A man's own story from the Rhondda. Jeffrey Weeks was born in the Rhondda in 1945, of mining stock. As he grew up he increasingly felt an outsider in the intensely community-minded valleys, a feeling intensified as he became aware of his gayness. Escape came through education. He left for London, to university, and to realise his sexuality. From the early 1970s he was actively involved in the new gay liberation movement and became its pioneering historian. This was the beginning of a long ...

Sexuality is the fifth revised and updated edition of the classic text for understanding human sexuality. This new edition brings the arguments and evidence fully up to date and explores their implication for many topical controversies, around LGBTQ+ rights, the trans experience and gender fluidity, same-sex marriage, sexual autonomy and consent, and the meanings of sexual choice.Since it was first published in the 1980s, Sexuality has been at the cutting edge of ...

Our families are increasingly a matter of choice, and the choices are widening all the time. This is particularly true of the non-heterosexual world, where the last ten years have seen a popular acceptance of same sex partnerships and, to a lesser extent, of same sex parenting.Based on extensive interviews with people in a variety of non-traditional relationships, this fascinating new book argues that these developments in the non-heterosexual world are closely linked to wider chan...

Jeffrey Weeks has established an international reputation as one of the most original and influential writers on the social history of sexuality.

Until the 1970s the history of sexuality was a marginalized practice. Today it is a flourishing field, increasingly integrated into the mainstream and producing innovative insights into the ways in which societies shape and are shaped by sexual values, norms, identities and desires. In this book, Jeffrey Weeks, one of the leading international scholars in the subject, sets out clearly and concisely how sexual history has developed, and its implications for our understanding of the ways we ...

A pioneering study which has become an established classic in its field, Sex, Politics and Society provides a lucid and comprehensive analysis of the transformations of British sexual life from 1800 to the present. These changes are firmly located in the wider context of British social, political and cultural life, from industrialization, urbanisation and the impact of Empire and colonisation, through the experience of economic disruption, World Wars, the establishment of the welf...

This is an important intervention in debates on the family and sexuality, exploring clashes over sexual values and contemporary sexual dilemmas such as AIDS.

Words, Freud once wrote, are magic. Nowhere have words been more magical than in the writing of sexuality. Through words and concepts we learn what is good or bad, pleasurable or painful, significant and insignificant. The terms we use about sexuality do not simply describe something out there. They help shape what sexuality is.The Languages of Sexuality offers concise and incisive essays on key words and concepts which have played a significant role in shaping our underst...

The World We Have Won is a major study of transformations in erotic and intimate life since 1945. We are living in a world of transition, in the midst of a long, unfinished but profound revolution that has transformed the possibilities of living out our sexual diversities.This book provides a balance sheet of the changes that have transformed our ways of being, from welfarism to the pill, women's and gay liberation, from globalization, consumerism and individualization to ...

An essential A-Z guide to the full range of sociological thought, Sociology: The Key Concepts is an important addition to the established and successful Key Concepts series.Fully cross-referenced with an extensive glossary, this accessible text also includes:alphabetical listings of key concepts for ease of usesuggestions for further reading to enhance understanding of areas coveredentries on ‘traditionalism’ ‘race and racialization’ and ‘...

Much has been written on how masculinity shapes international relations, but little feminist scholarship has focused on how international relations shape masculinity. Charlotte Hooper draws from feminist theory to provide an account of the relationship between masculinity and power. She explores how the theory and practice of international relations produces and sustains masculine identities and masculine rivalries.This volume asserts that international politics shapes multiple mas...

Thoroughly updated in this second edition, Introduction to Gender offers an interdisciplinary approach to the main themes and debates in gender studies. This comprehensive and contemporary text explores the idea of gender from the perspectives of history, sociology, social policy, anthropology, psychology, politics, pedagogy and geography and considers issues such as health and illness, work, family, crime and violence, and culture and media. Throughout the text, studies on mascul...