09:30 – 10:30: Registration
- Registration: room Sint-Augustinus
10:30 – 11:00: Introductory Comments
- Welcome to the Conference (Tom Claes and Paul Reynolds)
- Academic Program for the Conference and Possible Outputs (Paul Reynolds)
- Conference Activities and Housekeeping (Tom Claes)
11:00 – 13:00: Session 1: Sexuality: Methodology & Ethics I
Complex Realities: Researching the Personal and Professional Sexual Experiences of Student Sex Workers in the UK Online
Debbie Jones – The Student Sex Work Project, Swansea University, UK
Sam Geuens – Clinical Sexologist, CEVI, Ghent University, Belgium
Tracey Sagar – Principle Investigator The Student Sex Work Project, Swansea University, UK
The Student Sex Work Project (TSSWP) was launched in June 2012 to promote learning about student sex worker needs and associated issues, and to provide an innovative service to a marginalised population through an ethical, empowering research led framework. Significantly, this Welsh based project fills a gap in policy and practice – there has been little concern expressed in the UK amongst policy makers with regard to the needs of sex workers generally or with regard to the emerging student sex work population in the UK. A key feature of the project is that it offers a discussion forum for student sex workers, as well as a net-reach provision via an online chat facility, where student sex workers can also access more intensive psychosocial support and sexual counselling. The availability of this support via remote access is particularly important given that sex work is a stigmatised profession in the UK resulting in workers going to great lengths to protect their anonymity.
Following a brief project outline (focusing on the project’s ethically empowering research framework), the paper discusses the ethical dilemmas that emerge when research and data-collection and psychosocial support are combined in a single project. In this context, a key aim of the paper is to share project experience regarding the need to balance the types and boundaries of informed consent when project members are both ‘clients’ to be counselled and ‘respondents’ participating in a research project. Furthermore, given the practical solutions TSSWP delivers, the paper aims to engender discussion regarding the potential for researching vulnerable minority groups on sensitive subjects such as sex within research frameworks that are ethical and empowering.
The Ethics and Politics of Student Sex Work Research
Ron Roberts – Dept. of Arts & Social Sciences, Kingston University, UK
Academic attention to the presence of students in sex work began in the late 1990s as fundamental economic changes to the structure and funding of higher education went into operation. In the following years evidence has accumulated, albeit slowly, to suggest that as general economic conditions have worsened this presence has increased and become increasingly accepted by students. Beyond this picture very little is known about how students engage with, manage and exit the industry. The paucity of research stems from both the active failure of powerful stakeholders (government, universities and bodies purporting to represent students) to show any interest in the area as well as active efforts to obstruct and impede research.
The disinterest involves two dimensions. Firstly, this coalition of stakeholders has arisen as a consequence of neoliberal economics, despite the financial crisis, and in keeping with this, potential costs to student well-being and welfare are treated as externalities. Secondly as the education ‘market’ has been opened to competition, universities see themselves as corporations, whose image in the marketplace is seen as vital for attracting customers. As the ‘customers’ are also those who are being exploited the need to maintain disinformation about students’ predicament is paramount. This encompasses the level of student debt, job prospects associated with higher education and the attendant social and welfare costs which include low paid work and entry to sex work. This control of higher education’s image is principally directed to funders of overseas students and parents who support their offspring’s education and is predicated on a repressive sexual morality. Finally to supplement image control efforts to conduct research are actively obstructed by 1) direct threats to potential researchers – affecting career prospects, and 2) the fostering of a climate in which those who sit on ethics committees act in the interests of the institution rather than the researchers or the subjects of the research.
Representation, Truth and Sex Workers
Christopher Morris – Newport Film School – University of South Wales, UK
In 2012, The Interactive Health: Student Sex Worker Project was awarded a lottery grant, to better understand and develop a student sex worker policy in Wales. www.thestudentsexworkproject.co.uk My role at the outset was to create a ‘film output’ that shed light on the emerging research and to help put ‘the project’ on the radar of student sex workers.
