Colloquial terms used in young adults’ talk about sexual practices, sexual subjectivities and sexual desires’
- Authors: Robertson, Cassandra Ann
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Youth -- Sexual behavior , Sex in popular culture , Communication and sex , Language and sex
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MSocSc
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/96551 , vital:31293
- Description: Much of the growth in sexualities‘ research has taken the form of large scale surveys, but there is also increased interest in qualitative approaches that provide useful insights into the experiential and subjective aspects of sexuality, and illuminate the social and cultural contexts shaping these experiences. The reason for this research is to provide a richer understanding of the language that young people employ when speaking about sexuality. This study examines young adults‘ talk about sexualities with a special focus on the way in which colloquial terms are deployed in this talk and through the presence of gendered and/or heteronormative assumptions. Data consisted of posts off a student-led social media site and the study design employed was a validity check group interview. The social media site allowed its followers to post anonymously about a range of sexualities related issues. Data were analysed thematically, using a deductive, critical, and post-structuralist approach with key insights drawn on from Michael Foucault, Adrienne Rich, Gayle Rubin, Judith Butler and Rosalind Gill. Three overarching themes emerged: young adults spoke to sexual practices, sexual subjectivities and sexual desires. A major focus of this talk is casual sex. This talk showed that there are attempts to undermine gendered and heteronormative power relations, for example, non-normative sexual experiences were not seen as deviant, although those who were engaging in monogamy and casual sex were constructed as deviant sexual subjects. Yet underpinning of these power relations still took place, for example, in the female missing discourse of desire, the internalisation of male sexual desires over female sexual desires and the sexual double standard. There was a clear divide between the sexual practices and sexual subjectivities that were considered to be good and bad. This research therefore has the potential to benefit sexuality interventions by bringing into sharp focus the actual experiences of young adults.
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- Date Issued: 2019
Themes in self-presentation on a gay male dating site: a content analysis of the profiles of a sample of online daters from the Eastern Cape Province
- Authors: Lelimo, Thabang Lucky
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Online dating -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Gay men -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Gay men -- Identity , Self-presentation , Homophobia -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Gay men -- Sexual behavior -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Language and sex , Communication and sex
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/60233 , vital:27757
- Description: My thesis research explores themes in self-presentation in the dating profiles of gay men from the Eastern Cape Province on an online dating site for men only. Although there is a growing body of research on this topic, this research is generally located in Europe and North America. In South Africa, research on same-sex intimacies has a chequered history. In the apartheid past, gay men and lesbian women were largely ignored by psychologists and social scientists. And, when they did receive their attention, it was largely discriminatory. In the post-apartheid context, there is far more interest in queer sexualities. However, as this research focuses on HIV transmission and on discrimination and violent homophobia, it too has played a role in painting a gloomy picture of what it means to be queer in South Africa. This study both address a ‘gap in literature’ on gay male dating online by focusing on the South African context, and it addresses the crisis of representation by giving consideration to the ways in which gay men see and present themselves to others. This study takes the form of a content analysis of 200 dating profiles. Key themes in self-presentation emerging in the analysis are: Ethnicity; Age; Education; Geographic Location; Living Arrangements; Sexuality; Relationship Status; Lifestyle; Appearance; Political Outlook; Personality; Faith. I discuss important observations relating to these themes and the insights they provide on key issues shaping public debate on same-sex sexualities in the South African context.
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- Date Issued: 2018
A discursive analysis of what sexual violence perpetrators say to their victims
- Authors: Coopoo, Perishka
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Project Unbreakable , Rapists -- Language , Rape -- Social aspects , Language and sex , Sexual harassment of women , Women -- Crimes against , Discoure analysis
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/13869 , vital:21863
- Description: This research study aimed to examine the way in which sexual violence perpetrators talk to their victims by critically investigating the discursive strategies drawn on by perpetrators, the discursive constructions of their actions and their victims, and the consistencies with the talk of sexual violence perpetrators and rape myths and discursive and social practices promoting sexual violence. Over two-hundred photographs were collected from a photographic art project called Project Unbreakable. The photographs were of sexual violence survivors, from all over the world, holding a poster with a quote from their attacker. The words that survivors chose to represent for Project Unbreakable served as the data for this research study. The data were analyzed using the six stages of Foucauldian discourse analysis outlined by Carla Willig. The analysis revealed that by drawing on discourses of pleasure, desire, romance, marriage and consent, perpetrators discursively constructed their actions as sex. Furthermore, perpetrators discursively constructed their victims as sexually passive and dependant on men, as gate keepers of men’s sexuality, as sexual instruments for male satisfaction, and as consenting persons. On the other hand, perpetrators were also found to discursively construct their actions as a legitimized form of punishment, humiliation and intimidation. In addition, their victims were discursively constructed as deviant, deserving of their victimization, worthless, damaged and powerless. These discursive constructions of their actions and their victims enabled perpetrators to normalize their behaviour, blame their victims, minimize the incident, assert their innocence, justify their actions, silence their victims and reinforce their position at the top of the gender hierarchy. Consistencies were also found between the talk of perpetrators and rape myths, stereotypes and discursive and social practices promoting sexual violence. Another interesting finding in the data was that of quotes from a third party, not the perpetrator, which further illustrated the existence of rape culture. This research draws on the idea that a rape supportive culture does not only capture the hostile nature of the social environment that many survivors experience in the aftermath of sexual violence, but it also provides a social pattern for coercive sexuality to occur.
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- Date Issued: 2017