Sexuality Studies

First published in 1988, this volume redefined the anthropological study of menstrual customs. Examining cultures as diverse as long-house dwellers in North Borneo, African farmers, Welsh housewives, and postindustrial American workers, it challenged the previously widespread image of a universal "menstrual taboo" as well as the common assumption of universal female subordination that underlay it. Offering feminist perspectives on comparative gender politics and symbolism, the book has interested students and scholars in anthropology, women's studies, religion, and comparative health systems. Originally listed as a “Notable” book in Choice, it later won the first Most Enduring Edited Collection Prize, awarded by the Council for the Anthropology of Reproduction (a unit of the American Anthropological Association.). The book continues to be taught regularly around the world.

Research on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movements has accelerated in recent years. We take stock of this literature with a focus on the United States. Our review adopts a historical approach, surveying findings on three protest cycles: gay liberation and lesbian feminism, queer activism, and marriage equality. Existing scholarship focuses primarily on oscillations of the movement's collective identity between emphasizing similarities to the heterosexual mainstream and celebrating differences. We contrast earlier movement cycles mobilized around difference with efforts to legalize same-sex marriage. Our review highlights the turning points that led to shifts in protest cycles, and we trace the consequences for movement outcomes. Scholarship will advance if researchers recognize the path-dependent nature of social movements and that sameness and difference are not oppositional, static, or discrete choices. We conclude by recommending directions for future research.

Clients from all over the world hire Indian women to bear their children for a fraction of the cost of surrogacy elsewhere with little to no government oversight or regulation. In the first detailed ethnography of India’s surrogacy industry, Amrita Pande visits clinics, lives in surrogacy hostels and speaks with surrogates, their families, clients, doctors, brokers, and hostel matrons to capture the full mechanics of the business and the experiences of the laborers within it. From recruitment to training to delivery, Pande’s research focuses on the intersection of production and reproduction and its reflection of India’s larger labor regime. Yet her work also showcases the strategies surrogates deploy to retain control over their bodies and reproductive futures.. Pande ultimately advocates for a better understanding of this complex labor market, envisioning an international model of fair-trade surrogacy founded on openness and transparency in all business, medical, and emotional exchanges.

“Love hurts”— as the saying goes — and a certain amount of pain and difficulty in intimate relationships is unavoidable. Sometimes it may even be beneficial, since adversity can lead to personal growth, self-discovery, and a range of other components of a life well-lived. But other times, love can be downright dangerous. It may bind a spouse to her domestic abuser, draw an unscrupulous adult toward sexual involvement with a child, put someone under the insidious spell of a cult leader, and even inspire jealousy-fueled homicide. How might these perilous devotions be diminished? The ancients thought that treatments such as phlebotomy, exercise, or bloodletting could “cure” an individual of love. But modern neuroscience and emerging developments in psychopharmacology open up a range of possible interventions that might actually work. These developments raise profound moral questions about the potential use—and misuse—of such anti-love biotechnology. In this essay we describe a number of prospective love-diminishing interventions, and offer a preliminary ethical framework for dealing with them responsibly should they arise.

This essay employs a coalitional perspective to revisit the Radicalesbians’ 1970 manifesto, “The Woman Identified Woman,” and to examine the circulation of its constitutive rhetoric of woman-identification within lesbian-feminist activist communities during the 1970s. I argue that lesbian-feminists utilized a pivoting strategy, a horizontal mode of working the space between identities, to leverage coalitional relationships and the woman identified woman as resources to craft alternative identity constructions that resisted woman-identification, challenged interlocking oppressions, and increased lesbian visibility within those respective communities. This analysis centralizes dynamic movement relationships and loyalties to approach the established narrative about lesbian-feminists in women's liberation from a new perspective and reexamine the constitutive rhetoric of woman-identification. Revisiting lesbian-feminist rhetoric brings the voices from an important archive to bear on feminist and queer history while centralizing coalitional relationships, offering a fruitful perspective from which to analyze social movement rhetoric and reexamine an important artifact in the feminist rhetorical canon.

