Intimate Contexts Research Articles

Re/Thinking Bioethics: Reproduction and Non-Reproduction in an Intersectional Bioethics’ Perspective

The article begins by reconstructing the main feminist bioethics perspective as a “new discourse” within the official bioethical discussion. It illustrates how the moral discussion and juridification have contributed to remove reproduction and non-reproduction from the personal and intimate context, reinventing them as a “states business”. This process framed these issues in terms of “duties”, “rights”, “family planning”, “demography”, and “population policy”. In this manner, law and morality have helped to reinforce a specific construct of fertility, motherhood, and family. By comparing two interrelated forms of Cross Border Reproductive Care (CBRC), concerning abortion and surrogacy, the article analyses how bioethical and legal frameworks – through their polarized and dichotomic discussion between law and morality – confirm and strengthen gender injustice in reproductive life. That comparison of cross-border travels highlights that surrogacy and abortion restrictions stem from a shared social and legal paradigm that relies on traditional gender roles and reveals how the stratification of reproduction is based on multiple discrimination along the lines of gender, race, and class. Finally, the article introduces an intersectional bioethics point of view on reproductive health to re-read the phenomena of non-reproductive and reproductive tourism and to propose a critique of the main global Northern feminist bioethical discourses and ethical-philosophical paradigms.

When Is Digital Censorship Permissible? A Conversation Norms Account

Abstract How do people decide what should—and should not—be censored? Seven studies investigate the psychology of digital censorship regarding user-generated content. Study 1 is inductive, identifying three dimensions—content, intent, and outcomes—along which consumers believe censorship decisions regarding user-generated content should be made. Despite the prevailing practice of content-based digital-censorship decisions—that is, censorship based on whether the focal content includes negative, concrete attributes such as obscene language and violence—people’s acceptance of censorship decisions is determined, in part, by the degree to which the creator’s intent is considered (an “intent-sensitivity hypothesis”; Studies 2A–2D) even when failing to censor would engender negative consequences. The current research contends that this effect stems from people’s belief that when online platforms make censorship decisions regarding user-generated content, they should abide by conversation norms. Thus, people demonstrate less intent sensitivity in contexts in which doing so is not as conversationally normative—for instance, when platforms are used for professional, rather than social, purposes (Study 3). Furthermore, people do not expect the platform to exhibit intent sensitivity in less conversationally intimate contexts (Study 4).

The ins and outs of bodies: sex educators’ embodied insights on official/erotic discourses

ABSTRACT In this scholarship, I present insights from a sensory ethnographic study on novice educators’ embodied experiences of learning to teach sex education. I query how educators sense-make their role as knowledgeable sex educators in relation to the official and erotic discourses of sex education, and examine the experiential divisions between these discourses. Employing an arts-based approach to data generation and interpretation, my central argument proposes that increasing the permeability of the boundaries between official and erotic discourses in sex education can expand the ways learners’ bodies are understood in erotic, relational, and intimate contexts within pedagogy. By presenting these arguments, I aim to contribute to addressing the enduring challenges of the discourse of erotics ‘being’ in K-12 sex education and suggests ways to support educators in delivering effective pedagogical practices.

Couple Identity Work: Collaborative Couplehood, Gender Inequalities, and Power in Naming

The study of baby naming is valuable for understanding how gender inequality is reproduced in families. Often treated as an event, baby naming also represents an important social and cultural process that can reveal gendered dynamics in couple decision-making. Baby naming, which represents a highly visible and symbolic family milestone, is a strategic site in which to examine how couple identities are constructed—for self, partner, and others—through the naming process and through stories parents tell of how they named the baby. Drawing on 46 interviews with U.S. Mexican-origin heterosexual parents, we expose tensions that result when practices do not align with a desired (egalitarian) couple identity and detail the ensuing cognitive, emotion, and narrative labor that parents—primarily women—perform to reconcile inconsistencies. We introduce the concept of couple identity work, or the work involved in creating and projecting a desired impression of a relationship for multiple audiences, to provide a theoretical framework for these gendered dynamics. We show how couple identity work is enacted—and power expressed—through men’s and women’s strategies of action/inaction and storytelling, and how this work reproduces and obscures gendered power and inequality in the intimate context of baby naming.