My work as a filmmaker is built upon a dialogic approach to the form and themes of documentary film practice, embracing the notion of praxis – the act of engaging, applying, realizing ideas through a ‘making action’. This praxis-based film research, emphasises the importance of ‘documentary for use’ and engagement with social reality, lived experience and the human condition. A literature/film review of existing materials, and the constant barrage of media requests about this area of study, confirmed that new ways of articulating the research has become critical. The output requires a practice methodology that is designed to avoid the repetitive, easy and lazy imagery of sex, sex work that our culture endlessly peddles. Praxis based interview-research methods have shown early promise as a potential tool for engaging student sex workers within the project and is beginning to offer a way forward for realization, dissemination and may dictate the final form of the output. “In praxis there can be no prior knowledge of the right means by which we realize the end in a particular situation”. (Bernstein 1983: 147). A possible output structure is being tested this summer. This ‘transcription story’ will be a verbatim re-presentation (using actors) of the initial interviews.
I will present these film findings at the conference. This research has significant implications for media outputs in all higher educational contexts, and also offers much potential for supporting students who are thinking or currently working in the sex industry.
Further reading and references:
Freire, P. (1972) Pedagogy of the Oppressed, London: Penguin.
Bernstein, R. J. (1983). Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, hermeneutics and praxis. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Thinking Through Practice. Art as Research in the Academy, Melbourne: RMIT University
The Sociologist as Cruiser: (Auto)Ethnographic Selves, Masculinities, Race, Class and Sexuality in Male Sex Work Arenas
Cirus Rinaldi – University of Palermo, Italy
This paper explores the ways male sex workers negotiate and redefine their gender and their sexual roles when involved in non-normative sexual acts with other men. The research uses a multi-method approach based mainly on a) field notes collected in ethnographic observation of cruising areas, semi-public and public locales in which sexual transactions take place within a urban area of two southern Mediterranean Italian cities (Naples and Palermo), and b) in depth interviews with sex workers and clients, whose analysis is been combined according to the principles of Grounded theory. The main aims of the paper is to address the underestimated and neglected phenomenon of street’s sex working stratification especially in terms of ethnicity, sexual orientation, the relative construction of identity and sexual practices (i.e. top vs. bottom) and age and physical appearance. The difficult process of data collecting and of the access to the field of sex working urge the author to position their identity into the field as white gay scholar and to pay attentions to the interplay and intersection of multidimensional identity strategies and structuring forces which revealed not only the pressures from hegemonic masculinity model exiting in the larger society (so that some specific sexual acts are particularly well compensated by clients if offered by individuals whose physical characteristics are associated with hegemonic masculinity: i.e. older escorts are cheapened, as are those who are too thin or too fat -characteristics associated with femininity -; “muscular” individuals, on the other hand, are particularly rewarded, as this is seen as a sign of masculinity and dominance. The sexual acts carried out are also seen in terms of the implications for hegemonic masculinity: top has greater significance than bottom) but also, especially within the interlocking of sexual orientation and ethnic features, the stigmatization sex workers suffered from their (immigrants’) ethnic group and within homosexual community. The analysis of data revealed how sexual identities within sex working are as volatile as stigmatized according to the different characteristics of social actors and implies queer epistemological and methodological questions in the redefinition of (sexual) identity of researchers during the process of data collection and the necessity of redefining the subjects of the research as co-researcher.
