One day, argues Foucault, we may wonder how “the ruses of sexuality” seduced us to academic inquiry, but that day is possible only “in a different economy of bodies and pleasures” (1976, 159). In such a very different political reality, a genealogical account of the relationship between power and sexuality might not be necessary. But at present, “our discourse, our customs, our institutions, our regulations, our knowledge” is “busy producing in the light of day and broadcasting to noisy accompaniment” sexuality so pervasive in our consciousness that it informs much of our political culture and democratic governance. Politicians fear being caught in its seduction, yet conjure it to excite voters. Campaign advisers dance with sexuality, provoking it to publicly bless their candidate and using it to scandalize their opponent. Janus-faced voters charge the state with its regulation while, publicly and privately, celebrating sexual freedoms. The body politic knows well the power of sexuality. The leading professional association of political scientists has yet to formally recognise it. Perhaps one day people will wonder at this. Perhaps that day has come.

APSA members across the varied terrain of the discipline are in the process of submitting a petition to the Council to recognize a Sexuality & Politics Organized Section. The petition, as well as instructions for those wishing to support it, is included in the Appendix. In this article, we wish to highlight a few examples of research in the field of sexuality and politics, suggesting ways in which many APSA members and others have begun to explore the political importance of sexuality. Sexuality research, particularly over the last 10 years, has emerged to address a wide variety of topics of concern in political science (Cook 1999; Rimmerman 2001). Examples include policy debates over sex education, sexually transmitted infections, Internet porn regulation; international politics regarding sex trafficking, sex tourism, the globalized market of child sexual abuse; the culture of sexual assault and rape among military personnel; and analyses of the impact of disclosures that place politicians beyond the limits of sexual normativity (Ehrenreich and Hochschild 2002; Peterson 2005; Enloe 2000). In addition, a significant number of political scientists have turned their attention to the way in which the regulation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered citizens has emerged as a defining issue for American politics.

The creation of a Sexuality & Politics Section will provide a forum for researchers to discuss and collaborate across traditional disciplinary boundaries and establish a body of professional expertise that can engage with discourses of sexuality in American politics and the global political culture. Given the way in which issues of sexuality have become a central fixture on the American political agenda, it is appropriate that the APSA recognise the importance of this research and foster its emergence as a field within the discipline of political science.

The 2007 APSA Annual Meeting in Chicago, “Political Science and Beyond,” recognizes the interdisciplinarity of the study of politics and the importance of a rigorous exchange of ideas and approaches across social science and humanities. Other efforts, such as the Perestroika movement, have focused on re-examining disciplinary boundaries and recognizing the significance of work at the “margins” of what many consider the core ideas and methods of political science. For those researching at the margins, and those engaging in interdisciplinary research, it is important to locate others institutionally who are actively engaged in challenging the parameters of the discipline. Communication equally is important for those employing familiar political science methodologies and theories to explore newly recognized political terrains, as members of Women and Politics Research and those in Race, Ethnicity, and Politics will have long been aware. Such research at the margins often engages with the interplay of race, gender, and sexuality (Cohen 1999; Mink 1999; Blasius 2001). The literature discussed below suggests sexuality as a point of political analysis that moves across race, gender, religion, ideology, and institutional structure.

Sexuality, broadly defined, articulates the connectedness between sexed bodies, gender normativity, sexual morality, sexualization of racism, and sexualized institutions such as the family, schools, and the state. Almost 10 years ago, David Rayside (1998) observed that little attention had been give to analytical work on lesbian, gay, and bisexual activism and, importantly, its political impact. This is simply no longer the case. The transformation is due in part to shifts in political discourse forcing public discussion of the role of the state in regulating the sexuality of its citizens. Rights, status, and public goods are often distributed to citizens on the basis of laws and public judgments about the sex lives of citizens. This is true not only for LGBT people who constitute the public face of much current research and political protest but also for heterosexual women and men. The state regulates the lives of women, as single mothers, as welfare recipients, as workers with primary care responsibilities, as service providers, as sex workers (Abramovitz 1988; Hirschmann 2003; Neubeck and Cazenave 2001). Although beneficiaries of the patriarchal dividend, men are constrained by state constructions of masculinity emphasizing socio-political norms as citizens, fathers, and financial providers (Hobson 2002; Kimmel and Messner 1992; Connell 1995).

