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Available internet research focus on the linear transition from Web 1.0 to Web 3.0 without realizing their interplay across platforms and interactions with analog and real-world. Such interactions are examined in the foreign bride trade industry's shifting and stable discursive representations of Filipino women as the industry moved from analog print catalogues to static, unidirectional Web 1.0, multidirectional Web 2.0 and decentralized Web 3.0. Technological changes have transformed digital platforms and information delivery and continued marketable representations of Filipina brides' racialized exceptionalisms. Shifting from analog to digital platforms has simultaneously disrupted and preserved gendered-racialized hierarchical representations of Filipina brides as simultaneously paradoxical, problematic, and provocative variations in purveying Philippine postcolonial exceptionalism. Critical discourse analyses of sample catalogues and Web 1.0–2.0 websites reveal three persistent exceptionalism variants in Filipina bride representations—extraordinary, comparative, and pragmatic—reproducing racialized-sexualized desires and hierarchies, which endured across technological platforms, simultaneously reproducing and disrupting persistent representations of foreign brides from the Global South, particularly Filipinas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disparities in sexual minority (SM) sports participation have become better established in recent years, yet factors contributing to sport persistence among those who are involved in sport remain relatively unexplored. Using data from 23 qualitative interviews with SM college students who were high school athletes, we examined factors that influence sport persistence among this group. Our analyses revealed that physical aspects of sports participation - the embodied sense of movement and/or the physical contact with other athletes - influences sports persistence in different ways for sexual minority (SM) athletes of various genders. SM men frequently discussed participating in sports for external reasons that related to their perceptions about their own bodies' attractiveness. For SM women and non-binary individuals, however, the internal physical sensations derived from sports were empowering and facilitated sport persistence. However, for participants of all genders, the sexualization of their queer selves by others within their sports context affects their safety, performance, and presence depending upon the physicalness of the game. We argue that making queerness more visible in sports may alleviate the burden faced by SM athletes who are isolated as the only queer person on their teams and allows for a positive physical experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aims to determine the ways in which sports content producers in traditional and new media tools in Turkey frame the images of women athletes on Instagram. In the study, the ways in which television, newspaper and digital sports content producers with the highest number of Instagram followers in Turkey visualize women athletes in the news during international organizations were examined using the netnographic method. Study considered only n = 126 women photographs among the analyzed n = 5382 posts in this context and specified that n = 78 of those n = 126 photos belonged to women athletes. While women athletes stand out more prominently on Instagram in cases of failure, these instances of failure are visualized through images of crying, kneeling and covering their faces, framing helplessness. On the other hand, it was determined that women athletes were presented as sexual objects in the images used and that their body lines were highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Female empowerment has long been a prominent social concern in Western culture. With the rise of social media, the quest for female empowerment has become embodied in self-presentational practices, occurring conspicuously throughout the Instagram fitness subculture: 'fitspiration'. Here, female empowerment is merged with the body-centrality inherent to fitness, and the self-sexualization that has become characteristic of both photo-based social media in general, and fitspiration in particular. Meanwhile, an extensive body of research highlights numerous detrimental effects of self-sexualization on women. Evidently, something seems awry with the implied proposition 'sexualization as empowerment'. Drawing on Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy of power and its relationship to human flourishing, this article aims to critically examine the conception of female empowerment expressed in fitspiration and to conceptualize a philosophically compelling reformulation of universal human empowerment. I argue that what is commonly conceived of as female empowerment in trends like fitspiration—delineated in its explicit relationship to sexualization—may be seriously flawed. Rejecting this understanding in favor of a Nietzschean universal alternative may prove beneficial to individuals both within and without the contemporary fitness culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I show that the "narcissistic libido' out of which the self emerges is best conceived as de-sexualized eros, for this is the kind of energy that can love ideals, love ourselves (self-esteem), and love connecting with others (selfobjects). I draw upon Plato and the late Freud to amplify how seeing the self's energy as eros allows us to understand the self as daimonic, aesthetic, and developmental—a striving to attain evermore complex versions of itself. Eros is also an "experience-near" way to conceive of the self's energy, as we immediately know when we are feeling intensely erotic about an activity, another person, a work of art, etc. I will further show how eros can be transformed into sexualization and narcissistic rage when the self is traumatized, thereby explaining why selves have these two kinds of by-products when traumatically injured. Conceiving of the self's energy as eros gives us an important way to come to know our selves: we are what we love. