Pub Date : 2023-09-05DOI: 10.1177/13634607231199409
Adam WJ Davies
Contemporary and mainstream representations of gender and sexual minorities within pop culture provide an opportunity for marginalized narratives and stories to reach audiences otherwise excluded. As gay adolescent youth narratives become normalized within mainstream representations, ideas of coming out, the invisibilization of gay femininities, and the privileging of gender normativity within gay young adulthood percolate in film and media. This article presents an interpretive analysis of the regulation of femininity—femmephobia—within Love, Simon through depictions of Simon (the main gay adolescent character) and Ethan (Simon’s feminine gay peer). Using femme theory and “fag discourses,” this article problematizes femmephobic depictions of gay adolescence. Moreover, this article argues that Ethan's position as a “femme failure,” and thus an exemplar of femme resistance, offers opportunities for challenging femmephobic gender relations amongst gay adolescence in media and pop culture.
{"title":"Love, Simon and failure: Challenging normative discourses and femmephobia in gay youth representations","authors":"Adam WJ Davies","doi":"10.1177/13634607231199409","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13634607231199409","url":null,"abstract":"Contemporary and mainstream representations of gender and sexual minorities within pop culture provide an opportunity for marginalized narratives and stories to reach audiences otherwise excluded. As gay adolescent youth narratives become normalized within mainstream representations, ideas of coming out, the invisibilization of gay femininities, and the privileging of gender normativity within gay young adulthood percolate in film and media. This article presents an interpretive analysis of the regulation of femininity—femmephobia—within Love, Simon through depictions of Simon (the main gay adolescent character) and Ethan (Simon’s feminine gay peer). Using femme theory and “fag discourses,” this article problematizes femmephobic depictions of gay adolescence. Moreover, this article argues that Ethan's position as a “femme failure,” and thus an exemplar of femme resistance, offers opportunities for challenging femmephobic gender relations amongst gay adolescence in media and pop culture.","PeriodicalId":51454,"journal":{"name":"Sexualities","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44482656","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-31DOI: 10.1177/13634607231199405
Rieke Schröder
This article explores how queer refugees’ navigation of ‘the closet’, centre of the coming out metaphor, is subverting its Scandinavian Design. While many queer people in Denmark conceptualize coming out of the closet as a desirable process, allowing queer subjects to become who they truly are, this understanding is challenged by the experiences of queer refugees who are strategically (not) coming out of the closet in different spaces and at different times. Through interviews with queer refugees and volunteers of a support group in Copenhagen, the article shows how these individuals negotiate the continuous closet – (re)appearing in different spaces and at different times. In being cautious about where to come out (on dating apps, in support groups, at home), to whom (friends, family, potential lovers) and at what time(s), queer refugees balance the refugee regimes’ expectations of normative LGBT(IQ)+ identities with their own complex lived realities.
{"title":"Scandinavian design. The continuous closet and queer refugees in Denmark","authors":"Rieke Schröder","doi":"10.1177/13634607231199405","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13634607231199405","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores how queer refugees’ navigation of ‘the closet’, centre of the coming out metaphor, is subverting its Scandinavian Design. While many queer people in Denmark conceptualize coming out of the closet as a desirable process, allowing queer subjects to become who they truly are, this understanding is challenged by the experiences of queer refugees who are strategically (not) coming out of the closet in different spaces and at different times. Through interviews with queer refugees and volunteers of a support group in Copenhagen, the article shows how these individuals negotiate the continuous closet – (re)appearing in different spaces and at different times. In being cautious about where to come out (on dating apps, in support groups, at home), to whom (friends, family, potential lovers) and at what time(s), queer refugees balance the refugee regimes’ expectations of normative LGBT(IQ)+ identities with their own complex lived realities.","PeriodicalId":51454,"journal":{"name":"Sexualities","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-08-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48176124","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-31DOI: 10.1177/13634607231200551
Maria Hansen
Though many advocates argue that ‘rape is rape’, empirical research demonstrates that many incidents and experiences are ambiguous. This article explores how heterosexual norms play into the construction of a grey area between ‘just sex’ and rape. Based on an analysis of 30 interviews with Norwegian men and women about alcohol-related heterosexual encounters, the article explores how such encounters can become ambiguous. There is a mutually constitutive relationship between what is ‘normal’ and what is not. Simultaneously, heterosexuality and sexual norms are fluid, contextual and constantly developing, so when norms regulating ‘normal’ sex shift, transgressions from these norms probably do as well. By using Gavey’s (2005) model of normative heterosexuality as a scaffold that supports rape culture as a heuristic device, I examine these stories of alcohol-related heterosexual encounters to investigate how norms about heterosexual sex are involved in how people constitute themselves as ‘good sexual subjects’ today. Based on these findings, I discuss how the pathway to becoming a good sexual subject may simultaneously lead into murky and ambiguous territory.
