Gareth Longstaff | Newcastle University (original) (raw)
Papers by Gareth Longstaff
Routledge eBooks, Jan 18, 2023
This article explores associations between the psychoanalytic theory of jouissance and representa... more This article explores associations between the psychoanalytic theory of jouissance and representations of bareback and chemsex between cis-gendered men in gay porn. It uses the concept of 'bodies that splutter' to focus on how tensions allied to the definition and interpretation of jouissance can be used as a foundation to interpret and reposition a queer and psychoanalytic politics of bareback and chemsex as porn. In so doing, the article will suggest that pornographic practices of bareback and chemsex in the output of UK director Liam Cole and US website RawFuckClub.com attempt to frame these practices of gay male desire as phallic jouissance. Working with the notion of 'bodies that splutter', the article will transpose Judith Butler's concept of performative bodies that matter and Tim Deans' unconscious bodies that mutter to consider a dialogue between pornography and jouissance where bodies also 'splutter'.
BRILL eBooks, Mar 22, 2023
Journal of Bodies, Sexualities, and Masculinities
Law arguably shapes contemporary culture and phallic politics. In England and Wales, like much of... more Law arguably shapes contemporary culture and phallic politics. In England and Wales, like much of the Global North, the second half of the twentieth century and early twenty-first century saw a general shift from a criminal legal framework that understood sexuality as sexual acts to a civil law framework that seeks to privilege institutions - notably marriage - and lifestyle as signifiers of sexuality. This article contributes to legal and cultural understandings of the phallus, specifically the “raw dick,” as key to understanding the self-representational spaces of “authentic” and “alt” selves on social media. It situates the “raw dick” as the locus of this cultural, legal, and social exchange in which the legal outlaw of male phallic desire has been incorporated into queer citizenship. We argue that the aesthetics of the alt-self provides us with new and important ways to understand the phallus and its relationship to sex and sexuality.
Encyclopedia of Gender and Society
The Edinburgh Companion to Critical Theory, 2016
The Bear: Culture, Nature, Heritage, 2019
The Bear: Culture, Nature, Heritage, 2019
PhD Thesis : Some images have been removed due to privacy and copyright issues. The thesis can be... more PhD Thesis : Some images have been removed due to privacy and copyright issues. The thesis can be viewed in full, on request via the print copy at the University Library.
Culture, health & sexuality, 2021
COVID-19 has transformed the way we live our lives, and sex has been a significant element of tha... more COVID-19 has transformed the way we live our lives, and sex has been a significant element of that transformation. Gay male sex in the UK has faced the most significant (re)criminalisation and (re)regulation in living memory with intimacy outside of the heteronormative framework of domestic coupledom at best discouraged and, at worst, made into a criminal offence. This criminalisation provides a temporal praxis in which gay men experience sex in the shadows once more, an echo of a historic legal and cultural regulation of desire. This history also provides a space for experiencing forms of impersonal intimacy and queer desire in a way that is arguably well-suited for viral times, namely the glory hole. These historic partitions and apertures - connecting gay men across legal and cultural boundaries of desire and affirmed through modes of anonymous and promiscuous sex - may once again provide a queer way to experience intimacy as impersonal. This article explores this potential and s...
Routledge International Handbook of Masculinity Studies, 2019
Porn Studies, 2019
ABSTRACTThis article explores associations between the psychoanalytic theory of jouissance and re... more ABSTRACTThis article explores associations between the psychoanalytic theory of jouissance and representations of bareback and chemsex between cis-gendered men in gay porn. It uses the concept of ‘...
