| 1. |
- Arousell, Jonna, 1985-, et al.
(författare)
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Does Religious Counselling on Abortion Comply with Sweden's 'Women-Friendly' Abortion Policies? : A Qualitative Exploration Among Religious Counsellors
- 2019
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Ingår i: Sexuality & Culture. - : Springer. - 1095-5143 .- 1936-4822. ; 23:4, s. 1230-1249
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The abortion discourse in Sweden is marked by historically liberal ideals about women's inviolable right to make autonomous reproductive decisions. However, to respond to the increase in cultural and religious pluralism building up over several decades, religious organizations have been given opportunities to provide so-called spiritual care in affiliation with Swedish hospitals since the 1980s. In this study we asked: in what ways do religious counsellors, affiliated with Swedish hospitals, construct their ideas on abortion, and how well do their ideas comply with Sweden's 'women-friendly' abortion policies? Through interviews with Protestant, Catholic, Muslim, and Buddhist religious counsellors, we wanted to empirically test the presumption underlying the decisions to grant space to religious actors in Swedish healthcare, i.e., that religious counselling serves to complement existing services. We found that it cannot be expected that religious advice on abortion will always comply with Swedish abortion law and with the women-friendly abortion policy that the Swedish state seeks to impose. When policy-makers open up possibilities for diverse norms on abortion to manifest in close affiliation with healthcare institutions, they must be aware that some religious counsellors argue that only God-and not the woman herself-can decide whether a woman can terminate a pregnancy. We argue that the findings in this study speaks to what researchers have referred to as the "diversity-equality paradox", which highlights the tension between the promotion of religious ideas on abortion on the one hand and the promotion of liberal ideas about women's reproductive freedom on the other.
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| 2. |
- Carlström, Charlotta
(författare)
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BDSM, Interaction Rituals and Open Bodies
- 2017
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Ingår i: Sexuality & Culture. - : Springer. - 1095-5143 .- 1936-4822. ; 22, s. 209-219
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this article, based on ethnographic fieldwork in Bondage and Disci- pline, Dominance and Submission, Sadism and Masochism (BDSM) communities in Sweden, I explore the ritual aspects of BDSM. Drawing on Douglas and Collins’ theories of interaction rituals, I analyse the creation of emotional energy during humiliation practice through connection and intimacy between the participants. The article examines how the ritual aspect of BDSM sessions can be understood as an enabler of expressions and emotional energy. BDSM becomes a free zone in which bodies are allowed to be open in a Bakhtinian sense, that is, transgressive and beyond control.
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| 3. |
- Carlström, Charlotta, et al.
(författare)
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Living Outside Protocol : Polyamorous Orientations, Bodies, and Queer Temporalities
- 2019
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Ingår i: Sexuality & Culture. - : Springer. - 1095-5143 .- 1936-4822. ; 23:4, s. 1315-1331
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study investigates experiences of polyamory in a society where monogamy is the norm. Polyamory is when more than two people are involved in an intimate and/or sexual relationship. The relationships are known to those involved, and everyone has the opportunity to have multiple relationships at the same time. In-depth interviews were completed with 22 persons in Sweden who identify as polyamorous. Drawing on Ahmed’s phenomenological concepts of turning points and lines and Halberstam’s concept of queer time and temporality, the following questions are explored: What turning points can be seen in the informants’ stories? And what consequences are the informants exposed to when heteronormative expectations are not followed? In the theoretical language of Ahmed, living a life within monogamous boundaries would be considered as being “in line”. Going beyond these monogamous heteronormative lines can result in more relational choices by which one has to find out what kind of relationship works best instead of following a ready-made template. The majority of the informants feel forced to conceal their relationship constellations in several situations and contexts. Living a queer life is seen by others in society as not only incomprehensible but also immature and inexperienced. Interactions with healthcare professionals seldom offer any relief from this; instead, the informants’ stories of these encounters can be interpreted as instances of being stopped and blocked, resulting in stress and shame.
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| 4. |
- Cinthio, Hanna
(författare)
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"You go home and tell that to my dad!" : Conflicting Claims and Understandings on Hymen and Virginity
- 2015
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Ingår i: Sexuality & Culture. - : Springer. - 1095-5143 .- 1936-4822. ; 19:1, s. 172-189
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this article I examine different understandings of and claims concerning virginity. Several young women in Sweden suffer from strong patriarchal chastity ideals, even to the extent that some undergo surgery to restore a lost virginity. Swedish sexual politics, believing strongly in the power of evidence based information, have a clearly stated agenda to prevent this by "eradicating the hymen myth" through informative campaigns in schools and by educating professionals who encounter the problem. At the same time, the targeted teenagers themselves seem to hold a multifaceted and contextual view on the matter. They may be fed scientific information in school, and gain anatomically correct knowledge of the hymen, but they also need to maneuver within a different normative field where the hymen plays a symbolic role rather than a factual one. In the article I explore the charged discourse around the hymen, analyze the narratives of teenage informants who tell me of their thoughts and experiences in the matter, and discuss the possible different purposes served by the upholding of the concept. I argue that intellectual, factual knowledge is not necessarily relevant when dealing with emotionally and culturally charged beliefs, and that the ideologically driven agenda of "the truth shall set you free" is not fully in touch with the complex social reality of those who are subjected to the chastity ideals. Attacking misconceptions around the hymen does not necessarily recognize the principal dilemma of the collective asserting power over the individual in matters concerning relationships and sexuality.
