Sexual Culture Research Articles

Clinical ethnography and sexual culture.

Clinical ethnography and sexual culture.

The adult life course and homosexual identity in midlife gay men.

The meaning of homosexual identity as shaped by the adult life course is poorly described in the lives of gay men. In particular, the transition from young adulthood to middle age raises questions of how homosexual identity is redefined as gay men alter their participation in gay sexual culture, experience change in sexual desire and activity, and revise broader psychosocial identity as influenced by psychological and socialization processes related to aging. In addition, the HIV epidemic and historical change in social tolerance of homosexuality have shaped the experience of sexual identity among the generation of currently middle-aged gay men in the United States. A perspective that integrates sociocultural, historical, and psychosocial factors is thus needed to understand thesubjective meaning of homosexual identity as it is experienced in midlife. In this paper I have described exploratory research on the meaning of homosexual identity in the life trajectories of middle-aged men. Such meanings reflect available social and cultural pathways for change in midlife homosexual identity, as well as individual psychological attributes and idiosyncrasies of life history. These findings have heuristic value in further refinement of models of homosexual identity maintenance and support a more inclusive view of the life course that considers the effects of sexual orientation on adult identity.

The 20th Century Decline in the Private Cost to Women of Non-Marital Sex: Causes and Consequences

Non-marital sex in the United States — pre-marital, extra-marital, and post-marital — went through a radical change over the course of the twentieth century. It both increased markedly in frequency and availability and changed dramatically in character. The pace of change was most rapid in a period of perhaps ten years beginning in the early 1960s. What accounts for this revolution in such a core human activity? Why and how did we shift from a world in which sex outside of marriage, while not unavailable, was not nearly so abundant, was generally unreliable, tawdry, and, for women, usually shameful, to one in which it was readily and widely available, seen as part of the natural course of unmarried life, and where the failure to engage in sex with some regularity was generally viewed as harmful and shameful?I am aware of no fundamental change in the drive for sex or its ontological and psychological meaning that explains this revolution. I will spend most of this paper providing an economic explanation of this transformation, and particularly its pace in the 1960s. I will focus primarily on the plummeting costs to women of engaging in sex. That waning of cost came in two different, but related, dimensions. First, there was a dramatic amelioration and even reversal in the negative material consequences of sex. Second, and perhaps more importantly, the reputational price that women had to pay for engaging in non-marital sex plummeted in a manner analogous to a neighborhood “tipping” model. Beyond exploring the causes I am concerned with the consequences of this change in practice and attitude. I will discuss the immense negative externalities both pecuniary and real that have come in the train of our more libertine practices and attitudes. That I will suggest that the earlier more prudish and chaste sexual culture had a number of broad societal benefits that have now been eroded will hardly be surprising. Grounding such an observation in the language and concepts of economics will, I hope, prove informative and thought provoking.

Women Veterans: ‘Invisible Warriors’ on Your Campus

Women Veterans: ‘Invisible Warriors’ on Your Campus

Violence against women in intimate relations: A contrast of five theories

This paper explores the correlates of violence against women in intimate relations. Using data from a large victimization survey, we assess five theoretical explanations based on patterns of association between violence and key attitudinal and socio-demographic variables: sexism, family violence, dependency, exchange and status inconsistency. We conclude that status inconsistency, understood as a complex multidimensional theory of patriarchy that integrates core elements of other theories, offers the best explanation. Women’s odds of suffering violence are higher if they have sexist partners, are disempowered or have higher statuses than their partners. Disempowered women have fewer resources to oppose the sexist culture on which violence breeds. Women with elevated statuses defy men’s dominance. Violence is intrinsic to a patriarchal system of power that fosters sexism and manifests violently when women are vulnerable or challenge men’s statuses.

