SEXUALITY IN PERIMENOPAUSAL AND POSTMENOPAUSAL WOMEN

This article reviews psychosocial and biological aspects of the effects of menopause on sexuality. Sexuality is conceptualized as having multiple dimensions including desire, arousal, and orgasm. Population studies have revealed that postmenopausal status is associated with decline in these components of sexual functioning. While it is probable that psychological response to menopause affects sexual functioning, little research has addressed this issue. Considerable research has addressed the possible relationship between sexuality and menopausal hormone changes. Some research shows that low estrogen levels are associated with diminished sexual response and that estrogen replacement produces enhanced sexual response. Other studies, however, do not show this. Testosterone level is more clearly related to at least some measures of sexuality. Issues for future research are discussed.     

The Semiotic Regulation of Sexuality from a Microgenetic Perspective

On the level of collective culture, sexuality and sensuality are interpreted as zero signifiers, i.e., areas of human life, which gain their power through being purposefully kept invisible and unverbalized. Explicit transgressions (e.g., curse words) only refer to culturally "illegitimate" forms of sexuality, while the respective figure--in terms of the figure-ground principle--of "legitimate" meaning and feeling fields has to be constructively inferred by the person him- or herself. The present paper gives some examples of personal meaning making in the field of sexuality. For studying the semiotic regulation of sexuality and sensuality on the personal level, microgenetic investigations are proposed. Only they can offer an online access to the powerful process of culturally mediated sign construction and reconstruction.     

Sexuality and the Dimensions of Power

Power, many scholars agree, is intrinsic to the relationships between sexuality, individual experience and social dynamics. Beyond this basic agreement, though, writers and researchers have adopted different foci. This article critically reviews several approaches to the power–sex relationship, and suggests that four readily discernable but interlaced dimensions of power operate upon the sexual: definitional, regulatory, productive and unequal. As a number of examples from the literature show, these ideal typical forms twist and interweave in both theory and practice. I suggest that to be mindful of all four facets of power and their interrelationships is to account for multiplicity, and to avoid the reductive characterizations that have sometimes characterized academic writings on power and sexuality. In this way, both theory and research in the area of human sexuality can be more thoroughly conceptualized.     

A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING RACE, CLASS, GENDER, AND SEXUALITY

Since the mid-1980s, scholarship and college courses that address multiple dimensions of inequality under the rubric of race, class, gender, and (recently) sexuality studies have grown rapidly. Most courses now employ a set of readings, many of which are drawn from a growing number of anthologies. A strength of this approach is its presentation of the diversity of human experiences and the multiplicity of critical perspectives. A weakness is its failure to convey the commonalities in race, class, gender, and sexuality analyses of social reality. To aid in teaching and research on race, class, gender, and sexuality, this article presents six common themes that characterize this scholarship. Race, class, gender, and sexuality are historically and globally specific, socially constructed power relations that simultaneously operate at both the macro (societal) and micro (individual) levels of society. Scholarship in this tradition emphasizes the interdependence of knowledge and activism.     

Liminal Space,Sexuality, and the Language of #MeToo

#MeToo has advanced the way that we think and speak of sexual abuses of power by creating a powerful social platform in which victims can function as a group, symbolizing what as psychoanalysts we consider unthinkable, while also striking at the inherent paradox that sexuality poses – how to account for the vagaries of human sexuality and its transgressive nature while holding individual and collective abuses of power accountable? My essay addresses such questions by focusing on the way that language fails to hold and symbolize sexuality due to its affective excess and its driven and enigmatic qualities, and advances the idea that the sexual is metabolized in action with an other and not through words and language. Further, that the boundary between what is permissible and what is not is negotiated on both conscious and unconscious levels of knowing, which I refer to as the liminal area of sexuality. I develop these ideas within a post-Lacanian framework and suggest that psychoanalysis must interface with other disciplines in order to bring depth to our consideration of sexuality at its most transgressive as well as to help stretch the symbolic function of language.     

Male Athletes and the Cult(ure) of Thinness in Sport

This article troubles the “down low” (DL) discourse by focusing on an Internet forum—Craigslist.org—where people on the “down low” post. The advertisements, gathered from seven cities in two U.S. regions, reinforce some of the “down low” discussion in the previous literature, as they show a pattern of seeking “masculine” men. These ads also depart from general perceptions such as the DL being a term used predominantly by black men. The authors discuss methodological implications in research with posts, and suggest advancing analyses on the relationship between race, sexuality and power, and gender and sexuality in DL research.     

