Intentionally Intersectional: Putting Race at the Center of Sexuality Studies

Abstract

In this essay, we argue for greater intentionality in incorporating race into research on sexualities. We highlight how race and sexuality are coconstituting social categories shaped by fluctuations of power in society. Celebrating existing work that significantly addresses race and its impacts on sexuality, we offer directives for how the sociology of sexuality should move forward in the contemporary moment. Finally, we argue for a greater focus on pleasure, joy, and desire in future sociological work on race and sexuality.

Keywords

race sexuality intersectionality identity

Introduction

For too long, race has only been considered additively to studies of sexuality rather than as a central force in the creation, reproduction, and re-articulation of sexualities across time. Our understandings of race are inextricably linked to how we express and engage in sexuality in everyday life. Thus, in this essay, we celebrate the work being done to explicitly interrogate the relationship between race and sexuality and to offer a vision of the field that centralizes this critical intersection. As scholars whose work has focused primarily on the relationship between queer men and race in the U.S. context, we aim to push the conversation forward toward the inclusion of an intentional racial analysis in the study of sexualities and social life writ large.

Research demonstrates that the racially diverse makeup of the United States has contributed significantly to the development of distinct cultures across cities and states. These distinct cultures mean that research focusing on generalizations about queer people (e.g., gay men, lesbians, transwomen, and transmen) is too broadly applied. Indeed, while these broad strokes have provided useful insight into the way queer communities have historically experienced and responded to common forms of marginalization, the abstraction of these experiences into monolithic (white-washed) narratives can no longer suffice toward developing our understanding of how sexuality structures contemporary social life. Thus, our recommendations and hopes for the study of race and sexuality are necessarily shaped by our research agendas and trajectories which have predominantly focused on the study of stigma, discrimination, and oppression among minoritized queer cis-men in large metropolitan areas. Moving forward, we are calling for an expanded focus on joy and pleasure, to highlight the importance of understanding how racial differences can shape queer joy. Finally, an additional caveat here is that we do not have the space to fully explore the work on all groups and intersections of racial and sexual identities; instead, we highlight work that we believe is moving the field in the right direction and fundamentally shifting how and why race should be more centrally included in all good sexualities scholarship.

Scholars of race and racism have long aimed to articulate how the contours of race itself are a contextually and historically specific phenomenon. Hall (1980) reminds us that as we interrogate the meanings of race and racism, we must center “the premise of historical specificity” (p. 336). That is, race and racism have no fixed meanings outside of the social, political, and legal contexts of specific historic (or contemporary) moments. Of course, sexuality and our understandings of sexualities are thus also shaped by the times in which we live and have lived. This simple yet profound fact has meant that scholars are racing to capture and record ever-shifting expressions of racial and sexual identities and the social conditions of racialized and sexualized people across time. We extend Hall’s premise about the study of race to studies at the intersections of race and sexuality to embolden scholars to more deliberately include a racial analysis in sexualities work and for race scholars to more explicitly include analyses of sexuality, as neglecting the salience of race in a society that has engaged in extensive racial projects throughout history produces only partial views of our social realities.

Racialized Sexualities and Sexualized Races

We find that sociological research on race and sexuality has primarily focused on three main areas: (1) sexual identities, (2) desire and desirability, and (3) disease, deviance, and risk. These three broad categories will be addressed in turn, but we endeavor to show that race is always present in the study of sexuality, even in works that do not explicitly state so. Indeed, the ubiquity of race and racialization as structuring our modern world means that sexuality scholarship that does not seriously take into account race will always fall short of truly extending our knowledge of social reality.

