Intimate Citizenship: Private Decisions and Public DialoguesUniversity of Washington Press, 2011 M10 1 - 192 pages Solo parenting, in vitro fertilization, surrogate mothers, gay and lesbian families, cloning and the prospect of “designer babies,” Viagra and the morning-after pill, HIV/AIDS, the global porn industry, on-line dating services, virtual sex--whether for better of worse, our intimate lives are in the throes of dramatic change. In this thought-provoking study, sociologist Ken Plummer examines the transformations taking place in the realm of intimacy and the conflicts--the “intimate troubles”--to which these changes constantly give rise. In surveying the intimate possibilities now available to us and the issues swirling around them, Plummer focuses especially on the overlap of public and private. Increasingly, our most private decisions are bound up with public institutions such as legal codes, the medical system, or the media. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 44
... concerned with people. That was the concern of biology, psychology, the arts, maybe even humanism—but certainly not sociology. Luckily, a few years on, as I struggled to use sociology to make sense of my own life as a young gay man, I ...
... concerned with how our most intimate decisions are shaped by (and in turn shape) our most public institutions: how the public may become more personal and the personal become more public. This has long been a concern of sociology, most ...
... concerns around non-procreative, non-penetrative, non-reproductive, “recreational,” “safer” sexualities: telephone sex, cybersex, outercourse, masturbation, sadomasochism, “fist-fucking,” and the fetish scene. These in turn raise concerns ...
... concerns over bisexuality and polyamory,4 gender benders and gender blenders, queers, lesbian daddies, dyke boys, drag kings, and transgender warriors are put on the agenda! “Intimate troubles” and “choices” around infertility, giving ...
... concerns do seem genuinely new—those linked to modern reproductive technologies or cybersex, for example—many of them have long and tangled roots in the past. The new is often not as new as we like to think. Sex work—or prostitution—may ...
Contents
3 | |
17 | |
3 Culture Wars and Contested Intimacies | 33 |
4 The New Theories of Citizenship | 49 |
5 Public Intimacies Private Citizens | 67 |
6 Dialogic Citizenship | 84 |
7 Stories and the Grounded Moralities of Everyday Life | 95 |
8 Globalizing Intimate Citizenship | 117 |
9 The Intimate Citizenship Project | 139 |
Notes | 147 |
Bibliography | 163 |
Index of Names | 179 |
Subject Index | 183 |