The Role of Theory in Sex Research

This inside look at sexual radicalism in contemporary American culture calls into question two feminist orthodoxies: that the 1960's sexual revolution failed women, and that the sexual attitudes most prominent in current youth cultures are deplorably regressive.

Comparing the American sexscape she inhabits to the scene as perceived by feminist theorists, Carol Siegel ponders whether the sexual revolution may have succeeded, but in ways not recognise by scholars of gender and sexuality.

In discouraging undomesticated heterosexuality, academic feminism neglects the connection between mainstream opposition to all unrestrained sexual expression and the growth of new forms of homophobia in our times.

At the same time, the youth subcultures' challenges to these views of sexuality and gender are dismissed as insignificant, or misunderstood as sexist.In this book, Siegel accords them more respectful attention.

She draws on her own experience as a college student to create a personal history of academic feminism's early sympathy with bourgeois values. She looks at the development of American sex advice literature and at the reception of such 'transgressive' popular films such as "Basic Instinct", "Thelma and Louise" and "Natural Born Killers" to show that the most profoundly capitalist feminist theories have been the most influential.

A more heartening vision emerges in the book's second half where a record of conversations about sex and gender with young people, and of their responses to products designed for their consumption, takes the reader through some of today's most radical youth cultures and suggests new directions for gender studies.