Consumer Sexualities explores women’s experiences of shopping in ‘sex shops’ and using sexual commodities in their everyday lives. This enlightening volume shows how women take up sexual consumer ‘technologies of the self’ to work upon and understand themselves as confident and active sexual agents in postfeminist neoliberal culture. In guiding the reader through the historical emergence of sexual commodities ‘for women’ in feminism and postfeminism, Wood points to the normalisation and regulation of sexual practices and identities in and through consumption. Indeed, women’s accounts show the work involved in constructing the ‘right’ – knowledgeable, tasteful, and confident – orientation to sexual consumption and, by extension, in becoming an intelligibly ‘good’ sexual person. At the same time, the author draws upon de Certeau to show how the ordinary contexts in which sexual commodities are used can lead to unpredictable moments of adaptation, discomfort, playfulness, and resistance. A rich analysis of women’s everyday strategies of ‘making do’ with the kinds of femininity and female sexuality that sex shop culture represents, Consumer Sexualities will appeal to scholars of sociology, cultural studies and gender studies with interests in gender, sexuality, sex, and consumption.

Explores how evolutionary psychology has begun to identify the prehistoric origins of human behavior and discusses how those discoveries have influenced the way consumer spending is viewed and controlled by companies, retailers, and marketers.

Pleasures and Perils follows a group of young girls living on Nevis, an island society in the Eastern Caribbean. In this provocative ethnography, Debra Curtis examines their sexuality in gripping detail: why do Nevisian girls engage in sexual activity at such young ages? Where is the line between coercion and consent? How does a desire for wealth affect a girl's sexual practices? Curtis shows that girls are often caught between conflicting discourses of Christian teachings about chastity, public health cautions about safe sex, and media enticements about consumer delights. Sexuality's contradictions are exposed: power and powerless¡ness, self-determination and cultural control, violence and pleasure. Pleasures and Perils illuminates the methodological and ethical issues anthropologists face when they conduct research on sex, especially among girls. The sexually explicit narratives conveyed in this book challenge not only the reader's own thoughts on sexuality but also the broader limits and possibilities of ethnography.

This intriguing collection of stories and experiences from women of all walks of life allows readers to learn how others have handled everything from their first sexual encounter to abusive situations to rekindling romance in a long-term marriage.

This volume provides an in-depth examination of the role of sexuality in consumers’ life course and in the marketing of products and services. Leading scholars in the field define the most up-to-date picture of theories of sexuality in marketing and consumer research, mapping the topic through diverse theoretical lenses, addressing queer and feminist research, and putting sexuality and consumption in context. The book brings together leading international marketing scholars to build on the growing interest in theories of sexuality, queer theory, and intersectionality, which are gaining more interest among institutions and researchers interested in equality and diversity. While this book builds on existing expertise in consumer culture scholarship, it is the first time a marketing book focuses on sexuality, adding value to the existing repertoire in gender and feminist literature. The chapters are organised into three key sections: Part 1 maps the marketing and consumer research field, discussing how sexuality can be studied through different lenses; Part 2 focuses on queer and feminist theorising, drawing on LGBTQIA+ theory, queer theory, and theories of intersectionality to analyse how overlapping social categories interact to influence consumer behaviour, identity, and experiences in the marketplace; and Part 3 explores the personal and social aspects of sexuality, offering a broad overview of issues of gender and sexuality, digitalisation, and the sexual body. This text will be of direct interest to scholars and researchers within the fields of marketing, consumer research, sociology, and media studies. The aim of this book is to help scholars and students to develop a broader understanding about the interplay between sexuality, society, and the market.

Why does society have difficulty discussing sexualities? Where does fear of Black sexualities emerge and how is it manifested? How can varied experiences of Black females and males who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT), or straight help inform dialogue and academic inquiry? From questioning forces that have constrained sexual choices to examining how Blacks have forged healthy sexual identities in an oppressive environment, Black Sexualities acknowledges the diversity of the Black experience and the shared legacy of racism. Contributors seek resolution to Blacks' understanding of their lives as sexual beings through stories of empowerment, healing, self-awareness, victories, and other historic and contemporary life-course panoramas and provide practical information to foster more culturally relative research, tolerance, and acceptance.

This collection of essays seeks to establish Roman constructions of sexuality and gender difference as a distinct area of research, complementing work already done on Greece to give a fuller picture of ancient sexuality. By applying feminist critical tools to forms of public discourse, including literature, history, law, medicine, and political oratory, the essays explore the hierarchy of power reflected so strongly in most Roman sexual relations, where noblemen acted as the penetrators and women, boys, and slaves the penetrated. In many cases, the authors show how these roles could be inverted--in ways that revealed citizens' anxieties during the days of the early Empire, when traditional power structures seemed threatened. In the essays, Jonathan Walters defines the impenetrable male body as the ideational norm; Holt Parker and Catharine Edwards treat literary and legal models of male sexual deviance; Anthony Corbeill unpacks political charges of immoral behavior at banquets, while Marilyn B. Skinner, Ellen Oliensis, and David Fredrick trace linkages between social status and the gender role of the male speaker in Roman lyric and elegy; Amy Richlin interrogates popular medical belief about the female body; Sandra R. Joshel examines the semiotics of empire underlying the historiographic portrayal of the empress Messalina; Judith P. Hallett and Pamela Gordon critique Roman caricatures of the woman-desiring woman; and Alison Keith discovers subversive allusions to the tragedy of Dido in the elegist Sulpicia's self-depiction as a woman in love.

"This volume sets out to investigate critically existing lines of thought about sexuality in Africa, while also creating space for alternative approaches"--P. [4] of cover.

A pioneering survey of the social and cultural history of sexuality in early modern Europe.

The Encyclopedia of Consumer Culture is the first reference work to outline the parameters of consumer culture and provide a critical, scholarly resource on consumption and consumerism.