in-chief of Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society and the author of several books, including The Tolerance Trap: How God, Genes, and Good Intentions are Sabotaging Gay Equality. She is the author of the op-ed "Why can't we hate men?" in The Washington Post.