Differences in Romanian Men\u27s Online Personals by Sexualities

As Internet usage increases, its ability to provide almost instant connections and to pre-screen potential partners has made it a popular source for meeting people. To contribute to current literature, we examine differences in content between 187 men seeking men and 193 men seeking women in a sample of Romanian (Bucharest) personals in 2007. Results show that men seeking women provide more information about themselves than men seeking men. While the results also show that some Romanian men are more open about expressing their sexualities than others, there are still many obstacles affecting how men choose to share and express their sexualities in Romania

Is homonationalism influencing public opinion? Experimental and survey evidence from the UK and Romania

Homonationalism is a proposed value configuration that promotes both accepting gay people and prejudice towards immigrants and ethnic minorities. This value configuration contrasts with the widely supported theory that all prejudices are positively related, and are explained by underlying causes such as authoritarianism. Although homonationalism has received attention in qualitative research on mass-media and political discourse, this is the first quantitative exploration of the concept. We used data from a society likely to be high on homonationalism (UK), and one likely to be low (Romania). None of our results were consistent with homonationalism, either in an experiment conducted with students (Study 1, N = 110), or in a secondary analysis of data from the same two countries (Study 2, N = 2638). Ethnic prejudice and homophobia were positively related, while homonationalism was negatively related to homophobia and authoritarianism. Homonationalism has little utility as a construct for understanding public opinion at this point in time, and research investigating it at other levels of analysis may be more fruitful

Minority Stress, Campaign Messages and Political Participation during the Australian Marriage Plebiscite

Background: The health and wellbeing of sexual minorities is adversely impacted by a set of factors collectively known as minority stress. Recently, negative campaigns preceding gay-rights referenda have put further pressure on sexual minorities. However, active participation in political campaigns is expected to foster wellbeing. This study explores the mechanisms through which political campaigns affect negative emotions in sexual minorities. Method: We conducted a survey with 318 Australian sexual minority individuals during the campaign for the same-sex marriage postal vote in 2017. Results: As expected, exposure to negative campaign messages was associated with emotional distress. This association persisted controlling for the effects everyday stress. The effect of exposure to negative campaign messages was no longer significant when controlling for minority stressors like internalized homophobia, expectations of rejection, and everyday discrimination. Political participation was also associated with emotional distress. Post hoc analyses supported a model whereby minority stressors mediated the associations of campaign messages and political participation with distress. Conclusion: As public votes on the rights of sexual minorities become more common, it is important to develop models that can inform policy in protecting such minorities. Minority stress provides a flexible theoretical framework that can incorporate these new challenges

"Appearance potent"? A content analysis of UK gay and straight men's magazines.

With little actual appraisal, a more 'appearance potent' (i.e., a reverence for appearance ideals) subculture has been used to explain gay men's greater body dissatisfaction in comparison to straight men's. This study sought to assess the respective appearance potency of each subculture by a content analysis of 32 issues of the most read gay (Attitude, Gay Times) and straight men's magazines (Men's Health, FHM) in the UK. Images of men and women were coded for their physical characteristics, objectification and nudity, as were the number of appearance adverts and articles. The gay men's magazines featured more images of men that were appearance ideal, nude and sexualized than the straight men's magazines. The converse was true for the images of women and appearance adverts. Although more research is needed to understand the effect of this content on the viewer, the findings are consistent with a more appearance potent gay male subculture

Challenges in QCD matter physics --The scientific programme of the Compressed Baryonic Matter experiment at FAIR

Substantial experimental and theoretical efforts worldwide are devoted to explore the phase diagram of strongly interacting matter. At LHC and top RHIC energies, QCD matter is studied at very high temperatures and nearly vanishing net-baryon densities. There is evidence that a Quark-Gluon-Plasma (QGP) was created at experiments at RHIC and LHC. The transition from the QGP back to the hadron gas is found to be a smooth cross over. For larger net-baryon densities and lower temperatures, it is expected that the QCD phase diagram exhibits a rich structure, such as a first-order phase transition between hadronic and partonic matter which terminates in a critical point, or exotic phases like quarkyonic matter. The discovery of these landmarks would be a breakthrough in our understanding of the strong interaction and is therefore in the focus of various high-energy heavy-ion research programs. The Compressed Baryonic Matter (CBM) experiment at FAIR will play a unique role in the exploration of the QCD phase diagram in the region of high net-baryon densities, because it is designed to run at unprecedented interaction rates. High-rate operation is the key prerequisite for high-precision measurements of multi-differential observables and of rare diagnostic probes which are sensitive to the dense phase of the nuclear fireball. The goal of the CBM experiment at SIS100 (sNN= 2.7--4.9 GeV) is to discover fundamental properties of QCD matter: the phase structure at large baryon-chemical potentials (μB> 500 MeV), effects of chiral symmetry, and the equation of state at high density as it is expected to occur in the core of neutron stars. In this article, we review the motivation for and the physics programme of CBM, including activities before the start of data taking in 2024, in the context of the worldwide efforts to explore high-density QCD matter

Challenges in QCD matter physics - The Compressed Baryonic Matter experiment at FAIR

Substantial experimental and theoretical efforts worldwide are devoted to explore the phase diagram of strongly interacting matter. At LHC and top RHIC energies, QCD matter is studied at very high temperatures and nearly vanishing net-baryon densities. There is evidence that a Quark-Gluon-Plasma (QGP) was created at experiments at RHIC and LHC. The transition from the QGP back to the hadron gas is found to be a smooth cross over. For larger net-baryon densities and lower temperatures, it is expected that the QCD phase diagram exhibits a rich structure, such as a first-order phase transition between hadronic and partonic matter which terminates in a critical point, or exotic phases like quarkyonic matter. The discovery of these landmarks would be a breakthrough in our understanding of the strong interaction and is therefore in the focus of various high-energy heavy-ion research programs. The Compressed Baryonic Matter (CBM) experiment at FAIR will play a unique role in the exploration of the QCD phase diagram in the region of high net-baryon densities, because it is designed to run at unprecedented interaction rates. High-rate operation is the key prerequisite for high-precision measurements of multi-differential observables and of rare diagnostic probes which are sensitive to the dense phase of the nuclear fireball. The goal of the CBM experiment at SIS100 (sqrt(s_NN) = 2.7 - 4.9 GeV) is to discover fundamental properties of QCD matter: the phase structure at large baryon-chemical potentials (mu_B > 500 MeV), effects of chiral symmetry, and the equation-of-state at high density as it is expected to occur in the core of neutron stars. In this article, we review the motivation for and the physics programme of CBM, including activities before the start of data taking in 2022, in the context of the worldwide efforts to explore high-density QCD matter.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures. Published in European Physical Journal

Interventions to reduce sexual prejudice : a study-space analysis and meta-analytic review

Sexual prejudice is an important threat to the physical and mental well-being of lesbians, gay men, and bisexual people. Therefore, we reviewed the effectiveness of interventions designed to reduce such prejudice. A study-space analysis was performed on published and unpublished papers from all over the world to identify well-studied and underexplored issues. Most studies were conducted with North American undergraduates and were educational in nature. Dissertations were often innovative and well designed but were rarely published. We then performed meta-analyses on sets of comparable studies. Education, contact with gay people, and combining contact with education had a medium-size effect on several measures of sexual prejudice. The manipulation of social norms was effective in reducing antigay behavior. Other promising interventions, such as the use of entertainment media to promote tolerance, need further investigation. More research is also needed on populations other than American students, particularly groups who may have higher levels of sexual prejudice