Later life sex and Rubin’s ‘Charmed Circle'

Gayle Rubin’s now classic concept of the ‘charmed circle’ has been much used by scholars of sexuality to discuss the ways in which some types of sex are privileged over others. In this paper, I apply the concept of the charmed circle to a new topic– later life – in order both to add to theory about later life sex and to add an older-age lens to thinking about sex hierarchies. Traditional discursive resources around older people’s sexual activities, which treat older people’s sex as inherently beyond the charmed circle, now coexist with new imperatives for older people to remain sexually active as part of a wider project of ‘successful’ or ‘active’ ageing. Drawing on the now-substantial academic literature about later life sex, I discuss some of the ways in which redrawing the charmed circle to include some older people’s sex may paradoxically entail the use of technologies beyond the charmed circle of ‘good, normal, natural, blessed’ sex. Sex in later life also generates some noteworthy inversions in which types of sex are privileged and which treated as less desirable, in relation to marriage and procreation. Ageing may, furthermore, make available new possibilities to redefine what constitutes ‘good’ sex and to refuse compulsory sexuality altogether, without encountering stigma

Desempenho agronômico de híbridos F1 de tomate de mesa Agronomic attributes of F1 fresh market tomato hybrids

Objetivou-se avaliar e selecionar híbridos experimentais F1 de tomate de mesa do grupo salada quanto ao desempenho agronômico em condições de campo. Conduziu-se o experimento na Estação Experimental da Nunhems do Brasil, em Paulinia-SP, de fevereiro a junho de 2008. Obtiveram-se híbridos experimentais entre dez linhagens do BAG de tomate da Nunhems. Utilizou-se o delineamento experimental blocos casualizados com 36 tratamentos, quatro repetições e dez plantas por parcela. Com base no agrupamento de médias pelo teste de Scott-Knott, os resultados do desempenho agronômico dos híbridos experimentais para sete características avaliadas mostraram grande variabilidade entre os genótipos para comprimento de fruto e largura de fruto, com quatro grupos de médias. Os híbridos mostraram boa variabilidade para produção de frutos por planta e altura de planta, com três agrupamentos cada e, para as características número de frutos por planta, número de pencas por planta e distância da primeira penca do solo, mostraram-se menos divergentes, com dois grupos de médias. HE-38 e HE-14, com valores heteróticos positivos, destacaram-se como os mais produtivos em relação ao híbrido-padrão Aplauso.<br>The study aims to obtain and select F1 resistant hybrids of tomato for fresh market and evaluate their agronomic attributes in field conditions. The work was carried out at Nunhems Experimental Station, located in Paulínia, São Paulo State, Brazil, from February to June 2008. The experimental design was completely randomized blocks with 36 treatments, four replications and ten plants per plot. Based on the grouping of means by Scott-Knott test, the performance of hybrids for seven agronomic traits showed great variability among genotypes for fruit length and width with four groups of means. There was good variability for yield per plant, and plant height with three groups of means for each character. The traits fruit number per plant, cluster number per plant, and distance between the first cluster and the ground showed little divergence with two grouping means. HE-38 and HE-14 outperformed the standard Aplauso for fruit yield per plant showing positive heterotic effects