"Sexuality in Focus" - February 2013 Issue of Graduate Journal of Social Science

There are some interesting articles in the new issue of the Graduate Journal of Social Science (GJSS) with a focus on Sexuality in Focus, Volume 10 Issue 1, February 2013. You can download the full issue at this link:

Full Issue
GJSS February 2013, Volume 10, Issue 1 [PDF]
Among the more interesting articles, to me, are the following:

Editorial: Sexualities in the Margins: Creating a Space for Conversations
Arpita Das, Annelies Kleinherenbrink and Ebtihal Mahadeen
GJSS 2013 10:1, pp. 7-12. [PDF]

Here is the beginning of the editorial, which serves to introduce the topic and the papers in this issue:

Although intrinsic to one’s being, sexuality remains a controversial and taboo subject around the world. While certain cultures may appear to be more forthcoming in discussing certain aspects of sexuality, holistic discussions are still in short supply everywhere. In addition, whereas open conversations on sexuality are almost invisible in certain regions, in others they are mostly limited to the heterosexual, white, non-disabled, monogamous and marital realms. In some regions, the mainstream discourses on sexuality are limited to ambits of reproduction and reproductive health alone, thereby rendering invisible conversations on, for example, non-marital and nonheterosexual sexualities. In others still, it may be easier to talk about sexuality in the contexts of public health and/or sexual abuse and assault. However these discussions may again be limited to specific populations. For example, it could be claimed that it is more acceptable to talk about sexual violence against women and girls, but these conversations become strained in the context of sexual assault of men and boys as the social construction of masculinity imagines men as only the perpetrators, but never the victims and survivors, of sexual violence. Thus, although conversations around sexuality have undoubtedly shifted and expanded in the past few years, they still remain confined to the stereotypical stranglehold. Discussions and debates around affirmative sexuality and sexual rights remain scarce or limited to certain spaces, and we often find that even when sexuality is discussed, certain sexualities are deemed legitimate while others are pronounced perverse, immoral, unhealthy or illegitimate.  

This special edition of the Graduate Journal of Social Science (GJSS) is inspired by a unique event, which sought to create a space to talk about marginalized aspects of sexuality. The 2011 NOISE (Network of Interdisciplinary Women’s Studies in Europe) summer school ran in Breukelen, the Netherlands, under the title The Miraculous (Dis)-Appearing Act of Sexuality: Mapping the Study of Sexuality in Europe, 1960-2010. It was there that we, the editors of this special issue, met as participants. The academic institute created a space for conversations on an eclectic selection of subjects – including the history of sexualities in Europe, lesbian and gay sexualities, the emergence of heterosexuality as a concept, intersexualization, homonationalism, as well as nuanced discussions on homosexuality, bisexuality, queer and transgender politics, amongst other topics. Conversations during this academic institute opened up avenues to reflect on many of the unconventional, the invisible and the marginalized aspects of sexuality. Sexuality in Focus emerged from the discussions and debates in Breukelen, and we hope that this diverse collection of papers will speak to a diverse range of readers and academics who are engaged and invested in the broader realm of sexuality studies.

I thought each of these articles to be interesting and informative, especially the piece on pansexuality as opposition the fixed heteronormative models of sexual identity.

Establishing Asexual Identity: The Essential, the Imaginary, and the Collective
Agata Pacho
GJSS 2013 10:1, pp. 13-35. [PDF]

Abstract. Sexuality is seen as a crucial aspect of one's identification and sexual desire is perceived as the core of one's identity. Therefore, the emergence of an asexual identity constitutes a radical disruption of approaches to identity and epistemology in social science. This study explores a virtual community of asexual individuals who engage in discussions about contradictory processes of identification, the instability of sexual identities, gender relations and possible representations of asexuality. This work locates the process of sustaining an asexual identity and its representation within a broader critique of essentialist positions. Furthermore, it investigates the distinctive features of on-line communities and the implications of the Internet in their establishment. These findings may lead to a better understanding of asexuality as well as an enhanced insight into the social and cultural negotiations over the sexual.

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Pansexual Identification in Online Communities: Employing a Collaborative Queer Method to Study Pansexuality
Ayisigi Hale Gonel
GJSS 2013 10:1, pp. 36-60. [PDF]

Abstract. The research investigates different aspects of pansexual self-identification within contemporary online communities. To explore this, it is asked whether pansexual identification constitutes an anti-identity position against conservative conceptualisations of identity, as well as the new-homonormativities that mainstream LGBTQ movements of the West engage in to invest in normalcy. It must be noted that, while the research has the deconstructionist focus of queer theory, the anti-identity position of pansexuality investigated does not refer to a performative failure of the subject. As stated, the anti-identity position proposed is pansexual identification's possible opposition to 'traditional' and fixed readings of identity, and the 'respectable' features of new-homonormativities. The study explores the way in which pansexuality is understood as a multiple and flexible identity that exists in stark opposition to binaries of sex and gender in the eyes of the research respondents. As the research investigates pansexual identifications online by gathering data through an online survey, it follows a collaborative queer method that represents a conjunction of queer theory, sociology and cyberstudies.

