The Danger of Desire: Anal Sex and the Homo/Masculine Subject

Anal eroticism between men has been a recurrent focus in psychoanalytic theory for over a century. Many theorists conflate anal eroticism with danger, particularly danger to masculinity and male gender identity. Defensive resistance to aggressive penetration and fear of receptivity are repeatedly invoked to understand anal erotic excitement and actions. The author reviews numerous papers on this topic from a broad spectrum of psychoanalytic theories, including drive theory, queer theory, and relational psychoanalysis and seeks to expand the discourse on anal eroticism between men.

Although danger and dangerousness may be an aspect of individual anal erotic experience, it is not an essential or obligatory aspect of it; its construction as dangerous restricts the meanings that anal sexuality can carry. This imposes a defensive function on anal erotic desire or marginalized identity upon the practitioner when this is unwarranted.     

Principles of children's gynecology in Czechoslovakia

This paper documents specific aspects of sex and eroticism as well as related aspects of social development in a small group of postpubertal male patients diagnosed as having hypopituitarism secondarily to the surgical removal of a pituitary tumor. The data include information about erection, ejaculation, masturbation, erotic imagery and intercourse, as well as dating, socializing and falling in love. Problems of case management are also discussed.     

Postpubertal psychosexual function in male hypopituitarism without hypogonadotropinism after growth hormone therapy∗

This paper documents specific aspects of sex and eroticism, as well as related aspects of social behavior, in nine postpubertal male hypopituitary patients without hypogonadotropinism. The data reported on erection, ejaculation, masturbation, erotic imagery, intercourse and dating indicate an inertia of libido in these patients. Evidence for a deficit in socializing and pair‐bonding behavior is also present. Several alternative hypotheses for the observed deficits are considered.     

Sexism,Erotophobia, and the Illusory “No”

SUMMARY

I examined erotophobic, sex-negative attitudes toward female sexuality as they relate to acquaintance rape. Evidence suggests that sexist assumptions about female eroticism are intrinsically related to sexual violence against women. The argument is made that society's willingness to acknowledge women as sexual victims while simultaneously failing to validate women as sexual agents creates an ideal breeding ground for acquaintance rape. Accordingly, an analysis will be offered: in a culture that denies women freedom to say “yes” to sex without negative stigma, “no” does not always mean “no.” In this article, I will assert mat those who care about stopping sexual aggression in dating relationships have an obligation to work to eradicate sexist assumptions that neuter women's erotic selves.     

The Evolutionary Explanation of Man–Boy Eroticism: Comment on Rind (2015)

Objectives: The paper comments on Bruce Rind's (this volume, 2013) attempts to explain the origins of erotic attraction and relationships between boys and men in the process of natural selection in the course of human evolution. Methods: Cross-species, historical and cross-cultural evidence are used. Conclusions: For most individuals, man-boy eroticism could be a facultative trait, not an obligatory trait. Its evolutionary origins and its social functions cannot be ascertained with certainty at this time, but may have to do with the promotion of male solidarity in the face of conflict between men and women in gender-stratified societies.     

Adolescents' Emotional Experiences of Mother–Adolescent Conflict Predict Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms

Research on adolescent emotion has generally focused on expressions of emotion; however, there are reasons to believe that adolescents' experiences of emotion may be related to adolescent development in unique and important ways. This study examined the relation of adolescents' emotional experiences of conflict with their mothers to their internalizing and externalizing symptoms at three time points, each a year apart. After participating in videotaped conflict negotiation tasks with their mothers, adolescents (N=80) watched the videotape of their interactions and used a joystick to make continuous ratings of how negative, positive, or neutral they felt during the discussions. Hierarchical Linear Modeling was used to assess relations among their continuous emotion ratings and their internalizing and externalizing symptoms 1 year before the interaction task, at the time of the interaction task, and 1 year later. Adolescents' externalizing symptoms at the time of the conflict task were associated with negative emotion that decreased across the conflict discussion. Relations between emotional experience and internalizing symptoms a year later were moderated by adolescent gender, revealing that a tolerance for increasing negative emotion predicts fewer future internalizing symptoms for girls. The importance of adolescents' ability to tolerate negative emotion during normal developmental conflicts is discussed.     

