Culture, Health & Sexuality最新文献

International estimates of intimate partner violence (IPV) among adolescents and young women are high, indicating the need to address IPV prevention early in life. Structural economic interventions, such as household cash transfer programmes, have the potential to improve the wellbeing of youth who are not the direct recipients of the transfers themselves. However, few studies have addressed this topic in terms of youth romantic and/or sexual relationships. We conducted 39 in-depth interviews with young women aged 19-29 years in households participating in the Government of Malawi's Social Cash Transfer Programme (SCTP) to examine relationship formation, IPV triggers and experiences, and help-seeking behaviours. We found that young women did not directly attribute SCTP effects to their intimate relationships or IPV experiences. Threats to masculinity and transgressions of women's gender norms were key triggers of IPV, but specific triggers were linked to specific types of IPV. Furthermore, women sought help for non-IPV concerns more than IPV-related issues. Our results reveal there is a need to strengthen cash transfer programmes and layer them with tailored interventions for adolescents and young women in participant households to improve relationships and prevent IPV early in life.

This study explores the career motivations, work experiences, and stigma management strategies of women engaged in adult webcam modelling in Türkiye. Based on qualitative interviews with twelve participants, the research situates webcam modelling within broader socio-cultural, economic, and moral frameworks that shape both opportunities and constraints. The study adopted a multi-theoretical approach, drawing on deviant leisure, social learning, stigma, and sexuality labour intersectional frameworks. Key findings reveal that webcam modelling is often driven by a mix of financial necessity and emotional need, and that participants develop adaptive strategies to navigate platform demands, gendered expectations, and societal stigma. The study contributes to the literature on digital labour and sex work by highlighting the complex, context-specific negotiations involved in performing sexual labour online, particularly within a morally conservative, legally ambiguous setting such as Türkiye. It calls for nuanced theoretical engagement and culturally informed policy responses that acknowledge the agency, vulnerabilities, and rights of webcam workers.

This study examined how distinct patterns of pornography use (secret solitary, partner-aware solitary and shared) were associated with sexual satisfaction, sexual pleasure and sexual shame among partnered young people in China and the UK. A total of 1,223 participants (18-25 years) completed measures of pornography use and psychosexual well-being. Participants rated the frequency of each pattern on an 8-point scale; we analysed repeated measures with linear mixed-effects models and tested associations via structural equation modelling with effect-coded gender and culture, including observed interactions. Patterns of use explained more variance in frequency than gender or culture. Secretive use was associated with lower sexual satisfaction and greater sexual shame, although the direction of effects may be bidirectional, reflecting both the relational costs of concealment and its potential roots in dissatisfaction or shame. Partner-aware and shared use were generally associated with more positive outcomes, particularly among women. Despite cultural conservatism and legal restrictions, participants in China reported similar frequency of partner-aware and higher shared use than participants in the UK, whereas elevated shame was observed primarily in the UK, suggesting that local norms may influence engagement, disclosure and the meanings attached to secrecy and openness within relationships.

This study examined male participation in maternal healthcare in Nyasa District, southern Tanzania. Although health policies emphasise men's involvement, it is often narrowly defined as physical presence at antenatal or delivery facilities. Using a qualitative case study with 45 semi-structured interviews and four focus group discussions with men and women, the research explored how men actually engage in maternal care. Thematic analysis revealed that men's contributions extend well beyond clinic attendance to include financial and logistical support, birth preparedness, household assistance, emotional care, family planning participation, and monitoring maternal wellbeing. Women appreciated these forms of involvement but also reported persistent inequities, particularly in contraceptive decision-making, where male authority often prevailed. Limited clinic attendance was largely shaped by structural and livelihood constraints rather than disengagement, including subsistence farming, informal work, long travel distances, and gendered clinic environments. In the context of rural poverty and evolving gender norms, men's participation reflects both continuity and change in household gender relations. The study highlights the need for a comprehensive, context-sensitive understanding of male involvement that recognises relational care, addresses power imbalances, and informs inclusive, gender-equitable, and locally responsive maternal health policies and interventions.

This article focuses on discourses of la putería (whoring), a slang and a derogatory term originally associated with prostitution, but now expanding in Poza Rica de Hidalgo and Coatzintla in Mexico to describe working-class mestizos, particularly those who perform transgressive gender/sexual identifications and/or expressions. As a form of humour and gossip practices, la putería acts simultaneously as a tool of policing and resistance. This paper draws on both Roger Lancaster's landmark ethnographic work in Nicaragua and Donna Goldstein's work on humour and laughter in Brazil. I take Goldstein's focus on laughter as a weapon of the weak, and it is applied here to understand how people craft alternative self-making practices of sexuality diversity through humour, and how it is used as a tool to resist gender/sexual policing. It is also suggested that the term la putería is used as a way to police women into being dutiful housewives and respectable women and mothers, and through an analysis of fieldwork data from visits to two hair salons, it is shown how it is also a key feature of sexual diversity world making.

