Since Intimate Matters : Recent Developments in the History of Sexuality in the United States

Abstract

Recent literature on the history of sexuality in America both confirms and complicates the interpretive framework set out in Intimate Matters twenty-five years ago. New studies reveal the ways reproduction has been highly structured by race and class. Attention to racial difference and race relations has moved from a dichotomous black and white model to multi-cultural explorations. Studies of marriage law, the construction of womanhood, the use of sexual violence, and other topics all demonstrate close connections between sexuality and racial hierarchy. Work on same-sex relations has moved beyond the largest cities and has found a variety of ways in which same-sex love has expressed itself and been understood. Increasing scholarly attention, finally, has focused on the role of the state in defining and policing the boundaries of normalcy.