SSSP Day 1 (Pre-conference)

Well as you will have gathered from the last couple of posts, I'm over in San Francisco for the Society for the Study of Social Problems Annual Meeting. I joined SSSP earlier this year and the group describes its aim as:

'Founded in 1951, the Society for the Study of Social Problems promotes research on and serious examination of problems of social life. The SSSP works to solve these problems and to develop informed social policy. As a member, you will find peers and colleagues working together to develop and apply research which makes a difference'.

So, I'm trying to find an audience over in North America for my research around public sex. As I write this I'm sat in my hotel room, taking a mini break from preparing my paper to write this. It's 9.45pm so don't go thinking it's all play in conference land. That said, there is some play, and I managed to get a few sites in earlier, pictures from which I've posted on my Facebook page. As I sat on Ocean Beach earlier today, I did reflect on how amazingly lucky I am to have such a wonderful job. I have a red sun burnt nose and aching feet from my trekking about Golden Gate Park to prove it.

Back to the conference, it starts at 8.30am tomorrow morning (oh joy) and guess what, my paper is in one of the first sessions at 8.30 so I'll be up bright and breezy to finish up and present. I'll let you know how it goes. Given the focus of the conference, I aim t throw a little in about the failure of UK groups (notably Stonewall) to sensibly engage with the subject of public sex and the issues of queer theory this raises and I may get a into deconstructing the heteronormative narrative around PSEs. Right now, as I right this, I'm just hoping I manage to get the key points in (I don't know the exact time we have to speak but I'm guessing the usual 20mins plus questions) and make reasonable sense.

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