Telling Sexual Stories: Power, Change and Social Worlds [Hardcover]

Ken Plummer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 21, 1994 | ISBN-10: 0415102952 | ISBN-13: 978-0415102957 | Edition: 1

The world has become cluttered with sexual stories. From child abuse scandals to lesbian and gays coming out; from Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas to the travails of Michael Jackson; from sexual surveys to therapy groups - sexual talk has become more and more evident. This book explores the rites of a sexual story-telling culture. Taking three major examples - rape stories, coming-out stories, recovery stories - it examines the nature of these newly emerging narratives and the socio-historical conditions which have given rise to them. It looks at the rise of the women's movement, the lesbian and gay movement and the 'recovery' movement as harbingers of significant social change that encourage the telling of new stories. In a powerful concluding section, the book turns to the wider concern of how story telling may be changing in a postmodern culture and how central it may be in the creation of a participatory democratic political culture. Ken Plummer illustrates how 'the narrative turn' of cultural studies may be taken up within sociology. He suggests that a sociology of stories asks different questions about stories from those posed within cultural studies. Telling Sexual Stories is a major contribution to our understanding of sexuality and the cultures of intimacy.

Editorial Reviews

Review

...this book offers a rich synthesis of narrative theory, cultural studies, and symbolic interactionism, all in service of understanding the centrality of storytelling to identity and community..
–Journal of the History of Sexuality

...focused, wide-ranging, and well-reasearched.... One of the most instruguing and useful dimensions of Plummer's analysis is the attention to the raw personal, political, and communal resources that are used in these story constructions.
–Contemporary Sociology

About the Author

Ken Plummer is Reader in Sociology at Essex University.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (December 21, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415102952
• ISBN-13: 978-0415102957
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,400,977 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3.0 out of 5 stars Ramble, October 4, 2010

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This review is from: Telling Sexual Stories: Power, Change and Social Worlds (Paperback)

This book is very rambley- I had to read it for a class and all of my peers felt the same way. The argument could have been a lot more concise, too. I felt like I was reading the same thing over and over again. I felt like I was reading the same thing over and over again. There are much better books on the topic.