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In this paper, I seek to analyze how notions of humiliation, disgust and contempt inform "images of brutality" regarding LGBT deaths claimed to have been the result of hate crimes or LGBTphobia. Based on data collected during the monitoring of the LGBTI+ movement’s activities in Paraiba between 2012 and 2016, in-depth interviews with its activists, and access to judicial proceedings related to those deaths, I focus especially on the narratives around: a) a scene of attempted murder provoked by a military police officer who, in a street downtown Joao Pessoa, shot a travesti at close range, one who worked as a prostitute and refused his flirt; and b) the case of the "serial killer of travestis", a military police officer accused of five murders in a town in the countryside of Paraiba. Thereby, my main purpose is to discuss the relevance of demeaning practices for the configuration of what is taken as brutal, including police violence. Above all, I seek to understand the narrative sexualization of the one who demeans, humiliates, feels disgusted and despises others, and whose act of raping or killing is identified as a gesture of pleasure or raises questions about desire.

This article presents data from a study of Black men and masculinities at a predominantly White university. I argue that the campus racial climate on predominantly White universities are important sites of boundary work where fear and sexualization of Black masculinities are normalized in ways that shape Black men’s social relations on college campuses. In doing so, I will share narrative data of how Black male college students perceive the campus racial climate, with a focus on how they are feared and sexualized in predominantly White spaces. I also analyze the ways in which they managed race, gender, and sexuality within school spaces, and situate their gendered performances within the context of the boundary work of the university. Attention will be given to their agency in how they respond to White fears and sexualization of Black men.

Representation of the female body has been one of the most emphasized issues in gender debates. To refrain from reproducing the patriarchal ideology, it is important to be careful with the distinction between the body being tabooed and covered or transformed into an object of consumption under the name of freedom. The sexualization and objectification of the female body has taken place in the historical process. In many products from works of art to mass media, the woman, who is a passive object in front of the man who is the active/subject, is presented to the consumption of the male gaze. In almost every branch of art, from photography to cinema, the female body has been the object of the gaze and has been turned into an object of desire by being removed from the subject identity. Even in films that are claimed to be made with a woman's point of view and against gender discourses, the female body is sometimes objectified with elements such as the stage order, lighting, and perspective preferences. In this study, which aims to reveal how cinematographic elements can change the world of meaning, the first film of Deniz Gamze Ergüven, Mustang (2015), was discussed with feminist criticism in the axis of object-body by giving examples from various art branches in terms of cinematographic preferences. As a result of the study, it has been determined that the film, which claims to have set out with critical point of view, reproduces the discourses it tries to criticize. The reason for this is that the film falls into the traps of patriarchal ideology.

The sexualization of girls, currently pervasive in our society, has entered the field of dance education with a vengeance. This critical issue is so ubiquitous as to have become normalized. After e...

Research on sexualized media content has largely neglected an important part of young people’s interactions with such content, namely whether and how young people are able to resist sexualization in the media and build resilience against its influence. This study is one of the first to investigate whether adolescent girls build such resilience by reading and sharing messages (e.g., videos, articles) on social media in which sexualization is criticized (i.e., counter-messages). A focus group study of 24 girls aged 12–17, showed that girls engage very little with counter-messages in social media. Explanations for this lack of engagement are related to uses and gratifications of social media (e.g., hedonic and utilitarian value), social influence processes (e.g., identification and compliance with social norms) and media literacy skills (e.g., perceived susceptibility to and awareness of sexualization).

Este artigo pretende, a partir de relatos e reescritas, pensar sobre percursos das histórias da fotografia em suas relações entre ética e uso da imagem e apropriação de histórias, na tentativa de repensar a relação de poder constituída a partir de um ponto de vis-ta na história da imagem, partindo da Amazônia paraense como lugar de reflexão. Este texto tem a colaboração de Izabelle Louise Anaúa Tremembé, estudante indígena da Universidade Federal de Ceará (UFC), que fez um relato sobre a cultura da apropriação, da exotificação dos objetos sagrados e sexualização dos corpos femininos, assim como, em sua fala, ela afirma a ausência de conhecimento acerca de seus rituais e, ainda, que a autonomia dos povos indígenas em fazer arte sempre existiu. Os relatos foram articulados no encontro entre professores e produtores de fotografia e cinema em Alcântara, Maranhão, em abril de 2019.

Postfeminist young women are encouraged to “embrace” their sexuality by sexualizing their bodies as a means of empowerment. In stark contrast, dominant understandings of violence identify these same bodily displays as risk factors, condemning women who enact them as “asking for” victimization. While these competing demands on the female body have been widely documented in popular media, empirical work has not investigated if, and the extent to which, women reproduce these tension-filled constructions of the body in their own lives. Using in-depth interviews with 15 participants of varied race, class and gender identity in the US, this paper explores the ways in which these conflicting discursive constructions of the body are enacted by participants in their everyday lives. While participants took up varied sensibilities of the body and empowerment (including several that emphasized sexiness and sexuality), participants uniformly discussed perceptions of risk that inscribed the female body as vulnerable. This produced tensions in reasoning for some participants (but not all), in ways that were intersectionally inflected by race and gender presentation. More broadly, data suggests that postfeminist (and other) visions of the body that appear to otherwise produce lived experiences of empowerment are deemed invalid in contexts of risk.

