Based on an extensive interview study with lesbian, transgender and queer BDSM practitioners, this book sheds new light on sexuality and current theoretical debates in gender and queer studies. It critically discusses practices of establishing consent, pushing boundaries, playing with gender and creating new kinds of intimacies and embodiments.

Based on an extensive interview study with lesbian, transgender and queer BDSM practitioners, this book sheds new light on sexuality and current theoretical debates in gender and queer studies. It critically discusses practices of establishing consent, pushing boundaries, playing with gender and creating new kinds of intimacies and embodiments.

In this lively ethnography, Weiss studies the pansexual BDSM community in the San Francisco Bay Area. Weiss finds that BDSM practice is not as transgressive as the participants imagine, nor is it simply reinforcing of older forms of social domination. Instead she shows how fantasy play depends on pre-existing social hierarchies, even as it also participates in a commodification of desires.

Black queer lives often exist outside conventional civic institutions and therefore have to explore alternative intimacies to experience a sense of belonging. Civic Intimacies examines how—and to what extent—these different forms of intimacy catalyze the values, aspirations, and collective flourishing of Black queer denizens of Baltimore. Niels van Doorn draws on 18 months of immersive ethnographic fieldwork for his innovative cross-disciplinary analysis of contemporary debates in political and cultural theory. Van Doorn describes the way that these systematically marginalized communities improvise on citizenship not just to survive but also to thrive despite the proliferation of violence and insecurity in their lives. By reimagining citizenship as the everyday reparative work of building support structures, Civic Intimacies highlights the extent to which sex, kinship, memory, religious faith, and sexual health are rooted in collective practices that are deeply political. These systems sustain the lives of Black queer Baltimoreans who find themselves stuck in a city they cannot give up on—even though it has in many ways given up on them.

Expanding the Rainbow brings together cutting-edge empirical research with compelling personal narratives about the experiences and relationships of individuals of diverse gender and sexual identities, focusing on the experiences of bi+, poly, kinky, ace, intersex, and trans people.

Mediated Intimacy looks at contemporary sex and relationship advice, exploring how our intimate lives are shaped through different media, from manuals and magazines to television and Twitter. By exploring how intimacy is constructed through different media texts, the authors consider which ideas and practices these changing forms of 'sexpertise' open up, and which they close down. The book reveals the intimate operation of power in mediated advice, how words and images, stories and sound can work to shore up social injustice. It critically engages with the ideas of choice and responsibility in sex self-help, arguing that these can obscure and/or justify oppression, even if they're sometimes experienced as empowering and/or pleasurable. This bold and incisive book provides a radical challenge to the assumptions underlying the sex advice industry, and presents a critical, collaborative and consensual vision for sex advice of the future.

"Pleasure, Power, and Pain: Understanding BDSM Practices, Identities, and Communities features cutting-edge empirical research by scholars working from a wide range of disciplinary approaches and in diverse national contexts, along with personal reflections from community educators, activists, and practitioners. Designed to be of interest to scholars working in sexuality studies and related fields, teachers of graduate courses focused on sexualities, identities, communities, inequalities, and a broader, non-specialist audience interested in sexualities, society, and identity, Pleasure, Power, and Pain engages persistent questions about the relationships among sexualities, identities, and communities: What role do communities play in shaping BDSM identities? How are BDSM communities similar to and different from other kinds of sexuality and identity-based communities? What are the ethics involved in researching marginalized and stigmatized communities? How do cultural representations shape lived experiences? What are the relationships between structural and personal power?"--