Lucha libre, a form of exhibition wrestling, has recently gained popularity in Bolivia, thanks to mixed-gender matches featuring traditionally-dressed women known as the cholitas luchadoras. Within their matches, the act of kissing is often used as a form of humiliating an opponent. This article explores the convergence of eroticism and humiliation in these kisses as an entry point for a broader understanding of the deployment of power in the Bolivian context. Taking both the symbolic language of bodies in the ring and audience discourses about that action, I explore how associations between humiliation and demasculinization may reinforce the potency of masculinity as a position of power. Further, seeing the chola as representative of the Bolivian nation helps us to understand the ways that humiliation works as a recognizable trope for Bolivian audiences, lending import to these seemingly superficial performances.

Este trabalho analisa estratégias e marcos discursivos desenvolvidos recentemente pelo
feminismo na América Latina para enfrentar a ação desenrolada pelo fundamentalismo
religioso no campo dos direitos reprodutivos na América Latina, e em particular em torno
da controvérsia sobre o aborto. A partir dos casos de México, Colômbia e Brasil, se apontam
características e estratégias da mobilização conservadora na região e se analisam as
respostas dadas pelo movimento feminista em cada país para disputar o avanço dessas
forças na esfera pública, com ênfase no desenvolvimento de argumentos bioéticos, de
um discurso alternativo inserido no campo religioso, e de estratégias gradualistas e de
litígio estratégico no âmbito nacional e internacional. A interação entre feminismo e
fundamentalismo é analisada como uma dinâmica entre movimento e contramovimento,
com base na teoria dos movimentos sociais.

Article first published online: 3 SEP 2015
DOI: 10.1111/isqu.12212

This article outlines two theoretical and methodological approaches that take a queer intellectual curiosity about figurations of “homosexuality” and “the homosexual” as their core. These offer ways to conduct international relations research on “the homosexual” and on international relations figurations more broadly, e.g. from “the woman” to “the human rights holder.” The first approach provides a method for analyzing figurations of “the homosexual” and sexualized orders of international relations that are inscribed in IR as either normal or perverse. The second approach offers instructions on how to read plural figures and plural logics that signify as normal and/or perverse (and which might be described as queer). Together, they propose techniques, devices and research questions to investigate singular and plural IR figurations –  including but not exclusively those of “the homosexual” – that map international phenomena as diverse as colonialism, human rights, and the formation of states and international communities in ways that exceed IR survey research techniques that, for example, incorporate “the homosexual” into IR research through a “sexuality variable.”

In an oft-cited and widely critiqued essay, the historian of British empire, Ronald , claimed that "the expansion of Europe was not only a matter of 'Christianity and commerce,' it was also a matter of copulation and concubinage." To this he added, "Sexual opportunities were seized with imperious confi dence" (p.35). In Empire and Sexuality: The British Experience ( 1990 ), Hyam further developed his contention that the sexual opportunities available abroad to Europe ' s empire builders were more than just a perk of imperial expansion; they were, he boldly claimed, what sustained the large numbers of European men who fanned out across the globe in the service of empire. Freed from repressive Victorian morality codes at home, European men could fulfi ll their libidinous desires with the colonies ' sexually decadent "natives." Hyam ' s explorations of the complex role played by sex in the making of empire are characterized by a marked interest in what interracial sexual relations meant for British men and for imperialism. As one of his critics points out, his "imperialist centered approach" causes him to take "the position of the white male colonialists, imperial administrators and soldiers who staffed the British Empire, and he fails to link his discussion of sex and empire with any analysis of the power relations in the various situations which he describes"; nor does he offer any analysis of the "providers" of sexual opportunity -colonized women and girls, as well as colonized men and boys ( Berger 1988 : 84; for Hyam ' s response to Berger, see Hyam 1988 ; for other critiques, see Strobel 1992 ;. Hyam ' s approach, which perpetuates the erasure of the colonized found in outdated colonial histories, where Europeans, as agents of the "civilizing mission," were the center of attention, is particularly problematic precisely because interracial sexual relation-A Companion to Diaspora and Transnationalism, First Edition. Edited by Ato Quayson and Girish Daswani.

