Erotic Experience Research Articles

Uloga Facebooka u promjenama obrazaca interpersonalne komunikacije i poimanju romantičnih odnosa

Digital technology in mass media provides a new way of transmitting information, but often does not deliver the veracity and emotional depth of information as direct human interaction does. Apart from the convergence offered by the media, information discernment through one of the digital or mass communication channels remains inferior to direct human communication. The question arises as to how social internet platforms affect relationships between women and men and the value and emotional structure of these relationships. Despite numerous studies that have dealt with the influence of social networks on the quality of communication and life of children and young people, it is evident that the question of the influence of social networks on gender relations is often neglected or considered less important. The purpose of this research was to examine the public’s perception of the alienating effects of Facebook in the area of primordial and primary social interaction between women and men as a previous communication to all other forms and types of communication. The results showed that the majority of respondents do not support the use of social networks for sexual acquaintances or emotional relationships, considering virtual communication as an insufficient substitute for real emotional contacts, which include non-verbal signs of attraction, and do not perceive them as a suitable means for engaging in emotional or erotic experiences. Although most do not consider them a threat to stable emotional relationships, they are a threat to the spiritual component and dignity of the partner and are perceived as an foundation for sexual adventures, trips and fraud.

Iowa

ABSTRACT This essay centers my own experiences on the day Iowa banned trans-affirming healthcare for children and considers the rhetorical significance of daily life in the face of state sanctioned denials of care. I draw on the work of trans rhetoricians and trans scholars more broadly by attending to the limits and possibilities of care in the face of institutional denials of trans people’s lives and livelihoods. Drawing out my own erotic experiences, I ultimately argue for the transfeminist potency of t4t relationships. t4t, shorthand for trans4trans, symbolizes trans practices of mutual care and coalition. I extend theorizations of t4t intimacies by emplacing them in the context of anti-trans legislative actions.

Stories that will make you blush? Erotic audio fiction on the verge between privacy and publicness

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the rapidly growing Swedish market of app-based audio erotic fiction through an analysis of two significant apps and publishers: Blanche Stories and Ava Stories. We explore audio erotica apps as devices of both literature, pleasure and intimate sonic connectivity. First, we discuss the specific affordances of the born-audio format, its flexible and mobile forms of listening and the consequences of this flexibility for audio erotica. Secondly, we move in on the content of these apps by taking a closer look at specific forms of erotization of books and literature present both in paratextual elements surrounding the stories, and in the stories themselves. Thirdly, we shift to a discussion of content regulation, marketing strategies and strategic framing of audio erotica apps as digital and sonic devices of pleasure. These apps and their content may be considered “safe” in a number of ways: They are framed as healthy and wholesome from a particular ethical, feminist standpoint by emphasising consent and disassociating with porn. They create intimate and, in a sense, private and safe spaces of listening. But they also carry interesting, queer potentials for mobile forms of sexuality and for public (or semi-public) sonic erotic experiences.

Art, Eros, and Liberation: Aesthetic Education between Pragmatism and Critical Theory

Abstract After showing how pragmatist aesthetics and Marcuse's critical theory affirm aesthetic education as key to transforming society toward greater freedom, equality, pleasure, and fulfillment, I compare the ways these two approaches differently perceive the scope and role of aesthetics in such transformation. Whereas Marcuse identifies the aesthetic dimension with the realm of high art, pragmatism understands this dimension far more broadly to include the popular arts and somaesthetic arts of living. Because Marcuse identifies art's critical function through its oppositional transcendence and autonomy from ordinary reality and practical life, he insists that aesthetics cannot directly contribute to transformative praxis in the real world but can operate only indirectly by transforming our sensibilities. Pragmatist aesthetics, particularly though somaesthetics, resolves the dilemma in Marcuse's aesthetics of liberation by bridging the alleged gap between aesthetics and praxis by reeducating our sensibilities in a more direct, practical, embodied way. The article further exemplifies the overlaps and differences between Marcuse's critical theory and pragmatist somaesthetics by focusing on erotic experience, which is essential to Marcuse's liberational program and increasingly present in somaesthetics’ concern with aesthetic reeducation of our senses and sensibilities.

