Virtue, Shame, and Choice: Perspectives of Sex Work Among Adolescents in Variously Globalized Thai Communities

Although taboo given the traditional Thai value of female sexual conservatism, sex work is a practice for which Thailand has gained international attention. As in other rapidly globalizing contexts, however, Thai youth are increasingly exposed to global values of gender equality, self-fulfillment, and personal choice. This may, in turn, alter youth perspectives of this taboo yet pervasive practice. To understand how Thai youth negotiate local and global values when considering sex work, this study examined the moral evaluations and moral reasoning of adolescents residing in variously globalized communities. Forty participants (20 adolescents in each a more and a less globalized Thai setting) participated in interviews in which they discussed their perspectives of sex work. Quantitative analysis of moral evaluations revealed that rural and urban adolescents alike deemed sex work as mostly morally wrong. Qualitative analysis of moral reasoning revealed that both participant groups prioritized Thai values of sexual purity for women, shame avoidance, and reputation maintenance. Yet distinct values were also endorsed across participant groups. Rural adolescents centered local values (e.g., relational choice, women’s dignity, Buddhist divinity) and urban adolescents drew heavily from global values (e.g., autonomous choice, romantic love, international reputation) when reasoning about the morality and immorality of sex work. Findings point to the manner in which contextual realities shape—and reshape—cultural values in this rapidly globalizing nation.

The West German Gay World after Homosexual Law Reform

This chapter shows that sexual conservatism remained influential in West Germany, even after the partial decriminalization of male homosexuality in 1969. To give just one example, a court upholding the dismissal of an openly gay teacher in 1975 could cite the significance of ‘unwritten laws of honour, convention and decency’. By exploring the stubbornness of homophobic prejudice, especially the view that homosexuality was a danger to youth, this chapter highlights the limits of liberalization in West Germany, thereby interrogating an influential strand of historiography which has portrayed the Federal Republic as a success story of democratization and liberalization. At the same time, this chapter also explores the shifting contours of queer life in the 1970s, focusing on the emergence of the commercial gay press in 1970, and the diversification (and internationalization) of the gay scene—those various locations where same-sex desiring men met each other for the purposes of leisure, sociability and sex.

“Thou Shalt Meet Thy Sexual Needs in Marriage”: Southern Baptists and Marital Sex in the Postwar Era

This article traces the changing sexual politics of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) from the 1950s through the 1980s. It argues that the moderates who led the denomination in the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s joined other supporters of “sexual containment” during the early Cold War to develop a theology about the salvific power of marital sex—and the personal, social, and national harm created by extramarital sex—which undergirded the sexual conservatism of the denomination's fundamentalist leadership who rose to power during the 1970s and 1980s. This analysis reframes our understanding of Southern Baptists within the broader religious right coalition as it reveals how the SBC's commitment to marital sexuality, which was forged during the early Cold War, informed its approach to later hot-button issues like abortion and homosexuality. Rather than simply reacting against the loosening sexual mores of the 1970s and 1980s or in favor of the rising visibility of other politically engaged Christians on issues of sexual morality, the SBC instead drew on longer traditions within the denomination to engage with a changing political and sexual landscape.

Sites of Corruption, Sites of Liberation: Hamburg-St. Pauli and the Contested Spaces of Early Rock'n’Roll

Rock'n'roll emerged in Hamburg in the unique spatial context of St. Pauli's entertainment district during a new phase of capitalist modernity around 1960 that granted youth unprecedented access to commercial venues catering to their new economic power. Crossing class, regional and national lines, young people used spaces free of parental supervision to create alternatives to the era's sexual conservatism and social conformity. This new youth presence worried local authorities: minors had to be shielded from the commercialised vice that was St. Pauli's stock in trade. This set up clashes between police, city officials, business leaders and social welfare agents on the one side, and club entrepreneurs and music fans on the other. Confrontations between these two camps constituted struggles over social discipline, youths’ right to public and commercial space, the meanings of democracy and the sexual morality of youth in a place known for license and excess.