Introduction to the Special Issue

Teaching Sexualities

Just over a decade ago, Waskul and Plante (2010) called upon sociologists to recognize the myriad of ways sex and sexualities shape and find voice within every social context, structure, and interaction. Rather than a singular or niche subject limited to specific portions of social life, they echoed prior theorizing within and beyond sociology concerning the importance of how people negotiate sexed and/or sexual norms, beliefs, assumptions, desires, and expectations throughout their everyday lives, interactions within themselves, encounters with others, and interactions with broader social structures (see also Dubois 1928; Foucault 1976; Goffman 1977; Plummer 1995; Rubin 1984; Warner 1999). Further, they called for systematic examination of the role of sex and sexual meanings in the reproduction, challenging, and/or maintenance of societal inequalities along lines of race, class, sex, gender, sexuality, religion, nationality, and other social locations (see also Duggan 2003; Schrock, Sumerau, and Ueno 2014; Ward and Schneider 2009). The combination of these insights reveals the importance of sex and sexualities in all domains of social and sociological life.

In this special issue, we endeavor to encourage the continuation of such consideration within the context of sociological teaching. To this end, this special issue draws inspiration from prior works by sexual-minority teachers concerning the negotiation of sexual topics and coming out in classrooms (see, e.g., Adams 2010; Connell 2014; Miller and Lucal 2009). We also draw inspiration from Attwood and Hunter’s (2009) special collection of journal articles in Sexualities focused on strategies for teaching sexual media and politics in college classrooms. We further draw inspiration from sociological teachers writing about, for example, teaching statistics in ways more inclusive of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) populations (Nowakowski, Sumerau, and Mathers 2016); coverage of sexuality in sociology textbooks (Suarez and Balaji 2007); teaching about the relationships between gendered symbols, embodiment, and homophobia (Edwards 2010); strategies for understanding the impact of sexualization on girls and women (Moloney and Pelehach 2014); and the use of community-based research techniques in sexualities instruction (Bach and Weinzimmer 2011). In line with these previous endeavors, this special issue seeks to extend and encourage the further expansion of sociological teaching on sex, sexualities, and social life.

As a result, we sought to create a collection of articles that both (1) highlights innovative strategies for teaching sexualities and (2) complements, rather than replicates, other recent collections geared toward teaching and studying sexualities sociologically. In the first case, we sought to highlight techniques sociology teachers are utilizing to deliver lessons about sex and sexuality in relation to both positive and negative impressions of the subject within and beyond a given sociology department or classroom. In the second case, we considered submissions that went beyond the scope of many sociological volumes for teaching and studying sexualities with an eye toward granting space to aspects of teaching sexualities or strategies for such instruction that are less visible. Further, we sought to be inclusive of a diversity of authors in terms of race, gender identity and expression, and career stage. As such, we see this special issue as complementing and expanding the conversations in existing collections on sex and sexualities.

To this end, we also encourage sociology teachers to explore other recent edited collections concerning sex, sexualities, and the teaching of such topics. Currently in its fifth edition, for example, Sex Matters (Stombler et al. 2018) represents a long-standing text for teaching sexualities that curates a collection of essays and studies on a wide variety of sex, sexual, and sexuality topics. In a similar vein, Introducing the New Sexuality Studies (Fischer, Seidman, and Meeks 2016) represents a collection of entry-level sexualities texts specifically geared toward sociology classrooms and lesson plans. Likewise, Weinberg and Newmahr’s (2014) Selves, Symbols, and Sexualities provides an anthology of symbolic interactionist approaches to sexualities as well as historical and theoretical discussions of sexualities in sociology over the past century. Individually or collectively, these collections provide immersive, broad textbooks for the organization, construction, and delivery of courses in the sociology of sexualities.

At the same time, sociology teachers enter sexualities and other sociology courses at a time of increased visibility for LGBTQ topics, issues, and populations. In such cases, educators may wish to utilize Compton, Meadow, and Schilt’s (2018) Other Please Specify as a volume highlighting the experiences and perspectives of lesbian, gay, and trans sociologists on research, politics, and methods. Although this volume limits its attention to only certain portions of LGBTQ experience, sociology teachers may also turn to Simula, Sumerau, and Miller’s (2019) Expanding the Rainbow to integrate bisexual perspectives and experiences into their courses and, in so doing, expand further via content focused on polyamorous, asexual, kinky, trans, queer, and intersex populations and perspectives. Together, these edited volumes provide resources for integrating a broad array of queer perspectives and populations into courses.