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many dance competitions in North America, performances of sexualized choreography have become normalized. One result is that bodies of girl dancers are increasingly constructed as sexual objects. Sexual objectification is highly problematic for the development of girls' self-identities, body image, psychological health, and overall wellbeing. Based on feminist perspectives on the body and data from feminist ethnography, this article investigates how objectification of young, female bodies in dance is reinforced through embodiment and repetition of sexualized movement and how it can negatively impact identity development and wellbeing. This research emphasizes that social-cultural processes of sexualization acting on the bodies and lives of young girls who dance should be of concern to all dance educators and privately-operated studios and suggests strategies for cultivating resistance and alternative approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The representation of superheroines in comic books and comic book movies tend to subscribe to the patriarchal logic of the male gaze, with male subjects looking at women as hypersexualized objects and corporeal spectacles. Black Widow is the most fiercely feminist offering in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to date, featuring young women resisting a powerful, rich, old, white male villain and fighting against his evil design to control the world. There are multiple refreshing developments in this "Phase Four" film from Marvel Studios. Drawing on feminist textual readings of superheroines' depictions in comics and cinema, this article (1) engages a shift away from the male gaze and its impact on the representation of strong female characters without the trappings of hypersexualization, and (2) suggests what films like Black Widow can offer regarding notions of what relationships constitute "family" in our society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through an analysis of anti-suffrage arguments, I identify white supremacist tropes as an important strand in woman suffrage debates. I argue that sexualization and themes of home were signals to racial bias, and American womanhood was used as a rhetorical resource in struggles over race and national identity. As we celebrate the centennial of woman suffrage, it is vital to recognize how debates over women in national space participate in white supremacist logics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Québécois immigrant writers Dany Laferrière's and Kim Thúy's first novels, Comment faire l'amour avec un nègre sans se fatiguer (1985) and Ru (2009), both thematize the process of coming-to-writing and autofiction in parallel with the tropes of the sexualization of the nonwhite "other" in a global (post)colonial context. This article examines Laferrière's and Thúy's starkly different novels to begin to account for the connection between the act of entering literature and the indictment of racial inequality and sexual exploitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on solo female travel indicates that women traveling alone in foreign countries are subject to different sociocultural and gender norms, and may bear more fear and constraints both temporally and spatially. Harassment from male strangers exerts considerable influence on women's perception of safety. However, issues of how solo female travelers confront stranger harassment remain untouched in tourism or leisure studies. Based on the perspectives of stranger harassment and cultural encounters, this article explores the experiences and interactions of 17 Taiwanese solo females with male strangers. Results revealed when facing harassment, they opted to neglect, forbear, or blame themselves; hardly had they actively fought back. Adding ramifications to the existing knowledge, this article contributes to the understanding of the theoretical conceptualization of stranger harassment of solo female travelers, and is in due response to the dearth of research in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay analyzes the representation of female figures in two films of the New Romanian Cinema (NRC), Cristian Mungiu's Occident (2002) and Radu Muntean's Boogie (2008). Drawing on Karen Hollinger's (2012) statement that film is polysemic, my analysis departs from the claims of the extant scholarship on women's portrayal in the NRC. By investigating the manner in which fundamental concepts of gender analysis like agency, empowerment, (sexual) objectification, patriarchy, and hegemonic masculinity shape female characters, I show that Occident and Boogie offer views of women that are vastly different. I argue that Occident proposes a nuanced gender representation that breaks with patriarchal views of female characters as it presents confident and self-empowered young women who assert their agency by emigrating to the West. I maintain that Muntean's film is more sexist than acknowledged so far because, in contrast to Occident, it relegates female figures to a subordinate position — either as sexual objects lacking agency or in stereotypical domestic roles as mother and wife — over which a relentless and unquestioned hegemonic masculinity looms large. Ultimately, my analysis shows that there is no shared agenda vis-a-vis gender in these specific NRC films. While the scope of this essay is narrow since it focuses in detail on two NRC films by two directors, its findings can serve as a spring board for future inquiries that would scrutinize other NRC directors and their films in order to establish a broader gender analysis of the NRC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Danielle Knafo's "The Sexual Illusionist" is examined from the perspective of working unobtrusively with unsymbolized and unrepresented states in the register of enactment. Knafo's paper offers a unique rendition of an extremely challenging treatment involving great intimacy, love, violation and rampant and provocative sexual fantasies. In this commentary I suggest that the treatment exemplifies the challenge of working in the realm of psychic excess, too muchness and chronic developmental failure. I suggest that much of the highly sexualized material can be best understood as attempts