Tagged: sexuality

Gender & Sexuality / Science & Technology

Gender, Sexuality, and the HPV Vaccine: Part 2

  In mid-October, I posted about a recent study that assesses the relationship between rates of sexual activity-related outcomes and the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination. The researchers found that injection of the vaccine is not associated with elevated rates of sexual activity-related outcomes in young girls, specifically pregnancy, contraceptive counseling, and sexually transmitted infection testing and diagnosis. While removing the stigma around the vaccine will help girls and women, I asked why the vaccine continues to be associated with women,...

Gender & Sexuality

Gender, Sexuality and The HPV Vaccine: Part 1

This week, the journal, Pediatrics, published an article on the relationship between rates of sexual activity-related outcomes and the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination. Specifically, the researchers set out to determine if HPV vaccination leads to increased sexual activity in young girls. Since the vaccine’s inception, some parents, medical officials, religious organizations and others have suggested that giving girls this protection from HPV will promote them to engage in sexual activity; the vaccination is essentially an endorsement for sex in the...

Sociology of Culture

Thinking About Domestic Partnerships

I left my home state of Florida for some very personal reasons: racism and nativism, extremist right wing politicians, fiscal conservatism (and the failing school and social systems it produces) – not to mention vigilante justice (thanks to the stand your ground laws) and face-eating druggies. When people ask about where I grew up, I’m not proud to answer. But this summer, it got just a tiny bit better. Florida, ever a bastion of political, religious, and moral conservatism, a...

Sociology Compass Issues

Sexing Up the Sex Ed Classroom?

  In her Sociology Compass article, Sexuality Education in the United States: Shared Cultural Ideas Across the Political Divide, Jessica Fields maps the terrain of sexuality education in the United States. While many people believe that debates about sexuality education polarize into two approaches (one favoring an abstinence based approach and the other favoring a more comprehensive based approach), Fields shows that both “camps” want to regulate adolescent sexuality and protect teenagers from the dangers of sexual activity and desire...

Gender & Sexuality / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance / Sociology of Media & Communication

Sexting and the Criminalization of Teen Desire

The New York Times recently ran an expose on teen “sexting” as a part of a slew of recent articles on the topic. Unfortunately, this article failed to take into account the fact that teens, especially girls, have sexual desire. A couple of quotes from the article: “Having a naked picture of your significant other on your cellphone is an advertisement that you’re sexually active to a degree that gives you status,” said Rick Peters, a senior deputy prosecuting attorney...

Gender & Sexuality / Social Psychology & Lifecourse / Sociology of Culture

The Clothes Make the (Heterosexual) Man

Dress codes in schools have long been a source of intergenerational conflict, control, and increasingly obvious, a way to police gender norms and sexuality.  In an article that interrogates these instances of specific gender and sexuality “violations” through clothing and accessories, we can see both an increase in apparel as a means of identity formation and exploration but also a trend that has received little attention.  Why is it that anytime a child or teen decides to transgress norms through...