Sexual scripts. Sexuality and desire in the work of John H. Gagnon and William Simon

Abstract

The sexual script theory of John H. Gagnon and William Simon is one of the most comprehensive studies on sexuality in the post-war period, as their compelling volume Sexual Conduct: The Social Sources of Human Sexuality demonstrates. Shifting the analytical framework of human sexuality research away from biological, psychological and medical approaches, these two researchers view sexuality no longer as an ‘independent variable’, but rather as a ‘dependent’ variable, influenced by social categories such as age, gender, class, ethnicity and sexual orientation. Building on the tradition of American pragmatism, Simon and Gagnon’s research on sexuality opens up to social exchange mediated by symbolic communication, allowing energy impulses and physiological activities to be interpreted as symbolic actions.