scholarly journals How Not to Watch Feminist Pornography

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Kimberly Heck
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Norms ◽  
Feminist Pornography

This paper has three goals. The first is to defend Tristan Taormino and Erika Lust (or some of their films) from criticisms that Rebecca Whisnant and Hans Maes make of them. Toward that end, I will be arguing against the narrow conceptions that Whisnant and Maes seem to have of what “feminist” pornography must be like. More generally, I hope to show by example why it is important to take pornographic films seriously as films if we're to understand their potential to shape, or misshape, socio-sexual norms.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Penny Farfan
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Sexual Norms ◽  
Sexual Identities ◽  
Precise Understanding ◽  
Central Argument ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Well Of Loneliness

This introduction sets forth the book’s central argument and establishes the historical, theoretical, and critical context for its case studies. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, modern sexual identities emerged into view while at the same time being rendered invisible, as in Oscar Wilde’s 1895 trial on charges of gross indecency and the 1928 obscenity trial of Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness. Early stage representations of homosexuality were typically coded or censored, yet the majority of the works considered in this book were highly visible in their subversions of conventional gender and sexual norms. Queer readings of these plays and performances establish connections across high and popular cultural domains, demonstrating that some of traditional modernism’s perceived failures, rejects, and outliers were modernist through their sexual dissidence. These insights in turn contribute to a more precise understanding of how modernity was mediated and how such mediations enacted change.

Sex in an ideology of love

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Torbjörn Bildtgård ◽  
Peter Öberg
Keyword(s):  
Older People ◽  
Life Course ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Intimate Relationships ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Sexual Intimacy ◽  
Sexual Norms ◽  
Gerontological Research ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
Loving Relationship

Until recently the sex life of older people was more or less invisible in family and gerontological research. This chapter contributes to breaking this silence by focusing on the role and meaning of sex in intimate relationships in later life. Based on biographical case studies, the chapter investigates how sexual norms have changed over the life course of contemporary cohorts of older people and how they have experienced this change. The chapter considers sexual intimacy as part of new intimate relationships established late in life and questions the persistent assumption that older people who date are primarily looking for companionate relationships. It is shown that older people’s ideas about sex are deeply embedded in an ideology of love, where sex tends to be viewed as a natural part of a loving relationship, while sex outside of a loving relationship – also in a loveless marriage – is frowned on.

scholarly journals “It’s their way of protecting them”: Between care and control in an honor context for youths with intellectual disabilities

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lotta Löfgren-Mårtenson ◽  
Pernilla Ouis
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Disabilities ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
The Body ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Special Schools ◽  
Arranged Marriages ◽  
Sexual Norms ◽  
Body Of Knowledge ◽  
Personal Assistants ◽  
And Control

Today’s multicultural society is characterized by contradictory sexual norms that may have consequences for youths with intellectual disabilities’ possibilities of choosing a partner and expressing their sexuality. However, the body of knowledge concerning the area of youths with intellectual disabilities is limited. This study aims to examine professionals’ views on honor-related experiences among youths with intellectual disabilities. The data consists of nine qualitative interviews with professionals in special schools (personal assistants and teachers). In addition, 11 professionals were included at pre-meetings while designing the study. A thematic analysis was conducted while using sexual script as a theoretical framework. The results are presented in the following themes: (1) The professionals’ perceptions of the young people’s abilities to deal with honor-related experiences; (2) The professionals’ opinions of the existence of honor-related experiences among youth with intellectual disabilities; and (3) Descriptions of the professionals’ conduct toward the youths with intellectual disabilities concerning honor-related experiences. The analysis shows an honor script geared towards youths with intellectual disabilities, which can be described as a continuum between care and control connected to cultural sexual norms and to the disability. The families’ strive for a so-called normality seem to be an important factor in understanding for example arranged marriages among youths with ID. To meet the needs of these youths, the professionals require tools to navigate between care and control in this complicated arena of contradictory sexual and cultural norms.

How to do Queer Genealogy with J. S. Mill

Shame ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bogdan Popa
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Judith Butler ◽  
Feminist Activism ◽  
Sexual Norms ◽  
Affective Value

In this chapter I show that queer genealogy helps us rethink nineteenth-century feminist activism. By drawing on Judith Butler and Jacques Rancière’s ideas, I develop a conception of queer genealogy that mobilizes the performativity of shame to identify practices that challenge the police. The method of queer genealogy illuminates Mill’s unconventional relationship with Harriet Taylor as a creative intervention that disrupted Victorian sexual norms. In developing a genealogical method, I draw on Mill’s concept of experiments in living, which points to the sexual and affective value of relationships that take place outside marriage. Also, I investigate Mill’s use of silence as a politician and his deployment of humiliating language to resignify the shame associated with his sexual and political transgressions.

scholarly journals BDSM under security: Radical resistance via contingent subjectivities

Sexualities ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 194-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ofer Parchev ◽  
Darren Langdridge
Keyword(s):  
Health And Safety ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Resistance ◽  
Security Mechanism ◽  
Sovereign Power ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
Sexual Norms ◽  
Sexual Identification

In recent decades, BDSM communities have engaged in a political struggle for rights by separating their practices from the oppressive gaze of legal and medical praxis, seeking to legitimize BDSM discourse and actions under the slogan of ‘safe, sane and consensual’. The espousal of principles governed primarily by health and safety nonetheless carries a normalizing overtone, apparently trapping the community within the epistemic codes against which they struggle. This article suggests that the security mechanism Foucault identifies as forming part of biopower can serve as a critical analytic capable of arbitrating between BDSM as a form of political resistance to hegemonic sexual norms and the restraints imposed by the ‘safe, sane and consensual’ code itself. We argue that communities using health and safety codes shift the political struggle from direct resistance to sovereign power to the transgression of hegemonic regimes of truth through contingent sexual identification and practice.

Henry Darger and the Unruly Paper Dollhouse Scrapbook

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary s. Trent
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Creative Expression ◽  
Domestic Space ◽  
Fictional World ◽  
Sexual Norms ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere

Grown men do not play with paper dolls; or, at least, they are not supposed to. Nevertheless, self-taught Chicago artist Henry Darger (1892–1973) worked over many decades to create an elaborate fictional world. This chapter examines a series of collage-paintings that Darger like created at mid-century to consider the significance of paper dolls to his art. It argues that domestic space and girlish crafts offered Darger opportunities for creative expression that were otherwise inaccessible to him in the public sphere due to his designation as a sexually degenerate man. In the privacy of his apartment, away from society’s judgments, Darger offered an alternative to the restrictive sexual norms of his time by celebrating ambiguously gendered children.

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