SOC 451California State University Northridge Aspects of Human Sexuality Paper

SOC 451California State University Northridge Aspects of Human Sexuality Paper SOC 451California State University Northridge Aspects of Human Sexuality Paper ORDER NOW FOR CUSTOMIZED AND ORIGINAL NURSING PAPERS Unformatted Attachment Preview 4 “Google Knows Everything” Finding Queer Media Aaron, his boyfriend Miguel, and their friend Alex started coming to Spectrum about three weeks ago. They always show up as a threesome, although sometimes they have Aaron’s fifteen-­year-­old brother in tow. Aaron and Alex are nineteen years old, Miguel is twenty, and all identify as gay men. They are friendly and vibrant and have brought some new energy to the space in the midst of what had been feeling like a lull. They made friends with Travon right away, and for the past several afternoons, the group of them has met up to play Bullshit, the card game. Miguel and Alex are loud and outgoing, while Aaron’s quiet confidence grounds the group. One afternoon, not long after they started coming to Spectrum, Aaron approached me and asked if he could participate in an interview. We retreat to the medical clinic and talk for a little over an hour. Aaron is a freshman in college at the state’s flagship university. As a Chicanx and a first-­generation college student, he is one of an elite few to attend this school. This also makes him quite an outlier within the Spectrum community as very few of the college-­aged youth are attending college at all, far less attending a school of this status. He grew up in a rural part of the state, raised for most of his childhood by a young single mother, as his father had been incarcerated. He and his mother lived at times with his grandparents, who, along with his mother, have been strong sources of support and love in his life. His mother eventually remarried and had children with Aaron’s stepfather. They live in the northern suburbs now. Aaron is a film buff who aspires to be an independent filmmaker, so we swapped stories about some of our favorite filmmakers, like Robert Rodriguez and Lars von Trier. When I asked him if he feels that film has influenced his sexuality, he described his experience seeing Brokeback Mountain for the first time. Brokeback Mountain, the 2005 Ang Lee film 91 This content downloaded from 130.166.3.5 on Wed, 05 Aug 2020 20:51:05 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 92 | “Google Knows Everything” adaptation of the E. Annie Proulx novella, tells a universal love story through the experience of two men in a secret relationship with each other. This R-­rated movie includes scenes of sexual intimacy, much like any love story drama about a straight couple. Remarkably, the mainstream popularity of the film resulted in it being nominated for and winning several Oscars. This film had a profound impact on Aaron, who described watching the film in secret in his home, where he had to make sure no one was around before he watched a film about gay cowboys: I was into movies, and then there was Brokeback Mountain. Everybody hears about that. Although at the time it was one of the first one that I . . . the first gay movie that I had ever seen. And not only like . . . I don’t know. I guess that not only did it help me be a little more comfortable with myself—­with my sense of self—­but um, I guess that kind of opened the world to other . . . other films. But I think that one in particular because there actually was, you know, a sex scene in that movie. And it was different for me. It’s not like, um, I don’t know. . . . I didn’t watch it because I wanted to have—­how would I say—­be pleasured by that. But it was just different for me. You know like, I’d never seen something like that before. SOC 451California State University Northridge Aspects of Human Sexuality Paper Aaron explained that he had “seen a bunch of, you know, heterosexual [sex] scenes by that time and was familiar with the female body,” but this was the first film he had seen that included sex between men that was not live-­action pornography. Aaron’s experience and his longing for a representation of a same-­sex love story outside the realm of pornography demonstrates the important role media play in the sexual and romantic lives of young people. This chapter discusses how representations of queer orientations have proliferated in various media that are increasingly accessible to the youth of Spectrum and beyond. As media representations of same-­sex sexuality and desire begin to proliferate, both within mainstream and alternative media, arguably most youth—­not just those who are LGBTQ-­identified—­will have access to a new set of cultural scenarios that influence how they understand their sexuality. In other words, queer media are changing sexuality and gender for everyone. This content downloaded from 130.166.3.5 on Wed, 05 Aug 2020 20:51:05 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms “Google Knows Everything” | 93 Finding Queer Media Online Something happened around the mid-­1990s and into the middle of the first decade