Moral Panics Sex Panics

Finalist for 2010 LGBT Anthology Award from the Lambda Literary Awards Unwed teen mothers, abortion, masturbation, pornography, gay marriage, sex trafficking, homosexuality, and HIV are just a few in a long line of issues that have erupted into panics. These sexual panics spark moral crusades and campaigns, defining and shaping how we think about sexual and reproductive rights. The essays in Moral Panics, Sex Panics focus on case studies ranging from sex education to AIDS to race and the "down low," to illustrate how sexuality is at the heart of many political controversies. The contributors also reveal how moral and sexual panics have become a mainstay of certain kinds of conservative efforts to win elections and gain power in moral, social, and political arenas. Moral Panics, Sex Panics provides new and important insights into the role that key moral panics have played in social processes, arguing forcefully against the political abuse of sex panics and for the need to defend full sexual and reproductive rights. Contributors: Cathy J. Cohen, Diane DiMauro, Gary W. Dowsett, Janice M. Irvine, Carole Joffe, and Saskia Eleonora Wieringa.

A provocative feminist analysis of the moral panics of sexuality, this interdisciplinary edited collection showcases the range of historical and contemporary crises we too often suppress, including vagina dentata, vampires, cannibalism, age appropriateness, breast cancer, menstrual panics, and sex education.

This work focuses on case studies ranging from sex education to AIDS to race to illustrate how sexuality is at the heart of many political controversies.

This study provides a comprehensive critique - forensic, historical, and theoretical - of the moral panic paradigm, using empirically grounded ethnographic research to argue that the panic paradigm suffers from fundamental flaws that make it a myth rather than a viable academic perspective.

One evening, while watching the news, Roger N. Lancaster was startled by a report that a friend, a gay male school teacher, had been arrested for a sexually based crime. The resulting hysteria threatened to ruin the life of an innocent man. In this passionate and provocative book, Lancaster blends astute analysis, robust polemic, ethnography, and personal narrative to delve into the complicated relationship between sexuality and punishment in our society. Drawing on classical social science, critical legal studies, and queer theory, he tracks the rise of a modern suburban culture of fear and develops new insights into the punitive logic that has put down deep roots in everyday American life.

It is widely acknowledged that this is the age of moral panics. From the Bulger case to mad cow disease, newspaper headlines continually warn of some new danger and television programmes echo the theme with sensational docmenturies. This concise survey will help student trace the development of ideas of moral panic and to analyse how changing public perceptions are shaped and reflected through the media over time. Using examples drawn from: * club culture and raves * mugging * sex and AIDS * children, violence and the family.

We live in a world that is increasingly characterized as risky, dangerous, and threatening. Every day, a new social issue emerges to assail our sensibilities and consciences, seemingly designed to provoke a shared sense of panic. Drawing on the popular UK Economic Social and Research Council seminar series, this book uses the concept of moral panic to examine these social issues and anxieties and the solutions to them. With an introduction by Chas Critcher—coeditor ofMoral Panics in the Contemporary World—and contributions from both well-known and up-and-coming researchers and practitioners, this book offers a stimulating and innovative overview of moral panic ideas for students and practitioners and an accessible introduction to the concept for a wider general public.

The Ashgate Research Companion to Moral Panics offers a comprehensive assemblage of cutting-edge critical and theoretical perspectives on the concept of moral panic. All chapters represent original research by many of the most influential theorists and researchers now working in the area of moral panic, including Nachman Ben-Yehuda and Erich Goode, Joel Best, Chas Critcher, Mary deYoung, Alan Hunt, Toby Miller, Willem Schinkel, Kenneth Thompson, Sheldon Ungar, and Grazyna Zajdow. Chapters come from a range of disciplines, including media studies, literary studies, history, legal studies, and sociology, with significant new elaborations on the concept of moral panic (and its future), informed and powerful critiques, and detailed empirical studies from several continents. A clear and comprehensive survey of a concept that is increasingly influential in a number of disciplines as well as in popular culture, this collection of the latest research in the field addresses themes including the evolution of the moral panic concept, sex panics, media panics, moral panics over children and youth, and the future of the moral panic concept.