Legitimizing the Taboo: Official Student Sexuality Organizations as Spaces for Harm Reduction, Recognition, and Community

• In Event: 219 - Section on Sociology of Sexualities Paper Session. Sexuality Studies and the Boundaries of “Acceptable” Sociology

Abstract

This paper looks at the role of organizations in creating legitimacy around taboo issues, highlighting the mechanisms and framings used by organizations who have successfully incorporated around taboo practices to gain organizational recognition from an overarching entity. We use the unique case of official student “kink clubs,” groups focused on topics of kinky sexuality and alternative lifestyles, and which are university-sanctioned. This provides a context to highlight the mechanisms and framings used to seek official recognition, a situation that can generalize to situations where a higher body has the authority to grant or deny permission for organizations to legitimately incorporate and to set the terms under which they operate.

Authors

• Erica H. Coslor, University of Melbourne

• Brett Crawford, University of Pittsburgh

• Barbara G. Brents, University of Nevada-Las Vegas