Intimate Friends Research Articles

Beyond Binary: Exploring the Dynamics of Bi-Curiosity Propulsion and Persistence Among Young Women

Sexual identity fails to adhere to the dichotomous models, transcending to a more fluid quality than normative compulsory heterosexuality. The present study investigates the experience of bi-curiosity, focusing on its initiation among young women residing in urban India. Bi-curiosity, a sexual orientation questioning marked by exploratory experiences, is a possible but not a necessary precursor to bisexuality. This qualitative study explores on the psychological and social factors contributing to a bi-curious orientation. It focuses on the subjective processes of development and maintenance of sexual identity questioning. Three organizing themes emerged from the Reflective Thematic Analysis: (a.) Affective Indicators, (b.) Social Experiences, and (c.) Intimacy in friendships. While sexual identity questioning was propelled by more psychological factors, like physical attraction, fantasy, experienced jealousy toward men, and comfort with the same sex, social and environmental factors contribute significantly. Individual experiences with patriarchy, social attitudes toward same-sex relationships, and their representation on media platforms often reinforce the process. Another important contributor was women’s close friendships with the same sex, which are sites for physical closeness, emotional intimacy, and personal growth, and share these characteristics with romantic relationships. These factors emerged as important reinforcers to the development and maintenance of sexual identity questioning.

"I Didn't Have a Choice": Experiences, Responses and Perceived Motivations for Reproductive Coercion and Abuse in Australian Women.

This study explored reproductive coercion and abuse (RCA) experiences of community-based victim/survivors, their responses to RCA, and perceived motivations for RCA. One hundred and one female RCA victim/survivors completed an online questionnaire. Intimate partners, family, friends, cultural/religious leaders, and health professionals were RCA perpetrators. Victim/survivors' RCA experiences were heterogeneous, incorporating a range of pregnancy-preventing and pregnancy-promoting RCA tactics. Women's response to RCA depended on how it was experienced; victim/survivors were more likely to reassert control when RCA was verbal and not physical. Finally, control was the primary motivator for RCA, followed by contextual factors, drug use, and religion/culture.

‘Great Regard’ or ‘Silly Infatuation’? Andrew George Kurtz's Friendship with Edward Saker, and Its Impact on Victorian Theatre in Liverpool

Victorian actor Edward Saker began his career in Edinburgh before moving to Liverpool in 1865. There he established himself as a popular low comedian. In 1868, at the age of thirty, he became lessee of the Alexandra Theatre. Opened two years earlier as the New Prince of Wales, the Alexandra had struggled financially under previous managers, but it flourished under Saker. Using new evidence from the diaries of his close friend, wealthy Liverpool industrialist Andrew George Kurtz, this article describes the circumstances of Saker's transition from actor to actor-manager. Kurtz's diaries document his intimate friendship with Saker, recording how he nursed the actor through a period of serious illness and helped him financially to achieve professional success. Liverpool was an important provincial centre of Victorian theatre, and the 1860s were a turbulent time in the history of the Liverpool stage. Kurtz's diaries give fresh insights into this eventful period, as well as illuminating the private life of a notable Victorian actor.

군산스테이션 여성선교사 연구

There were 29 female missionaries who were active based in the Gunsan Station in 1896-1940. They were largely women from the new Southern middle class of American society and church in the second half of the 19th century. The missionary ladies who were devoted to their families in Gunsan along with unmarried missionaries originated from the Victorian values of the Southern society of America in the 19th century. It was a patriarchal society, but they opened the religious domain such as overseas missions to women and encouraged their participation. As for the area of service, 17 were wives of missionaries, 4 were in women’s ministry, 2 were in educational ministry, and 6 were in nursing ministry. Hired by the Executive Committee(선교 본부), they exerted their professionalism according to the personnel appointments and institutional(financial) support of the Mission(선교부) within the scope of their designated duties. The unmarried female missionaries suffered the diverse cultural pressures of Korean society in those days just because they were single. Their helplessness of isolation as “the loneliest beings” stroke them often. They engaged in comfortable middle-class economic activities based on their salaries that were not insufficient from the Mission, the infrastructure of the station, and the continuous supply and support from their motherland. They were able to continue their ministry for many years, and the driving force came from their intimate friendship and visits with colleague missionaries inside and outside, parties & play, reading & exercise, domestic and foreign travel, and sabbatical leaves.

