What's sex got to do with it? A family-based investigation of growing up heterosexual during the twentieth century (original) (raw)
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This book showcases developments in theory, research and practice regarding sexuality and ageing, considering the differences as well as similarities between and among ageing heterosexual and LGBT older people. Identifying the questions central to future social scientific research on ageing and sexuality, it focuses on the important, emerging dimensions of sexuality and ageing: embodiment, the diversification of the ageing context and the intersections of care and sexuality. With attention to the different forms of sexualities, particularly at their intersection with gender, this volume explores the importance of spatial and relational contexts, whether individual, residential or virtual, with authors offering studies of online dating, sexuality in the context of residential care and the relationship between sexuality, legal frameworks and social policy. Interdisciplinary in scope and offering the latest research from scholars in the UK, Australasia and Africa, Ageing and Sexualities constitutes an integrated approach to the conceptual and practical challenges of understanding the interplay of ageing and sexuality in contemporary society. As such, it will appeal to scholars from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, including sociology, cultural studies, socio-legal studies, social gerontology, psychology, medicine and health care. CONTENTS. Introduction: Ageing and Sexualities, (Rosie Harding and Elizabeth Peel) 1. Ageing and Sexuality in Western Societies: Changing Perspectives on Sexual Activity, Sexual Expression and the ‘Sexy’ Older Body, (Sharron Hinchliff and Merryn Gott) 2. Ageing Sexualities in UK Regulatory Contexts, (Sue Westwood) 3. Inclusion and Representation of Older People and Sexual Health in sub-Saharan Africa within Contemporary Population Health Research, (Gloria Chepngeno-Langat and Victoria Hosegood) 4. Becoming Visible: De-marginalising Older Lesbians in LGBT Ageing Discourse, (Jane Traies) 5. Sexual Identity Labels and their Implications in Later Life: The Case of Bisexuality, (Rebecca Jones) 6. Older People and Sexuality in Residential Aged Care: Reconstructing Normality, (Michael Bauer, Linda McAuliffe, Deirdre Fetherstonhaugh) 7. "I am Getting Old and That Takes Some Getting Used To": Dimensions of Body Image for Older Men, (Allan Tyler, Nuno Nodin, Elizabeth Peel and Ian Rivers) 8. Troubling Identities? Examining Older Lesbian, Gay and/or Bisexual People’s Membership Categorisation Work and its Significance, (Andrew King) 9. Towards the Inquiry into Aged Care and Beyond: The Promise and Challenge of a New Era in LGBTI Ageing, (Mark Hughes) 10. Internet Dating, Sexual Intimacy and Older People, (Chris Beasley and Mary Holmes)
The Age of Consent and the Ending of Queer Theory
2014
This article uses the debates surrounding the age of consent as a broad umbrella to question the continued usefulness of Queer Theory. The debates surrounding the age of consent illustrate that Queer Theory has not fulfilled its original promise and that it is not (and possibly never been), “fit for purpose”. Towards the end of 2013, the topic of lowering the age of consent in England and Wales was once again much in the news. This article suggests that much of that debate focused expressly or impliedly on the age of which men and boys have sexual intercourse (whether gay or straight), rather than when people have sexual intercourse. Queer Theory (originating from feminism), was intended to be a liberating phenomenon, but contrary to these hopes and intentions, Queer Theory evolved to become synonymous with white gay men, thus denying its origins and becoming distinctly anti-feminist. Those who argue for a reduction in the age of consent have used (whether knowingly or not) an approach which is consistent with this evolved version of Queer Theory. Consequently, the debate on the age of consent has ignored, or given insufficient attention to, the effect(s) a lowering of the age of consent will have on girls and women. This article, therefore, seeks to question, disrupt and unsettle, what Queer Theory has become, suggesting that, in several significant aspects, it fails to fully acknowledge patriarchy; render (lesbian) women visible; acknowledge and accommodate the lived experiences of women.
Article The Age of Consent and the Ending of Queer Theory
2014
This article uses the debates surrounding the age of consent as a broad umbrella to question the continued usefulness of Queer Theory. The debates surrounding the age of consent illustrate that Queer Theory has not fulfilled its original promise and that it is not (and possibly never been), "fit for purpose". Towards the end of 2013, the topic of lowering the age of consent in England and Wales was once again much in the news. This article suggests that much of that debate focused expressly or impliedly on the age of which men and boys have sexual intercourse (whether gay or straight), rather than when people have sexual intercourse. Queer Theory (originating from feminism), was intended to be a liberating phenomenon, but contrary to these hopes and intentions, Queer Theory evolved to become synonymous with white gay men, thus denying its origins and becoming distinctly anti-feminist. Those who argue for a reduction in the age of consent have used (whether knowingly or not) an approach which is consistent with this evolved version of Queer Theory. Consequently, the debate on the age of consent has ignored, or given insufficient attention to, the effect(s) a lowering of the age of consent will have on girls and women. This article, therefore, seeks to question, disrupt and unsettle, what Queer Theory has become, suggesting that, in several significant aspects, it fails to fully acknowledge patriarchy; render (lesbian) women visible; acknowledge and accommodate the lived experiences of women.