of the twenty-­first century that forever changed the tide in favor of the queer: the internet. For the first time, people across the globe had simultaneous, instant access to cultural alternatives outside the mainstream. The internet and its access to global queer community and alternative culture is probably the most significant factor in the shifting norms around same-­sex desire and LGBTQ culture for young people of this generation. Whereas previous LGBTQ-­identified folks had to move to gay meccas like San Francisco, Chicago, and New York to find community, the internet provides instant community where queer culture can proliferate. In some of the earliest research done on the role of the internet on the LGBTQ rights movement, the psychobiologist James Weinrich found that “one of the most common benefits of the internet to the gay community . . . is that it permits geographically dispersed minority individuals to interact with one another as if they were a local majority.”1 The internet and internet communities have served as a positive source of sexuality information for sexual and gender minorities worldwide who seek an alternative to the derogatory and missing representations of themselves in mainstream media and formal sexuality education settings.2 Notably, the sociologist C. J. Pascoe, in her research on young people using social media, found that, whereas straight-­identified youth are distrustful of the internet as a way to meet friends and build community, almost the opposite is true for LGBTQ-­ identified youths, who depend on the internet as one of the few safe spaces they inhabit, where they can be open about their sexualities and gender and make friends with those who share their experiences.3 Among the youth of Spectrum, access to the internet appears ubiquitous. Within Spectrum itself there is access to a multitude of computers, all of which have internet access, and wireless within the building is accessible to anyone with a smartphone. Young people have smartphones or tablets of their own, including most of the working-­class youth at Spectrum whose resources are quite restricted. One of the ways that I encourage interviewees to talk to me about their self-­understanding of their sexuality is by asking them to tell me about three things that they feel have most influenced their sexuality.SOC 451California State University Northridge Aspects of Human Sexuality Paper This content downloaded from 130.166.3.5 on Wed, 05 Aug 2020 20:51:05 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 94 | “Google Knows Everything” While such an open-­ended question is admittedly subjective, it helps me to get a sense of the things external to the youths themselves that they consider important to who they are as sexual beings. It pushes them to consider the influence of the social on their sexuality, beyond simply the desires they experience internally. The five most common replies to this question, in descending order, are (1) some form of sexually explicit content (SEC) via media, (2) intimate relationships, (3) family influence or family members, 4) friends and peers, and 5) sexuality education (namely at Spectrum as opposed to school, where sexuality education is notoriously lacking). While interaction with other people—­whether family, friends, or intimates—­is clearly recognized as important by these young people, they claim that media—­the internet in particular—­is the most significant. It is not surprising that some form of SEC via media is most frequently named as influential to the youths’ sexuality.4 Digital natives, those individuals who were born during or after the widespread use of digital technologies, are growing up in the midst of unprecedented access to information via media.5 The internet allows confidential, quick, and easy access to diverse, explicit sexual images.6 A study exploring German adolescents and pornography by media scholars found that, “for most adolescents, pornography is the only accessible source of depictions of sexual behavior; pornography might thus be used by adolescents not only for sexual arousal but also to discover sexual behavior and explore their own sexual preferences.”7 As Fiona, a nineteen-­year-­old white woman who identifies as bisexual, shared with me when I asked her about watching pornography, “You know it’s how I learned what I like to do when I was younger. Um, it’s how you learn new things most of the time. You can look up these positions or whatever. Find out how to do it.” Pornography viewing is quite common among the young people I spoke with and often informs much of what they know about sexuality. The youth of Spectrum, and likely a large number of their peers, know exactly where to go on the internet to look up SEC. They speak very matter-­of-­factly about the internet, and especially Google, as an obvious resource. They are not typically shy or embarrassed to tell me about their online explorations and approach the topic with the assumption that everyone does it. The following quotes from a variety of This content downloaded from 130.166.3.5 on