abstract: In the wake of the post-2000s internet and technology boom, with the nearly simultaneous introduction of smartphones, tablet, IPads, and online video streaming, another moral panic around pornography has reared its head. While much has been written about pornography from the perspective of media analysis and, more recently, ethnographic work of the industry and with performers themselves, very little work has been done with consumers. What has been undertaken, by psychologists and antiporn academics in particular, suffers an unfortunate lack of diversity in terms of how consumers are defined. That is, psychologists and antiporn academics alike appear to think only white hetero men consume porn. This research realizes its significance through the idea that porn looks and feels differently, and expresses different meanings through the historical and intersecting relations to power of a consumer, even in the young heterosexual men that antiporn feminists are so keen on using as a strawman for all porn consumption. With the help of an intersectional affects framework, I am able to articulate the manner in which pornography puts bodies in motion before the mind undertakes a hermeneutical exercise fundamentally framed by the consumer’s knowledge and subjectivity, which muddles how antiporn’s speech act approaches presume a direct propositional transmission from a pornographic object to the consumer. Moreover, a digital object of any kind becomes pornography when it is used as such (Magnus Ullén, 2013); there is no necessary or logical consequence that outside of such a context the object remains inherently or intentionally an object of pornography (Mary Mikkola, 2017). With the help of my participants, I expose the manner in which subjective and intersubjective flows of affects expose entanglements of hope, possibility, and cruelty for porn consumers qua affective subjects. This is particularly the case for those non-majoritarian subjects whose promise of sexual citizenship and/or legibility, within neoliberalism’s single-issue progress narrative and linear temporality, rests on both the transposition of illegibility and non-citizenship elsewhere, as well as the subject’s willingness to fix, label, and thereby commodify their desires as affective labor. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Women and Gender Studies 2018

archives@tulane.edu / 1 / Thomas Miles

There have been significant strides made regarding the civil rights of LGBTQ+ students and teachers in recent decades with legal precedent being set by federal courts. Recently, this precedent has been challenged in many conservative states with legislatures passing laws to prohibit the discussion of gender non-conforming and non-heterosexual identities in K–12 classrooms, ban transgender student athletes from participating on sports teams that align with their identified gender, and forbid access to gender-affirming care for transgender children (Lambda Legal, 2023). These laws are being challenged in courts, and litigated cases have resulted in favorable rulings for LGBTQ+ people, but there are many more yet to be decided. Even in states where protections for LGBTQ+ students remain strong, public schools are still extremely heteronormative – stigmatizing and erasing non-heterosexual and gender non-conforming students. It is well documented that these students navigate school differently than their heterosexual peers but what is not clear is how music teachers in states with strong protections for LGBTQ+ students, who teach a significant number of them, are trained to meet their needs. With this study, I sought to answer the following questions: 1. Which states in the eastern division of the National Association for Music Education (NAFME) have ratified educational policies that contain specific language regarding non-heterosexual and gender non-conforming students? 2. What specific language is used in educational policies, related to non-heterosexual and gender non-conforming students, in states that have ratified these policies? And 3. How are college music teacher preparation programs, in states with educational policies related to non-heterosexual and gender non-conforming students, preparing preservice music teachers to support these students? To answer these questions, I analyzed the education policies in the NAFME eastern division to discover the range of protections for LGBTQ+ youth. I then selected the state with the most protections and chose two universities in that state to examine as part of a multiple case study. I requested syllabi and reading lists from music education faculty, devised questions from those documents and conducted 30-minute interviews with those faculty members. Once the faculty interviews were completed, I revised the student questions where necessary and conducted 30-minute interviews with students who were in their final semester of the program. Through the lens of Queer theory, I analyzed the faculty and student interviews and found that certain faculty traits ultimately lead to pre-service music teachers having the ability to support LGBTQ+ students in their music classroom. These traits included being aware of the need to support LGBTQ+ youth but particularly being comfortable with and willing to broach these sensitive topics with pre-service music teachers. Professors who are unaware of the specific needs of LGBTQ+ students, or who are aware but unwilling to broach the subject, could result in pre-service music teachers who are not equipped to support these students in their classrooms unless resources outside of their university were sought.

with Prof. John Haughey, SJ / McGuinn Hall 121

No description available.