Ageing in a non-heterosexual context
Ageing and Society, 2004
There is increasing recognition of the importance of social and cultural differences in shaping the diversity of the ageing experience in contemporary Britain. Various social and cultural factors, such as those associated with class, ethnicity, gender and disability, influence people's living circumstances and sources of support in later life. While they have been the subject of considerable speculation, ageing in a non-heterosexual context remains remarkably under-studied. This paper examines the difference that being non-heterosexual makes to how people experience ageing and later life. It draws on quantitative and qualitative data gathered for a British study of the living circumstances of non-heterosexuals aged between the fifties and the eighties. Previous work has overwhelmingly emphasised how individuals manage their sexual identities, but this paper focuses on the factors that shape the non-heterosexual experience of ageing and later life. Particular attention is paid to the relational and community contexts in which non-heterosexuals negotiate personal ageing. This not only provides insights into the specific challenges that ageing presents for non-heterosexuals, but also offers insights into the challenges faced by ageing non-heterosexuals and heterosexuals in ' detraditionalised ' settings.
"Thinking Heterosexualities: An Introduction to Critical Heterosexualities Studies"
Routledge International Handbook of Heterosexualities Studies, 2020
This is an interesting cultural moment in which to critically examine heterosexuality. Picture two different scenes that one might encounter in a given day in contemporary western societies. The first scene is set in a university classroom, where one mixed race student who uses they/them pronouns is talking about what it means to identify as pansexual and refers to their current partner as their "girlfriend." In the same small-group discussion is another white student who uses she/her pronouns, identifies as transgender, enacts a rather masculine self-presentation and talks about her "boyfriend" and what they will do this weekend. A few hours later in a hotel bar, a second scene unfolds between three straight, white, middle-class men in their early 30s who are catching up over drinks. Two of them are single, while the third talks about how his love life has changed since his girlfriend became his wife, and the couple now has two small children. He wistfully recalls the days when his partnership was filled with more sexual desire, which has diminished since the birth of their children. His tone has the air of inevitability about the trajectory his life has taken, from the fun sexy times with his girlfriend to the adult responsibility of married couplehood with two children. Conventional heterosexual nuclear families comprising two married biological parents and their children-like that of the wistful father in the bar-are not the statistical family norm in America, even if they are still the culturally sanctioned ideal family (Essig 2019; Stacey 2012). Nostalgic images of conventional nuclear heterosexual families have been increasingly challenged by today's shifting gender and techno-social dynamics. We are witnessing changing norms in heterosexual arrangements like online dating and hooking up (Kalish and Kimmel 2011; Wade 2018), the increase in single-person households (Klinenberg 2014), and the decoupling of gender identity from sexual identity. Straightness and its identity forms are bending into new arrangements, identity conceptions, and more flexible social statuses that build upon, morph, and attempt to supplant older, traditional patriarchal gender-normative arrangements. In return, those who hold traditional patriarchal beliefs about gender and heterosexuality continue to try to use their positions of political and institutional power to make heterosexuality "compulsory" and try to erase and/or demean new gender and sexual identities and relationships. At this cultural moment of both progressive change and reactionary politics, heterosexual identities, practices, and institutions are ripe for social analyses, theoretical explanations, and historical contextualization.
Edinburgh University Press eBooks, 2012
Introduction: feminism, queer theory and heterosexuality The 'invisibility' of heterosexuality as a normative category of identity is a recurring motif in recent work on heterosexuality; its ' "unmarked" and "naturalised" ' 1 status is understood as serving to perpetuate its power as an identity which tends to be taken for granted and to pass unquestioned. Indeed, as Linda Schlossberg puts it, 'heterosexual culture continually passes itself off as being merely natural, the undisputed and unmarked norm [emphasis added].' 2 Rereading Heterosexuality: Feminism, Queer Theory and Contemporary Fiction aims to contribute to what Richard Johnson has described as the 'impetus to render heterosexuality visible to critical scrutiny'. 3 Heterosexuality as an institution continues to have immense normative power; while this power impacts most explicitly on non-heterosexual identities it also extends to heterosexual identities which do not conform to familial, marital or reproductive norms-norms which have a particular impact on female identities, the principal concern of this book. Drawing on feminist and queer theories of sex, gender and sexuality, Rereading Heterosexuality takes as its distinctive focus the representation of female identities at odds with heterosexual norms; more specifi cally, it explores representations which serve to question the conventional equation between heterosexuality, reproductive sexuality and female identity. In this context, it will offer close readings of six novels published by British and American
Writing the modern histories of homosexual England
The Historical Journal, 2009
A B S T R A C T. The most useful sexual histories are those that provide depth of context without either assuming sexual identity or anticipating its complete absence ; those that do not force taxonomies ; histories that resist any simple teleological account of a shift from 'homosexuality ' as sexual excess to the homosexual as a species. This review examines attempts to write such histories -what has recently been termed the ' new British queer history '. I will focus on some strands of male and female same-sex desires and their expression in England in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: male and female same-sex friendships, effeminacy in men and masculinity in women ; and representations of lesbianism. This review discusses these histories of desires that resist present-day sexual assumptions.