Abuse Porn: Reading Reactions to Boys Halfway House

Boys Halfway House is a gay bareback pornography website that purports to host the recorded abuse exploits of managers of a halfway house. It is a recent addition to the genre niche of abuse and exploitation pornography sites that have surfaced in recent years. This article reads viewer commentary of scene updates on review site WayBig.com so as to consider the controversy associated with the proliferation of gay ‘abuse porn’, and of Boys Halfway House and its theme in particular. More than 500 comments over a 2-year period help explain Boys Halfway House as a variant of extreme pornography, and canvas a range of views on rape and humiliation fantasy in gay porn more broadly. The study ends with discussion of the anxieties and appreciations the site has prompted in viewers, and the presentation of two themes in particular: ‘bad porn’ and ‘harmful porn’. Also considered are the ethical implications of such male sexual abuse fantasies, which is a subject of lasting trauma for victims, and one that poses unique challenges in wider contexts.     

A House Divided: Guidance and Counseling in 20th-Century America

Historical analysis of guidance and counseling within American public education reveals a house divided by diversity and contradictions.     

Managing Nonsexual Multiple Relationships in University Counseling Centers: Recommendations for Graduate Assistants and Practicum Students

Graduate students typically serve in a wide variety of positions throughout their course of study in an academic setting. Because of the large number of roles assumed, graduate students may encounter several ethical dilemmas unique to the academic setting, particularly dilemmas regarding nonsexual multiple relationships. Although the topic of multiple relationships and psychologists has been extensively discussed in the literature, fewer articles have focused on the potential for nonsexual multiple relationships between graduate assistants, practicum students, and undergraduate students. This article focuses on the unique ethical dilemmas and challenges experienced by graduate assistants completing their practica at University Counseling Centers and provides recommendations for evaluating and managing nonsexual multiple relationships with undergraduate students.     

The Impact of Wellness‐Focused Supervision on Mental Health Counseling Practicum Students

Professional counseling organizations tout the importance of wellness for counselors and counselors‐in‐training. The authors used a wellness‐focused supervision model with mental health practicum students to assess the model's degree of treatment effect at improving students' wellness over the course of the semester. Participants' demographics included three women, one man, three European Americans, and one Latino/a. Single‐case design results revealed that ongoing wellness‐focused interventions are helpful in improving participants' level of wellness; implications for practice are provided.     

The College Campus Ministry Internship Site: Interfacing Religion and Counseling

This article presents a model for creating internship sites at college campus ministries for students interested in interfacing religion and counseling. More specifically, a systematic process that students can implement in developing these unique training opportunities is provided. Developing campus ministry internship and other training sites can afford students opportunities for (a) specialized supervised experience working with religiously committed individuals, (b) providing consultation and program evaluation services, and (c) becoming a liaison who has the opportunity to influence and educate the next generation of religious leaders and members about mental health issues.     

Increasing Empathy for Employment Service Counselors: A Practicum

Outservice practicum training of employment service counselors presents a particular challenge to counselor educators. An overview of a two-week practicum-laboratory training program is presented and discussed. The efficacy of the training is examined from the standpoint of helpful levels of empathy presented by the employment service counselors trained. The difference between pretraining and posttraining levels of empathy indicated statistically significant gains were realized.     

Decision-Making: A Dilemma and a Purpose for Counseling

A goal of counseling is to help decision makers make good decisions. But what is meant by “good”? Two views are discussed: outcome and process. The former is concerned with real-life results after the decision is made, the latter with the quality of the deliberations during the decision-making process. The counselor's interaction occurs during the process and is in terms of the decision maker's statements about reality (rather than reality itself). These statements are often unrealistic in that they inaccurately reflect conditions in real life. Counselors should help decision makers change their inaccurate perceptions so that (1) process deliberations are more likely to lead to expected outcomes, and (2) the decision maker is more likely to be prepared for whatever outcomes occur.     

The Counseling Profession's Commitment to Diversity-Sensitive Counseling: A Critical Reassessment

The authors pose questions in this article that are intended to stimulate more effective strategies to ensure gender, racial, and ethnic diversity in the counseling profession. The first question addresses the implications of between-group versus within-group differences for the counseling process. The second question examines the need to expand the dialogue across all minorities. The third question asks who should conduct multicultural research. Various constituencies, including clients, practitioners, counselor educators, scholars, and researchers are affected. Inconsistencies are noted between the strategies now being used to achieve diversity and the philosophical foundations of the counseling profession itself. Seven recommendations are made.     

In the Halfway House of Ill Repute: Gender Verification under a Different Name,Still No Contribution to Fair Play

The aftermath of Caster Semenya’s resounding victory in the women’s 800?m at the 2009 Athletics World Championships in Berlin highlighted the ethical and scientific flaws of gender verification in women’s athletics. It has led the governing international body of professional athletics, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), to adopt new rules regarding athletes with differences of sexual developments (DSDs) in women’s competitions in 2011 (Regulations on Hyperandrogenism). The International Olympic Committee followed suit and adopted a similar set of rules in 2012. Locating the practice of gender verification in a history of sexist stereotyping of women athletes (in Section 1), I argue (in Section 2), following other critics, that the IAAF’s new rules suffer from the same ethical flaws as their predecessors; and specifically that they still invite and rely on qualitative measuring of an athlete’s femininity and masculinity. In the central section of this paper (Section 3), I relate the practice of gender verification to the vexing question of what constitutes an unfair advantage in sports. I suggest, first, that athletes with a DSD should be at liberty to exploit competitive advantages their conditions might confer on them, just as most athletes in most sports are at liberty to exploit their congenital traits (the only irrelevant difference being that DSDs are construed as gendered advantages). In a second step, I argue that gender segregation in sports and gender verification practices cannot both be defended by an appeal to fairness. If we want to preserve gender segregation, then we ought to give up gender verification; and if we are not prepared to give up regulation of gendered congenital advantages, then we ought to give up gender segregation in favor of a classification system that tracks genetic predisposition rather than gender.     

The Need for Counselor Licensure: A Rehabilitation Counseling Perspective

The legal, ethical, and professional problems related to the private practice of rehabilitation counseling are described. Counselor licensure is recommended as a remedy.     

Continuum of Counseling Goals: A Framework for Differentiating Counseling Strategies

Counseling process goals are presented in a developmental continuum similar in concept to Maslow's hierarchy of needs with implications for counseling practice.     

Counseling Without Truth: Toward a Neopragmatic Foundation for Counseling Practice

The author presents an overview of contemporary developments in philosophy regarding the status of truth and discusses the implications of these ideas for the practice of counseling. Counseling without truth is presented as a desirable option when a neopragmatic frame of reference is adopted.     

20/20: A Vision for the Future of Counseling: The New Consensus Definition of Counseling

With the promulgation of the 20/20: A Vision for the Future of Counseling consensus definition of counseling, there is finally profession‐wide clarity as to what it means to engage in professional counseling. This article describes the development and discusses the implications of the definition: “Counseling is a professional relationship that empowers diverse individuals, families, and groups to accomplish mental health, wellness, education, and career goals.” This consensus definition has been endorsed by 29 major counseling organizations.     

Counseling as an Interpersonal Influence Process: A Perspective for Counseling Practice

J. D. Corrigan, D. M. Dell, K. N. Lewis, & L. D. Schmidt. Counseling as a social influence process: A review. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 1980, 27, 395–441 (Monograph).