Overview
Write a thoughtful, original essay in which you make an educated comparison between the sexual
culture you have encountered and that encountered by your interviewee. Your paper should draw on your own experiences, class material, and the transcript of your interview. Note, this is not a rehashing of the interview as it occurred. It is a reflection on that interview. Hence, you are to make a thesis statement (what is something big you learned in interviewing this person?) and use three types of data (your own experience, class material, and material from the interview) to explain your statement and argue in its favor. Don’t forget to introduce your interviewee to your reader. Use ASA style citation style in text and in a bibliography page (https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/a...). More on your thesis statement: This course has tackled some big ideas. It has questioned common wisdom about sex (the act) and the nature of gender and sexual orientation. It’s tackled the intersectionality of sex, and how race and class, in congress with gender and sexual orientation, shape our sexual opportunities and experiences. It’s introduced you to erotic hierarchies and the cultural rules of cathexis. It’s questioned the very idea of normality and asked you to think more broadly about liberation. In the process, we’ve theorized sexuality as a culturally powerful force inside of us, between us, and among groups, in institutions, and at the level of the nation. Our exploration of hooking up asked what it mean to call it a culture, situated hookup culture in US history, cast it as part of an American neoliberalism, and asked how crises of care, pleasure, self-love, and violence were implicated. Given your now quite sophisticated understanding, what strikes you about your interview? What comparisons or contrasts were the most interesting? Which parts of the interview resonated with class material? Called it into question? What did you learn about sexual culture then, or what new insights did you have about sexual culture now? Are you going to make the same or different decisions than your interviewee (have you already?) and why? Will the consequences be similar or different? How have the risks and benefits of sex and romance changed, if at all? Thinking through questions like these, focus in on one story you’d like to tell that derives from your interview and intersects with the material. That is your thesis. Specifications: • strictly 8 to 10 pages (no more, no less) double-spaced using standard fonts and margins • include references to at least five class readings (each chapter of American Hookup can count separately, but aim to go beyond the book) • incorporate quotes or summarize stories from your interview to illustrate the claims in your argument https://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?ur... (this link will allow you to download the book) each chapter can count as one source but will also attach other sources too.