13:00 – 14:00: Lunch break
14:00 – 16:00: Sessions 2:
Session 2 A: Sexuality: Methodology & Ethics II
Students Studying Student Sexuality: Methodological and Ethical Implications
Valerie De Craene & Maarten Loopmans – University of Leuven, Belgium
In the frame of the course “Geographical Research Methods” (University of Leuven, Belgium), undergraduate students of geography participated in an ongoing research on “Negotiating heteronormativity: Youth, sexuality and nightlife in Belgium”. As a result, students conducted research on other (fellow) students, on a topic that might be considered sensitive to some of the young adults involved in the research. The topic was closely related to the students’ life world, which made it possible to take an insiders’ perspective when conducting the research (Breen, 2007). This method allows us to circumvent certain thresholds related to research on ‘sensitive’ topics (e.g. gaining trust between researcher and respondent) (Mortelmans, 2009) and reveal certain subtleties that otherwise would not have been uncovered. This paper will discuss some methodological and especially some ethical concerns that came up before, during and after the research and in this regard influenced the outcomes of the research. We will compare and discuss the different methods (observations, focus groups, in depth interviews, photo eliciting), especially in relation to the different dynamics they initiated. Also, we will critically reflect on the possibilities and limitations of the format in which the research was conducted, as the agendas of the students and the researchers differ. Ethical concerns arise as the student-interviewer takes up a variety of roles (interviewer, observer, insider, student in the teacher-student relationship), roles that are intertwined, creating privacy and unequal power relations issues, especially in the setting of geography of sexuality. The discussion seeks to provide practical reflections on lessons learned and suggestions for scholars involved in similar experiments.
References
Breen, L.J. (2007) The researcher ‘in the middle’: negotiating insider/outsider dichotomy. Australian Community Psychologist, 19 (1), 163 – 174.
Mortelmans D. (2009) Handboek kwalitatieve onderzoeksmethoden. Acco, Leuven, 527 pp.
Cam Girls, Lolitas and Gang Rapes. Studying Transactional Sex Through Virtual Ethnographies
Alessandro Porrovecchio – University of the Littoral Opal Coast, France
The aim of this paper is to propose a research strategy to analyze some specific forms of sexual deviance: transactional sex, specifically sexual symbolic transactions among adolescents. This proposal is partially based on some parts of my PhD research strategy (2008-2011, Doctoral School in Human and Social Sciences, University of Turin). Then, this strategy has been further developed as part of my research programs at the University of Turin and at the University of the Littoral Opal Coast.
Since the object of my PhD research was particularly complex and “sensitive” (gender/sexual identity construction among adolescents), I had to build a research path based on a mixed method strategy, to be exact on the triple convergence of: quantitative and qualitative approach; online and offline research field; syntagmatic and paradigmatic axis model. In particular, I gathered 20 in-depth interviews, conducted a couple of focus groups and built a web ethnography, namely an “ethnography in, of, and through the virtual”. Furthermore, I tried to surf through the adolescents’ imaginary, analyzing different kinds of pop culture’s documents (magazines, movies, novels, tv series, etc.). This enabled me to breathe the spirit of the times of the adolescents that I met on the field, and to give them the opportunity to capture their speech, trying to bypass the adults’ point of view. This strategy enabled me to analyze some particular transactional features of teens’ sexualities, and to compare the potential of different techniques in relation to different research objectives. During my speech I will focus on the potential and on the methodological and ethical challenges of virtual ethnography in doing research on transactional sexualities.
Queer(y)ing the Mainstream Through Migration
Cesare Di Feliciantonio – Sapienza-Università di Roma, Italy
Kaciano Barbosa Gadelha – Free University Berlin, Germany
Mainstream, gay-friendly commercial and social spaces are usually seen as divided from the ¢authentic¢ queer ones attracting different kinds of people, especially in large metropolitan areas. In this paper we reflect on the continuous overlapping and juxtapositions of these communities and their spaces basing on our research on queer (used as an umbrella term referring to sexual dissidents) Italian ¢creative¢ migration in Berlin. In fact, the German capital is both a well-known destination for both the international ¢mainstream¢ gay migrant/consumer/tourist and the queer one following underground, non-market based leisure activities and situations. This is reflected in the urban geography of the city, featured by a internationally-famous ¢gay¢ high-class neighbourhood (Schöneberg) and some queer low-value and ethnically-mixed ones (e. g. Neukölln and Friedrichshain, where processes of gentrification are occurring and the property value is increasing). This divide looses its narrowness becoming much more fluid if we look at people everyday life; in fact, our results show how queer migrants attend both kinds of spaces in diverse ways, performing their identity and/or behave (dancing, cruising, drugs assumption) differently according to the place. Our aim is to show how on one hand queer migration (usually preceded and/or accompanied by tourism) opens up possibilities of contamination between the ¢mainstream¢ and the ¢underground¢, while on the other it reveals an increasing commodification of queer (sexual, musical, artistic, etc) underground culture.