by the patient, Cain, to create a transformational object such that he can manage his immersion in excess and come into being as a subject. I suggest that the therapeutic action takes place in the realm of unsymbolized enactment where love and limit can grow and take hold. I congratulate Knafo on a moving and honest description of an extremely challenging case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the pain of oedipal exclusion, especially in relation to the felt loss of the maternal figure. When too acute, this loss may be defended against by omnipotent defenses of disavowal and evasion of reality—a perverse structuring of the mind. In clinical work with such a person as an adult, sexualization of the dyadic treatment relationship within the analytic field serves to avoid deeper feelings of loss and deflated self-esteem. Mourning is foreclosed, and impasse may result. If "love" is to effect a cure, it is not "romantic" love of the analyst, but love of the analytic process—a passionate inquiry into the self. When fully articulated as an energy potential in both participants, analytic eroticism can offer libidinal engagement within an ethical frame as a stimulus to emotionally embodied thinking that can yield transformations in many dimensions, including the erotic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following Catherine Hakim's notion of the increasing significance of 'erotic capital' in contemporary society, this paper addresses the effects of erotic capital in the realm of professional sports. Erotic capital may be closely related to popularity and thus represents a key marketing asset, in particular for female athletes facing a predominantly male audience. These ideas are examined here through analysing the media visibility of top tennis players in the German print media, as well as their global popularity (measured by search engine queries). The results provide further evidence of gender discrimination in sport since they show that the popularity of female athletes depends on their physical attractiveness whereas such a relationship does not exist for male athletes. Given gender-discriminatory consumer and print media preferences, female athletes face strong incentives to adapt to a sexualized sports culture that reinforces hegemonic masculinity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sexualization is changing the way we think about romantic love. According to recent research, young people are increasingly confronted by narrowing ideals of sexual attractiveness making romantic intimacy increasingly difficult forcing a choice between ‘raunch or romance’. This article investigates the alleged distinction between romance and sexualization, in the process challenging claims that the current crisis of sexualization is a product of societal change in late modernity. Responding to a call to consider sexualization from a hitherto neglected historical perspective, the paper employs critical discourse analysis to identify the formation of gendered meanings and practices in How the Good Wife Taught Her Daughter, a late medieval advice text for young women, and twenty-first-century advice from the MyBliss website. Focusing on sexualized clothing, contact with others, reputation and social status, the paper argues that in both medieval and modern advice, discourses of romantic love and sexualization are mutually dependent. In addition, similarities between medieval and modern advice reveal that our current sexualization crisis is not solely a product of modern life, but is part of a longer pattern of gender normativity and inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Media effects research has confirmed that sexualizing media exposure can negatively affect preteens’ body image and sexual development. While there is a link between sexualizing content and adverse outcomes such as self-objectification and body dissatisfaction, an interest in sexual media content is a normal part of healthy sexual development during the preteen years. Hence, research is needed that examines the variety in preteens’ sexual media diet thereby addressing the subtleties involved in sexualizing media. To what extent do sexual content, appearance-related content, sexual objectification, and objectification occur in Flemish preteens’ favorite TV shows? And, how are these different types of content related to gender roles? Seeking to address these questions, this article reports on a quantitative content analysis of 24 episodes from five TV shows popular among Flemish preteens. Drawing on a sample of 465 scenes, results demonstrated that one in five scenes contained sexual behavior, and one in ten contained sexual objectification. Male characters were sexually objectified as often as female characters. Women were more often judged for their appearance, but were also more often shown treating others as objects in a non-sexual way. Results are discussed in light of objectification and social cognitive theory, culminating in suggestions for future research and implications for parents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I analyze the discourse of what I argue are two moral panics that played out in the Australian media during the period 2004-2015: the sexualization of children debate, and the sexting panic, which appeared some years later. I argue that while the issue of the alleged sexualization of children is nothing new, the way that the issue has been constructed in the media has shifted during the last decade, with greater focus on children’s use of technology. By comparing these two panics, we can diagnose a shift in the nature of mass-media-based panics, from concerns about external sources of sexualization to concerns about children’s own practices of self-representation via contemporary technologies. Both panics mobilized a range of broader social anxieties about the commodification and sexualization of culture and the increasing agency of children, and panics in relation to contemporary mobile technologies are a collective response to shifts in the power relations between children, their parents, and other figures of authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article treats sexualization in the work of Heinz Kohut and argues that his ideas remain relevant. We identify the psychological sequence that leads to sexualization; emphasize the fluid relationship between sexuality and sexualization; offer insight into the underlying role that shame plays in sexualization; and note the role of trauma in the early experience in those drawn to sexualized experiences, especially in forms of mirroring. In sexualization, there is often an objectification of the other and a detachment of empathy. It is necessary to define sexualization by an empathic understanding of the individual’s experience of the sexualized activity, rather than by the activity itself. We note the treatment implications of our formulations. Data for this article come from clinical discussions held by the authors who have met as a study group in self psychology since 2014. