Introduction to Sexuality Studies: Sexuality and the State
Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies 206
Spring 2015
Professor Andrea Friedman
123 Busch Hall
935-4339; afriedman@wustl.edu
Office Hours: Wednesday 1-3; or by appointment
TA:
Andia Augustin-Billy
Eads 015
augustin-billy@wustl.edu
Office Hours: Tuesday 9-10
Course Description
This course provides an introduction to the scholarly study of sexuality by focusing on the
ways that sexuality has been produced and regulated by the state and other social
institutions. Taking a social constructionist perspective, we will examine how sexual ideas and
practices are organized to “naturalize” understandings of individual identity, social relations,
and institutional power. What assumptions lie behind our ideas of sexuality? How are bodies
linked by the prevailing logic of sexuality? How does sexuality inform the way that we see
bodies as gendered, raced, or able-bodied? And what would a world that encouraged sexual
justice look like? These questions will be explored both theoretically and through historical
and contemporary examples.
Required Texts
Janet Jakobsen and Ann Pellegrini, Love the Sin: Sexual Regulation and the Limits of
Religious Tolerance
Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy: A Novel
All other required readings are on Ares (Course Reserves) and can be accessed through our
Blackboard page. I expect that you will have access to all readings during class so that you
can refer to them during discussion. In most cases, the best way to do this is to print readings
and bring them with you.
ELECTRONIC DEVICE POLICY: I STRONGLY PREFER THAT YOU NOT BRING TO CLASS ELECTRONIC
DEVICES THAT CAN BE CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET. My reasons for making this request are
succinctly explained by Anne Curzan in “Why I’m Asking You Not to Use Laptops.” As she
concludes, “if you need or strongly prefer a laptop for taking notes or accessing readings in
class for any reason, please come talk with me, and I am happy to make that work. I’ll just
ask you to commit to using the laptop only for class-related work.”
Class Requirements:

Class participation. Class sessions will consist, in the main, of brief lectures and
discussion of assigned readings. Participation in class (as an attentive and informed
listener and a speaker who engages in respectful and productive dialogue) is a
substantial part of your grade. If you have any concerns about your participation in
discussion, please see me to discuss strategies and/or alternatives for demonstrating
your engagement with course materials.
o As part of your participation grade, you will present a brief (5-10 minute)
introduction to one of the class sessions. Further information forthcoming.
o There may also be in-class assignments (eg, participation in small discussion
groups, reading summaries, free writes, others as neessary). These will be
assessed as part of your participation grade.
More than three absences (for whatever reason) will lower your class
participation grade.
Two 3-4 page reflection papers on assigned topics.
Take-home midterm exam
Take-home final exam
o



Your grade for the course will be assessed as follows:
Class participation
15%
Reflection papers:
15% each
Midterm
25%
Final
30%
ALL course requirements must be met to pass this course. For students who are taking the
course pass/fail or credit/no credit, a passing grade is C-.
INCLUSIVE CLASSROOM
Washington University provides accommodations and/or services to students with documented
disabilities. Students should seek appropriate documentation through the Disability Resource
Center http://cornerstone.wustl.edu/disabilityresources.aspx, which will approve and
arrange any accommodations. Please feel free to speak to me about your individual learning
needs.
Language or behavior that makes other students feel unwelcome in this classroom will not be
tolerated. Examples range from simply interrupting or ignoring others while they are talking
to overt harassment or intimidation with reference to race, sex, gender identity, sexual
identity, religion, ethnicity, nationality, ability, or political belief. Washington University’s
Policy on Discrimination and Discriminatory Harassment can be found at
http://hr.wustl.edu/policies/Pages/DiscriminationAndDiscriminatoryHarassment.aspx
ACADEMIC INTEGRITY
Plagiarism or other violations of academic integrity will result in a failing grade on the
assignment, and may result in a failing grade for the course. Please review Washington
University’s academic integrity policy at http://www.wustl.edu/policies/undergraduateacademic-integrity.html. A helpful guide to understanding plagiarism can be found at
http://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/QPA_plagiarism.html.
NOTE: This syllabus is a work-in-progress, and may be altered during the course of the
semester.
Course Schedule
INTRODUCTION AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS
WEEK 1
T
1/13
Th
1/15
WEEK 2
T
1/20
Introduction
Social Construction – An Overview
Read: Seidman, “Introduction to The Social Construction of Sexuality”; Katz,
“‘Homosexual’ & ‘Heterosexual’: Questioning the Terms”
Sexuality and Intersectionality
Th
1/22
WEEK 3
T
1/27
Th
1/29
WEEK 4
T
2/3
Th
2/5
Read: Collins, “Prisons for our Bodies, Closets for our Minds”; McCune,
“Introduction to Sexual Discretion”; Gossett, “Is it true what they say
about colored pussy?”
