Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Sacred Sex Or Purely Prostitution? Women’S Health During The Covid-19 Pandemic In Roro Kembang Sore Tomb, Tulungagung, East Java, Indonesia, Diah Ariani Arimbi, Gesang Manggala Nugraha Putra, Nurul Fitri Hapsari

Journal of International Women's Studies

The practice of seeking pesugihan (a Javanese term for fortune or wealth, usually achieved by visiting a sacred burial ground of a historic prominent figure or mythical beings) through free-sex rituals is one of the factors that has increased the prevalence of HIV and AIDS, especially in the Tulungagung region of East Java, Indonesia. Often under the guise of tradition, this practice is maintained without proper supervision from governing agencies. To assess this problem, this study focuses on mapping the origin and distribution of free-sex myths in the pesugihan ritual, especially at the burial site of Nyi Roro Kembang Sore, …

Institutionalized Normative Heterosexuality : The Case Of Sexual Fluidity, Nicole Lamarre

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Since Alfred Kinsey’s early exploration of sexual behaviors, identities, and desires, there has been a proliferation of studies on what is generally regarded today as sexual fluidity. Inquiry into sexual histories that are neither wholly heterosexual nor homosexual (or even bisexual) has been incredibly well documented by this time. Generally, theories about sexual fluidity have taken one of two positions. The first camp interprets sexual variance as a sign of changing times and crumbling sexual and gender binaries. The second group of theorists postulate that sexual fluidity is neither new nor a particularly positive or liberating social trend. Instead of …

A Dumb Mouth From Which The Teeth Have Been Pulled, Anna Sofie Jespersen

Theses and Dissertations

This paper consists of a series of scenes in which various narratives with proximity to the truth plays out. within it I aim to articulate the dispersed subjectivity and forensic aspects to my work, as well looking at the perverseness in the desire for proximity to the fantasy, utilizing the self as a vehicle of desire.

Teaching Sexuality On The Catholics & Cultures Website: A Refreshing Turn Toward The Longue Durée, Marc Roscoe Loustau

Journal of Global Catholicism

I present a close reading of the Catholics & Cultures (C&C) website’s treatment of sexuality-related issues and discuss this material in relation to debates about how to teach sexuality in religious studies and theology classrooms. The C&C website occasionally and intermittently uses a typical “contemporary issues” approach that considers sexuality in relation to legal and legislative decisions and government policies. In contrast, country profiles consistently situate sexuality in relation processes like nation building, urbanization, and lay Catholics’ growing authority. My interpretation highlights the site’s decision to emphasize the longue durée, long-term and deep structural processes driving cultural and religious changes. …

Welcome To The New Dignity, Donna M. Hughes

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Pleasure, Politics, And Patriarchy: Women’S Intimacy In An Authoritarian Egypt, Sadia A. Saba

Senior Projects Spring 2021

This research project explores the question: To what extent is Egypt’s patriarchal household structure, especially in regards to its treatment of female sexual autonomy, a pillar of authoritarianism and therefore an obstacle to democracy? This paper takes a deep look into the intimate sexual lives of Egyptians and explores its implications for regime type in the country. Widespread practices such as virginity testing, hymen reconstruction, female genital mutilation, etc. along with phenomena such as sexual dysfunctions, community morality policing and other normalized behaviors demonstrate the different ways in which women’s sexual autonomies are widely hindered. This is the result of …

A Mule For The Patriarchy: Waking Up To The Harm Of Prostitution To Wives And Families, Andrea Heinz

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

I exited from commercial sexual exploitation eight years ago. Here, I share my reflections on how my actions directly impacted other women. I describe how my participation in the sex trade adversely affected the wives and girlfriends of sex buyers. I posit that sex sellers negatively impact these vicarious victims by subscribing to and endorsing “sex work” ideology. I assert that the collective good of all women is diminished by viewing sexual services as a market commodity. I stress that the collective good of all women is enhanced by assuming responsibility and compassion for one another.

Law School News: Bright Anniversaries In Uncertain Times 10/06/2020, Nicole Dyszlewski, Louisa Fredey

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Too Much And Too Graphic: Dr. Ruth Westheimer And The Struggle For 1980s And 1990s Feminism, Louisa Marshall

Voces Novae

During the second wave of feminism, spanning from the mid 1960s to the mid 1970s, the United States saw unprecedented levels of change regarding the status of women. However, the conservative administrations of Reagan and H.W. Bush that followed turned the tides against the feminist movement and towards re-establishing traditional gender roles. Trail blazing women, including sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer, dedicated their 20th century careers to combating traditional sentiment, thus changing gender roles forever.

