As sex and sexuality remain hot-button topics among some in the United States, one Binghamton University professor has devoted her career to studying the field.

Leigh Ann Wheeler, a professor of history, is one of the leading scholars in sexuality, feminism and the historical and contemporary social movements associated with them. After receiving a doctorate in history from the University of Minnesota, Wheeler became an associate professor of history at BU in 2008. Since then, she has published her second book, “How Sex Became a Civil Liberty,” which explores the legal, political and cultural impact of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on sexual expression, privacy and other related issues, like abortion, in American history.

Wheeler credited her interest in the study of history and sexuality to her upbringing with strict, fundamentalist Christian values during the 1970s, where speaking about sex and sexuality was considered amoral and sinful. She said her childhood church’s views greatly differed from others, viewing scriptures in the Bible as completely literal and representative of outdated values that should be maintained today.

“The church I grew up in was not just fundamentalist — it was fundamentally ahistorical, claiming to be identical to the churches founded by the Apostle Paul in the New Testament,” Wheeler wrote in an email. “It enforced strict gender roles, claiming that Paul had ordained women’s silence in church, prohibited women from teaching or leading ‘mixed groups’ (groups that included men) and required women to submit to their husbands and devote their lives to homemaking.”

As Wheeler grew more connected to society outside of her fundamentalist household, she still found striking similarities, though not as intense, between American cultural values for women and the teachings of her church.

“Even as I developed a critical perspective on what I’d learned about sex and history growing up, I was not really pleased with how mainstream culture objectified women as sexual playthings,” Wheeler wrote. “I felt caught between two worlds that seemed diametrically opposed but were actually very similar in that both treated women primarily according to their sex and sexuality — rather than their personhood — and as if their purpose was to serve men’s pleasure.”

Both realizations, coupled with her interest in history, fueled Wheeler’s passion in exploring the field of sexuality in American history as she arrived at graduate school. However, she explained history of sex and sexuality was not considered a “field” in the 1990s, as University of Minnesota professors did not teach any classes in the subject nor were they knowledgeable about it. This led her to create study groups with her peers, assigning themselves journal articles and teaching each other. Now, Wheeler says the field of the history of sexuality has exploded in contemporary society.

Wheeler’s study in historical developments in sexuality often naturally coincides with the study of U.S. women’s rights and feminism, another focus on her research. Wheeler explained, for example, the impact women’s suffrage had on blurring the taboo lines of sexuality in society.

“The importance of women’s suffrage regarding sexuality is probably that it broke down yet another barrier blocking women from access to the public realm and direct political power,” Wheeler wrote. “So [women’s] suffrage helped to obliterate the boundary that was — according to middle- and upper-class ideals — supposed to separate women’s private from men’s public sphere. Simply put, the idea that women remain confined to the private sphere made less and less sense when women were out in the public sphere voting and even running for office.”

Women’s suffrage is one of many examples of how political and legal action has changed societal views on sex, according to Wheeler. In her book, “How Sex Became a Civil Liberty,” Wheeler explores how early struggles for sexual rights were viewed as fights for freedom of speech and due process under the First Amendment and Fifth Amendment, respectively, of the U.S. Constitution. Wheeler said advocate groups like the ACLU evolved in the mid-20th century, with greater focus on specific topics regarding women’s sexuality — like access for contraceptives, abortions and professionals who specialize in women’s health — and have shaped modern discussions, from LGBTQ+ rights to health insurance.

However, Wheeler said she worries that in discussions of sex today, sex is often removed as a form of intimacy and rather thought of purely as a source of pleasure and entertainment with the rise of “hookup” culture, citing the increased commodification of sex as a possible reason. Wheeler hopes society continues to view sexuality as an expression of love, trust and commitment, especially during today’s changing climate.

“I think we need to look closely at how the world we currently inhabit has made privacy hard to come by — not just due to the intrusions of artificial intelligence, for example — but also because, in the name of free sexual expression, we are increasingly, voluntarily de-privatizing sex, historically, one of the most intimate of human relations,” Wheeler wrote. “What that means for women versus men remains to be seen, but chances are good that it is women who will be most disadvantaged by it.”