'I'm wasting away on unrequited love': gendering same sex attracted young women's love sex and desire
2001; Springer International Publishing; Volume: 27; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0311-4198
Autores Tópico(s)Social Work Education and Practice
Resumo`I'm Wasting Away On Unrequited Love': Gendering Same Sex Attracted Young Women's Love Sex and Desire It has long been recognised that young people are sexually active at an increasingly younger age and that a major organising principle of sex and related behaviours in young people is gender.(1) In 1996 we gathered the meanings of sex and safe sex from 1200 secondary students in Australian towns.(2) We also asked questions about relationships and sexual behaviours and found, in young people's writings about sex, a number of rules about sexual behaviours which were largely organised around gender. The following summary reflects some of these basic organizing principles about understood and appropriate behaviours for young men and women. They are simplistic, there may be overlap in some areas, and they may be diluted in urban areas; there is, however, a consensus that gender remains a powerful organising feature of heterosexual young people's lives. Over the last five years in Australia there has also been a marked increase in interest in non-heterosexual young people's sexual explorations but, within this, almost no attention has been paid to gender and there has been little interest in a gender critique. Part of the reason for this is that many of the studies have been restricted to young men. Since the advent of the HIV pandemic, the Australian government has funded research into HIV prevention with heterosexual young people and same sex attracted young men. The assumption has been that same sex attracted young women are not at risk for HIV and therefore HIV research dollars should not be committed to their issues. Similarly, based on the belief that woman to woman transmission of STIs and related illnesses is unlikely and rare, there is a common assumption that lesbians are immune from STIs. The recent campaign Lesbians need pap smears too was an attempt to redress the popular belief that lesbians do not suffer from the secondary effects of STIs. The main flaw in this type of thinking is the assumption that lesbians do not, and have not, had sex with men. A third reason for the lack of research focus on same sex attracted young women is the gendering of youth suicide as male. Overwhelmingly the research has been restricted to young men. There is the assumption that it is only young men and, in this case, same sex attracted young men, who suffer the hostility and resulting alienation of homophobia that drives them to suicide. A recent study from New South Wales is a welcome exception.(3) Howard and Nicolas found that lesbians were at no less a risk of suicide than young gay men. In summary, because of the belief that it is young men and not young women who are `at risk', we have a lot of research evidence about these young people which is on the surface gender undifferentiated, but which mainly tells a story about young gay and bisexual men. This information is important but leaves half of the group silenced and invisible. This paper has a number of aims. First I want to demonstrate how the rules of gender are reproduced in the ways that same sex attracted young women play out their sexual desires and how this is very different for young men. Second, I want to address the assumptions that have resulted in same sex attracted young women's invisibility in the sexual health and wellbeing research and third, using the results from a project with same sex attracted young people and the Internet, I want to explore some possibilities for young women and their sexual desires. To achieve these aims I will draw on data from a number of research projects in which my colleagues and I have been involved over the past few years. These studies are: The rural mural -- a 1996 study with 1200 young people in rural areas of Tasmania, Victoria and Queensland(4) Writing themselves In (1998) a study with 750 same sex attracted young people throughout Australia(5) The Internet as a safe space (2002) -- an exploration of the use of the Internet by 206 same sex attracted young people Secondary students, HIV and sexual health, a national research project with 3,500 secondary students in Australia. …
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