Knowledge, attitude, and practice of depression among university students.

This study aimed to investigate the knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) of depression among university students. A cross-sectional survey was carried out across randomly selected universities in Shandong Province from October 25, 2023, to November 8, 2023. Demographic information and KAP scores were assessed through the administration of questionnaires. The reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed with a Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.816 and the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of 0.894. This study included 2448 university students, with 1489 (60.8%) females. The median scores for KAP were 20 (Interquartile Range (IQR): 17-21), 26 (IQR: 23-28), and 35 (IQR: 32-38), respectively. Multivariate regression analysis indicated that being a junior (odds ratio [OR]=0.720, 95% Confidence Interval (CI): 0.538-0.965, p=.028), senior or above (OR=0.474, 95% CI: 0.325-0.691, p<.001), having divorced parents (OR=0.618, 95% CI: 0.409-0.933, p=.022), having direct relatives with depression (OR=0.710, 95% CI: 0.589-0.856, p<.001), and lacking intimate friends (OR=0.344, 95% CI: 0.245-0.484, p<.001) were negatively associated with practice. Only having an attitude score of ≥26 (OR=5.076, 95% CI: 4.230-6.091, p<.001) was significantly and positively associated with practice. University students had insufficient knowledge, positive attitude, and passive practice toward depression. Clinical interventions should focus on enhancing the understanding and management of depression among university students, particularly through targeted educational programs and support groups, to bridge the gap between knowledge and practice and foster a proactive approach to mental health care.

The Role of Reciprocated Friendships in the Behavioral Correlates of Sociometric Categories

Children live complex social lives that has various aspects, including intimate friendships, peer-acceptance and bullying dynamics which is usually studied separately in research. This study aims to investigate the interplays of these three important fields by analyzing the moderating effects of number of friendships on the relation between sociometric categories and behavioral correlates via moderated logistic regression models. Participants were 291 elementary school students from schools located in Budapest, Hungary. Computerized peer-nominations were used to assess number of mutual friendships, behavioral variables, peer acceptance and bullying-roles. Results suggest that in a few cases, number of mutual friendships may have an effect on the relationship analyzed. Questions of limited and unlimited nomination based friendship questions are discussed. The results may facilitate further studies in the direction of more refined logistic regressions and has implications on bullying diagnostics and offers an electronic assessment tool for practitioners.

Introducing 'Brother-Love': If 'No-Homo' Were Invented in the Victorian Era

Working off of information surrounding nineteenth century intimate male friendships provided by E. Anthony Rotundo’s 1989 article “Romantic Friendship: Male Intimacy and Middle-Class Youth in the Norther United States, 1800-1900,” as well as ideas of female intimacy of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Julian Carter’s 2005 article “On Mother-Love: History, Queer Theory, and Nonlesbian Identity,” the concept of “brother-love” encompasses important components of intimate male friendships during the Victorian period. Hidden physical and emotional intimacy were vital to these intimate friendships, in ways differing from Carter’s “mother-love” as explored in this project. Anna Clark’s concept of “Twilight Moments” (2005) will help explain “brotherlove” as it is compared to Carter’s “mother-love.” “Brother-love” is a response to contemporary terms and concepts queer scholars use when focusing on historical moments, and it provides an alternative frame of reference for intimate and romantic male friendships while extracting contemporary influence of same-sex relations.

The Relationship between Intimate Friendship and Online Self-Disclosure in Second Instagram Account Users

The Relationship between Intimate Friendship and Online Self-Disclosure in Second Instagram Account Users

Indifference in Recent Russian Films: The Gulag Face of Cruelty Returns

Abstract Several recent Russian films show victimizers become victims, and victims— victimizers. This random division into victimizers and victims was forced on society by Stalin, who enjoyed sending his intimate friends-victims (and their wives, children, and relatives) to torture and death. Millions of innocent Russians were captured, killed, or sent to the Gulag, but in an unprecedented way, they were also made to implicate their own intimate friends and family members and become victimizers in their turn. Alternatively, the NKVD torturers were also turned into victims, periodically killed off and replaced by new recruits. Testimonies of Shalamov, Ginsburg, and Dovlatov show that when intimate relationships shrink to command-compliance, both victimizers and victims shed emotions, including shame and guilt, and aggression becomes the only socially meaningful action and the last available entertainment. I identify the visual metaphor of this dynamic, the always identical indifferent face of cruelty, in the films Burnt by the Sun, The Return, Elena, Loveless, and Captain Volkonogov Escaped.