Wed, 05 Aug 2020 20:51:05 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms “Google Knows Everything” | 95 participants—­including youths of various genders, sexual identities, and racial/ethnic groups—­make evident the ease with which youth access SEC online through internet connections via computers and phones and easy-­to-­use search engines like Google: Especially our generation with the . . . the smart phones, and the internet, the wifi . . . all of that. It was simple. —­Anthony, seventeen-­year-­old Latinx, identifies as gay I don’t know. I wasn’t originally like looking up porn, like, that’s not how it started out. . . . I was on the computer, probably on some social website and something, and then I, like, I don’t know, it just popped in my head and I got curious, so I searched. Like, if you want to know something what’s the best way to find out? Go look [laughs]. So I did, and I found like, pictures and videos and I was like, “Oh!” [laughs]. —­Travon, sixteen-­year-­old Black male, identifies as queer Mary: So you looked at porn? Where did you find that? On the internet or in magazines? Or how did you find it? Fiona: Internet. SOC 451California State University Northridge Aspects of Human Sexuality Paper Late at night when my parents weren’t awake. Mary: Okay. And how did you discover that? Fiona: Just in Google, like, “naked people” or, I don’t even know, like “boobs.” —­Fiona, nineteen-­year-­old white woman, identifies as bisexual Mary: Where would you go to find out information? Nik: Google. ’Cause unfortunate as it is, Google knows everything. —­Nik, eighteen-­year-­old white man, identifies as gay As these quotes demonstrate, accessing SEC on the internet is not a challenge for young people. Further, many of the youths share stories of accessing the internet and sexually explicit content in their homes with little trouble. Digital natives tend to be quite savvy when it comes to covering their tracks and in many cases are far more nimble on the internet than their parents or guardians, making it easy for them to discreetly access content that adults in their family might find questionable.8 Although some of the youths shared stories about being caught looking at This content downloaded from 130.166.3.5 on Wed, 05 Aug 2020 20:51:05 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 96 | “Google Knows Everything” SEC online, none of them said that their parents were using any sort of blockers or restrictions through their internet service. It is significant to consider the profound shift that has taken place over the course of the last century when it comes to how young people become sexual. Prior to the proliferation of mainstream media, sexual subjectivity was formed largely within the family, church, and school. All three of these institutions are dominated by adults. But the ability adults have to control and influence the sexual formation of young people has shifted tremendously with the proliferation and availability of new media. And while the availability of media is not always liberating, it has expanded the available options and loosened tight social control over sexuality. Although mainstream media continues to be largely heteronormative and homophobic in nature, LGBTQ-­identified youth have access to an unprecedented amount of alternative media—­including self-­produced media—­in which representations of queer sexualities and genders are proliferating. In particular, in this chapter I discuss Spectrum youths’ interest in erotic anime and fan fiction as alternative forms of media. But first I discuss the importance of representation to the formation of sexual scripts and the history of widespread erasure and the stigma of homosexuality in mainstream media. Cultural Scenarios and Sexual Scripts Dramaturgical analysis is a useful tool for demystifying seemingly “natural” human conduct. In particular, the script and all its contingent parts—­the writer, the producer, the actor, the set, the props, and the stage—­are metaphors to help us recognize and notice the way that shared social understandings help members of a society successfully interact with each other day in and day out.9 Scripts describe learned social behaviors that, when successfully deployed, are largely invisible in social interaction yet become obvious when there is a deviation or failed cue that calls for improvisation. Sexual scripts describe learned, shared social understandings about what is and what is not sexual, as well as how to conduct oneself in a sexual interaction. 