The bodies of the (digitized) body

OnlyFans has enjoyed increasing attention from media and from users and consumers, especially since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, and particularly amongst Internet-savy emerging adults. We used semi-structured interviews to collect testimonies from young Italian women (N = 20) who sell their own sexual(ised) content on OnlyFans and processed them through Th ematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Through this process, we sought to explore how different bodies are conceptualised in relation to content production, and how labour takes somatic existence in multiple ways. We looked at 1) how the body is prepared to be presented and mediatised, 2) how its presentation is conceptualised and actualised, and 3) how that work of representation, as a work of networking and therefore where bodily energy is invested and expended. Through this, we show how there are multiple, concurrent, and at times contradictory, narratives about corporality, and that potency and healing coexist alongside exhaustion.

Diet Implications and Oral Health Status of Women in Central Italy

Objective The relationships between oral health habits, dietary practices, and oral health status, as well as general health status, in the population of Italian women, are complex, with many mutual and interrelating factors. The purpose of this study is to investigate oral habits, oral status, and dietary habits of a sample of women in Italy, highlighting the links between nutrition and oral health and discussing how oral health care professionals can integrate nutrition counseling that aimed at improving the oral health of their patients into their practices. Materials and Methods In the period between February 2020 and July 2020, an anonymous questionnaire made up of 20 questions was administered to a randomized sample of 120 Italian women. Results Most of women declare good manual skills in oral hygiene (50%) but just less than half of them brushes their teeth more than three times a day. Statistically significant correlations were found between frequency of dental checkups and dental mobility (p = 0.036), and halitosis (p = 0.006), as well as between frequency of flossing and gum bleeding. Correlation between the type of diet and oral health status showed more halitosis (∼21%), sensitivity (∼26%), and xerostomia (∼53.3%) for vegetarian and vegan women. Conclusion More awareness need to be raised concerning oral hygiene habits, and regarding the importance of regular dental checkups. Brushing at least twice or three times a day needs to be encouraged and the valid support of dental aids has to be in the everyday domestic oral hygiene protocol, as scientific evidence demonstrates. Future clinical studies need to be performed on a more consistent number of vegetarian and vegan patients, to obtain more statistically significant results and support future research that will compare omnivorous, vegetarian, and vegan diets and their influence on oral health status.

I Disturbi Alimentari Nella Narrativa Femminile Italiana Dall'unità al Miracolo Economico: Eating Disorders in Italian Women's Writings From Unification to the Economic Boom

<p>In the feminist discourse about women’s relationship with food developed in the 1970s and 1980s, eating disorders are perceived as a complex reaction to traditional models of female identity. In the writings of Kim Chernin, Marilyn Lawrence, Morag MacSween and Susie Orbach, anorexia, bulimia, binge eating and other atypical relationships with food and body emerge as an unidiomatic language adopted by women to communicate what words cannot express. Paradoxically, eating disorders become instruments of selfempowerment: on the one hand, unconventional eaters develop abnormal attitudes towards their bodies, but on the other hand, by employing such metaphorical language, they find a way to question the social constrictions and cultural contradictions of women’s position in patriarchal culture. Italian women writers have portrayed openly anorexic, bulimic and compulsive eaters in the characters of their novels and autobiographies since the late 1980s. From Clara Sereni’s pioneering Casalinghitudine (1987) to Michela Marzano’s controversial Volevo essere una farfalla (2011), the fictional depiction of eating disorders in Italian literature has increased epidemically in the last few decades, mirroring the rapid spread of these syndromes. However, as I suggest in my thesis, since the late nineteenth century, when anorexia was officially diagnosed by the medical discourse, Italian women writers such as Neera (1848-1918), Sibilla Aleramo (1876-1960), Wanda Bontà (1902-1986), Paola Masino (1908-1989), Natalia Ginzburg (1916-1991) and others have presented in their fiction a variety of female characters who experience a troubled relationship with their body and with food. In each case, this is coupled with the portrayal of the rebellious feelings that the characters experience towards women’s preestablished social roles. In Neera’s Teresa (1886) and L’indomani (1889), in Aleramo’s Una donna (1906), in Bontà’s Signorinette (1938), Masino’s Nascita e morte della massaia (1945) and in Ginzburg’s “La madre” (1948) and Le voci della sera (1961), as well as other narrative works, the authors do not use the medical terminology of eating disorders in order to illustrate their protagonists’ eating problems, but they often depict behaviours which recall anorexic and bulimic attitudes, as described by the scientific discourse on these pathologies. The anorexic symptoms displayed by the characters become therefore their unspoken protest against the socio-cultural constrictions imposed on Italian women. Employing an interdisciplinary approach, I frame my analysis of modern and contemporary Italian women’s fiction within the feminist perspectives on anorexia, bulimia and binge eating developed in the 1970s and 1980s. By doing so, I attempt to decode a controversial female experience and the language Italian women writers used to express it before it became officially acknowledged as a pathology that reflects women’s anxiety about their identity. Long before feminist scholars identified the strong link between social context and eating disorders in the closing decades of the twentieth century, these writers depict women using the languages of food and the body as one of the possible means of rebelling against patriarchal repression.</p>

