CB ASSIGNMENT
Symbolic Interactions: What goes on sexually has to be placed in a context of meaning. This might
seem a very simple and obvious idea. And yet this is what makes it so important: most people still
cannot see sexuality in this way. We continue to think of our sexualities as remaining firmly locked in
the chains of biology. Whereas for humans surely the biological is really the least interesting aspect
of our sexuality. So, whilst there remain huge armies of sexologists studying the biological in its
various guises, the radical importance of the social still fails to find its proper place in the study of
the sexual. —Ken Plummer, “Memoriam for Bill Simon” (2001)
This article reflects on the linkage between developments in symbolic interactionist theory over
the past thirty years and the sociological study of the social construction of sexualities. After some
personal reflections on the development of the theory, four main themes are highlighted: the links
to postmodernism and queer theory; the paths to new research styles; some internal problems
with the theory; and the need to reinstall the importance of the body. The article concludes that
symbolic interactionism remains a major approach to the study of sexuality.
INTERACTIONIST SEXUALITIES SCHOLARSHIP
Sex is as important to study as any other seemingly mundane aspect of the collective and social
lives. There is in fact little about sexualities that is, truly, simply “mundane”; instead, there is a lot
that should captivate the interactionist imagination. In making the argument that desire is
phenomenological, not merely biological, and that the central elements involve naming and
defining, Gagnon and Simon established sexual script theory as solidly interactionist. They argued
that sexual scripts are culturally produced, shared, and reinforced social norms that serve as
blueprints to guide sexual (and gendered) behavior. “The term script might properly be invoked to
describe virtually all human behavior in the sense that there is very little that can in a full measure
be called spontaneous”, so even under what might seem like ideal circumstances, with the proper
“characters” and other elements, an interaction cannot become something that participants would
call “sexual” unless those elements are organized and named “sexual.”
Debatable observation: the broadest range of interactionist scholarship on sexual politics, sexual
identities, sexual bodies, sexual practices, sexual deviance, sexual technologies, sexual health, sexual
socialization, sexual (sub)cultures, sexual history—to mention a trifling short list of the myriad ways
to slice the vastness of the subject into not-so-discrete substantive areas.
It is profoundly ironic that the sex(ualities) literatures have so seriously neglected the sexual body.
“Sex” is an activity that engages the mind while also focally concerning and engaging the body.
This article reflects on the linkage between developments in symbolic interactionist theory over the
past thirty years and the sociological study of the social construction of sexualities. After some
personal reflections on the development of the theory, four main themes are highlighted: the links
to postmodernism and queer theory; the paths to new research styles; some internal problems with
the theory; and the need to reinstall the importance of the body. The article concludes that symbolic
interactionism remains a major approach to the study of sexuality.