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sexuality professionals are likely to experience unwanted sexualization based solely on their profession. Sexuality professionals are sexualized by various groups of people including strangers, colleagues, or even friends and family. The research literature discusses how sexuality researchers experience and navigate this sexualization but includes little information about the ways in which sexuality educators are sexualized. At the 2016 National Sex Ed Conference, we facilitated a workshop for sex educators to discuss how they are sexualized and how they would suggest navigating such experiences. Through this workshop proceeding, we examine how educators echoed many of the same strategies used by sexuality researchers found in the literature along with some unique population concerns and strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A consultation regarding a panic disorder evolves into an analysis. The analyst experiences has a panic attack in sympathy with the patient, an event that facilitates the expansion of the therapeutic relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dissociation is a common reaction subsequent to childhood sexual abuse (CSA) and has been identified as a risk factor for child psychopathology. There is also evidence that mentalization contributes to resilience in the context of abuse. However, at this stage little is known regarding the relationship between mentalization and dissociation, and their respective contributions to psychopathology. The aim of this study was to examine pathways from CSA to depressive symptoms, externalizing behaviour difficulties and sexualized behaviour through mentalization and dissociation. These pathways were examined in a sample of 168 mother-child dyads, including 74 dyads where children (aged 7–12) had histories of sexual abuse. Maternal mentalization was assessed using the Parent Development Interview-Revised and children’s mentalization was assessed using the Child Reflective Functioning Scale. Children completed the Child Depression Inventory and parents completed the Child Dissociative Checklist, the Child Behavior Checklist and the Child Sexual Behavior Inventory. Direct and indirect paths from CSA to child psychopathology via children’s mentalization and dissociation were examined using Mplus. Distinct paths from abuse to psychopathology were identified. Child mentalization partially mediated the relationship between CSA and depressive symptoms. The effects of CSA on externalizing symptoms and sexualized behaviour difficulties were sequentially mediated through mentalization and dissociation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article, I examine fans’ consumption of mixed-race Japanese Brazilian female bodies in Japan. The article does this by examining two case-study representations of Japanese Brazilian female bodies: Miss Nikkei in Karen Tei Yamashita's mixed-media collection of essays and short stories, Circle K Cycles (2001); and performances by the Japanese idol group Linda Sansei (2013 debut). I argue that although the Japanese Brazilian population has largely been represented as minor characters in Japanese history, literature, and culture, the degree of consumption by fans belies this and points to the multiplicity of Japanese Brazilian identities. Moreover, the gendered, feminized body in these texts becomes a stereotyped, Orientalized, and fetishized Japanese body that is oftentimes juxtaposed to a sexualized, racialized Brazilian body. While this could distance fans and disavow the mixed-race Japanese Brazilian female body, Miss Nikkei and Linda Sansei perform gender and race in ways that demand recognition of their bodies as different to preconceived stereotypes. Fans consume the commodification of these new identitarian representations in a way that allows the mixed-race Japanese Brazilian female to attain social mobility, disavowing traditional categorizations as lower socio-economic class dekasegi, or foreign labourers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

First I explore how far and in what way sexuality is considered within the theoretical framework and in key texts of the Person-Centered Approach. This is followed by a characterization of the nature of sexuality from a phenomenological perspective. After examining “functioning sexuality” and so-called sexual disorders and aetiological considerations the relevance of sexuality in the therapeutic practice is discussed, including reflections on sexualization and physical touch in the therapy session. The paper concludes with a few propositions concerning the consideration of sexuality within the person-centered framework. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Adams (2004,The pornography of meat. London: The Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd), Deckha (2008, Disturbing images: PETA and the feminist ethics of animal advocacy.Ethics and the environment, 13(2), 35–76), Gaarder (2011,Women and the animal rights movement. