While the tampon is a popular female hygiene product that is used in most western countries, within the Chinese market, around 98 percent of women use sanitary napkins and only 1.9 percent use ...tampons. The culture is changing rapidly in China today, but tampons have not been accepted by many women. What do Chinese women think about using tampons? How do culture and objects interact with each other in terms of rejection and receptivity? This paper tries to answer these questions by discussing the relationship between culture and objects, Chinese sexual culture, and the perceptions of women regarding tampons. It is possible to gain extensive cultural knowledge about Chinese society and values by exploring what the absence of this object means, which in turn provides a glimpse into the socio-cultural fabric of a society and the operational values of the community.
Since 2001, cases of hepatitis C virus (HCV) sexual transmission have been reported in France, among HIV-positive gay men who do not inject drugs. An earlier study focused on the incidence of acute ...hepatitis C and risk factors associated with HCV transmission. The present study, based on in-depth interviews, aimed to highlight the biography, the sexual practices and the experiences of gay men infected with HCV. Beyond an apparent uniformity, the group of interviewees illustrates a variety of situations, life stories and health pathways, depending on their age. These well-adjusted gay men were used to engaging in unprotected sexual practices, but before their diagnosis they largely ignored HCV-transmission risk, which was associated in their mind with a pejorative drug addict image. Once diagnosed with acute hepatitis C, they experienced a critical and emotional period during which they were open to discuss their sexual practices and reconsider risk-reduction procedures, without being willing to give up on their satisfying sex life. Health educators should consider labelling hepatitis C as an STI in order to disrupt its negative image and to help HIV-positive gay man raise their awareness of HCV-transmission risks and implement better risk-reduction strategies.
Throughout history, Americans have been bitterly divided as to whether passionate love and sexual desire are positive experiences (that give meaning to life), whether they constitute a political, ...social, and spiritual danger, or whether sex in itself is not inherently bad, but certain sexual behaviors are wrong or dangerous. As previously noted by H. L. Horowitz, R. L. Rapson, and L. Stone, political and religious authorities—preaching the virtues of social control, chastity, and circumspection—have prevailed over reformers advocating “free love,” gender equality, birth control, the elimination of the double standard, sex education, and the like. In this paper we ask: Do we see any bias in the publication of modern-day sexuality research—specifically, do published studies tend to focus primarily on the positive or the negative aspects of sexuality? We attempted to answer this question by conducting a content analysis of articles appearing in four prestigious journals:
The Journal of Sex Research
,
Archives of Sexual Behavior
,
The New England Journal of Medicine,
and
Obstetrics and Gynecology,
from 1960 to the present. As expected, only a slim minority of articles investigated the delights of love, sex, and intimacy; the vast majority focused on the problems associated with sexual behavior. The positive psychology movement does not appear to have altered this time-tested bias.
With a focus on Chinese literature of the dynastic period, previous studies on transgender representation in China demonstrated a dichotomy between the attitude of the uppermost class and that of the ...general public. Apart from literature representation, other studies on “deviant” sexuality in contemporary China tend to attribute this complicated attitude to the non-religious Confucianism-rooted culture that is tolerant yet intolerant. Especially since China entered socialism, this complexity was incorporated into socialist ideologies, leading to unique and distinctive treatment of sexual “deviance”. By examining transgender representation by the official newspaper of the Communist Party of China, the
People’s Daily
, this study aims to disclose how sexual “deviance” has been regulated throughout the decades, how gender ideology changes over time under the influence of political, cultural and technological factors, and how a transgender identity was dismantled or facilitated by these factors in turn.
Lesbian gender expression is a persistent theme in research and writing about lesbian culture. Yet little empirical research has examined the ways lesbian gender functions within the sexual culture ...of lesbian communities, particularly among lesbians of colour. This study was aimed at documenting and assessing the functions of lesbian gender among African American lesbians. Particular attention was paid to identifying core characteristics of sexual discourses, such as evidence of dominant and resistant sexual scripts and contradictions between messages about sex. This study took the form of a rapid ethnography of an African American lesbian community in the USA using focus groups, individual community leader interviews and participant observations at a weekly open mic event. Findings document how lesbian gender roles translated into distinct sexual roles and expectations that appear to both parallel and radically reject heterosexual norms for sex. The deep roots of the social pressure to date within these roles were also evident within observations at the open microphone events. While data highlighted the central role that lesbian gender roles play in this community, analyses also revealed a strong resistance to the dominance of this sexual cultural system.
China's transition from an injection drug-driven HIV epidemic to one primarily transmitted through sexual contact has triggered concern over the potential for HIV to move into the non-drug-injecting ...population. Much discussion has focused on the migrant men of China's vast 'floating population' who are considered a high-risk group. As a result, many men who frequently engage in high-risk behaviour but are not included in this especially vulnerable group are evading HIV prevention messages. This paper highlights the socio-cultural and politico-economic factors that motivate many of China's wealthy businessmen and government officials, sometimes referred to as 'mobile men with money', to engage in such behaviour. Examination of the activities related to the work of these men reveals a situation where the confluence of a market-oriented economy operating within a socialist-style political system under the influence of traditional networking practices has engendered a unique mode of patron-clientelism that brings them together over shared social rituals including feasting, drinking and female-centered entertainment that is often coupled with sexual services. As a result, consideration of the socio-cultural factors influencing these men's sexual practices is important for responding to the newly emerging stage of China's HIV epidemic.
