Journal of Lesbian Studies; Róisín Ryan-Flood (Univ. of Essex) and Ella Ben Hagai (California State Univ. Fullerton) (Web)

Proposals by: 15.02.2026

‚How do lesbians have sex?‘ is a question frequently posed with a lesbophobic undertone. However, for those engaged in lesbian sex it can also open up a discussion. Lesbians have sex in many different ways, not prescribed or subsumed by patriarchal representations: they play, create, and innovate in their pleasures. The Journal of Lesbian Studies in collaboration with the Centre for Intimate and Sexual Citizenship at the Univ. of Essex, invites submissions for a special issue dedicated to the diversity, complexity, and richness of lesbian sexual practices. We seek contributions that are both empirically informed and theoretically sophisticated, offering nuanced analyses of the embodied, relational, cultural, and political dimensions of lesbian erotic life. We welcome qualitative, quantitative, mixed-methods, historical, literary and interdisciplinary work. Submissions exploring intersectional perspectives are particularly welcome, especially those that foreground how sexuality is shaped by race, class, gender expression, disability, age, migration, and cultural context.
We invite submissions that engage theoretically, empirically, and/or historically, with lesbian sexual practices, erotic roles, and intimate worlds. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

– Stone and stone-butch / stone-femme practices, histories, and embodiments
– Stud identities and stud/femme dynamics.
– Cross-cultural articulations of erotic roles and sexual scripts
– Lesbian sex in different cultural settings, including how language, meaning, and cultural difference shape sexual practices
– Dynamics of giving, receiving, refusal, and erotic agency
– Lesbian BDSM practices, including D/s configurations and power exchange
– Technologies, sex toys, prosthetics, and embodied erotic techniques
– Consent, risk, safety, and the ethics of touch
– Pleasure, affect, fantasy, desire, and intimacy
– Sexuality, embodiment, and desire across the menopause
– Long-term intimacy, partnership, and evolving erotic practices
– Life-course changes, erotic recovery, and post-trauma sexual practices
– Community narratives, subcultural knowledges, and sexual storytelling
– Lesbian sexual practices in the archives: historical sources and what they reveal about lesbian sex in the past

Short 300-word proposals are due Feb 15, 2026. Accepted proposals will be invited to present in an online conference at the Centre for Intimate and Sexual Citizenship in May 2026. Full manuscripts are due August 1st for peer review. We especially encourage scholarship that expand existing frameworks, challenges normative assumptions, and brings forward voices and practices that remain understudied. Send abstracts to Professor Róisín Ryan-Flood: rflood@essex.ac.uk

– Abstract proposals due February 15th, 2026
– Full manuscript due August 1s, 2026.

Prof. Róisín Ryan-Flood, University of Essex. Email: rflood@essex.ac.uk
Dr. Ella Ben Hagai, California State University Fullerton. Email: ebenhagai@Fullerton.edu

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