My scholarly work over the past couple of decades has mainly been about social movements, especially sexuality- and gender-based movements; queer theory and politics; American popular culture, especially "reality" television and celebrity culture; unconventional family formations; and the intersections between some or all of these phenomena. My research and writing on social movements has included articles on AIDS activism in its early years, the "queer dilemma" in social movements, inclusion and exclusion in gender- and sexuality-based movements, and the ways organizational dynamics shape collective identity. I've written about queer theory within sociology and as a methodological framework. My pop culture studies have included pieces about the narratives and new directions of American celebrity culture, about celebrities and social movements, and about celebrity culture in general (see also my book Claims to Fame); about the representations and reception of gender and sexual nonconformity on TV talk shows (see also my book Freaks Talk Back) and on other genres of reality television; about the way sex scandals work in different institutional settings, how they process female publicity, and most recently about sexting scandals; and about dynamics of nontraditional and queer families as they appeared on TV talk shows, as they are currently being created (see also my book Modern Families), and in relation to reproductive politics. I've also written a bit about Sylvester and disco culture (see also my book The Fabulous Sylvester), and about AIDS and collective memory. My most recent academic project, with co-author Rosanna Hertz, is a qualitative study of heterosexual and LGBQ+ youths’ experiences of sex education and online sexual learning.
For a while, I wrote culture reviews and essays for The American Prospect. Every now and again, I publish something in a magazine like Contexts (for example, this interview with my parents, this piece about media consolidation, this piece on queerness on reality TV, and this review of the film "Weiner"), or a publication like The New York Times Magazine (for example, this piece about having a baby). I've also participated in various documentaries, including "Further Off the Straight and Narrow: New Gay Visibility on Television, 1998-2006," "Whoopi Goldberg Presents Moms Mabley," "Unsung: Sylvester," "Paris Hilton, Inc.: The Selling of Celebrity," "Cultureshock: The Rise of Trash TV," and the SAGE Sociology Collection video series with a piece on "Celebrity and the Triumph of Ordinariness."