Getting ‘foolishly hot and bothered’? Parents and teachers and sex education in the 1940s

The reluctance of parents to provide sex education has been a problem for educators since the first attempts at the modernisation of sex education in the early twentieth century, yet the sexual needs, desires and fears of parents are rarely even mentioned in pedagogical debates. This article examines the intense anxiety and embarrassment felt by both parents and teachers when they tried to provide sex education in mid-twentieth-century England. The gendered sexual cultures of women and men and the way in which these shaped responses to the pubertal experience of girls and boys are described. Sex education was a rational progressive discourse; the response of sex educators to resistance and rejection of what they offered was to present ‘rational’ arguments explaining that these anxieties are unnecessary and can thus be abandoned. Waves of popular emotion concerning child sexual abuse since the 1980s demonstrate the continuing relevance of this fear and anxiety, emotions that shaped the course of sex education over the past century.

Sexual Economics, Culture, Men, and Modern Sexual Trends

Across the late 20th century, ideas about sex came from two main sources. One was evolutionary theory, based on the field of biology. The other was feminist and social constructionist theory, based in the field of political science. Though important insights have come from both sources, there was a growing body of evidence that did not easily fit either of those. We therefore turned to another field to develop a new theory. The field was economics, and we labeled our theory “sexual economics” (Baumeister and Vohs 2004). At first, our theory was constructed to fit what was already known, making it an exercise in hindsight. It is therefore highly revealing to see how the theory has fared in Regnerus and

:The Gender of Globalization: Women Navigating Cultural and Economic Marginalities. Nandini Gunewardena, Ann Kingsolver (eds.). School for Advanced Research Seminar Series. Santa Fe, NM: School for Advanced Research Press; Oxford, UK: James Currey, 2007. xv + 356 pp. (Paper US$34.95) The Politics of Passion: Women's Sexual Culture in the Afro‐Surinamese Diaspora. Gloria Wekker (ed.). New York, NY: Columbia University Press,

Transforming AnthropologyVolume 20, Issue 2 p. 186-189 Book Reviews The Gender of Globalization: Women Navigating Cultural and Economic Marginalities. Nandini Gunewardena Ann Kingsolver (eds.). School for Advanced Research Seminar Series. Santa Fe, NM: School for Advanced Research Press; Oxford, UK: James Currey, 2007. xv + 356 pp. (Paper US$34.95) The Politics of Passion: Women's Sexual Culture in the Afro-Surinamese Diaspora. Gloria Wekker (ed.). New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2006. 336 pp. (Cloth US$72.50; Paper US$29.00) Vermonja R. Alston, Vermonja R. Alston YORK UNIVERSITY, Toronto, ON, Canada Departments of English and Equity StudiesSearch for more papers by this author Vermonja R. Alston, Vermonja R. Alston YORK UNIVERSITY, Toronto, ON, Canada Departments of English and Equity StudiesSearch for more papers by this author First published: 07 September 2012 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-7466.2012.01159.xRead the full textAboutPDF ToolsExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume20, Issue2October 2012Pages 186-189 RelatedInformation

Just a preference: racialised language in the sex-seeking profiles of gay and bisexual men

Racialised language is a salient and contested aspect of contemporary sexual cultures, particularly in the online domain. This paper explores the ways in which gay men in Australia employ race-related language when using online sex/dating websites. Using inductive content analysis, descriptive categories were developed to identify recurrent patterns in the racialised language employed by website users. A coding framework was then constructed to identify the ‘subject’ (self, other or concept) of each piece of race-related content, its ‘purpose’ (marketing, negative or positive discrimination, commentary) and the ‘position’ adopted (defensive, normalised or critical). Descriptive and comparative analyses revealed differences in the ways in which members of racial groups employed racialised language online. These differences are reviewed in relation to broader discourses on Whiteness and race in Australia, as well as recent community-produced anti-racism campaigns.

SEXUAL CULTURE: A MULTIDISCIPLINARY APPROACH TO RESEARCH

Results of an interdisciplinary research analysis of foreign and domestic scholars studies of sexual culture have been presented in the article. The terms concept and structure have been considered. There has been given an analysis of methodological reasons that led to formation of bio-evolutionary, social, cultural and socio-psychological approaches to study of sexuality. There have been detected conceptual problems complicating definition and systematization of types of sexual culture and its determinants.

