“Exfoliation, Cheese Courses, Emotional Honesty, and Paxil”

This article applies a conjunctural analysis to four US “hangout sitcoms”—Friends, How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, and New Girl—to examine the tensions faced by masculinities in a neoliberal era. After establishing the “hangout sitcom” subgenre, I use critical discourse analysis to unpack three male subject positions. The postfeminist male singleton reacts neurotically to a perceived loss of power with a desperate search for true love. The douchebag responds with excessive performances of both masculinity and neoliberal subjectivity, while the househusband’s stable job and long-term heterosexual relationship reflect neoliberalism’s relationships with intimacy and the family. I argue that the hangout sitcom, and specifically its representation of masculinities, offers an under-explored opportunity to examine the politics of masculinities, postfeminism, and neoliberalism.

The Interaction Between BMI, Weight Criticism, Weight Bias and Psychological and Relational Outcomes Within Marriage

Purpose: To examine 1) whether a wife’s BMI interacts with either her husband’s weight stigma or 2) her perceived weight criticisms from her husband predict husbands’ and wives’ psychological and relational outcomes. Methods: The study sample consisted of 209 currently married men and women in a heterosexual relationship. Participants were drawn from an online survey platform (Qualtrics, Inc. Provo, UT) designed to approximate the US population on age, race, and region of the country. Online measures assessed husbands’ weight stigma, wives’ perceived weight criticisms from husband, and husbands’ and wives’: 1) relationship satisfaction, 2) sexual intimacy, 3) self-esteem, 4) depressive symptoms, and 5) perceptions of a desirable or ideal mate. Results: Wives’ BMI interacted with husbands’ weight stigma to predict 1) mate value for husbands and wives and 2) marital satisfaction for husbands. The same pattern was noted with interaction of wives’ BMI and perceptions of husbands’ weight related criticisms. The interaction reflected that higher wife BMI and higher husband weight stigma or wife perceived weight-related criticism predicted lower marital satisfaction, greater depression, and lower perceptions of a desirable or an ideal mate. Lower BMI was not associated with outcomes regardless of the husbands’ weight stigma or wives’ perceived weight-related criticisms. Conclusion: To understand the impact of weight stigma and weight related criticisms on perceptions of a desirable or ideal mate and marital outcomes, it is important to examine the interaction with partner’s BMI.Level of Evidence: III: Evidence obtained from cohort or case–control analytic studies.

Reasons to Pretend Orgasm, Mate Retention, and Relationship Satisfaction in Brazilian Women

We investigated the relationship between Brazilian women’s reported reasons for pretending orgasm, their performance of mate retention behaviors, and their relationship satisfaction. Additionally, we secured evidence of the validity and reliability of a Brazilian-Portuguese adaptation of the Reasons to Pretend Orgasm Inventory (RPOI). Participants were 295 Brazilian women in a heterosexual relationship ( Mage = 24.9 years, SDage = 5.4 years). Participants completed a Brazilian-Portuguese adaptation of the Mate Retention Inventory-Short Form, and the translated RPOI (the Escala de Razões para Fingir Orgasmo; ERFO). The resulting 47-item ERFO represents well the original 63-item RPOI. The frequency with which Brazilian women pretend orgasm was negatively associated with their relationship satisfaction. Our sample size may not be sufficient to detect small effects. In addition, due to the exploratory nature of the study, the results should be interpreted with caution and future research may attempt to replicate these findings with larger samples and in other countries.

Women in Love: Why Women are Expected to Love First and the Exploration of Changing Gender Roles in Heterosexual Romantic Relationships

This paper explores the misconception that women, being perceived in western society as the most emotional gender, is the first to feel love and to say the words “I love you” in a romantic heterosexual relationship. Research has determined that women are expected to say and feel love in a relationship before men, when in reality the opposite is true. I will discuss social expectations of gender norms in heterosexual relationships and the ways in which relationship norms are currently being challenged. I suggest that changes in courtship norms and media influences on youth create inaccurate gender expectations around love and that new technological advances and decrease in the effectiveness of monogamous heterosexual relationships are challenging these gender expectations, therefore the relationship model and the gendered expectations within these relationships, as known by western society, may be obsolete.

