Sexualities

Several decades after oral sex became an ordinary part of the heterosexual repertoire, anxieties about an ‘epidemic’ of casual adolescent fellatio have found public expression in several countries. We examine media reactions to the case of a high-school celebrity athlete accused of receiving oral sex from underage girls. We follow Foucault in arguing that sexuality is constituted discursively but reject his claim that the erotic arts are absent from contemporary culture. Access to such arts on the part of adolescents is at the heart of anxieties around fellatio.

The aim of this article is to assess the use of sexual citizenship and intimate citizenship in articulating a concept of ‘intersex citizenship’. Intersex activism diverges in important ways from feminist, queer, lesbian and gay, and trans activism. Nevertheless, concepts of sexual and intimate citizenship help in thinking about the effects of family and kin structures on intersex corporeality, the impact of new technologies on intersex activism, and the advantages and disadvantages of consumer citizenship models for intersex claims, amongst other factors. As long as intersex issues are defined by medically disciplining techniques, there remains a need to think critically about how citizenship norms are constructed through responses to corporeality. Carol Lee Bacchi and Chris Beasley's concept of ‘citizen bodies’ provides a useful starting point both in attempting to theorize the norms underlying the hyper-embodiment of intersexual subjects, and in relating this hyper-embodiment to the construction of intersexual people as non-citizens.

Gay tourism has been identified as an area in which new intersections of identity, transnationalism, politics and economics are occurring. By marketing travel/holiday choices based on a sexual identity, we are witnessing in some sense a ‘postmodern’ turn in tourism as it responds to a multiplicity of interests and subject positions. But, at the same time, some argue that as an industry and an event, gay tourism is very similar to its mainstream counterpart as it sustains social, political and economic inequalities with very deep roots in the socio-historical firmament we refer to as colonialism. In this article, I explore the situated production of difference/distance primarily through the comments of a member of the gay tourism industry located in Barbados and the perspectives of some local ‘gay-identified’ Barbadian men in order to highlight how the former's constructions are inflected with modernist hierarchies of race, class, nation, and colony and how the latter's views simultaneously reproduce and transform these hierarchical relations.

In Mexico's predominantly Catholic culture, the enjoyment of sexual rights faces many challenges, both at the political and the personal level. Although often connected, the meanings of sexuality and reproduction are fundamentally different and so, correspondingly, are possibilities for the exercise of reproductive rights versus sexual rights. Such views are ‘gendered’ by the idea that women's desire and sexual activity should be controlled and men's masculinity should be affirmed through sexual performance. Drawing on in-depth research conducted among young Mexican men in rural communities, this article examines the ‘ethics’ implicit in men's accounts when talking about sexual desires, pleasures and practices with women. Findings point to the need for a stronger ethics of sexual citizenship in Mexico as part of enabling conditions for the exercise of both men's and women's sexual rights.

The internet has met with mixed community reactions, especially when the focus is on young people's internet use. There are those who fear that the internet will introduce undesirable people and information into the home, leaving the young vulnerable and exploited. Alternatively, there are others who argue that the exclusion of young people from the internet is one of many examples of the diminishing public space that is made available to young people in this post-modern world. In this article we focus on the internet use of one ‘space deprived’ group of marginalized young people, those who are same-sex attracted. Regardless of some important changes in Australian culture and law, these young people's opportunities to openly live their sexual difference remain restricted. In this article we are interested in exploring the role of the internet as a space in which some important sexuality work can be done. What we found was that the internet was providing young people with the space to practise six different aspects of their sexual lives namely identity, friendship, coming out, intimate relationships, sex and community.

This article describes the experiences of 12 transwomen on hormone treatment, ranging in age from 30 to 63. Findings from interviews revealed seven prominent themes: transitioning before hormone treatment, starting on hormones, matching expectations with reality, tracking changes, relationships with health professionals, reflections on gender identity, and impact of hormones. Participants tended to be highly curious about the impact of hormone therapy, and most tracked bodily and psychological changes closely. Despite problematic side effects experienced by most (including periods of depression), an overall mental health benefit was evident, with transwomen feeling relieved about reducing the impact of testosterone and the stress of presenting as men, while being able to openly explore dimensions of being female. While some transwomen expressed awareness of how social influences and ideas about gender played a part in their reactions to hormone treatment, most thought and acted in accordance with the biomedical premise that bodies and identities can be created and recreated through technical physiological manipulation. Hormone therapy was seen as the critical step in committing to, and consolidating gender transition.