History Of Sexuality In America Research Articles

Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America, 3rd edition by John D’Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman, and: Documenting Intimate Matters: Primary Sources for a History of Sexuality in America ed. by Thomas A. Foster (review)

Reviewed by: Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America, 3rd edition by John D’Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman, and: Documenting Intimate Matters: Primary Sources for a History of Sexuality in America ed. by Thomas A. Foster Brigitte Fielder (bio) Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America, 3rd edition John D’Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012 536 pp. Documenting Intimate Matters: Primary Sources for a History of Sexuality in America Edited by Thomas A. Foster, foreword by John D’Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012 256 pp. When the first edition of Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America appeared in 1988, one reviewer called it “the most comprehensive history of American sexuality to date” (Taylor 461). Twenty-five years later, the scope of the project is still ambitious, and its central tenet—that a complex nexus of economic, political, and social factors has informed the evolving discourses and practices of sexuality in the United Sates—remains widely accepted. The argument that sexual meaning is culturally defined and historically contextualized not only persists but has produced a broad, interdisciplinary study of the production of sexuality’s various meanings. The complexity of sexuality and the wide variety of factors contributing to its evolution illustrate the near impossibility of D’Emilio and Freedman’s task. Since the book’s original publication, the interdisciplinary field of sexuality studies has grown exponentially. Innumerable volumes of academic writing, conference panels, and undergraduate and graduate courses, in fields ranging from sociology and history to gender and sexuality studies and literature, have expanded on the many themes these authors broach. The book is perhaps most useful as a starting point, an entry into the vast array of work possible. D’Emilio and Freedman’s argument that the history of sexuality does not follow a straightforward progressive trajectory toward sexual emancipation is one of the work’s most enduring contributions. Continually illustrating the relationship between sex and power, the authors show how intersections of gender, race, and class inflect the historical conditions and construction of sexuality in a variety of contexts. The extensive research [End Page 605] they incorporate and analyze turns earlier models of sexuality’s evolution on their head. Of particular importance to early Americanist scholars is these authors’ refusal to write the history of sexuality as an advancement from repression to liberation or absence to visibility, while maintaining its persistent and continued relevance throughout American history. Part 1, “The Reproductive Matrix,” begins its exploration with white settlement in North America and treats the period from 1600 to 1800. Focusing on beliefs about the relationship between sexuality and procreation, the authors show how the practice of governing sexuality reinforced systems of gender, race, and class dominance. Conflicting cultures of sexuality are visible in the distinct structures that govern sexuality within settler colonist and Native American communities respectively. Notions of sexuality’s containment in marriage and relation to the production of the nuclear family frame differing responses not only to what types of sex are sanctioned (including extramarital and nonreproductive) but also to questions such as the status of children born out of wedlock and which adults are obligated to which children in their community. Although sex was often understood in terms of reproduction and governed by family and state institutions, both male and female sexual pleasure registered as important in the documents D’Emilio and Freedman examine. Most importantly, these documents show that sexuality was not a repressed secret, but a topic of public discourse and regulation. The use of sex as a tool of domination also emerges here, both in terms of sexual violence and as normative understandings of sexuality contributed to gender and racial oppression. In part 2, “Divided Passions,” we see an emerging struggle between the location of sexuality within the privacy of the middle-class family and the public commercialization of sex between 1780 and 1900. Here again, D’Emilio and Freedman trace relations of sexuality and the structure of the family to related power structures of race and class. The nuclear, heteronormative family becomes not only a cultural convention but also a structure that informs individuals’ relations...

