Portland State University PDXScholar Dissertations and Theses Dissertations and Theses Spring 1-1-2012 Public Policy and Sexual Geography in Portland, Oregon, 1970-2010 Elizabeth Morehead Portland State University Let us know how access to this document benefits ouy . Follow this and additional works at: http://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds Part of the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Human Geography Commons, and the Urban Studies and Planning Commons Recommended Citation Morehead, Elizabeth, "Public Policy and Sexual Geography in Portland, Oregon, 1970-2010" (2012). Dissertations and Theses. Paper 205. 10.15760/etd.205 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of PDXScholar. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Public Policy and Sexual Geography in Portland, Oregon, 1970-2010 by Elizabeth Mylott Morehead A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Urban Studies Dissertation Committee: Carl Abbott, Chair Sy Adler Tom Harvey Hillary Jenks Martha Works Portland State University 2012 Abstract Drawing on the concept of sexual geography, this study examines the social and political meanings of sexualized spaces in the urban geography of Portland, Oregon between 1970 and 2010. This includes an examination of the sexual geography of urban spaces as a deliberate construct resulting from official and unofficial public policy and urban planning decisions. Sexual geographies, the collective and individual constructions of sexuality, are not static. Nor are definitions of deviant sexual practices fixed in the collective consciousness. Both are continuously being reshaped and reconstructed in response to changing economic structures and beliefs about sex, race and class.