Menegoisasikan Identitas Seksual dan Identitas Religius: Pengalaman Perempuan Kristen Berorientasi Homoseksual

Becoming a lesbian as well as a follower of a religion that opposes homosexuality creates an ambivalent and contradictory experience. This study aims to reveal the personal experiences of four homosexually oriented Christian women in Surabaya. All participants are members of Protestant Christian church congregations with different denominations. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and analyzed using an interpretive phenomenological analysis technique. The results of this study reveal three main themes, namely: living in two worlds, reconciling homosexual identity with religion, and making life decisions. The first theme reflects the dilemma experienced by the subjects when they realized that their choice as a homosexual was a sin in the perspective of their religion but they could not be able to force themselves to be a heterosexual woman. The second theme describes how the subjects tried to compromise between their homosexual orientation and their religious teachings. The last theme contains how choices are made when homosexual identity cannot be compromised with religious identity. This study concludes that most of the participants are trying to become a devout Christian and at the same time be able to engage in the same-sex sexual orientation. Keywords: homosexual identity, religious identity, lesbian, Christian Abstrak Menjadi lesbian sekaligus menjadi pemeluk suatu agama yang menentang homoseksualitas melahirkan pengalaman yang ambivalen dan kontradiktif. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengungkap pengalaman personal empat perempuan Kristen yang berorientasi homoseksual di Surabaya. Seluruh partisipan merupakan bagian dari anggota jemaat gereja Kristen Protestan dengan denominasi yang berbeda. Data dikumpulkan menggunakan wawancara semiterstruktur dan dianalisis dengan teknik analisis fenomenologi interpretatif. Penelitian ini berhasil mengungkap tiga tema utama yaitu: hidup dalam dua dunia, mendamaikan diri, dan mengambil keputusan hidup. Tema pertama mencerminkan dilema yang dialami para subjek ketika menyadari pilihannya sebagai homoseksual adalah dosa namun tidak mampu memaksakan diri untuk menyukai lawan jenis. Tema kedua menggambarkan bagaimana para subjek berupaya mengkompromikan antara orientasi homoseksualitasnya dengan ajaran agamanya. Tema terakhir memuat bagaimana pilihan diambil ketika identitas homoseksual tidak dapat dikompromikan dengan identitas religius. Hasil penelitian ini menyimpulkan bahwa sebagian besar partisipan berupaya menjadi seorang Kristen yang taat dan sekaligus dapat menjalani orientasi seksual sesama jenis.

Well-Being Therapy for Depressive Symptoms in Chronic Migraine: A Case Report

Depression in chronic migraine is a common and vexing problem. Stress-oriented psychotherapies showed to improve depressive symptoms but not to affect migraine disability or attacks. Well-Being Therapy (WBT) is a short-term psychotherapy intervention based on promoting well-being and optimizing functioning, which showed to be effective in the treatment of residual depressive symptoms and chronic pain. This single case describes an account of successful WBT for a case of chronic migraine with depressive symptoms. The patient is a 37-year old employed, engaged, Caucasian heterosexual woman who had chronic migraine without aura and depressive symptoms and received eight WBT sessions. Number of migraine attacks, migraine disability, and psychological variables were assessed at baseline, at sessions 4 and 8 of WBT, and at 3-month follow-up. At session 8 of WBT, a decrease in number of migraine attacks and migraine disability was observed together with an improvement on depressive symptoms as well as an increase of well-being and euthymia. The positive effects of WBT were maintained at 3-month follow-up. WBT may be a promising intervention for chronic migraine patients with depressive symptoms.

Queering Drama - Or Let the Classics Going Beyond Limits

This article proposes, explains and describes an original method called Queering Drama, which is the result of this article’s author one decade of research. Queering Drama is not just a theoretical work hypothesis, but also a practical performing method of going beyond limits by Queering the characters of any classic play (the Queering Drama method can be applied to modern plays as well, but the classic plays are the ones most staged, in greater need for new meanings and refashioning). What happened if one character from a classic play would not be put on stage and played as the dramatist dictates, from a sex and gender perspective? What if, instead of a heterosexual woman (labeled by the dramatist as the wife of..., the daughter of...), the character were played as a bisexual male, or a lesbian female, or a plurisexual hermaphrodite? How would that change the relations between the characters? Would it make a difference? Would such staging change the meanings of the play? Queering Drama involves rethinking and discovering new ways of reading old iconic plays, more specifically through their (iconic, by now) characters, and implicitly uncovering new ways of putting them on stage. The possible performance results are infinite new meanings of old plays, original ways of looking at classic characters and unseen, maybe unimaginable ways of staging the classics. The multidisciplinary theoretical base of this daring aim at Drama and Stage, coming from Pirandello the dramatist, entangles the academic fields of Drama, Feminist Theory, Literary Theory and Epistemology.

