SEXUAL FIELDS: Toward a Sociology of Collective Sexual Life (Chicago)
REVIEWS:
Verta Taylor, University of California, Santa Barbara
“In Adam Isaiah Green’s introductory chapter, he lays out the evolution of his sexual fields formulation. This alone is worth the price of the book. But this volume also includes seven chapters written by real movers and shakers in the field of sexuality, each making interesting, substantive contributions and significant theoretical moves to the sexual fields formulation. Sexual Fields is certainly a book that every scholar of sexuality should own, and I would not be surprised if this were to become one of the most cited volumes in the field of sexuality.”
Arlene Stein, Rutgers University
“Sexual Fields is a lucid analysis of the rules of attraction in our late modern age. It shows that middle-aged internet daters, denizens of gay male leather bars, and white female ex-pats in Asia have more in common than they might imagine: they’re all competing to maximize erotic status, though in site-specific ways. A bold, provocative reinterpretation.”
Joshua Gamson, University of San Francisco
“Adam Isaiah Green and his colleagues slice along the edge of sexualities studies, reworking our understanding of how and why erotic worlds are organized as they are and how desires and identities interact with social structures. Empirically lively and intellectually challenging, Sexual Fields offers an important advance in theorizing sexualities.”
John DeLamater, University of Wisconsin
“Sexual Fields is an important contribution to the social scientific study of sexuality. This edited collection of papers presents and elaborates several aspects of field theory as it applies to sexual interactions. There is a good balance of more theoretical and more empirical contributions, the latter illustrating some of the power of the concepts in the former. An important contribution of field theory is that it enables us to analyze the local and structured nature of ‘the situation’ simultaneously. As several authors point out, this makes the theory useful much more broadly in social psychology and sociology. In three of the chapters, Adam Isaiah Green explores in greater breadth and depth the ideas put forward in his recent articles; this alone is worth the price of the book.”
Elizabeth A. Armstrong, University of Michigan
“Sexual Fields makes an important contribution to the sociological study of sexuality. The collection offers a nice mix of theoretical and empirical pieces, providing the reader with powerful theoretical tools and evidence of the payoff of applying these tools to specific cases. The cases are diverse and riveting, exploring topics ranging from the eroticization of transwomen in a San Francisco bar catering to transwomen and their admirers, to the erotic marginalization of Western women in Shanghai.”
* * * * *
ABOUT THE BOOK:
In modern times, urbanization, mass communication, and the erosion of traditional institutional controls of sexuality establish the conditions for the rise of highly specialized erotic worlds in the West. Such erotic worlds cater to a plurality of sexual tastes and dispositions, yet they are as much arenas of stratification and domination as they are sites of sexual exploration. Organized by eroticized schemas related to race, ethnicity, class and age, erotic worlds bind the “how”, “why” and “with whom” of sexual sociality to the regularities of collective life.
My research on gay male sexual subcultures in New York City and Toronto has prompted me to think of erotic worlds as physical (and virtual) sites of sexual sociality that are organized by an underlying structure of social relations--a sexual field. A sexual field emerges when actors with potential romantic or sexual attraction for one another converge in social space (e.g., a site) and wherein this convergence orients each toward the other according to a logic of desirability imminent to the domain itself. Here, actors with overlapping attitudes and erotic tastes project these into social space, thereby producing a structure of desire organized by a bounded set of erotic themes and judgments. Structures of desire, in turn, establish the dominant currency of sexual capital of a given sexual field and, in turn, a sexual status order that actors must negotiate if they wish to "play the game".
Structures of desire are typically reflected in the setting of a particular sexual site and in the fronts of its patrons. As an example, Church Street of downtown Toronto houses a strip of queer bars and nightclubs that each possess their own particular erotic theme, clientele, and attendant sexual status order. For instance, the “Black Eagle” is the classic North American leather bar with a very specific representational character, clientele base and structure of desire. This structure of desire revolves around leather attire, a rough, blue-collar masculinity and sadomasochism, and is reflected in advertisements of the venue in local magazines and newspapers, in the signs and emblems on the exterior of the bar, in the SM leather videos playing inside the bar, in the bar’s décor, its name, the contests it features (e.g., ‘Sexiest Leather Daddy”), the particular fashion choices of its patrons, in the age distribution of patrons (typically older than the trendy “twink” bar down the street), and in the interactions between patrons, including observable patterns in who garners sexual attention from whom and who approaches whom and how. Thus, patrons of the leather bar find themselves inserted into a sexual field with a palpable structure of desire, well defined currencies of sexual capital, and intractable tiers of desirability—field features with an objective facticity comparable to any other social structure.
By contrast, only a few feet North on Church Street, one finds “Lub Lounge” — a gay bar with a very different kind of representational character, clientele base, and structure of desire—i.e., a very different sexual field. At Lub Lounge, the patronage networks are comparatively younger and whiter than most other bars on the strip, the men wear expensive dressy-casual couture, have sporty urban hair-dos, are tanned and lean, and drink fashionable martinis. On weekends, a DJ plays hip, high-energy urban gay remixes and it is not uncommon for the crowd to dissipate after 1 a.m. as patrons move to “Fly”, a dance club down the street, thereby extending the field to a new site.