Religious Americans, and conservative Protestants in particular, have historically been the most ardent opponents of pornography's production, dissemination, and use. And yet, while religiously committed and theologically conservative Americans are generally less likely to view pornography than others, the difference is often not as great or consistent as one might suppose given their strong moral stance. Drawing on insights from religious incongruence theory, this study considers whether religious commitment and theological conservatism predict a greater incongruence between what Americans say they believe about pornography morally and whether they actually watch it. Data are taken from the nationally representative 2006 Portraits of American Life Study (N=2,279). Analyses show that greater religious service attendance and prayer frequency are predictive of American men (not women) affirming that viewing pornography is " always morally wrong " while still viewing it in the previous year. Evangelicals and other sectarian Protestants are also the religious traditions most likely to believe pornography is always morally wrong while also viewing it. Findings ultimately suggest that religious commitment and affiliation with theological conservatism may influence Americans (primarily men) to oppose pornography more strongly in principal than reflected in actual practice. Data limitations and implications for future research are discussed.

This chapter of 'Bodies Out of Rule' (2014) considers John Greyson's 'Zero Patience' -- a 1993 musical satire on the early days of the AIDS epidemic -- in the context of the epidemiological and immunity discourses inherent in neoliberal biopolitics.

For those entering the field of sexuality studies, there is often little advice or guidance on the many facets of the work, some of which are pleasurable and some of which are dangerous. Drawing from our personal and professional conflicts surrounding our work as feminist psychologists and sociologists studying women's sexuality, we extend Carole Vance's (1984) claims about pleasure and danger by arguing that, for the sex researcher, pleasure and danger are in fact inverted. That which should give us pleasure (e.g. having our work promoted to the public; teaching critical material about sexuality; thinking deeply about our personal relationships) ends up feeling dangerous, and that which should feel dangerous (e.g. saying and doing and working on taboo things; calling out homophobia, racism, classism, and sexism) ends up giving us pleasure. We examine several areas where we experience personal and professional costs and benefits of doing feminist sex research, including relationships with partners, communication with research participants, pedagogical challenges and conflicts, the interface between the sex-researcher identity and university/institutional practices, and, finally, our interface with the public world and the mass media. In doing so, we aim to use our personal experiences to highlight just a few of the areas that emerging sexuality researchers may encounter.

An opportunity to bring together four pieces from four renowned Australian academic-activists that specifically address how social, political, legal, religious, health, educational and cultural systems and their institutions impact on the health and well-being, human rights and sexual citizenship of multicultural-multifaith (MCMF) LGBTIQ individuals, families and communities. We use the term academic-activists deliberately as these
four contributors theorise, analyse and take action in health, law, education and religion.
Thus, in addressing the intersectionality of identities and positionalities, the contributors present papers that intersect with and border academic theory, research, community engagement, policy and programme implementation, and personal reflection. Thus, the purpose of the four contributions in this Special Section are to develop an understanding of:
. the perspectives, realities and needs of MCMF LGBTIQ subjects and how health, legal, educational and religious systems and institutions are culpable in their invisibilisation, marginalisation and invalidation;
. future recognition, and directions in policies, resourcing and strategies in these four institutions that would improve the health and well-being of MCMF LGBTIQ subjects, their families and communities; and
. agentic strategies of resistance, reconstruction and self-determination transforming MCMF LGBTIQ subjectivities

This paper investigates the medical and legal procedures and policies of sex reassignment in Canada and the United States. Due to restrictive medical discourses of transsexuality, gender-conforming trans persons are able to access treatment, such as hormone therapy and gender-confirming surgeries, while nonnormative trans persons are often denied services. Transnormative narratives of transition often reinforce medical discourses of what it means to be trans and how to be trans. These narratives simultaneously legitimize transsexuality for those who can conform to the dominant narrative while delegitimizing gender variance and nonconforming trans persons.