This article offers an overview of the evolution of the problem page in British popular newspapers since 1918. It argues that newspaper problem columns and related features were regarded by many ...readers as an important source of advice and guidance on personal and sexual questions. It identifies three different phases in the development of the modern problem page. In the inter-war period, and into the 1940s, problem pages almost invariably provided staunch defences of conventional morality and portrayed sexuality as a dangerous instinct that needed to be restrained and managed. In the 1950s and 1960s, sexuality was increasingly depicted as positive and pleasurable force that needed to be expressed for personal and psychological well-being. Agony aunts became less concerned with defending the institution of marriage and started to offer some more challenging and opinionated material. Since the 1970s, in the context of a more sexualised and permissive culture, problem pages have developed a more hedonistic approach, and have been presented more overtly as entertainment.
This paper deals with the various «sexual cultures» in different societies, their socio-sexual order and their sex/gender systems. For a better understanding they are classified into two main groups: ...digital systems (more rigid societies) and analogical systems (more flexible societies). If it is true that there are multiple sexual ideologies that «naturalize» different ways of understanding the masculine and the feminine, homosexuality and heterosexuality, among other things (Mead, 1972, 2006), it can be concluded that the «masculine domain», heteronormativity and the dual sex/gender model are not universal realities, but are characteristic of concrete sex/gender structures.
Este artículo pretende dar a conocer las diversas «culturas sexuales» en diferentes sociedades, su orden sociosexual y su sistemas sexo/género, con el fin de agruparlas, para su mejor comprensión, en dos grandes grupos: los sistemas digitales (sociedades más rígidas) y los sistemas analógicos (sociedades más flexibles). Si es cierto que existen múltiples ideologías sexuales que «naturalizan» diversas formas de entender lo masculino y lo femenino, la homosexualidad y la heterosexualidad, entre otras cosas (Mead, 1972, 2006), se puede concluir que el «dominio masculino», la heteronormatividad y el modelo dual sexo/género, no son realidades universales, sino que son propias de estructuras sexo/género concretas.
Among the Suri agro-pastoralists, a relatively self-sufficient and independent people of ca. 34 thousand in the extreme southwest of Ethiopia, young adolescent girls often assert that they menstruate ...together and regulate their own menstrual cycle, relating it to the phases of the moon. "Menstrual synchrony" is a much debated and still unresolved phenomenon in the scientific literature. Rather than giving immediate credence to its existence, I claim that the young, unmarried Suri girls—well aware of all biological facts around procreation, the fertility cycle and pregnancy prevention—follow a cultural script of sexuality and aim to fit physiological facts into a preferred socio-cultural mould. They use the synchrony assertion to change behaviour and thereby to maintain sexual independence and choice of partners in a society that is marked by significant gender equality but also by individual competition. After a brief presentation of key issues in the (inter-disciplinary) debate on menstrual synchrony and its possible existence and causes, I describe Suri sexual culture and menstrual customs, using field data gathered in two villages. I then tentatively assess the plausibility of the Suri girls' claims to menstrual synchrony, and elaborate an interpretation of Suri female sexual/reproductive strategies as enhancing women's agency in a society marred by growing internal instability, conflict, and an uncertain future. Synchronisation prétendue des cycles menstruels des jeunes filles suri (Éthiopie méridionale). Entre culture et biologie. — Chez les agro-pasteurs suri, une ethnie relativement autonome de 34 000 personnes environ, vivant dans l'extrême sud-ouest éthiopien, les jeunes adolescentes prétendent souvent qu'elles ont leurs règles ensemble, et régulent leurs cycles selon les phases de la lune. La "synchronie menstruelle", malgré un manque de preuves, est un phénomène contesté et souvent débattu dans la littérature scientifique. Plutôt que d'accepter l'existence de ce phénomène, nous soutenons que les jeunes filles suri (célibataires), qui connaissent bien la sexualité, la fécondation, la procréation et la prévention des grossesses, adoptent un scénario culturel visant à modifier et à intégrer ces faits physiologiques dans une forme socio-culturelle. Elles utilisent la prétendue synchronie pour changer, avec succès, les comportements sexuels, maintenir une indépendance sexuelle et choisir leurs partenaires dans une société marquée par l'égalité des sexes, mais aussi par la compétition individuelle. Après une brève présentation du débat interdisciplinaire portant sur le phénomène de la synchronie menstruelle, son (in)existence et ses causes éventuelles, nous décrirons la culture sexuelle et les coutumes de menstruation des Suri, en utilisant des données recueillies chez des jeunes filles vivant dans deux villages différents. Nous proposons ainsi une interprétation des stratégies sexuelles et de reproduction des femmes suri comme un moyen d'accroître leur agency dans une société instable et au futur incertain.
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