The Age of Toxicity: The Influence of Gender Roles and Toxic Masculinity in Harmful Heterosexual Relationship Behaviours

Although heterosexual relationships have been evolving since the dawn of humanity, there continues to be a considerable amount of inequality, toxicity, and dissatisfaction within heterosexual couplings. This paper explores the ways in which socially prescribed gender roles and toxic masculinity contribute to behaviours which lead to toxicity and unhappiness in heterosexual relationships. The behaviours that this paper will discuss include coercive control as well as physical and sexual violence, all of which are behaviours that according to current literature, are shockingly common in heterosexual relationships. Moreover, the present paper will investigate previous literature in order to explore these concepts in depth through theoretical concepts as well as previous qualitative and quantitative studies done on heterosexual relationship satisfaction. This particular research paper aims to identify and define the concepts of socially prescribed gender roles and toxic masculinity, before applying these concepts to the previously mentioned relationship behaviours in order to determine just how these social concepts contribute to or cause these behaviours in heterosexual couplings.

Making the Invisible Visible: Black Lesbianism in The Color Purple

The paper aims to disclose the factors behind Celie’s preference of transition from an involuntary heterosexual relationship to a homosexual one. I pursue this path due to multiple factors that occur in the novel and which nevertheless lead to Celie’s final homosexual identity. Homosexuality is far too often regarded as a mental illness and people have far too many times misjudged people with other sexual orientation than what the society perceives as “normal”. The findings of my research intend to show that homosexuality implies a variety of psychological, emotional and physical issues and that it is nothing to be ashamed or afraid of. Since racism has always been associated with Black men and sexism with White females, the paper brings the invisible Black lesbians to light.

Barriers and Stigma Experienced by Gay Fathers and Their Children

BACKGROUND Gay men have become fathers in the context of a heterosexual relationship, by adoption, by donating sperm to 1 or 2 lesbian women and subsequently sharing parenting responsibilities, and/or by engaging the services of a surrogate pregnancy carrier. Despite legal, medical, and social advances, gay fathers and their children continue to experience stigma and avoid situations because of fear of stigma. Increasing evidence reveals that stigma is associated with reduced well-being of children and adults, including psychiatric symptoms and suicidality. METHODS Men throughout the United States who identified as gay and fathers completed an online survey. Dissemination of the survey was enhanced via a “snowball” method, yielding 732 complete responses from 47 states. The survey asked how the respondent had become a father, whether he had encountered barriers, and whether he and his child(ren) had experienced stigma in various social contexts. RESULTS Gay men are increasingly becoming fathers via adoption and with assistance of an unrelated pregnancy carrier. Their pathways to fatherhood vary with socioeconomic class and the extent of legal protections in their state. Respondents reported barriers to becoming a father and stigma associated with fatherhood in multiple social contexts, most often in religious institutions. Fewer barriers and less stigma were experienced by fathers living in states with more legal protections. CONCLUSIONS Despite growing acceptance of parenting by same-gender adults, barriers and stigma persist. States’ legal and social protections for lesbian and gay individuals and families appear to be effective in reducing experiences of stigma for gay fathers.

Initiation of non-heterosexual relationships

Human sexual orientation is an intriguing phenomenon which is still poorly understood and has important evolutionary implications. Evolutionary based studies mostly focus on heterosexual individuals and relationships, probably because non-heterosexuality concerns a minority of the population and decreases individual direct reproductive success. To better understand human nature, it is important to analyse whether the mating psychology of minorities exhibit specific evolved sexual/reproductive strategies. Here we review studies on partner preferences, mate choice, and flirting in non-heterosexual populations, to identify which patterns are similar to or different from heterosexuals. The general pattern supports the notion that sex differences are larger than within sex variation among people of different sexual orientations. However, although some mating strategies among non-heterosexuals resemble heterosexuals of the same sex, others resemble heterosexuals of the opposite sex, and yet in others, the pattern is different than among either heterosexual men or women. We point to limitations of the current state of this research, and we suggest possible future directions in the study of non-heterosexual relationship initiation.

Initiation of non-heterosexual relationships

Human sexual orientation is an intriguing phenomenon which is still poorly understood and has important evolutionary implications. Evolutionary based studies mostly focus on heterosexual individuals and relationships, probably because non-heterosexuality concerns a minority of the population and decreases individual direct reproductive success. To better understand human nature, it is important to analyse whether the mating psychology of minorities exhibit specific evolved sexual/reproductive strategies. Here we review studies on partner preferences, mate choice, and flirting in non-heterosexual populations, to identify which patterns are similar to or different from heterosexuals. The general pattern supports the notion that sex differences are larger than within sex variation among people of different sexual orientations. However, although some mating strategies among non-heterosexuals resemble heterosexuals of the same sex, others resemble heterosexuals of the opposite sex, and yet in others, the pattern is different than among either heterosexual men or women. We point to limitations of the current state of this research, and we suggest possible future directions in the study of non-heterosexual relationship initiation.