Beyond Black and Blue: BDSM, Internet Pornography, and Black Female Sexuality

Feminist Studies 41, no. 2. © 2015 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 409 Ariane Cruz Beyond Black and Blue: BDSM, Internet Pornography, and Black Female Sexuality I have been the meaning of rape I have been the problem everyone seeks to eliminate by forced penetration with or without the evidence of slime and/ but let this be unmistakable in this poem is not consent I do not consent —June Jordan, Poem about My Rights Introduction: The Evidence of Slime Slavery, itself a kind of “slime,” remains an active marketplace for the production of Black female sexuality and its representations.1 The impact of chattel slavery and the pervasive rape of Black female slaves on modern 1. In using the term “Black women,” I am referring to African American women for whom the history of chattel slavery in the Americas has produced the socio-historical conditions that uniquely inform Black female subjectivity and sexual politics. My use of this term is not to essentialize Black American womanhood; rather, like Black feminist scholar Patricia Hill Collins, I use the term to gesture to a Black women’s standpoint influenced by the condition and experience of gendered and racialized abjection, a “common experience of being Black women in a society that denigrates women of African descent.” Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment (London: Routledge, 1990), 22. In this essay, I focus on Black women who practice BDSM, a small but nonetheless heterogeneous group of women in the already-marginalized larger kink community. 410 Ariane Cruz constructions and representations of Black women has been well theorized , in particular by a number of Black feminist scholars who have worked to rupture what Darlene Clark Hine terms the “culture of dissemblance ,” the politics of silence shrouding expressions of Black female sexuality.2 While the antebellum legacy of sexual violence on Black women is substantive, what has not been effectively considered is how Black women deliberately employ the shadows of slavery in the deliverance and/or receiving of sexual pleasure. That is, how the “slime”—a staining sludge of pain and violence—becomes a type of lubricant to stimulate sexual fantasies, access sexual pleasure, and heighten sexual desire. In this paper, I explore how Black women facilitate a complex and contradictory negotiation of pain, pleasure, and power in their performances in the fetish realm of BDSM.3 Situating my analysis in the context of hardcore BDSM Internet pornography and the controversial praxis of race play, I argue that BDSM is a critical site from which to reimagine the formative links between Black female sexuality and violence. Race play is a BDSM practice that explicitly uses race to script power exchange and the dynamics of domination and submission. Most commonly an interracial erotic play, race play employs racism, often involving the exchange of racist language, role-playing, and the construction of racist scenes. Eroticizing not just racism, but the miscegenation taboo, racial difference, and (hyper) 2. See Darlene Clark Hine, “Rape and the Inner Lives of Black Women in the Middle West,” Signs 14, no. 4 (1989): 912–920. For more on Black female slave sexual assault and its aftermath, see Hazel V. Carby, Reconstructing Womanhood: The Emergence of the Afro-American Woman Novelist (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987); Ann duCille, “‘Othered’ Matters: Reconceptualizing Dominance and Difference in the History of Sexuality in America,” Journal of the History of Sexuality 1, no. 1 (1990): 102–27; Elsa Barkley Brown, “Imaging Lynching: African American Women, Communities of Struggle, and Collective Memory,” in African American Women Speak Out on Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas, ed. Geneva Smitherman (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1995), 100–24; and Cheryl Harris, “Whiteness As Property ,” Harvard Law Review 106, no. 8 (June 1993): 1707–91. 3. BDSM is an umbrella term that stands in for bondage/discipline (B/D), domination /submission (D/S), and sadism/masochism or sadomasochism (S/M). For the purposes of this paper I exchange S/M, S&M, and/or SM with the more contemporary label BDSM. For more about the terminology of BDSM, see Margot Weiss, Techniques of Pleasure: BDSM and the Circuits of Sexuality (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011). Ariane Cruz 411 racialization itself...

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

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.

Documenting intimate matters: primary sources for a history of sexuality in America

Over time, sexuality in America has changed dramatically. Frequently redefined and often subject to different systems of regulation, it has been used as a means of control; it has been a way to understand ourselves and others; and it has been at the center of fierce political storms, including some of the most crucial changes in civil rights in the last decade. Edited by Thomas A. Foster, Documenting Matters features seventy-two documents that collectively highlight the broad diversity inherent in the history of American sexuality. Complementing the third edition of Intimate Matters, by John D'Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman - often hailed as the definitive survey of sexual history in America - the multiple narratives presented by these documents reveal the complexity of this subject in US history. The historical moments captured in this volume will show that, contrary to popular misconception, the history of sexuality is not a simple story of increased freedoms and sexual liberation, but an ongoing struggle between change and continuity.

