The New View in Action: College Students Discuss 21st-Century Sexuality

Abstract

This article explores how junior and senior college students enrolled in `Women, Health, and Medicine' discuss and critique women's sexual problems in the 21st century during one 90-minute class structured around cultural artifacts. The discussion touches on medical marketing, the gendering of sex, social measures and definitions of sexuality, and the cultural ambivalence in US social policy and sex education. Throughout the discussion these students actively use ideas from the `New View' — already part of their sexual health common sense — to critique `dysfunction' discourse, complicate `normal sex', put sexuality in broad perspective, and suggest social changes to advance large-scale sexual health and well-being.