Transgressive Sex: Subversion and Control in Erotic Encounters (Fertility, Reproduction and Sexuality: Social and Cultural Perspectives, 13)

ISBN 10: 1845455398 ISBN 13: 9781845455392

Publisher: Berghahn Books, 2009

Synopsis

Sex is often regarded as a dangerous business that must be rigorously controlled, regulated, and subjected to rules. Sexual acts that defy acceptable practices may be seen as variously defiling, immoral, and even unnatural. They may challenge and subvert both cultural preconceptions and the social order in a politics of sexual transgression that threatens to transform permissible boundaries and restructure bodily engagements. This collection of essays explores acts of sexual transgression that have the power to reconfigure perceptions of bodily intimacy and the social norms of interaction. Considering issues such as domestic violence, child prostitution, health and sex, teenage sex, and sex with animals across a range of settings from contemporary Oceania, the Pacific, South Africa, and southeast Asia to Euro-America, this book should interest all those who question the "naturalness" of sex, including public health workers, clinical practitioners and students of sex, sexuality, and gender in the humanities and social sciences.

About this title

About the Authors

Hastings Donnan is Professor of Anthropology at Queen's University Belfast.

Fiona Magowan is Professor of Anthropology at Queen's University Belfast.

From the Back Cover

Sex is often regarded as a dangerous business that must be rigorously controlled, regulated, and subjected to rules. Sexual acts that defy acceptable practices may be seen as variously defiling, immoral, and even unnatural. They may challenge and subvert both cultural preconceptions and the social order in a politics of sexual transgression that threatens to radically transform permissible boundaries and restructure bodily engagements. This collection of essays explores acts of sexual transgression that have the power to reconfigure perceptions of bodily intimacy and the social norms of interaction. Considering issues such as domestic violence, child prostitution, health and sex, teenage sex, and sex with animals across a range of settings from contemporary Oceania, the Pacific, South Africa, and southeast Asia to Euro-America, this book should interest all those who question the "naturalness" of sex, including public health workers, clinical practitioners and students of sex, sexuality, and gender in the humanities and social sciences.

Edition details

• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1845455398
• ISBN 13: 9781845455392
• Binding: Library Binding
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 290
• Editor: Donnan Hastings, Magowan Fiona