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| 5. |
- Jurkane-Hobein, Iveta
(författare)
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Do I Qualify for a Love Relationship? : Social Norms and Long-Distance Relationships in Post-Soviet Latvia
- 2015
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Ingår i: Sexuality & Culture. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1095-5143 .- 1936-4822. ; 19:2, s. 388-406
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Not all couples live together; some partners live far from each other, causing potential challenges to relationship maintenance in terms of keeping the relationship ongoing. In the present study, complications in relationship maintenance experienced by heterosexual long-distance partners in post-Soviet Latvia are analysed. The complications are examined in the light of social norms as conceptualized by Parsons and Shils (Toward a general theory of action. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1962) in their notion of dominant value orientations. The article suggests that the norm conflicts experienced by the long-distance partners are illustrative of the value transitions in societies undergoing rapid social change, such as in Latvia. The analysis is based on 19 in-depth interviews with individuals with long-distance relationship (LDR) experience. The social norms complicating or hindering LDR maintenance were found to be generation-specific and gender-specific. The interviewees born and raised in Soviet Latvia referred to collective-oriented norms while the interviewees born in the independent neo-liberal Latvia referred to their own interests that complicated their LDR maintenance.
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| 6. |
- Kokkola, Lydia, 1967-, et al.
(författare)
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The Disgust that Fascinates : Sibling Incest as a Bad Romance
- 2017
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Ingår i: Sexuality & Culture. - : Springer. - 1095-5143 .- 1936-4822. ; 21:1, s. 121-141
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article compares the discourse of sibling incest evident in a corpus offiction with the discourse found in clinical, sociological and criminal literature.Whereas the former prima rily regards the coupling as a bad romance, the latterpresents the idea that it is unequivocally harmful. This discrepancy between the twodiscourses surrounding sexual relationships between brothers and sisters speaks toliterary fiction’s need for thwarted romances for the purposes of the literary market.A more detailed look into three novels from the corpus, Tabitha Suzuma’s For-bidden (2010), Donna Tartt’s The Secret History (1992) and Pauline Melville’s TheVentriloquist’s Tale (1997) shows how this logic of sibling incest as a bad romanceworks in practice.
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| 7. |
- Persson, Emil, et al.
(författare)
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Banning “Homosexual Propaganda” : Belonging and Visibility in Contemporary Russian Media
- 2015
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Ingår i: Sexuality & Culture. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1095-5143 .- 1936-4822. ; 19:2, s. 256-274
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article investigates Russian mainstream media’s coverage of the 2013 legislation banning “propaganda for non-traditional sexuality”. Inspired by theories on belonging, media and visibility, it reconstructs a dominant narrative representing non-heterosexuals as threatening the future survival of the nation, as imposing the sex-radical norms of a minority onto the majority, or as connected to an imperialistic West which aims to destroy Russia. This story, it is argued, functions as a hegemonic grammar regulating how non-heterosexuality is seen and heard in the public sphere. However, it is argued that sometimes the linearity and cohesiveness of the narrative breaks down, when things appear that do not fit this model of interpretation. The analysis illustrates how contestations of belonging in contemporary media are increasingly structured according to the logic of visibility: dominant actors attempt to regulate what can be seen and heard in the public sphere whereas oppositional actors attempt to establish their own visibility in the mediated space of appearance, putting forward alternative constructions of the nation and who belongs to it.
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| 8. |
- Swader, Christopher, et al.
(författare)
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Post-Soviet Intimacies: An Introduction
- 2015
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Ingår i: Sexuality & Culture. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1936-4822 .- 1095-5143. ; 19:2, s. 245-255
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article frames the “Post-Soviet Intimacies” special issue collection. We begin through briefly using Russia as a special case for the wider Soviet sphere and situating recent Russian developments in sexual politics alongside its internal and external conflicts. Our key interpretive frame is that intimacy politics serve as a master key for understanding political and economic patriarchy. After this, we provide some definitions of our concepts, describe our approach and process of creating the special issue, and introduce important literature which is widely applicable for understanding this theme as a whole. Finally, we briefly introduce the seven articles of this special issue within three wider groupings of Harnessed-, Material-, and Scorned Intimacies. We suggest that readers analyze our contributions from a perspective that situates intimacies as the objects of state and market power, where the linchpin of such power is the patriarchically naturalized pursuit of rule.
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