WE/Time/Trembling/Softly

The choral body is heterogeneous and homogeneous, it is composed of many parts into one mass - for a time. It emerges, fades away and emerges anew in a different place. It is migratory by nature, forming structures of mutual reinforcement and resonance. It brings knowledge from external spheres into other, even foreign or intimate contexts. And it makes itself heard: many voices become one. Anne Brannys and Edith Kollath take its constitution, its techniques and mechanisms as a starting point for their investigation "WE/Time/Trembling/Softly: Chorus for ten voices out of 173467349034879236587595356416534“, which focuses on the chorus as a form of democratic expression. Different situations are illuminated in which the chorus appears: ancient places of cult, the theater stage, the Thingspiele of the German national socialists, political meetings and demonstrations, current art exhibitions and last but not least the space that is formed between the interacting beings of our environment. On a formal level, the text is structured into ten voices that represent the different aspects of the reflection on the chorus. Each of these voices has its own tempo, its own timbre. One can imagine how these sound one after the other or with each other, how they harmonize, interfere, complement or cancel each other, how a chorus shapes itself in each reader.

Tourism marketing and national parks : A systematic literature review

The primary focus of this paper is on national parks and tourism marketing, where tourism marketing plays a crucial role in reducing poverty and ensuring the quality of life, employment, and decent work for the nation, as well as the preservation of the natural and cultural environment. The interaction between tourism marketing and national parks is the most intimate context in which tourism marketing is increasingly regarded as a powerful tool for socioeconomic development. The purpose of this review is to investigate the environmental, sociocultural, and economic contributions of tourism marketing in and around a national park to strengthen progress on sustainable tourism development by reviewing 55 relevant journal articles indexed in Scopus and Web of Science. The principal search terms were used to discover the pertinent journal articles. It was discovered that no article with the title “Tourism Marketing and National Parks” existed. Instead, sustainable destinations and ecotourism have been emphasized. The reviews implied that tourism marketers do not engage in the sustainability of national park tourism for future usage and do not care about the environmental conservation of destinations. It's crucial to take into account the features of national parks and their potential value as attractive destinations for tourism development when implementing an effective tourism marketing strategy for national parks and encouraging the sustainable use of the natural environment and resources.

Shared Guilt among Intimates

ABSTRACT This paper seeks to vindicate a common but philosophically puzzling phenomenon: Sometimes, a person experiences extreme guilt in relation to a wrong that their loved one has committed, even though they are not at fault for that wrong. Guilt in these cases violates a foundational principle in our moral lives – viz., the fault principle. On that principle, one is blameworthy for a wrong only if one is at fault with respect to that wrong. Insofar as the family members explored here are not at fault, their professed experience of guilt looks to be irrational. Against the charge of irrationality, I argue that it is sometimes morally appropriate, and perhaps even morally required, to judge oneself to be blameworthy for the wrong of a loved one in which one played no culpable part. Further, insofar as the first-personal experience ought to dictate the responsibility assessments of victims and third parties, I conclude that these other individuals will have reason to take the intimate to be blameworthy too. I end by extending the phenomenon of faultless guilt beyond the intimate context, to the experience of white guilt.

Effects of L2 experience on Mandarin listeners’ perception of Korean politeness

This paper is a socio-phonetic study into the ways that affective meanings, particularly those related to politeness, are perceived cross-culturally. Building on previous research [Brown et al., 2014], the present experiments investigated the perception of acoustic cues associated with politeness in Korean by two groups of Chinese listeners: naïve listeners and experienced learners. The aim of this study is two-fold: to assess whether second language (L2) learners can access acoustic information for a politeness-related social stance in the L2, and whether L2 experience can improve learners’ ability to attend to the relevant cues. In Experiment 1, randomly ordered isolated stimuli produced in either a deferential or an intimate context by native Korean speakers were judged by naïve Chinese listeners. Similar to English listeners in Brown et al. (2014), Chinese listeners’ overall accuracies were below chance level (52.8%). When the same stimuli were presented in a blocked by speaker design in Experiment 2, accuracies increased to 57.8% for naïve listeners and 62.5% for experienced listeners, indicating that language experience can facilitate the acquisition of the language-specific acoustic correlates of politeness. The implications of these findings are discussed in light of the effects of L2 experience in immersion settings on the implicit learning of sociolinguistic knowledge.

Contextual Correlates of Cognitive Aging in Black Older Adults: Examining the Neighborhood

Black older adults have a unique history that includes enslavement and legalized segregation. This history shapes the present-day experiences of older Blacks, in part, through the neighborhoods in which they live. The neighborhood is a reflection of both the physical and social contexts, and reflects the most natural and intimate context through which a person experiences life. Combined, the unique history and neighborhoods of Black older adults may contribute to their disproportionately experiencing impairments in cognitive function in older age. There is growing interest in how lived experiences across the life course affect cognitive trajectory and, ultimately, cognitive outcomes of older Black adults. In this presentation, we will review recent literature on psychosocial and physical contextual factors and their influence on cognitive aging in older blacks through the lens of the neighborhood.