{"title":"Reconfiguring the relationship between the ‘good (hetero)sexual subject’ and the grey area between sex and rape","authors":"Maria Hansen","doi":"10.1177/13634607231200551","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13634607231200551","url":null,"abstract":"Though many advocates argue that ‘rape is rape’, empirical research demonstrates that many incidents and experiences are ambiguous. This article explores how heterosexual norms play into the construction of a grey area between ‘just sex’ and rape. Based on an analysis of 30 interviews with Norwegian men and women about alcohol-related heterosexual encounters, the article explores how such encounters can become ambiguous. There is a mutually constitutive relationship between what is ‘normal’ and what is not. Simultaneously, heterosexuality and sexual norms are fluid, contextual and constantly developing, so when norms regulating ‘normal’ sex shift, transgressions from these norms probably do as well. By using Gavey’s (2005) model of normative heterosexuality as a scaffold that supports rape culture as a heuristic device, I examine these stories of alcohol-related heterosexual encounters to investigate how norms about heterosexual sex are involved in how people constitute themselves as ‘good sexual subjects’ today. Based on these findings, I discuss how the pathway to becoming a good sexual subject may simultaneously lead into murky and ambiguous territory.","PeriodicalId":51454,"journal":{"name":"Sexualities","volume":"75 18","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-08-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41277492","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-30DOI: 10.1177/13634607231199408
E. Browne
This article explores the gender and sexuality of activa/pasiva women in Cuba. The construction of activa and pasiva is very similar to other masculine/feminine female relationships around the world, often referred to in English as ‘butch’ and ‘femme’. In 2017, I interviewed 33 self-identified lesbian and bisexual women and 23 policymakers, officials, cultural contributors, and activists, in the cities of Havana, Santa Clara, and Matanzas. The women I met enjoyed and found power in their masculine/feminine partnerships. However, in contrast to a view of Cuba as increasingly tolerant and progressive towards LGBT people, my case study analyses how other lesbian and bisexual women vilify activas and pasivas in order to elevate themselves through distance, as a route to social inclusion. It demonstrates how political and social tolerance for lesbian and bisexual women is a gendered discourse that relies on their correct performance of white, middle-class, feminine gender normativity. I explore how feminine lesbian presentation is attached in Cuba to ideas of whiteness, modernity, education, and progressiveness, while masculine presentation is denigrated as old-fashioned, patriarchal, and replicating heterosexist norms. I analyse this discourse, showing it to be embedded in racist and traditional ideas of femininity which themselves uphold the gender binary. In particular, I argue that masculine women are made into abject others, using homonormativity theory and the black politics of respectability to show how gender normativity underpins social and political tolerance for lesbian and bisexual women.