Available at: http://www.transformativestudies.org/publications/theory-in-action-the-journal-of-tsi/past-issues/volume-8-number-2-april-30-2015/

About the book
Offering critical response to a range of popular debates on children's sexual cultures, this ground-breaking volume challenges preconceived and accepted theories regarding children, sexuality and sexualisation. The contributions to this collection offer compelling accounts from a range of disciplinary fields and transnational contexts to present original empirical research findings, which offer
new ways to make sense of children's sexual cultures across complex political, social and cultural terrains. Organised into five sections, this book addresses the history of young
sexualities research and theory across disciplinary boundaries; pre-teen sexualities and a rethinking of sexual agency and innocence; how space, place and history shape young queer
sexualities; the representation of young sexualities in the popular cultural imaginary; and the role of new media and digital technology in the formation of children and young
people's sexual cultures.

Research consistently shows a negative association between religiosity and viewing pornography. While scholars typically assume that greater religiosity leads to less frequent pornography use, none have empirically examined whether the reverse could be true: that greater pornography use may lead to lower levels of religiosity over time. I test for this possibility using two waves of the nationally-representative Portraits of American Life Study. Persons who viewed pornography at all at Wave 1 reported more religious doubt, lower religious salience, and lower prayer frequency at Wave 2 compared to those who never viewed porn. Considering the effect of porn viewing frequency, viewing porn more often at Wave 1 corresponded to increases in religious doubt and declining religious salience at Wave 2. However, the effect of earlier pornography use on later religious service attendance and prayer is curvilinear—religious service attendance and prayer decline to a point and then increase at higher levels of pornography viewing. Testing for interactions reveal that all effects appear to hold regardless of gender. Findings suggest that viewing pornography may lead to declines in some dimensions of religiosity, but at more extreme levels may actually stimulate, or at least be conducive to, greater religiosity along other dimensions.

This article focuses on the little known phenomenon of heterosexual men’s participation in gay  sport clubs.  It explores the relationship between straight men joining gay teams in a context of changing masculinities. Through 12 interviews with a diverse range of self-identified straight men living in the U.K., the research demonstrates how traditional definitions of masculinity are possibly shifting, as are their attitudes towards sexuality, as a result of their involvement with gay sport organizations.  Their experiences and stories reveal how their participation in gay sport settings may contribute to diminished cultural homophobia, in line with other recent studies.  Initial stereotypes and perceptions of gay athletes were dismantled, resulting in clear attitudinal shifts toward homosexuality.  The men interviewed had no one single conceptualization of masculinity, and instead showed a more pluralized and inclusive version of masculinity.  While their participation in gay clubs can largely be seen as a positive and transgressive act, their involvement still has some limitations.

There is something queer (by which we mean strange) going on in the scholarly practice of political science. Why are political science scholars continuing to disregard issues of gender and sexuality—and in particular queer theory—in their lecture theatres, seminar rooms, textbooks, and journal articles? Such everyday issues around common human experience are considered by other social scientists to be central to the practice and theory of social relations. In this article we discuss how these commonplace issues are being written out of (or, more accurately, have never been written in to) contemporary political science. First, we present and discuss our findings on citation practice in order to evidence the queerness of what does and does not get cited in political science scholarship. We then go on to critique this practice before suggesting a broader agenda for the analysis of the political based on a queer theoretical approach.

