Research
Lisa’s publication record includes work on gender theory, college hookup culture, the sociology of the body, and U.S. discourse about female genital cutting, all of which reflect her theoretical interest in gender and its intersections, sexuality, culture, and the body. Scroll down for more.
Her new book — Exposed: A College in Crisis Puts Science to the Test — will be published by W.W. Norton & Co. in 2026.
Below are some select publications with full text links. For more, see Lisa’s full curriculum vitae.
GENDER & SEXUALITY
- Paradoxes of Displeasure: Understanding Collegiate hookup Culture’s Resilience to Negative Emotional Energy (Symbolic Interaction, online first)
- College Students and the Neutralization of Unsafe Sex: Applying a New Model and Establishing a New Research Agenda (Deviant Behavior, forthcoming).
- Rethinking the “Stalled Revolution”: Toward New Metaphors for Feminist Struggle (Signs 50th Anniversary Issue, 2024).
- American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on Campus. New York: W.W. Norton & Co (2017).
- Queer Students, Queer Hookups, Queer Culture: The Potential for Critical Contributions to Theories of Sexuality, with Janelle Pham (Outskirts: Queer Experiences on the Fringe, edited by D’Lane Compton and Amy Stone, 2024).
- Doing Casual Sex: A Sexual Fields Approach to the Emotional Force of Hookup Culture (Social Problems, 2022).
- In Pursuit of the Potential of Sexual Field Theory: A Research Agenda. (Sexualities, 2022).
- Hookup Culture and Higher Education, with Joseph Padgett. (Handbook of Contemporary Feminism, 2019, edited by Andrea Press and Tasha Oren).
- What’s so Cultural about Hookup Culture (Contexts, Winter 2017).
- Empowering Students to Build Healthier Campus Sexual Cultures (Sociology Policy Briefs, February 2021).
- Are Women Bad at Orgasms? Understanding the Gender Gap. (Gender, Sex, and Politics: In the Streets and Between the Sheets in the 21st Century, 2015, edited by Shira Tarrant).
- Hooking Up and Opting Out: What Students Learn About Sex in their First Year of College, with Caroline Heldman (Sex for Life: From Virginity to Viagra, How Sexuality Changes Throughout our Lives, 2012, edited by J. DeLamater & L. Carpenter)
- Hook-Up Culture: Setting a New Research Agenda, with Caroline Heldman (Sexuality Research and Social Policy, 2010)
- The Incidental Orgasm: The Presence of Clitoral Knowledge and the Absence of Orgasm for Women, with Emily Kremer and Jessica Brown (Women & Health, 2005)
- Sex Education and Teenage Sexuality (Network News: The Newsletter of Sociologists for Women in Society, 2004)
THE SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BODY
- The Emancipatory Promise of the Habitus: Lindy Hop, the Body, and Social Change (Ethnography, 2011).
- The New Science of Sex Difference (Sociology Compass, 2013).
- The Potential Relevances of Biology to Social Inquiry, with Jeremy Freese and Allen Li (Annual Review of Sociology, 2003).
- Sexualizing Sarah Palin: The Social and Political Context of the Sexual Objectification of Female Candidates, with Caroline Heldman (Sex Roles, 2011).
U.S. DISCOURSE ABOUT FEMALE GENITAL CUTTING
- The Politics of Acculturation: Female Genital Cutting and the Challenge of Building Multicultural Democracies (Social Problems, 2011).
- Learning from Female Genital Mutilation: Lessons from 30 Years of Academic Discourse (Ethnicities, 2012).
- Defining Gendered Oppression in U.S. Newspapers: The Strategic Value of “Female Genital Mutilation” (Gender & Society, 2009).
- The Function of Balance in U.S. News Coverage of Uncontested Issues (Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism, 2012).
- Journalism, Advocacy, and the Social Construction of Consensus (Media, Culture & Society, 2011).
- The Evolution of Feminist Thought About Female Genital Cutting (Network News: The Newsletter of Sociologists for Women in Society, 2009).
- Clitoridectomy, Female Genital Cutting Practices and Law (The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies, 2015).
FILM ANALYSIS
Photo credit: Marc Campos. Courtesy of Occidental College.
Lisa Wade, PhD 