Arguably, the centrality of sexuality issues to American politics reflects the success of social movements challenging gender and sexual normativity since the 1960s as well as the effectiveness of traditionalist religious backlash and the pervasiveness of a morally conservative political agenda. The partnership between the Republican Party and Christian conservatives, consolidated since the election of President Ronald Reagan, clearly establishes a particular moral agenda as a primary resource for governance (Button, Rienzo, and Wald 1997; Wald 2000; Herman 1997). There is some “in-house” discord and disagreement over the extent of state power to utilize policy to enforce a particular personal morality (Burack 2006; Josephson and Burack 2006; Wilcox 1996). But for the most part, the financial assistance and voter mobilization offered by cultural conservatives seem to have seduced the Republican Party; Herman (1997, 4–5) identifies the Christian Right as “one of the most vibrant and effective social forces in the United States” which by the 1980s had made “antigay activity central to it political practice and social vision.” She notes that for the Christian Right, “the state does not need to be rolled back; rather, ownership must be transferred” (1997, 184, 186). Political scientists challenge journalists and other observers of American politics to take seriously the ideological underpinnings of the Christian Right and the way the movement communicates its politics through political rhetoric that casts groups of sexualized citizens as enemies (Green 2000; Gallager and Bull 1996) or as terrorists (Burack 2003).

This approach to governance is not confined to American borders. Research in international relations and foreign policy traces the impact of “globalizing family values” (Buss and Herman 2003), particularly through use of the global gag rule in family planning and restrictive policies for HIV/AIDS funding and sex education programs. Likewise, analysts of European politics and policies note the ideological and financial support lent by U.S. moral conservatives in an attempt to bolster campaigns at odds with values “imposed” by Brussels (O'Dwyer and Schwartz 2006; Wilson 2007a; 2007b).

At home, the moral conservative agenda marks local, state, and federal governance. Sharp (2002) and Wood and Bartkowski (2004) carefully account for the way in which sexuality issues such as prostitution, pornography, and “homosexuality” are negotiated in urban politics (see also Bailey 1998). Contributors to The Christian Right in American Politics offer a detailed analysis of the influence of the Christian Right in the politics of 13 states, including consideration of specific legislation and close relations with the Republican Party (Green, Rozell, Wilcox 2006). Since the election of George W. Bush, the Christian Right moral agenda manifests in a range of public policies including welfare, health, education (Russo 2006; Rienzo, Button, Sheu, and Li 2006), sex education (Irvine 2002; Togun and Josephson 2006), and disease control (Cahill and Tobias 2006; Riggle and Tadlock 1999).

Of course, one could argue that former President Bill Clinton's term in office also was infused with issues of sexuality, albeit for very different ideological and personal reasons. From the outset, he attempted to persuade voters toward non-discriminatory military personnel policies, but the resulting “don't ask, don't tell” left both critics and allies unsatisfied (Bailey, Sigelman, and Wilcox 2003; Lehring 2003). Like many politicians before him, and undoubtedly some in the future, he learned first-hand the political and professional dangers of publicly straying beyond the boundaries of acceptable sexual behaviour. Surely, some will wonder one day at the money and effort spent in an attempt to uncover a “truth” that resided therein.

Sexuality and the government regulation of lesbian and gay citizens in particular has become a key feature of contemporary American politics (Button, Rienzo, and Wald 1997; Rauch 2004; Snider 2006). Marriage, of course, has taken centre stage in recent years (Gerstmann 2003; Josephson 2005). Political debate of the late 1990s was riddled with arguments over state and federal jurisdiction with regards to marriage, over morality of gay and lesbian partnerships, and over queer families as cultural threats to the centrality of heterosexual marriage (Dupuis 2002; Cruz 2003; Pinello 2006; Badgett 2001; Bernstein and Reimann 2001; Lehr 1999). The 2004 APSA Annual Meeting in Chicago had so many papers about the issue of same-sex marriage that members could have discussed this one issue in almost every time slot for the entire conference.

