Modernizing Sexuality

Moving beyond the boundaries of HIV scholarship, Modernizing Sexuality shows how Western idealizations of normative sexuality and the power of modernity intersect in U.S. HIV prevention policy. In this book, Anne Esacove gathers interview, archival, and ethnographic data from the United States and Malawi to reveal failing U.S. prevention efforts. As seen in the promotion of "love matches" and women's right to "say no" to sex, modernization embedded within U.S. policy actually limits action against this widespread epidemic, and even exacerbates HIV risk among women. Instead, by illuminating the collective solutions and multiple paths of prevention used by Malawians, Esacove's analysis expertly exposes these fundamental flaws and provides direction for potentially more effective strategies. Through this analysis, Modernizing Sexuality not only reveals major U.S. health policy flaws, but asks important questions about prevention narratives, medicalizing social justice advocacy, and feminist and sexuality theories as a guide for HIV prevention policy. Closing with an alternative narrative, Esacove reimagines risk and offers readers innovative prevention strategies to guide future policy endeavors.

Stepping outside the established boundaries of HIV scholarship, 'Modernizing Sexuality' illustrates the ways in which Western idealizations of normative sexuality and the power of modernity come together in U.S. prevention policy, and how they actually exacerbate HIV risk, particularly for women.

From the first European encounters with Native American women to today's crisis of sexual assault, The Oxford Handbook of American Women's and Gender History boldly interprets the diverse history of women and how ideas about gender shaped their access to political and cultural power in North America. Over twenty-nine chapters, this handbook illustrates how women's and gender history can shape how we view the past, looking at how gender influenced people's lives as they participated in migration, colonialism, trade, warfare, artistic production, and community building. Theoretically cutting edge, each chapter is alive with colorful historical characters, from young Chicanas transforming urban culture, to free women of color forging abolitionist doctrines, Asian migrant women defending the legitimacy of their marriages, and transwomen fleeing incarceration. Together, their lives constitute the history of a continent. Leading scholars across multiple generations demonstrate the power of innovative research to excavate a history hidden in plain sight. Scrutinizing silences in the historical record, from the inattention to enslaved women's opinions to the suppression of Indian women's involvement in border diplomacy, the authors challenge the nature of historical evidence and remap what counts in our interpretation of the past. Together and separately, these essays offer readers a deep understanding of the variety and centrality of women's lives to all dimensions of the American past, even as they show that the boundaries of "women," "American," and "history" have shifted across the centuries.

This book addresses the impact of HIV on populations of men who have sex with men in Africa and local responses to the issue. It documents the enduring existence of a rich variety of same-sex practices between men. More critically, it analyses how the denial and social rejection of same-sex sexuality, together with the legacy of criminalization by former colonial rulers, has not only fueled the transmission of HIV between men, but has also impeded an effective response. The book also documents some of the outstanding progress that has been made and acknowledges the differences between African countries. Through its focus on lived realities and grassroots activism in Africa, this book will appeal to researchers, policy makers and practitioners alike.

With the arrival of the transcontinental railroad in the 1880s came the emergence of a modern and profoundly multicultural New Mexico. Native Americans, working-class Mexicans, elite Hispanos, and black and white newcomers all commingled and interacted in the territory in ways that had not been previously possible. But what did it mean to be white in this multiethnic milieu? And how did ideas of sexuality and racial supremacy shape ideas of citizenry and determine who would govern the region? Coyote Nation considers these questions as it explores how New Mexicans evaluated and categorized racial identities through bodily practices. Where ethnic groups were numerous and—in the wake of miscegenation—often difficult to discern, the ways one dressed, bathed, spoke, gestured, or even stood were largely instrumental in conveying one's race. Even such practices as cutting one's hair, shopping, drinking alcohol, or embalming a deceased loved one could inextricably link a person to a very specific racial identity. A fascinating history of an extraordinarily plural and polyglot region, Coyote Nation will be of value to historians of race and ethnicity in American culture.

Examining the social and intellectual changes that produced a Victorian attitude toward sexuality in America, this book focuses on a loose alliance of reformers who fearing disorder and the weakening of traditional institutions, advocated better health habits and stricter sexual morality.

Using the unification of the Swiss Criminal Code as an investigative framework, this book argues that sexualities and nation are intertwined through ideas and discourses about boundaries, their maintenance, and their reproduction, which impact on practices of inclusion and exclusion.