Over the last ten years, a newly created ritual called a Purity Ball has become increasingly popular in American evangelical communities. In much of the present literature, Purity Balls are assumed solely to address a daughter’s emerging sexuality in a ritual designed to counteract evolving American norms on sexuality; however, the ritual may carry additional latent sociological functions. While experienced explicitly by the individual participants as a celebration of father/daughter relationships and a means to address evolutionary sexual mating strategies, Purity Balls may implicitly regenerate existing social hierarchy. This ritual facilitates a sociological purpose by means of re-establishing the role of the male through halting the psychological development of sexual identity in the daughter, and these rituals are enacted in the ownership of the daughter by the father, who is responsible for maintaining the daughter’s purity, for “covering her with his protection.”

Zugl.: Mainz, Univ., Diss., 2007

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of History / Robert D. Linder / Evangelical Christians represented a growing and influential subset of American Protestantism in the northern colonies of British America at the time of the War for Independence. Almost a century later, when southern states chose to secede from the Union, evangelical Christianity embodied the most vital expression of American religion, having been widely spread across the nation by decades of revivals. Central to their faith was a commitment to the authority of the Bible in every area of life, including political life. The New Testament seemed to command Christians to obey civil authorities. So, why did northern evangelicals overwhelmingly support the rebellion against English rule, but later criticize southern Christians for rebelling against the Union? Or why, on the other hand, were both of these actions not equally rebellious against civil authority? This dissertation argues that northern evangelical Christians employed Romans 13:1-7 between 1763 and 1863 as a political text either to resist or to promote submission to civil authority in pursuit of an America whose greatness as a democratic republic would be defined primarily by its religious character as an evangelical Protestant Christian nation. The chronological scope of this project spans the century between the end of French and Indian or Seven Years War (1763)—a crucial turning point in Colonial America’s sense of identity in relation to Great Britain—and President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation (1863)—a crucial turning point in America’s sense of identity over the issue of slavery. Thus, the work explores the debate over American identity during the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries from a prominent religious perspective in light of changing understandings of the concept of submission to civil authority. The author views Romans 13:1-7 as a pivotal New Testament text informing evangelical Christian political theory in America between the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. Convictions forged by northern evangelicals in the colonial era regarding America’s status as “chosen” by God, and their attempts to construct a Christian democratic republic on this basis in the nineteenth century drove conscientious adherents of biblical authority to debate and periodically reassess the meaning of these verses in the American context. In this way, evangelicals contributed to the development of a concept that historians would later call “American exceptionalism.” Northern evangelicals, in particular, hoped to define America’s uniqueness by the degree to which those in civil authority reflected and reinforced Protestant Christian values and wedded these to American democratic republican identity. So long as the United States government fostered the attainment of their religious ideal for the nation, northern evangelicals promoted virtually absolute submission to civil authority on the basis of the command, “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers,” found in Romans 13:1. But when they perceived the state to threaten their goal of a national Christian identity, highly qualified explanations of Romans 13:1 prevailed in northern evangelical pulpits and publications.

This study evaluated the rape fantasies of a female undergraduate sample (N = 355) using a sexual fantasy checklist, a sexual fantasy log, a rape fantasy scenario presentation, and measures of personality. Results indicated that 62% of women have had a rape fantasy. For these women, the median rape fantasy frequency was about four times per year, with 14% of participants reporting that they had rape fantasies at least once a week. Further, rape fantasies exist on a continuum between erotic and aversive, with 9% completely aversive, 45% completely erotic, and 46% both erotic and aversive. Women who are more erotophilic, open to fantasy, and higher in self-esteem tended to have more frequent and erotic rape fantasies than other women. The major theories that have been proposed to explain why women have rape fantasies were tested. Results indicated that sexual blame avoidance and ovulation theories were not supported. Openness to sexuality, sexual desirability, and sympathetic activation theories received partial support.

À partir d’une pratique clinique au sein d’un Service Médico-Psychologique Régional d’une maison d’arrêt, cette thèse vient interroger la question de la perversion chez la femme. Si on constate de nombreuses controverses sur ce sujet, faut-il pour autant dire que la femme échappe à la perversion ? Souvent considérées comme victimes passives, le rôle de ces femmes dans le scénario criminel est perçu comme secondaire, au service d’un autre, de son compagnon par exemple. Si dans nos imaginaires, la perversion est associée aux hommes, la part de destructivité chez la femme a longtemps été niée, alors qu’historiquement et cliniquement, elle est manifeste. Par leurs mises en acte, ces femmes témoigneraient d’une impasse quant à leur construction subjective. C’est pourquoi nous nous intéresserons tout d’abord aux enjeux et aux incidences de la période préoedipienne sur leur devenir-femme. Leur soumission à un Autre ouvrira une réflexion sur la notion de complicité comme véritable statut, avec l’importance de la présence du regard d’un Autre à provoquer ou à angoisser. À travers la présentation de situations cliniques, je vais tenter d’aborder différentes figures féminines de la perversion. Du meurtre d’enfant aux violences sexuelles commises par des mères, en passant par la passion amoureuse et la séduction perverse, nous nous confronterons également à la violence barbare de jeunes adolescentes.La diversité des cas cliniques souligne la complexité de cette question de la perversion chez la femme. La place de la haine, du sacrifice à un Autre, et enfin de la perversion des idéaux seront interrogés, avec notamment la mise en évidence comme hypothèse, l’impossibilité de constituer un fantasme matricide structurant chez ces femmes qui ont alors recours, dans le réel, à des passages à l’acte pervers. / From a clinical practice in a Regional Medical Psychological department in a prison, this thesis is questioning about female perversion. Even if we can notice many controversies about this subject, does it mean that women can escape perversion? Often considered as passive victims, these women have in the criminal scenario a role seen as secondary, in the service of someone else, for example of their partners. If in our imagination,perversion is linked to men, the part of destructiveness among women has been denied for a long time even if it is evident historically and clinically. By acting, these women would show an impasse concerning their subjective construction. That’s why, firstly, we will be interested in the issues ans impacts of the preoedipean period on their woman becoming. Their submission to an other will make people think about the notion of complicity as a real status, with the importance of the presence of an Other to provoke or distress. I’m going to talk about many different perversion female figures through the presentation of clinical situations. From the child murder to the sexual abuse committed by mothers, from love passion to perverses eduction, we will also be confronted with the barbarous violence of young female teenagers. The diversity of clinical cases underlines the complexity of the woman perversion. We will question about the importance of hatred, of sacrifice to an other and finally about ideals perversion, emphasizing as hypothesis the impossibility of constituting aformative matricide fantasy among these women who are really doing perverse actions.