Brno, Czech Republic is amongst the most liberal of cities and yet, but few know that in Brno as early as during the interwar period there were unique spaces dedicated to sexual diversity, various gay and lesbian initiatives came into existence, and that the first postwar semi-official / semi-legal Czech gay business was opened here. Also, Brno hosted the first big Czech "queer march", and the most significant Czech queer film festival was born there. This article aims to examine whether and, if so how, this diversity is mirrored in Brno's "queer venues", which we have contextualized within the broader perspective of geographies of sexualities, using semi-structured interviews. Our goal was to understand the locally-specific forms of socio-spatial organization and how they influence local non-heterosexual people, including their effects on sexual orientation and/or sexual identities in everyday negotiations. Our main findings include the identification of the characteristic features of Brno "queer enterprises", the elucidation of their relative spatial concentration, and the physical and visual unobtrusiveness associated with the degree of use of "queer symbolism". Our findings clarify the specific homonormative, and to a certain extent heteronormative, settings of local queer venues, which in the context of gay commodification significantly influence not only the form and degree of acceptance of non-heterosexual people in Brno, but also their mutual relationships, the possibilities of self-realization and new forms of exclusion. Even though we cannot find a "gay neighbourhood" in Brno, we can speak of a "queer-friendly city".

Prior research has documented shifts in sexual orientation identity, attractions, and partnering behavior over time and social context, commonly referred to as sexual fluidity (Diamond, 2008). Social contextual factors may include relationship status and type of relationship, and these may be particularly salient in polyamorous communities where multiple relationships and some degree of fluidity are common. Also common, and potentially important for experiences of fluidity, are nonheteronormativities and nonmononormativities. This study aimed to explore the sexual trajectories (experiences of sexual identity, sexual attractions, and sexual and romantic partnering) over time in people of diverse relational identities and genders. A sample of 55 polyamorous or otherwise consensually nonmonogamous individuals and 61 monoamorous individuals completed online questionnaires regarding sexual identity, attractions, and partnering behaviors at two time points approximately 7 months apart. Relational identity had a number of implications for sexuality. Polyamorous individuals were more likely than monoamorous participants to identify their sexuality in nonpolar and nontraditional ways. Polyamorous women shifted attraction ratings over time at a higher rate than polyamorous men or monoamorous women or men, and differences in present and ideal attractions at Time 1 partially predicted these shifts. Results indicate the importance of relational identity alongside sexual identity and gender in sexuality research.

The study uses an eclectic framework and through an intersectional analysis and use of narratives explores the meaning of janitorial work, the gender division of labour (GDL), the unions and organizing for janitors engaged in industrial cleaning for a big cleaning company, Pluto, in Toronto. Pluto was organized by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in 2006. The study is based on the organizing drive for Pluto and uses participant observation and interview methods. Intersectional analysis is useful in understanding the worker's perceptions of the racialized, gendered and classed constitution of cleaning work as 'dirty' and their resistance to these constructs. We explore GDL in industrial cleaning and the construction of women's work as 'light duty' and men's work as 'heavy duty'. We conclude that union membership is important not only for material benefits of the janitors but also for their alternative identity construction. However, there is a persistence of GDL and gender pay equity is not addressed seriously in the organizing drive or upon organizing.

This article examines indigenous women wrestlers (luchadoras) in La Paz, Bolivia, and the ways in which they creatively use tourists’ assumptions that they are “traditional” peoples performing in “exotic” events. Since 2001, indigenous women have participated in lucha libre—a form of wrestling that draws its lineage from wrestling in Mexico and the United States. Travelers often assume it represents a traditional form, however, because the luchadoras base their wrestling personas and costuming on chola market women. I explore how the luchadoras utilize these perceptions and the resulting media attention to claim cosmopolitan identities. Not only do they gain social status and mobility, but they also see themselves as positive representatives of Bolivian women for a global audience.

