Abstract
This exploratory qualitative research study examined male college students’ narratives describing memorable sexual experiences, and how those encounters inform current sexual practices. Drawing from a larger collaborative research project, this study explores the narratives of 130 men who were attending college at one of three diverse US campuses in 2012. Utilizing a coordinated management of meaning theoretical frame we examine how sexual experiences are informed by logical forces of looped narratives that exhibit both charmed and strange loops. Findings demonstrate how men’s management of meaning regarding their sexual experiences is informed by larger expectations steeped in rigid masculine values, a major force in socially constructing sexuality.
Highlights
Significant research regarding sex, gender, and sexual experiences exists across disciplines
Our analysis revealed memorable narratives about sex that largely were limited to descriptions of speech acts and episodes4
These memorable narratives cultivated from what the traditional interpretive approach would place at the most basic levels of understanding, in which content descriptions were offered in a certain manner to reflect a particular speech act, or a series of speech acts leading to an episode
Summary
Significant research regarding sex, gender, and sexual experiences exists across disciplines. Men report feeling more pleasure and less guilt (Darling, Davidson & Passarello, 1992) As illustrated through these studies, the dominant theme of past research investigating gendered perspectives is different, despite the fact that researchers are likely to find as many similarities between women and men’s experiences as differences (Canary & Dindia, 1998; Sprecher et al, 1995). Most women and men describe their first sexual experiences as satisfying—and even enjoyable (Carpenter, 2005) As demonstrated within this brief introduction, a significant body of literature on sex, gender, and sexual experiences exists. As documented existing literature on the coordinated management of meaning (CMM) provides a valuable conceptual framework to explore how men socially construct meanings of their most memorable sexual experiences. We close with discussion of our findings followed by concluding remarks
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