A comment on the homosexual role

Following deep relaxation, 100 college females listened to erotic guided imagery consisting of (1) sexual invitation, (2) coital contact, and (3) reflection sequences, and responded after each sequence to three measures of subjective sexual arousal and one measure of 10 discrete emotions. The sexual invitation and coital contact sequences contained 24 interspersed cues that portrayed either a casual or a committed interpersonal context. Subjects were partitioned at their respective medians on measures of sex guilt and sex history with loved and with unloved partners. Three mixed 2 (casual, committed) × 2 (median split) × 3 (sequences) MANOVAs analyzed the 13 dependent variables. The hypothesized importance of a committed context on females' subjective sexual arousal and emotional reactions received almost no support. Imagining casual sex may, however, produce more guilty emotion than imagining committed sex. As hypothesized, higher sex guilt was associated with attenuated sexual arousal and reduced enjoyment and increased frequencies and/or intensities of guilt, shame, distress, fear, surprise, disgust, anger, and contempt in response to the erotic guided imagery. Women with a history of more involved sex experience reacted to the guided imagery with less frequent and/or intense surprise, fear, guilt, shame, disgust, and contempt than less sexually experienced women. The discussion included designs of several additional studies using the promising technique of guided imagery to answer experimentally remaining questions about the place of casual sex in females' erotic response and in personalities disposed to sex guilt.     

Adolescent Deliberate Self‐Harm: Linkages to Emotion Regulation and Family Emotional Climate

Parents' responses to their children's emotional expressivity have been shown to significantly influence children's subsequent psychosocial functioning. This study hypothesized that adolescents' deliberate self‐harm (DSH) may be an outcome associated with poor emotion regulation as well as an invalidating family environment. The mediational role of specific emotion processes (i.e., poor awareness of emotion, difficulties expressing emotions) between family emotional environment and the frequency of DSH was examined with 131 psychiatrically hospitalized adolescents (M age=14.84 years, SD=1.75 years). Results indicated that adolescents who self‐injured reported that this behavior reduced their negative emotional states. Structural equation modeling provided support for the proposed model that family climate influences frequency of DSH through emotion regulation skills but the model held for girls only. A direct model effect was not supported. Emotion regulation partially mediated the relationship between family climate and DSH, and direct effects were also observed.     

Talking Feelings: The Collaborative Construction of Emotion in Talk Between Close Relational Partners

This article reports findings from recent investigations into emotional talk between close relational partners. These findings are based upon 44 half-hour videotaped and transcribed conversations of interactants discussing an emotionally influential issue. It was found that interactants' emotional experiences were interactively constructed through (1) downgrading and upgrading emotional expressions, and (2) developing characteristics of the situation seen to have produced the emotion so as to justify it. These collaborative constructions of emotional experience were found to be guided by a complicated system of constraints which takes into account both the great utility of emotional attributions in the construction of selves and relationships and their likelihood of survival in the interactional environment. Face-to-face interaction with close relational partners was, therefore, seen to play a significant role in the social construction of human emotion.     

Sexy ladies sexing ladies: women as consumers in strip clubs

Recent shifts in the consumer base of the sex industry have involved greater female attendance in strip clubs. This article examines how strip clubs and dancers incorporate female patrons into a sexualized space traditionally designed for men by identifying three interactional processes: passing over, sidestaging, and tailoring. We suggest dancers pass over women because they perceive female patron behavior to include resistance to "buying the game" and spending patterns that diverge from male customers. Drawing on Goffman's dramaturgical analysis, we suggest the dynamic relationship between dancer and female patron involves what we term sidestaging, which refers to both dancers' disclosure and how the club's spatial organization inhibits the construction of women as customers through sharing gendered spaces, such as the bathroom. We argue that when a dancer tailors her lap dance for a female patron, she succeeds in acknowledging the female customer's sexual subjectivity and potential same-sex desires by providing an individualized avenue for exploring an erotic experience. Finally, we discuss data implications for understanding how same-sex desire and sexual identity operate in an environment that eroticizes the female form, and how the strip club becomes a potential space for engaging in same-sex eroticism that includes elements of play.     

