The publication of the first edition of "Sexual Conduct" in 1973 marked a radical departure from the traditional view of human sexuality, which posits models of man and woman in which biological arrangements are translated into sociocultural imperatives, such as Freud's "Anatomy is destiny". Gagnon and Simon effected a shift from an almost exclusive concern with the power of biology and nature in sexual conduct to an attempt to understand the determining capacities of social life. Physical acts, they argued, become possible only because they are embedded in complex social scripts. The very experience of sexual excitement was seen as a learned process. Using the social script theory, the authors traced the ways in which sexuality is learned and fitted into particular moments in the life cycle and in different modes of behaviour. They included chapters on the social origins of sexual development, childhood and adolescence, post-adolescent development, the pedagogy of sex, male homosexuality, lesbianism, prostitution, pornography and social change and sexual conduct. This new edition, begun by the two authors and completed by Dr. Gagnon after Dr.
Simon's death, retains the original text with a small amount of revision, and updating. To that text they have added, along with a new preface, two essays reflecting on the conditions of writing the book; edited interviews from a quarterly on their contribution to the field; and a new epilogue by Gagnon. With Foucault's history of sexuality, "Sexual Conduct" is one of the two works of the Seventies that would be recognized for their groundbreaking insight. This new edition will restore to currency a modern classic that opened up the social constructionist approach to the study of sexuality. It should be adopted in courses that did not even exist at the time of its first publication. Outside of the classroom, it should also be of interest to a wide range of professionals, including those in sociology, psychology, psychiatry, social work and medicine, and to the informed general public.