Drew, Lala, Erika Chadbourne, Kate Brezak

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

LaLa Drew is a Black, queer, Georgia born, Maine native. Drew was raised in Gray, Maine with their adoptive family. Drew is a writer, poet, activist, performer, artist, teacher, and inspirational catalyst for change. Much of Drew’s community engagement focuses on raising awareness about the black identity and embodiment. They teach an after-school program in Lewiston, Maine where they help students learn about climate change, capitalism, and racism. Drew is also known for their work as a writer. Their work has been published in Ms. Magazine, The Maine Sunday Telegram, The Deepwater Column, and the Portland Phoenix. They write about …

"Roll" Models: Fat Sexuality And Its Representations In Pornographic Imagery, Leah Marie Turner

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to use specific fat pornographic imagery as a means to help us understand fat tropes and fetishization. The goal is to use our understandings of masculinity and race within fatness to create a possible launching point for further study within the field of fat sexuality studies. My rationale for writing such a paper is because fat sexuality studies is a field which has very little content, but potential for incredible scholarship which can impact not only our understandings of fat bodies, but of all bodies. The method for this thesis involves looking at specific …

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 …

Queering Sexual Development Frameworks : A Dynamic Systems Approach To Conceptualizing Other-Sex Sexuality Among Lesbians, Kolbe Franklin

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Essentialist models of sexual identity development have dominated social discourse and public opinion since the 1980s. This perspective posits that sexual orientation is an intrinsic, core identity that has roots in specific biological factors. Based on this perspective it is assumed that a person’s sexuality will manifest in a linear fashion throughout the life course. Notably, this model positions individuals with same-sex sexual attractions and behaviors as specific “types” of people. While this perspective has become largely institutionalized in public opinion, within academic research on sexual orientation, there has been little consensus on the veracity of this model. Specifically, the …

Fear, Power, & Teeth (2007), Olivia Hockenbroch

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Vagina dentata is the myth of the toothed vagina; in most iterations, it serves as a warning to men that women’s vaginas must be conquered to be safe for a man’s sexual pleasure (Koehler, 2017). The vagina dentata myth has been carried forth from ancient ancestors in numerous cultures all over the world (Koehler). It is one of many destructive cultural myths that guides discourses about sex and women’s bodies. In this paper, I explore a recent articulation of the myth, the 2007 film Teeth, and I argue that in this film, the vagina dentata is made more complicated. While …

Contact, Christine M. Stevralia

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

A year after Alyssa Milano’s tweet launched the #MeToo movement, survivors of sexual assault are being called ‘accusers’ in the media, and public opinion is swinging in favor of guilty men. #MeToo raised awareness but not understanding. What is rape? What is consent? As evidenced by the #MeToo movement and the backlash against it, clearly, as a society, we don’t know. Contact is a work of Creative Nonfiction that uses scenes and details from the narrator’s personal experiences to illuminate the micro-negotiations that occur in sex and seduction.

In a world where women are still expected to stay small and …

How The Catholic Church Came To Oppose Birth Control, Lisa Mcclain

History Faculty Publications and Presentations

This month marks the 50th anniversary of the landmark “Humanae Vitae,” Pope Paul VI’s strict prohibition against artificial contraception, issued in the aftermath of the development of the birth control pill. At the time, the decision shocked many Catholic priests and laypeople. Conservative Catholics, however, praised the pope for what they saw as a confirmation of traditional teachings.

Behind Closed Doors: Unpacking College Students’ Complex Relationships With Pornography Consumption, Samantha K. Saucier

Honors College

This thesis is a quantitative and qualitative study of University of Maine students attitudes and consumption habits of pornography. It contains a literature review of anti-pornography feminism from the Second Wave, as well as an overview of sex-positive and sex-critical theories of pornography from more recent years. The goal of the thesis is to understand how sex-negative and/or sex-positive ideas have or have not permeated college student’s understanding of pornography. Over 800 students were surveyed about pornography consumption through the Psychology Department’s Fall prescreen. 4 students from the survey, who all happened to be women, were interviewed about their relationships …

[Not] Buying It: Prostitution As Unwanted Sex, Rebecca Whisnant

Rebecca Whisnant

Noting the relative invisibility of prostitution buyers, or Johns, in discussions of the morality of prostitution, this article criticizes Johns’ behavior on the grounds that they are culpably involved in causing the typical harms of prostitution in the lives of the women whom they pay for sex. Those harms are, at bottom, the result of being habitually subjected to unwanted sex, and they are exacerbated rather than mitigated by such sex being bought and paid for. Efforts to normalize and legalize sex-buying should therefore be resisted.

Breaking The Cycle Of Silence : The Significance Of Anya Seton's Historical Fiction., Lindsey Marie Okoroafo (Jesnek)

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the feminist significance of Anya Seton’s historical novels, My Theodosia (1941), Katherine (1954), and The Winthrop Woman (1958). The two main goals of this project are to 1.) identify and explain the reasons why Seton’s historical novels have not received the scholarly attention they are due, and 2.) to call attention to the ways in which My Theodosia, Katherine, and The Winthrop Woman offer important feminist interventions to patriarchal social order. Ultimately, I argue that My Theodosia, Katherine, and The Winthrop Woman deserve more scholarly attention because they are significant contributions to women’s …

It's Not A Myth, Annie Fisher, Kelly Gough, Sydney Paley, Sarah White

Women’s Studies, Feminist Zine Archive

No abstract provided.

