Ken Plummer, who has died aged 76, of complications of kidney disease, was an internationally respected sociologist who taught at the University of Essex for 30 years. Inspired by the radical social movements of the 1970s, he pioneered the application of social constructionist ideas to an understanding of sexuality. Along with Mary McIntosh, Jeffrey Weeks and others, Ken recast homosexuality as a socially stigmatised aspect of human experience rather than, as it was widely viewed at the time, an illness. He was my colleague, mentor and friend.
Ken was a proponent of symbolic interactionist thought, whose core belief is, as Ken put it, that “human beings are always engaged in continuous permutations of action”. Storytelling, he believed, is central to the ways humans act in the world and make sense of their experiences. In his 1995 book, Telling Sexual Stories, Ken looked at the rise of rape stories, coming out stories, and recovery stories and, more generally, a “sexual storytelling culture” , in which there is a greater willingness to discuss in public what might in the past have been considered private. He analysed the ways social movements help to push certain kinds of previously taboo stories into the public arena, and argued that listening to the stories of others helps create empathy for their experiences.
Ken was born in Palmers Green, London, the younger son of Ethel Harrison, who worked at Woolworths, and Len Plummer, a barber, and he went to a local school. He came out in the gay scene in and around Soho when he was 20. As a student at the London School of Economics in the 1970s, he was involved in London Gay Liberation Front, and he was mentored by the radical deviancy theorists Stan Cohen, Paul Rock and Jock Young for his PhD. In 1978, he moved to Colchester to work at the University of Essex and met Everard Longland, with whom he lived for the rest of his life, in Wivenhoe.
The author of more than 170 publications, he was also a beloved teacher and dedicated community builder. He laughed easily and was a great lover of Sondheim musicals. He enjoyed a good party, hosting numerous gatherings of students and staff. He believed that intellectual work is never solely an individual pursuit, published a book, Imaginations (2014), that celebrated the joint contributions of Essex sociology over 50 years, and founded the international journal Sexualities in 1998. Between 1976 and 2004 he worked frequently as a visiting lecturer at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Ken retired from Essex because of poor health in 2006 and the following year underwent a liver transplant that prolonged his life. In his later work, which he termed “critical humanism”, he reflected upon the precarious nature of lives, the necessity of human connection, and the indispensability of social institutions such as the NHS. We combat human darkness and alleviate suffering, he wrote, through a “multitude of small deeds of kindness, connection, and trust created on a day-to-day basis”. Ken very much lived his life according to that ideal.
Ken’s brother, Geoff, predeceased him. Everard, with whom he entered into a civil partnership in 2006, survives him, as does his nephew, Jon.