Publications in peer-reviewed biomedical journals are essential for sharing knowledge and advancing healthcare. This article will articulate a 5-step approach for developing and publishing a manuscript, and provide academic clinicians with an instructional tool they can provide to their protégés and junior faculty. The authors attempt to distill existing advice for preparing manuscripts, which is found in myriad formats, combine these tutorials with their collective experience and present this approach for developing and publishing successfully a manuscript in a peer-reviewed journal. The 5 steps identified instruct would-be authors to (1) know their material and determine their audience; (2) outline their manuscript; (3) be ethically vigilant; (4) develop individual sections and submit their manuscript and (5) respond to reviewers׳ comments. This article describes each of these steps in detail. Rewards of publishing articles include recognition by peers and supervisors, contribution to academic promotion and dissemination of information to the medical community.

Magister Theologiae - MTh / The aim of the study was to determine what the possibilities are that Ephesians 5:21-24 is misinterpreted when the conclusion is drawn from it that the husband today should be "the head of the wife" and that the wife should "submit" to him. The study assumes that many problems in Christian marriages arise because the biblical guidance with regard to the mandate that the male has in marriage is taken literally. The literature suggests that the average male in the context of the marriage is in crisis, because of the rise of feminism and the emancipation process from a previously male-dominated society. The study attempts to investigate the meaning of Ephesians 5:21-24, and to look for possible answers to questions posed by those who try to be obedient in a fundamentalistic way. To this end the problems of applying an ancient text to modem circumstances are investigated. The exegetical and hermeneutical investigation that follows reaches the conclusion that the passage in Ephesians cannot be used to justify complete male dominance in marriage. It does indeed imply a hierarchy within marriage, but this is relativized by clear statements in the rest of the epistle. There is a tension within the passage itself, but only one aspect has traditionally been emphasized. It is suggested that this one-sided emphasis amounts to a misinterpretation.

The goal of this essay is to investigate the works of Galdós and Lorca and how they shapedthe position of women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Feminist literarytheory is used to elucidate how debates about the position of women developed and whatmechanisms our writers used to highlight injustice towards the female figure. They alsoexplored how women could also be sexist with those of the same gender. The results showthat the works reflect a degree of awareness of both Lorca and Galdós regarding theposition of women in Spanish society and in their own way they denounced it with theirprose. They exposed with their lyrics the difficulties women were going through. / El objetivo de este ensayo es investigar las obras de Galdós en Doña Perfecta y Lorca enLa casa de Bernarda Alba y cómo representaron la posición de la mujer a finales del sigloXIX y principios del XX. La teoría literaria feminista se utiliza para dilucidar cómo sedesarrollaron los debates sobre la posición de las mujeres y qué mecanismos se utilizan enlos textos para resaltar la injusticia hacia la figura femenina. También exploraron cómo lasmujeres también podrían ser sexistas con las del mismo género. Los resultados muestranque las obras reflejan un grado de conciencia tanto de Lorca como Galdós en cuanto a laposición de la mujer en la sociedad española y a su manera lo denunciaban con su prosa.Expusieron con sus letras las dificultades por las que pasaban las mujeres.

The purpose of this study is to hightlight experiences of living in a relationship where BDSM is being exercised. The acronym is an umbrella term for bondage/discipline, dominance/submission and sadomasochism. The study is based on qualitative interviews with five persons who define themselves as BDSM practitioners. The overall questions of this study are: How does the BDSM practice appear in everyday life? How did the practice start and how has it developed over time? What's included in the sexual BDSM practice? The empirical material has been analyzed with interactionism as the theoritical framework.The picture that emerges is complex. To define oneself as a BDSM practitioner might mean different things for different people where the extent of the practice, what it consists of and how integrated it is in the lives of people might vary from person to person. But despite differences there are also recurring, common patterns in the stories of the informants. All of them describe the practice in positive terms. To a great extent the practice has to do with sexuality where an explicit power exchange, an assuming of dominant and submissive roles and an everyday life filled with rituals, rules and agreements are described as being key elements. Punishment, in the form of physical pain or humiliation, is common when the rules are not obeyed. All the interviewees use safewords to make sure both are comfortable about what's happening. Some sort of tool is utilized by all. The most common are whips, bonds, chains and locks, paddles, clamps/clothespins, knives, butt plugs and ropes. There's an occupation among the informants to find and to form strategies to cope and to adapt the BDSM role to other roles and here the parental role is the most apparent. Also an ambition to create a balance between the personal norms and the norms of the BDSM culture and those of the overall society can be seen. The interviewees express a search for answers to why one practices BDSM. In this process they return to experiences, almost exclusively of a destructive nature, and they wonder if these experiences have affected their sexuality and their preference for BDSM. It's like this even if the common attitude in society actually has become more accepting, for example with the help of media, recent research and the fact that it's not anymore is considered being a disorder.

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