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The Experimental Neuro-Framing of Sexuality
Isabelle Dussauge
GJSS 2013 10:1, pp. 124-151. [PDF]

Abstract. Brain scans of homosexuality, sexual desire and images of male and female brain function are becoming a common element of popular scientific news. How is sexuality re-described and re-produced when studied in brain scanners? This article explores the cultural production of sexuality in the growing field of neuroimaging research. In focus is the neural framing of sexuality, i.e. the process by which sexuality is understood as a matter of brain activity and visualizable with medical imaging technologies. The neuroframing of sexual- ity enables a reproduction of socio-cultural notions of difference, but also of neuroscience's own notions of agency. The neural framing of sexuality re- mediates an idealized sexuality: ageless, neatly oriented, bodiless although haunted by the de-animated body, unfolding neatly as a sequential response of a psychological inside to an inanimate outside, and essentialized as independent from its feelers and objects.

Not Male? Not Female? Must Be Agender - The Emerging Gender Neutrality

I suspect there have always been people who do not comfortably identify as either male or female, a self-perception that seems to be more common in the asexual community (according to the article, a 2011 study found that 23% of this community feels gender neutral). So now there is a name for this gender identity, or perhaps it's a lack of gender identity (?) - agender, or gender neutrois.

Isn't this simply a rejection of the gender binary? It seems that it may be a little deeper than that. All five of the people the author spoke to had no need for masculinity or femininity, so it's beyond gender fluidity. This is all very interesting to me . . . .

The article is from Rachel White (she of the wonderful Rachel Rabbit White blog) in the NY Magazine's The Cut blog.

Neither Man Nor Woman: Meet the Agender

• By Rachel R. White
• 8/20/2012

"I didn’t really want nipples," Cory said, running a hand through a mop of bleached blond hair. Born female, 23-year-old Cory uses the pronoun co—and asked that we refer to co that way, too—and got elective surgery to remove co's breasts last year. But co is not transgender in the traditional sense, transitioning between female and male. Co wants neither gender. So co joined the ranks of the agender—or, in a more florid recent coinage, the gender neutrois.

"You read stuff on Tumblr about how us nonbinary people just want to be special snowflakes," explained Cory, who is special but made of sturdier stuff than a snowflake. Was Cory's desire to remove co's secondary sexual traits a ploy for attention? A reaction to internalized sexism? The result of sexual repression? "I tackled all that stuff with my therapist. We came to the conclusion that I was not okay with this part of my body. Regardless of where that came from, it was there." Co has neither breasts nor nipples now.

"It is so perfect," Cory said. “For me this is what neutral looks like and feels like.”

I found Cory through the #nonbinary #agender #neutrois tags on Tumblr. The social network has become an unofficial home for the gender neutral. Though most group themselves with the transgender community, they reject the narrative of a person born into the wrong, oppositely-gendered body. All five neutrois individuals I spoke to have no need for masculinity or femininity at all.

L to R: Cory, Micah, Ashton

"You read all these trans youth narratives, the kid insisting he was a boy and going to grow a penis. That was me when I was 3," explained 26-year-old Micah. "I was like the poster trans kid. But then somewhere in there, it shifted."

Skyping from an airy San Francisco apartment shared with a fiancée, Micah has chestnut hair styled like a surfer's, sea-glass eyes, and rose-flecked skin. For Micah, gender neutrality has involved laser hair removal, a double mastectomy, a low dose of hormones, and the pronoun they. Asked about their ideal gender-neutral body (though our subjects' chosen pronouns drive Microsoft Word's Spelling and Grammar Check nuts, I see no reason not to oblige) Micah replied, “This is it.”

Micah came out of the closet twice, first when they entered a relationship with a woman, and again when they transitioned to neutrality last year. Though Micah identifies as both agender and asexual—which they define as "a lack of sexual attraction"—girlfriend Tammy identifies as a sexual female.

"When we started dating I got really confused," Tammy reflected. "Was I now dating a girl? I knew I wanted to be with Micah, but did that mean that I was now a lesbian?" After "six months of confusion," Tammy settled on "queer," and has stuck with her queer relationship with Micah for five and a half years.

When they first started dating, Tammy thought she could "make" Micah desire sex. "Now we've just found so many different ways of expressing love, other than what the usual sexual relationship looks like. Sometimes we feel like being more intimate, and sometimes we don't."

