Session 4: Diverse Relationships

3rd Global Conference

Friday 6th November – Sunday 8th November 2009
Salzburg, Austria

Sex or Affection, What are Brazilians’ Swingers Looking For?
Ricardo Cheida de Oliveira
Universidade São Marcos, São Paulo, Brasil

Man is the only animal that in its evolution is distanced from nature, but not the only one with a prevalence of monogamy relationship. Is the sex by sex a disorder or an hedonistic option?

From a phenomenological existentialist perspective, on the advance of capitalism Man not only departed from the nature as also loose its own identity. Came to represent a ‘desired Man’ materializing its qualities in consumer goods mass marketing. ‘Having’ besides ‘being’ is the way found by the ‘desired Man’ to be concrete while is not real. This increases its distance from feelings and emotions creating a lack on happiness. To address that, the ‘desired Man’ find on sex the easiest way to feel again and get closer to nature. It is the moment in which sensations really touches.

This article discusses the issue of affection in the life of contemporary Man, based on observations of couples and singles visitors of ‘swinging’ houses in Sao Paulo, Brazil ‘Swinging’ houses means private places open to public were people go to have sex with multiple partners. We notice this lifestyle is heteronormative with a specific behavior code that drew our attention: a simple sign of affection among practitioners other then the spouse is considered treason or infidelity. They claim are liberal and are in search of pleasure, so why being afraid of feeling affection? Does it mean the feeling of affect fills something that is missing?

From that question we deepened our observation to identify evidence of shortcomings that would justify the search for pleasure of sex, totally separated from social reality. We found shyness people, some with sexual dysfunction, others with feelings of rejection or grief, all of them trying to be someone different from what they represent in ‘real life’. Are they really looking just for pleasure?

Download Draft Conference Paper (pdf)

Fragile Love: Male Carers in Japan
Mao Saito
University of Ritsumeikan, Kyoto, Japan

Caring behavior is one of important components in intimate relationships in modern society. In this respect, woman has been seen as a key and responsible actor. The main subject of this paper is Japanese male carers who are caring for their wives at home. As a result of the aging of society and the decrease in family size, the proportion of male carers has gradually been increasing in Japan. Only the quantitative increase of male carers and the inverse decrease of daughters-in-law giving care does not result in an improvement of gender equality. Meanwhile, the abuse of the elderly, murders or double suicides all resulting from the burdens of care giving, have not declined yet.

In 2006, we conducted a national questionnaire survey for male carers, the first to be carried out at a national level. This survey revealed unique challenges faced by male carers such as cooking, physical caring or their job. In this paper, I will especially take account of male carer’s ambivalent emotions for their wives through caring, and will seek to explore their multi-faceted emotions and crucial insights for new design of support system. Although many male carers felt distress, they felt satisfaction during caring. We should recognize that caring inevitably brings ambivalent and complicated emotions, especially emotions based on “love”. Moreover, male carers faced another emotional problem when they managed their masculine identities. It is difficult for men to express their emotions in words compared with women. Male carers were likely to feel difficulties when they try to control or manage their negative feelings resulting from caring. In fact, male carers have not to deconstruct but to reconstruct their masculinities in various ways. This means that we should consider male carer’s behavioral and emotional features when we develop support programs for men.