Discourse and identity in a corpus of lesbian erotica

This article uses corpus linguistic methodologies to explore representations of lesbian desires and identities in a corpus of lesbian erotica from the 1980s and 1990s. We provide a critical examination of the ways in which “lesbian gender,” power, and desire are represented, (re-)produced, and enacted, often in ways that challenge hegemonic discourses of gender and sexuality. By examining word frequencies and collocations, we critically analyze some of the themes, processes, and patterns of representation in the texts. Although rooted in linguistics, we hope this article provides an accessible, interdisciplinary, and timely contribution toward developing understandings of discursive practices surrounding gender and sexuality

Young girls embodied experiences of femininity and social class

Based on research with middle-upper class 12-13 year old school girls, we discuss how femininities were embodied and discursively reconstructed in class-based ways. The data suggests the girls understood class antagonisms within the boundaries of neoliberal discourses of responsibilisation, self-discipline, self-worth, and ‘proper’ conduct and choices. With class stripped of any structural or structuring properties, instead imparted to the fleshy sinews of the (excessive) body, the data reveals how social class was made visible and manifest in various mechanisms of, and meanings about, inclusion, exclusion, pathology and ‘normalisation.’ Thus, in explicating the ways in which the school girls embodied middle-class femininity (as the epitome of localised and everyday neoliberalism) we highlight how, in turn, ‘others’ (‘chavs’) were pathologised and deemed in need of regulation, management and governance

School toilets : queer, disabled bodies and gendered lessons of embodiment

In this paper we argue that school toilets function as one civilising site (Elias, 1978) in which children learn that disabled and queer bodies are out of place. This paper is the first to offer queer and crip perspectives on school toilets. The small body of existing school toilet literature generally works from a normative position which implicitly perpetuates dominant and oppressive ideals. We draw on data from Around the Toilet, a collaborative research project with queer, trans and disabled people (aroundthetoilet.wordpress.com) to critically interrogate this work. In doing this we consider ‘toilet training’ as a form of ‘civilisation’, that teaches lessons around identity, embodiment and ab/normal ways of being in the world. Furthermore, we show that ‘toilet training’ continues into adulthood, albeit in ways that are less easily identifiable than in the early years. We therefore call for a more critical, inclusive, and transformative approach to school toilet research

The ‘heritagisation’ of the British seaside resort: The rise of the ‘old penny’ arcade.

Amusement arcades have long been a key component of the British seaside resort. For almost a century, they enjoyed popularity and success and became established as a quintessential feature of the British seaside holiday. However, the advent of home-based video games along with recent gambling legislation has led to a decline of the seaside amusement arcade sector. Arcades gained a reputation as unsavoury places and their appearance and fortunes often mirrored those of the resorts in which they were located. However, over the past decade, a new variant of the seaside amusement arcade has appeared, featuring mechanical machines working on pre-decimal currency. Such ‘old penny arcades’ frequently describe themselves as museums or heritage centres and they offer an experience based on a nostalgic affection for the ‘traditional’ seaside holiday. They have appeared in the context of an increasing interest in the heritage of the British seaside resort and constitute one element of the ‘heritagisation’ of such resorts. This paper argues that such arcades can be important elements of strategies to reposition and rebrand resorts for the heritage tourism market

Schuldig landschap. Over de toeristische aantrekkingskracht van Baantjer, Wallander en Inspector Morse

De opnamelokaties van tv-detectives genieten een toenemende populariteit onder toeristen. In dit artikel wordt, op basis van een tekstuele analyse van ‘Baantjer’, ‘Inspector Morse’ en ‘Wallander’, onderzocht welke inhoudelijke kenmerken van deze tv-detectives mogelijk als ‘trigger’ fungeren. Uit de analyse blijkt dat plaats en beweging een centrale rol vervullen binnen de narratieve structuur van dit genre. Door zelf de lokaties te bezoeken, kunnen toeristen het spoor nalopen van hun geliefde detective om aldaar, vanuit een veilige positie, tijdelijk op te gaan in het schemergebied tussen fictie en werkelijkheid

Sex positivity and the persistence of shame

This essay considers how we make sense of the persistence of shame in the 20th anniversary year of Sexualities and a broader contemporary context in which the discourse of sex positivity has become predominant? This is an important moment in the development of the field to consider the status of sexual shame, not least because the discourse of sex positivity produces a call to action predicated on a repudiation of shame; shame as regressive, ignorant, reactionary and politically suspect

‘I don’t know what gender is, but I do, and I can, and we all do’: an interview with Clare Hemmings

