Sexualities

This article examines the relationship between queer citizenship, state violence and the exclusion of racialized, homophobic ‘others’. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with LGBT people in Oslo, Norway, I investigate the presence of racialization in narratives of homophobic hate crime. The findings suggest that racialization structures narratives of risk assessment among several of the participants. However, in these narratives, racialization often operates through place-specific references, rather than racial and ethnic markers of identity. The narrative work thus displays ambivalence and a disassociation from racism. I argue that these narratives feed on an already established conflation of space, ethnicity, religion and homophobia, to which both mainstream media and part of the LGBT community contribute.

This article examines the interconnectedness of sex work with the platform economy. It does this by mobilizing two concepts from the platform economy literature: the platform stack (which captures the structure of platforms) and interpenetration (which describes the processes through which platforms intersect). Exploring these concepts, the article draws on a dataset of linked platforms used by 54 cam workers and documented observations of 55 different platforms. These platforms include those designed for sex workers as well as those with a more generalist function. In mapping this platform ecology, the article highlights some of the opportunities, barriers and risks that platform interpenetration presents for sex workers.

Despite growing debate about the role of monuments in diverse societies, there has been insufficient attention to contestations that have emerged involving ‘gay’ or ‘queer’ monuments. This article examines the politics of inclusion and exclusion that can stem from the social practices that evolve around these monuments, particularly as the imperatives and priorities of LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) activism evolve while monuments, created in a particular historical and geographical context, are in some sense ‘set in stone’. Drawing on an intensive, mixed-methods case study of the Homomonument in Amsterdam, the article develops a grounded critique of processes of inclusion and exclusion specifically in relation to Black, bisexual and transgender people. With a focus on dance parties organised at the Homomonument, the article calls for more research that analyses monuments as sites of practice.

This article analyzes how a neoliberal understanding of identity shapes gay subjectivity, body, affect, and intimacy in digital environments, particularly Instagram. This social media has become one of the most relevant elements of gay subculture in Western countries, including Spain. Neoliberalism usually reduces gayness to a sort of global marketable brand which is understood as an individual attribute rather than a collective identity that provides common ground to fight for LGBT rights and against homophobia. Drawing on previous research on online self-representation and gay subjectivity, we specifically explore this global pattern in Spanish gay users of Instagram. To this end, we examine posts containing the tag #gaySpain uploaded between April and May 2020. In general, our research shows that the profiles tend to provide narratives of successful personal self-engineering and self-promotion, rather than activism and collective empowerment. These narratives present the gay body as a commercial product or something to be admired and consumed, whilst affect is part of an online highly ritualized performance and communication, and by no means a force for social change. As part of self-representation in social media, intimacy is constructed on Instagram for a large audience as an attractive example of a thriving gay life; in simple terms, Instagram has become gay show business like other manifestations of this subculture such as the Pride march.

Sex work has undergone a change, with the rise of the internet economy with more ‘middle class’ sex workers coming into the industry. In this paper, I explore the social status hierarchy within online direct-contact commercial sex work in New Zealand. I draw on findings from an in-depth qualitative investigation of online sex work, undertaken between 2017 and 2018. I took a participatory approach, working closely with NZPC – Aotearoa New Zealand Sex Workers’ Collective to provide an understanding of two interrelated issues: the role web platforms play in shaping the social status of sex workers who advertise for clients online; and how sex workers brand and market themselves online. The findings suggest that sex workers strive to represent themselves as authentic in their marketing to enhance social status. Furthermore, the web platform on which over 90% of indoor sex workers in New Zealand advertise has embedded a status system among sex workers through the advertising packages they offer. Social status has thus become the most powerful marketing tool indoor direct-contact sex workers have to stand out from their competitors and attract sufficient clients to make a liveable income.

Sociologists have documented sex talk as a crucial mechanism in the reproduction of heteronormativity in schools. In this highly sexualized context, how did asexual people make sense of sex talk? Drawing upon 21 retrospective interviews with asexual adults (between 18 and 31 years of age), I examined their accounts of sex talk in high school. Contrary to expectation, most of my respondents did not link sex talk to issues of masculinity/femininity, but instead framed it as about discovery of asexual identity, friendship, immaturity and inappropriate conduct, and/or simply meaningless noise. I suggest that the diverse range of gender ideologies and abundance of gender-coded symbols in our society enabled many respondents to assert asexuality-compatible femininities/masculinities, foreclose potential gender dilemmas, and retain a sense of security in their gender subjectivity. While the diverse narratives of sex talk encounters remind sociologists to appreciate asexual people’s heterogenous experiences, the possibility of subjectively degendering sex talk and desexualizing gender challenges sociologists to adopt a multidimensional approach to understand gendered sexuality.

This article explores sexual agency and pleasure among heterosexual women in South Africa. By focussing on Tupperware-style sex-toy parties, this article offers a glimpse into a ‘hidden’ world of white, middle-class women living in Johannesburg. What is revealed in this ethnographic account is that these gatherings promise women new ways of enjoying sex, while remaining within the boundaries of heteronormative notions of (hetero)sex. I use the term ‘decently transgressing’ to capture the ways in which the women in this study make sense of their (hetero)sexual selves and how they negotiate their (hetero)sexual agencies, particularly in relation to past and present heteronormative discourses within the South African context. The findings show that there are tensions between women wanting to embrace their own sexual agency and desires, yet at the same time being limited by certain heteronormative norms.