Este artículo examina las mujeres luchadoras en La Paz, Bolivia, y cómo éstas usan creativamente los supuestos por parte de los turistas de ser “tradicionales” y de que están actuando en eventos “exóticos.” Desde 2001, mujeres indígenas participan en la lucha libre —una forma de lucha procedente de México y los Estados Unidos. Sin embargo, los viajeros, a menudo, asumen que es una tradición porque las luchadoras se presentan con los trajes de las cholas vendedoras. En este artículo exploro cómo las luchadoras utilizan esas percepciones y la atención resultante de los medios de comunicación para reclamar identidades cosmopolitas. Con ello no solo mejoran su posición y ganan movilidad social, sino también se ven a sí mismas como representantes de las mujeres bolivianas ante un público global.

Research on multidimensional sexual perfectionism differentiates four forms of sexual perfectionism: self-oriented, partner-oriented, partner-prescribed, and socially prescribed. Self-oriented sexual perfectionism reflects perfectionistic standards people apply to themselves as sexual partners; partner-oriented sexual perfectionism reflects perfectionistic standards people apply to their sexual partner; partner-prescribed sexual perfectionism reflects people’s beliefs that their sexual partner imposes perfectionistic standards on them; and socially prescribed sexual perfectionism reflects people’s beliefs that society imposes such standards on them. Previous studies found partner-prescribed and socially prescribed sexual perfectionism to be maladaptive forms of sexual perfectionism associated with a negative sexual self-concept and problematic sexual behaviors, but only examined cross-sectional relationships. The present article presents the first longitudinal study examining whether multidimensional sexual perfectionism predicts changes in sexual self-concept and sexual function over time. A total of 366 women aged 17-69 years completed measures of multidimensional sexual perfectionism, sexual esteem, sexual anxiety, sexual problem self-blame, and female sexual function (cross-sectional data). Three to six months later, 164 of the women completed the same measures again (longitudinal data). Across analyses, partner-prescribed sexual perfectionism emerged as the most maladaptive form of sexual perfectionism. In the cross-sectional data, partner-prescribed sexual perfectionism showed positive relationships with sexual anxiety, sexual problem self-blame, and intercourse pain and negative relationships with sexual esteem, desire, arousal, lubrication, and orgasmic function. In the longitudinal data, partner-prescribed sexual perfectionism predicted increases in sexual anxiety and decreases in sexual esteem, arousal, and lubrication over time. The findings suggest that partner-prescribed sexual perfectionism contributes to women’s negative sexual self-concept and female sexual dysfunction.

The consumption of drugs has long been a mainstay of urban queer cultures and it is wellrecognised that complex connections exist between sexual minoritisation and desires to chemically alter bodily experience. Yet despite evidence that rates of consumption are higher among LGBTQ populations, research exploring the gendered and sexual dynamics of

Sex work has enjoyed a wealth of sociological interest over the last three decades. However, sexual pleasure experienced by women sex workers with their clients has been largely missing from the conversation. This article seeks to redress this gap by looking at the qualitative narratives of nine women who were working in sex work in Victoria, Australia in 2009. By viewing these narratives through Foucault's power/ knowledge/discourse nexus, together with his later work on ethics of care of the self, it posits that sex worker women draw on and resist various discourses around intimacy, performance, and pleasure in regards to their sex work and their personal lives. With this interplay in mind, the analysis supports the third feminist perspective that sex work is a complex space where dominant and subjugated discourses mingle to produce myriad experiences traversing the exploitation/empowerment binary represented by the feminist sex wars.

Drawing from our qualitative, in-depth interviews of 35 professionals who write referral letters for ''gender transition,'' we explore how practitioners' decisions to approve, delay or refuse access to body modifications speak to the centrality of normative concepts of sexuality and the social function of bodies in the cultural politics of gender identity. We argue that practitioners construct what we call an ethic of body modification that tends toward reducing the body to its symbolic function-as a representation of the subject's true gender and a basis for sexual identity. We also discuss the views of a minority of practitioners who resist this tendency by creating an alternative path for body modification independent from identity claims. We conclude by discussing the cultural/political implications of pseudo-scientific discourses that assume gender identity is natural, stable and universal, whereas bodies are flexible and malleable social representations.