Addictions and Gender Issues
Monica Pascoli – University of Udine, Italy
Addiction is defined as the compulsive need for and use of a habit-forming substance characterized by tolerance and by well-defined physiological symptoms upon withdrawal; in recent years the concept has broaden to include behaviors that develop in the absence of any substance; we use the concept of new addiction to refer to addictions that concern with normal behavior and daily habits. For most people these activities are an integral part of the daily life, but for some individuals they can assume pathological characteristics. The margin that distinguishes the “normal” behavior from the “pathological” one is therefore rather thin, weak and fluctuating. There is a general lack of attention to the gender differences, especially in relation to the so-called new addictions. The existence of such differences is certainly recognized, but rarely this recognition allows to rethink the characters of the addiction itself and to deepen the social context within which the dependency is defined and lived. Sometimes, certain types of addiction are labeled as “typically female”, although there are no data in support of this belief: this is the case for example of shopping addiction and love addiction. The aim of this contribution is to rethink some addictions by moving from gender differences; the purpose is to understand how the feminine declination of addiction takes shape, with particular reference to the following areas:
- consumption contexts and experience;
- motivations and meanings attributed to the acts of consumption/addiction behaviors;
- habits and consumption patterns and daily practices that reflect gender differences;
- social image and stereotypes related to the addiction;
Aim of the paper is trying to understand how a gender perspective can shed some light on some fundamental social aspects of addiction, whether it be from substance or behavior.
Session 2 B: Thinking Sexual Identities
Theories of Sexuality Reconsidered
Miguel Angel Quintana Paz – Universidad Europea Miguel de Cervantes, Spain
Sexual and gender diversity have had different theoretical approaches in the last century, depending on the relationship that those theoretical frames postulate between both sex and gender. The discussions among all those theories have frequently focused on which one of them exhibits a best representation of the reality (of sex and gender). Our contribution seeks to, first, organize all those theories in four large groups (depending on whether or not they recognize a difference between sex and gender, and whether or not they recognize a basic difference between male and female sexes). Then, we will try to assess the merits and flaws of each of those groups of theories, although not directly (looking at which one of them shows a closer identity with the “reality” of the matter) but from a point of view closer to the sociology of knowledge of Viola Klein and Karl Mannheim, e.g. Thus, we will examine which one of those theories is able to foster by itself a better understanding of sexual and gender diversity from a political and ethical standpoint, not just from a “neutral” or “epistemological” outlook. Our conclusion would be that theories that purport that sex and gender are different, but there is also a difference between male and female sexes (i.e. theories like that of Margaret Mead or Simone De Beauvoir) are the most suitable for such and endeavor, although other developments (like Judith Butler’s) will be also be taken into account.
A Future Without Labels? Sexual Identity in a More Equal World
Sebastian Buckle – University of Southampton, UK
In the period between the lowering of the age of consent for male homosexual sex in 1994 and the passing of the Civil Partnership Act in 2004, England saw a raft of legal and cultural changes which presented homosexuality as increasingly normal and accepted. For the lived experiences of gay men and lesbians, however, there is a conflicting account of gay life and a gay social identity.
This paper explores what Weeks describes as ‘a hierarchy of acceptability’, whereby gay men and lesbians could maintain the illusion of safety and acceptance by conducting their lives in specific locations, around specific people, and at specific times. It explores the continued growth of the social scene and the easy availability of contact with like-minded people (for friendship or sex) through the Internet, in contrast to those who were living lives increasingly indistinguishably from the rest of society. For some this signified the ‘queering of traditional institutions’, while for others represented the homogenisation of a movement to fit into straight society.
Using historiographical debate, interviews with gay men and lesbians, news reports, published accounts of gay life, and studies conducted into homophobia in school and the education process, this paper examines the place of sexual identity in 1990s and 2000s England, and considers the possible future of a gay identity in the Western World.
