Epilogue: New Times, New Controls?: Authorised and Unauthorised Sex

Abstract

The terms 'sexuality' and 'sex' have multiple meanings in contemporary Australian society. The authors of the preceding chapters have described a range of social responses, both formal and informal, to sex and sexualities in a number of contexts. In many of these contexts it has been demonstrated that key ideas and forms of regulation have changed considerably over time. It is also evident that in many cases such change has relaxed judgmental attitudes to sex and desire, and expanded the range of associated meanings and accepted practices. If ideas about sex and sexualities are socially produced, then different social contexts would be expected to produce different discourses about sexuality identity, desire, and pleasure, which is the core argument of social constructionists. But there is a risk in this otherwise easily assimilated argument to conclude that such discourses are progressive and tend, always, towards liberation rather than repression. In this final chapter, I use some snapshots of the sexual landscape of the West from the recent past to the present, to argue that discourses on sexuality continue to expand and become more complex. I also demonstrate that these more recent discourses continue to produce yardsticks by which people's sexual behaviour is measured. I argue that whether aspects of sexuality are encouraged or discouraged, these discourses retain the importance of sexuality in relation to social order. If this is correct, it would be premature to assume that despite the sexually saturated atmosphere that prevails, this may not after all signal the decline of the importance of expressions of desire for a particular form of social order. This chapter examines the following: • how old distinctions between 'good' and 'bad' sex, associated with modernity, have recently been rewritten in subtle ways that are more contextual than categorising • how new discourses of sex, related to 'fluid modernity', continue their relationship with a more fluid form of social order.