This study sought to explore the variety of coping strategies that women employ in response to intimate partner violence. Coping strategies can help women tolerate, minimise and deal with difficult challenges or conflicts in their relationships, such as learning to be independent from their husbands and surviving trauma. Drawing on 18 in-depth interviews conducted in Mwanza, Tanzania, we examined two different coping strategies - engagement and disengagement coping - with respect to how women react to economic, emotional, physical and sexual intimate partner violence. While the choice of coping methods remains a complex issue, most women employed engagement strategies as a response to economic violence and disengagement coping for sexual violence. We explore the implications of gender and societal roles for coping decisions and analyse how access to resources may provide women with the tools to limit future violence.

This article conceptualises how masculinity and masculine ideals are played out in relation to prostate cancer treatment and its side-effects, offering a heuristic and theoretical perspective with which to make sense of the complex interrelationship between lived gendered bodies and social structures. With the support of three case studies of older men treated for prostate cancer, the article explores how the concept of hegemonic masculinity can be used to analyse the ill and ageing body. A phenomenologically informed approach to the body, which illustrates how masculinity is lived and experienced through certain body schemas, is used. The three case studies show variation in how masculinity is enacted and embodied, illustrating actions to (1) restore and maintain masculinity through phallic experience; (2) reconstruct masculinity by connecting bodily experience to notions of the ageing and a less potent body; and (3) to counter narrowly defined notions of masculinity by dissociating or decoupling masculinity from ideals of potency and performance. With the help of the case studies, the strategies identified, and the fluidity and dynamism of the concept of hegemonic masculinity, findings reveal how inequalities between men and women are produced and maintained, in and through bodily experience, and diverse body schemas.

This paper attempts to provide insight into the social interpretation of pre-conceptually agreed-upon co-parenting (i.e. 'PACT', 'elective co-parenting', 'platonic co-parenting' or 'intentional co-parenting') families through a critical investigation of UK newspaper portrayals using reflexive thematic analysis with special attention paid to ascriptions of responsibility. Two main themes were identified: 'untraditionally conventional after all', and 'answering to your future children'. Our findings reveal how PACT appears to be presented in a nuanced manner. Journalists, along with the co-parents they portray, oscillate between different ways of looking at the practice. A picture of PACT is constructed that is simultaneously traditional and post-traditional (or modern), sometimes emphasising one aspect more prominently than the other. In the latter instances, the use of normative or evaluative language is more apparent. This suggests an active process of moral reflection within the articles. Notably, both traditional and post-traditional narratives are put to work in the defence of PACT, illustrating that, in certain contexts, 'tradition' and 'post-tradition' are not necessarily normatively opposed.

This study examines how Chinese women on Bilibili recall and reinterpret their sex education experiences, uncovering the intricate interplay between individual memories and socio-cultural dynamics. Drawing on memory theory, we conducted a critical discourse analysis of 1,722 comments, identifying four key themes: (1) sexual silence within the 'desexualised' domestic sphere; (2) women's encounters in a 'sexualised' society; (3) rationalising the absence of comprehensive sex education; and (4) activating memory activism through self-education and collective advocacy. The findings reveal that the family, often idealised as a 'desexualised' safe space, perpetuates patriarchal norms, while the public sphere commodifies sexuality and exacerbates gendered risks. These domains, rather than existing in isolation, are deeply interconnected, with porous boundaries between them that sustain structural inequalities. Women's narratives transform individual memories into collective memory acts, leveraging social media as a critical battlefield for advocacy and compensatory education. Yet, fragmented and emotionally charged digital dialogues often face structural barriers, limiting their capacity to drive systemic change. The study underscores the transformative potential of digital memory activism in challenging socio-cultural norms and emphasises the critical need for institutional efforts to establish inclusive and comprehensive sex education as a cornerstone of gender equity.

Migrants with refugee backgrounds in the Netherlands face significant reproductive health challenges, including higher rates of unintended pregnancies and limited access to contraception. This study explores how post-migration realities affect the reproductive agency of refugees from Afghanistan, Somalia, Eritrea and Syria. Utilising a participatory approach, eight peer researchers from these communities conducted eight focus-group discussions and 118 in-depth interviews, involving four migrant grassroots organisations and two Dutch non-governmental organisations. The findings reveal that refugees must navigate multiple tensions: (1) adapting to a new country, including securing housing, employment and adjusting to social norms and gender dynamics; (2) navigating cultural norms and family expectations; and (3) obtaining resources such as knowledge and contraception, within a healthcare system that may lack cultural sensitivity and reflect broader societal stigma. These challenges may require strategies that differ from Dutch notions of individualistic reproductive choices. Reproductive services must be sensitive to this complex navigation and adopt a culturally sensitive approach, focusing on refugees' strengths and agency rather than solely on issues like cultural taboos, lack of knowledge, low literacy or language barriers.