Sources of Social Support and Trauma Recovery: Evidence for Bidirectional Associations from a Recently Trauma-Exposed Community Sample.

Although the association between post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and social support is well documented, few studies have tested the causal pathways explaining this association at several points in the acute post-trauma recovery period or examined whether the association varies for different sources of social support. To address these gaps, 151 community individuals (mean age = 37.20 years, 69.5% women) exposed to trauma within the previous 6 months were recruited to complete measures of PTSD and social support from intimate partners, friends, and relatives four times in 1 year. In line with recent recommendations for research on social support and PTSD symptoms, random intercept cross-lagged panel modeling (RI-CLPM) was used to examine dynamic changes between PTSD severity and social support over time. The pattern of RI-CLPM cross-lagged coefficients indicated that positive deviations from one's expected stable level of total social support (across all sources) sped up the recovery of PTSD symptoms at the end of the post-trauma year, and more severe PTSD symptoms than expected based on one's expected stable level of PTSD started eroding social support midway through the assessment year. When specific sources of social support were analyzed separately, the association between within-person increases in social support from friends at any given time point accelerated the recovery from PTSD across the entire year. Among participants with intimate partners (n = 53), intimate partner support did not predict PTSD symptoms, but more severe PTSD symptoms at any given time point predicted less support at the following time point. Results from this longitudinal study provide additional support for the bidirectional relationship between PTSD and social support over time and suggest that perceived social support from friends may be especially helpful during trauma recovery.

“Real queens fix each other’s crowns”: The interiorities of Black (British) girlhood in Rocks (2019)

ABSTRACT This article explores and analyses the production and representation of Black (British) girlhoods in Sarah Gavron’s film Rocks (2019), and the effects this has had on Black women and girl actors, film-makers, and audiences. Adopting a critical Black (British) girlhood framework that is rooted in Black feminist theory, it explores how Black girls’ interior worldbuilding in British screen media and beyond can be a source of empowerment and affective memory work for these groups. Centring the voices of Black girls and women, this article locates the interiorities of Black (British) girlhood within practices of resistance and self-definition, the formation and maintenance of girls’ intimate friendships, and their intergenerational solidarities. Methodologically, it analyses the film’s narrative alongside interviews from the actors and creatives, Black women’s written memories of their girlhoods, and essays from young Black girls living in Britain to reveal how Black (British) girlhood is relational, embodied, and emotionally affective.

Encouragement as a Form of Social Support Promoting Boundary Crossing and the Development of a Courage Scale

ABSTRACT: A courage scale was developed to address issues regarding the definition of Adlerian courage. It considered the relationships among encouragement, courage, and boundary crossing in Japanese university students using structural equation modeling (SEM). According to exploratory factor analysis, the courage scale comprised two factors: striving for superiority over the self and social interest, consistent with Adler’s model of courage. Both factors exhibited sufficient reliability and validity. The SEM results indicated that encouragement from an intimate friend positively influenced social interest, which in turn positively influenced boundary crossing while negatively influencing boundary crossing in the absence of mediation. A classroom management approach based on the results and aimed at enhancing social interest is discussed from an Adlerian perspective.

Associations of past-year overall trauma, sexual assault and PTSD with social support for young adult sexual minority women.

