Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2002. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 348-355). Also available on the Internet.

It is the purpose of this study to utilize three psychometric measures in order to quantitatively assess the group of subjects on the basis of the trait heterosexuality, as measured by the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule, and in turn make predictions on the basis of these data as to choices made on the Bonney-Fessenden Sociograph.

No / This article draws on my personal experience, and on the separate experiences of 'leaving heterosexuality' and of 'being disabled'. I have attempted to find common ground for action between these two groups by interrogating the experience of being sexual. I argue that heterosexuality functions as a social matrix, with exclusionary practices that operate in similar ways towards both groups. Mechanisms may be different, but the experience of exclusion is similar, and is based on similar practices. This article focuses on specific points in the exclusionary process, and illustrates similarities.

Magister Artium - MA (Women and Gender Studies) / The aim of this study was to explore representations of gender, race and sexuality in a select group of South African magazines - Men's Health, FHM, Blink, True Love, Femina and Fair Lady - between 2003 and 2005. From a feminist poststructuralist perspective, it was argued that these magazines presented particular subjectives as normative; privileging and centerig one pole within dichotomies of gender, race and sexuality. / South Africa

Underlying the process by which Japan emerged as a global industrial power in the twentieth century was a particularly powerful ideology of gender and sexuality which equated masculinity with the public/work sphere and femininity with the private household sphere. Within this ideological framework, the archetypal male citizen - indeed, the ‘ideal’ male citizen - over the post-World War Two decades came to be represented by the ‘salaryman’ (sarariirnan, in Japanese). The term referred to permanent, predominantly white-collar, male private-sector employees, who were seen as being the foot-soldiers, the kigyô senshi (‘corporate warriors’) of Japan’s high-speed economic growth over the 1960s, 1970s. and even into the 1980s. Even after the slowing down of economic growth from the 1990s. the salaryman, and all that the discourse of masculinity built up around him represented, has continued to exert a powerful presence on the social landscape. This is despite the fact that, even at the high-point of economic growth in the 1960s and 1970s, only a minority of men would have fallen within the strictest definitional parameters of the term. However, it was the discourse associated with the salaryman - one infused with the gender ideology of the male breadwinner - that was far more extensive in its reach. In this respect the form of masculinity associated with the salaryman may be regarded as what R.W. Connell terms ‘hegemonic masculinity’. / This thesis explores the ways in which the discourse of salaryman masculinity became the hegemonic form of masculinity in Japan over the postwar decades, and the ways in which it continues to operate in present-day Japan. In exploring the dynamics at work, the thesis draws attention to the fact that rather than being some kind of immutable, biologically determined ‘given’, masculinity is a constantly shifting process. Indeed, rather than a single overarching masculinity, there are multiple masculinities at work. It is within the context of this matrix of masculinities that one particular form - the hegemonic masculinity - has the greatest ideological power. However hegemonic masculinity itself has to be constantly ‘crafted’ and ‘re-crafted’ through engagements with other masculinities. This occurs both at the wider societal level, and at the level of the individual. Consequently the discussion in this thesis is carried out at both the ‘macro’ societal level, and at the ‘micro’ level of the individual. The former level of analysis situates the emergence of the discourse of salaryman masculinity within the historical framework of Japan’s modernization and nation-building project, and also examines the ways in which socio-cultural spaces such as popular culture were, and continue to be, significant in the process. The second level of analysis explores the dynamics of the ‘crafting’ of hegemonic masculinity at the level of the individual male. The discussion draws upon intensive interviews carried out with young male employees of two private sector civilization, during an eighteen-month period of fieldwork. / It explores the ways in which these informants negotiate with the ideological expectations of salaryman masculinity vis-a-vis their own masculine identities, expectations which encompass various aspects of their lives. The discussion at both the ‘macro’ and micro’ level of analysis reveals that the dynamics of ‘crafting’ masculinity, rather than being a tidy, easy-to-categorize process, are infused with ambiguity, contradictions, richness, and nuance. It is through these contradictions that the contours of hegemonic masculinity are shaped and re-shaped.

Building upon feminist and sexual health research, this dissertation shows how the positioning of women in various discourses as somehow ‘lacking’ actually constrains what researchers are able to hear in their sexual stories. Using interviews with 26 heterosexually active young women, I seek to upset traditional approaches to understanding young women’s sexual stories and theorizing heterosexuality. To analyze the interviews, I first employ a Foucauldian-inspired discourse analysis that focuses on the power that circulates through discourses and our positioning within them. Our positioning in various discourses both enables and limits various courses of action, understandings and experiences. This power of discourse is illustrated by an emergent hybrid discourse that is apparent in young women’s sexual narratives. I discuss what I call the ‘competent feminine sexuality’ discourse and show how this discourse smoothes over contradictions between liberal and gendered discourses. Secondly, I show how psychoanalytic insights allow us to explore the processes of subjectification by which young women constitute themselves as (hetero)sexual women. Specifically, this dissertation explores processes of abjection, disavowal and ambivalence in participants’ narratives. In conclusion, the dissertation outlines the practical implications for sexual health education in Canada.