Sexual Identities and Racialization

Much of the research in the areas of sexuality that has considered race and racialization has centered questions around identity and its relationship with gender expressions across the life course. Studying the expanding definitions of LGBTQ+, preferred terminologies of the day, changing perceptions of sexual behaviors, and how gendered expressions layer onto sexual identities have offered much to the conversation about the centrality of sexuality to everyday life and, thus, the field of sociology. However, many early studies took for granted the homogeneity of their samples and ignored the experiences of other queer people more broadly. For example, many early sexualities studies (see Hawkman 2022; Moussawi & Vidal-Ortiz 2020), whose samples relied extensively (or exclusively) on white gay men, did not truly interrogate the relationships between their subjects and whiteness, instead casting the framing of the work as about “gay men” or “gay people.” This trend in the sociological literature to (1) generalize findings about white queer men to others and (2) obscure or flatten experiences of racially marginalized groups (namely Black and Brown people) serves to proliferate a myopic view of the richness of the diversity among queer communities.

Yet, more recently, scholars have more explicitly centered race in their sexualities research. For instance, sociologists have studied race intentionally by naming “race” in the titles of their work to underscore their commitment to investigating how sexualities vary by race (see Abelson 2016; Sheff and Hammers 2011). Others have been even more explicit in their efforts to interrogate “whiteness”; Silva (2021) and Ward (2015) have shown us the importance of naming whiteness (especially in the titles of their work) to enrich what we can learn about studying sexualities across groups rather than situating whiteness as a taken for granted reference group. The predominance of the literature being centrally focused on the study of white populations has meant that scholars who do study queer communities of color have often needed to shape their research agendas around correcting the academic record to include the voices of marginalized racial communities whose perspectives and experiences had been subsumed under titles that neglected to include race as part of their analysis or arguments. Thus, one clear direction forward in the field will be for more scholars who study such populations to explicitly and intentionally state that their projects are not just about sexualities but also about whiteness and its articulations, embodiments, and power in the sexual landscape. In addition, we are excited about work by scholars of color on queer populations of color that are motivated not by simply correcting or revising the academic record, but instead are responding to the charge of communities themselves to play a role in shaping research that amplifies their lived experiences for its own merits.

As Terrell has shown in his previous work, racialized meanings of masculinities and femininities can serve to reinforce racist tropes even as they can empower minoritized sexual groups. His research on gay Black men and sexual positioning discourse revealed how Black men understand their own imposed social impression as hypermasculine, but rather than reject this trope, they instead rely on it to juxtapose themselves against racial others (Winder 2023). Moore’s (2011) work on Black lesbian families expanded how we understood both the gender expressions and delineation of familial responsibilities in Black lesbian homes as a response to an overwhelming focus on white gay men and white lesbians in the literature. Hunter’s (2010) research illustrated how Black gay men understood the salience and interconnection of their racial and sexual identities, highlighting that for many Black gay men, their racial and sexual identities held equal importance in shaping their worldviews. Work by scholars like Carrillo (2020) and Ocampo (2022) helped us to better contextualize the experiences of Latino and Filipino migrants to the United States and their challenges and triumphs in creating lives in new cities. These works collectively illustrate the importance of considering not only how race and racialization are shaping sexuality but also how sexualities have shaped and continue to shape racial projects (Omi and Winant 1986) carried out by states, communities, and institutions.

Collectively, this thread of scholarship has consistently tracked the ever-evolving nature of identities, both perceived and actual, among queer people. Yet, much as we know race and racial categorizations are shifting on the ground among people and communities, so too does the way that governments and states measure race and racial identification change over time (Brown 2020). Equally true is the changing nature of the measurement of queer populations in our societies (see Baumle 2018). Thus, sociologists must continue to interrogate how racial and sexual identity categories are simultaneously created, destroyed, repurposed, and reimagined not only at the individual and community levels but also by social institutions and nation-states.

