075 - Thematic Session. Sex Scandals and their Consequences: Changing Sheets and Changing Paths

Session Submission Type: Invited Session

Abstract

Sex Scandals, both those recent (Monicagate) and those distant (the scandalous Queen Catherine), have the capacity to shape the direction of history. They may redirect the paths on which social order is assumed to operate. When the hidden becomes known, deviance must be tamed in the name of consensual morality. In this session, we examine how sexual scandals, both at the national political level and at more local levels, change discourse, reveal faultlines in society, and potentially alter social arrangements. Even though sexual actions might seem to be private matters, once publicized they have the potential for the reconceiving social and political relations.

Sub Unit

• Thematic Sessions

Session Organizer

• Gary Alan Fine, Northwestern University

Presider

• Thomas DeGloma, City University of New York-Hunter College

Individual Presentations

• Weiners Galore: Notes on Scandals in the Age of Sexting - Joshua Gamson, University of San Francisco

• Explaining the Scandal Stream - Michael Schudson, Columbia University

• Politics, Finance, Scandals - and Sex - Mark D. Jacobs, George Mason University

• Signaling Perversion: The Politics of Euphemism and Dysphemism - Gary Alan Fine, Northwestern University; Clare Forstie, Northwestern University