Event Title

Swipe: Affective and Experiential Implications of the First Sex Act

Location

Diamond 343

Start Date

30-4-2015 1:00 PM

End Date

30-4-2015 2:25 PM

Project Type

Presentation

Description

The socially constructed concept of virginity has a variety of archival and current connotations including power, liberation, and patriarchy. I use a Queer theoretical framework and Dynamic Narrative Analysis to examine the narrative enactment of discourses used in talking about, teaching, and remember sex and pleasure for young women in the United States. Using data from five focus groups and five follow up interviews with self-identified female Colby students, I explore how young women are using impression management strategies to shape their strategic narratives around their first sex act, and how participants use symbolic boundary work to mark the definitions of good and bad sex. Finally, I identify how these techniques limit the ability for continuing pedagogies of sex for both participants and their friends. I ground this work in a critical discourse analysis of Cosmopolitan Sex advice Q & A columns from 2010-2013 to explore informal pedagogies of sex that impact participants ongoing sexual knowledge.

Faculty Sponsor

Sonja Thomas

Sponsoring Department

Colby College. Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program

CLAS Field of Study

Interdisciplinary Studies

Event Website

http://www.colby.edu/clas

ID

929

Share

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Apr 30th, 1:00 PM Apr 30th, 2:25 PM

Swipe: Affective and Experiential Implications of the First Sex Act

Diamond 343

The socially constructed concept of virginity has a variety of archival and current connotations including power, liberation, and patriarchy. I use a Queer theoretical framework and Dynamic Narrative Analysis to examine the narrative enactment of discourses used in talking about, teaching, and remember sex and pleasure for young women in the United States. Using data from five focus groups and five follow up interviews with self-identified female Colby students, I explore how young women are using impression management strategies to shape their strategic narratives around their first sex act, and how participants use symbolic boundary work to mark the definitions of good and bad sex. Finally, I identify how these techniques limit the ability for continuing pedagogies of sex for both participants and their friends. I ground this work in a critical discourse analysis of Cosmopolitan Sex advice Q & A columns from 2010-2013 to explore informal pedagogies of sex that impact participants ongoing sexual knowledge.

https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/clas/2015/program/390