Sexy Ladies Sexing Ladies: Women as Consumers in Strip Clubs

Recent shifts in the consumer base of the sex industry have involved greater female attendance in strip clubs. This article examines how strip clubs and dancers incorporate female patrons into a sexualized space traditionally designed for men by identifying three interactional processes: passing over, sidestaging, and tailoring. We suggest dancers pass over women because they perceive female patron behavior to include resistance to “buying the game” and spending patterns that diverge from male customers. Drawing on Goffman's dramaturgical analysis, we suggest the dynamic relationship between dancer and female patron involves what we term sidestaging, which refers to both dancers’ disclosure and how the club's spatial organization inhibits the construction of women as customers through sharing gendered spaces, such as the bathroom. We argue that when a dancer tailors her lap dance for a female patron, she succeeds in acknowledging the female customer's sexual subjectivity and potential same-sex desires by providing an individualized avenue for exploring an erotic experience. Finally, we discuss data implications for understanding how same-sex desire and sexual identity operate in an environment that eroticizes the female form, and how the strip club becomes a potential space for engaging in same-sex eroticism that includes elements of play.     

The Effect of Social Presence on the Facial and Verbal Expression of Emotion and the Interrelationships Among Emotion Components

Women were videotaped while they spoke about a positive and a negative experience either in the presence of an experimenter or alone. They gave self-reports of their emotional experience, and the videotapes were rated for facial and verbal expression of emotion. Participants spoke less about their emotions when the experimenter (E) was present. When E was present, during positive disclosures they smiled more, but in negative disclosures they showed less negative and more positive expression. Facial behavior was only related to experienced emotion during positive disclosure when alone. Verbal behavior was related to experienced emotion for positive and negative disclosures when alone. These results show that verbal and nonverbal behaviors, and their relationship with emotional experience, depend on the type of emotion, the nature of the emotional event, and the social context.     

‘Knows how to please a man’: studying customers to understand service work

This paper argues that sociologists interested in service work in consumer culture should pay attention to customers' understandings and accounts of their experience and participation in service encounters. It takes the market for sex as a case study and counters the neglect of customers within the study of service work by analysing customer service reviews of paid‐for sex published on a UK website, Punternet. It argues that male customers, familiar with the norms of consumer culture, assess the erotic, aesthetic and emotional labours performed by female workers to make judgements of service quality which suggests that the feminised ‘good worker’ is defined as professional when they disguise the market transaction.     

EXAMINING EMOTION AS DISCOURSE: Emotion Codes and Presidential Speeches Justifying War

Observers commonly argue that emotional appeal is critical for persuasive communication in mass media, science and social policy hearings, social problem advocacy, and politics. This raises a practical question: How can appeals to emotion be accomplished in mass audiences characterized by heterogeneity? I explore this question by theorizing emotional persuasion to be encouraged by the artful use of “emotion codes,” which are sets of socially circulating ideas about which emotions are appropriate to feel when, where, and toward whom or what, as well as how emotions should be outwardly expressed. As an illustration, I examine an instance of presidential communication surrounding war, the “Story of September 11” crafted by President George W. Bush in his first four nationally televised speeches after the events of that day. I explore how this melodramatic tale contains multiple and interlocking reflections of emotion codes which encourage audience members to feel in particular ways about the Good American victim and hero and the evil terrorist villain who are the primary story characters. In the conclusion I speculate about ways in which deploying elements of socially circulating ideas about emotion might encourage persuasion in large heterogeneous audiences as well as the necessities for examining emotion as discourse in other arenas of social life. My goal is to develop a model for empirically examining emotional meaning as social phenomena.     

Uncompensated emotional labor,racial battle fatigue,and (in)civility in digital spaces

Emotional labor was originally theorized by Arlie Hochschild in the context of domestic labor. Since her early theorization, popular culture and social scientists have adopted the term to refer to emotion work that is exhibited in a manner of financially compensated social settings. Emotional labor refers to the process by which individuals are expected to conform to a set of societal guidelines, ensuring that their emotions conform to that performance. As the use of social media grows, emotional labor plays an increasing role in the lives of people of color—across media platforms. We frame the ever‐present negotiation involved in racialized interactions online as a type of uncompensated emotional labor that results in racial battle fatigue. Next, we position emotional labor as an intrinsic part of the experience for social media users of color because digital media is by default a White, racialized space. Lastly, we argue that current research on civility does not account for the emotional labor of people of color. We offer an original view of uncompensated emotional labor that is inclusive of cross‐platform, racialized emotional labor that can result in racial battle fatigue.     

