Transformative Experiences: Doing and Thinking Sexual Bodies at the Lascivious Costume Ball, 1970-1974

• In Event: 512 - Section on Sex and Gender Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 03. Gendered Interactions and Gendered Spaces

Abstract

The Lascivious Costume Ball was a sexuality-themed party that occurred at the University of Chicago from 1970 to 1984. It tapped into the sexual revolution unfolding across America in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but it was also just a college party. Or was it? Many attendees felt transformed by the event. Drawing on an analysis of archival materials and 28 interviews with alumni who attended the first three iterations of the Lascivious Costume Ball (1970, 1971, and 1974), I argue that the Ball was transformative because it encouraged participants to experience their sexual bodies in new ways and in a public setting. I show that experiencing sexual bodies at the Ball was a dynamic social process that entailed both external expression, which I call doing sexual bodies, and internal reflection, which I call thinking about sexual bodies. I demonstrate that these bodily experiences problematized the (hetero)sexual status quo and the gender system. In elaborating how and why the Ball was significant to participants, the article provides evidence that singular, seemingly ordinary experiences, like a college party, can be transformative.

Author

• Celene Raymer Reynolds, Yale University