Sexuality and power on South African game farms; reflections on positionality and emotions in ethnographic research

The taboo around researchers' sexualities and sexual experiences in ethnographic field work persists. We found that our sexuality, alongside physical and emotional experiences, were pivotal to how we shaped research relations and processes. This evokes questions around how we reflect on our positionalities and the knowledge we generate. We argue that ethnographic accounts are strengthened by inclusive reflexivity, that acknowledges sex and sexuality. This article presents empirical material from field experiences on South African game farms. These spaces tend to represent a particular image of wilderness, constructed according to patriarchal and racist hierarchies, which heighten contestations over belonging. As such they become spaces of violence, seduction, and power, and we found ourselves (neither minds nor bodies) unable to detach from these spatial and emotional dynamics. Our strategies for ‘being in the field’ came to evolve around negotiations of power, sex and complicity. The emotional dynamics made us feel confused, bewildered and sometimes scared. We seek to share our experiences and feelings, and to contribute to discussion on the role of sexuality in ethnographic research, and the epistemological, methodological and practical advantages of reflecting on the ways we engage in the field.     

Ethnocentrism and Sexism: How Stereotypes Legitimize Six Types of Power

We review evidence of inequality associated with gender and social categories like ethnicity with respect to six types of power: control of resources, force, legitimacy, obligations, knowledge, and sexuality. Presuming that stereotypes are one means of legitimizing power differentials between groups, we review research on stereotype contents for both ethnicity and gender with respect to the six forms of power. The review reveals a number of rhetorical means by which stereotypes legitimize ethnic dominants and men having particular forms of power, such as disguising the exercise of power by describing it in individualistic rather than relational terms, and also how stereotypes de‐legitimize women and ethnic subordinates from obtaining particular forms of power, such as by stating that what they desire and their virtues preclude exercising power. A new research agenda regarding stereotypes and how they legitimize group power differences is outlined.     

Inequalities of power and sexual problems

The proposition that sexual problems can emerge as a response to structural inequalities of power is explored by reference to a case which forms part of our current clinical work and research in this area. It is suggested that inequalities of power between heterosexual partners and societal 'discourses' which support the use of sexuality, predominantly by women, as an influence strategy, can serve to promote the development and maintenance of sexual symptoms as forms of covert power struggles. An integration is attempted of systemic and feminist theories with some practical suggestions for therapists working with couples with sexual problems.     

SEXUALITY, RATIONALITY, AND SPIRITUALITY

Abstract. Historical progress has largely been described in terms of the power to order social and ecological realities according to the interests of a few. Their concepts, images, and metaphors have transmitted knowledge (both explicit and tacit) that has come to be regarded as received wisdom. This kind of power, which has shaped (as well as described) history, has belonged primarily to men; whereas women's nature and, accordingly, their power have been defined primarily in terms of sexuality. Men's control of women's sexuality is therefore the source of the disqualification of women as free agents-that is, as significant participants in, say, scientific and religious meaning-giving processes. Thus morality requires reevaluation of our assumptions about human nature. Most importantly, it demands that female sexuality be considered within the context of rationality and spirituality.     

Sexuality, society, and senior citizens: An analysis of sex talk among prostate cancer support group members

After attending meetings of a prostate cancer support group for three years, I considered the ways group members talked about sex and sexuality. I reviewed extant research on the disease and its effects on sexual function, along with relevant work on sexuality in general. In my role as a participant-observer at the group meetings, I noted the amount and prevalence of talk about sex in the survivors’ conversations about prostate cancer. I investigated the survivors’ efforts to contest and revise the definition of sex that they inferred from society at large—a definition that limits “real” sexual activity to spontaneous acts of penile-vaginal penetration. Such a definition also denounced anything else as phony at worst, and incomplete at best. Consequently, the meetings illustrated the dissonance between group members’ prior expectations, beliefs, and experiences of sexuality and a new set of behaviors that could constitute sexuality. My observations also revealed the significance of support group facilitators in generating talk about sexuality. I thank Professors Christy M. Ponticelli and Marsha L. Vanderford for the constructive critiques and encouragement that facilitated the evolution of this article.     

Women's Sexuality and Meaning Making

The purpose of the current study was to challenge depictions of traditionally oppressive female sexuality by explicitly exploring diverse women's positive experiences of sexuality and to capture the unique meanings women ascribe to their sexuality through the use of participant-generated metaphor. We interviewed 17 diverse women regarding the meaning of sexuality in their lives. Coding revealed that metaphors for sexuality provided a creative and integrative way for women to express the complexity of their sexuality. In addition, a sexual developmental trajectory emerged from the analysis, as did themes of fluidity and ideal sexuality. Implications for theory and therapy, as well as future directions for research, are offered.     