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press), Glasser (2011, Tied oppressions: an analysis of how sexist imagery reinforces speciesist sentiment.The Brock review, 12(1), 51–68), and others have criticized People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) for sexually exploiting young women in outreach and fundraising efforts. This article extends these critiques in addressing the problematic relationship between objectified volunteer female activists and Nonhuman Animal rights organizations (Animal Liberation Victoria, Fish Love, LUSH, and PETA). These organizations have largely professionalized and have consequently refocused their priorities on fundraising for organizational maintenance. An exploration into the social movement literature on the phenomenon of professionalization casts the use of young women's bodies for financial gains in a more troubling light. The Nonhuman Animal rights industry that exploits the sexuality of female activists ultimately exploits archetypes of women as nurturers and temptresses. These groups also utilize women's vulnerability by targeting female consumers and their sensitivity to body image. This article places female objectification within the logic of social movement professionalization. These organizations merge advocacy with capitalist interests to the ultimate disadvantage of women and Nonhuman Animals alike. The exploitation of female stereotypes and ultimately the female body, it is argued, is ineffective in challenging ideologies of oppression as both a practical and a theoretical matter. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Participants rated a series of photographs that depicted well-known male and female athletes in a sexualized fashion or not. In general, sexualized targets were perceived as more attractive but as less competent than non-sexualized targets, and for ratings of competence, sexualization effects were greater for female targets. Sexualization had no effects on women’s perceptions of the competence of male targets, whereas for men, sexualization affected their perceptions of the competence of both male and female targets, although the influence of sexualization was stronger for female targets than it was for male targets. These findings suggest that the gender of the target and of the perceiver needs to be considered when evaluating the influences of sexualization. The implications of these findings are discussed within the context of objectification theory, which has focused on the objectification of women by women. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study explored the perspectives of lesbian, bisexual, and queer women on the sexualization of women in media. Three focus groups at a Northeast university were attended by 12 sexual minority women who talked about their thoughts, feelings, and experiences related to sexualization. An interpretative phenomenological analysis revealed themes related to (1) how women and queer people are treated by the mainstream media; (2) the ways in which media compromises women's relationships to their own bodies and to other women; and (3) unique insights that queer sensibility contributes to the discourse of sexualization, including possibilities of empowering, transgressive female sexuality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This essay combines Burke's burlesque frame and Jamieson's double binds to create a hybrid gendered theory for rhetorically analyzing the aggressive sexualization of 2008 United States vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. The essay develops our theory titled the “burlesque binds” and explicates a specific form of a burlesque bind: the “MILF frame.” Palin's aggressively sexualized representation was united under the crass acronym MILF, which stands for “Mom I'd Like to Fuck.” The MILF frame emphasized Palin's feminine qualities, positioning her as a “trophy vice” with no political acumen, and highlighted her masculine behaviors, but deflated them through sexual objectification. The unification of the binds and burlesque theories reveals how Palin's role as a social actor was not simply circumscribed but shut down: she was deemed unfit by both masculine and feminine standards, by both public and private sphere conventions. Although Sarah Palin has arguably been the most prevalent subject of the political MILF frame, our essay catalogues other instances of female political leaders experiencing this type of symbolic degradation, suggesting the MILF frame's vast influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting from the concept of confusion of tongues between passion and tenderness, the authors illustrate two clinical situations of traumatized children and adults and try to show how these kinds of patient are not able to give voice to and symbolically represent their archaic anxieties connected with their having been Ferenczian “unwelcome children.” Therefore, in the therapeutic situation, they often make use of the language of “passion” and sexualization in order to communicate to the analyst their early broken intimacy and their traumatized “tenderness,” related to a lack of parental libidinal involvement and of maternal permeability to their raw emotions, which gave rise to their “passion of death.” Sketching out two clinical cases (an adolescent and an adult), the authors describe how, in their opinion, this confusion of tongues may be the only way for some patients to represent and share the traumatic events of their past, while at the same time it may become a deep-rooted, strong, rigid, and exciting defense mechanism against an early child depression connected with devitalizing unconscious identifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A number of scholars and journalists have argued that Western culture has become ‘sexualized’. Both women and men, they maintain, are highly sexualized in popular media. At the same time, scholars have examined the sexualization of women as part of a broader cultural ‘backlash’ against the gains of second-wave feminism and women's increasing power in society. We contribute to both of these fields with a longitudinal content analysis of four decades ofRolling Stonemagazine covers. First, we analyze whether both women and men have become more sexualized over time and, if so, whether such increases have been proportionate. Second, we examine whether there is a relationship between women's increasing power in the music industry (as measured by popularity) and their sexualization on the cover ofRolling Stone. In the first case, we do not find evidence that US culture as a whole has become sexualized, as only women – but not men – have become both more frequently and more intensely sexualized on the cover ofRolling Stone. In the second case, we find evidence that sexualized images may be part of a backlash against women's gains since, as women musicians' popularity increased, they were increasingly sexualized and under-represented on the cover ofRolling Stone. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article offers the author's analysis on how Italian contemporary popular cinema has managed the figure of the velina or show girl through audition. She mentions its mobilization of contradictory messages on the female body as well as debates on culture sexualization and postfeminism. She also notes the theoretical prisms of taste, genre and class along with their impact on the argument.