La Fiesta Provincial del Inmigrante (Berisso, Argentina) constituye uno de los rituales conmemorativos a través de los cuales sus organizadores reproducen anualmente un imaginario de la comunidad local/nacional apelando a un mito de origen: el mito del crisol de razas (blancas y europeas). Este artículo tiene como propósito analizar, desde una perspectiva de género, el proceso de visibilización afro y las disputas por el reconocimiento social que desarrollan las y los integrantes de la Asociación Caboverdeana de Ensenada a partir de su participación en la Fiesta Provincial del Inmigrante. Para ello nos centramos en el análisis de los conflictos vividos por tres mujeres afrodescendientes en el acto central de la fiesta: la elección de la Reina Provincial del Inmigrante. La estrategia metodológica que sostuvo la investigación fue de tipo cualitativa, centrada en un extenso trabajo de campo etnográfico realizado en la Fiesta Provincial del Inmigrante (2010-2015), entrevistas a los/as integrantes de la Asociación Caboverdena de Ensenada y tres entrevistas en profundidad a las tres ex-reinas de dicha asociación que participaron de las elecciones de la Reina Provincial del Inmigrante (años 2001, 2008 y 2010). La originalidad del artículo reside en el análisis de un objeto de estudio escasamente indagado por las ciencias sociales y reiteradamente criticado por el movimiento feminista: las elecciones de reinas y la participación de mujeres afrodescendientes en estos contextos. Buscando no caer en una socio-antropología de la denuncia –que únicamente ponga de manifiesto la reproducción de modelos canónicos de belleza, la sexualización del cuerpo femenino y la existencia de prácticas discriminatorias durante las elecciones de reinas– nos proponemos dar cuenta de los motivos por los cuales dichas mujeres participan de estos eventos y las agencias que desarrollan., The Provincial Immigrant’s Festival (Berisso, Argentina) is a festive context where local ethnic associations recreate a white imaginary of the nation, annually dramatizing an origin myth: the melting pot (white and european). The purpose of this article is to analyze, from a gender perspective, the process of Afro visibility and the disputes for social recognition undergone by the members of the Cape Verdean Association of Ensenada in their participation of the Provincial Immigrant’s Festival. To this effect, we focused on the analysis of the conflicts experienced by three Afro-descendant women in the central ceremony of the festival: the election of the Provincial Queen of the Immigrant. The methodological strategy supporting the research was qualitative, focused on extensive ethnographic fieldwork carried out in the Provincial Immigrant’s Festival (2010-2015), interviews with the members of the Cape Verdean Association of Ensenada, and three in-depth interviews with three former queens of the association, who participated in the elections of the Provincial Queen of the Immigrant (in 2001, 2008 and 2010). The originality of the article lies on the analysis of an object of study scarcely investigated by social sciences and repeatedly criticized by the feminist movement: the elections of queens and the participation of Afro-descendant women in these contexts. Without falling into a social anthropology that condemns –which only reveals the reproduction of canonical models of beauty, the sexualization of the female body and the existence of discriminatory practices during the elections of queens– we resolve to account for the reasons why those women participate in these events and the agency they develop there., Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación

Debate concerning the role of traditional media in the sexualization of young people tends to view young people as a special group of consumers who require protection from some media content and its potential risks. However, with the advent of new media technologies, young people are no longer passive consumers of sexualized representations, but also generators of sexually explicit material that is created and shared among their peers. This challenge has raised concern among those adults who remain ambivalent, or perhaps in denial, about the possibility that young people are sexually curious. Accordingly, this essay seeks to challenge the view that young people are simply passive recipients of sexual messages in the media by highlighting the role that young people play as producers of media content, in particular through the production of fan fiction. This essay investigates the potential criminalization of young people whose online communications about sex can be classified as criminal acts under Australia’s child abuse material legislation. Interviews were conducted with five members of the judiciary to ascertain how this kind of communication might be viewed in a court of law. This was conducted as part of larger research project that seeks to analyze how Australia’s child abuse material legislation may impact on the sexual self-expression of young people themselves.

