Performing the Discourse of Sexuality Online

Theoretical Background

Social Constructionism was famously introduced (albeit leaning on Mead’s (1934) work on symbolic interactionism) by Berger & Luckman (1967), as an approach which focuses on the ways in which people and the groups they form contribute to the creation of their perceived social reality – the collective power of society to determine individual identity. Social interaction lies at the heart of all knowledge for the social constructionist. Whilst this chapter aligns itself with the fundamental contention of social constructionism, namely that no man is an island, and that our selves and our interaction with each other are indivisible, poststructuralism, and its more contemporary approach to the nature of identity, is the principal philosophical approach propounded in this chapter. Although there is a good deal of overlap, not all social constructionists are poststructuralists, but the author of this chapter is. As an approach, poststructuralism represents the deconstruction of all systems of thought, treating all ideals, systems, structures, definitions and assumptions with suspicion, encouraging, on the contrary, a continual and profound scepticism and freshness and open-mindedness of enquiry as central tenets of its approach (Kreps 2010). This applies, of course, as much to social constructionism, as to any other system of thought.