"ABSTRACT:  Responding to Rosi Braidotti’s call for more ‘conceptual creativity’ in thinking through contemporary feminist subjectivity, this paper proposes the figuration of the body of water. I begin with a critical materialist take on Adrienne Rich’s concept of a politics of location, and follow this with a schematized description of the various ‘hydro-logics’ in which our bodies partake. In the final section, I suggest ways in which these logics already resonate though various quite diverse modes of feminist scholarship. The objective of this paper is to locate, at the confluence of these discourses and descriptions, the space for an invigorated figuration of the feminist subject as body of water. This subject is necessarily posthumanist and profoundly material; both real and aspirational. Most importantly, she is responsively attuned to other watery bodies—both human and more-than-human—and their complex situation within global flows of political, social, cultural, economic and colonial planetary power.

KEYWORDS: water, subjectivity, figuration, new materialism, posthumanism"

Recent integration discourses in Europe locate problems of equality, gender, and sexuality among migrant youth. Educating and testing the values of future citizens is supposed to guarantee their conformity with ‘western’ and ‘modern’ values. By analyzing educational reform discourses in multicultural Luxembourg, the paper aims to challenge these contemporary narratives in two ways: (1) In a historical analysis, the paper traces conservative reform resistance in the case of sex education which is often overlooked due to the focus on migrants; (2) In placing sex education’s reform legitimation and resistance within (a) broader educational reform discourses of inequality and citizenship and (b) contemporary narrations of the reforms and their taboos, the paper reconstructs how liberals and conservatives join an alliance over sexuality education of ‘the Other’. The sociological–historical discourse analysis critically questions the ethnicization of sexuality by disclosing its homogenizing use to cover conservative resistance within the citizen’s community.

Our understanding of the neurochemical bases of human love and attachment, as well as of the genetic, epigenetic, hormonal, and experiential factors that conspire to shape an individual’s sexual orientation, is increasing exponentially. This research raises the vexing possibility that we may one day be equipped to modify such variables directly, allowing for the creation of “high-tech” conversion therapies or other suspect interventions. In this paper, we discuss the ethics surrounding such a possibility, and call for the development of legal and procedural safeguards for protecting vulnerable children from the application of such technology. We also consider the more difficult case of voluntary, adult “conversion” and argue that in rare cases, such attempts might be permissible under strict conditions.

The exclusive geographical placement of industrial machinery—what I henceforth refer to as “the machine”—was singularly important in securing and stabilizing the White working class
male subject as an exceptionally productive one. Such spatial anchoring allowed the machine’s profoundly superior technological abilities to be singularly claimed by, associated with, mapped onto, and incorporated into the body of industrial man and nation. In so doing, both were categorically rendered phallic (exceptional) agents of progress and history.
      The geopolitical and psychical security afforded by  supremacist national and bodily mappings was significantly challenged in the 1970s when deindustrialization and restructuring began to gain strong international hold. The slow removal of one of the main historical props of White male subjectivity and nationhood—the machine—led some to armor themselves psychically against (racialized) others, accusing the latter of stealing their industrial jobs, or of stealing (migrating) illegally into the nation. I argue that such defensiveness must be seen not simply in terms of simple economic stresses related rationally to unemployment, but in psychical terms as anxieties unconsciously related to bodily and, as we will see, parental loss.

Many Malaysian mak nyahs, or male-to-female transsexuals, undergo tremendous discrimination and persecution in various aspects of their lives. This is due to their liminal identities and their involvement in sex work in Malaysia, a predominantly Muslim country that actively engages in moral policing. In this essay, I expand the notion of queer Christian theologizing by examining both the Muslim and Christian contexts in Malaysia, and pose the question of how queer theological instruments can challenge antagonistic attitudes towards mak nyahs. I discuss alternative theological models of Mary and mak nyahs by privileging the work of Marcella Althaus-Reid, as well as using findings from face-to-face, in-depth interviews with mak nyahs, and scriptural imageries in Quran 3: 42, 47; 19: 16–22/Luke 1: 26–38 in which Mary acquiesces to a divine invitation. In so doing, I strive to engage in a concomitant theological imagining of Mary and mak nyahs in hopes of providing an alternative and constructive perspective on mak nyahs.