Encyclopedia of Gender and Society
Encyclopedia of Gender and Society
Psychology and Sexuality, 2011
as well as non-normative embodiment through aspects of sexuality, gender, mental health and disab... more as well as non-normative embodiment through aspects of sexuality, gender, mental health and disability. Intersectionality has become a useful tool for analysis of power relations and inequalities in the past few decades, and as such, it has been both widely applied and critiqued. All authors take into account existing and apparent shortcomings of intersectionality, but recognise its significance by revealing its potential for bridging concepts and understanding lives. Given the diversity of its contributors, the voices represented and questions raised demonstrate a plethora of positions and experiences. The understanding of intersectionality as a lived experience and providing multifaceted examples of processes of intersections are great strengths of this collection. The crucial role of feminism for epistemological debates about sexuality is acknowledged and feminist thought is emphasised and advanced through this volume, while at the same time it is contested with other theoretical approaches. This collection demonstrates lived intersectionality and provides compelling theoretical and empirical arguments in favour of its advancement and application.
Media, Culture & Society, 2007
killers’ (p. 78), both in media and by the authoritative discourses of the FBI, and that this int... more killers’ (p. 78), both in media and by the authoritative discourses of the FBI, and that this interpretation of what constitutes serial killing fails to address other forms of multiple murder. It is serial killers, as defined by the FBI, who receive the most media attention and therefore are the ‘celebrities’ of the multiple murder genre and this I feel, highlights a weakness in this examination. Schmid fails to discuss how the sexual element in serial killing, dictated by the FBI and the media, may contribute to the celebrity status of its protagonists, especially as the ‘tabloidization’ of the media would give considerable visibility to sex killers, given their ‘all scandal, all the time’ (p. 14) sensibility. Schmid states that there is a ‘limited and distorted image of what serial murder is, who commits it, who is victimised, how they are victimised, and why they are victimised’ (p. 79). If serial killers are defined as sex killers it seems that this element needs examination. He briefly refers to Jane Caputi’s (1988) study of serial killers, which focuses on the importance of gender in understanding representations of serial murder, and he notes that ‘mainstream media sees nothing significant about the fact that the vast majority of serial killers are men and the vast majority of their victims women’ (p. 4). Then he himself appears to treat the subject as if this element were insignificant. In what is a cogent and compelling examination of the representation of the crimes of Aileen Wuornos, Schmid is at pains to demonstrate that her crimes are represented as more monstrous than those of many ‘heterosexual’ serial killers. It is ironic then that the blurb inside the front cover describes the crimes of H.H. Holmes as a ‘killing spree at the World’s Fair’, while Aileen Wuornos is described as a ‘lesbian prostitute who viciously killed seven men’. Schmid himself states that H.H. Holmes not only murdered, but may have tortured his (at least 27) victims after luring them to his purposely modified home, while it is not suggested that Wuornos used torture at all. The front cover shows a photograph of a very enigmatic looking Richard Ramirez, ‘the night stalker’, arguably a typical example of a sex killer who was sentenced to death for murder and rape in 1989 (Wilson and Seaman, 1996), with a bloody red slash across his torso bearing the title. The book thus appears to sell itself by using the sexual element, but fails to address it. Although the book would have benefited from Schmid’s perspective on this definitive element in serial killing, it is still a fascinating, logical and insightful analysis of what is represented by the media and law enforcement, as a growing phenomenon.
The Routledge Companion to Media, Sex and Sexuality, 2017
Celebrity and pornography are dominant features of late-capitalist consumption, and both serve to... more Celebrity and pornography are dominant features of late-capitalist consumption, and both serve to influence and bolster the performance, curation and construction of a sexualised and/or sexually explicit persona online. More so, a range of social and networked spaces such as Twitter XXX, Instagram, JustFor.Fans and onlyfans.com have enabled ‘ordinary’ subjects to assimilate and adapt elements of celebrity and pornographic representation in ways that have permitted them to explicitly and publicly present (and profit from) their private sexual persona. Individuals create and sustain their individual profiles through boundless processes of self-branding, self-promoting, self-objectifying, and the self-management of their sexual personas as “an ideal typification of the neoliberal self, emphasising how demotic neoliberalism, with the aid of celebrity role models instructs” not only their own, but also their viewers desires (McGuigan 2014, p. 224). This enigmatic discourse of sexual self...
