Sex Seen provides a complex and intriguing account of the changes in the social construction of sexuality in America during the past century. Focusing on Sacramento, California, at the dawn of the twentieth century, Sharon Ullman juxtaposes early cinema, vaudeville performances, and popular newspapers and magazines with insights drawn from transcripts of Sacramento court cases.

She demonstrates how attitudes that emerged in the popular media - ideas about gender roles, female desire, prostitution, divorce, and homosexuality - often found complicated and contradictory expression in the courts. As judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and juries all weighed in with differing opinions, the courtroom itself became a stage where the community attempted to make sense of a growing sexual chaos.

Ullman chronicles the dynamics of social change during a unique cultural moment. Instead of telling the familiar story of steadily increasing liberation, she details the troubled confusions and intricate negotiations of an increasingly public sexual universe.