Jalons pour une sexothérapie pluraliste
Tiphaine Besnard – Université Paris 1, France
Les recherches doctorales que nous menons dans le cadre d’une thèse de sociologie, portant sur une analyse des discours psychanalytiques, psychiatriques et sexologiques, ainsi que la formation de sexologie que nous avons entreprise à l’automne 2012 au CERFPA nous permettent d’avoir une connaissance directe et actuelle du champ théorique et pratique de la clinique du sexuel en France. Une analyse superficielle pourrait donner l’impression d’un domaine uniforme, fortement médicalisé et quelque peu conservateur, voire normé. En effet, en France plus qu’ailleurs, il semble que les disciplines thérapeutique – et la sexologie encore plus que d’autres- soient très réfractaires aux critiques issues des études féministes, queer et de genre. De sorte que la littérature spécialisée est bien souvent hétéronormée, conservatrice et sexiste et qu’en dépit des avancées sociales dans les domaines de la santé sexuelle, de la reconnaissance des droits des minorités sexuelles et du féminisme, une vision moralisatrice, négative, voire conservatrice, demeure fortement ancrée dans la pratique thérapeutique.
Pourtant, des nombreuses approches, plus respectueuses de la pluralité sexuelle, se font jour depuis la fin des années 1970, aux Etats-Unis essentiellement. C’est à partir de ces travaux dissidents queer et féministes, qui n’ont que peu d’impact sur l’exercice traditionnel de la sexologie, que nous aimerions proposer de nouveaux concepts propres à pallier ce qui nous semble nuire au un travail thérapeutique bienveillant et respectueux des individus. Nous fonderons notre entreprise conceptuelle à partir des six critères retenus par Gayle Rubin dans son article de 1984, Thinking Sex, dont : le rejet de l’essentialisme et de la négativité sexuels, l’absence de hiérarchie de valeur des actes érotiques et le respect du concept de variation sexuelle bénigne nous paraissent essentiels. Par ailleurs, nous privilégierons les travaux de ceux dont le savoir-faire repose en grande partie sur leur propre expérience de la sexualité au détriment de spécialistes autoproclamés de pratiques sexuelles qu’ils ne pratiquent pas et pour lesquelles ils n’ont que du mépris, ou ne voient en elles qu’un symptôme pathologique.
Reactions to Asexuality
Irina Loizzo – Marymount Manhattan College, New York, USA
A study conducted by Brown and Henriquez (2008) showed that certain types of people are more likely than others to have negative attitudes towards gays and lesbians. An article by Bogaert (2006), discusses the main issues of asexuality being considered a sexual orientation and the similarities and differences between asexuality and Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder. The present study was a test of the hypothesis that certain types of people are more likely than others to be closed minded about the idea of asexuality as a sexual orientation. A survey was given out to 123 participants to determine what variables, if any, had an affect on attitude towards asexuality. The survey asked seven demographic questions, five questions regarding awareness of asexuality, three questions about beliefs about asexuality, and one final question about feelings towards the topic of sex. The researcher calculated an overall attitude score for each participant so that the higher their score, the more negative their attitude was. The researcher then used T-tests and Anovas to determine which variables, if any, had an affect on attitude. A T-test indicated that there was a significant difference in gender, t(119, 121)=6.777, p<.01. A Oneway Anova indicated that there was a significant difference in whether or not the participant had been educated about asexuality as a sexual orientation, t(120, 121)=3.162, p<.01. Another T-test indicated that there was also an approaching significant difference in religiosity t(119,121)=3.638, p=.059. The results of the present study strongly support that females are more likely to have a negative attitude towards asexuality as a sexual orientation. The study also strongly supports that lack of education about asexuality is more likely to result in a negative attitude towards it. Lastly, the study also somewhat supports that people who are religious are more likely to be closed minded about asexuality.
References
Bogaert, A.F. (2004). Asexuality: prevalence and associated factors in a national probability sample. The Journal of Sex Research, 41, 279-287.
Bogaert, A.F. (2006). Toward a conceptual understanding of asexuality. Review of General Psychology, 10, 241-250.
Brown, M.J., Henriquez, E. (2008). Socio-demographic predictors of attitudes towards gays and lesbians. Individual Differences Research, 6, 193-202.