Intimate matters: a history of sexuality in America

Intimate matters: a history of sexuality in America

Sex and the Eighteenth-Century Man: Massachusetts on the History of Sexuality in America

Book Review| April 01 2008 Sex and the Eighteenth-Century Man: Massachusetts on the History of Sexuality in America Sex and the Eighteenth-Century Man: Massachusetts on the History of Sexuality in America, Thomas A. Foster. HEATHER MUNRO PRESCOTT HEATHER MUNRO PRESCOTT Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Connecticut History Review (2008) 47 (1): 177–178. https://doi.org/10.2307/44369811 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation HEATHER MUNRO PRESCOTT; Sex and the Eighteenth-Century Man: Massachusetts on the History of Sexuality in America. Connecticut History Review 1 January 2008; 47 (1): 177–178. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/44369811 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveUniversity of Illinois PressConnecticut History Review Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Article PDF first page preview Close Modal Issue Section: Book Reviews You do not currently have access to this content.

Thomas A. Foster.Sex and the Eighteenth-Century Man: Massachusetts and the History of Sexuality in America.:Sex and the Eighteenth‐Century Man: Massachusetts and the History of Sexuality in America

Thomas A. Foster.<i>Sex and the Eighteenth-Century Man: Massachusetts and the History of Sexuality in America</i>.:Sex and the Eighteenth‐Century Man: Massachusetts and the History of Sexuality in America

Sex and the Eighteenth-Century Man: Massachusetts and the History of Sexuality in America

Sex and the Eighteenth-Century Man: Massachusetts and the History of Sexuality in America

The History of Teaching and Talking about Sex in Schools

It has never been easy to talk about sex in schools, much less to offer any formal curriculum. That difficulty has extended to historical research on the subject as well. However, a significant body of historical work on sexuality has been published in recent decades, including John D'Emilio and Estelle Freedman's contemporary classic, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America (1988, 1997). Groundbreaking works such as this have inspired new historical scholarship on sexuality in a range of social contexts, including schools. Chief among these are two recent books on the history of sex education in United States public schools, a previously underresearched area. These two works, in turn, provide important groundwork on which a rich variety of scholarship in the history of education may yet be written. The first of these volumes, Jeffrey Moran's Teaching Sex: The Shaping ofAdolescence in the 20th Century, chronicles the development of formal sex education programs in public schools from the progressive era through the present. Moran frames these programs as means by which adults have attempted to alter the sexual behavior of adolescents. He argues that there is little evidence these programs ultimately have achieved their stated ends. Instead, sex education battles have revealed much about the values that adults have wished to impart to youth.

Morton's Maypole and the Indians: Publishing in Early New England

of New England (London: Charles Green, 1632 [1637])—which is reprinted in facsimile in Force, Tracts and Other Papers, vol. 2. 9. I draw heavily here on Michael Zuckerman’s summary in “Pilgrims in the Wilderness: Community, Modernity, and the Maypole at Merry Mount,” New England Quarterly 50, no. 2 (1977): 255–77. Dempsey’s biography in NEC gives a good sense of the topography of scholarship on Morton. See also Minor Wallace Major, “William Bradford Versus Thomas Morton,” Early American Literature 5, no. 2 (1970): 1–13; and “Thomas Morton and His New English Canaan” (Ph.D. diss., University of Colorado, 1957). John D’Emilio and Estelle Freedman begin their history of sexuality in America with this story; Morton is a prime example of the way that sexuality, race, and information culture are mutually constitutive from the beginnings of English colonization (Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America [New York: Harper & Row, 1988]). 10. For the story of Morton’s unfortunate marital career prior to emigrating, see NEC, 73–81; and Philip Ranlet, “The Lord of Misrule: Thomas Morton of Merry Mount,” New England Historical and Genealogical Register 134 (October 1980): 282–90. 11. Ma-re Mount had Wve names within about a year: Passonagessit, Mount Wollaston, Morton’s Maypole and the Indians 15 01chap1.qxd 10/1/02 10:14 AM Page 15

