Strategic Sex

With chapters from Ron Athey, Scott O'Hara, Tristan Taormino, Michael Scarce, and Kevin Killian, Strategic Sex: Why They Won't Keep It in the Bedroom explores sex in public -- performed, depicted, or discussed outside the "appropriate" bedrooms and doctor's offices. This book examines why sex is brought into the spotlight, defying mainstream social codes of etiquette and obscenity. Readers will discover wide-ranging opinions and personal experiences from scholars, activists, artists, educators, sex workers, and pornographers who explore -- and sometimes demonstrate -- why they won't leave sex in the bedroom.

Surprisingly moving, humorous, erotic, and intelligent, Strategic Sex shares episodes of powerfully affected lives, thoughts, and behaviors. Sex is revealed as more than merely a blind, animal instinct but a tool which can be harnessed to specific ends. The contributors -- heterosexual, homosexual, male, female, and gray areas in between -- relate and imagine ways of harnessing sexual energy. While some reveal goals as noble as rape prevention, improving women's health care, fighting racism, overcoming grief, and community building, others illustrate sex utilized for self-promotion or manipulation of groups and individuals. With a unique mix of fiction, analysis, performance texts and personal essays, Strategic Sex ultimately presents sex as a powerful influence on dominant power structures within cultures.