Based on ongoing fieldwork in the Akihabara neighborhood of Tokyo, specifically a targeted subproject from 2014 to 2015, this book explores how and to what effect lines are drawn by producers, players and critics of bishōjo games. Focusing on interactions with manga/anime-style characters, these adult computer games often feature explicit sex acts. Noting that the bishōjo, or “cute girl characters,” in these games can appear quite young, legal actions have been taken in a number of countries to categorize and prohibit the content as child abuse material. In response to the risk of manga/anime images encouraging underage sexualization, lawmakers are moved to regulate them in the same way as photographs or film; triggered by images, the line between fiction and reality is erased, or redrawn to collapse forms together. While Japanese politicians continue to debate a similar course, sustained engagement with bishōjo game producers, players and critics sheds light on alternative movement. Manga/anime-style characters trigger an affective response in interactions with their creators and users, who draw and negotiate lines between fiction and reality. Interacting with characters and one another, bishōjo gamers draw lines between what is fictional and what is “real,” even as the characters are real in their own right and relations with them are extended beyond games; some even see the characters as significant others and refer to them using intimate terms of commitment such as “my wife.” This book argues for understanding the everyday practice of insisting on lines, or drawing a line between humans and nonhumans and orienting oneself toward the drawn lines of the latter, as demonstrating an emergent form of ethics. Occurring individually and socially in both private and public spaces, the response to fictional characters not only discourages harming human beings, but also supports life in more-than-human worlds. For many in contemporary Japan and beyond, interactions and relations with fictional and real others are nothing short of lifelines. Endorsements from Readers A goal of cultural anthropology is to understand the “other,” and what could be more other than a subculture of self-described “perverts” who enjoy pornographic bishōjo games? Are these young men engaging in harmless sexual fantasy or rehearsing for actual rape and misogyny? Debates surrounding the ethical and social implications of these games have thus far been conducted with minimal knowledge about the people consuming them. Thanks to Galbraith’s audacious fieldwork, we are able to get past Western stereotypes about “weird Japan” and put a human face on the people at the center of a moral firestorm. This data does not end the moral debate about these games, but it does provide vitally needed perspective. – Joseph P. Laycock, author of Dangerous Games: What the Moral Panic over Role-Playing Games Says about Play, Religion, and Imagined Worlds Galbraith’s book is an erudite and refreshing study of Akihabara’s adult or erotic bishōjo games industries. It tackles people’s imaginary sex lives, sexual immersion and moe experiences with manga/anime-style cute girl characters. These types of relations require delicate analysis rather than a more convenient rush to moral judgement. The book offers a prime example of culturally informed and ethical scholarship about this highly contentious subject. It will be immensely valuable for academics, designers, fans, artists, activists and policy makers around the globe. Galbraith is a leading authority and ethnographer whose fieldwork and “peer-learning” methods of research are meticulous and uncompromising. The book gives a comprehensive overview of games, affective game design and game-playing, gaming events and raves, without at any point leaving behind the great sex wars and academic debates of our times. – Katrien Jacobs, author of People’s Pornography: Sex and Surveillance on the Chinese Internet

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 u...

This study investigated gender based violence targeted at high profile women in virtual environments through presenting the case of women’s tennis. Using a netnographic approach and third wave feminist lens, an analysis of two popular social media platforms (Facebook and Twitter) was conducted to examine the social commentary and fan interaction surrounding the top five seeded female tennis players during the Wimbledon Tennis Championships. Athletes were exposed to violent interactions in a number of ways. Four themes were identified through analysis of data: threats of physical violence; sexualisation that focussed on the female physical appearance; sexualisation that expressed desire and/or proposed physical or sexual contact; and sexualisation that was vile, explicit and threateningly violent in a sexual or misogynistic manner. Findings demonstrate how social media provides a space for unregulated gender-based cyberhate targeting high profile women while in their workplace in a way that traditional sports media does not.

Through the analysis of two years of ethnographic observations and 40 in-depth interviews with a collective of Black and Puerto Rican exotic dancers (referred to herein as "Divine Dancers") who perform exotic dance for other women, this article explores how spatial expressions of sexuality within the context of a woman-only exotic dance venue enables both the resistance and reinforcement of circulating discourses of race, gender, and sexuality that construct sexual desirability under the male gaze. In contrast to literatures on exotic dance that center the heteromasculinist arrangement of the U.S. gentleman's club, this article centers the construction of a woman-only exotic dance space that is absent of men and white women. I situate this analysis within critiques put forward by the feminist sex wars to argue that space and place, in tandem with racialized sexualization, shapes women's potential to enact agency in the domain of exotic dance. In this article, I focus on the contestation of whiteness as a normative standard of beauty by Divine Dancers, and the ways in which norms regarding touch and intimacy are regulated within this exotic dance setting, which I argue allows for new interactions between dancers and audience members. This article disrupts binary understandings of exotic dance as either exploitative or demeaning, focusing instead on dancers' interpretations of agency as expressed through the body in space. I find that the extent to which Divine Dancers find this spatial context sexually empowering is shaped through gendered sexuality and their experiences with racialized sexualization.

