Session 8a: Sexual Selves

6th Global Conference

Tuesday 10th November – Thursday 12th November 2009
Salzburg, Austria

Memory, Excess and the Fictional Self
Andrew Markham
Southampton Solent University, Southampton, United Kingdom

When recalling a sense of a past Self I suggest that characteristics can be identified – ones that have been discarded as well as some that are celebrated in the present moment. Acts of remembrance form the basis of this research document, where I look to explore the construction, through experience, of a person’s sense of their queer sexual Self.

In exploring common links between two memories, I will look to question the possibility of being able to consciously and continuously inhabit a space where there is the possibility of recognition of something that is not entirely visible to one’s Self. As a result, questions may arise surrounding Bergson’s ‘state of flux’ and Jung’s ‘collective consciousness’.

Sarah Ahmed suggests in ‘Queer Phenomenology’ that ‘things become queer precisely given how bodies are touched by objects’ and frames these ‘things’ or “experiences” and “interactions” in the context of ‘here’, ‘there’ and ‘within’. It is this sense of ‘queering’ experience that will look to challenge commonly understood notions that discuss memory as integral to the construct of Self.

I will suggest that through acts of remembrance, a space is continually sought to create a space for an invisible Self – a sexual Self, a gendered Self and a Self that is not continually visible, rather, only visible in relation to Richard Dyers ‘orientation towards others’. In considering this, the emphasis will be placed upon the fluid nature of sexuality and desire and their ability to move between non-fictional, “real” states of being to the socially constructed. Furthermore, parallels drawn between “excess” (not trash or rubbish, rather an amount that is more than acceptable, expected or reasonable), Deleuzian notions of ‘vibration’ and Derrida’s ‘under erasure’ will be integral to this discussion insofar as suggesting that our “secret” Self gains meaning from its absence.

Download Draft Conference Paper (pdf)

Sexual beginners. The Social Construction of the Debut of Italian Young People’s Sexual Biographies
Raffaella Ferrero Camoletto
Department of Social Sciences, University of Turin, Italy

The paper analyses the process of social construction of the “sexual debut” of a sample of self-identified heterosexual young people living in a North-Western Italian region. The empirical data were collected within a research project carried out in 2006-07, entailing a survey on a regional sample of 1000 young people aged 18-29 and 60 semi-structured interviews with young people aged 18-34. The paper focuses on one main feature of young people’s heterosexual biographies: the account of their first sexual intercourse. Within an interactionist approach, sexual conduct is led by scripts, i.e. patterns of perception, evalutation and action which define “who, what, with whom, where, when, why”. Scripts are made of narrative sequences which represent the legitimated rules and moves of the heterosexual game: therefore, they work as frames that people use not only to depict their conduct, but also to make sense of their experience. In their accounts, young people use scripts not as strict rules to be enacted, but as symbolic repertories to appropriate and combine in order to organize a meaningful sexual biography and to perform a gendered subjectivity. The paper will show the complex interwining of compliance with, adaptation, negotiation and challenge of gendered sexual scripts. On the one hand, at the the beginning of their sexual careers young people follow gendered scripts strongly shaped by a double standard: young men more often place their first sexual intercourse within a context of emotional and relational detachment, while young women rather tend to interpret their sexual debut as a romantic experience. On the other hand, the research findings point to processes of negotiation and re-definition of scripts based on three/different cultural logics: the denaturalization of scripts, by which young people acknowledge the socially constructed nature of sexual scripts; the reversal or inversion of gendered script, by which young men adopt an intimacy script and young women a (seemingly) predatory one; the convergence to or construction of a common script, what some scholars have controversely interpreted as a degendering process.

Download Draft Conference Paper (pdf)

The Study of Relationship between Alexitymia and Sexual Satisfaction among the Married Students in Iran
Maryam Sharyati and Amir Ghamarani
Department of Psychology, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran and Department of Psychology, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran

The purpose of this study was the investigation of relationship between alexitymia and sexual satisfaction among the married student in Iran.

Data collected from 100 married students completed the two scale : 1- The Toronto Alexitymia Scale – 20 ( TAS-20 ) and sexual satisfaction questionnaire .

Analysis of multivariate regression showed that there are negative significant relationship between total and subscale score of the alexitymia scale with sexual satisfaction.

Also, the best predictors of sexual satisfaction , in order , are the following componenet : total score and Difficulty Identifying Feeling (DIF) subscale of alexitymia scale.