Summary Of Elisabeth Sheff And Corie Hammer

Elisabeth Sheff and Corie Hammers’ article was meant to describe the practices of polyamorists and kinksters. Polyamorists were defined as people who engage in, “multiple or concurrent romantic and/or sexual relationships, engage in group sex and/or openly espouse non-monogamy” (Sheff and Hammers 387). Kinksters were identified as people involved in, “kinky or perverted sexual acts and relationships frequently involving bondage/discipline, dominance/submission and/or sadism/masochism (BDSM) (387). The article primarily focused on race, class, and education when discussing the two sexualities, and made a claim that the only people who participated were high class white people who could get away with practicing it. This claim made by the authors displayed how society viewed these sexualities as a problem that mainly occurred in privileged upper classmen who felt entitled to act however
The article also claimed that society found the sexualities to be unnatural and odd, meaning that people who associated themselves with them to feel like outcasts. This made it difficult for people of this sexuality to express themselves since they were faced with discrimination from society, so most people did not identify as either one. The authors provided effective reasons for why race, class, and education played a large role in why certain members of the sexuality were not condemned for their actions. Sheff and Hammers stated that since many of the polyamorists and kinksters are white people of high class with skilled positions, they would have more leniency. These characteristics provided them with a, “buffer from certain negative impacts people risk… they are usually endowed with