Tagged: heterosexuality

Class & Stratification / Gender & Sexuality / Science & Technology / Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance / Sociology of Media & Communication

The Queer Politics of Chatroulette

[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/9669721[/vimeo] Chatroulette has swept the the nation.  I say “swept” because, like many things on the Internet, the novelty and hype surrounding chatroulette is proving ephemeral.  That’s not to say that chatroulette is going away any time soon.  In fact, we should expect Internet culture to continue to produce new opportunities for the random interactions at the heart of the chatroulette experience.  Fellow Sociology Lens commentator Nathan Jurgenson not unfairly described chatroulette as a “downright capricious and aleatory experience.” Perhaps...

Gender & Sexuality / Sociology of Culture

Fake proms and the stabilization of heterosexuality

By Rachael Liberman If the normalizing laws against gay marriage weren’t enough of a reminder that heterosexuality is being “threatened” in the United States, the case of Constance McMillen and her “prom saga” appears to discredit any naive notion that homosexuality is widely accepted. McMillen, a lesbian-identified teenager living in Mississippi, was initially denied admittance to her high school prom due to her otherwise “abnormal” sexual orientation. After taking the matter to a federal court (along with the ACLU), she...

Gender & Sexuality / Social Psychology & Lifecourse / Sociology of Culture

The Clothes Make the (Heterosexual) Man

Dress codes in schools have long been a source of intergenerational conflict, control, and increasingly obvious, a way to police gender norms and sexuality.  In an article that interrogates these instances of specific gender and sexuality “violations” through clothing and accessories, we can see both an increase in apparel as a means of identity formation and exploration but also a trend that has received little attention.  Why is it that anytime a child or teen decides to transgress norms through...