In fact, sociology teachers interested in bringing queer perspectives into their courses may also draw upon an expanding collection of topical volumes. When seeking to integrate sexual cases and theorizing related to race, class, sex, gender, sexual, and other forms of inequality, for example, sociology teachers may look to Vidal-Ortiz, Robinson, and Khan’s (2018) Race and Sexuality, Bobel and Kwan’s (2011) Embodied Resistance, and Bobel and Kwan’s (2019) Body Battlegrounds for numerous and diverse treatments. Likewise, sociology teachers may turn to edited volumes like Jones’s (2013) A Critical Inquiry into Queer Utopias or Bernstein and Taylor’s (2013) The Marrying Kind to initiate debates on sexual politics, laws, and other sociosexual phenomena in their courses. In all such cases, collectively authored and edited volumes released in recent years provide a fascinating array of primary and supplementary text options for sociology teachers building courses and sections on sex and sexualities.

Especially for sociology teachers focused on graduate training in sexualities, it is noteworthy that similar options have emerged in other academic journals. As noted already, for example, Attwood and Hunter (2009) hosted a discussion in Sexualities on theorizing, teaching, and otherwise negotiating sexual media in classrooms and other academic contexts. Likewise, Waskul and Plante (2010) explore the prior century of sociology of sexualities and call for greater attention to sexual pleasure, embodiment, narratives, desire, and politics in their elaboration of “sex(ualities) and symbolic interactionism,” a call stretching back to the work of Dubois (1928) almost a century ago and repeated more recently by Jones (2020) in relation to sex work and Orne (2017) in relation to sexual subcultures. Further, the past decade witnessed the publication of special issues (Ward and Schneidner 2009) and systematic reviews (Schrock et al. 2014) on heteronormativity as well as theorization calling for similar critical interrogation of mononormativity, homonormativity, transnormativity, and sexual normativity (see, e.g., Carrigan, Gupta, and Morrison 2014; Johnson 2016; Schippers 2016) and the ways these systems intersect within society (Sumerau, Mathers, and Moon 2020). Although these examples represent only a few field-shifting contributions to the sociology of sexualities, each one may provide effective resources for engaging with these topics within and beyond sexuality-specific courses.

It is also impossible to talk about teaching sexualities without consideration of the difficulties and challenges that may arise due to anti-LGBTQ and sex-negative narratives, political movements, and other processes in contemporary societies. In such cases, sociology teachers may turn to works on sexual education and attitudes toward sexual minorities, like Risky Lessons (Fields 2008) or Not My Kid (Elliott 2012) for examples and reference. Teachers may also turn to first-person accounts and theoretical discussions about the status of sex and sexualities teaching and scholarship as well as how such status relates to race, class, and gender norms in the academy (see, e.g., Irvine 2015; Miller and Lucal 2009; Moore 2017). In such cases, as Adams (2010) notes, sociology teachers may consider and address the difficulties and possibilities of teaching sexualities and the way sexualities intertwine with other forms of inequality within environments more or less receptive to such topics.

Finally, recent years have also witnessed the emergence of sociological fiction focused on sex and sexualities. Building on traditions dating back almost a century (see Dubois 1928, 2014; Watson 2021), sociology-based novels focused on, for example, the regulation of sex and gender in society (Lowell 2020), the negotiation of romantic relationships (Leavy 2011, 2020), and the experience and survival of sexual and intimate violence (Leavy and Scotti 2017) provide students with accessible sociological lessons for classroom discussion and debate. Similarly, sociological novels concerning LGBTQ people in the southeastern United States (Sumerau 2018) and other parts of the nation (Sumerau 2020) offer opportunities for students to engage with LGBTQ issues and experiences in creative ways. In these and other examples, sociology-based fiction provides teachers and students more diverse content for delivering sections and courses on sociology, sex and sexualities, and the combination of the two.

It is amid all these resources that the current special issue came to fruition. Rather than seeking to replicate such efforts, here we have curated a collection of works that speak to and extend these endeavors. To this end, we begin with an examination of the navigation of academic, sexual, and racial norms and inequalities by Salvador Vidal-Ortiz. In this article, Vidal-Ortiz utilizes autoethnography to explore the experience of teaching sexualities as well as possibilities to conceptualize such methods in new ways. By situating whiteness, neoliberal academic environments, and power at the center of analysis, Vidal-Ortiz demonstrates how teaching sexualities represents both a political act susceptible to structural constraints and an effort to help students transcend individualist notions of social and sexual inequalities.