Sexual behavioural change in Ankole, western Uganda, c.1880–1980

Within the Great Lakes region of East Africa previous research on the emergence of HIV/AIDS has focused primarily on Uganda's Central and Tanzania's Kagera Regions, and the locally dominant ethnic groups, the Ganda and the Haya. The patterns of sexual behaviour which facilitated the rapid spread of HIV have typically been associated with changes which occurred during the 1970s, a decade characterised by declining state services, growing violence and black marketeering, and worsening sexual vulnerability. This article argues that in order to explain the emergence of HIV in the Great Lakes as a whole, it is necessary to construct a series of local narratives of sexual behavioural change over a longer time period. Only then can the specific character of the region's various sub-epidemics, as well as their commonalities, be fully understood. This article traces the evolution of sexual attitudes and behaviour between 1900 and 1980 in a society that neighbours Buganda and Buhaya, Ankole in western Uganda. It explains how Ankole's relatively austere sexual culture gradually came to replicate that of Buganda between the 1930s and 1980, arguing that it was the 1960s that saw the most important changes in sexual behaviour and attitudes.

ANALYSIS OF WORLD TENDENCIES IN DEVELOPMENT OF SEXUAL CULTURE OF ХХ - ХХ! CENTURIES

The paper presents an analysis of major trends in sexual culture development in the contemporary society. Based on studies of domestic and foreign experts, there has been given a characteristic of sexual behavior of people around the world. The latter is characterized by global changes in sexual relations between people: earlier age of sexual debut, the changing nature of family relations, the liberalization of sexual morality and the erosion of gender stereotypes, etc. Negative trends in the observed sexual culture development are observed in Russia. They are primarily manifested in the wide spread of sexually risky behavior among teenagers and young people. This leads to an increase in the number of unwanted pregnancies, abortions, STI / HIV, and consequently to a deterioration in sexual and reproductive health, what specifies a need to develop effective programs of sexual education of the population.

Intersecting identities and global climate change

This article explores the place of race, class, gender, sexual and national identities and cultures in global climate change. Research on gendered vulnerabilities to disasters suggests that women are more vulnerable than men to many meteorological disasters related to climate change, specifically flooding and drought. This is because of their relative poverty, economic activities (especially subsistence agriculture) and the moral economies governing women's modesty in many cultures. Research on historical and contemporary links between masculinity and the military in environmental politics, polar research and large-scale strategies for managing risk, including from climate change, suggests that men and their perspectives have more influence over climate change policies because of their historical domination of science and government. I expect that masculinist identities, cultures and militarised institutions will tend to favour large-scale remedies, such as geoengineering, minimise mitigation strategies, such as reducing energy use, and emphasise ‘security’ problems of global climate change.

JUNO (JASON REITMAN, 2007): A PRACTICAL CASE STUDY OF TEENS, FILM AND CULTURAL STUDIES

Jason Reitman's Juno (2007), the story of how a teenager handles her pregnancy, is the kind of film that leaves no one indifferent. Released at a time of conflicting discourses on sexual education, Reitman's film addressed the confusion experienced by teenagers as they came of age in a context where patterns of masculine and feminine behaviour were rapidly changing. In this essay I argue that Juno offers a complex understanding of the disorientation suffered by adolescents during the 1990s – a time when anti-sex discourses coexisted with an increasingly sexualized youth culture. This said, my intention is to move towards the film in a roundabout way by focusing, first, on why so many, supposed ‘cultural criticisms’ of films turn out to be so superficial. In this introductory section, the argument will be made for an approach in film analyses that takes full account of cinema as a visual medium. After exposing my critical stance, I shall draw nearer to the film itself by examining various of the overlapping contexts that, together, created a conducive space for its success – namely, the political scene; changing attitudes towards sex and gender; and most importantly, cinema's aesthetic dimension and the impact of genre conventions in the film-viewing experience. Once the complex diagram of differing (and sometimes contradictory) forces at work in Juno has been mapped out, my aim is to link these conjunctures to a detailed analysis of a key scene in the film as a means of demonstrating how the combination of film studies and Cultural Studies can operate as a method that eschews too easy, ideologically oriented, assumptions.