Building upon feminist and sexual health research, this dissertation shows how the positioning of women in various discourses as somehow ‘lacking’ actually constrains what researchers are able to hear in their sexual stories. Using interviews with 26 heterosexually active young women, I seek to upset traditional approaches to understanding young women’s sexual stories and theorizing heterosexuality. To analyze the interviews, I first employ a Foucauldian-inspired discourse analysis that focuses on the power that circulates through discourses and our positioning within them. Our positioning in various discourses both enables and limits various courses of action, understandings and experiences. This power of discourse is illustrated by an emergent hybrid discourse that is apparent in young women’s sexual narratives. I discuss what I call the ‘competent feminine sexuality’ discourse and show how this discourse smoothes over contradictions between liberal and gendered discourses. Secondly, I show how psychoanalytic insights allow us to explore the processes of subjectification by which young women constitute themselves as (hetero)sexual women. Specifically, this dissertation explores processes of abjection, disavowal and ambivalence in participants’ narratives. In conclusion, the dissertation outlines the practical implications for sexual health education in Canada.

Building upon feminist and sexual health research, this dissertation shows how the positioning of women in various discourses as somehow ‘lacking’ actually constrains what researchers are able to hear in their sexual stories. Using interviews with 26 heterosexually active young women, I seek to upset traditional approaches to understanding young women’s sexual stories and theorizing heterosexuality. To analyze the interviews, I first employ a Foucauldian-inspired discourse analysis that focuses on the power that circulates through discourses and our positioning within them. Our positioning in various discourses both enables and limits various courses of action, understandings and experiences. This power of discourse is illustrated by an emergent hybrid discourse that is apparent in young women’s sexual narratives. I discuss what I call the ‘competent feminine sexuality’ discourse and show how this discourse smoothes over contradictions between liberal and gendered discourses. Secondly, I show how psychoanalytic insights allow us to explore the processes of subjectification by which young women constitute themselves as (hetero)sexual women. Specifically, this dissertation explores processes of abjection, disavowal and ambivalence in participants’ narratives. In conclusion, the dissertation outlines the practical implications for sexual health education in Canada. / Arts, Faculty of / Sociology, Department of / Graduate

Heterosexuality often appears as a monolithic way of being that has been disciplinarily defined as right and natural for all sexual subjects (Foucault, 1979). However, it may also be viewed as a social construction, subject to alteration and variation according to social and historical context. In the following research, the stories of ten couples and from the South African soap opera Isidingo reveal the ways that heteronorms shape togetherness between men and women. In the research a queer stance is used to interrogate the ways that togetherness appears as natural and normal, such that the contingency of such togetherness is revealed. The queer stance was used to unsettle the unquestioned assumption of heteronormativity by interrogating the construction from a political position not included by the norm (Stein & Plummer, 1994). Within the general queer stance the concept of performance has been used to account for the ways in which subjects are able to unsettle normative constraints: Butler’s (1993) conception of repetition, Holzman’s (1991) account of the revolutionary developmental potential of performance, Billig’s (1991) understanding of the rhetorical constructions of everyday philosophers. Further Bakhtin’s (1994) dialogic ontology suggests that utterances, performances and/or narratives Using these theoretical underpinnings, the narratives show how stories of togetherness collude with heteronorms while at the same time existing alongside alternative forms of togetherness. Possibly because norms are broad, overarching constructions, they do not define the entirety of the couples’ tales. Rather moments of resistance and alteration are interwoven with normative themes. This unpredictable ambivalence appears in the couples narratives as the assertion that all relationships are the same, and that all relationships are unique. Couples position themselves within a social network, and this network instructs the couple on heteronormative ways of being together. They also witness normative performances in a way that is similar to the observation of disciplines, suggested by Foucault (1979). Although couples often go with their social network’s observations, the manner in which couples position themselves within this network assists them in arguing for alternatives to heteronorms. Spatial expressions also at times serve to fix togetherness. Homes are structured in line with social constructions of heteronorms. However, couples can and do mould their understandings of their homes, such space is reveal as an intersection between social and individual concerns. Narratives of work again reveal that heteronorms structure but can also be ignored within heterosexual relationships. Couples tell of receiving particular benefits from normative performances, and it is likely that these dividends make it difficult to opt for an altered version of togetherness. At the same time, the gender dualism of a heteronormative division of labour inserts oppression into togetherness, and this may lead couples to seek an unusual way of being together. In these ways, heterosexuality can be read as a multiple and contingent performance, rather than an immovable, unchangeable imperative.

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