Sexualities

Voice your support for Men for Women's Choice.

Like many men around the world, we think women should control their own bodies. We are part of a decentralized effort to encourage men to speak out in support of women’s right to safe birth control and abortion.

There is a new, international collective of men opposed to prostitution, called ZeroMacho.  The collective, based in France, so far has collected over 600 signatures in more than 30 countries in favour of the abolition of prostitution. They have asked XY to spread the word. See www.zeromacho.eu/. Their manifesto is available in English here: http://www.zeromacho.eu/anglais.html.

This short piece, written for boys, reflects on what I wish I'd known when I was starting out sexually, the things which make hot sex and healthy relationships more likely.

One-third of the Australian population believe that ‘homosexuality is immoral’, and this belief is spread in distinct ways across the nation. Using data from a survey of nearly 25,000 Australians, we can ‘map’ homophobia in Australia. Homophobic attitudes are worst in country areas of Queensland and Tasmania. Men are far more likely than women to feel that homosexuality does not have moral legitimacy, and this gender gap in attitudes persists across age, socioeconomic, educational, and regional divides. Surprisingly, Catholics are the least homophobic of those Australians with a religious affiliation. Finally, homophobic attitudes seem to be improving over time.

Boys’ and young men’s lives are shaped by powerful social and sexual relations, which limit their ability to form healthy relationships and to nurture their own and their sexual partners’ sexual and reproductive health. Typical social constructions of manhood and masculine sexuality inform males’ risk-taking behaviour, constrain their access to health services and thwart health promotion efforts. Such constructions increase the likelihood of boys’ and men’s participation in unplanned pregnancy, disease transmission, and sexual violence.

This paper outlines key aspects of the current ordering of young men’s sociosexual lives. I focus on practices, discourses and relations of gender and sexuality among boys and young men which shape their sexual behaviour, social interactions and sexual relationships. These patterns influence boys’ and young men’s involvements in a range of health issues, including contraception and pregnancy, bodily health, unsafe sex and disease transmission, violence, and sexual and familial relationships more broadly. Therefore, in order to understand both health-related behaviour and the possibilities for health promotion among young men, it is crucial to ‘map’ their social and sexual relations. It is to this exercise that I now turn, beginning with a brief explanation of the terms I use.

New formations of sexuality are emerging among young heterosexual men. There are signs of diversity, and flux, in the sexual cultures of such males, shaped by wider shifts in gender and sexual relations. This chapter maps some of the clearest examples of diversity and flux among them, as part of a wider project on young men’s sexual and social relations with women.

Citation: Flood, M. (2008) “Bent Straights: Diversity and flux among heterosexual men.” Intimate Citizenships: Gender, Subjectivity, Politics. Ed. E.H. Oleksy. Routledge.

Most everyday users of pornography are heterosexual men. Looking at, and masturbating to, pornography is the routine practice of large numbers of men. And most of the commercial pornographic industry caters to heterosexual men. These men – and their consumption of pornography – are the subject of a growing body of research. This chapter offers an overview of what we can learn about heterosexual boys’ and young men’s use of pornography, focusing particularly on quantitative studies of the extent, nature and meaning of pornography consumption.

sex+++

or

sexism+racism
+heterosexism
+capitalism?

[This is a modified version of a blog post, which I welcome you to comment at *here*. I hope it works fine here as a story.]

When Edmonton Capitals Manager Brent Bowers went on a homophobic tirade against a gay umpire, the sports world hardly took notice. It took the courage of the umpire's heterosexual colleagues to denounce Bowers's hate speech by threatening a league boycott before North American Golden Baseball League management took significant action and ultimately suspended Bowers for the remainder of the season. Bowers reportedly resigned, before being fired by Edmonton Capitals management.

The answer is obvious for a gay-prochoice-feminist such as myself. However, it seems like it’s a bit more complicated than that.