Session 5: Sex, Sex and More Sex

Session 5: Sex, Sex, and More Sex
Chair: Dara Patricia Downey

Playing Around on the Internet: An Examination of Cheating in Cyberspace
Monica Whitty
Queen’s University Belfast, School of Psychology, Northern Ireland

Electronic communication can be used to harass in both similar and new ways to offline traditional harassment. This paper focuses on a more severe form of online harassment, that of cyberstalking. We begin by highlighting that academics, legislators, policy makers, and the like, are still developing definitions for cyberstalking. We point out here that cyberstalking is not restricted to the internet. It is also important to note that cyberstalking does not necessarily remain online. Stalking behaviour can potentially initiate online and progress to offline methods of stalking; including all traditional offline stalking behaviours, such as the phone, being followed, sending letters and so forth. In addition, the potential victim might simply be identified online and then stalked offline (Griffiths, 2000). Moreover cyberstalking does not just effect individuals but can also be directed at groups or organisations as well as committed by groups or organisations. Most countries have still not acknowledged cyber-stalking explicitly in their legislation. Furthermore, those who have still do not know how to police this crime or to support victims of such a crime. We argue that if we are better able to conceptualise cyberspace and the ways people interact within this space then we may be able to develop more effective solutions in dealing with these new crimes. By drawing upon object relations theories, developed by Winnicott, Bollas and Klein, we make the case here that while cyberspace is a unique and important tool for individuals and organisations to utilise, if not understood well, the problems that have already emerged will remain and potentially increase. We do contend that legislation, policies, filtering software and monitoring are all potential solutions. However, we believe that these are not enough. This is clearly evident by the policies already adopted by organisations that workers are not following. We believe that part of the solution is to recognise and understand the darker side of cyberspace.

Homosexual Sex: A Convenient Evil for Conservative American Evangelicals
Daniel Keen
University of Ohio, Ohio, USA

Many conservative American evangelicals are passionately and deeply opposed to homosexuality. Such disdain is arguably justified by an appeal to biblical prohibitions, reference to theological traditions, and the assumption of an innate heterosexual human nature. In this paper I leave as open questions whether or not such purported loci of authority actually speak against homosexuality as sinful and consequently evil. My interest is instead to explore both the means and the consequences of rhetorically constructing homosexual identities as evil and abhorrent. I argue that by discursively constructing homosexuality as evil and abhorrent, evangelicals are able conveniently to distance themselves from individuals who identify as homosexual. Calling the homosexual evil therefore becomes a convenient way of hiding from and failing to speak to those whom the church does not understand. The appropriation of the label ‘evil’ consequently frees the evangelical to ignore and ‘other’ the homosexual, and in the process actually justifies and perpetuates evangelical evils against countless homosexuals. Though it is important and necessary for the church to identify and speak against legitimate evils, I argue that the current discursive practices of many evangelicals actually preclude the possibility of understanding those ways in which both the hetero- and homosexual may rightly be spoken of as evil. By conveniently focusing upon a narrow conception of the evil character of homosexuality, the contemporary evangelical establishment divorces itself from a full understanding of the nature of evil, and in the process renders the church irrelevant to a growing number of Americans. As a result, many evangelicals fail to understand the fullness of the gospel message of Christ that is inclusive enough to redeem the homosexual and heterosexual alike. Given these realities, I argue that the church needs to craft a theodicy that explains whatever homosexual evil it seeks discursively to create, and needs a corresponding gospel message that speaks to the homosexual community not merely as an ‘other’, but as a whole and divinely-created person.

Remarriage and Ass-F**king: Shifty Byzantine Views of Sex
Stephen Morris
Independent Scholar, New York, USA

No abstract is presently available