In total, the sexual status order at the Black Eagle is a study in contrasts from that of the Lub Lounge, as each is organized by marked distinctions in what is deemed sexually and socially desirable. The kinds of sexual and cultural capital that secure status at the Black Eagle have little currency in Lub, and vice-versa. Indeed, the man in his mid-forties with high sexual capital in the Black Eagle’s sexual field will likely find himself with an sexual capital deficit at Lub Lounge and vice-versa. These status differentials become particularly consequential when characteristics such as race, class, age and ethnicity systematically stratify the dispersion of sexual capital between groups of sexual actors, affording differential degrees of power and social significance in the course of interaction. As a consequence, field position may be related to gay community attachment, the formation of friendship networks, self-esteem, perceptions of equity and justice, and sexual decision-making.
THE SEXUAL FIELDS FRAMEWORK: THE THEORY
My formulation of the sexual fields framework provides a conceptual apparatus that shifts the traditional sociological focus on individual-level problems around sexual identity and practice to the study of systems of sexual stratification that characterize collective sexual life in the late modern world. This shift involves analysis of the ways in which sexual fields produce alignments whereby otherwise diffuse sexual desires come to be aggregated, intensified and reorganized in ways that could not be predicted by individual desires alone. Here one may fruitfully draw on Bourdieu's metaphor of social fields as akin to a field of gravity. Once a given actor enters a sexual field, she becomes subject to its gravitational pull which, in analytic terms, has the capacity to transform her sensibilities around desire and desirability. This may occur through the "popularity tournament" whereby those perceived to be popular or more desirable than us become more desirable to us over time and, conversely, those perceived to be unpopular or less desirable than us become less desirable to us over time. As well, the gravitational pull of the sexual field may socialize sexual dispositions such that individuals without a fully formed interest in a given sexual subculture may develop a taste for it following exposure to the dominant bodies, practices and judgments of the field--i.e., the socialization of sexual dispositions or erotic habitus. And finally, individual desires, when collectivized in the field, have the propensity to become intensified with the effect of producing new structures of desire, new institutionalized norms of attractiveness and new currencies of sexual capital--i.e., a transformation not only of individual desires and practices, but of the sexual field itself.
In sum, sexual fields have the capacity to "act back" on individuals' desire and desirability and, in turn, reshape sexual identity, practice, and the trajectories of intimate life. Thus, the cornerstone of a sexual fields analysis is to consider the range of ways that the sexual field -- as a particular kind of sexual social system-- shapes and transforms individuals' lives, producing as a field effect perceptions of self-desirability and the characteristics of a desirable partner.
PUBLISHED SCHOLARSHIP
In Sexual Fields: Toward a Sociology of Collective Sexual Life (University of Chicago Press), I provide a full rendering of the sexual fields framework and then showcase the work of other sociologists who apply it in their respective studies of gender, race and ethnicity in sexual fields around the globe.
A stream of journal articles that use and develop the sexual fields framework precede the book, including “Health and Sexual
Status in an Urban Gay Enclave: An Application of the Stress Process Model” (Journal of Health and Social Behavior); “The Social Organization of Desire: The Sexual Fields Approach” (in Sociological Theory), and “Playing the (Sexual) Field: The Interactional Basis of Sexual Stratification” (in Social Psychology Quarterly). All of these essays bring together Bourdieusian field theory with a Goffmanian social psychology to establish the conceptual backdrop of the framework and to capture how individual desires and attitudes concerning race, gender and age, among others, aggregate to stratify sexual actors and create the structural conditions of inequality in collective sexual life. These conditions, in turn, bear on health outcomes, including mental health and differential risk for STI, including HIV/AIDS. In a second major stream of research I examine the sexual life history with respect
FUTURE DIRECTIONS IN SEXUAL FIELDS SCHOLARSHIP
Research into sexual fields is in its infancy. Left unanswered are a wide range of empirical and conceptual questions that run the gamut from micro-level issues around the relationship of social structure to the erotic habitus (2008 Theory & Society) and, in turn, to the structure of sexual fields, to macro-level issues around the relationship of erotic worlds to the urban landscape, including inquiries into the political, social, cultural and commercial conditions under which structures of desire take form and vary. Moreover, it will be necessary to examine how more and less densely structured sexual fields relate to one another, how the sexual fields of a given locale configure unique kinds of sexual sectors, themselves embedded in still broader social, political and economic processes and structures, including local and federal policies related to sexual regulation and sexual citizenship, patterns of immigration, gentrification and urban renewal, and the rise and fall of sexually transmitted infections.