The rise of digital technologies and social media platforms has been linked to changing forms of work, as well as the mainstreaming of pornography and a 'porn chic' aesthetic. This article examines some of the ways in which these themes coalesce, and interrogates the conceptual boundaries of sexualized labour, extending beyond traditional organizational settings and into Web 2.0. The study explores performances of sexualized labour on social media by analysing visual and textual content from 172 female influencers on Instagram. This article contributes to the literature on sexualized labour in three ways. First, by demonstrating how sexualized labour is enacted across various forms of influencer labour, and how this relates to the attention economy and monetization. Second, by developing the extant conceptualization of sexualized labour and introducing connective labour as a required element to mobilize sexualized labour. Third, by opening up a critical analysis of what is meant by 'sexualized' labour within a cultural context of pornographication.

In the 21 st century, gender representation in video games has improved as a response to growing criticisms of stereotyped, denigrating portrayals of women. Despite this progress, some of these depictions persist in female characters who appear in the medium, even within the independent (indie) video game scene. Examining Red as the protagonist of the independent role-playing game Transistor (Supergiant Games, 2014) through a semiotic lens, this paper investigates whether her character is in accordance with the prevailing trend of gender representation, especially as it pertains to sexualization and objectification. This paper argues that rather than sexualizing Red, the narrative and visual aspects of Transistor characterize her as a complex, powerful heroine. Moreover, she initially expresses a high level of autonomy in the game, subverting the damsel-in-distress trope. However, she ultimately loses her agency and succumbs to her dependency towards her male lover. As such, Red embodies contradictory concepts of empowerment and helplessness. This indicates that despite originating from an independent studio, the portrayal of Transistor ’s protagonist is still in line with the broader paradigm of gender representation in video games. Specifically, it challenges certain harmful stereotypes of women while reaffirming some of them.

Eighteenth-century masculinity, despite some important interventions in recent decades, remains an underdeveloped area in literary studies of the period. This essay seeks to redress the balance by reconsidering a now canonical text, the popular sentimental novel The Man of Feeling (1771), in light of the insights that theories of queerness and affect, particularly shame, have to offer to historical studies of masculinity. My argument takes as its starting point the contention that all normative social structures must incorporate, rather than entirely expel, the non-normative in order to function. Engaging with theorists including Lee Edelman and Heather Love, I argue that Harley, the hero of Henry Mackenzie’s novel, should be understood as an embodiment of weak sexualization, a figure who refuses the positive progress of capital accumulation for wilful oblivion. In doing so, the essay provides new ways of thinking through eighteenth-century ideas of masculinity that demonstrate that the queer, the backward, and the weak are integrated within normative con temporary discourses of the masculine, rather than excluded from them.

Background: There is a dearth of research which explores sexual abuse from perspectives of Caribbean women, despite its high prevalence in the region. While sexual violence is universal, tackling it requires a deep understanding of the contextual specificities in which it arises and of the intersections of gender with other sources of oppression and marginalisation. It also calls for the recognition that intimate partner violence against women is not separate from, but linked to violence against girls, not only because both are forms of gender-based violence but because together they speak to its historical, persistent and accumulative effects.Methods: In-depth intensive interviews were carried out with 35 women from Barbados and Grenada, aged 18–60 years who had experienced intimate partner violence under one of the following circumstances: during pregnancy (n = 15), as a woman a with disability (n = 8), as a woman living with HIV (n = 12). Interviews were digitally recorded, transcribed and thematically analyzed.Results: The participants experienced multiple forms of violence within their relationships, often concurrently. Twenty-one of the women had been subject to sexual violence and of these, 19 had experienced sexual abuse as children; these experiences were viewed as interconnected and bolstered by the high level of violence-acceptance reported within communities. Women were subject to different forms of control by their partners depending upon prevailing discourses related to their circumstances (as pregnant, disabled, or HIV positive); being ‘vulnerable’ was synonymous with having one’s agency as an independent, autonomous person constrained and little external help was available.Conclusion: The study identified a clear chain of sexual behaviors, each of which fuel different layers of the problem: the prevalence of early sexualization of children is associated with the prevalence of child sexual abuse; child sexual abuse is pervasive in large part, because of the normalisation and social acceptance of violence against women and girls; “cultural” normalcy, in turn, fuels attitudes which contribute to sexual violence against women and women in especially vulnerable circumstances face additional risks. Integrated policy, which tackles these as interconnected issues is called for.

In this chapter, several plays from post-revolutionary Cuban theatre are examined, focusing on the strategies of representation of black women characters. Through the analysis of four plays—two from the 1960s and two from the twenty-first century—Lugo Herrera compares the strategies of representation in each period and demonstrates the persistence of racism in contemporary Cuban society. One finding is the need to create new forms of affiliation, opportunity, and recognition for black women. Plays by Maite Vera, Jose Milian, Eugenio Hernandez Espinosa, Rogelio Orizondo, Georgina Herrera, and Fatima Patterson offer us new ways to consider the sexualization of black female bodies, and the ways in which racism affects family, economic survival, and the professionalization of black women in the Cuban Revolution.