16:00 – 16:30: Coffee break
16:30 – 18:00: Sessions 3:
Session 3 A: Sexuality: Methodology and Ethics III
Empirical Research on Sexual Diversities under Repressive Rule Making (in post-Soviet Russia)
George Zharkov – Saint Petersburg State University, Russia
Since 1998 the research on sexual diversities in modern Russia is bound to be held under intensifying condition of repressive practices from the side of the government both at the level of right application and law making. Moreover, since the results of empirical research differ fundamentally from the concepts imposed to society , the research of sexuality is a “particular objective” of repression both from the side of the statesmen and official public figures. Meanwhile, young researchers attach heightened interest to this matter, first of all, for the purpose of reflection of their own social and sexual experience and for the purpose of legalization and partial normalization of sexual practice varieties as well.
The peculiarities of carrying out the research under such conditions are:
1) The description of sexual practices using terms of risking and deviant behaviour (even if they are considered to be normal from someone’s standpoint);
2) “Double ” position of the researcher on the one hand being involved in various practices (and processing his/her corresponding experience ) but on the other hand being bound to describe it from the position “from without “;
3)The procession of ideological misrepresentations ( both external ,and within a group);
4)The orientation toward western and other speaking language tradition at the level of theory ,discussions of the result and their further publication.
Juggling Involvement and Distance. Empirical Challenges to Rethink the Researcher’s Role in Sexual Studies
Vulca Fidolini – University of Strasbourg, France
My PhD project deals with young Moroccan men condition in Europe (France and Italy) by analysing sexual behaviour and masculinity construction. The fact of doing an ethnographic research on a population of young Muslim adults by questioning their ways of doing, representing and telling sexuality, has revealed contradictions, traps and misunderstandings which are becoming a specific area of study in itself. During the fieldwork I observed that the present condition of these young adults – as migrants, young men, Muslims – is a plural context in which they renegotiate their identity, producing an account of their sexual experiences which is often oriented by a ‘normative veil’. During interviews and ethnographic research, indeed, these young adults seem to stage – rather than revealing – their cultural belonging and rhetorical images of sexuality, by reinforcing some shared feelings on sexual conduct and gender roles.
Such a normative account is the product of different processes: their Muslim socialisation, their family education, but also their migrant condition, their involvement in peer dynamics, as well as couple relationships and sexual experiences during their transition into adulthood abroad.
How can we deal with this plurality? How to deal with normativeness in sexual account? What methods could we use to rethink the distance and the involvement of the researcher within the fieldwork? Through exploiting these questions the paper will try to investigate some methodological and ethical implications about empirical research on sexual behaviour dealing with the evolution of my approach to these issues throughout my PhD project.
Sexuality and Drug Addiction
Gabriele Di Francesco – Università degli studi “G. d’Annunzio”, Chieti-Pescara, Italy
The paper presents the methodological and technical aspects of a research aimed at analyzing the relationship between sexuality and drugs addiction, with the twofold aim of better focusing a widespread phenomenon which is hidden and difficult to read and at preparing appropriate strategies for the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases.
The survey was carried out in the border area between the Italian regions Marche and Abruzzo, which is identified as the “pole of sex” and where there are high rates of drugs addiction. The survey involved the population of prostitutes, transvestites and transsexual who regularly attend the road called “Bonifica del Tronto”, between the provinces of Ascoli Piceno and Teramo and who are regular users of drugs (heroin, cocaine and others). It is a marginal population with various ethnic backgrounds, coming from Eastern Europe, Africa and Latin America, which has now quite stable settlements in this area and which is perceived almost as a “sub-culture of sex”. Part of the subjects recruited for the survey had a valid residence permit and was user of the local Services for drugs addiction.
This has eased the initial contact and recruitment, through the mediation of the operators of the Services, but has posed problems related to the representativeness of the sample, the need to extend the research to drugs addicts with similar behavior who were prevented from access to the services, or fearful of being approached by researchers who were perceived as representatives of the “institutions” and the need to overcome strong resistance to expose himself in public contexts.
