MTU Library Catalogue

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The Cultural construction of sexuality / edited by Pat Caplan.

Contributor(s): Caplan, Patricia.
Material type: materialTypeLabelBookPublisher: London : Tavistock, 1987Description: xi, 304 p. : ill ; 23 cm. + hbk.ISBN: 042260870X m (hbk); 0422608807 v (pbk).Subject(s): Sex customsDDC classification: 306.7
Contents:
Introduction / Pat Caplan -- Questions of identity / Jeffrey Weeks -- 'Facts of life' or the eroticization of women's oppression? Sexology and the social construction of heterosexuality / Margaret Jackson -- Reason, desire, and male sexuality / Victor J. Seidler -- A note on gender iconography: the vagina / Shirley Ardener -- Social and cognitive aspects of female sexuality in Jamaica / Carol P. MacCormack and Alizon Draper -- Honour and shame: the control of women's sexuality and group identity in Naples / Victoria Goddard -- Beyond the Samoan controversy in anthropology: a history of sexuality in the eastern interior of Fiji / Allen Abramson -- 'Selling her kiosk': Kikuyu notions of sexuality and sex for sale in Mathare Valley, Kenya / Nici Nelson -- Rank, gender and homesexuality: Mombasa as a key to understanding sexual options / Gill Shepherd -- Celibacy as a solution? / Mahatma Gandhi and Brahmacharya / Pat Caplan.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The Cultural Construction of Sexuality confronts the nature of the relationship between sex, gender, and sexuality.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Introduction / Pat Caplan -- Questions of identity / Jeffrey Weeks -- 'Facts of life' or the eroticization of women's oppression? Sexology and the social construction of heterosexuality / Margaret Jackson -- Reason, desire, and male sexuality / Victor J. Seidler -- A note on gender iconography: the vagina / Shirley Ardener -- Social and cognitive aspects of female sexuality in Jamaica / Carol P. MacCormack and Alizon Draper -- Honour and shame: the control of women's sexuality and group identity in Naples / Victoria Goddard -- Beyond the Samoan controversy in anthropology: a history of sexuality in the eastern interior of Fiji / Allen Abramson -- 'Selling her kiosk': Kikuyu notions of sexuality and sex for sale in Mathare Valley, Kenya / Nici Nelson -- Rank, gender and homesexuality: Mombasa as a key to understanding sexual options / Gill Shepherd -- Celibacy as a solution? / Mahatma Gandhi and Brahmacharya / Pat Caplan.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Focusing on the cultural contexts and meanings of sexuality in different societies and different historical periods, this study complements the large and growing literature on cultural constructions of gender. It consists of a useful introduction and ten chapters, some of which concern Western societies and the rest non-Western societies (Fiji, Kenya, India). The contributors, mostly cultural anthropologists but also social historians, examine male and female sexuality from empirical and theoretical approaches. Sexuality is related to gender, power, socioeconomic class, the state, kinship and marriage, and symbolic systems. S. Ardener's study of iconography and gender symbolism is particularly intriguing. Bibliographies accompany each chapter, and the volume contains a name index and a short subject index. The editor is an anthropologist who has published widely on gender and social change in Africa, India, and Nepal. Appropriate for upper-division undergraduates and graduate students.-L. Beck, Washington University