Lean Sexuality

Abstract

The seemingly uniform cultural phenomenon of sexuality is subject to a constant process of disassembly and reassembly involving the allocation of new desires, the introduction of new knowledge and the harvesting of new consummations. Western cultures have witnessed a tremendous cultural and social transformation of sexuality in the years since the sexual revolution. Apart from a few public debates and scandals, the process has moved along gradually and quietly. Yet its real and symbolic effects are probably much more consequential than those generated by the sexual revolution of the sixties. Sigusch refers to the broad-based recoding and reassessment of the sexual sphere during the eighties and nineties as the “neosexual revolution”. The outcome of this revolution may be described as “lean sexuality” and “self-sex.”

Cultural transformation of gender - cultural transformation of sexuality - neosexual revolution; neosexualities - theory of sexuality

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1 First published in: Sexuality & Culture 2001; 5 (2): 23-56. We gratefully acknowledge Transaction Periodicals Consortium, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, for their kind permission to reprint this manuscript.
Translated from the German by John S. Southard