A Feminist's Guide To Sex Education, Alana Freitas, Hanna Ohaus, Courtney Cummings

Women’s Studies, Feminist Zine Archive

No abstract provided.

[Not] Buying It: Prostitution As Unwanted Sex, Rebecca Whisnant

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Noting the relative invisibility of prostitution buyers, or Johns, in discussions of the morality of prostitution, this article criticizes Johns’ behavior on the grounds that they are culpably involved in causing the typical harms of prostitution in the lives of the women whom they pay for sex. Those harms are, at bottom, the result of being habitually subjected to unwanted sex, and they are exacerbated rather than mitigated by such sex being bought and paid for. Efforts to normalize and legalize sex-buying should therefore be resisted.

The Trouble With 'Bureaucracy', Deborah L. Brake

Articles

Despite heightened public concern about the prevalence of sexual assault in higher education and the stepped-up efforts of the federal government to address it, new stories from survivors of sexual coercion and rape, followed by institutional betrayal, continue to emerge with alarming frequency. More recently, stories of men found responsible and harshly punished for such conduct in sketchy campus procedures have trickled into the public dialogue, forming a counter-narrative in the increasingly polarized debate over what to do about sexual assault on college campuses. Into this frayed dialogue, Jeannie Suk and Jacob Gersen have contributed a provocative new article criticizing …

Sexing While A Survivor: Black Queer Desire, Je-Shawna C. Wholley

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

The vast sexual exploitation of Black queer women is under addressed by therapeutic and family counseling experts alike. Scholarship on the subject shows that a history of sexual trauma can have direct negative implications on women’s sexuality and ability to access sexual pleasure. However, therapeutic and family counseling interventions lack an intersectional analysis that directly address the unique experiences of Black women – and even further, Black queer women, who are survivors. In this research study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with Black queer, lesbian, bisexual and same-gender-loving survivors of sexual assault to assess how they located agency, empowerment, and pleasure …

Oscuridad Unraveled, Orlinda Pacheco

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Oscuridad Unraveled is a compilation of many stylistic poems. There are narrative poems interspersed with somewhat surreal poems that tell a story about the Oscuridad as a child and adult. As Oscuridad’s childhood story is unfolding so is her adult story causing a cyclical motion within reader and writer, or maybe a rollercoaster with many loops and turns. Nonetheless, it begins with poems that shaped a small innocent girl and leads to the creation of the adult woman who cannot have children, who embraces the passion of being “the other” and luxury of sex without consequence. This is a story …

Rhetoric And Politics Of The Female Body And Sex In Two Contemporary Chinese Tv Drama Serials: The Place Where Dreams Start And Blow The North Wind, Cai Shenshen

Journal of International Women's Studies

The discourse of body and sex has long been a taboo subject for Chinese females from time immemorial, and despite the Chinese Communist Party’s stated policies and legislation of “female equality”, the situation for females after the communist takeover improved only marginally and was most often just ‘window-dressing’. However, with the end of the Cultural Revolution and the beginning of reforms to ‘open up China’ and the growing importance of modern Western cultural thought, there appeared a gradual change in the Chinese people’s attitude towards discussions on body and sex. People began to understand the ideas of femininity, female desire …

What's Love Got To Do With It?: Family, Sex, And Domestic Violence In Contemporary Irish Women's Fiction, Mary Ryan

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

No abstract provided.

Gender Inequalities In Buha (Kigoma) And The Role Of Gender Mainstreaming To Alliviate Them, Conrad John Masabo Mr.

Conrad John Masabo Mr.

Gender issues and debates on gender are ever growing to dominate the local and international politics, law, economy and social policies. The debate are hot and even now penetrating to the formerly spheres that were for quite long left un-penetrated such as those structures of religion. Gender can be defined as the social determined roles and relations between males and females. In this regard, these social constructed roles and relations have resulted into tremendous gender inequalities that need to be addressed anew with a different methodology or strategy. They call for critical and purposely attention from anyone who hopes to …

Introduction: The Sexual Body, Shelly J. Eversley, Jennifer L. Morgan

Publications and Research

Introduction to the special issue, "The Sexual Body," edited by Shelly Eversley and Jennifer L. Morgan.

The Source Of Hip, Shelly J. Eversley

Publications and Research

This essay situates Norman Mailer's "The White Negro" (1957) and Jack Keroauc's The Subterraneans (1958) in the context of 1950s racial integration and the transformative potential of interracial sex. It argues that both authors' terms, "beat" and "hip," depend on the idea of "the Negro" whose status allows them to imagine a counter culture essential to their midcentury articulations of individual integrity and creative freedom.