I Disturbi Alimentari Nella Narrativa Femminile Italiana Dall'unità al Miracolo Economico: Eating Disorders in Italian Women's Writings From Unification to the Economic Boom

<p>In the feminist discourse about women’s relationship with food developed in the 1970s and 1980s, eating disorders are perceived as a complex reaction to traditional models of female identity. In the writings of Kim Chernin, Marilyn Lawrence, Morag MacSween and Susie Orbach, anorexia, bulimia, binge eating and other atypical relationships with food and body emerge as an unidiomatic language adopted by women to communicate what words cannot express. Paradoxically, eating disorders become instruments of selfempowerment: on the one hand, unconventional eaters develop abnormal attitudes towards their bodies, but on the other hand, by employing such metaphorical language, they find a way to question the social constrictions and cultural contradictions of women’s position in patriarchal culture. Italian women writers have portrayed openly anorexic, bulimic and compulsive eaters in the characters of their novels and autobiographies since the late 1980s. From Clara Sereni’s pioneering Casalinghitudine (1987) to Michela Marzano’s controversial Volevo essere una farfalla (2011), the fictional depiction of eating disorders in Italian literature has increased epidemically in the last few decades, mirroring the rapid spread of these syndromes. However, as I suggest in my thesis, since the late nineteenth century, when anorexia was officially diagnosed by the medical discourse, Italian women writers such as Neera (1848-1918), Sibilla Aleramo (1876-1960), Wanda Bontà (1902-1986), Paola Masino (1908-1989), Natalia Ginzburg (1916-1991) and others have presented in their fiction a variety of female characters who experience a troubled relationship with their body and with food. In each case, this is coupled with the portrayal of the rebellious feelings that the characters experience towards women’s preestablished social roles. In Neera’s Teresa (1886) and L’indomani (1889), in Aleramo’s Una donna (1906), in Bontà’s Signorinette (1938), Masino’s Nascita e morte della massaia (1945) and in Ginzburg’s “La madre” (1948) and Le voci della sera (1961), as well as other narrative works, the authors do not use the medical terminology of eating disorders in order to illustrate their protagonists’ eating problems, but they often depict behaviours which recall anorexic and bulimic attitudes, as described by the scientific discourse on these pathologies. The anorexic symptoms displayed by the characters become therefore their unspoken protest against the socio-cultural constrictions imposed on Italian women. Employing an interdisciplinary approach, I frame my analysis of modern and contemporary Italian women’s fiction within the feminist perspectives on anorexia, bulimia and binge eating developed in the 1970s and 1980s. By doing so, I attempt to decode a controversial female experience and the language Italian women writers used to express it before it became officially acknowledged as a pathology that reflects women’s anxiety about their identity. Long before feminist scholars identified the strong link between social context and eating disorders in the closing decades of the twentieth century, these writers depict women using the languages of food and the body as one of the possible means of rebelling against patriarchal repression.</p>

Hostile Makeovers

Not every playwright appreciated the diva’s gifts. When the actress-driven innamorata entered the scene, some saw her as a threat that challenged their hold over the stage. The most common countertactic was to equate actresses with whores and common courtesans, as Thomas Nashe does in Pierce Penniless. Others wrote plays that figured amorous Italian women as dangerous Circes, as Anthony Munday does in The Two Italian Gentlemen. When a play directly represents an Italian actress, the authors marginalize and silence her, as did Day, Wilkins, and Rowley with “Harlakin’s Wife” in The Travailes of the Three English Brothers. In Volpone, Ben Jonson turned his satire on Englishwomen like Fine Lady Would-Be, bent on imitating Italian courtesans and actresses. He excised all the resourcefulness from the virtuous Celia, who resembles the virgo as she falls victim to a violently venal husband and cynical lecher who strive to cast her as a flexible player-whore.

