Ericksen examines surveys in light of marital and premarital sex, adolescence, AIDS, and politics, among other backdrops, and looks at how they have influenced policy and perceptions in these areas. Ericksen first taught on the sociology of sexuality in the late 1970s, and had also worked on and been involved in survey research and feminist theory and practice. By 1992, after 12 years in academic administration, she had become quite curious about the way the social sciences produce knowledge, particularly in less easily investigated areas like sexuality. After hearing that the federal government had pulled funding for a pair of sexual-behavior surveys, she decided to investigate. People who do these surveys feel embattled in doing them, and with justification. . . .
Sexuality is a topic around which other kinds of battles get fought.
The fighting is often a metaphor for other fears or concerns Americans have. They see social problems of the day as sexual problems. Nevertheless, Kiss and Tell does not gloss over sex surveys' inherent shortcomings. They help shape social reality, and in the competent surveys, some of the shape they give to reality is based on empirical fact. But even here the knowledge they provide is limited.