The survey has had a mixed methodological approach and was carried out through individual interviews – mostly in the headquarters of the services – with the use of a survey form also built with designs and logos to facilitate the understanding of the questions which overcame linguistic diversity.
Session 3 B: Sexuality, Identity, Law and Politics in the Middle-East
LGBT Identity and Politics in Turkey
Asiye Gün Güneş – Akdeniz University, Antalya, Turkey
Fulya Akgül – Dokuz Eylul University, Izmir, Turkey
This paper aims to give an outlook on the current dynamics of diverse sexuality in Turkey through the lenses of identity, politics and security studies. This study revolves around two parts. Initially, contemporary queer studies that have been carried out in Turkey and a theoretical framework of securitization of gender identity are presented. Then, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) identity, rights and politics in contemporary Turkey are discussed. For this purpose, emergence and evolution of the LGBT liberation movements and political organizations such as KAOS GL, Pink Life LGBT Association and Lambdaistanbul as well as representation of LGBT identity and homophobia in media and political discourses are explored. In this regard, the current legal framework and some examples of Turkish National Authorities’ rulings with regard to the failures and successes in protecting the LGBT rights in addition to hate crimes, discrimination and violence on the basis of sexual orientation are also a focal point of this paper.
A Survey of the Freedom of Choice of Spouse in the Law of the Islamic Republic of Iran
Poopak Dehshahri – International Branch of Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran
According to the Civil law of Islamic Republic of Iran “A marriage deed before maturity is correct by permission of the guardian on condition that the pupil’s best interest is observed”. So the father or (in his absence) the paternal grandfather can simply marry his child or his daughters’ child to someone else before maturity (that is 9 years old for the girls and 15 years old for the boys). After maturity, the legislator’s attitude becomes severely discriminatory and recognizes limitation to such freedom only for the girls.So that the marriage of the girls has been conditioned by the father or paternal grandfather’s authorization and in case they refuse with no justification, the girl must obtain authorization from the court.The legislator of the Islamic republic of Iran has different viewpoints about any of the two genders concerning freedom of choice of spouse (after maturity) and only regards the permanent marriage of the virgin girls conditional on the father or paternal grandfather’s authorization; and the mother’s permission shall not be accepted as valid even in their absence. This paper tries, meanwhile considering the laws, to criticize the discriminatory viewpoints of the Iranian legislator towards the freedom of choice of spouse.
The Quest for Lesbian Ethics in Contemporary Middle-Eastern Cultures
Iman Al-Ghafari – Amsterdam Research Center for Gender and Sexuality, The Netherlands
Deprived of the means of self-assertion, lesbian subjectivities have persistently been neglected, suppressed misrepresented, or portrayed through the lenses of the inherited and recycled moral views in the mainstream Arab, Islamic and Middle Eastern cultures. In such oppressive socio-sexual contexts, the independent lesbian subjectivity remains engulfed within the heterosexual morality of the ‘closet’ that advocates invisibility. Any attempt towards visibility is traditionally confronted by both the religious gaze and the hetero-normalizing medical gaze that work together to control visibility. In this paper, I try to bridge the gap between the erotic and the ethical, and between the personal and the political. Drawing on the theories of Foucault, Bulter and Wittig on bodies, power and sexuality, I examine the perplexing position of the lesbian within the moral codes of the hegemonic Arab and Middle-Eastern cultures that play a major role in making an arbitrary connection between morality and institutionalized heterosexuality. I also show how hetero-normative morality is used as a socio-political means of controlling the private and public spheres in general and the lesbian body in particular. By analyzing some snapshots of films, T.V. shows, documentaries and literary texts, I expose the complexity of asserting the lesbian body and soul within the hetero-patriarchal ideologies. The paper tries to find ways to confront the domineering power of the ‘homophobic ethics’, and reveals the dire need for independent lesbian ethics that do not stem from the ‘the epistemology of any closet’. The issue at stake is to what extent personal lesbian ethics can become an acknowledged socio-political reality that is capable of deconstructing the hetero-moralizing gaze and crossing borders in contemporary Middle-Eastern cultures.
18:00: Close