Thinking with Simone de Beauvoir Today

Abstract In the last decade, the importance of Simone de Beauvoir’s contribution to 20th-century French philosophy has been beyond debate. However, it can be tempting to read her contributions as the dated beginnings of feminist philosophy, and to believe that her work is only interesting from the perspective of the history of philosophy. To the contrary, this article claims that contemporary philosophers can and should take Beauvoirian philosophy as a source of fruitful insights on contemporary issues in political and moral philosophy by showing the limited scope of two classic critiques of Beauvoir and by defending the relevance of her work for thinking about female submission and the importance of erotic experience.

No Cock Needed: Exploring the Hapto-Erotic Assemblage of Fist-Play in Gay Men’s Anal Fisting

ABSTRACT In this study, I explored how haptic modes of sense, contact, and practice affectively shape, become shaped with/in, the erotic experiences of gay fist-fuckers’ fist-play. Unstructured individual interviews were conducted with 9 gay fist-fuckers from South Africa. Theoretically framed by DeleuzoGuattarian-inspired work on sexuality-as-assemblage and Mark Paterson’s concept of feeling-with, a thematic analysis was employed to identify instances where participants’ haptic sites and senses were co-articulated with the erotic experiences of their fist-play. What emerged were four themes of hapto-erotic sense-making in fist-play: feeling-with trust, feeling-with desire, feeling-with care, and feeling-with pleasure. Together, the findings highlight that erotic experiences of fist-play become (trans)formed with/in fluctuating assemblages of desire, communal ethics, repertoires of technique, sense perception, inter-corporeal contact, as well as nonhuman objects and substances that affectively charge and channel haptic sites and senses. The findings point to a queerer and relational sensing and making sense of intimacy, pleasure, and play that is not reliant on phallocentric logics or tropes of gay sex.

Construção e validação do Inventário de Habilidades Sociossexuais

Abstract The period of youth represents a milestone for sexual transitions, including casual practices. However, having erotic experiences does not presume competence in seeking casual sex (CS), and having a repertoire that is not socially competent for casual sex (CS) can lead to sexual risks. Accordingly, this study constructed and generated evidence of validity for a measure of social skills (SS) related to CS. Initially, 48 items were constructed and applied to a valid sample of 571 heterosexual, cisgender and single young people. Exploratory Factor Analysis was performed, the initial items were reduced to 18 and divided into two factors: Direct Sociosexual Skills, with 11 items (a = .81 and ω = .81), and Indirect Sociosexual Skills, with seven items (a = .67 and ω = .67). This instrument could contribute to the promotion of sexual health, as a more elaborate SS repertoire would be related to lower rates of abuse, sexually transmitted infections and harassment.

Calculating Couples: Computing Intimacy and 1980s Romance Software

Abstract In the 1980s, as the market for computing in the home was still emerging, a category of software arose that promised computer-mediated experiences of romance and sex. These programs, which this essay is calling “romance software,” drew on popular psychological and therapeutic discourses to offer couples advice for more satisfying relationships while also managing their interactions with the computer as an intimate or romantic activity. This essay argues that romance software employed the then novel home computer as a tool that could help mediate relational and communication ideals and bolster the heterosexual couple in the context of changing expectations for relationships in the 1980s. Romance software attempted to instantiate computing intimacy — referring not only to the application of computational methods to the management of relationships but also to the romantic or erotic experience of a couple using computers together. Although they amounted to a minor subset of the software introduced during the decade, these programs envisioned computing in the home as a technology to mediate companionate relationships. Romance software demonstrates that some software companies in the 1980s conceived of personal computer users not only as abstracted masculine individuals but rather addressed users within their roles in companionate relationships, in this case as part of a couple. These programs proposed methods through which computing could be used to assist in creating better relationships for couples that had adopted computers into their homes.

When it begins and what are the first erotic behaviors?