Intimate Relationships and HIV Infection Risks Among Shan Female Sex Workers From Myanmar in Chiang Mai, Thailand: A Qualitative Study.

This study aimed to investigate HIV risks among female sex workers (FSWs) who were from the Shan ethnic group, and how they relate to complex relationships with inconsistent condom use. The study was conducted using in-depth interviews with 17 Shan FSWs (aged 18-45 years old) in Chiang Mai. Intimate relationships between participants and regular clients/steady partners were found to facilitate inconsistent condom use. Participating Shan FSWs sustained intimacy with regular clients not only for economic ends but also for emotional support. Gender norms and male power dominated condom use decision making. Some participants lacked proper HIV preventive knowledge regarding condom breakage and HIV risks. Effective intervention and proper HIV preventive practices should address these intimate contexts. Capacity building among women would assist FSWs to make choices that protect them from HIV/STDs infections. Couples-based HIV interventions addressing emotional intimacy is an urgent need for HIV communication and service delivery in Thailand.

The Bigger Riddle: The Normative Dissonances of the Criminal Law's Relationship with Personal Autonomy

Rape is probably the most academically researched, and constantly debated offense in the legal field. Jed Rubenfeld's 2013 provocative essay has ignited a scholarly debate, about the of rape by deception. His essay examined a major normative dissonance: notwithstanding its clear violation of sexual autonomy, sex obtained by fraud is usually not considered rape. Rubenfeld proposed to solve this dissonance by dismissing sexual autonomy as a normative basis for the criminalization of rape, and embracing self-possession instead, which excludes sex by fraud as rape. Academic responses acknowledged the above normative dissonance, and proposed other rationales to the offense of rape. As a matter of fact, the normative problem is much wider and deeper. This article takes the above dissonance a step further, to articulate another riddle. The normative dissonance at focus is highly abstract: while personal autonomy is deeply valued, and therefore firmly protected in certain criminal legal aspects, it is discarded in others. This article points out diverse scenarios in which personal autonomy is protected by criminal law; diverse contexts in which it is not legally protected; and diverse contexts in which it is even attacked by criminal law. Then, it further explores another more concrete dissonance, but still more abstract than the one analyzed in the riddle of fraudulent sex: The American legal regime rarely criminalizes lying and deceiving. This article reviews legal norms which criminalize lying and deceiving in certain contexts, while illustrating contexts in which lying and deceiving are legally acceptable. It then argues, that regardless of sexuality, lying and deceiving in intimate contexts can be abusive, wrongful and harmful. The latter forms harshly violate the important, intimate and emotional layers of personal autonomy, in the romance, family and friendship context. They are worthy of legal and scholarly attention; and neglecting them reflects a major normative dissonance. As long as personal autonomy is protected in certain contexts, and discarded in others, and as long as the criminal law generally rules out the criminalization of lying and deceiving, our normative dissonances will thrive in concrete contexts, such as the one of rape by fraud. The discourse of the rape offenses is vast, and lately that is also the case regarding fraudulent sex. The academic discourse about the protection of personal autonomy from fraud and deception in those matters is clear. However, there is very little discourse regarding the dissonances of personal autonomy's relationship with the criminal law, and almost no discourse about the criminal protection of personal autonomy in intimate yet non-sexual contexts.

Look at me while having sex! Eye-to-eye contact affects homosexual behaviour in bonobo females

Abstract In humans, eye-to-eye contact (EEC) or mutual gazing is a reflexive predisposition occurring in intimate contexts. We investigated the role of EEC during bonobo socio-sexual contacts. Females engage in homosexual ventro-ventral, genito-genital rubbing (VVGGR) during which they embrace each other while rubbing part of their vulvae and, sometimes, clitoris. VVGGR facilitates conflict resolution, anxiety reduction and social bonding. We found that EEC was negatively affected by female bonding: the more the eye contact, the weaker the social relationship. This suggests that EEC promotes an intimate contact between the more unfamiliar subjects. Moreover, VVGGRs were successfully prolonged in presence of at least one event of EEC compared to VVGGRs during which none of the partners looked towards the other or only one looked at the other’s face. EEC has been probably favoured by natural selection to enhance the cohesion between bonobo females, who can gain social power through socio-sexual contacts.

Design, delivery and perception of condition-dependent chemical signals in strepsirrhine primates: implications for human olfactory communication.

