Communicative Sexualities: Queer and Feminist Theories in Practice, by Jacqueline M. Martinez, provides an argument for and illustration of how to pursue the direct study of students' lived-experiences of sexuality in a classroom or academic setting. It illustrates how communicology, and its methodological practice of semiotic phenomenology, allows for a sustained and rigorous study of the meaningfulness of sexual experience as it becomes manifest in the immediate, concrete, and embodied realities in the lives of those taking up such a study. The generous use of extended examples from actual classroom experience allows for a detailed consideration of the applied research methodology, as well as the ethical issues involved in making students' lived-experience of sexuality the main subject matter of the course. A major concern of Communicative Sexualities is to make explicit the many presuppositions about sex, gender, and sexuality that students and professors bring into the classroom. Martinez's text features detailed discussions of how to study lived-experience sexuality as the subject matter of research. It considers the steps necessary in suspending presuppositions regarding sexuality and gender, and focuses particular attention on the many presuppositions associated with the heterosexual-homosexual binary. Sexuality is understood as inherently good, yet also capable of becoming a means of perpetuating human isolation and degradation as much as an experience of tremendously shared human intimacy and mutual recognition. Discussions of historical context, the fact of temporality, and the intersection of person and culture provide a basis for explicit discussions of semiotics and phenomenology in communicology. As an introductory text, Communicative Sexualities: Queer and Feminist Theories in Practice, by Jacqueline M. Martinez, is an excellent primer for the advanced study of communicology and semiotic phenomenology. It one of very few texts that provides both a theoretical or philosophical discussion of phenomenology with the study of sexuality and gender as an explicit subject matter.

Excerpts from foundational work, recent journal articles and pieces written for this text about the role of communication in the construction and performance of sexualities in interpersonal contexts and public discourses.

Ten noted rhetorical critics disrupt the silence regarding nonnormative sexualities in the study of American historical discourse and upend the heteronormativity that governs much of rhetorical history. Enacting both political and radical visions, these scholars articulate the promises of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender public address. The contributors consider figures such as Abraham Lincoln, Eleanor Roosevelt, Harvey Milk, Marlon Riggs, and Lorraine Hansberry; and issues as diverse as collective identity, nineteenth-century semiotics of gender and sexuality, the sexual politics of the Harlem Renaissance, psychiatric productions of the queer, and violence-induced traumatic styles.

Sex, Ethics and Communication: A Humanistic Approach to Conversations on Intimacy addresses the need for thoughtful consideration of human sexuality and sexual communication. Written from a secular humanist perspective, the book places communication, rather than biology, psychology, or religion, at the heart of our understanding of sex and sexual behavior. The book steers away from strict standards of "normal" behavior, case studies and hypothetical examples, and encourages readers to contribute their own examples and reflect on their own experiences. Designed to encourage classroom discussion, Sex, Ethics and Communication can be used in courses on human sexuality, women's studies, communication ethics, and interpersonal communication. Written in a serious, honest style, the material still effectively employs humor to increase reader comfort with challenging topics. The book is divided into three sections. Part I covers sexual ethics, and discusses responsibility, vulnerability, the problems of categorization, and different ethics of communication. Part II is devoted to sex as a form of communication, and the ways in which sex and spoken communication interact. Part III addresses ethical sex and how it is related to other areas of social and cultural concerns such as work, pay, and marriage. Specific topics include: Why Statistics are Useless for Ethics Sexual Metaphors and Narratives Making Good Sex More Likely Innocence vs. Experience Marriage and Family This thoughtful, theoretical treatment of sex will engage a generation of students reared on the internet, Facebook, and YouTube who want and need help with face-to-face communication skills, and who are interested in understanding how to negotiate sex as an interpersonal activity.

This exciting new textbook is a compilation of communication case studies that identify the most salient issues regarding communication about sex in relationships. The text provides a basis for developing tangible communication skills, clearer understandings of how interpersonal concepts and theories play into practice, and an examination of ideas not often considered by students. Understanding interpersonal communication elements of sexual relationships is an indispensable component of any model of an overall healthy human sexual development. Moreover, being able to transform such understandings into practice in relationships is a leap toward being able to have the kind of meaningful communication with sexual partners that can potentially improve relationships, encourage safer sex practices, highlight responsible family planning, and work against limits of gendered and cultured expectations related to sex and sexuality. Twenty-one case studies from leading researchers in sexuality from Communication Studies, Sex Science, English and Medicine focus on interpersonal communication, cultural aspects of sexuality, media influences, health, and dark side of communication while building communication skills about these difficult to discuss topics. Each chapter features a series of possible discussion questions and a reference list of the resources that were used as a knowledge-base for composing that case study.

Sexual rhetoric is the self-conscious and critical engagement with discourses of sexuality that exposes both their naturalization and their queering, their torquing to create different or counter-discourses, giving voice and agency to multiple and complex sexual experiences. This volume explores the intersection of rhetoric and sexuality through the varieties of methods available in the fields of rhetoric and writing studies, including case studies, theoretical questioning, ethnographies, or close (and distant) readings of "texts" that help us think through the rhetorical force of sexuality and the sexual force of rhetoric.