By contrast, only a few feet North on Church Street, one finds “Lub Lounge” — a gay bar with a very different kind of representational character, clientele base, and structure of desire—i.e., a very different sexual field. At Lub Lounge, the patronage networks are comparatively younger and whiter than most other bars on the strip, the men wear expensive dressy-casual couture, have sporty urban hair-dos, are tanned and lean, and drink fashionable martinis. On weekends, a DJ plays hip, high-energy urban gay remixes and it is not uncommon for the crowd to dissipate after 1 a.m. as patrons move to “Fly”, a dance club down the street, thereby extending the field to a new site.
In total, the sexual status order at the Black Eagle is a study in contrasts from that of the Lub Lounge, as each is organized by marked distinctions in what is deemed sexually and socially desirable. The kinds of sexual and cultural capital that secure status at the Black Eagle have little currency in Lub, and vice-versa. Indeed, the man in his mid-forties with high sexual capital in the Black Eagle’s sexual field will likely find himself with an sexual capital deficit at Lub Lounge and vice-versa. These status differentials become particularly consequential when characteristics such as race, class, age and ethnicity systematically stratify the dispersion of sexual capital between groups of sexual actors, affording differential degrees of power and social significance in the course of interaction. As a consequence, field position may be related to gay community attachment, the formation of friendship networks, self-esteem, perceptions of equity and justice, and sexual decision-making.
THE SEXUAL FIELDS FRAMEWORK: THE THEORY
My formulation of the sexual fields framework provides a conceptual apparatus that shifts the traditional sociological focus on individual-level problems around sexual identity and practice to the study of systems of sexual stratification that characterize collective sexual life in the late modern world. This shift involves analysis of the ways in which sexual fields produce alignments whereby otherwise diffuse sexual desires come to be aggregated, intensified and reorganized in ways that could not be predicted by individual desires alone. Here one may fruitfully draw on Bourdieu's metaphor of social fields as akin to a field of gravity. Once a given actor enters a sexual field, she becomes subject to its gravitational pull which, in analytic terms, has the capacity to transform her sensibilities around desire and desirability. This may occur through the "popularity tournament" whereby those perceived to be popular or more desirable than us become more desirable to us over time and, conversely, those perceived to be unpopular or less desirable than us become less desirable to us over time. As well, the gravitational pull of the sexual field may socialize sexual dispositions such that individuals without a fully formed interest in a given sexual subculture may develop a taste for it following exposure to the dominant bodies, practices and judgments of the field--i.e., the socialization of sexual dispositions or erotic habitus. And finally, individual desires, when collectivized in the field, have the propensity to become intensified with the effect of producing new structures of desire, new institutionalized norms of attractiveness and new currencies of sexual capital--i.e., a transformation not only of individual desires and practices, but of the sexual field itself.
In sum, sexual fields have the capacity to "act back" on individuals' desire and desirability and, in turn, reshape sexual identity, practice, and the trajectories of intimate life. Thus, the cornerstone of a sexual fields analysis is to consider the range of ways that the sexual field -- as a particular kind of sexual social system-- shapes and transforms individuals' lives, producing as a field effect perceptions of self-desirability and the characteristics of a desirable partner.
PUBLISHED SCHOLARSHIP
In Sexual Fields: Toward a Sociology of Collective Sexual Life (University of Chicago Press), I provide a full rendering of the sexual fields framework and then showcase the work of other sociologists who apply it in their respective studies of gender, race and ethnicity in sexual fields around the globe.
A stream of journal articles that use and develop the sexual fields framework precede the book, including “Health and Sexual
Status in an Urban Gay Enclave: An Application of the Stress Process Model” (Journal of Health and Social Behavior); “The Social Organization of Desire: The Sexual Fields Approach” (in Sociological Theory), and “Playing the (Sexual) Field: The Interactional Basis of Sexual Stratification” (in Social Psychology Quarterly). All of these essays bring together Bourdieusian field theory with a Goffmanian social psychology to establish the conceptual backdrop of the framework and to capture how individual desires and attitudes concerning race, gender and age, among others, aggregate to stratify sexual actors and create the structural conditions of inequality in collective sexual life. These conditions, in turn, bear on health outcomes, including mental health and differential risk for STI, including HIV/AIDS. In a second major stream of research I examine the sexual life history with respect
FUTURE DIRECTIONS IN SEXUAL FIELDS SCHOLARSHIP
Research into sexual fields is in its infancy. Left unanswered are a wide range of empirical and conceptual questions that run the gamut from micro-level issues around the relationship of social structure to the erotic habitus (2008 Theory & Society) and, in turn, to the structure of sexual fields, to macro-level issues around the relationship of erotic worlds to the urban landscape, including inquiries into the political, social, cultural and commercial conditions under which structures of desire take form and vary. Moreover, it will be necessary to examine how more and less densely structured sexual fields relate to one another, how the sexual fields of a given locale configure unique kinds of sexual sectors, themselves embedded in still broader social, political and economic processes and structures, including local and federal policies related to sexual regulation and sexual citizenship, patterns of immigration, gentrification and urban renewal, and the rise and fall of sexually transmitted infections.
