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

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.

Women's Body and Sexuality-Text Construction of Female Star Photography Albums and Adolescent Girls' Interpretation Strategies

The purpose of this essay is to examine in what way the protagonist of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield, represses his own sexuality and how this affects his relationship to men and women. With the aid of psychoanalytic theory and gender theory, the essay strives to determine how Holden Caulfield relates to traditional gender roles, the causes of Holden Caulfield’s repressed sexuality, and how Holden Caulfield’s repressed sexuality manifests itself.

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.

No description available.

No description available.

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