No description available.

This thesis examines the writings of Nikos Kazantzakis. Primarily the attitude and expressions toward womankind and woman's relationship with man are explored.

My work is an exploration of female sexuality and the use of the body in conceptual photography. I use photography as a sensual medium that acts similarly to paint conveying visceral and ambiguous qualities in abstract forms. The medium of film becomes eroticized, intertwining the image of body with other bodies on film. The film is treated sensually in its tactility of smooth, slick, luminous qualities; folding; manipulating with heat that gets flushed; bubbling; overflowing on the surface. Femininity and the body are adorned through film; layers that present themselves to the world. We reveal and conceal ourselves in parts. An optical tactile experience; of pushing and pulling; exposing and layering; flirting between visibility in the sensual physical body as the body medium of film. My work expresses the human experience; the body carries a language and performs; acceding to desire and pleasure. My intent is to create an erotic intervention in the content of my images. My research draws from sources that advocate a sexually confident attitude without passivity. / October 2016

From the simple electronic vibrator to the complex assemblages of cybersex, sex and technology have always intersected. The dynamic relations between sexuality and technology are constantly changing along with the ways in which human beings achieve psychological and bodily pleasure through these devices. Sex machine, a term that denotes an automated device that can assist human in the pursuits of sex, has been broadly defined as therapeutic and pleasure machines in the West. Large numbers of sex machines have been documented in Europe and America starting from the nineteenth century, and were widely produced and utilized by medical practitioners, sex toy makers and individuals throughout history. This research focuses on three kinds of sex machines that have been produced and represented visually in recent years: fucking-machines, teledildonics and humanoid sex machines. By using the poststructuralist approach of combining the material and symbolic dimensions in the analysis, the thesis aims at investigating the cultural significance of sex machines by studying how they are identified, represented and produced as cultural text/artefact in the Euro-American subcultural sexual context. Through a queer reading of sex machines, the project will explore how sex machines re-configure the way we understand body, gender, sexuality and technology in the human pursuit of pleasure and desire.

Previous studies of non-human animals and humans with endocrine abnormalities have demonstrated that higher prenatal androgen levels promote more male-typical behavior, including cognitive abilities and sexual behavior. Research on normal hormonal fluctuations (e.g. menstrual cycle studies) has shown additional effects of circulating sex hormones in postnatal life on the expression of a number of sex-linked cognitive and sexual behaviors. This research was designed to replicate previously reported sex differences in a variety of domains and to extend prior findings of an association between low (male-typical) 2nd to 4th digit (2D:4D) ratio, enhanced (maletypical) mental rotation ability, and more liberal (male-typical) sexual attitudes and behavior in women. This is also the first study to examine the effects of hormonal factors and other sex-linked variables on sociosexuality in men. As part of this study, participants (n = 127) completed a battery of gender role measures, sex-linked cognitive tasks, and a sexual attitudes questionnaire. Prenatal androgen levels were indirectly measured by means of the index to ring finger (2D:4D) ratio, and testosterone and progesterone levels were obtained from saliva samples collected at each session from participants who were not using hormonal contraceptives. Results replicate previously reported sex differences in sexual attitudes, sex-linked behaviors and personality traits. More importantly, results provide the first evidence for both pre- and postnatal contributions to sexual attitudes. Men with lower (more male-typical) 2D:4D ratios reported less restricted (more male-typical) sexual attitudes, suggesting that prenatal hormone levels may influence sexual attitudes in adulthood, at least in men. Additionally, the tendency for women who were not using hormonal contraceptives to report less restricted sexual attitudes during the mid-luteal phase of their cycle than during the menstrual phase suggests that changes in circulating sex hormone levels in adulthood, such as those during the menstrual cycle, may influence sexual attitudes in women.