Background: Young adult sexual minority women (SMW) are at elevated risk for sexual assault (SA), posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and inadequate social support. While SA and PTSD can lead to reductions in social support from close significant others, the impact of SA and PTSD on SMWs' social support has not previously been assessed.Objective: This study examined the associations of past year SA and PTSD with SMW's social support from intimate partners, family, and friends. It was hypothesized that SA and PTSD would be negatively associated with support from partners, family and friends, and that PTSD would moderate the effect of SA on support in early adulthood.Method: Young adult SMW in the United States (N = 235) who were M = 23.93 (SD = 2.15) years old, primarily lesbian or bisexual (n = 186, 79.1%) and White (n = 176, 74.9%) completed measures on past year exposure to SA and non-SA trauma, PTSD, and social support from intimate partners, family and friends.Results: PTSD was associated with less social support from partners, ( = -0.06, SE = 0.02, p = .010, R2change = .02), family, ( = -0.06, SE = 0.03, p = .025, R2change = .02), and friends, ( = -0.07, SE = 0.02, p = .008, R2change = .02). There was a significant interaction between PTSD and SA on social support from partners ( = -0.01, SE = 0.01, p = .047, R2change = .01). Neither non-SA nor SA trauma was associated with support from family or friends.Conclusions: Results underscore the potential impact of recent SA on intimate partnerships for young adult SMW with more severe PTSD. Future work should explore how addressing PTSD and improving social support quality may help SMW recover from traumatic experiences and ameliorate the effects of SA on intimate partnerships.

Missing Out: What’s Going On With Male Friendships?

Significant literature now exists which strongly suggests men in Western countries are shedding orthodox masculinity tropes in favor of greater male friendship intimacies and bonding. Inclusive Masculinity Theory (IMT) has emerged to explain and give direction to these sociocultural changes, suggesting men are gaining emotional and health benefits from greater inclusion of diverse masculinities, homosocial bonding, bro-bud closeness, platonic touch, all without the former fear of being labeled homosexual. However, there is also significant and concurrent literature which suggests men remain lacking in friendships and are lonely; conditions reported to worsen over the time periods studied and despite seeming advances made in male-male homosociability. In fact, this other literature suggests men not only and increasingly lack friendships, but that such lack worsens health outcomes, many self-reporting the effects of emotional and touch isolation from other men. This discussion article reviews unobtrusive sources: research reports, published articles, online posts and materials, to assess and discuss trends indicated, and unravel their seeming contradictions. Additionally, this discussion article asks if Christian males fare any better—given the faith’s emphasis on love (agape, philia) and mutuality. Review of findings allow for trends to be understood in light of generational change, underscoring that both conditions—social changes to male homosociability as well as stasis in male-male stereotypic relationships—can be true: younger generations embracing novel changes, while middle- and older generations not doing so. Overall, data confirm that men in all generational cohorts lose friends over time, especially intimate friendships, and this is concerning. Reviewing available literature on Christian male friendships, findings suggest how cultural norms and beliefs can work to undermine male friendship formation and intimacy between men of this faith as well.

A Qualitative Study of the Social Relationship Experiences Across the Life Course Among Black/African American Women Aging With HIV in the South.

Black/African American women continue to be disproportionately affected by HIV, facing multiple intersecting challenges that influence how they age and effectively manage their health. Supportive social relationships have been shown to help mitigate challenges and improve health in women with HIV, but little is known about Black/African American women's perceptions of social relationships. Guided by Life Course Theory, in-depth life history interviews were conducted with 18 Black/African American women aged 50+ years. In older adulthood, most important relationships among Black/African American women were with their adult children and grandchildren, intimate partners, God, and friends from the community. Factors that influenced relationships over time included: (a) a desire to build a community; (b) a need to empower oneself and give back; (c) yearning to engage the younger generation; and (d) battling HIV stigma. Older Black/African American women with HIV played a critical role in the education of the younger generation.

The Relationship of Emotion Regulation with Intimate Friendship in adolescent Women using Second Account Instagram in Makassar

Intimate friendship adalah salah satu permasalahan yang dialami remaja Wanita pengguna second account instagram Intimate friendship memiliki dampak yang signifikan terhadap perkembangan dan kesejahteraan remaja. Namun, berdasarkan data awal yang ditemukan peneliti dinyatakan bahwa masih terdapat remaja yang tidak dapat membangun intimate friendship dengan baik. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui hubungan intimate friendship terhadap regulasi emosi pada remaja Wanita pengguna second account instagram di Makassar. Responden dalam penelitian ini sebanyak 295 remaja wanita pengguna second account instagram di Makassar. Data dianalisis menggunakan teknik analisis korelasi spearman’s rho. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa terdapat hubungan positif antara regulasi emosi terhadap intimate friendship pada remaja Wanita pengguna second account instagram di Makassar (r= 0,42; p 0,000; p&lt; 0,05). Penelitian ini menggambarkan bahwa semakin tinggi regulasi emosi maka semakin tinggi intimate friendship. Hasil penelitian ini diharapkan mampu membangun hubungan intimate friendship yang baik yang tentunya akan berdampak pada kebahagiaan dan kesejahteraan remaja. Remaja dapat memulai dengan meregulasi emosi saat menghadapi situasi di lingkungan sosial agar dapat membangun hubungan intimate friendship yang baik.

