Good Sex: Transforming America through the New Gender and Sexual Revolution

by Catherine M. Roach

Overview

The United States may have a puritanical past, but the 21st century is wide open to diverse gender expression and romance.

Good Sex is the manifesto—or Manisexto, if you will—for this cultural revolution. Same-sex marriage is legal, the #MeToo movement has exploded, colleges nationwide now teach consent-based sexual health, the media celebrates body positivity, and transgender visibility has become mainstream. Defining "good sex" as both ethical and pleasurable, Catherine M. Roach features such topics as equity, intersectionality, and shared pleasure while offering a lively discussion that is inclusively feminist, queer-friendly, and sex-positive without being divisive.

An accessible guidebook, Good Sex provides hope that America's sexual, gender, and racial injustices can be addressed together. After all, this new gender and sexual revolution strengthens the pursuit of happiness and love. Welcome to the revolution!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780253064691
Publisher:	Indiana University Press
Publication date:	10/04/2022
Pages:	292
Product dimensions:	6.90(w) x 9.90(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Catherine M. Roach has 25 years of grant-funded research experience on gender, sexuality, and American popular culture. A two-time Fulbright awardee with a PhD from Harvard and publications in both fiction and nonfiction, she's been an invited visiting professor in Canada, Australia, and Europe. She is Professor of New College, an innovative liberal arts program at the University of Alabama, where she's won the school's top research and teaching awards and where she offers a popular cross-university course titled "Sexuality & Society." Originally from Ottawa, Canada, she is based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Table of Contents

Preface
Foreplay: Introducing the Manisexto: A Manifesto for the New Gender and Sexual Revolution
Manisexto #1: Positive Sexuality: Sexuality Is a Normal, Healthy, and Pleasurable Aspect of Being Human
1. Sex: It's Complicated
2. What Do We Mean by "Good" Sex?
3. The Misunderstood Meaning of "Sex-Positive"
4. The Two-Sided Story of Sex in America
5. Romancing the Puritan
Manisexto #2: Equity and Inclusion: Gender and Sexual Identities Are Diverse—and That's Okay
6. Why Diversity Matters across the Rainbow Spectrum, for Us All
7. Conversation, Consensus, and Cultural Competence
8. The Meanings of Queer
9. Sex Is Not Everything: The Surprising Lesson of Asexuality as Part of Diversity
Manisexto #3: Body Positivity: All Bodies Are Good Bodies
10. The Naked Truth: Embracing Body Positivity and Diverse Ways to Embody Gender
11. Body Positivity Doesn't Mean "Let Them Eat Cake!": It's about Holistic Well-Being
12. It's Not about "Looking Good" but about Feeling Good—and That Includes Your Genitals Too
13. Sex Is Not Only for the Young and Beautiful
Manisexto #4: Consent: Full Consent Is Fundamental to All Sexual Activity
14. The Role of Consent in Good Sex
15. What Consent Is (Good Communication) and Is Not (Green Eggs and Ham, or a Blanket)
16. Saying Yes, Saying No, Expanding the Gender Scripts
17. Boys Don't Belong in a Box
Manisexto #5: Shared Pleasure: Good Sex Is Mutually Pleasurable and Respectful
18. Power With, Not Power Over
19. Who Gets to Feel Good?: Gender and Pleasure beyond the Shame-and-Blame Tightrope
20. Closing the Orgasm Gap: Porn and Hookups
21. Cliteracy and the Politics of Pleasure
22. Climax: Drawing the Line toward New Visions of Love
Afterglow: Where We Go from Here: Toward Better Sex Education in America
Acknowledgments and Note on Student Responses
Source Citations and Resources for Further Reading
Index

What People are Saying About This

Jonathan Allan

Good Sex is a welcome contribution to discussions about sexuality, especially in the age of #MeToo, texting and sexting, and toxic masculinity. Thought-provoking, lucid, and a pleasure to read.

Editorial Reviews

08/08/2022

Roach (Happily Ever After), a gender and cultural studies professor at the University of Alabama, delivers a thorough “manisexto” on changing sexual norms. Roach argues that young adults have a more equitable understanding of sex than previous generations and points out where there’s room for improvement. She posits that “good sex” accounts for the needs of one’s partners and might resemble the release of “spiritual ecstasy.” Sidebars quote students from Roach’s Sexuality and Society course, relating their perspectives on consent, as well as anecdotes about navigating hookup culture and the “orgasm gap,” or the privileging of the man’s orgasm over the woman’s in heterosexual couplings. Roach emphasizes equity throughout and discusses the need to appreciate bodies that are not “fit, abled, youthful, and light-skinned” and to rewrite gender scripts to be more accepting of emotional expression in men and desire for sex in women. The student quotes capture a panoramic view of how Generation Z thinks about sex, with Roach’s analysis expertly distilling the social forces driving their anecdotes and opinions. The result is a perceptive volume on the contemporary culture of sex. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

Despite the fact that fights over "good" sex versus "bad" sex are often fought in the name of protecting young people from danger, young people's own voices are rarely given a hearing. In refreshing contrast, in this volume Catherine Roach gives her college students a platform to speak on their own behalf about their worries and hopes for sexual pleasure. In so doing, she cuts through moral panics and political smokescreens to issue an accessible, lucid, and expansive call for new possibilities for living gender and sexuality. Good Sex is an uncommon blast of good sense.