Japan’s underground economy trades female athletic apparels. Examining this economy reveals how men continue to dominate social norms in Japan and turn women into a sexualized object of consumption.

Following public outcry over a body-shaming advertisement in the London transport network in 2015, the mayor of London commissioned a multimedia documentary-style study that involved sixteen interviews with women as they commuted throughout London; two “talk-back” art projects with twenty-two schoolgirls; and a survey of 2,012 Londoners. This paper explores our experience of undertaking this project as a mixed-methods, intersectional feminist research process. We discuss the complex relationship between feminist counterpublics and public feminisms and how we negotiated working with a range of stakeholders in our attempt to reshape public debates over gender and advertising. We explore a shift in advertising where women, once positioned as passive props for the male gaze, have been reimagined as postfeminist modes of confident address and forms of “femvertising”, which challenge women to live up to new hybrid forms of racialised, sexualised bodily ideals. Our statistical findings demonstrate an overwhelming public dislike of sexualized advertising, and our in-depth interviewing, focus groups, and collaging methodologies show how diverse women experience new forms of racialized sexualization as problematic rather than as evidence of diversity and inclusion. We argue that by explicitly adopting a feminist intersectional lens, we can foreground the racist and sexist force of ads and their impact on a range of diverse women and girls, documenting the nonconsensual and assaultive nature of public advertising and, therefore, the need for greater accountability from corporate and government stakeholders.

Labour is a central topos of Soviet imaginary, yet it is also an empty signifier, which is constantly replaced with the more seductive and eye-pleasing forms of human activities, such as singing, dancing, which ultimately function as a substitute of sexual act. This operation of replacement creates a hybrid construct of “labour libido,” which, to use Freud’s expression, makes work “bearable” or even, as his Ukrainian translator put it, “turns it into a pleasure”. This research explores sexualization of work in Soviet imaginary and discerns two levels of its operation: the narrative and the symbolic. The narrative level presupposes sexual reward for a hard labour; on the symbolic level, the work itself becomes a substitute for sexual act. The visual regimes of representation of work and their operation on both of these levels are comparatively explored in Stalinist and post-Stalinist collective-farm musicals (Tractor-drivers, The Top Guy) and the film Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, which combines aesthetic intentions of the avant-garde of 1920s and neorealism of 1960s. Close, shot-by-shot analysis of the novella Working days (Budni) from the film Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors reveals the cultural operation of disidentification with the official Soviet work propaganda, which was based on the implicit identification of sexual and labour libido. Thus, the film Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors is included in the genealogy of Soviet regimes of representation of work, which widens usual interpretative context of the film, considered mainly in terms of national identity.

El artículo busca develar los modos en que trabajadoras de faenas mineras significan sus cuerpos, como barrera simbólica que produce segregación, discriminación y marginación, interpretados desde las nociones de violencia simbólica, valencia diferencial de los sexos, desigualdad de género, precariedad y estigma social. Desde una metodología cualitativa, a través del análisis de 31 entrevistas a operarias y supervisoras, se interpretan y triangulan percepciones en torno a trayectorias y experiencias de relacionamiento de género en la gran minería. La corporalidad como límite y violencia se expresa en la sexualización de sus cuerpos; juicio e infravaloración por la menor fuerza física; rechazo, estigmatización y banalización al cuerpo reproductivo; así como en exigencias por personificar rasgos hegemónicos masculinos para inspirar respeto, pero sin «perder feminidad» clásica, provocando desgaste y confrontación. This article seeks to unveil the ways in which women mining workers signify their bodies, as a symbolic barrier that produces segregation, discrimination and marginalization, interpreted from the notions of symbolic violence, differential value of the sexes, gender inequality, precariousness and social stigma. Using a qualitative methodology, through the analysis of 31 interviews with operators and supervisors, perceptions are interpreted and triangulated around trajectories and experiences of gender relations in large-scale mining. Corporality as a limit and violence is expressed in the sexualization of their bodies; judgment and undervaluation due to less physical force; rejection, stigmatization and trivialization of the reproductive body; as well as in demands for personifying hegemonic male traits to inspire respect, but without «losing femininity», which is classic, causing distress and confrontation. O artigo procura revelar as maneiras pelas quais as trabalhadoras da mineração entendem seus corpos, como uma barreira simbólica que produz segregação, discriminação e marginalização, interpretado desde as noções de violência simbólica, valência diferencial dos sexos, desigualdade de gênero, precariedade e estigma social. Desde uma metodologia qualitativa, a través da análise de 31 entrevistas com mulheres operarias e supervisoras, se interpretam e triangulam percepções sobre as trajetórias e experiências de relações de gênero na grande mineração. A corporalidade como limite e violência se manifesta na sexualização de seus corpos; juizo e subavaliação pela menor força física; repúdio, estigmatização e banalização do corpo reprodutivo; bem como nas exigências por personificar traços hegemônicos masculinos no corpo femenino para intentar impor respeito, mas sem «perder a feminidade» tradicional, causando desgaste e confronto.