The purpose of this research was to analyze the ages of the first erotic behaviors of a sample of people living in the city of Campeche, Mexico; It was an ex post-facto investigation with a correlational scope and a quantitative approach. The sample was non-probabilistic of 512 people to whom an adhoc questionnaire was applied in order to know the age of some of their first sex / erotic experiences. After analyzing the results, it was identified that the strongest correlations (p <0.010) were found between the age at which oral sex was given to another person for the first time and the age at which it was experienced to be masturbated by another person. No significant correlations were found between the number of sexual partners and the time of relationship with the current partner, nor between the number of sexual partners and the ages of initiation of erotic-sexual behaviors. Intercourse is associated with the initiation of other sexual behaviors without reproductive purposes.

Eros as Initiation: Russon on Desire, Culture, and Responsibility

This article considers how John Russon’s original analyses of sexuality in Bearing Witness to Epiphany: Persons, Things, and the Nature of Erotic Life and in relevant articles address the relation between erotic desire and the familiar cultural narratives that describe and set the terms for engaging in erotic experience. I show how, according to Russon, erotic experience is an initiation into our responsibilities within and for an interpersonal reality that challenges speci􀏔ic cultural narratives about sexuality and the pre-sumption that any cultural narrative could adequately prepare us to fulfill those responsibilities. I situate his work in relation to the classic account of the relation between erotic desire and culture in Socrates’s speech about eros in Plato’s Symposium. I also consider how it addresses concerns in contemporary feminist analyses about how intimate relationships may reproduce broader cultural patterns of oppression.

A Portuguese Don Juan. The Deconstruction of Myths in the Novel by Almeida Faria <i>O Conquistador</i> (<i>The Conqueror</i>)

The novels by Almeida Faria are not best sellers, although the author is very much appreciated in academic circles throughout Portuguese-speaking countries, like Brazil. His writing is iconoclastic and shows both the break with literary tradition, as well as a critical view of Portuguese society and history. This article analyses his last novel O conquistador (The Conqueror/The Seducer), where he merges two great myths, that of Don Juan, called the myth of deconstruction of myths, and that of the Hidden One (O Encoberto), important in Portuguese and English contexts. This myth relates to the Portuguese King Sebastião (1554-1578) known for his military fervour. Reversing the interest in military conquests, the modern hero of this novel is more interested in sexual ones. Assuming the narrative modus of a Bildungsroman, where the search for the individual’s identity and knowledge through erotic experience are important, this novel is constructed as an anti-epic and becomes a profound meditation on collective way of living. The frequently scandalous effect of the Don Juan myth is related to the deconstruction of a great national myth that is a satirical depiction of the Portuguese society. This paper shows how this novel critically deconstructs the cultural heritage of Sebastianism providing not only a critical view towards Portuguese society but also a subversion of cultural canons through myth.

Van Gogh and Myth in A. S. Byatt’s Still Life

ABSTRACT Van Gogh is a character that appears in a verse drama entitled The Yellow Chair, a story within a story, in A. S. Byatt’s Still Life, the second novel of the Frederica Potter Quartet. In this novel, both Van Gogh’s paintings and a major life event – his agon with the French artist Paul Gauguin in Arles – are represented on stage. This paper argues that Van Gogh’s self-mutilation is a mimesis of the various facets of the myth of the sun depicted in his numerous paintings (i.e. the life and death of vegetation in nature, the rising and setting of the sun in the sky, and the division of the white sunlight into both complementary and spectrum colors). The myths of fertility incorporated in Van Gogh’s narrative in the novel epitomize the main character Frederica Potter’s erotic experiences, who, as a Cambridge undergraduate, believes that the body is the ultimate source of all good in the world and that “marriage [is] the end of every good story.” 1

