William Simon (sociologist)

William Simon (1930–2000) was a sociologist of human sexualities between 1970 and 2000. His co-authored book, Sexual Conduct: The Social Sources of Human Conduct played a major role in shaping the contemporary sociology of sexuality and critical sexualities studies. His work helped pioneer a theory of sexual scripting and he was a gentle but radical advocate of sexual tolerance. He was an early advocate of gay rights and testified against obscenity laws.

He "brought a postmodernist sensibility to a field long bound by historical assumptions", wrote the New York Times, describing his belief "that there are no fixed points in the geography of sexuality, merely an ever-changing terrain that has less to do with biology than with accidents of history."

William Simon was born on July 20, 1930, the son of Russian immigrants. As a child, he lived in the Bronx, before moving to Detroit in 1940. He dropped out of school in the eighth grade and became an assembly line worker. He was engaged in union activity and became a lifelong socialist. In 1951, despite his lack of formal education, he was accepted as a student by the University of Chicago on the basis of his poems. He discontinued his studies for financial reasons. In 1953, he attended the American Sociological Association's annual meetings and while speaking was noticed and invited to meet David Riesman and Nathan Glazer, who helped him gain admission to the University of Chicago's graduate program in 1955 where he met John Gagnon and earned his doctorate.

In the 1960s, Simon worked at the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) and taught at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Between 1965 and 1968, he worked with John Gagnon at the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction. After this he worked at the Institute for Juvenile research in Chicago, becoming program supervisor in anthropology and sociology. Throughout the 1960s, Simon was very active in the civil rights movement.

He moved to the University of Houston in 1975 where he was director of the Urban Studies Institute (1975-7) and Professor of Sociology (1977–2000). He was active in the politics and arts community of Houston.

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