Routledge eBooks, Jan 18, 2023
This article explores associations between the psychoanalytic theory of jouissance and representa... more This article explores associations between the psychoanalytic theory of jouissance and representations of bareback and chemsex between cis-gendered men in gay porn. It uses the concept of 'bodies that splutter' to focus on how tensions allied to the definition and interpretation of jouissance can be used as a foundation to interpret and reposition a queer and psychoanalytic politics of bareback and chemsex as porn. In so doing, the article will suggest that pornographic practices of bareback and chemsex in the output of UK director Liam Cole and US website RawFuckClub.com attempt to frame these practices of gay male desire as phallic jouissance. Working with the notion of 'bodies that splutter', the article will transpose Judith Butler's concept of performative bodies that matter and Tim Deans' unconscious bodies that mutter to consider a dialogue between pornography and jouissance where bodies also 'splutter'.
BRILL eBooks, Mar 22, 2023
Journal of Bodies, Sexualities, and Masculinities
Law arguably shapes contemporary culture and phallic politics. In England and Wales, like much of... more Law arguably shapes contemporary culture and phallic politics. In England and Wales, like much of the Global North, the second half of the twentieth century and early twenty-first century saw a general shift from a criminal legal framework that understood sexuality as sexual acts to a civil law framework that seeks to privilege institutions - notably marriage - and lifestyle as signifiers of sexuality. This article contributes to legal and cultural understandings of the phallus, specifically the “raw dick,” as key to understanding the self-representational spaces of “authentic” and “alt” selves on social media. It situates the “raw dick” as the locus of this cultural, legal, and social exchange in which the legal outlaw of male phallic desire has been incorporated into queer citizenship. We argue that the aesthetics of the alt-self provides us with new and important ways to understand the phallus and its relationship to sex and sexuality.
Encyclopedia of Gender and Society
The Edinburgh Companion to Critical Theory, 2016
The Bear: Culture, Nature, Heritage, 2019
The Bear: Culture, Nature, Heritage, 2019
PhD Thesis : Some images have been removed due to privacy and copyright issues. The thesis can be... more PhD Thesis : Some images have been removed due to privacy and copyright issues. The thesis can be viewed in full, on request via the print copy at the University Library.
Culture, health & sexuality, 2021
COVID-19 has transformed the way we live our lives, and sex has been a significant element of tha... more COVID-19 has transformed the way we live our lives, and sex has been a significant element of that transformation. Gay male sex in the UK has faced the most significant (re)criminalisation and (re)regulation in living memory with intimacy outside of the heteronormative framework of domestic coupledom at best discouraged and, at worst, made into a criminal offence. This criminalisation provides a temporal praxis in which gay men experience sex in the shadows once more, an echo of a historic legal and cultural regulation of desire. This history also provides a space for experiencing forms of impersonal intimacy and queer desire in a way that is arguably well-suited for viral times, namely the glory hole. These historic partitions and apertures - connecting gay men across legal and cultural boundaries of desire and affirmed through modes of anonymous and promiscuous sex - may once again provide a queer way to experience intimacy as impersonal. This article explores this potential and s...
Routledge International Handbook of Masculinity Studies, 2019
Porn Studies, 2019
ABSTRACTThis article explores associations between the psychoanalytic theory of jouissance and re... more ABSTRACTThis article explores associations between the psychoanalytic theory of jouissance and representations of bareback and chemsex between cis-gendered men in gay porn. It uses the concept of ‘...