This introduction to the special issue on the ‘sexotic’, reflects on the heuristic potential of the ‘sexotic’ lens. It situates this approach within existing research on the history of sexualization and exoticization and demonstrates how the ‘sexotic’ opens up fresh vistas on topics like mobilities and migrations, arts and media, as well as science and moralities.

This article cautions against the strong impulse in the #MeToo movement to desexualize politics. Informed by queer theory, the article argues that the public desexualization imperative, represented by indignation toward President Donald Trump's pussy-grabbing antics and the concomitant, albeit justified, movement to expose decades of his sexual harassment of women, casts a shadow across queer citizens that chills sexual expression in democratic discourse and public life. The public desexualization imperative presents a double bind that creates, on one hand, public spaces that are less threatening and discriminatory to women and, on the other, public spaces that—from a queer white cisgender man's perspective, one whose only “marking” is his sexuality—erase queers’ valued differences. The author uses personal narrative to describe and apply tools (conceptualized as fagchild tools) that help navigate tensions between women's equality movements and queer efforts to gain fuller, more open sexual citizenship. The article focuses, first, on softening the body politic (implicitly a white cisgender heterosexual male body) to provide sociopolitical space for sexual pluralism. Second, the article uses the sexualization of House Speaker Paul Ryan to argue that making space for queer sexualities may require accommodating the expression of nonqueer sexualities, including those that most of us find offensive.

In this paper, we draw upon group interviews in London and New York City to explore how differently classed and racialized groups of teen girls navigate media constructions of hot, sexy, femininity. We explore how cultural ideals of sexiness are shifting to include more skin shades and larger body parts in specific proportions which align to new sexualized and racialized ideals of femininity. Some celebrities embody these new forms of what is termed racial mobility, but these ambiguous mixtures still relate to a standard that references normative white, middle-class femininity. All girls found navigating the contradictory and impossible ideals of sexy femininity challenging, but white girls had internalized the norms and technologies of “perfectibility” the most, and believed that achieving sexy femininity would bring them confidence. In contrast, racially marginalized girls were much more critical of normative ideals of sexiness. Black girls had a heightened awareness of how their bodies were consistently read as either not sexy enough or hypersexualized and they discussed the dangers this posed to them in both their school communities and in other public spaces. Overall, our findings demonstrate how diverse girls must undertake very different forms of work to navigate and manage expectations around racialized and classed sexiness.

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 Hollinge...

In this short article we will aim to do three things. First, we want to use this opportunity to reflect on some of the changes we have seen in the scholarly field of gender, sexuality, and intimacy over this period, and on new emerging directions. Second, we want to discuss the move away from discussions of ‘sexualization’ to a more critical and political register interested in a variety of ways in which sex and power intersect. Thirdly, we will discuss MeToo as an example of this shifted form of engagement, and raise some questions about its possibilities and limitations.

Publicly displayed, sexualized depictions of women have proliferated, enabled by new communication technologies, including the internet and mobile devices. These depictions are often claimed to be outcomes of a culture of gender inequality and female oppression, but, paradoxically, recent rises in sexualization are most notable in societies that have made strong progress toward gender parity. Few empirical tests of the relation between gender inequality and sexualization exist, and there are even fewer tests of alternative hypotheses. We examined aggregate patterns in 68,562 sexualized self-portrait photographs ("sexy selfies") shared publicly on Twitter and Instagram and their association with city-, county-, and cross-national indicators of gender inequality. We then investigated the association between sexy-selfie prevalence and income inequality, positing that sexualization-a marker of high female competition-is greater in environments in which incomes are unequal and people are preoccupied with relative social standing. Among 5,567 US cities and 1,622 US counties, areas with relatively more sexy selfies were more economically unequal but not more gender oppressive. A complementary pattern emerged cross-nationally (113 nations): Income inequality positively covaried with sexy-selfie prevalence, particularly within more developed nations. To externally validate our findings, we investigated and confirmed that economically unequal (but not gender-oppressive) areas in the United States also had greater aggregate sales in goods and services related to female physical appearance enhancement (beauty salons and women's clothing). Here, we provide an empirical understanding of what female sexualization reflects in societies and why it proliferates.

While all girls and women experience sexualization, these experiences differ based on a range of individual-level factors to structural contexts. For marginalized populations of women, such as those on the streets, sexualization can take on a particularly pivotal role. Using in-depth interviews with formerly street-involved women, the study explores the processes through which the street context reified the participants’ dependence on their “sexual capital” in order to survive. While they did exercise some agency over their bodies, the ability to make decisions in this regard dissipated as they became more tethered to street life. Dependence on sexual capital preserved street dynamics that disempowered and damaged them vis-a-vis men, a vulnerable status which effectively sustained the arrangement that harmed them. Control over participants’ sexual capital was usurped by others on the streets as they were traded, sold, and victimized by violence. Ultimately, participants’ experiences suggest that sexual capital is central to the gendered scaffolding upon which the street context is constructed.

