Cosmopolitan Sexualities: Hope and the Humanist Imagination

How are we to live with the wide varieties of sexuality andgender found across the rapidly changing global order? Whilst somecountries have legislated in favour of same-sex marriage and theUnited Nations makes declarations about gender and sexual equality,many countries across the world employ punitive responses to suchdifferences. In this compelling and original study, Ken Plummerargues the need for a practical utopian project of hope that hecalls cosmopolitan sexualities . He asks: how can weconnect our differences with collective values, our uniqueness withmultiple group belonging, our sexual and gendered individualitieswith a broader common humanity? Showing how a foundation for thisnew ethics, politics and imagination are evolving across the world,he discusses the many possible pitfalls being encountered. Hehighlights the complexity of sexual and gender cultures, theubiquity of human conflict, the difficulties of dialogue and theproblems with finding any common ground for our humanity.

Cosmopolitan Sexualities takes a bold critical humanistview and argues the need for positive norms to guide us into thefuture.Highlighting the vulnerability of the human being, Plummergoes in search of historically grounded and potentially globalhuman values like empathy and sympathy, care and kindness, dignityand rights, human flourishing and social justice. These harbourvisions of what is acceptable and unacceptable in the sexual andintimate life. Clearly written, the book speaks to important issuesof our time and will interest all those who are struggling tofinding ways to live together well in spite of our differentgenders and sexualities.

Reviews of Cosmopolitan Sexualities: Hope and the Humanist Imagination

"This is a book of deep knowledge and passionate commitment. It isthe culmination of a lifetime s work on the sociology,culture and politics of sexuality, and is suffused with a criticalhumanism that offers a guide for the perplexed troubled by ourcontemporary sexual labyrinth. It is a landmark of sexualscholarship." Jeffrey Weeks, London South Bank University "Ken Plummer helped define the field of sexuality studies, and nowhe pushes well beyond its boundaries, taking on big questions ofsocial theory. Cosmopolitan Sexualities uses the lens ofsexuality studies to grapple with debates about belonging anddifference in our rapidly globalizing world. Plummer has readabsolutely everything, and in this book he offers a comprehensive,often dazzling road map of the myriad changes which aresimultaneously remaking intimate life and macro worlds, and whatthey tell us about what it means to be human." Arlene Stein, Rutgers University