Sexuality, culture and society: shifting paradigms in sexuality research

Over the course of the past three decades, there has been a significant increase of research on the social and cultural dimensions of sexuality. This paper reviews three major phases in the development of this work. In the first phase, work focusing on the social construction of sexual experience developed an important critique of the biomedical and sexological approaches that had dominated the field over much of the twentieth century. In the second phase, increasingly detailed studies of sexual life were developed which highlighted the cross-cultural diversity of sexual cultures, sexual identities and sexual communities. In the most recent phase, there has been a growing recognition of the complex relationship between culture and power, and increasing attention to the political and economic dimensions of sexuality. In spite of the significant conceptual and methodological advances that have taken place over time, however, it is also possible to identify a number of important questions that have not yet been adequately addressed and that may have been precluded by some of the perspectives that have come to dominate the field. The paper ends by focusing on the silences and invisibilities that continue to characterize this field of research and the challenges that must still be confronted in seeking to expand our understanding of these issues.