Por meio dos conhecidos “trajes típicos” tem-se representado a cultura dos países no concurso de Miss Universo. Este artigo analisa como, a partir dos trajes utilizados pelas concorrentes da Colômbia, especificamente aqueles inspirados na ourivesaria pré-colombiana, tem-se feito uma constru- ção distinta daquela difundida pela mídia que procura transmitir uma imagem favorável do país. De uma parte este estudo mostra o lado positivo de utilizar a transmissão da cultura como ferramenta política e publicitária e, de outra, reflete sobre a sexualização da cultura através da exibição e coisificação do corpo da mulher. A pesquisa tem como fontes primárias recursos audiovisuais e recortes de imprensa.

© 2018, © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. 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. ispartof: Journal of Children and Media vol:12 issue:3 pages:346-365 status: published

This article examines the construction of the choni (chavette) character through ironic and popular beauty tutorials created by Spanish vloggers and their connection with the economic recession in Spain. Our main objective is to discover the use of gender, cultural and class markers in this process and their relation to the dynamics of self-construction and self-differentiation existent on YouTube. In order to identify these characteristics, we are going to use a semiotic and Foucauldian discourse analysis based on the cultural approach to the chav phenomenon in the United Kingdom. The findings from our research illustrate how the figure of the choni is defined by the process of racialization and sexualization and by a lack of cultural competence.

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 ...

‘Successful ageing’ has been a controversial concept in cultural gerontology, prompting critiques of its inherent individualism, neglect of structural inequalities and promotion of neoliberal strategies of self-care. This article aims at developing the critique of its heteronormative underpinnings. Drawing on cultural gerontology, feminist theory and queer theory, a critique of the rhetoric and visual representation of ‘successful ageing’ is developed that demonstrates the extent to which ‘success’ is equated with enactments of normative, gendered heterosexuality. The intent is not to simply map the exclusion or marginalization of queer representations but to make visible the ways in which assumptions of heterosexuality organize the visual field of ‘successful ageing’. Using examples from ‘lifestyle’ magazines and health promotion materials aimed at mid-to-later life adults, I demonstrate how the promise of ‘heterohappiness’ shapes visions of anticipatory ageing. This article forms part of ‘Media and the Ageing Body’ Special Issue.

This essay examines South Asian American writer Jhumpa Lahiri’s literary engagement with the re-Orientalization and sexualization of a collective subject described as Indian diaspora within the context of contemporary consumer culture. The essay explores the relationship between Lahiri’s best-selling novel, The Namesake (2003) and its contemporary society by taking the point of view that diasporic literary writing is an example of a Foucauldian social apparatus—a new form of governmentality—that was used for the production of American nationalism after the events of 9/11. Here, we expose the material and ideological specificities that formulate a particular group of women as powerless consumers in the context of the post-cold war period. More precisely, we focus on the ideological elements of the routine consuming experiences of these women to unpack the manner in which the macropolitics of economic and political structures influence the micropolitics of the everyday experiences of Indian immigrants in the capitalist society. In Lahiri’s fiction, the Indian woman’s body—in its both first- and second- generation types—is figured as a deliberate site of economic and erotic excess that fundamentally complies with the contemporary heteronormative ideology of patriarchal capitalism, wherein the woman is essentially treated as the archetypal consumer. In effect, as the essay further argues, Lahiri’s fiction dances to the tune of Western marketing demands of production and consumption.

Public discourses and culturalist research often present patriarchal social control as the key element of minority youth’s family relations. They focus on conflicts related to young women’s sexual reputation when discussing Muslims and nonwestern minorities. Social control is often connected to honor-related violence and applied to assumptions of how young women are oppressed by their family members. In this article, we problematize such a connection and approach social control as a broad phenomenon that shapes social life and is exercised by several actors. The article elaborates a perspective of differences on social control, building on feminist theories of intersectionality, and distinguishing between different dimensions of social control (formal/informal, public/private). This theoretical framework is then applied to the empirical analysis of different elements of social control related to young women’s clothing and bodies. It is argued that the framework enables examination of the multifaceted dyna...

Sex and Chinese culture appear to be at odds with one another. Sex talk, however, has been on constant supply in Hong Kong media in the past decade. Considering that Chinese culture prefers to conceal, rather than reveal, sexual matters, this study probes into the phenomenon which sees the proliferation of sex-related debates and controversies in news media in this predominantly Chinese society. Two cases about photobooks of female models were used to illuminate the dominant discourses regarding female bodies in Hong Kong media. Since 2009, photobooks featuring teenage models in sexy poses have become standard provisions in the annual Hong Kong Book Fair. In 2015, a 6-year old girl participated in the production of a photobook. It soon caught the attention of critics who questioned the sexual connotations of a few pictures. Despite the decision to recall all copies, the incident provoked debates on child pornography and a rare discussion about sexual agency. This study has identified various discourses in mainstream news media and social media. It was found that morality and money are two keywords that best summarize how Hong Kong responds to sex matters, while changing media technologies are opening up space for alternative views.