The present study examines the use of sexual objectification by popular female music artists in their music videos. To obtain a current assessment of sexual objectification within pop, country, and hip hop music videos, a content analysis was performed. Our primary purposes were to examine (a) differences by race (in particular, differences between White and Black artists) and (b) by genre (i.e., pop, hip hop/R&B, and country). Results revealed only 1 race difference. In that case, Black artists were nearly twice as likely to wear sexually provocative attire. The results yielded consistent genre differences in which country artists were less likely to engage in sexual objectification, probably because of the socially conservative nature of the genre. However, in the main, there were few differences in sexual objectification between pop and R&B/hip artists. Findings are discussed in relation to objectification theory (B. L. Fredrickson & T. A. Roberts, 1998) and the framework of post-feminism (e.g., Gill, 2007; McRobbie, 2004). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autogynephilia is a paraphilic model that states that all male-to-female (MtF) transsexuals who are not exclusively attracted toward men are instead sexually oriented toward the thought or image of themselves as a woman. The assertion that transsexual women are sexually motivated in their transitions challenges the standard model of transsexualism-that is, that transsexuals have a gender identity that is distinct from their sexual orientation and incongruent with their physical sex. This article provides a review of the evidence against autogynephilia and makes the case that the taxonomy and terminology associated with this theory are both misleading and unnecessarily stigmatizing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a dialogue with particular threads of Hall's work on racialized subjectification and the words and other practices of a single respondent. Framed by re-emergent notions of fixed, unchanging identities and bounded, homogeneous 'secular' and 'religious' cultures and communities embedded in contemporary political discourse on the 'rights' and 'responsibilities' and 'core values' of 'Britain's citizens', this paper considers how post-colonial authority is interiorized or incorporated and re-emerges and re-circulates in our daily practical life. It further considers Hall's theorizations of cultural identity with which to understand an internally heterogeneous, obedient and defiant subject composed of different, dissonant, potentially irreconcilable selves. The paper considers particular strands of Hall's work to develop our understandings of a subject who polices their own practice and protects the experiential effect of a self-governing, internally homogeneous and bounded self. It further considers contemporary formations of political community in a late modern, post-colonial, neo-liberal disciplinary social order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction to this cluster on 'Screened sexuality: desire in Russian, Soviet and post-Soviet Cinema' addresses the question of what the term 'sexuality' might mean when applied to Russian/Soviet cinema, and the ways in which the term is used in the articles that follow in this cluster. The infamous phrase, 'There is no sex in the USSR!' should be understood to suggest that Soviet cinema employed mechanisms of sexualizing carnal desire that were different to those of Hollywood, mechanisms that did not engender the utopian fantasy of sexuality's full presence in the maximum visibility of the unsimulated sex act. Screening sexuality necessarily involves a historically articulated combination of showing and concealment, and Soviet cinema's relative deficiency of sexual explicitness does not make it a less suitable object for the research into cinematic sexuality; it does, however, necessitate a different approach to the theme, in that such research would have to emphasize the social, cultural and intersubjective entanglement of sexual desire - an approach that is for the most part taken in this collection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Video games have become a powerful force in the culture. Depictions of women in video games are scarce and highly stereotypical. Women are usually minor characters, are seen as victims rather than heroines, and are depicted in highly sexualized ways. Whereas early games had only a few representations of people of color, people of color were often depicted in derogatory and unflattering ways. Current games continue to employ racial stereotypes by limiting the roles and representations of non-White characters. Gender and racial stereotyping in video games is discussed, and ways to raise awareness of the issues are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Via examples from recent Norwegian experimental TV shows, this article explores the function of "eye-catchers," parodic (hetero)sexualization, female masquerade and neo-masculinization as strategies for "repetitions with a difference" of traditional styles and motifs by female show hosts, as well as the queer gendering and sexualization of men and masculinities by their male counterparts. Both formats represent innovative renegotiations of gender and sexuality that illustrate the relationship between post-modernism and queer aesthetics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]