Abstracts des Kongresses 2004

ABSTRACT BOOK

Martin S. Weinberg + Colin J. Williams, Bloomington, IN (U.S.A.):

Gender, Sexual Orientation, and Body Boundaries

This paper examines what Inglis (2000) refers to as the “faecal habitus”- the set of cultural dispositions that interprets and organizes the bodily elimination of fecal matter. We show how aspects of the social context are “embodied” (Turner, 2000) in four groups of participants - heterosexual women and men and non-heterosexual women and men. In this way, we show how gender and sexual orientation mediate the operation of the habitus. The fecal habitus is also shown to have force through the various efforts participants make to honor its dispositions by attempting to control the assault on the senses that feces can provide. Scholarly contributions are made by empirically demonstrating how even the most private experiences of corporeality are socially mediated by differences in the use of culture according to gender and sexual orientation. .

About the Authors:

Martin S. Weinberg is a Professor of Sociology at Indiana University and was a Senior Research Sociologist at the Kinsey Institute for the Study of Sex, Gender, and Reproduction. He has co-authored such books as Dual Attraction, Sexual Preference, Homosexualities, Male Homosexuals: Their Problems and Adaptations, and Homosexuals and the Military as well as authoring and co-authoring many articles in professional journals. He has been working for many years with Colin J. Williams who also was a Senior Research Sociologist at the Kinsey Institute and is a Professor of Sociology at Indiana University - Purdue University at Indianapolis. He is co-author of Dual Attraction, Male Homosexuals: Their Problems and Adaptations, Homosexuals and the Military, Sex and Morality in the U.S., and numerous professional articles.

Address:
Prof. Dr. Martin S. Weinberg
Department of Sociology
Indiana University
1020 E. Kirkwood Ave
Bloomington, IN 47405, U.S.A.
Phone: (812) 855-7208
Fax: (812) 855-0781
eMail: weinberm@indiana.edu