A public lecture by Dr Gilbert Herdt, Director Emeritus of the National Sexuality Resource Center (NSRC).
Over the past two centuries, Western civilization has witnessed a broad set of paradigm changes that characterize how and why we think about human sexuality as a social expression. Beginning with religious formulations of sin and depravity, and proceeding on to 19th century preoccupations with disease and the medicalization of sex, later 19th century expressions then fixated on identity-based paradigms and movements, followed by 20th century definitions focused on the couple and companionship, and in the 1960s especially and onward, recreational pleasure. Through these transformations has been the underlying conflict between individual experience and expression versus collective laws, policies and norms. Late modern sexuality is not only plastic, in Giddens’ terms, but also virtual, global, and texted through social media and the Internet. Sexual health and access to quality health for women and men has infused this transformation since 1975 with added meaning for sexual, gender, and reproductive rights. This lecture will also examine how human sexuality and rights have come to be seen as controversial and at times created moral panics in a variety of countries. It will also examine the impact of these panics on people’s rights, especially those at the margins of society.
Dr Gilbert Herdt is a cultural anthropologist, Professor and Founder of the Department of Sexuality Studies, and Professor of Anthropology at San Francisco State University, and Director Emeritus of the National Sexuality Resource Center (NSRC), created with major support from the Ford Foundation.
Cost: Free, RSVP your attendance to
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