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Think of it this way:  a house is constructed. It starts w/ blueprints, which the carpenters follow in order to build it. And once it's built, it's real. Being constructed doesn't mean "not real." It just means "made"--and for those of us who "believe" in social construction, it means that whatever's been made can be made differently...it's a hopeful philosophy.

And hey--why do you NOT want to 'mix up' topics and readings...? Seems to me exactly what we all ought to be doing! So, for starters, here's the link to Anne Fausto-Sterling's li'l essay on "The Five Sexes: Why Male and Female Are Not Enough..."

Several years ago, I helped to bring Anne Fausto-Sterling to campus to lead a discussion called Building Two-Way Bridges (between area Science and Women's Studies faculty). The conversation arose out of, and was based, on her wonderful essay "Science Matters, Culture Matters," which argues for a new model of teaching "science in social context." What the diagrams in Fausto-Sterling's essay show so dramatically is that when she expanded her embryology course (for instance) to teach neural tube development as "embedded in a matrix of epidemiological, medical, historical and social questions," she found herself unable to avoid examining neural tube defects, the epidemiology of birth defects, who gets what kind of health care in this country, the ethics of selective abortion, etc. etc....

Fausto-Sterling's presentation was a clear example of the  "embedded nature of every topic" (she begins her classes, btw, by having students construct "knowledge webs," which forces them to face up to the uncertain nature of knowledge....)