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CS92PROD
Bad Sex

SOC 269
Fall 2020 not offered
Course Cluster and Certificates: Social, Cultural, and Critical Theory Certificate, Queer Studies

In a 2003 op-ed in support of same-sex marriage, conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks writes, "Anybody who has several sexual partners in a year is committing spiritual suicide. He or she is ripping the veil from all that is private and delicate in oneself, and pulverizing it in an assembly line of selfish sensations." Brooks is far from alone in this critique of promiscuity. What is it about "casual encounters" and hookup culture that so disturbs? Why is sex a magnet for anxieties about selfishness and irresponsibility? Why do we think of anonymity and intimacy in sex as mutually exclusive? What do we make of desires that are politically troubling? On what basis are particular forms of sex and sexuality vilified or valued? Is love the antidote to sexual hedonism, or hedonism in disguise? This course will consider widespread cultural anxieties about sex, sexuality, desire, and pleasure from sociological and psychoanalytic perspectives.
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: SBS SOC
Course Format: SeminarGrading Mode: Graded
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: SOC151
Fulfills a Requirement for: (CSCT)(SOC)

Last Updated on OCT-05-2024
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