Sexualities

The classical American stag film, a body of clandestine short pornographic films produced during the first two-thirds of the 20th century, has received scholarly attention in several quarters, first from heterosexual male scribes and beneficiaries of the `sexual revolution', and more recently by feminist and queer cultural historians. The present article pursues this study by developing the concept of homosociality in relation to the stag film corpus, both its contextual and textual aspects, and demonstrating its inextricable engagement in the social and specular relations along the continuum of masculinity within American culture. In conclusion, the author compares the stags to another quasi-underground corpus of short erotic films, mail order homoerotic `physique' films of the post-war period, and discovers unexpected parallels and dialogue between the two corpuses at the onset of the `sexual revolution'.

Sado-masochism (SM) is described as a pathology in current psychological and psychiatric textbooks, and is often discussed alongside behaviours such as child sexual abuse and rape. Individuals who engage in SM are invariably positioned as experiencing intra-psychic conflict ameliorated through the displacement of the sexual drive. This is a limited and one-dimensional analysis of a complex phenomenon. This article presents the results of an in-depth qualitative study designed to further our understanding of the psychology of SM consistent with a social constructionist approach. Twenty-four self-identified sadomasochists, recruited through SM clubs and agencies and informal social networks, were interviewed. Thematic discourse analysis was used to generate a four-factor definition of SM: consensuality, an unequable balance of power, sexual arousal and compatibility of definition. Participants positioned SM variously as dissidence, as pleasure, as escapism, as transcendence, as learned behaviour, as intra-psychic, as pathological and as `inexplicable'. The research findings, their relevance to our understanding of SM sexualities and the limitations of the methodology and subsequent formulation, are discussed.

This article describes findings from a study of reproductive failure conducted in Zimbabwe. It examines the perspectives of men and women who believed they were potential reproductive failures by not having the socially expected numbers and types of children. In-depth interviews and focus group discussions were used to explore the meanings of reproductive failure and their links to local beliefs and culture, sexual behaviour and gender identities, and HIV prevention. Among study participants, a preoccupation with conception undermined the adoption of what are currently regarded as safer sexual behaviours. In seeking to overcome what was seen as reproductive failure, men, and women to a lesser extent, engage in unprotected sex with multiple concurrent and serial partners. Such behaviours are given meaning by long-held local beliefs concerning the importance of childbearing for individuals and for the wider community. These beliefs need to be taken seriously by future programmes and interventions to promote sexual and reproductive health.

Sexuality is integral to most analyses of lesbian families, but how this culturally constituted sense of ourselves is realized in the home is predominantly lacking. This article aims to look at the ways that sex/uality is typically situated in relation to `the family' and `motherhood', and what consequences arise from this conjuncture. It considers how sex/uality has been (dis)located from lesbian families, and the ways that our children articulate lesbian m(o)therness. It begins to open out a radical discourse on `(lesbian) family sexuality'. The theoretical research is critically informed by the author's status as a lesbian mother and incorporates observations from her own (extended) family network, alongside qualitative research with other lesbian families from the Yorkshire region.

An analysis of participation in adult video-conferencing on the internet reveals a subversion of traditional relations between the image and the act in pornography, providing an `interactive' sex entertainment which is both representation (or image) and presentation (or act). CU-SeeMe offers an experience that is at the same time both image and act, creating a space that accommodates multiple and fluid roles, allowing the positions of spectator and spectacle to be freely exchanged, and rewriting active/passive gender relations. In proposing that interactive CU-SeeMe sex entertainment blurs the boundaries between image and act, this article suggests that online interactive sex entertainment allows for the possibility of rewriting codes of sexuality.