SOCI3081
Sexuality, culture and identity
Offer semester
Lecture time
Lecture venue
Credits awarded
2nd semester
Friday
11:00-12:50
CPD-1.24
6
What is human sexuality? How can we understand erotic desires? Why are some forms of sexualities being constructed as ‘normal’ while others are being considered as ‘deviant’? This course introduces students to how human sexuality is formed by social, economic, political, and cultural factors. Course materials will address different understandings of sexuality in various cultures with specific focus on Asian context. Classic theoretical texts on the sociology of sexuality will also be examined in this course. We will study closely how new forms of intimacy question our common ways of understanding romantic relationships and erotic desires. We will also examine the intersectionality of various factors including gender, class, race, ethnicity and health status that affect how we have come across with sexualities. Students will be introduced to readings that cover feminisms, gay and lesbian studies, queer theory, and contemporary sociological theories on gender and sexuality. At the end of this course, students will come to understand how political their sexual life is, namely gender politics, sexual politics, body politics, and politics of intimacy. Key topics include feminisms and feminist movements, transgenderism and intersexuality, beauty myth, HIV/AIDS, homosexuality, bisexuality, polyamory, sexual morality and religion, sexual rights, LGBTIQ+ movements, disability and sexuality, sex work, pornography, BDSM, and chem fun (a.k.a. chemsex).
By the end of this course, you will be able to:
To gain a basic understanding of gender and human sexuality.
To examine sexual identities and sexualities in different Asian cultures.
To understand the intersectionality of social factors embedded in human sexuality.
To develop critical thinking and apply theories on understanding sexuality.
To apply presentation skills and to develop writing competence for group projects and essays.
Tasks
Weighting
Reading Forum
10%
Ten-Minute TED Talk X Sexuality
15%
Pink News Analysis
10%
Reflective Paper
25%
Examination
40%
Bassi, S., & LaFleur, G. (2022). Introduction: TERFs, gender-critical movements, and postfascist feminisms. Transgender Studies Quarterly, 9(3), 311-333.
Butler, Judith. (1990). “Subject of Sex/Gender/Desire”. Pp. 3-44 in Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. London: Routledge.
Cawston, A. (2019). The feminist case against pornography: A review and re-evaluation. Inquiry, 62(6), 624-658.
Cuadra, M., Baruch, R., Lamas, A., Morales, M. E., Arredondo, A., & Ortega, D. (2024). Normalizing intersex children through genital Surgery: the medical perspective and the experience reported by intersex adults. Sexualities, 27(3), 533-552.
Plummer, Ken. (1995). “Intimate Citizenship: The Politics of Sexual Story Telling.” Pp. 144-166 in Telling Sexual Stories: Power, Change and Social Worlds. London: Routledge.
Richardson, Diane. (2000). “Constructing Sexual Citizenship: Theorizing Sexual Rights”. Critical Social Policy 20(1): 105-135.
Robinson, C. C. (2007). Chapter two: Feminist theory and prostitution.Counterpoints, 302, 21-36.
Rubin, Gayle. (2007[1984]). “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality”. Pp. 150-187 in Culture, Society and Sexuality: A Reader, edited by Richard Parker and Peter Aggleton. Abingdon: Routledge.
Schippers, M. (2016). “Introduction: Polyqueer Sexualities”. Pp. 1-36 in Beyond monogamy: Polyamory and the future of polyqueer sexualities (Vol. 13). NYU Press.
Califia, Pat. (1994). “Sluts in Utopia: The Future of Radical Sex”. Pp. 149-156 in Public Sex: The Culture of Radical Sex. Pittsburgh: Cleis Press.
Duggan, Lisa. (2002). “The New Homonormativity: The Sexual Politics of Neoliberalism”. Pp. 175-94 in Materializing democracy: Toward a revitalized cultural politics, edited by Russ Castronovo and Dana D. Nelson. Durham: Duke University Press.
Foucault, Michel. (1980). “Part One: We Other Victorian”. Pp. 3-13 in The History of Sexuality Volume One: An Introduction, translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage.
Jackson, Stevi. (2006). “Gender, Sexuality and Heterosexuality”. Feminist Theory 7(1): 105-121.
Jackson, Stevi and Sue Scott. (1996). “Sexual Skirmishes and Feminist Factions: Twenty Five Years of Debate on Women and Sexuality.” Pp. 1-34 in Feminism and Sexuality: A Reader, edited by Stevi Jackson and Sue Scott. New York: Columbia University Press.
Jenness, Valerie. (1990). “From Sex as Sin to Sex as Work: COYOTE and the Reorganization of Prostitution as a Social Problem”. Social Problems 37(3): 403-420.
Keyword Essays from the First Inaugural Issue of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, Postposttranssexual: Key Concepts for a 21st Century Transgender Studies. (2014)
Klesse, C. (2005). “Bisexual women, non-monogamy and differentialist anti-promiscuity discourses”. Sexualities, 8(4), 445-464.
Kong, Travis S.K. (2012). “A Fading Tongzhi Heterotopia: Hong Kong Older Gay Men’s Use of Spaces”. Sexualities 15(8): 896-916.
Kong, T. S. (2017). Sex and work on the move: Money boys in post-socialist China. Urban Studies, 54(3), 678-694.
Kong, Travis S.K. (2019). “Transnational Queer Sociological Analysis of Sexual Identity and Civic-political activism in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Mainland China”. The British Journal of Sociology 70(5): 1904-1925.
Kong, Travis S.K., H. Kuan, Sky Hoi-leung Lau and S. Friedman. (2021). “LGBT Movements in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China”. In Oxford Encyclopedia of Politics. Oxford University Press.
Møller, K., & Hakim, J. (2021). Critical chemsex studies: Interrogating cultures of sexualized drug use beyond the risk paradigm. Sexualities, 26(5-6), 547-555.
Plummer, K. (2019). “Critical sexualities studies: Moving on.” Pp. 156-173 in The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Sociology.
Race, Kane. (2017). “Click Here for HIV Status: Sorting for Sexual Partners”, “Making Up Barebackers” and “Chemsex: A Case for Gay Analysis”. Pp. 46-68, Pp. 69-88 and Pp. 128-150 in The Gay Science: Intimate Experiments with the Problem of HIV. Routledge.
Rampton, Martha. (2015). Four Waves of Feminism, assessed at https://www.pacificu.edu/about-us/news-events/four-waves-feminism.
Sanders, Teela, Maggie O’Neill, and Jane Pitcher. (2009). “The Sociology of Sex Work”. Pp. 1-15 in Prostitution: Sex Work, Policy and Politics. London: Sage.
Stuart, D. (2019). Chemsex: origins of the word, a history of the Phenomenon and a respect to the culture. Drugs and Alcohol Today, 19(1), 3-10.
Walters, Suzanna Danuta. (2005). “From Here to Queer: Radical Feminism, Postmodernism, and the Lesbian Menace”. Pp. 6-21 in Queer Theory, edited by Iain Morland and Annabelle Willox. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Weeks, Jeffrey. (2017). “The Invention of Sexuality”. Pp. 18-68 in Sexuality. New York: Routledge.
Wong, Angela Wai-ching. (2013). “The Politics of Sexual Morality and Evangelical Activism in Hong Kong”. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 14(3): 340-360.
Offer Semester | Lecture Day | Lecture Time | Venue | Credits awarded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
2nd semester | Friday | 11:00-12:50 | CPD-1.24 | 6 |