Ann Pellegrini

In Good Sex: Transforming America through the New Gender and Sexual Revolution, Catherine Roach sets out an optimistic vision of a New Gender and Sexual Revolution happening in the United States and beyond, which she argues builds on earlier sexual revolutions of the 1960s and 70s. Roach offers a positive and optimistic vision of how students define and manage their sexuality and experience of sex, showing that this new gender and sexual revolution goes much further than earlier revolutions that largely focused on sex. The views here from students are much bigger statements of cultural change, optimistic in terms of the future, offering a more egalitarian and positive vision of change and presenting exciting vistas for the future.

Ann Brooks

09/16/2022

Fulbright Award-winning Roach is a University of Alabama professor who listens to her students. She builds her "manisexto," in part, around what her students have told her. This work consists of five points: 1) sexuality is a normal, healthy, and pleasurable aspect of being human; 2) gender and sexual identities vary—and that's great; 3) all bodies are good bodies; 4) full consent is fundamental to all sexual activity; and 5) good sex is mutually respectful and pleasurable. Her goal is to improve sex education, and inclusivity is important to her. People who are asexual or queer and a broad spectrum of body types are represented in the author's discourse. The author believes good sex should do good and feel good, and she grounds her perspective in conversation with both ancient history and the liberation movements of the 20th century. VERDICT General readers looking to expand their horizons or understand the contemporary agenda in sexuality studies will not find a more clearly written, better place to start than this work.—David Azzolina

Library Journal

"Despite the fact that fights over "good" sex versus "bad" sex are often fought in the name of protecting young people from danger, young people's own voices are rarely given a hearing. In refreshing contrast, in this volume Catherine Roach gives her college students a platform to speak on their own behalf about their worries and hopes for sexual pleasure. In so doing, she cuts through moral panics and political smokescreens to issue an accessible, lucid, and expansive call for new possibilities for living gender and sexuality. Good Sex is an uncommon blast of good sense."—Ann Pellegrini, New York University, coauthor of "You Can Tell Just By Looking" and 20 Other Myths about LGBT Life and People

"Good Sex is a welcome contribution to discussions about sexuality, especially in the age of #MeToo, texting and sexting, and toxic masculinity. Thought-provoking, lucid, and a pleasure to read."—Jonathan Allan, co-editor of Journal of Bodies, Sexualities, and Masculinities

"In Good Sex: Transforming America through the New Gender and Sexual Revolution, Catherine Roach sets out an optimistic vision of a New Gender and Sexual Revolution happening in the United States and beyond, which she argues builds on earlier sexual revolutions of the 1960s and 70s. Roach offers a positive and optimistic vision of how students define and manage their sexuality and experience of sex, showing that this new gender and sexual revolution goes much further than earlier revolutions that largely focused on sex. The views here from students are much bigger statements of cultural change, optimistic in terms of the future, offering a more egalitarian and positive vision of change and presenting exciting vistas for the future."—Ann Brooks, editor of The Routledge Companion to Romantic Love

"I loved reading this ManiSexto! Catherine Roach has charted the path from puritanical past to the new gender and sexual revolution with verve. Without shying away from hot button topics she explores the evolving norms of sex and love and their impacts on civic life, lucidly and decisively navigating what makes sex good, what sex is worth having and how we might make it better."—Clarissa Smith, Northumbria University, Newcastle

"Roach emphasizes equity throughout and discusses the need to appreciate bodies that are not 'fit, abled, youthful, and light-skinned' and to rewrite gender scripts to be more accepting of emotional expression in men and desire for sex in women. The student quotes capture a panoramic view of how Generation Z thinks about sex, with Roach's analysis expertly distilling the social forces driving their anecdotes and opinions. The result is a perceptive volume on the contemporary culture of sex."—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

Thoughtful and thought-provoking, insightful and iconoclastic, "Good Sex: Transforming America through the New Gender and Sexual Revolution" is a work of impressively and meticulous scholarship in the field of the medical, psychology, and cultural anthropology of human sexuality.

Midwest Book Review. - Reviewer's Bookwatch

I loved reading this ManiSexto! Catherine Roach has charted the path from puritanical past to the new gender and sexual revolution with verve. Without shying away from hot button topics she explores the evolving norms of sex and love and their impacts on civic life, lucidly and decisively navigating what makes sex good, what sex is worth having and how we might make it better.

Clarissa Smith