Sexed Texts: Language, Gender and Sexuality Book

Acknowledgements     vii
Introduction     1
'Some people get really angry about labels'     1
Defining terms     3
Why gender and sexuality?     7
Identity, difference and power     10
Language and identity     14
Action research?     16
Texts and methodologies     20
Overview of the book     23
Accounting for difference     29
Introduction     29
Jespersen and Legman - deficit     29
Second wave feminism - dominance     32
Sexist language and political correctness     36
Men are from Mars - difference     41
Difference revisited - corpus approaches     45
'Gay' language     50
Doing gender: community and performativity     63
Community, contact and co-operation     63
Gender as performance     72
Conclusion     87
Constructing normality: gendered discourses and heteronormativity     91
Gendered discourses     91
Compulsory heterosexuality and heteronormativity     107
Conclusion     118
Maintaining boundaries: hegemony and erasure     121
Introduction     121
Hegemonic masculinity     122
Hegemonic femininity?     136
Exaggerating binaries: the erasure of bisexuality     145
Conclusion     152
Selling sex: commodification and marketisation     155
Introduction     155
A new, improved gender!     156
Commodity feminism and the 'pink pound'     166
The marketisation of the self: personal adverts     174
Resisting commodification?     178
Conclusion     182
Queering identity: the new tolerance (and its limits)     185
Introduction     185
Queer theory     186
Queer straights     197
Bachelors and husbands     203
Conclusion     215
Exploring taboo: on and beyond the margins     219
Introduction     219
Vile perverts     220
Doggers, feeders and swingers     227
Straight to hell     240
Conclusion     248
Conclusion     251
References     265
Index     289