Desirability and Sexual Racism

Another area of sexualities scholarship that has provided helpful insight into the co-constitutive nature of race and sexuality is the work on desirability. For instance, the body of research investigating the diverse experiences of sexual racism has identified how structural inequalities coalesce to produce racialized and sexualized valuations of particular bodies, most often at the expense of racial minorities. Han (2021) examines the everyday experiences of gay men of color, describing how the centrality of whiteness in mainstream gay communities renders them as either the fetishized “Other” or simply undesirable. Other studies have demonstrated how the discourse around personal “sexual preferences” obscures enduring racialized power dynamics (Robinson 2015), ultimately allowing hegemonic systems of inequality to persist in seemingly neutral, “colorblind” ways (Bonilla-Silva 2015). While this research has confirmed how racialized sexual tropes result in contextually variant forms of oppression and marginalization for people of color, we are also skeptical of how this work repositions the discourse of eroticism and desirability around a white homonormative center. Furthermore, the majority of the scholarship concerned with sexual racism has been done in the context of gay male communities. Even as Kendall’s work (Ota 2021) has explored gay Asian men’s experiences of sexual racism and concomitant idealization of whiteness, we are both hopeful that these conversations can evolve past these potentially exhaustive and exhausted conclusions. We have been concerned with whether sexual racism is really racism (Callander, Newman, and Holt 2015) and with whether sexual racism is still really racism (Smith et al. 2022) [hint: it is] that we wonder how to move forward beyond simply conducting a never-ending loop of “Racism: Is it or Isn’t It?.”

Thus, we believe there is ample space in the work on race and desirability to explore questions beyond the (re)discovery of sexual racism everywhere. For instance, how would our knowledge shift if we de-centered white desirability? Such a movement toward the decolonization of desire may provide new opportunities to reimagine contemporary sexual politics into more liberating forms of identity, embodiment, and pleasure. For instance, what might we learn if we expanded studies on the relationships between minoritized racial groups and their coalition-building in sexual liberation? Or, what would it look like to center eroticism and pleasure instead of discrimination and oppression (e.g., Khan and Vidal-Ortiz 2025)? While work in the humanities has more actively engaged pleasure and erotics as fruitful analytics, sociology has been slow to follow suit. Thus, we are excited by work in our discipline that uses sociological tools and methodologies to mobilize new interdisciplinary ideas and frameworks. For instance, Jones’s (2020) research on the webcamming industry, wherein people broadcast live erotic performances online, is an instructive model for doing this work. Examining contemporary cam performers’ experiences, Jones explicitly theorizes the notion of pleasure, noting that while fields ranging from biology, psychology, and philosophy have engaged the concept, there is a distinct “pleasure deficit” in the sociological literature. While sexual racism remains a central analytic in Jones’s study, highlighting the inequalities that Black women face in the sex work industry, her call for the development of a “sociology of pleasure” that is acutely attuned to racialized differences pushes the field in new and exciting directions (see Jones 2025).

Disease, Deviance, and Risk

From the distribution of resources for COVID vaccines, the focus (or lack thereof) on HIV prevention and treatment, and access to biomedical interventions to the fight for same-sex marriage, the interplay of race and sexuality has shaped both the national discourse around human rights and our understandings of the types of social identities that we deem worthy in our societies. Some of this has meant that resource allocation for queer communities of color has primarily come from a disproportionate focus on disease and risk among sexual minority men. In particular, Black queer men have been stigmatized and demonized for being perceived as more “risky” than other groups, even when the data have shown otherwise. The language of “risk” and “deviance” has stifled research progress and confused researchers and the public. For example, while non-Hispanic Black men report higher condom use than other groups (Daniels & Abma 2017), the fact that they are continually overrepresented in new HIV and STI (sexually transmitted infections) diagnoses continues to perplex health scientists and members of those impacted communities. The literature’s obsession with categorizing “risk” and “risky behaviors” rather than framing these disproportionate rates as a product of highly neglected and intentionally disenfranchised populations fails to truly thread the sociological needle. As Mills (1959) argued, the power of the sociological imagination is in its ability to help us understand individual-level experiences and phenomena in the larger context of history and the unique social conditions that have created the possibilities for the social ills experienced in our lifetimes. Thus, we must move beyond simply reifying stereotypes of groups as “risky” when the data suggest otherwise and truly begin to examine the larger context.