{"title":"More like a woman: Activa/Pasiva subjectivities in Cuba","authors":"E. Browne","doi":"10.1177/13634607231199408","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13634607231199408","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores the gender and sexuality of activa/pasiva women in Cuba. The construction of activa and pasiva is very similar to other masculine/feminine female relationships around the world, often referred to in English as ‘butch’ and ‘femme’. In 2017, I interviewed 33 self-identified lesbian and bisexual women and 23 policymakers, officials, cultural contributors, and activists, in the cities of Havana, Santa Clara, and Matanzas. The women I met enjoyed and found power in their masculine/feminine partnerships. However, in contrast to a view of Cuba as increasingly tolerant and progressive towards LGBT people, my case study analyses how other lesbian and bisexual women vilify activas and pasivas in order to elevate themselves through distance, as a route to social inclusion. It demonstrates how political and social tolerance for lesbian and bisexual women is a gendered discourse that relies on their correct performance of white, middle-class, feminine gender normativity. I explore how feminine lesbian presentation is attached in Cuba to ideas of whiteness, modernity, education, and progressiveness, while masculine presentation is denigrated as old-fashioned, patriarchal, and replicating heterosexist norms. I analyse this discourse, showing it to be embedded in racist and traditional ideas of femininity which themselves uphold the gender binary. In particular, I argue that masculine women are made into abject others, using homonormativity theory and the black politics of respectability to show how gender normativity underpins social and political tolerance for lesbian and bisexual women.","PeriodicalId":51454,"journal":{"name":"Sexualities","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42986414","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-30DOI: 10.1177/13634607231197070
F. Schmidt, Bernd Christmann, Mona Lamour, Martin Wazlawik, A. Dekker
There has been an increase in discussion concerning the integration of sexuality education and the prevention of sexual violence. Furthermore, this is a concern at the level of different pedagogical professions in Germany, since sexuality education and sexual violence prevention have developed as largely separate fields. Both sexuality educators and sexual violence professionals work with a broad target group to prevent sexual violence, including children, young people, as well as parents and professionals working in social work or education. They collaborate at times, but they also engage in debates about their respective pedagogical approaches. Based on group discussions with 12 teams specializing in the two fields, this article analyzes how their tacitly shared knowledge (collective orientation) underpins their different pedagogical strategies. This should be considered to improve their long-term inter-professional cooperation.
{"title":"Sexuality and sexual violence: A qualitative study exploring the perspectives of sexuality educators and sexual violence professionals","authors":"F. Schmidt, Bernd Christmann, Mona Lamour, Martin Wazlawik, A. Dekker","doi":"10.1177/13634607231197070","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13634607231197070","url":null,"abstract":"There has been an increase in discussion concerning the integration of sexuality education and the prevention of sexual violence. Furthermore, this is a concern at the level of different pedagogical professions in Germany, since sexuality education and sexual violence prevention have developed as largely separate fields. Both sexuality educators and sexual violence professionals work with a broad target group to prevent sexual violence, including children, young people, as well as parents and professionals working in social work or education. They collaborate at times, but they also engage in debates about their respective pedagogical approaches. Based on group discussions with 12 teams specializing in the two fields, this article analyzes how their tacitly shared knowledge (collective orientation) underpins their different pedagogical strategies. This should be considered to improve their long-term inter-professional cooperation.","PeriodicalId":51454,"journal":{"name":"Sexualities","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44607162","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-29DOI: 10.1177/13634607231199407
J. Allan
This articles considers the ongoing penile circumcision debates by focusing on the deployment of ‘docking,’ a sexual practice between men. Docking involves pulling one’s foreskin over the glans of another penis. In this article, I consider both “anti” and “pro” circumcision literature and the use of docking in the service of arguments about the procedure. I show that the use of docking can be traced to Daniel M. Harrison’s article “Rethinking Circumcision and Sexuality in the United States” published in Sexualities. Ultimately, I argue that while docking is interesting to consider, it remains something of spectre that haunts the debates more than it is an empirical concern. Consequently, I argue that further study is needed about docking in general, as well as in the particular context of circumcision debates.
{"title":"The spectre of docking in circumcision debates","authors":"J. Allan","doi":"10.1177/13634607231199407","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13634607231199407","url":null,"abstract":"This articles considers the ongoing penile circumcision debates by focusing on the deployment of ‘docking,’ a sexual practice between men. Docking involves pulling one’s foreskin over the glans of another penis. In this article, I consider both “anti” and “pro” circumcision literature and the use of docking in the service of arguments about the procedure. I show that the use of docking can be traced to Daniel M. Harrison’s article “Rethinking Circumcision and Sexuality in the United States” published in Sexualities. Ultimately, I argue that while docking is interesting to consider, it remains something of spectre that haunts the debates more than it is an empirical concern. Consequently, I argue that further study is needed about docking in general, as well as in the particular context of circumcision debates.","PeriodicalId":51454,"journal":{"name":"Sexualities","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41713992","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-26DOI: 10.1177/13634607231197059
S. Neves, Janete Borges, Mafalda Ferreira, Marta Correia, Edgar Sousa, Helena Rocha, Lourenço Silva, Paula Allen, C. Vieira
This literature review presents a characterization of violence and discrimination against trans people in Portugal, offering a critical analysis of the national efforts aiming to protect trans people’s rights. Its main objective is to highlight and frame the oppression historically suffered by trans people in family and intimate relationships, social discrimination, school, medical care, and employment. Despite legal advances in Portugal in the conquest of rights for trans people during the last two decades, violence and discrimination are still a social problem that needs urgent academic research for its effective prevention and combat.