Safe Zones Training Session
Biopower
Read: Foucault, “Pantopticism” and “Right of Death and Power over Life”
The Invention of “Sexuality”
Read: Foucault, “We ‘Other Victorians’” and “The Repressive Hypothesis”
Feminist Framings
Read: MacKinnon, “Does Sexuality have a History?”; DuBois and Gordon,
“Seeking Ecstasy on the Battlefield”
Radical Approaches
Read: Rubin, “Thinking Sex”
CASE STUDIES: SEXUALITY AND SOCIAL ORDER
MARRIAGE
WEEK 5
T
2/10
Th
2/12
WEEK 6
T
2/17
Th
2/19
Marriage & Gender Order
Read: Cott, “Introduction to Public Vows”; Goldman, “Marriage and Love”
Marriage & Racial Order
Read: Pascoe, “Configuring Race in the American West”; “Bill DeBlasio’s
Interracial Marriage”; Cobb, “Who’s Still Afraid of Interracial Marriage?”
LGBT Marriage
Read: Spade and Wilse, “Marriage Will Never Set Us Free”; Windsor vs. United
States, Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion and Justice Scalia’s dissent
Marriage and Commodity Capitalism
Read: Ingraham, White Weddings, excerpts; The Knot, “Gay Weddings”
REFLECTION PAPER DUE
BORDER CROSSINGS: EMPIRE, NATION, IMMIGRATION
WEEK 7
T
2/24
Th
2/26
WEEK 8
T
3/3
Th
3/5
Race and Reproduction in the American Empire
Read: Briggs, “Demon Mothers in the Social Laboratory”
View in class: La Operación
TAKE-HOME MIDTERM DUE
Immigration and Violence
Read: Luibhéid, “Rape, Asylum, and the U.S. Border Patrol”; Alisa
Solomon, “Nightmare in Miami”; Grenier, “Landmark Decision on Asylum
Claims Recognizes Domestic Violence Victims”
Immigration and Sexual Identity
Read: Canaday, “Who Is a Homosexual?” The Consolidation of Sexual
Identities in Mid-Twentieth-Century American Immigration Law”
WEEK 9
SPRING BREAK
WEEK 10
T
3/17
Th
3/19
Migration and Transformation
Read: Kincaid, Lucy. Please read the entire novel before this class.
Kincaid, Lucy, cont’d.
THE FEMINIST SEX WARS
WEEK 11
T
3/24
Th
3/26
WEEK 12
T
3/31
Th
4/2
The Violence/Exploitation Approach
Read: Dworkin, “Men Possessing Women” excerpt; Dines, “Pornland,” excerpt
View in class: Mackinnon on Sexual Trafficking
The Sex Work/Sexual Empowerment Approach
Read: Petro, “Selling Sex: Women’s Participation in the Sex Industry”;
Erickson, “Out of Line”; Lopez, et al. “Who’re You Calling a Whore?”
Reisenwitz, “U.N. Human Rights Report”
Read: Fung, “Looking for my Penis”; Miller-Young, “Interventions: The Deviant
and Defiant Art of Black Women Porn Directors”
Which Side Are You On? Debating “Feminist” Sex
No Reading
REFLECTION PAPER DUE
FREEDOM DREAMS
WEEK 13
T
4/7
Th
4/9
WEEK 14:
T
4/14
Th
4/16
WEEK 15:
T
4/21
Th
4/23
The Problem with “Tolerance”
Read: Pelligrini, Love the Sin, pp. ix-73
Read: Pelligrini, Love the Sin, pp. 75-151
Rights and Wrongs
Read: Spade, “What’s Wrong with Trans Rights?”; Siebers, “A Sexual Culture for
Disabled People”
Rethinking Consent
Read: Weiss, “Becoming a Practitioner: The Biopolitics of BDSM”; Fowles, “The
Fantasy of Acceptable ‘Non-Consent’
Sex and Empowerment
Read: Lorde, “Uses of the Erotic”; Easton and Hardy, Ethical Slut, excerpt
Queer Theory and Sexual Democracy
Read: Delaney, Times Square Red, Times Square Blue, excerpt; Warner, The
Trouble with Normal, excerpt
TAKE-HOME FINAL DUE MAY 5, 6 p.m.