10 How is it that we are able to identify that something is sexual or not? How is it that we know how to behave sexually with another person or alone? John Gagnon, who along with William Simon This content downloaded from 130.166.3.5 on Wed, 05 Aug 2020 20:51:05 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms “Google Knows Everything” | 97 developed sociological theories about sexual conduct using scripting theory in the 1970s, explains scripts this way: “Scripts [are] most often treated as heuristic devices to be used by observers to better interpret sexual conduct at three levels: cultural scenarios (such as pornography and the cinema), interpersonal interactions (as in specific sexual acts), and intrapsychic processes (e.g., sexual fantasies, plans, remembrances).”11 Sexual scripting theory argues that biology is a weak explanation for sexuality and that, in fact, much of what we think we know about sex and sexuality is learned behavior, not instinctual. We have to be taught and learn what sexual is (and is not) and how to engage in sex. Scripting theory makes this learning more visible. Cultural scenarios, as one component of sexual scripts, are what help us to determine the difference between a prostrate or pelvic exam at the doctor’s office and a sexual encounter with a lover, where the former is not meant to arouse us sexually while the latter is. Cultural scenarios teach the (non-­)sexual script in many different ways. Children learn from adults and peers how to follow the sexual script and pay attention to cues. In U.S. culture, it is the norm to teach children that certain parts of their body are private and should be kept to themselves. For example, most children are taught, one way or another, not to touch their penises or vulvas in public. This might be one of the earliest moments of learning the sexual script, as children learn that something about their sex organs is different from other parts of their body. While the example I’ve used here is quite simple, imagine all of the ways that people are taught from family members, authority figures, and peers how their bodies are (non-­)sexual. Scripting theory can help make this process visible. Beyond family, friends, and other adults, cultural scenarios are learned through various media, including television, film, books, comics, songs, art, and social media. Society learns what is culturally appropriate through media, which in the United States relentlessly demonstrates a dominant narrative about sexuality that is heterosexual, male-­centered, penile-­to-­vaginal, and largely monogamous. While there are certainly alternatives to this dominant cultural scenario, many of the intimate, sexual relations portrayed through media are incredibly monotonous in their portrayal of human sexuality. Of particular interest here is the rampant heterosexuality portrayed in the media. This does not mean that alternative scripts are not available, but when it comes to mainstream This content downloaded from 130.166.3.5 on Wed, 05 Aug 2020 20:51:05 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 98 | “Google Knows Everything” media and sexuality, heterosexual pairings rule the day. But heterosexual scripts are not fixed, and as society’s notions of appropriate sexuality has shifted, the dominant scripts have changed, too. For example, while still largely heterosexual in nature, it is more common to see sex scenes on television or in film that ostensibly focus more on women’s pleasure, like an increase in scenes where men perform oral sex on women. In many ways, cultural scenarios via media can be helpful tools for novices who are just learning about sexuality, yet they can also stifle creativity when it comes to sexual behavior because they may limit one’s notion of what’s possible or acceptable when it comes to sexual conduct. In his discussion of how sexual scripts influence gender preference, Gagnon stresses that people experience “changes in gender preference in erotic relations” across the course of their lives. But he points out that this instability is particularly common among adolescents “when gender-­appropriate sexual scripts are in the process of acquisition.”12 Children and adolescents typically have had less access to a diversity of scripts because of various institutionalized forms of control through family, religion, school, and restricted access to media. Too often they are shielded from a potentially diverse array of sexual cultural scenarios that inform their scripts. At the same time, they are still new to sexuality and not yet socialized into heteronormative sexualities in the same ways that adults may be. In his critique of using scripting theory to explain sexuality, Jonathan Green argues that sociologists are guilty of relying too much on the social to understand sexuality, and not enough on the subconscious or psychoanalytic. He argues that, in addition to cultural scenarios and interpersonal interactions, both of which can be observed empirically, the intrapsychic processes are influenced by an erotic habitus that is formed largely in our subconscious but influenced by the social. He urges sociologists to consider that, “stretched into an all-­purpose, one-­size-­ fits-­all framework,” scripting theory fails to adequately explain sexual desire.13 “Indeed, a ‘script’ is not a master status, nor a social structure, nor an unconscious, psychic structure. Scripting processes are, however, relevant to how these ele … Purchase answer to see full attachment Get a 10 % discount on an order above $ 100 Use the following coupon code : NURSING10

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