Overexposed? Sex and the Female Body in American History

Kathleen Kennedy and Sharon Ullman, eds. Sexual Borderlands: Constructing an American Sexual Past. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2003. xvi + 360 pp. ISBN 0-8142-0927-0 (cl); 0-8142-5107-2 (pb).

Robyn L. Rosen. Reproductive Health, Reproductive Rights: Reformers and the Politics of Maternal Welfare, 1917–1940. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2003. xviii + 196 pp. ISBN 0-8142-0920-3 (cl).

Jennifer Nelson. Women of Color and the Reproductive Rights Movement. New York: New York University Press, 2003. x + 225 pp. ISBN 0-8147-5821-5 (cl); 0-8147-5827-4 (pb).

Janice M. Irvine. Talk About Sex: The Battles over Sex Education in the United States. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. xi + 271 pp. ISBN 0-520-23503-7.

When Justin Timberlake exposed Janet Jackson's breast on live television during the 2004 Super Bowl, he unleashed a massive uproar over the question of public indecency. Over half a million people have protested to the Federal Communications Commission about the incident, more than twice the number that complained to the F.C.C. in all of 2003. As a result, on 11 March, the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly (391–22) in support of a bill on broadcast indecency. The measure would increase fines to as much as $500,000 (up from $27,500) per incident.¹

But how does a culture define "indecency"? Though the Supreme Court has never offered a clear definition, F.C.C. Commissioner Michael Powell remarked on the incident, "I don't think you need to be a lawyer to understand the basic concepts of common decency here."² Time magazine called the event the "hypocrisy bowl"; as 143 million viewers gathered to enjoy a "wholesome evening of giant men knocking the living hell out of one another, cheered on by busty dancing women in skimpy uniforms," suddenly something went terribly wrong.³ "Was Janet's breast filled with plutonium?" asked Entertainment Weekly.⁴ How else to explain the public response? For at least the half-million who complained to the F.C.C. (and probably many more), Jackson's exposure was not a joke, but a sign that a boundary had been crossed. To them, the difference between busty dancing women in skimpy uniforms and an exposed nipple was significant.

As the following four books attest, this episode was not the first time that the assumed blurring of boundaries between public and private expressions of sexuality provoked public outcry. Though their studies span centuries and social movements, these authors revisit the sordid past of sex, sin, and politics in American history, raising new questions and offering new frameworks. Scrutinizing court cases, activists, prostitutes, popular magazines, and language, they emphasize the importance of understanding and analyzing sexuality of the past, and help us make sense of twenty-first-century scandals.

When teaching the history of sexuality in the college classroom, scholars Kathleen Kennedy and Sharon Ullman observed that the proliferation of research on sexuality's past has excited scholars but often confused students. As a result, they designed Sexual Borderlands: Constructing an American Sexual Past with undergraduates in mind, hoping to "bring coherence to a field that often resists such attempts at order" (xi). Although all but two of the thirteen essays have been published before (as early as 1979), they were selected for this volume because of a shared focus on the relationship of power to sex. Borrowing from western history, Kennedy and Ullman propose the notion of "sexual borderlands" as a useful framework, one that presents sexuality "as a series of encounters fueled by contests over power," rather than as a linear tale of progress (xiii). Borders of race, class, and gender, as well as the state, often determined the outcome of these contests.

The book is divided into three sections: Constructing a "New World," American Society Takes Shape, and Modernization and a New Century. Scholars will be familiar with...