Religious/secular discourses and practices of good sex

This article focuses on the triangulation of sexuality, religion and secularity in Dutch society by analysing two contemporary case studies. We focus on sexual experiences and practices rather than sexual identities to further understand the constructions of what constitutes 'good' sex. The empirical research is situated in the Netherlands, where the binary of religion and sexual regulation versus secularity and sexual freedom has been dominant in both public and political discourse for a long time. Exploring sexual practices and narratives as central to the constitution of both religious and secular selves, we noted these to be fluctuating, inconsistent and subject to discourses. Our first case study discusses sexual experiences of non-heterosexual Protestant women, whereas the second explores the frequently considered 'neutral' notions of secularity in sexual education. Applying insights from both religious studies and queer studies, we bring the empirical study of sexuality together with the theoretical debates about the conceptualisation of the secular and the religious in contemporary Western Europe.This comparative approach to sexuality not only undermines the culturally presumed exclusive opposition of the secular and the religious but it also provides new empirical contributions for understanding the interactions between sexual practices and sexual discourses

Comment on Huron and Veltman: Does a Cognitive Approach to Medieval Mode Make Sense?

This commentary examines Huron and Veltman’s article from the perspective of historical musicology. The following issues are discussed: • The authors regard modes as conceptual categories of the medieval listener, which seems unlikely on historical and theoretical grounds. • Pitch class profiles are not a good way of capturing the melodic nature of the modes. • The diatonic rather than the chromatic scale should be employed as the reference pitch system for the modes. • The tentative explanation of the transition from modality to tonality ignores the fundamental differences between modes and keys, and the role of polyphony in this supposed transition. The article’s methodology, to apply quantitative methods to problems of historical musicology, is fundamentally sound, and suggestions are made in this commentary as to how its shortcomings can be amended by reformulating research questions and redesigning methods

The secular body in the Dutch field of sexual health

This chapter investigates the secular body in the Dutch field of sexual health, the setting where the author conducted 13 months of anthropological fieldwork. The chapter explores this body from two different angles. First, it investigates the discursive field in which this body is situated in and constituted by. How do people working for sexual health organisations think the body should look and behave? What kind of behaviour and bodily appearance is advocated by these organisations? Second, the chapter draws on autoethnography to explore this body by examining the author’s experiences as a sexuality educator. On which occasions did he perceive himself to be failing as a sex educator? What do these experiences tell about the body and the expectations people have regarding a sex educator? By combining these two approaches to the body, the chapter explores the embodied configurations implicitly articulated and discouraged in Dutch sexuality education classes. In conclusion, the chapter reflects on what these insights tell us about secularity and the bodies that it seeks to cultivate