The politics of youth sexuality: Civil society and school-based sex education in Croatia

This article analyzes the development of school-based sex education programs in Croatia to identify the role of civil society organizations (CSOs) in shaping government policy outcomes. We trace the history and recent activities of faith-based and pro-comprehensive education CSOs to identify the political advantages and cultural challenges in advocating systematic sexuality education. Focusing our analysis on the 2004–2008 negotiation process over sexuality and health education programs in Croatian public schools, we aim to make transparent the state reluctance in handling controversial issues, as well as its covert privileging of faith-based initiatives. This decision-making process, we argue, exposes political links between heterosexual values and national culture. It also highlights how sex education policy became a site for reinforcing and challenging heteronormative values, and reveals complex relationships between sexuality, religiosity, and national culture.

Knowledge by visual transmission: Sexuality and anarchist visual culture in Estudios (1928–37)

In the early twentieth century, with the advancement of printing techniques enabling the reproduction of graphics and images, the number of illustrated publications increased rapidly. In addition to its consumer appeal, the printed image and its mass distribution through reviews, newspapers, posters and illustrations in books boosted new types of usage and meaning relating to the image, which in turn established new codes of communication. Due to their eagerness to proselytize, anarchist groups worked themselves up into a publishing frenzy which served as a platform for dialogue between anarchist elites and the proletarian masses, as well as being a vehicle for teaching and indoctrination. The rapid growth of these publications promoted what can be referred to as a 'review culture', which gave rise to new strategies for spreading anarchist ideas as well as for recruiting and educating activists. Estudios. Revista Eclctica (1928–37) stands out because of its interest in the sexual education of the proletariat, focusing on spreading scientific knowledge among the workers, peasants, artisans and other groups which made up its vast readership. A large number of science and medical professionals and amateurs developed a veritable manual on the sexual education of the proletariat, which was complemented by the review's rich visual discourse. This article argues that these images, which were a part of the visual culture of the Spanish and international anarchist world, established a dialogue with the textual discourse of this publication, completing or visually transmitting the concepts relating to sexual education which were expressed in the review. The anxiety to improve the living conditions of the proletariat and the focus on proletarian sexuality was largely caused by the anxiety to reduce the high mortality rate in European nations in the inter-war period. Sexuality and sexual practices were policed through a scientific discourse which, it is argued, was not unburdened by the Catholicism of old.

Shayne Lee: Erotic Revolutionaries: Black Women, Sexuality, and Popular Culture

Shayne Lee: Erotic Revolutionaries: Black Women, Sexuality, and Popular Culture

Elusive sex acts: pleasure and politics in Norwegian sex education

While there is little political opposition towards sex education as such in Norway, recent attempts at reforming the subject reveal underlying heteronormative presumptions that seem resistant to reform. While a focus on homosexuality is included in the national curriculum at all levels of compulsory education, the sexual practices involved in same-sex relations remain conspicuously absent from the education provided. This paper provides an overview of contemporary Norwegian sex education, and discusses its primary shortcoming: the absence of a focus on sex acts other than coitus. The political challenges to good sex education in Norway emerge when this absence of sex acts is addressed by innovative teaching programmes that focus on sexual pleasure. Norwegian political consensus about a free and equal sexual culture does not seem able to embrace the discussion of specific sexual practices in the classroom.

The Coffee/Café-Scape in Chinese Urban Cities

The Coffee/Café-Scape in Chinese Urban Cities

Psychosexual therapy in sexualised culture: a systemic perspective

This is an edited version of a presentation given at COSRT Conference on “Psychosexual Therapy in Sexualised Culture”, held in November 2011 in London. The Conference had a particular focus on the impact of sexualised media messages on young people. This paper addresses the issue of “sexualisation” in relation to its problematic definition: the effects of sexualisation and the difficulties with the proposed solutions, which are seen as perpetuating the issues they are trying to resolve. Clinical examples illustrate the effects of cultural imbalance in addressing sex on clients presenting themselves for psychosexual therapy.