While this research is doubtlessly critical in addressing rampant racialized health inequalities, the dominance of the risk and disease framework guiding conversations on the sexual subjectivities of queer men of color risks reifying these pathologizing, one-dimensional narratives. This is at the expense of the joyful realities that paint racial minority men’s lives, which include pleasure, connection, community, and resistance. We believe that research embracing the multifaceted nature of queer men of color’s sexual realities is a needed pivot in thinking through the meaning of sex in sexualities research. Kendall’s own body of work on racial minority men’s same-sex cruising practices is invested in attending to this reframing of danger, where balancing notions of risk and safety become central to the erotic thrill animating some men’s sexual decision-making (Ota 2021). In this way, risk acts simultaneously as both a prominent health concern and a source of erotic pleasure as men cruising navigate their diverse sexual landscapes. In addition, work by sociologists like Watkins-Hayes (2019) teaches us how women (across racial groups) living with HIV who have been failed by our inability to address larger social ills can re-fashion and re-envision life through the social safety nets afforded to them post-diagnosis. Hayes’ work intentionally highlights how race, gender, class, and sexuality (among other categories) collide to facilitate or hinder access to life-saving care before and after HIV diagnoses. More research that truly takes up how individuals and collectives are learning that their problems are actually social ills will be increasingly important as we as a society continue to blame individuals for state-level and global failings—a genuine call to remember the sociological imagination.

Future Directions

Indeed, the time has come for the sociology of sexuality to move beyond the inclusion of race as a choice and to instead move toward an intentional engagement with processes of racialization in everyday life and its inextricable relationship with how we understand our sexual selves as expectations. No longer should studies, papers, presentations, or books be named: “Gay Men. . . Lesbians. . .Queer People” without explicating front and center the racial focus and contours of the work. Ignoring racial differences and similarities has never and will never move the needle forward as we have structured (and continue to structure) our social world to have differential outcomes for differently racialized groups across space and time.

We are moving toward increasingly uncertain times globally. Within the U.S. context, the current political administration and its consistent barrage of attacks toward anything having to do with “race” and/or “queerness” are readily apparent. For instance, a study published by Media Matters (Hargis and Walker 2021) showed that Fox News’ mentions of “critical race theory” erupted from a mere 3 times in June 2020 to over 900 times a year later in June 2021. From trans women’s participation in sports to increasing concern over the preponderance of “anti-white racism,” conservatives are continually preying on the lives of queer/people of color to advance their insidious political agendas. And it is working. The American public has been taught to fear the “indoctrination” of the “woke left,” leading to the violence, anxiety, and rise of oppression we see today. Thus, the sociological research we have discussed here, work that attends to the inextricable linkages between race and sexuality, will only be more critical moving forward. As sociologists, we have the tools to demonstrate that the struggles of minoritized people are inextricably connected and cannot back down in the face of the misguided hate and fear animating U.S. politics.

However, we need voices that highlight our experiences of inequality and oppression and uplift the colorful ways in which we inculcate resistance, joy, pleasure, and community. Ghaziani (2024), for instance, reframes the call for alarm surrounding the loss of gay bars in London to discuss how queer and trans people of color craft ephemeral spaces of belonging and joy through partying and nightlife spaces. Elsewhere in the sociology of sexualities, Shuster and Westbrook (2022) call for the need to address the “joy deficit” in sociology, highlighting the distinct joy and pleasure that trans people find in embracing their marginality. And Stone et al. (2022) discuss the myriad ways in which LGBTQ+ youth of color define and inculcate resilience as rebellion, challenging the dominant literature characterizing resilience as a white, cisgender, heteronormative concept. To be clear, we are not advocating for less work that captures the realities and struggles of our communities, but instead hope for a growing body of work that will expand beyond that space to consider how racialized and sexual minority groups are carving out spaces of resistance in the face of oppression and violence. Together, these works capture what we hope is a movement in the field toward recentering racially and sexually marginalized voices, illuminating not only how we experience subjugation in a volatile cultural climate but how we cultivate pleasure, joy, and resilience in those ways that only we know how.

Footnotes

ORCID iD

Terrell J.A. Winder

Statements and Declarations

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