EROTIC ASPECT OF NOSTALGIA IN THE LYRICS OF P. BARSKOVA

The article presents a reading of the semantic potential of the phenomenon of mirroring and «musical eroticism» in the nostalgic discourse of Polina Barskova. It is presented interpretation of the lyrical plot of the poem «Reflection» in accordance with the inheritance and transformation of P. Barskova's traditions of the image of the intimate as a factor of nostalgic worldview. In a lyrical plot is revealed the authorial point of view on correlation of themes of intimacy and musicality. Transformations of erotic codes are analysed in accordance with actualization of musicality by authorial consciousness of the poetess. The study is comprehended the author's view of the world in the text of «Reflection». An interpretation of the lyrical plot is presented in accordance with the inheritance and transformation of P. Barskov's traditions of the image of the intimate using the semantic potential of mirroring. The magical nature of the object turned into a mirror is due to the originality of the female view in the lyrical plot of P. Barskova, reflecting both the memory of the erotic experience and the ability to transform the surrounding space, their personal memories and feelings. The semiotization of personal erotic experience carried out in the consciousness of the lyrical heroine, correlates with the reflection and mythologization of intimacy, modeling the nostalgic discourse of the palimpsest consciousness of a modern emigrant poet. The field of study included such indicators of the poetess's nostalgic discourse as author codes, erotic connotations, phenomena of mirroring and musicality and their symbolic potential, semiotization of passions.

Luis listens to Lohengrin: Luis Cernuda’s desire across queer time

ABSTRACT In this essay, I consider three of Luis Cernuda’s poems dealing in art and spectatorship as models for how he might have imagined queer erotic desire. Analyses of two of Cernuda’s ekphrastic poems show how the poet made both aesthetic and erotic experience perceptible and palpable within intertwined bodily and temporal relations. I read these ekphrastic exercises in light of Daniel Aguirre-Oteiza’s “poetic memory” as a concept that anchors poetic forms to a spectral and recurrent temporality exacted in the bodies of poet and reader. Then, I turn to one of Cernuda’s later poems, “Luis de Baviera escucha Lohengrin”, in order to demonstrate how poetics and performance converge in the poet’s work. “Luis de Baviera” exemplifies the experience of materially felt desires across time and links Cernuda (and, us, his readers) to a history of (male homo)erotic attachments. In the article’s conclusion, I suggest centering Luis’s modes of feeling as a method to make reverberations of affect and relation cohere as a shared knowledge outside of and against historical time.

"Providing Sex Education Is Challenging": Malay Mothers' Experience in Implementing Sex Education to Their Children with Intellectual Disabilities.

Sex education (SE) is still a controversial and sensitive topic in Malaysia. Thus, individuals with intellectual disability receive less information about SE formally as Malaysian culture believes that students with disabilities should be shielded from everything connected to sexuality owing to their paucity of maturity and intellectual comprehension of the topic. Due to that reason, non-formal education by the parent is very important to fill that needful gap. This study aimed to explore the experience of mothers on the meanings of sexuality, and implementing sex education for their children with ID. We adopted a phenomenological framework and social cognitive theory to increase understanding of the phenomenon and conducted it using in-depth interviews. Twenty mothers with children aged 10–19 who were diagnosed with mild to moderate ID and/or other cognitive disabilities were involved. Almost all mothers acknowledged the influence of socio-cultural factors and religion on meanings of sexuality and practicing SE. They realized their children’s emerging sexual behavior as they go through the adolescence period. However, how they confronted sexuality and sex education with their vulnerable children was different. Three themes emerged: (1) Sexuality as an erotic experience in life, which enlightens mothers’ views on sexuality, relying mainly on sexual intimacy and sexual being; (2) Perceived their children’s sexual maturity is different, which reflects the mothers’ attitude toward their children’s sexual development; (3) Caution/hesitance in providing sexuality education, which summarizes mothers’ ways of delivering SE, either following physicality or through sociocultural ways. Our findings exemplify the need for strategies to increase parents’ understanding and awareness regarding sexuality and appropriate delivery of SE. To ensure its success, it should be a shared responsibility among all relevant stakeholders.