{"title":"A literature review on violence and discrimination against trans people in Portugal: Are we still living in a dictatorship?","authors":"S. Neves, Janete Borges, Mafalda Ferreira, Marta Correia, Edgar Sousa, Helena Rocha, Lourenço Silva, Paula Allen, C. Vieira","doi":"10.1177/13634607231197059","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13634607231197059","url":null,"abstract":"This literature review presents a characterization of violence and discrimination against trans people in Portugal, offering a critical analysis of the national efforts aiming to protect trans people’s rights. Its main objective is to highlight and frame the oppression historically suffered by trans people in family and intimate relationships, social discrimination, school, medical care, and employment. Despite legal advances in Portugal in the conquest of rights for trans people during the last two decades, violence and discrimination are still a social problem that needs urgent academic research for its effective prevention and combat.","PeriodicalId":51454,"journal":{"name":"Sexualities","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-08-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42257332","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-26DOI: 10.1177/13634607231197068
Katerina Papakyriakopoulou
Motivated by the representation of robots in film and television, this work examines the role of emerging femininities and masculinities in revisiting the gender binary. The gendered cyborg has been a common trope in cultural texts and a favourite topic in feminist discourse, regarding how it exposes the artificiality of this binary. The case studies are the films Ex Machina and I’m Your Man, and the television series Westworld. The ‘post’-femininities and masculinities are explored through the depiction of gendered robots and their relationships with humans. By drawing on the intersection between feminist and queer theory and posthumanism, this article combines a close reading of gendered representations with an analysis of how they visualise post-gender worlds.
{"title":"Gendered machines in film and television: How ‘post-’ femininities and masculinities challenge the gender binary","authors":"Katerina Papakyriakopoulou","doi":"10.1177/13634607231197068","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13634607231197068","url":null,"abstract":"Motivated by the representation of robots in film and television, this work examines the role of emerging femininities and masculinities in revisiting the gender binary. The gendered cyborg has been a common trope in cultural texts and a favourite topic in feminist discourse, regarding how it exposes the artificiality of this binary. The case studies are the films Ex Machina and I’m Your Man, and the television series Westworld. The ‘post’-femininities and masculinities are explored through the depiction of gendered robots and their relationships with humans. By drawing on the intersection between feminist and queer theory and posthumanism, this article combines a close reading of gendered representations with an analysis of how they visualise post-gender worlds.","PeriodicalId":51454,"journal":{"name":"Sexualities","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-08-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48258158","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-25DOI: 10.1177/13634607231197055
Karolína Zlámalová
The article traces the interweaving of femininity, clothes, and humor in Jacob Tobia’s 2019 memoir Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story. It first discusses the societal devaluation of the femme and queer femininity Tobia textually constructs. It then argues that in Sissy, this femininity is enacted primarily through clothes, which appear as a symbol and a proxy for the protagonist’s identity, a source of embodied pleasures, and an organizing element of the narrative. Finally, the article demonstrates that Tobia employs humor to counter the devaluation targeting their kind of femininity, and to reclaim this femininity as a site of pride, resilience, and joy.
{"title":"“Sky-high, matte black faux snakeskin heals”: Femininity, clothes, and humor in Jacob Tobia’s Sissy","authors":"Karolína Zlámalová","doi":"10.1177/13634607231197055","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13634607231197055","url":null,"abstract":"The article traces the interweaving of femininity, clothes, and humor in Jacob Tobia’s 2019 memoir Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story. It first discusses the societal devaluation of the femme and queer femininity Tobia textually constructs. It then argues that in Sissy, this femininity is enacted primarily through clothes, which appear as a symbol and a proxy for the protagonist’s identity, a source of embodied pleasures, and an organizing element of the narrative. Finally, the article demonstrates that Tobia employs humor to counter the devaluation targeting their kind of femininity, and to reclaim this femininity as a site of pride, resilience, and joy.","PeriodicalId":51454,"journal":{"name":"Sexualities","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45295646","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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