The study of human chemical communication benefits from comparative perspectives that relate humans, conceptually and empirically, to other primates. All major primate groups rely on intraspecific chemosignals, but strepsirrhines present the greatest diversity and specialization, providing a rich framework for examining design, delivery and perception. Strepsirrhines actively scent mark, possess a functional vomeronasal organ, investigate scents via olfactory and gustatory means, and are exquisitely sensitive to chemically encoded messages. Variation in delivery, scent mixing and multimodality alters signal detection, longevity and intended audience. Based on an integrative, 19-species review, the main scent source used (excretory versus glandular) differentiates nocturnal from diurnal or cathemeral species, reflecting differing socioecological demands and evolutionary trajectories. Condition-dependent signals reflect immutable (species, sex, identity, genetic diversity, immunity and kinship) and transient (health, social status, reproductive state and breeding history) traits, consistent with socio-reproductive functions. Sex reversals in glandular elaboration, marking rates or chemical richness in female-dominant species implicate sexual selection of olfactory ornaments in both sexes. Whereas some compounds may be endogenously produced and modified (e.g. via hormones), microbial analyses of different odorants support the fermentation hypothesis of bacterial contribution. The intimate contexts of information transfer and varied functions provide important parallels applicable to olfactory communication in humans. This article is part of the Theo Murphy meeting issue 'Olfactory communication in humans'.

The Detrimental Effect of Sexual Objectification on Targets' and Perpetrators' Sexual Satisfaction: The Mediating Role of Sexual Coercion.

Sexual objectification is a variable to consider for understanding the sexual violence that takes place into intimate context. The set of studies presented here aims to connect sexual objectification phenomena with sexual coercion and explore the consequences that both have on sexual satisfaction. Two studies examined the association between sexual objectification and sexual satisfaction for both views: female target (Study 1) and male perpetrator (Study 2) perspectives. The results of the first study (n = 138 heterosexual women) demonstrated that perceiving partner objectification (but not reporting general sexual objectification victimization) is indirectly linked to a lower sexual satisfaction because of lower rejection and higher sexual coercion rates. The second study (n = 136 heterosexual men) showed the indirect effect of partner objectification and general sexual objectification perpetration on sexual satisfaction after sexual coercion perpetration. Results of both studies demonstrated the negative consequences that sexual objectification has on sexual satisfaction for both male perpetrators and female targets.

Vocalization can mediate male–male sexual interactions in Java sparrows

Abstract Same-sex sexual behaviors do not have direct fitness outcomes, but might be adaptive. This issue is often discussed in group-living animals, where social bonding is crucial. In our captive environment, around 33% of the Java-sparrow (Lonchura oryzivora) males kept in unisex cages have stable bonded partners. Those bonded males often perch side by side and show allopreening and joint-defensive behaviors towards others. In this study, we aimed to determine how males including such same-sex bonded individuals communicate with each other via vocalizations. We introduced same-sex pairs of Java sparrows, which were bonded or non-bonded, in sound-attenuated boxes and compared their recorded vocalizations with those from male–female pairs. For the male–male pairs, we identified two vocalizations that are usually exchanged between paired partners in intimate contexts: mating trills – which are usually emitted by females during successful copulation – and meowing calls – which are given when both members of the pair are in the nest at the same time. We found that males gave mating trills when their partner males were singing courtship songs, or performed trill duets, which sometimes also included meowing calls. Acoustic analyses revealed that there was no difference between male–male and male–female vocalizations. Meowing calls showed greater within-individual variation in duration and other acoustic parameters, but were similar in same-sex and mixed-sex contexts. Our results indicate that male–male pairs exchanged intimate vocal communications just like male–female couples.

Manifold-defect depth-map restoration for very low-cost S3D videos

In this paper, the proposed algorithm provides a fluent and efficient method for repairing very-low quality depth maps of considerable manifold defects for low-cost stereoscopic 3D (S3D) photographing that such a depth map can be easily yielded by 1st-generation Kinect (Kinect-v1). The corresponding framework cascades two repairing portions named discriminative non-segmentation hole filling and edge rectification-by-deforming. The former can discriminatively fill a variety of depth-invalid holes with no need of practically making attribute-discrimination and target segmentation for depth holes. The main portions of the latter contain edge-shifting-rectification and texture-edge guided dual processing for tailoring possible twisted depth edges. Since the ingredients of proposed algorithm are compactly concatenated according to intimate context, most troublesome defects in Kinect-v1 depths can be tackled. Particularly, the proposed algorithm can obtain the restoring coherency for successive depth maps. A series of experimental results under various photographing scenarios can demonstrate that a single Kinect-v1 device can fast tell on the development of very low-cost S3D imaging tool by the proposed algorithm.

