The Ethos of Narrative: Rhetoric and 21st Century Sexualities

Abstract

In their edited collection, 21st Century Sexualities, Herdt and Howe (2007b) discuss the effective and sometimes ineffective ways people acquire sexual literacy—that is, ways of coming to know about healthy sexual practices, for example, conducting internet research about sex, viewing various forms of media that represent sex and sexualized subjects, and listening to folklore about sex. Through and because of these multiple genres, audiences must learn how to navigate competing discourses about sex, sexual education, and being represented sexually; one way they navigate is to understand notions ethos, or the credibility of a writer or speaker. Through a rhetorical–theoretical lens, this paper analyzes some of the connections between notions of ethos and ways of learning and being represented by sexual rhetorics.