Bernadette Barton

Bernadette Barton (Ph.D. University of Kentucky 2000) is Professor of Sociology and Director of Gender Studies at Morehead State University. Her research and teaching interests include sexuality, gender, popular culture, religion, qualitative methods, happiness and the sex industry.

Bernadette's scholarship explores the experiences of members of marginalized groups. She is most fascinated by issues of transformation and social justice, such as: what makes someone conscious of social inequality? What causes people to change oppressive attitudes and behaviors? How can we really see one another across vast differences of geography, gender, race, class and sexual identity? She is is co-editor of Sex Work Today: Erotic Labor in the 21st Century (November 2024), the author of The Pornification of America: How Raunch Culture is Ruining Our Society (2021), Stripped: More Stories from Exotic Dancers (2017), Pray the Gay Away: The Extraordinary Lives of Bible Belt Gays (2012), Stripped: Inside the Lives of Exotic Dancers (2006), and co-author of Queer Resistance in Appalachia (forthcoming 2025).