Suchergebnisse

2007 Choice Outstanding Academic TitleWinner of the Passing the Torch Award from the Center for Lesbian and Gay StudiesIt has been called sperm, semen, seed, cum, jizz, spunk, gentlemen's relish, and splooge. But however the "tacky, opaque liquid that comes out of the penis" is described, the very act of defining "sperm" and "semen" depends on your point of view. For Lisa Jean Moore, how sperm comes to be known is based on who defines it (a scientist vs. a defense witness, for example), under what social circumstances it is found (a doctor's office vs. a crime scene), and for what purposes it will be used (in vitro fertilization vs. DNA analysis). Examining semen historically, medically, and culturally, Sperm Counts is a penetrating exploration of its meaning and power.Using a ";follow that sperm" approach, Moore shows how representations of sperm and semen are always in flux, tracing their twisting journeys from male reproductive glands to headline news stories and presidential impeachment trials. Much like the fluid of semen itself can leak onto fabrics and into bodies, its meanings seep into our consciousness over time. Moore's analytic lens yields intriguing observations of how sperm is "spent" and "reabsorbed" as it spurts, swims, and careens through penises, vaginas, test tubes, labs, families, cultures, and politics.Drawn from fifteen years of research, Sperm Counts examines historical and scientific documents, children's "facts of life" books, pornography, the Internet, forensic transcripts and sex worker narratives to explain how semen got so complicated. Among other things, understanding how we produce, represent, deploy and institutionalize semen-biomedically, socially and culturally-provides valuable new perspectives on the changing social position of men and the evolving meanings of masculinity. Ultimately, as Moore reveals, sperm is intimately involved in not only the physical reproduction of males and females, but in how we come to understand ourselves as men and women

The North American Horseshoe Crab ( Limulus polyphemus) spawns on Plumb Beach, a New York City and National Park Service park that borders the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn, New York. This sociological research article examines my experiences of joining a biological research team studying the reproductive practices of horseshoe crabs at different shoreline habitats. This article tracks how engaging in multispecies ethnography and intraspecies mindfulness changes my everyday life considerations as a human, sociologist, commuter and resident of New York City. Using contemporary social theories, I demonstrate the crabs, humans, cars, sand, eggs, water, wind live in a mesh with connections to ecologists, politicians, pharmaceutical companies, and geomorphology. I am sharing a revelatory moment of understanding my place as a researcher within the mesh, interconnected with the site of research, the objects of research, as well as global variables that are beyond human control (and possibly understanding).

Safer sex has emerged as a collection of practices and ideas deployed to combat the spread of AIDS. Prevention messages and rituals of safer sex each rely on constructing a potential user's relationship to latex devices. This article is based on an analysis of twenty-seven interviews conducted with people in the sex trade. Since sex workers make it their business to exchange sexual services for economic compensation, many have become extremely sophisticated in their innovations and expressions of eroticism using safer sex techniques. Sex workers are one of a group of key (new) knowledge producers focused on safer sexual practices. Their worlds are metaphoric laboratories for empiri cal studies of emergent sexual practices. This article describes the innovations of the use of technologies of safer sex and the configuration of users.

This article examines shifts in the legal, medical, and common-sense logics governing the designation of sex on birth certificates issued by the City of New York between 1965 and 2006. In the initial iteration, the stabilization of legal sex categories was organized around the notion of "fraud"; in the most recent iteration, "permanence" became the measure of authenticity. We frame these legal constructions of sex with theories about the "natural attitude" toward gender.