When I spoke to the pair together Tammy mostly deferred to Micah, who was uncomfortable discussing the mechanics of their physical relationship. "Too much focus on genitals," they said, then compared sex to asparagus: "OK when cooked properly, but I never really have a craving for it." A blog post Micah wrote about the relationship emphasizes "cuddling" and "communication."

"There are more ways to express intimacy than just sex," Micah concluded, referencing Asexual Visibility and Education Network founder David Jay. Reached by phone, Jay emphasized that most asexual people have a gender. There is, however, significant overlap between those who lack sexuality and those who lack gender: A 2011 survey of the asexual community found that 23 percent of those surveyed identified as neither male nor female—although most do not go so far as to have their nipples removed.

Why did this iteration of gender and pronouns emerge? There are virtually no studies on people who identify as agender. In 2010 the National Transgender Discrimination Survey Report on Health and Health Care found that 12 percent of self-identifying transgender people surveyed identified as gender nonconforming. And there may be a connection to asexuality: Jay says the asexual community has become a safe space for those questioning gender. Tumblr has become the unofficial support space for agender exploration and, sometimes, fierce debate. (On recent post read, “So there is this guy on Facebook. He’s agender. He’s about fifteen other labels as well.... the thing about this guy though is that he isn’t really agender for any reason other than a political statement.”)

For Micah, “not growing up was always a huge factor, and still is. I idolized Peter Pan,” they told me, noting that they are sometimes mistaken for a young boy. “In San Francisco I am seen as a lesbian," Micah continued. "I hate being called a lesbian, because it means I am a girl. But queer people are visible here and I am visibly queer. But at home in Mexico, queer doesn't exist."

After coming out, Micah lost contact with their Mexican family. They launched an agender blog, Neutrois Nonsense, and built a small online community there. Micah says their website receives over 12,000 pageviews a month, and a related Tumblr account has 2,200 followers.

Ashton, a 21-year-old Kansan, also passed as a lesbian until coming out as agender. Large and square shaped with a pinkish complexion, silvery-blond short hair and wire-frame glasses on a slight nose, Ashton (who also uses the pronoun ‘they’) used to work 50 hours per week in a factory and spends downtime in a transgender support group. (Ashton thinks the internet makes it easier to find one's way to an agender description. "You have Google in a tab next door, to explain things.")

Ashton’s supervisor and two other women at the factory formed a small queer community, which Ashton joined. “Most people who work there are male, so the women there really bond over female-ness. One day I counted 32 times that I was called by a female name--lady, miss, girl.” Ashton recounts a lot of joking around and sometimes going out together after work.

But Ashton was met with silence when they revealed their agender identity at the factory.
Persevering, Ashton wore a Pride shirt to work another day, which showed three boxes: ‘Female’: blank, ‘Male’: blank and ‘Blank’: checked. “I was asked to switch it inside out because it was distracting and offensive,” Ashton told me during a Skype chat in July, noting a fear of getting fired. Two weeks later, it happened. Ashton wrote on Tumblr: “I just lost my job for being a lesbian presenting assumed transguy atheist liberal who knows what else.”

Losing the job was something Ashton couldn't afford, since they are saving up for a double mastectomy. “I bind my chest for 11 or 12 hours a day when I am at work," they said before getting fired. "The recommended limit is 8 to 12 hours with as little strenuous activity as possible. I am doing lots of lifting and am on my feet all day. It is hot, sometimes my back spasms.”

Micah has faced loss in the name of gender neutrality, too. Upon finding out that her one-time daughter would be getting a double mastectomy, Micah's mother disowned her child. To this day she lights candles and talks to angels on Micah's behalf.

"My wife views Micah's actions as an act of terrorism, the fact that we have to have things on Micah’s terms," Micah's father explains. Their family is Mexican and Jewish. "She is worried about social and cultural things: how will Micah connect with Mexico?"

Micah's father supports his child's transition, as well as Micah's relationship with Tammy. The pair would like to marry and have children; Micah's father thinks they shouldn't wait for his wife's approval, because they may never get it.

Micah is actually the third name that they have tried out during transition—first it was Mich then Maddox as an online moniker, but it didn’t feel right ‘in real life.’ But Micah says they're sure that this is it. Micah is working on the legal paperwork to cement this chosen name. I ask, is there anything more to the transformation?

 “I don't remember aspiring to grow up to be a man, but was disgusted by the idea of growing up to be a woman. Physically I don't think I want anything different than what I have today, my own skin.”

All that's left now is aging. Micah imagines growing into a wrinkly, graying little kid, sort of like Benjamin Button, the F. Scott Fitzgerald creation who ages backwards: starting old and becoming younger.