‘Workaholics’ and ‘whingeing women’: Theorising intimacy and emotion work — the last frontier of gender inequality?

In a variety of discourses and empirical studies it has been argued that compared with women, men show more reluctance to express intimate emotion in heterosexual couple relationships. Our paper attempts to theorise this gender asymmetry in intimate emotional behaviour as a sort of ‘emotional power’, within the wider context of continuing gender inequalities of resources and power in society. To the extent that men's role as breadwinner becomes their central life interest (they become ‘workaholics’), women are left with emotional responsibility for the private sphere, including the performance of the ‘emotion work’ necessary to maintain the couple relationship itself. Increasingly women's dissatisfaction in relationships (which men dismiss as unjustified ‘whingeing’) stems mainly from this unequal division. Yet many women still collude with male power by living the family ‘myth’ and ‘playing the couple game’; they perform emotion work on themselves to convince themselves that they are ‘ever so happy really’, thereby helping to reproduce their own false consciousness. This suggests that gender asymmetry in relation to intimacy and emotion work may be the last and most obstinate manifestation and frontier of gender inequality.     

Re-signing: A Cultural-Historical Study of Signs for Supporting Young Children’s Development of Emotion Regulation

Recent cultural-historical literature stresses the need for understanding the role of signs in emotional development. This article examined how the signification of children’s emotions in everyday parent–child interactions creates the conditions for the emergence of intrapersonal emotion regulation. Four families with children ages 3–6 years were studied in Australia. Findings indicated that parents’ re-signing supported the emergence of children’s intrapersonal emotion regulation. We argue that the cultural line of emotional development needs to be foregrounded and the process of development theorized, thus contributing to better understandings of the process, rather than the product of children’s development of emotion regulation.     

Sociological Introspection and Emotional Experience

Although social constructionists now study emotions, they neglect what emotion feels like and how it is experienced. This paper argues that social constructionists can and should study how private and social experience are fused in felt emotions. Resurrecting introspection (conscious awareness of awareness or self-examination) as a systematic sociological technique will allow social constructionists to examine emotion as a product of the individual processing of meaning as well as socially shared cognitions. Examining introspection as a sociological process, this paper argues that introspection can generate interpretive materials from self and others useful for understanding the lived experience of emotions. Findings from four studies–one, self-introspective, and the other three, interactive introspective examinations with co-investigators–provide information about the subjective part of emotion. They demonstrate the advantages of introspection in dealing with the complex, ambiguous, and processual nature of emotional experience.     

(Pre)Occupied Locations: Subverting Marginality—Reply to Commentaries

In my response to commentaries by Hartman and Sedgwick, I examine the positions from which each chose to speak. Hartman's rather light approach performs a particular function: the mentalization of anal erotic and homoerotic desire through the introduction of surplus meaning. I explore the relationship of this approach to the absence of rigorous theoretical critique in his essay. I question Sedgwick's decision to limit her critique to the confines of queer theory; this results in a constriction of meaning rather than the expansion she purports to offer. I challenge her notion of growth through mutual recognition with a model of change that is based in psychoanalytic theory and practice. Contrary to her assertion, I do not jettison danger or gender destabilization from the discourse on anal eroticism between men, but I question these as obligatory or constitutive to its meaning.     

The Normalization of Problematic Emotion in Conversations Between Close Relational Partners: interpersonal Emotion Work

This paper is based upon recent investigations into emotional talk between close relational partners. Analysis of conversations between romantic partners, same-sex friends, and cross-sex friends (which were videotaped and transcribed) illustrates conversants’ interactive work to “normalize” emotional experiences which are seen to be problematic. This was accomplished with the use of both direct strategies, which define the experience as a product of the ordinary human world, and indirect strategies, which included partner-matching of the experience and the linking of the problematic emotion to larger, positive individual or relational processes.