Examining factors predicting sexual exploitation among victims of human trafficking

The primary aim of this study is to investigate the factors predicting sexual exploitation among victims of human trafficking, specifically examining how traffickers’ means of control, types of sexual services, nature of recruiter relationships and female age groups play a role in this phenomenon. The data analysed spanned from 2002 to 2019 and were sourced from anonymised public data provided by the Counter-Trafficking Data Collaborative (CTDC), a global hub collecting information from counter-trafficking organisations worldwide. Utilising a binary logistic regression approach, the study identified that traffickers employ various means of control, such as debt bondage, taking earnings, threats, sexual abuse, false promises, use of psychoactive substances, exploitation of children, threat of law enforcement and withholding necessities, aligning with Biderman's Theory of Coercion. Additionally, victims experience prostitution, pornography and private sexual services, often recruited by intimate partners and friends. Furthermore, the study revealed that young women aged 30 years and above were less likely to experience sexual exploitation compared to younger girls.

How Sweet the Ground: The Metaphysical Vision of Michael Marker

Through this essay, Rocha seeks to describe and honour Michael Marker’s signature notion of the “metaphysical demand” within his more well-known historical and anthropological work on the agentic notion of place. The essay begins by noting the difficulty of this essay due to the “unwritability” of Marker, in allusion to Mellvile’s character, Bartleby, and Garcia Marquez’ssense of Latin America’s solitude. Then, after hermeneutic clarifications that resist reading this essay as a eulogy, the essay proceeds biographically reaching the intimate friendship between Rocha and Marker. These biographical confessions lead to Marker’s ideas, rooted in (and progressing from) Vine Deloria Jr’s critical understanding of the Indigenous philosophy of space, which proceed into a record of correspondence where Marker shares his idea of the metaphysical demand. The essay closes in a series of impressionistic anecdotes that contain key elements in Marker’s approach to his life and thought. A key element is Marker’s practice as a folk musician and his collaborative work with the author in the improvised composition of a track on claw-hammer and bluegrass banjo. From these memorial movements, Marker’s notion of the metaphysical demand of place, a voice that speaks through a calcified andlayered modern reality, is left unfinished, as he left it, to be heard and continued in work to follow.

Signe Hebbe. Un’amicizia svedese di Adelaide Ristori

Signe Hebbe (1837-1925) was one of the most prominent Swedish actresses and singers. Since her stays in Paris, in the mid-1960s, having a deep admiration for Adelaide Ristori, she became her friend and pupil. Around this intimate friendship, in 1880, there was a possibility that Ristori could act a historical drama by Ibsen, which unfortunately did not happen. Following the teachings of Ristori, as well as of Lamperti and Ernesto Rossi, Hebbe introduced an acting style considered more realistic for the categories of the time and as a pedagogue, between 1877 and 1925, contributed to form a generation of important Swedish artists, transmitting the fundamental lesson of her Italian teachers to the mid-20th century.

The Effect of Friendship on Loneliness in Post-Pandemic Overseas Students

Loneliness is a common problem among overseas students. Loneliness can occur due to the low level of the intimacy of friendship. Thus, this study aimed to determine the effect of friendship on the loneliness of respondents. The research used comparative causal type quantitative methods. The study involved 385 respondents who were overseas students at Malang State University class of 2020 and 2021 who started friendships online and continued offline. They were selected using a purposive sampling technique. The study used the University of California, Los Angeles Loneliness Scale Version 3 (UCLA LS) scale, which was adapted into Indonesian by Putri (2019) and modified by researchers, had 14 items with a reliability of 0.884, and the Intimacy of Friendship Scale by Rizal’s (2020) and modified by researchers, had 41 items with a reliability of 0.942. Data analysis in this study used simple regression analysis. The results showed that intimacy of friendship contributed 32.7% to loneliness with a negative influence (ρ = 0.000).&#x0D; Keywords: Intimacy of friendship; Loneliness; Overseas students; Post-pandemic