Victimization Narratives and Courtroom Sexual Politics: Prosecuting Male Burglars and Female Pickpockets in Melbourne, 1860–1921

Burglary and pickpocketing were the two most prevalent forms of male and female offending, respectively, in the flourishing colonial capital of Melbourne during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Using court records and newspaper accounts, this article compares the prosecution patterns and public perceptions of male burglars and female pickpockets. Both offences were associated in the Anglophone world with membership of the criminal classes and in the colonial context with concerns about a remnant convict populace. Moreover, both male burglary and female pickpocketing occurred in intimate contexts that threatened the possibility of sexual violence or uncontrolled female sexuality. Yet although both crimes were the subjects of community concerns, the conviction rates for burglary and pickpocketing differed dramatically. This article examines the ways in which the gendered contexts of burglary and pickpocketing—in relation to constructions of victims as much as defendants—exacerbated the usual differences found in trial outcomes for men and women, as well as other factors that served to place men at far greater risk of conviction. It is suggested that a close reading of the victimization narratives of these two offences complicates traditional perspectives on the policing of male and female sexualities in the criminal justice system.

Perceived cultural acceptability and comfort with affectionate touch: Differences between Mexican Americans and European Americans

Ethnographic descriptions suggest that cultures differ in the extent to which they value physical touch and its acceptability in different kinds of social relationships. For example, compared to European American (EA) culture, Mexican culture is described as placing greater emphasis on warm interpersonal interactions, in which touch may play an important part. We tested this notion empirically by assessing attitudes about touch among 271 Mexican American (MA; 208 female) and 578 EA (434 female) college students. Specifically, we examined potential ethnic group differences in (1) participants’ perception of the acceptability of affectionate touch (AT) within their cultures, depending on the relationship (close others vs. acquaintances) and setting (private vs. public) in which the touch occurs; and (2) participants’ own personal comfort with AT. Among MAs, we examined associations between touch attitudes and acculturation. As predicted, MAs reported greater cultural acceptability of AT with acquaintances (but not close others) and in public (but not private) settings than did EAs. Participants’ own comfort with AT was greater for both MA men and EA women than for EA men. Further, higher perceived cultural acceptability of AT predicted greater personal comfort with AT in both ethnic groups. Finally, among MAs, greater acculturation predicted less comfort with AT. Together, these results lend support to the notion that MA ethnocultural norms encourage AT in nonintimate contexts to a greater degree than EA norms, particularly for men, and that personal attitudes about AT are largely congruent with these norms. They also call attention to cross-cultural similarities in attitudes about touch in more intimate contexts.

“I matter, too”

ABSTRACTThis narrative is about a journey of two people in a therapy relationship who come from distinctly different social locations – on the surface, unlike one another from a social context, yet not so unlike at a deeper personal level. One person, the client, is African American, 30 years of age, poor, unmarried mother of two children. The other person, the family therapist, is a 49-year-old Caucasian male, middles class, married, of Italian/Ukrainian ancestry. At first glance, we see little in common between these two individuals who are supposed to work together in the intimate context of a therapeutic relationship. How the therapist, with his supervisor, meets these challenges from the perspective of the Person of the Therapist (POTT) framework (Aponte et al., 2009; Aponte & Kissil, 2016) about a therapist’s use of self is the subject of this article. The premise of the article is that the therapist will need to reach within himself to be able to empathically connect with her in the deep common humanity of their personal lives, while making a singular effort to expand this empathic connection to include her social location and community context

Surveillant Intimacies

We often think of surveillance as ubiquitous, secretive, top-down, corporate, and governmental—and in many ways, it is. Through three vignettes, this essay prods at the ways in which our everyday tools, technologies, and gestures extend surveillance’s reach into our intimate lives and relationships. Each vignette is a story constructed from facts gleaned in news stories, social media, or personal conversations. As such, these vignettes are neither empirical nor entirely speculative. In an effort to consider surveillance as an ongoing and daily activity, they invite readers into more intimate contexts than those that are usually the object of rigorous scholarly analysis. In their intimacy, these stories serve to remind us of the ways in which communication devices are always, in some capacity, tracking and trailing our desires. Vignette 1 tells the story of the NSA agent who uses the agency’s powerful database to spy on an ex-lover. Vignette 2 explores the kinds of information users can get (about themselves) from Big Tech companies, from social media and dating apps. Vignette 3 looks at Internet cookies and their capacity to make unlikely—and unwanted—introductions. Technology, apps, and our always-on devices complicate the boundaries of intimacy and often work to redefine the trajectories of our desire in the process. The breaches of trust detailed in these stories expose the ways in which Big Tech’s desire to predict and to measure human emotion and behaviour exists in tension with our memories, our secrets, and our wild imaginations.