Erotic Authenticity: Comparing Intimate Relationships between High-End Bar and Low-End Bar in China’s Global Sex Industry

Research on the sex industry generally focuses heavily on the economic relationship between sex workers and their clients but typically fails to consider the role and significance of intimacy within these interactions. By drawing upon over 36 months’ ethnographic work conducted in high-end and low-end bars in Dongguan from 2008 to 2009 and 2011 to 2017, the article argues that sex workers and their clients are not only involved in pecuniary transactions but also may exchange intimate and non-remunerative feelings. In order to understand the factors that both facilitate and limit experiences of intimacy in sex work, relevant socioeconomic circumstances must be deconstructed. The dynamics that characterize contemporary Dongguan must be considered within the unique subcultures that characterize the high-end and low-end sex markets. In order to extrapolate from the aforementioned factors, this article examines the interactions of concepts such as economic and cultural capitals, emotional labor, and bounded authenticity to provide insights into how intimacy occurs in China’s global sex industry. The article will also draw from these insights and explore how Chinese and foreign clients overcome social and cultural barriers to develop intimate relationships with sex workers.     

Procuring Sexual Services: Evidencing Masculinity Diversity and Difference Through Sex Work Research

Masculinities theorising has promoted a traditional view of maleness, conceptualising it as being dominant, successful and non-emotional; that is hegemonic masculinity. Contemporary work on men and their behaviour, recognising need and emotions, has been classified as subordinate to hegemonic masculinity. We examine the procurement of sexual services by a cohort of heterosexual men in New South Wales, Australia arguing that our findings support contemporary masculinity writings. Our analysis suggests that men seek and obtain intimacy and emotional experiences through procurement of sex, while at the same time reflecting some hegemonic masculine characteristics. We conclude by arguing that research with men who procure sexual services provides new insights into masculinities theorising recognising difference and diversity in what it is to be a man in the twenty-first century.     

Perpetrator Responses to Victim Confrontation: DARVO and Victim Self-Blame

Perpetrators of violence often use a strategy of Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender (DARVO) to confuse and silence their victims. Although some previous research has examined the individual elements of DARVO, this is the first study to directly examine DARVO as a unitary concept and to investigate how it relates to feelings of self-blame among victims. Subsequently, 138 undergraduate students were asked to report on a time they confronted an individual over a wrong-doing. DARVO was assessed with a new measure constructed for this study. Analyses revealed that: (1) DARVO was commonly used by individuals who were confronted; (2) women were more likely to be exposed to DARVO than men during confrontations; (3) the three components of DARVO were positively correlated, supporting the theoretical construction of DARVO; and (4) higher levels of exposure to DARVO during a confrontation were associated with increased perceptions of self-blame among the confronters. These results provide evidence for the existence of DARVO as a perpetrator strategy and establish a relationship between DARVO exposure and feelings of self-blame. Exploring DARVO aids in understanding how perpetrators are able to enforce victims’ silence through the mechanism of self-blame.     

Preschoolers' use of spatiotemporal history, appearance, and proper name in determining individual identity

Humans construe their environment as composed largely of discrete individuals, which are also members of kinds (e.g., trees, cars, and people). On what basis do young children determine individual identity? How important are featural properties (e.g., physical appearance, name) relative to spatiotemporal history? Two studies examined the relative importance of these factors in preschoolers' and adults' identity judgments. Participants were shown pairs of individuals who looked identical but differed in their spatiotemporal history (e.g., two physically distinct but identical Winnie-the-Pooh dolls), and were asked whether both members in the pair would have access to knowledge that had been supplied to only one of the pairs. The results provide clear support for spatiotemporal history as the primary basis of identity judgments in both preschoolers and adults, and further place issues of identity within the broader cognitive framework of psychological essentialism.     

Further evaluation of leisure items in the attention condition of functional analyses

Research suggests that including leisure items in the attention condition of a functional analysis may produce engagement that masks sensitivity to attention. In this study, 4 individuals' initial functional analyses indicated that behavior was maintained by nonsocial variables (n = 3) or by attention (n = 1). A preference assessment was used to identify items for subsequent functional analyses. Four conditions were compared, attention with and without leisure items and control with and without leisure items. Following this, either high- or low-preference items were included in the attention condition. Problem behavior was more probable during the attention condition when no leisure items or low-preference items were included, and lower levels of problem behavior were observed during the attention condition when high-preference leisure items were included. These findings suggest how preferred items may hinder detection of behavioral function.     

Influences on communicative development at 24 months of age: child temperament, behaviour problems, and maternal factors

Within a longitudinal study using a large representative, community sample of infants recruited at mean age 8 months, we examined influences on infant communication development at 24 months, including child gender, shy temperament, behavioural and emotional problems, and several variables relating to maternal psychosocial health. On most developmental measures girls were in advance of boys and they also showed shyer temperament. Child gender, shy temperament and maternal psychosocial indices were associated with both vocabulary development as measured by the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (CDI), and communication and symbolic development assessed via the Communication and Symbolic Behaviour Scales-Developmental Profile (CSBS) at 24 months. No prediction was found using scores at 8 or 12 months, although moderate stability between measures between 12 and 24 months was evident. Predictors of 24 month outcomes were all concurrently measured variables, and included temperamental shyness, but very little variance in communication outcomes was explained. Children whose mothers were experiencing clinical levels of depression and life difficulties reported more child behavioural problems.     

Using Storybooks to Promote Multicultural Sensitivity in Elementary School Children

The authors discuss the use of storybooks to promote multicultural sensitivity among elementary school children. The increasing diversity in the United States dictates that children are sensitive to cultural differences of individuals from varied backgrounds. Because they are in a formative stage of life, children are an ideal population with which to begin teaching about diversity. Los autores discuten el uso de libros de cuentos para promover la sensibilidad multicultural entre niños de escuela primaria. La diversidad creciente en los Estados Unidos dicta que niños son sensibles a diferencias culturales de individuos de origen variados. Porque ellos están en una etapa formativa de la vida, los niños son una población ideal con que empezar la enseñanza acerca de la diversidad.