Resumo: ser homem, masculino ou viril são construções históricas que ganham diferentes significações ao longo do tempo e do espaço. Observar historicamente essas significações é essencial para compreender rupturas, continuidades ou repetibilidades em torno de prescrições e normatividades de gênero. Por isso, neste trabalho, investiga-se como se estabeleceu a construção de um ideal de homem por meio dos discursos de masculinidade e virilidade da revista Playboy Brasil na década de 1980, e como esses discursos serviram para constituir um novo padrão de masculinidade. Inicia-se o trabalho fazendo uma breve revisão teórica sobre os estudos das masculinidades e como estes têm contribuído para as discussões de gênero nas últimas décadas. Em seguida, aborda-se a virilidade em contraponto com a masculinidade, desde a construção da noção de virilidade e suas mudanças históricas até a sua problematização dentro da revista Playboy. E, por fim, é analisada a construção da imagem de uma mulher “ideal” para legitimar um homem “ideal” na Playboy. Metodologicamente, esse trabalho parte da análise do discurso proposta por Michel Foucault. Na análise do corpo documental, percebe-se que a revista tentou criar um ideal de homem com um projeto que incidia diretamente em uma outra masculinidade/virilidade, gerando conflitos e tensões de gênero.

Abstract: being a man, masculine or virile, are historical constructions that take on different meanings over time and space. Observing these meanings historically is fundamental for us to understand ruptures, continuities or repeatability around this gender prescriptions and normative. Therefore, in this work we investigate how the construction of an ideal of man was established through the discourses of masculinity and virility found in Playboy Brazil magazine in the 1980s, and how these discourses served to constitute a new standard of masculinity. The work begins with a brief theoretical review of the studies of masculinity and how they have contributed to gender discussions in recent decades. Next, virility is addressed in contrast to masculinity, from the construction of this notion of virility and its historical changes to its problematization within Playboy Magazine. Finally, the construction of the image of an “ideal” woman is analyzed to legitimize an “ideal” man in Playboy. Methodologically, this work starts from the analysis of the discourse proposed by Michel Foucault. In the analysis of the documentary body, it is clear that the magazine tried to create a new ideal of man with a project that directly influenced another masculinity / virility, generating new conflicts and gender tensions.

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Considerable scholarly discussion has been given to the idea that we are moving toward a state of “posthumanism.” This essay examines some possible implications of a posthuman existence, specifically as it relates to that most basic of human needs—sexuality. I explore the spiritual aspects of sexuality to see what is lost and what is gained in technologically mediated forms of sexuality. To that end, I consider the interplay between sexual behavior and our conceptions of the sacred, how technologies are changing our views of—and realities concerning—our bodies, and the potential for a sacred posthuman sexuality.

This article tracks Jasbir Puar’s term “homonationalism” as its meaning has transformed in her scholarly work as well that of Maya Mikdashi. I argue that homonationalism has evolved from its original formulation as, in part, a critique of politics, into, in its current guise, a diagnostic of international political relations. Although this transition offers insight into the international scene, I argue that homonationalism also loses its distinctiveness as a political formation in its own right as well as its critical capacity in the process. In particular, I argue that homonationalism becomes incapable of critically
evaluating activist strategies, practices and discourses of political resistance.

What are the effects of circumcision  on sexual function and experience? And what does sex—in the sense related to gender—have to do with the ethics of circumcision? Jacobs and Arora (2015) give short shrift to the first of these questions; and they do not seem to have considered the second. In this commentary, I explore the relationship between sex (in both senses) and infant male circumcision, and draw some conclusions about the ongoing debate regarding this controversial practice.