Encyclopedia of Gender and Society
Encyclopedia of Gender and Society
Psychology and Sexuality, 2011
as well as non-normative embodiment through aspects of sexuality, gender, mental health and disab... more as well as non-normative embodiment through aspects of sexuality, gender, mental health and disability. Intersectionality has become a useful tool for analysis of power relations and inequalities in the past few decades, and as such, it has been both widely applied and critiqued. All authors take into account existing and apparent shortcomings of intersectionality, but recognise its significance by revealing its potential for bridging concepts and understanding lives. Given the diversity of its contributors, the voices represented and questions raised demonstrate a plethora of positions and experiences. The understanding of intersectionality as a lived experience and providing multifaceted examples of processes of intersections are great strengths of this collection. The crucial role of feminism for epistemological debates about sexuality is acknowledged and feminist thought is emphasised and advanced through this volume, while at the same time it is contested with other theoretical approaches. This collection demonstrates lived intersectionality and provides compelling theoretical and empirical arguments in favour of its advancement and application.
Media, Culture & Society, 2007
killers’ (p. 78), both in media and by the authoritative discourses of the FBI, and that this int... more killers’ (p. 78), both in media and by the authoritative discourses of the FBI, and that this interpretation of what constitutes serial killing fails to address other forms of multiple murder. It is serial killers, as defined by the FBI, who receive the most media attention and therefore are the ‘celebrities’ of the multiple murder genre and this I feel, highlights a weakness in this examination. Schmid fails to discuss how the sexual element in serial killing, dictated by the FBI and the media, may contribute to the celebrity status of its protagonists, especially as the ‘tabloidization’ of the media would give considerable visibility to sex killers, given their ‘all scandal, all the time’ (p. 14) sensibility. Schmid states that there is a ‘limited and distorted image of what serial murder is, who commits it, who is victimised, how they are victimised, and why they are victimised’ (p. 79). If serial killers are defined as sex killers it seems that this element needs examination. He briefly refers to Jane Caputi’s (1988) study of serial killers, which focuses on the importance of gender in understanding representations of serial murder, and he notes that ‘mainstream media sees nothing significant about the fact that the vast majority of serial killers are men and the vast majority of their victims women’ (p. 4). Then he himself appears to treat the subject as if this element were insignificant. In what is a cogent and compelling examination of the representation of the crimes of Aileen Wuornos, Schmid is at pains to demonstrate that her crimes are represented as more monstrous than those of many ‘heterosexual’ serial killers. It is ironic then that the blurb inside the front cover describes the crimes of H.H. Holmes as a ‘killing spree at the World’s Fair’, while Aileen Wuornos is described as a ‘lesbian prostitute who viciously killed seven men’. Schmid himself states that H.H. Holmes not only murdered, but may have tortured his (at least 27) victims after luring them to his purposely modified home, while it is not suggested that Wuornos used torture at all. The front cover shows a photograph of a very enigmatic looking Richard Ramirez, ‘the night stalker’, arguably a typical example of a sex killer who was sentenced to death for murder and rape in 1989 (Wilson and Seaman, 1996), with a bloody red slash across his torso bearing the title. The book thus appears to sell itself by using the sexual element, but fails to address it. Although the book would have benefited from Schmid’s perspective on this definitive element in serial killing, it is still a fascinating, logical and insightful analysis of what is represented by the media and law enforcement, as a growing phenomenon.
The Routledge Companion to Media, Sex and Sexuality, 2017
Celebrity and pornography are dominant features of late-capitalist consumption, and both serve to... more Celebrity and pornography are dominant features of late-capitalist consumption, and both serve to influence and bolster the performance, curation and construction of a sexualised and/or sexually explicit persona online. More so, a range of social and networked spaces such as Twitter XXX, Instagram, JustFor.Fans and onlyfans.com have enabled ‘ordinary’ subjects to assimilate and adapt elements of celebrity and pornographic representation in ways that have permitted them to explicitly and publicly present (and profit from) their private sexual persona. Individuals create and sustain their individual profiles through boundless processes of self-branding, self-promoting, self-objectifying, and the self-management of their sexual personas as “an ideal typification of the neoliberal self, emphasising how demotic neoliberalism, with the aid of celebrity role models instructs” not only their own, but also their viewers desires (McGuigan 2014, p. 224). This enigmatic discourse of sexual self...