scholarly journals Sex During Menstruation: Race, Sexual Identity, and Women’s Accounts of Pleasure and Disgust

2020 ◽  
pp. 961-984
Author(s):  
Breanne Fahs
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Identity ◽  
White Women ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Male Partners ◽  
Bisexual Women ◽  
Heterosexual Identity ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
Heterosexual Women ◽  
Positive Feelings ◽  
And Bisexual

Abstract This study analyzes qualitative interviews with 40 women across a range of age, race, and sexual orientation to examine experiences with sex during menstruation. Results show that 25 women describe negative reactions, two describe neutral reactions, and 13 describe positive reactions. Negative responses involve four themes: discomfort and labor to clean ‘messes,’ overt partner discomfort, negative self-perception, and managing partner’s disgust. Positive responses cohere around physical and emotional pleasure from sex while menstruating and rebellion against anti-menstrual attitudes. Race and sexual identity differences appear: White women and bisexual or lesbian-identified women describe more positive feelings than women of color or heterosexual women. Bisexual women with male partners describe more positive reactions than heterosexual women with male partners, implying that heterosexual identity relates to negative attitudes more than heterosexual behavior. Those with positive attitudes also enjoy masturbation more than others. Additionally, interviews address sexual and racial identities’ informing body practices, partner choice affecting body affirmation, and resistance against ideas about women’s bodies as ‘disgusting.’

Abstract P079: Examining Associations Of Sexual Identity And Cardiovascular Disease Risk In A Nationally Representative Sample: The Mediating Role Of Sleep Duration

Circulation ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 143 (Suppl_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Billy A Caceres ◽  
Danny Vo ◽  
Yashika Sharma ◽  
Ipek Ensari ◽  
Kasey Jackman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Identity ◽  
Gay Men ◽  
Sleep Duration ◽  
Sexual Minority ◽  
Heterosexual Men ◽  
Bisexual Women ◽  
Cvd Risk ◽  
Heterosexual Women ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
And Bisexual

Introduction: There is growing evidence that sexual minority (e.g., gay/lesbian and bisexual) adults have higher cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk and report shorter sleep duration than heterosexual adults. Previous research suggests that sleep duration is inversely associated with CVD risk in adults. To date, no study has examined the associations of sleep duration and objectively measured CVD risk in sexual minority adults. Hypothesis: We investigated the hypothesis that sexual minority adults have higher systolic and diastolic blood pressure (BP) and waist-to-height ratio (WHtr) than heterosexual adults and that sleep duration mediates these associations. Methods: Cross-sectional data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2005-2016) were used. Sexual identity and sleep duration were assessed based on self-report. We used the average of systolic and diastolic BP across two readings to assess BP. We calculated the ratio between waist and height (in cm). We used sex-stratified linear regression models to compare CVD risk factors between sexual minority (i.e., gay/lesbian and bisexual) and heterosexual adults. Next, we used path analysis to determine whether the associations of sexual identity with systolic and diastolic BP and WHtr were mediated by sleep duration. Models were adjusted for demographic characteristics and tobacco use. Results: The sample included 17,858 adults. Participants had a mean age of 38.0 (SD = 12.1), 48.4% were female, and 65.6% were Non-Hispanic White. Gay men reported higher sleep duration ( B 0.27 [0.07]) relative to heterosexual men. However, WHtr and diastolic BP did not differ between gay and heterosexual men. No differences in sleep duration or diastolic BP were found between sexual minority and heterosexual women. Bisexual women had a higher systolic BP ( B 1.64 [0.70]) and WHtr ( B 0.02 [0.01]) than heterosexual women, but these associations were not mediated by sleep duration. Compared to heterosexual men, sleep duration partially mediated the associations of sexual identity with diastolic BP ( B - 0.12 [0.05]) and WHtr ( B - 0.01 [0.01]) in gay men. Conclusion: This is the first study to assess the associations of sexual identity, sleep duration, and an objectively measured marker of CVD risk in a nationally representative sample of US adults. We found that bisexual women had higher systolic BP and WHtr than heterosexual women and that higher sleep duration was associated with lower diastolic BP and WHtr in gay men. Findings can inform future studies investigating the interplay between sexual identity, sleep duration, and CVD risk in adults.

