Introducing the New Sexuality Studies: Original Essays is an innovative, reader-friendly collection of essays that introduces the field of sexuality studies to undergraduate students. Examining the social, cultural, and historical dimensions of sexuality, this collection is designed to serve as a comprehensive yet accessible textbook for sexuality courses at the undergraduate level. The fourth edition adds 51 new essays whilst retaining 33 of the most popular essays from previous editions.

It features perspectives that are intersectional, transnational, sex positive, and attentive to historically marginalized groups along multiple axes of inequality, including gender, race, class, ability, body size, religious identity, age, and, of course, sexuality. Essays explore how a wide variety of social institutions, including medicine, religion, the state, and education, shape sexual desires, behaviors, and identities. Sources of, and empirical research on, oppression are discussed, along with modes of resistance, activism, and policy change.

The fourth edition also adds new user-friendly features for students and instructors. Keywords are italicized and defined, and each chapter concludes with review questions to help students ascertain their comprehension of key points. There is also an online annotated table of contents to help readers identify key ideas and concepts at a glance for each chapter.

Nancy L. Fischer is Professor and Chair of Sociology at Augsburg University in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. Dr. Fischer is a former Chair and former Secretary of the American Sociological Association's Section on Sexualities. She is co-editor of The Routledge Handbook of Heterosexualities Studies (Routledge, 2020) and, in 2013, edited a special section of The Sociological Quarterly on Critical Heterosexuality Studies. Besides sexuality, her research interests include vintage fashion and Urban Studies.

Laurel Westbrook is Professor of Sociology at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA. Dr. Westbrook is the author of Unlivable Lives: Violence and Identity in Transgender Activism (University of California Press, 2021). Their scholarship has also been published in Sexualities, Gender & Society, and the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, among others, and has been recognized with multiple awards from the American Sociological Association.

Introducing the New Sexuality Studies: Original Essays is an innovative, reader-friendly collection of essays that introduces the field of sexuality studies to undergraduate students. Examining the social, cultural, and historical dimensions of sexuality, this collection is designed to serve as a comprehensive yet accessible textbook for sexuality courses at the undergraduate level. The fourth edition adds 51 new essays whilst retaining 33 of the most popular essays from previous editions.

It features perspectives that are intersectional, transnational, sex-positive, and attentive to historically marginalized groups along multiple axes of inequality including gender, race, class, ability, body size, religious identity, age, and, of course, sexuality. Essays explore how a wide variety of social institutions including medicine, religion, the state, and education shape sexual desires, behaviors, and identities. Sources of, and empirical research on, oppression are discussed, along with modes of resistance, activism, policy change, and sex positivity.

The fourth edition also adds new user-friendly features for students and instructors. Keywords are highlighted and defined, and each chapter concludes with review questions to help students ascertain their comprehension of key points. There is also an online annotated table of contents to help readers identify key ideas and concepts at a glance for each chapter.

Part 1: Laying the Foundations

1. Welcome to the New Sexuality Studies

Steven Seidman

2. Construction as a Social Process

Lars D. Christiansen and Nancy L. Fischer

3. The Shifting Boundaries of Sexual Morality

Nancy L. Fischer

4. Trans Categories and the Sex/Gender/Sexuality System: How Transforming Understandings of Sex and Gender can Shift Sexuality

Laurel Westbrook

5. Unthinking Compulsory Sexuality: Introducing Asexuality

Ela Przybylo

6. The Dos and Don'ts of Dating: Heterosexual and LGBTQ Dating Rituals as Sexual Scripts

Ellen Lamont

7. Why Sexual Identities, Behaviors, and Attractions Do Not Always "Match"

Tony Silva

8. Method Matters: Discovering How Early Motherhood, Monogamy, and Social Class Shape Young Women's Sexuality

Jamie Budnick

9. Suicide Is Only Part of the Story: Telling Wounded Truths About LGBTQ Youth

Tom Waidzunas

10. Sex-Positivity: A Black Feminist Gift

Angela Jones

Part 2: Bodies and Behaviors

11. The History and Politics of Sexual Intercourse

Kerwin Kaye

12. Polishing the Pearl: Discoveries of the Clitoris

Lisa Jean Moore

13. But Can You Ever Win? Genital Cosmetic Procedures, the Promise of Vulval Perfection, and the Production of Vulval Distress

Virginia Braun

14. The Social Meanings and Practices of Orgasm

Juliet Richters

15. Anal Sex: Phallic and Other Meanings

Simon Hardy

16. Rethinking Dick Pics

Ben Light, Susanna Paasonen and Kylie Jarrett

17. Reconceiving Unintended Pregnancy: Considering Context in Sexual and Reproductive Decision-Making

Jennifer A. Reich

18. Sex in Later-Life: Beyond Dysfunction and the Coital Imperative

Linn J. Sandberg

19. "There's Really No Reason to Settle": Size Acceptance as a Path to Sexual Empowerment

Jeannine A. Gailey

Part 3: Relating and Relationships

20. Romance and Other Threats to Our Future

Laurie Essig

21. One is Not Born a Bride: Weddings and the Heterosexual Imaginary

Chrys Ingraham

22. Yes, No, Maybe So?: Inequalities in Sexual Consent and Sexual Pleasure for Young Adults

Shannon Russell Miller

23. What Do Vulnerability, Shame, and Mindfulness Have To Do With Intimacy?

Jennifer Gunnsaullus

24. Interracial Romance: The Logic of Acceptance and Domination

Kumiko Nemoto

25. Romantic Apartheid: Digital Sexual Racism in Online Dating

Celeste Vaughan Curington and Jennifer Hickes Lundquist

26. Sexualized Othering in Multiracial Women's Experiences with Sex and Romance

Shantel Gabrieal Buggs

27. Gay Racism: The Institutional and Interactional Patterns of Racism in Gay Communities

C. Winter Han

28. Gender Labor, Racework, and Trans Pleasure: Transgender Individuals' Experiences in Intimate Relationships

alithia zamantakis and Coumbah Sidibe

29. "We Were on a BREAK!": Men Chasing Masculinity and…