While federally recognized “gay marriage” may seem improbable at this time, the decriminalization of private sex acts such as sodomy via Lawrence v. Texas signals an important shift toward recognizing the legal rights of lesbian, gay, and bisexual citizens. It may be that the majority of Americans are not yet ready to accept lesbian and gay citizens, their relationships, and their families as morally “the same” as that of heterosexuals, but there is substantial evidence that public opinion is shifting on issues of equality. Recent work within political science demonstrates the dissonance between public opinion and the moral conservative agenda; the link between religiosity and discrimination based on sexual orientation; and the possibility of shift in the future political climate based on demographic projections (see for example: Haider-Markel and Joslyn 2005; Craig, Martinez, Kane, and Gainous 2005; Brewer 2003; Haeberle 1999; Lewis and Rogers 1999; Yang 1997; Herek 2002; Sherrill and Yang 2000). Such work draws attention to the correlation between the placement of regulations concerning homosexuality and the increase in voter turnout.

Some political scientists who work in the area of sexuality are analyzing how the principles of democracy and social justice are undermined by a state-imposed conservative moral agenda. Others question gendered and/or hetero-normative ideological and epistemological foundations of subjectivity, morality, and rules of governance. Often these scholars move easily across disciplinary boundaries, borrowing from feminist, postmodern/poststructuralist, and queer theory. Phelan's work (1994; 1997) moves through liberal political theory and the conflicts of identity politics and in doing so pioneers theories of issue-based coalition politics constructed by actors with fluid subjectivities. Brettschneider (2006) addresses what it means to queer the family, in intersection with race and ethnicity, and in the context of a feminist critique of marriage and family (see also Lehr 1999). Brown (2006) and Smith (1995) offer compelling challenges to modern constructions of concepts of tolerance and legal identity in late capitalism. Burgess considers the ramifications of queer theory for understanding the rhetorical structure of mainstream constitutional interpretation (1999; 2002) as well as the judicial politics of seemingly straight cases such as Bush v. Gore (2005) and explicitly gay cases such as Lawrence v. Texas (2006). Others working in the area of law and politics explore the legal opportunity structure of gay rights litigation (Anderson 2004), queer jurisprudence in the context of AIDS cases (Rollins 2004; 2005) and sexuality in the context of European integration (Stychin 2002). Combining law, policy, and queer theory, Transgender Rights (Currah, Juang, and Minter 2006) weaves a sophisticated understanding of gender with a grounded account of the workings of law and policy.

In 1996, Kenneth Sherrill wrote about “The Political Power of Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals” as follows in the pages of this journal: “People who are randomly distributed about a nation, with multiple and conflicting cross-pressures, are not likely to formulate a highly structured and coherent agenda” (473). He argued that lesbians and gay men are born into a diaspora in which it is difficult to engage collectively in sophisticated political discourse. In contrast, contemporary American politics has felt the impact of the collective, organized power of moral conservatives. Their moral agenda has included every aspect of sex and sexuality, with clear aim being taken at lesbian and gay citizens. Within our profession, many are employing political science methodologies to consider sexualized policy initiatives, political discourse and effects on public opinion, and questions of law and jurisprudence. Others focus on the effect of sexing the political agenda on concepts of state neutrality, democracy, privacy, and equality. Given current American political culture, and Foucault's notion of the “economy of bodies and pleasures,” researchers considering the relationship between sexuality, power, and politics should not be “randomly distributed” without a means for communication. The proposed Sexuality & Politics Organized Section seeks to offer an organized forum for those working in different areas of the discipline to share research, collaborate, and debate this significant development in American and global politics.