Photographer Terry Richardson works in a digital aesthetic vernacular that looks more to underground hard-core pornography of yesteryear than traditions associated with the institutionalization of erotica, as associated with Playboy. And yet his images, in Kibosh and Terryworld, anticipate the contemporary public recalibration of ideas of intimacy as associated with social media, tally with contested ideas of the sexualization of female empowerment as associated with contested elements of third wave feminism, and can be read as a contemporary phase of Antonio Negri’s theory of art and immaterial labor in their evidencing of the affective labor on the part of the photographer himself. This critical commentary, the first such academic writing on Richardson, explores his work in these contexts and considers Richardson’s return to the figure (over abstraction) as evidencing and exploring of the nature of work, and the nascent eroticization of working relations, under Western neoliberal regimes.

Teen sexuality has been portrayed as dangerous (i.e., risk of pregnancy, STIs, sexual victimization for girls) yet pervasive in a growing post-feminist culture of sexualization. Adolescents are tasked with negotiating the difficult terrain of desire and danger as adults persistently construct contradictory discourses and panics around teen sexuality. This study examines a sample of online news media through a feminist intersectional lens, considering race, class, gender, and sexuality as mutually imbricated within dynamics of power, to analyze how contemporary news articles on teen sexuality construct adolescent sexuality at the intersection of neoliberalism and the sexual double standard. Our analysis revealed three particular moral panics around risk for girls: (1) pregnancy and STIs; (2) engagements in sexualization; and (3) sexual victimization. We illuminate how the sexual double standard and neoliberal notions of accountability reinstate and reproduce gendered, raced, and classed representat...

Sexualisation 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 (American Psychological Association, 2007) forcing a choice between “raunch or romance” (Bale, 2011). This article investigates the alleged distinction between romance and sexualisation, in the process challenging claims that the current crisis of sexualisation is a product of societal change in late modernity. Responding to a call to consider sexualisation from a hitherto neglected historical perspective (Egan and Hawkes, 2012), 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 sexualised clothing, contact with others, reputation, and social status, the paper argues that in both medieval and modern advice, discourses of romantic love and sexualisation are mutually dependent. In addition, similarities between medieval and modern advice reveal that our current sexualisation crisis is not solely a product of modern life, but is part of a longer pattern of gender normativity and inequality.

Can beautification empower women to act assertively? Some women report that beautification is an agentic and assertive act, whereas others find beautification to be oppressive and disempowering. To disentangle these effects, in the context of romantic attraction we conducted the first experimental tests of beautification—on psychological and behavioral assertiveness. Experiment 1 (N = 145) utilized a between-subjects design in which women used their own clothing, make-up, and accessories to adjust their appearance as they normally would for a “hot date” (beautification condition) or a casual day at home with friends (control condition). We measured implicit, explicit, and behavioral assertiveness, as well as positive affect and sexual motivation. Experiment 2 (N = 40) sought to conceptually replicate Experiment 1 using a within-subject design and different measures of assertiveness. Women completed measures of explicit assertiveness and assertive behavioral intentions in three domains, in whatever clothing they were wearing that day then again after extensively beautifying their appearance. In Experiment 1, we found that women demonstrated higher psychological assertiveness after beautifying their appearance, and that high sexual motivation mediated the effect of beautification on assertive behavior. All effects were independent of positive affect. Experiment 2 partially replicated Experiment 1. These experiments provide novel insight into the effects of women’s appearance-enhancing behaviors on assertiveness by providing evidence that beautification may positively affect assertiveness in women under some circumstances.

Galanakis, M. (2019). The sexualisation of public space. Yhdyskuntasuunnittelu-Lehti, 57(4), 53-58. https://doi.org/10.33357/ys.88631 Non

El presente trabajo plantea una reflexión sobre el papel de las relaciones de género, las masculinidades y las formas de sexualización en la investigación social. El contexto actual de expansión de los feminismos –globalmente, pero en Latinoamérica y Argentina puntualmente– amplifica el foco sobre las dimensiones sexuadas y generizadas de la investigación y, a la vez, pone de relieve un conjunto de tensiones en las relaciones de poder y afectos en el trabajo de campo. Tomando en cuenta este marco, aquí reflexiono sobre el trabajo de campo en dos investigaciones: una de varios años entre mujeres que ofrecen sexo comercial y otra, más reciente, sobre varones que pagan por sexo. Ambas investigaciones funcionan como una contracara. Ello me permite hacer foco en las interpelaciones sexuales, generizadas y el terreno de las emociones –entendido como un espacio que permite unir significaciones y cuerpos–, para intentar una lectura situada que ponga en juego las intersecciones de las perspectivas metodológica, epistemológica y política.