Walking the Line: The Personal and Professional Risks of Sex Education and Research

In this paper, I use stigma theory to argue that sexuality professionals are marked as sexually suspect. Personal and professional risks and benefits associated with careers in sexuality education and research are identified, as are the reactions of sexuality experts to their stigmatization. Audience and actor characteristics that facilitate personal stigmatization are isolated, along with factors that reduce professional stigmatization in academic settings. The origins of personal and professional risks are located in audience-held expectations about what sexuality experts are like as people. These audience-held stereotypes provide a backdrop against which the professional achievements of sexologists are assessed and evaluated in academic settings, constituting a potential source of bias.