Determinants of sexual satisfaction among Bosnian and Herzegovinian women

Introduction: Sexual satisfaction is the pleasure an individual feels both physically and psychologically, and is the result of erotic experiences, thoughts, dreams, and autoeroticism. Purpose: The purpose of the study is to present the determinants of sexual satisfaction among Bosnian and Herzegovinian women. Methods: The survey was conducted on 387 Bosnian and Herzegovinian women via online questionnaire that consisted of demographic data and 17 statements. The validated questionnaire was used with some adaptations and contained a 5-point Likert scale for each statement, ranging from “not at all satisfied” to “extremely satisfied.” The inclusion criteria were: (a) Age 18–60 years; and (b) completion of the questionnaire as personal consent. Data were analyzed using SPSS 26.0 statistical software. Results: Data collection was conducted from July 2020 to September 2020. The realization rate of the sample was 24.19%. Most of the participants have a high school diploma, most are between 18 and 24 years old and most are currently married. Thirty-five percent of women sometimes experience pain during intercourse (less than half the time). The lower half of the vagina (from the vaginal entrance to the half of the vagina) and the lower part of the abdomen are usually most affected. A relationship was found between the number of children and sexual satisfaction. Women without children were the most satisfied with their sexual life, followed by women who had only one or two children. Conclusions: Every woman has the right to feel sexual satisfaction. The complexity of sexual satisfaction is reflected in many determinants and factors that can influence it positively and negatively.

Adam Komisaruk, <i>Sexual Privatism in British Romantic Writing: A Public of One</i>

Adam Komisaruk examines “the varieties of erotic experience in an age of revolution” (1), covering British writings from c. 1780 to 1830. He posits an overriding theme of the relation between “sexual privatism” and “the public sphere,” and he cites most of the theorists (Habermas, Derrida, Foucault, Lacan, Laqueur, Sedgwick, etc.) whose ideas have long dominated such discourse. He organizes his study “according to some different sexual ‘publics’ in the period: legal treatments of rape, sodomy and adultery; high-profile sex scandal; population theory; and club culture” (7). While a large part of his narration focuses on these modern theoreticians, he also includes thematic readings of imaginative literature by Mary Hays, William Beckford, Mary Wollstonecraft, William Godwin, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Erasmus Darwin, and finally William Blake.

On Touching, Where Tender Meets Tough

On Touching, Where Tender Meets Tough

“El Todo Poderoso nos ayude, para llegar a lo que deseamos”: homosexuality and Catholicism in Franco’s Spain (1954–1970)

ABSTRACT This article traces the constant struggle for control over representation between gay people and Francoist state agents. Gay narrations of self did not always involve a negation of Catholic dogma, which was often reinterpreted and incorporated into articulate defenses of homoeroticism. Moreover, transnational networks built on the basis of an insider critique of the Catholic hierarchy's stance on same-sex desires preceded the formation of gay liberation fronts by decades. These networks connected Spanish and Latin American queer communities by virtue of the former's reliance on the latter's access to the publishing and entertainment industries, given the stringent censorship imposed by the Franco regime in Spain. This article focuses on judicial transcripts, photographs, personal correspondence and literary and oral sources to explore how shifting cultural ideals and lived experiences informed each other. Thus, I argue that the discrepancy between the state-enforced view of homosexuality as a set of purely physical (“putrefied”) practices leading males to cave to their lowest predatory instincts and people's erotic and affective lived experiences reveals how queer communities were able to articulate dissident discourses at the interstices of homophobic institutions.

Spatial Attractions: The Literary Aesthetics of Female Erotic Experience in the Colony

This article examines the aesthetics of representing female sexuality within colonial narratives of the West–East encounter. I consider two literary works whose female characters challenge the gendered metaphors of empire that predominated in a tradition of colonial literature and its postcolonial rewriting: the short story “La femme adultère” by the French-Algerian writer Albert Camus, and the novelWāḥat al-ghurūbby Egyptian writer Bahāʾ Ṭāhir. In each text, the standard heterosexual troping of imperial conquest as a male activity directed at or against a feminized other is inverted to place a European woman’s sexually aroused body at the center of the drama of colonial contact. Reading these two texts against the grain of the aesthetic formulas that they employ to contemplate the political stakes of cross-cultural intimacies in a colonial setting, I argue that the phenomenological immediacy of how the female protagonist in each is shown to experience the eroticism of colonial space introduces a break in these formulas. The loss of narrative plausibility in each text that follows from these erotic interludes, I propose, ultimately testifies to the irreducibility of the body to either enforcing or disputing the epistemologies of the colonial project.