Primary Amenorrhea, Aplastic Uterus, and a Functional Vagina: A Rare Case of Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser Syndrome

Background. Müllerian agenesis, also known as Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome (MRKHS), a failure of female urogenital development, typically results in a completely stenotic or rudimentary dimple vagina, both of which are generally nonfunctional in adulthood without mechanical dilation or surgical reconstruction. Case. A 20-year-old Tanner stage V heterosexual woman with normal sexual function since coitarche presented with a chief complaint of primary amenorrhea. She was found to have aplastic uterine buds, absent endometrium/cervix, normal ovaries, and an unusually well-developed lower vagina, a rare presentation of MRKHS. We discuss mechanisms by which the anomaly may have arisen. Summary & Conclusion. This case thus expands the clinical presentation of MRKHS to include a normal appearing vagina with intact sexual function from first sexual encounter, raising interesting questions about the basic underlying embryology.

Queering Sexism and Whiteness with Marilyn Frye

This article discusses the importance of geopolitical specificity in discussions about waves in feminism and investigates the (proto-)queer potential of Marilyn Frye's second-wave work on sexism and white supremacy. It argues that Frye's understanding of sexism relies on the figure of the genderqueer individual and that Frye's critique of reproductive heterosexuality has implications for analyses of both sexism and racism. Finally, it asks what would happen to the contemporary #metoo movement in Sweden if it returned to Frye's radical lesbian feminism as emblematic of the second wave, rather than to the figure of the white, middle-class, heterosexual woman.

Multidrug-resistant Neisseria gonorrhoeae failing treatment with ceftriaxone and doxycycline in France, November 2017

We report a multidrug-resistant Neisseria gonorrhoeae urogenital and pharyngeal infection with ceftriaxone resistance and intermediate resistance to azithromycin in a heterosexual woman in her 20s in France. Treatment with ceftriaxone plus doxycycline failed for the pharyngeal localisation. Whole-genome sequencing of isolate F90 identified MLST1903, NG-MAST ST3435, NG-STAR233, and relevant resistance determinants. F90 showed phenotypic and genotypic similarities to an internationally spreading multidrug-resistant and ceftriaxone-resistant clone detected in Japan and subsequently in Australia, Canada and Denmark.

Precarious Sexuality: How Men and Women Are Differentially Categorized for Similar Sexual Behavior

Are men and women categorized differently for similar sexual behavior? Building on theories of gender, sexuality, and status, we introduce the concept of precarious sexuality to suggest that men’s—but not women’s—heterosexuality is an especially privileged identity that is easily lost. We test our hypotheses in a series of survey experiments describing a person who has a sexual experience conflicting with their sexual history. We find that a single same-sex sexual encounter leads an observer to question a heterosexual man’s sexual orientation to a greater extent than that of a heterosexual woman in a similar situation. We also find that a different-sex sexual encounter is more likely to change others’ perceptions of a lesbian woman’s sexual orientation—compared to perceptions of a gay man’s sexual orientation. In two conceptual replications, we vary the level of intimacy of the sexual encounter and find consistent evidence for our idea of precarious sexuality for heterosexual men. We close with a general discussion of how status beliefs influence categorization processes and with suggestions for extending our theoretical propositions to other categories beyond those of sexual orientation.

This is Rape Culture, Ladies and Gentlemen

“This is Rape Culture, Ladies and Gentlemen” uses the affordances offeredby multi-perspectival short fiction and thick description to re-centre attention on first-personexperience and the “taken-for-granted” complexities of everyday life that are at the heart of rape culture. It attempts to highlight the “everydayness” of rape culture which makes rape almost invisible within a normalised milieu of predatory sexual behaviour. In this, it draws on sociological theories of the practices of everyday life (Lefebvre, 1947/1991; de Certeau, 1974/1984; Felski, 1999), in which commonplace situations, mundane routines, and normal behaviours — that are usually taken for granted — are focalised. My story takes place on a college campus in North America, and involves a pivotal conversation between a homosexual man and a heterosexual woman that draws attention to the different ways in which rape is visible or invisible depending on characters’ (and readers’) positioning in relation to hegemonic social norms.