Sexual Visions: Images of Gender in Science and Medicine between the Eighteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Ludmilla JordanovaSexual Science: The Victorian Construction of Womanhood. Cynthia Eagle RussetConsuming Desire: Sexual Science and the Emergence of a Culture of Abundance, 1871-1914. Lawrence BirkenIntimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America. John D'Emilio , Estelle B. Freedman

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsSexual Visions: Images of Gender in Science and Medicine between the Eighteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Ludmilla Jordanova Sexual Science: The Victorian Construction of Womanhood. Cynthia Eagle Russet Consuming Desire: Sexual Science and the Emergence of a Culture of Abundance, 1871-1914. Lawrence Birken Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America. John D'Emilio , Estelle B. Freedman Alice AdamsAlice Adams Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Signs Volume 16, Number 2Winter, 1991 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/494664 Views: 11Total views on this site Copyright 1991 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America. By John D'Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1988. xx plus 428 pp.)

Journal Article Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America. By John D'Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1988. xx plus 428 pp.) Get access Steven Seidman Steven Seidman State University at Albany Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of Social History, Volume 24, Issue 2, Winter 1990, Pages 391–394, https://doi.org/10.1353/jsh/24.2.391 Published: 01 December 1990

Historical Interpretation and Legal Advocacy: Rethinking the Webster Amicus Brief

WHEN I WAS FIRST CONTACTED about the historians' amicus brief in the Webster case, I had two simultaneous reactions. The first was a strong desire to apply my own research on the history of sexuality in America to the effort to defend women's reproductive choices, for I believe that the right to choose abortion is critical to the advancement of gender equality. The second reaction was a small but nagging fear about the potential problems I might encounter in using historical research in a legal case, a fear that I attributed to the chilling effect that still lingers from the bitter controversy of the Sears case.' Given the polarization among women's historians in that instance, I wondered who might challenge or attempt to refute my historical views about abortion, and at what cost to me in terms of professional and personal energy. The former feeling heavily outweighed the latter, and I joined the effort to oppose Webster. Happily, my fear of intra-professional conflict proved unfounded. As far as I could tell, no historians came forth to support Webster or to attack the hundreds of historians who supported this amicus brief. (Given the outcome of the case, I wonder in retrospect about the usefulness of historical arguments and historians' briefs-are we in fact the kiss of death?) Whatever the answer to this larger, rhetorical question about the effect of historical testimony on legal advocacy, I want to emphasize that the unity of purpose in defending Roe v. Wade did not necessarily imply a

Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America.

Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America.

Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America

Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America

Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America

Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America

John D'Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman. Intimate matters: A history of sexuality in America. New York: Harper and Row, 1987. xx + 428 pp. $24.95 (cloth) (Reviewed by Roy Porter)

John D'Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman. Intimate matters: A history of sexuality in America. New York: Harper and Row, 1987. xx + 428 pp. $24.95 (cloth) (Reviewed by Roy Porter)

John D'emilio and Estelle B. Freedman. &lt;italic&gt;Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America&lt;/italic&gt;. New York: Harper and Row. 1988. Pp. xx, 428. $24.95

Journal Article John D'emilio and Estelle B. Freedman. Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America. New York: Harper and Row. 1988. Pp. xx, 428. $24.95 Get access D'emilio John and Freedman Estelle B.. Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America. New York: Harper and Row. 1988. Pp. xx, 428. $24.95. Steven Mintz Steven Mintz University of Houston Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 94, Issue 3, June 1989, Pages 833–835, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/94.3.833-a Published: 01 June 1989

Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America

Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America

Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America

Journal Article Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America. By John D'Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman. (New York: Harper & Row, 1988. xx + 428 pp. $24.95.) Get access Thomas L. Altherr Thomas L. Altherr Metropolitan State College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 75, Issue 4, March 1989, Pages 1294–1295, https://doi.org/10.2307/1908655 Published: 01 March 1989