From this starting point, we turn to an example of a new method for teaching sexualities in sociology courses. Illustrating the usefulness and potential of horror as a teaching tool, Jaime Hartless demonstrates how the stories circulating through our broader culture provide methods for outlining sexual norms, expectations, and inequalities at different time periods and in relation to specific social groups. In so doing, Hartless utilizes the representation of LGBTQ people in horror films as a representational tool for understanding changes in societal reactions to LGBTQ people over the past century. Further, Hartless shows how horror, as a creative representation for mass consumption, contains sexual meanings that shift and change in relation to broader societal norms and expectations about sex and sexualities.

Moving from the stories we are told to the ones we might tell, Vaughn and Leon share experiences utilizing digital technologies to blend sexualities and storytelling in classrooms. In so doing, they demonstrate how the formation of digital stories can operate as a teaching tool for illustrating and reflecting upon sexual practices, pleasures, desires, and inequalities in society. In so doing, they demonstrate how the creation of stories may aid understanding and teaching of sociological concepts related to sexualities and other social norms and inequalities (see also Dubois 1928; Leavy 2011; Watson 2021). Vaughn and Leon thus provide an adaptable pedagogical technique for use in an increasingly digital social world.

Expanding this focus on new methods for teaching sexualities, the next article finds Jessica Fields and associates exploring the use of body mapping as a pedagogical tool. Specifically, they explore the limits of representation in sex, gender, and sexual teaching as well as the potential for developing embodied strategies for teaching sexualities. At the same time, their work highlights the usefulness of collaboration with students and the co-construction of sexualities classes, activities, and pedagogical methods. In so doing, their work highlights both the centrality of the body to sexualities and other social locations, and some ways embodiment may be utilized to facilitate the sexual education, reflection, and understanding of students and teachers occupying varied sex, gender, sexual, and other social locations.

In fact, the importance of social location takes center stage in Nicole Bedera’s proposal for a survivor-centered approach to teaching sexual violence. Especially as all teachers work within the confines and constraints of a given institutional context, Bedera outlines strategies whereby such instructors may avoid institutional betrayal of student survivors. Drawing on experiences as a sexual violence researcher, social commentator, and teacher, Bedera provides steps instructors can take to both (1) deliver content on sexual violence in a manner more likely to be beneficial for survivors as a whole and (2) position themselves as supportive spaces for survivors within our classrooms. Further, Bedera highlights the importance of a collaborative approach wherein teachers and survivors learn from and teach one another in fruitful ways. In so doing, Bedera provides a useful and practical framework for instructors navigating teaching sexual violence within different types of institutional and pedagogical contexts.

As readers will see throughout this special issue, context is an important consideration for teaching sexualities. Although the first six articles focus on varied settings and institutional norms within North America, Dennis A. Francis offers a glimpse into the difficulties and promise of teaching sexualities in Africa. Specifically focused on experiences teaching sexualities, race, and social norms in a South African university, Francis draws on prior pedagogical work and autoethnographic methods to illustrate the tension between institutional and cultural norms, on the one hand, and a critical approach to teaching sexualities, on the other. In so doing, Francis also shows how the teaching of sexualities can transcend any given type of course by serving as an expression of sociological knowledge and consideration relevant to all subfields, theoretical concerns, and methodological endeavors within the discipline.

Utilizing the case of introductory sociology classes at community colleges, Alison Better closes the collection of articles on a similar note. Specifically, Better illustrates some ways that sexualities scholarship, content, and discussions may be integrated into courses at all levels of a sociology curriculum. To this end, Better draws on experiences utilizing queer methods and content to facilitate sexualities discussions and assignments within intro classes. Further, Better reflects upon and provides solutions for the extra work, difficulties, and issues teachers may face when seeking to integrate sexualities into their courses and course materials. At the same time, Better illustrates the worth of such efforts and the possibilities that emerge when one moves beyond existing texts and resources that do not adequately consider the impact of the sexual on other parts of social theory, methods, and knowledge as a whole. In all these ways, Better illustrates not only the possibility but also the importance of more effectively integrating sexualities into sociological offerings throughout a given curriculum.

In all these ways, this special issue calls for instructors to reflect upon ways to better incorporate sexualities into their lesson plans while also providing innovative techniques for accomplishing this goal. Supplemented by film and book reviews of works that may find a variety of uses in both Sociology of Sexualities courses and sociology courses in general, the works in this special issue illustrate both the preponderance of sexualities in everything we do as sociologists and effective avenues for teaching sexualities in a sociological manner. We thus encourage readers to both consider the illustrations and arguments within this and other recent volumes on the subject and reflect upon the possibilities of incorporating the teaching of sexualities throughout our sociological endeavors.

Feel free to directly contact us for any queries related to this special issue.