What follows is an interview with Clare Hemmings, Professor of Feminist Theory and Head of the Department of Gender Studies at the London School of Economics. A leading figure in UK feminist theory, her research insists that we acknowledge matters of ambivalence and uncertainty in our history-making, storytelling and theorising. As such, it contributes to and has productively intervened in many fields, including feminist epistemology, affect theory, historiography and sexuality studies. Beginning with her first book, Bisexual Spaces: A Geography of Sexuality and Gender (2002), continuing in Why Stories Matter: The Political Grammar of Feminist Theory (2011), and most overtly in Considering Emma Goldman: Feminist Political Ambivalence and the Imaginative Archive (2018), Hemmings interrogates and challenges dominant modes and expressions of gender and sexuality from a feminist positionality that is itself under-theorised and rarely articulated: that of a feminine bisexual woman. As Hemmings notes, bisexual positionality encompasses the affective capacity for a ‘combination of heterosexual and homosexual desire’ (Hemmings, 2002a; 2002b: 17) and thus generates ‘radical reconfigurations’ (Hemmings, 2002b: 197) of our understanding of the relations between gender, sex and desire. Yet bisexuality has been repeatedly reproduced, within both feminist and queer theory, ‘as an abstract and curiously lifeless middle. As a lesbian and feminist who has occupied that supposedly ‘lifeless middle ground’, albeit differently (I have had two long-term relationships, one with a man, one with a woman), I was interested in speaking with Clare about these issues, and was compelled to do so after I attended an event that she co-organised at the London School of Economics, a screening of Sylvie Tissot’s film about the French feminist Christine Delphy that included Delphy herself. As soon as Delphy entered the theatre and began walking down the stairs to the podium, the audience burst spontaneously into a standing ovation and long applause: '[T]his moment involved both a shared jouissance and the returning of haunting conflicts within feminism – conflicts that we wish had been resolved long ago –because it entailed both exhilarating and dissonant affects, it became a sort of feminist moment par excellence, a moment where solidarity is never exempted from the (re)emergence of disagreements, and where the fantasy of a collective fusion becomes the condition for those conflicts to emerge' (Eloit in Delphy et al., 2016: 151). Delphy’s presence, and the film about her, reminded me that (1) feminist thinkers from the 1970s and 1980s were extraordinarily sophisticated in their understanding of how gender constitutes us as men and women; (2) this analysis is still mostly absent from public conversations; and (3) we still long for such conversations. My interview with Clare Hemmings is thus a continuation of this moment of shared jouissance and haunting. It was conducted informally, in 2017, in Clare’s office, in what was then the Gender Institute, in Columbia House at the LSE. For over 90 minutes during a grey afternoon in London, we spoke on a range of topics, from Clare’s intellectual history to her (then) forthcoming book on Emma Goldman. We discussed her background as a poststructuralist theorist who also carries out empirical research and the challenge of studying sexuality in the archive. In the portion of the interview that appears below, we talk in detail about Clare’s early work on bisexuality and how her thinking contributes to theorising gender in the present

The toilet debate: stalling trans possibilities and defending ‘women's protected spaces’

As one of the few explicitly gender-separated spaces, the toilet has become a prominent site of conflict and a focal point for ‘gender-critical’ feminism. In this article we draw upon an AHRC-funded project, Around the Toilet, to reflect upon and critique trans-exclusionary and trans-hostile narratives of toilet spaces. Such narratives include ciscentric, heteronormative and gender essentialist positions within toilet research and activism which, for example, equate certain actions and bodily functions (such as menstruation) to a particular gender, decry the need for all-gender toilets, and cast suspicion upon the intentions of trans women in public toilet spaces. These include explicitly transmisogynist discourses perpetuated largely by those calling themselves ‘gender-critical’ feminists, but also extend to national media, right-wing populist discourses and beyond. We use Around the Toilet data to argue that access to safe and comfortable toilets plays a fundamental role in making trans lives possible. Furthermore, we contend that – whether naive, ignorant or explicitly transphobic – trans-exclusionary positions do little to improve toilet access for the majority, instead putting trans people, and others with visible markers of gender difference, at a greater risk of violence, and participating in the dangerous homogenisation of womanhood

Validation of the MediByte^®Type 3 Portable Monitor Compared with Polysomnography for Screening of Obstructive Sleep Apnea

BACKGROUND: Portable monitors are increasingly being used as a diagnostic screening tool for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), and in-laboratory validation of these devices with polysomnography (PSG) is required.OBJECTIVE: To assess the reliability of the MediByte (Braebon Medical Corporation, Canada) type 3 screening device compared with overnight PSG.METHODS: To cover a range of OSA severity, a consecutive series of patients wore the screening device while simultaneously undergoing PSG. Data acquired from the screener and PSG were blinded and scored separately. The number of apneas and hypopneas per hour were calculated using recording time (respiratory disturbance index [RDI]) for the MediByte device, and sleep time (apnea-hypopnea index [AHI]) for PSG.RESULTS: Data from 73 patients with a mean age of 53 years and body mass index of 32.2 kg/m2showed high measurement association between the RDI and AHI, with a Pearson correlation of 0.92, accounting for 85% of the variance. Based on Bland-Altman measurement agreement, the mean difference between the RDI and AHI (−5.9±11.2 events/h) indicated screener under-reporting. For an AHI of greater than 15 events/h, the sensitivity and specificity of the screener was 80% and 97%, respectively; for an AHI of greater than 30 events/h, the positive predictive value was 100%, while the negative predictive value was 88%.CONCLUSION: The MediByte device accurately identified patients without OSA and had a high sensitivity for moderate-to-severe OSA.</jats:p