Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Love On The Spectrum: Djuna Barnes’S Case Against Categorization In Nightwood, Kaitlyn A. Alford

Masters Theses

Djuna Barnes’s Nightwood is a challenging and beautiful text that continues to confound readers almost 100 years after its original publication. Though the text is often read as a “lesbian” novel, I consider the possibilities available when we read this text instead with a more open queerness in mind. By looking at the novel’s treatment of image, time, history, gender, sexuality, and identity, a new way of reading is revealed which rejects moves of taxonomization and categorization. This thesis explores how Barnes challenges dominant modes of representation and understanding, not to be a simple contrarian, but to present a new …

"You're So Pretty For A [Insert Racial Slur]" - A Study On Hookup Culture At A Small Pwi, Simran Subramaniam

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Pornography, The Lgbtq+ Community, And The Queer Alternative, Rebekah Gredler

Student Research Submissions

Pornography is a complicated and controversial topic. Much has been said about how porn may or may not affect individuals, but very little has been done in the academic community on how pornography affects the LGBTQ+ community. In debates of censorship and regulation of porn, their voices are often ignored in public debate in favor of straight, feminist, or puritanical, religious discourses. This is problematic because pornography, particularly queer pornography, has done much for the evolution and self-affirmation of the LGBTQ+ community. It would be remiss if such positive effects of such a controversial exploit were to go unacknowledged. In …

Welcome To The New Dignity, Donna M. Hughes

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Making Space For Themselves: Lesbian Separatism In Western Australia, Amber-Lia Van Aurich

Theses : Honours

This study documented and reconstructed the stories of lesbians who experienced separatism during the 1970s and 1980s in Western Australia. This era of history has received little attention, particularly the Western Australian context, therefore sharing these marginalised women’s stories addresses the knowledge gap and provides a sense of place and identity in the past. I aimed to explore Western Australian examples of lesbian separatism in addition to aspects of identity, connection, community, and culture. The research involved a narrative study of stories by six informants who self-identify as lesbian, collected in multiple one-hour interviews in situ and reconstructed into a …

“We’Re Here, We’Re Queer, We Will Not Live In Fear!”: A Content Analysis Exploring Gender Disparity In The Public Reappropriation Of Lgbtq+ Slurs, Nicolas Hall

Capstone Showcase

As minorities, members of the LGBTQ+ community have faced many hardships throughout history, such as the use of language as a weapon against them. However, this research explores the public display of linguistic reappropriation of LGBTQ+ derogatory language and terms within the community. Throughout history, the use of slurs (e.g. faggot and dyke) and their social definitions have shifted from having no connection to the community to directly affected these individuals. These terms have been used to demonize members of the LGBTQ+ community for decades. Despite this reality, there are some scholars who suggest that these terms are being reappropriated, …

The Notions Of The "Closet" And The "Secret" In Oscar Wilde's, The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Jessica Maria Oliveira

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis will discuss the notions of the “closet” and “secret” within Oscar Wilde’s, The Picture of Dorian Gray, as well as offer a clear and precise definition of queer theory to assist in elucidating many of the concepts being discussed. Close reading techniques will be utilized to further uncover the metaphoric, symbolic, and otherwise figurative importance of certain aspects of The Picture of Dorian Gray and supporting texts. Through Judith Butler’s conceptualization of sex and gender, as well as Jacques Derrida’s interpretation of the “secret”, this paper will explicate the intricacies of Wilde’s work and unveil queered aspects …

Transnational Sex-Positive Play Parties: The Sexual Politics Of Care For Community-Making At A Kinky Salon, Christina Bazzaroni

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

To date, feminist geographers and geographers of sexualities have yet to fully interrogate post sexual revolution society. In this dissertation I examine the politics of sex-positive play parties, through the case study of Kinky Salon (KS) – a global organization that claims to catalyze a contemporary sex culture revolution. This project expands on previous feminist geography and geographies of sexualities scholarship centering queer, kinky sex, demonstrating that non-normative sexual practices are informed by and contribute to sexual revolution legacies. I extend feminist geographies’ theorizing of affect and emotion to show how sexual intimacies are care-work, with the emotional power to …

Race, Sexuality, And Masculinity On The Down Low, Stephen Kochenash

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In a so-called post-racial America, a new gay identity has flourished and come into the limelight. However, in recent years, researchers have concluded that not all men who have sex with other men (MSM) self-identify as gay, most noticeably a large population of Black men. It is possible that a tainted history of Black enslavement in this country that is inextricably linked with ideas of space, surveillance, subversion, and survival inform a Black male’s self-identification as being “on the down low” (DL). This begs the question: What does mainstream society view as gay-ness and how is the DL constructed …