All change please: education, mobility and habitus dislocation

2019 ◽  
pp. 119-136
Author(s):  
Jill Wilkens
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Sexual Identity ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Coming Out ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Bisexual Women ◽  
Affinity Groups ◽  
And Bisexual ◽  
Positive Ageing

This chapter examines the intersection of ageing, gender, class and sexual identity, and highlights the significance of same-sexuality social groups for older lesbians and bisexual women. Interviews with 35 women aged between 57 and 73, discussed ‘coming out’ in the 1950s and 1960s, loneliness and isolation and the experience of attending affinity groups. Many participants were rendered ‘out of place’ by aspects of their social mobility, generation, gender and sexuality. The chapter draws on Bourdieu’s concept of ‘cleft habitus’ to consider the contradictions of these mobilities, suggesting that these women faced unprecedented and unique disjuncture between their original habitus and the new classed, sexual and gendered locations in which they finally ‘arrived’. The chapter looks at the potential of social groups to alleviate loneliness and isolation; for many, they are sites of resilience, helping to promote positive ageing for those who have faced marginalisation across their life course.

Tinder’s lesbian digital imaginary: Investigating (im)permeable boundaries of sexual identity on a popular dating app

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 489-506 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindsay Ferris ◽  
Stefanie Duguay
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Identity ◽  
Lesbian Identity ◽  
Heterosexual Identity ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Heterosexual Women ◽  
Dating Apps ◽  
Queer Culture ◽  
Interview Studies ◽  
Experiences Of Women ◽  
Self Presentations

Dating apps have received rapid uptake, with Tinder as one of the most popular apps in the heterosexual market. However, little research has investigated the experiences of women seeking women (WSW) on this app. This article combines two interview studies of WSW in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom to investigate their self-presentations of sexual identity on Tinder. By configuring settings to “seeking women,” participants perceived they were entering a space conducive to finding WSW. However, men, couples, and heterosexual women permeated this space, heightening the need for participants to signal non-heterosexual identity. Their signals fused references to lesbian and queer culture with Tinder’s infrastructure to evoke a digital imaginary, as a routinized set of practices imagined to resonate with a shared community. Although signals within this digital imaginary were sometimes playful and ambiguous, their default toward a recognizable lesbian identity often rendered other sexual or gender identities invisible.

Review: Prevalence and Co-Occurrence of Addictions Among Sexual Minority Subgroups

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 210-248
Author(s):  
Ryan Ruppert ◽  
Steve Sussman ◽  
Shanna K. Kattari
Keyword(s):  
Illicit Drugs ◽  
Current Data ◽  
Behavioral Addictions ◽  
Addictive Behaviors ◽  
Bisexual Men ◽  
Lesbian Women ◽  
Bisexual Women ◽  
Heterosexual Women ◽  
Internet Sex ◽  
And Bisexual

The purpose of this study is to present current data on the prevalence and co-occurrence of 12 substance and behavioral addictions among adult cisgender sexual minorities (SM). We utilized MEDLINE, PsycINFO, and Google Scholar databases to systematically review the literature on alcohol, nicotine, cannabis, illicit drugs, gambling, eating/food, Internet, sex, love, exercise, work, and shopping within the SM community. Peer reviewed empirical articles in English from 2000 to 2019 were included. When possible, we compared prevalence and co-occurrence statistics between four SM subgroups (stratified into lesbian women, bisexual women, gay men, and bisexual men), and used heterosexual women and men as reference groups. Studies were scant within each area of addiction with the most studies focusing on addictions acknowledged within the DSM-V (alcohol, nicotine, cannabis, illicit drugs, gambling). Significantly fewer studies addressed the prevalence and co-occurrence of behavioral addictions across SM subgroups. Most studies assessing addiction among SM populations either categorize SMs into a single group or only stratify by gender. However, even with limited research, the findings from this review suggest that significant differences in addictive behaviors exist when comparing one SM subgroup to another. There is a strong need for more research that quantifies these disparities through prevalence and co-occurrence statistics.

Of longing and waiting: An inter-Asia approach to love and intimacy among older lesbians and bisexual women

Sexualities ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 136346072096411
Author(s):  
Denise T-S Tang
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Bisexual Women ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Spatial Dimensions ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
And Bisexual ◽  
Older Chinese

This paper examines same-sex intimacies formed by and among older Chinese lesbians and bisexual women who were born from the late 1930s to the late 1950s through qualitative interviews and participant observation conducted in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. For this paper, I aim at complicating cultural notions of love, romance and intimacies, that were brought up within interstices of connected histories, gender roles and marginalized sexual subjectivities. Based on ethnographic data collected during 2016–2018, I elaborate on the moments of longing and waiting as redefining modern notions of love and intimacy across time and spatial dimensions. Then I bring up a methodological episode where inter-Asian referencing intersects with Chinese modernities to illustrate how gender and sexuality meet, intersect and influence each other in the cultural imagination and eventual materialization of women’s same-sex desires. The last section will examine the politics of butchness as protection and as a form of politeness.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document