San Antonio College Library

"In this defense of pornography from a utilitarian-hedonist perspective, philosopher Alan Soble strongly rebuts both feminist and conservative criticism. Soble demonstrates that neither conservative nor feminist critics of pornography show much acquaintance with the genre they criticize, suggesting that purely political motives underlie their critiques instead of reasoned, objective arguments based on thorough empirical research." "Soble also faults...

Overview: Sexidemic is the first real cultural history of sexuality in the United States since the end of World War II. For a people who supposedly love sex, the author argues, Americans have had no shortage of problems with it. Since the end of World War II, in fact, we've had a contentious relationship with sexuality, the subject a source of considerable tension and controversy on both an individual and societal level. Rather than being a simple...

"What makes up the gay identity? What part do upbringing, family tradition, and cultural "norms" play on the development of one's sense of self? In A Queer Geography, Frank Browning looks at the effect that geography - literally being in different places in the world - has on the definition of sexuality and sexual roles." "From the streets of Brooklyn to the waterfront of Naples, from a small town in Kentucky to the lusty side of Capitol Hill, Browning...

"This is a pioneering study that examines the sale of sex in classical Athens from a commercial (rather than from a cultural or moral) perspective."--Jacket.

"Based on surveys made by members of the staff of Indiana University, and supported by the National Research Council's Committee for Research on Problems of Sex by means of funds contributed by the Medical Division of the Rockefeller Foundation."

Provides a historical, ethnographic account of the first movement to combat trafficking in women and girls for prostitution, initiated at an international congress in 1899, offering insights into gender and sexuality in global politics.

"Smutty Little Movies traces the adult film industry's transition from celluloid to home video beginning in the late 1970s alongside an examination of the cultural and legal efforts to regulate, contain, limit, or eradicate pornography. Drawing on a wide variety of materials, Smutty Little Movies de-centers the film text in favor of industrial histories and contexts. In doing so, the book argues that the struggles to contain and regulate pleasure...

"Sex and Harm in the Age of Consent cautions against the adoption of consent as our primary determinant of sexual freedom. For Joseph J. Fischel, consent is not necessarily always ethically sound. It is, he argues, a moralized fiction, and it churns out figures for its normativity: the predatory sex offender and the innocent child. Examining the representation of consent in U.S. law and media culture, Fischel contends that the figures of the sex offender...

The 'raging' frenzy of the sex drive, to use Plato's phrase, has always defied control. However, that is not to say that every civilization has not tried, using its most powerful weapon: the Law. At any given point in history some forms of sex were condoned while others were punished mercilessly. Jump back or forward a century or two or cross a border and the harmless fun of one society becomes the gravest crime in another. This work tells the story...