Asexuality: To Include Or Not To Include A Slice Of Cake In The Lgbtq+ Community, Devin Oliva-Farrell

Tredway Library Prize for First-Year Research

Due to the growing number of sexual orientations and genders that have joined the LGBTQ+ community, a debate has sparked on whether all of these should be included. Specifically, this paper analyzes the debate on whether asexuality should be included or excluded from the group. The results from including or excluding asexuality will have drastic effects on the LGBTQ+ community, self-identified asexuals, and society as a whole when it comes to examining sexualities and genders.

This is illustrated in the following ways: 1) examining the definition of asexuality; 2) exploring the debates surrounding its inclusion or exclusion; 3) highlighting the …

Christians’ Cut: Popular Religion And The Global Health Campaign For Medical Male Circumcision In Swaziland, Casey Golomski, Sonene Nyawo

Anthropology

Swaziland faces one of the worst HIV epidemics in the world and is a site for the current global health campaign in sub-Saharan Africa to medically circumcise the majority of the male population. Given that Swaziland is also majority Christian, how does the most popular religion influence acceptance, rejection or understandings of medical male circumcision? This article considers interpretive differences by Christians across the Kingdom’s three ecumenical organisations, showing how a diverse group people singly glossed as ‘Christian’ in most public health acceptability studies critically rejected the procedure in unity, but not uniformly. Participants saw medical male circumcision’s promotion and …

A Queer Vegan Manifesto, Rasmus R. Simonsen

Rasmus R Simonsen, PhD

What does it mean for a person to declare her or his veganism to the world? How does the transition from one diet to another impact one’s sense of self? Veganism challenges the foundational character of how we “act out” our selves—not least of all in the context of sexuality and gender. In my paper, I am thus interested in the potential of veganism to disrupt the “natural” bond between gender formations and the consumption of animal products, as this relates to social and cultural genealogies. Consequently, I will explore a queer form of veganism that affirms the radical impact …

The Experience Of “Bottoming”: Considerations For Identity And Learning, Craig M. Mcgill, Joshua Collins

South Florida Education Research Conference

Bottoms—Gay men who prefer to be penetrated, sexually—are more stigmatized than other gay men, and may develop and experience identities differently than other gay, bisexual, or heterosexual men. This paper explores intrinsic dispositions and extrinsic motivations that may lead bottoms to perform and embody psychosocial and sexual identities in intimate, interpersonal, and social contexts.

The Queer Truth, Chelsea E. Broe

SURGE

I remember learning about intersexuality (then called hermaphrodism) for the first time in my health class when I was twelve years old. In that lesson, my teacher mentioned that when a child is born intersex, the parents will likely choose a binary sex (male or female) for the child, have the child undergo sex reassignment surgery, and raise the child to fit the corresponding gender. My teacher went on to explain that sometimes the parents pick the “wrong” sex for their child, and the child grows up feeling like he or she should be the “opposite” gender. Implied in this …

Choosing Sides: The Gender Dilemma, Center For Public Service

SURGE

“You can’t check a box between male and female; you are either a boy or a girl.”

My professor makes this statement often. It is pretty easy to see why he would use gender in this example: he is trying to give us a simple, understandable explanation of a binary. When explaining the binary, he just wants to show that it is a two-option classification: from his experience, male and female fits. [excerpt]

Mobile Activism: What Your Profile Picture Says About You, Laura J. Koenig

SURGE

I know you’ve all been seeing this image all of your Facebook news feeds. All of the sudden a few weeks ago it became everyone’s profile picture. People were sharing it, along with other images, explaining why Prop. 8 and the Defense Of Marriage Act should be repealed, and were generally expressing their support of marriage equality. [excerpt]

The Angel And The Imp: The Duncan Sisters’ Performances Of Race And Gender, Jocelyn Buckner

Theatre Faculty Articles and Research

From 1923 to 1959 Vivian and Rosetta Duncan performed the show Topsy and Eva in front of thousands of audiences in the United States and abroad. This essay examines how the Duncan Sisters’ appropriation of blackness through a yin and yang performance of black and white womanhood, their sexualized but ultimately infantilizing routine as young girls, and their take on anarchistic comedy resulted in a particular spin on age, gender, race, and sexuality that reinforced their privilege as white women even while it pushed the boundaries of acceptable femininity in the swiftly shifting American culture of the first half of …