A contribution to the development of a psychoanalytical methodology for research into language: A systematic study of narration as an expression of sexuality

Systematic research on language has a solid starting point in Freudian hypotheses on sexuality. This theory is the semantic ground for categorising narrations and providing a basis for the research method. The author places his research in the frame of the systematisation of the Freudian theory of substitute formations in the preconscious. He affirms that these formations are influenced in a particular way by each variant of sexuality. The author proposes an inventory (in Freudian terms) of those variants of sexuality, and he affirms that they can be detected in the discourse. Five universal scenes having the status of a canon, with specific features for each of the ways in which sexuality is manifested, make up narrations. The author describes the features of each narration and provides some examples. He also examines problems related to the use of the method (the coexistence of different variants of sexuality in a single fragment of a narration and the successive steps in the use of the method). The author briefly considers some other problems: the analysis of defences, the study of words and theoretical research. Finally, he examines the validity and reliability of the method.     

Libido and hormones

Libido is the drive to have a sexual activity. Gonadal hormones play a major role in activating and maintaining libido in both men and women. Other hormones, though, interact with them in influencing sexuality, such as prolactin and also brain neurotransmitters. The role of hormones declines with age and sexuality becomes more mind-induced. Nevertheless, some aspects of sexuality remain linked to hormones. For example, a reduction of central arousability is typical of hypogonadal state. However, it is not clear at what level of androgen deficiency the loss of libido begins and if adequate external stimuli can overcome a partial deficiency.     

Enfleshing the Erotic

Abstract

An embodied theological ethic of human sexuality must engage two specific tasks: (1) articulate a theological explanation of the body that can frame critical reflection on the right ordering of relationships at the macro, social-relational level and (2) celebrate the erotic as an essential, creative contour of human sexual experience at the micro, interpersonal level. This essay is divided into two sections. In the first section, I explore the significance of the body in theological and ethical reflection in an attempt to distill an embodied theological ethic of human sexuality that can level a critique against the sinful social realities of heterosexism and sexism. In the second part, I develop the ethic further so as to carry moral weight within sexual practices. I celebrate the erotic as the creative dimension of human sexuality that encompasses desire and pleasure. I reflect on desire and pleasure individually in light of embodied experience and ground each within an ethic of mutuality to ensure goodness, rightness, and the doing of justice in all sexual relationships.     

Age-graded Sexualities: The Struggles of Our Ageing Body

This article focuses on the relevance of age vis-à-vis the body and sexuality in society. The author discusses how the symbolization of the body by differences of age displays an intertwining of social and sexuality issues. The central idea is that the constructions of age involve different notions of status related to the ageing body that are problematic in our sexuality because they form complex power relationships, creating boundaries, segmenting sexual expressions and committing individuals to spaces, identities and lifestyles. That is to say, as individuals use methods to capitalize on their sexuality, they produce varying meanings and ways of experiencing age. The notion of age-grading, an anthropological category to explain the connection between the notions of ageing body and society, will be discussed with the aim of clarifying how age shapes our sexuality. This paper is meant to encourage further debate, not to provide a finished discussion.     

Common themes and structures in male victims' stories of religion and sexual abuse

This paper presents some outcomes of research on the narrative construction of religion and sexual abuse in male victims. Twelve open biographic interviews with adult male survivors of childhood sexual abuse have been analysed for content and structure. Three narrative themes were identified to appear in all interviews: distance/proximity, power/powerlessness and guilt/innocence. Using statistical methods (correlations and cluster analysis), the relation was investigated between these narrative themes and categories of evaluation, life period addressed, religion, sexuality and significant others. At group level, very few correlations or patterns were found. Two possible explanations are discussed: (1) the lack of canonical stories and (2) the limitations to narrative competence as a result of traumatization. Structure analysis at the individual level yields relatively coherent patterns, so that the second explanation hypothesized seems less likely. Based on content and structure analysis, three narrative methods of construction are discussed: contrasting stories of sexual abuse and religion, sequencing stories and reinterpreting themes from both religion and sexual abuse. Finally, implications are discussed concerning researching canonical stories and their impact on coping, understanding and facilitating the creative potential of narrators, and the complicated relationship of individual constructions, confessional convictions and academic theological theories.     

Sex Rules: The Edicts of Income in Exotic Dancing

This research examines how dancers view the rules that are intended to control/regulate the interaction between customer and dancer. Rules from a variety of clubs are examined. Data were gleaned from interviews with 133 female dancers in several cities and level of clubs. Data from dancers indicate these rules, in practice, allow dancers to control their sexuality and activities and thereby benefit in the form of income.