The DAMA25 Study: Feasibility of a Lifestyle Intervention Programme for Cancer Risk Reduction in Young Italian Women with Breast Cancer Family History

Background: Diet and physical activity (PA) can modulate sporadic and possibly familial breast cancer (BC) risk. The DAMA25 study is a single-arm 12-month intervention aimed to modify dietary and PA habits in healthy young Italian women with a positive BC family history, categorized as having intermediate or high genetic risk according to NICE (National Institute for Health and Cancer Excellence) guidelines. Methods: Participants, aged 25–49 years, were asked to adopt a diet mainly based on plant-based foods and to increase moderate daily activities combined with 1 h/week of more intense activity. Cooking lessons, collective walks, educational sessions, brochures, booklets and online materials were implemented. Dietary, PA habits and anthropometry were collected at baseline and at the end of the intervention. Changes on dietary, lifestyle habits and anthropometry were evaluated by GLM adjusted for weight reduction counselling aimed to participant with a BMI ≥ 25, age and baseline values of each variable. Results: Out of 237 eligible women 107 (45.2%) agreed to participate and among them 98 (91.6%) completed the intervention. The adherence rate of the intervention was 77.8%. We observed a reduction in red and processed meat (p < 0.0001) and cakes consumption (p < 0.0001). Consumption of whole grain bread (p < 0.001), leafy vegetables (p = 0.01) and olive oil (p = 0.04) increased. We observed an increase in moderate (p < 0.0001) and more intense (p < 0.0001) recreational activities, an average 1.4 kg weight loss (p = 0.005), a reduction of waist circumference (p < 0.001) and fat mass (p = 0.015). Conclusions: The DAMA25 study shows that it is feasible an intervention to improve in the short-term dietary and PA habits and anthropometry in women with high BC familial risk.

The Dynamics of Cultural Transition

The article is based on a 1991-92 research, published in Sole senza Sole (1998). In his book Colangelo retraced the journey and life of 110 Italian women, residing in Toronto. He followed the stages of their lives, successes and difficulties, including those arising from their retirement onwards. For these women the greatest difficulties began just when they could relax with their husbands and enjoy the well deserved retirement. After the death of their spouses these women often lived alone; they did not know how to drive; their children were adults and independent; they did not interact much with their neighbours: they lived in a neighborhood far from shops, supermarkets, churches, etc. This situation created an existential void, isolation and solitude, aggravated by long, unnerving climatic conditions and a silence that it is not golden nor a “blessed solitude!” In this article, Colangelo reflects on the dynamics of the cultural transition of the emigrant-immigrant, who encompasses two different experiences: first as one who leaves his country, and second as one who enters the country in which he or she has decided to settle.

Predictors of Acceptance of Cosmetic Surgery: Instagram Images-Based Activities, Appearance Comparison and Body Dissatisfaction Among Women

Background This study aimed to test a model in which Instagram images-based activities related to self, friends, and celebrities were associated with acceptance of cosmetic surgery via Instagram appearance comparison and body dissatisfaction. We predicted that Instagram use for images-related activities involving celebrities and self (but not friends) was associated with acceptance of cosmetic surgery both directly and indirectly. Methods The study participants were 305 Italian women (mean age, 23 years). They completed a questionnaire containing the Instagram Image Activity Scale, the Instagram Appearance Comparison Scale, the Body Shape Questionnaire-14, the Acceptance of Cosmetic Surgery Scale. A path analysis was performed in which the Instagram images-based activities were posited as predictors of the Instagram appearance comparison, body dissatisfaction and acceptance of cosmetic surgery, respectively. Results We found that only image-based activities related to celebrities and self were significantly related to acceptance of cosmetic surgery, whereas friends’ Instagram-related activities were not significantly related to this criterion variable. Moreover, the indirect effect of both Instagram self- and celebrities-images activities on acceptance of cosmetic surgery through Instagram appearance comparison and body dissatisfaction was significant. Friends’ Instagram images-related activities were not associated with acceptance of cosmetic surgery. Conclusions Overall, these findings provide information about the role that activities carried out on Instagram, appearance comparison and body dissatisfaction, play on the acceptance of surgery for aesthetic reasons among women. The study highlighted the importance for surgeons to consider some psychological aspects and the influence of sociocultural factors on the interest for cosmetic surgery. Level of Evidence IV This journal requires that authors assign a level of evidence to each article. For a full description of these Evidence-Based Medicine ratings, please refer to the Table of Contents or the online Instructions to Authors www.springer.com/00266.