Library 4

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McNeill, Maggie; Scorched Earth, Feb 27 2012
The 21st century American view of sex is warped beyond that of any other historical culture. The official and popular paradigm appears to be based on the belief that sex is such a horrible, monstrous abomination that the mere mention of it to an adult can constitute “violence”, that participating in it for taboo reasons can be a “crime”, and that if a person is exposed to sexual contact, conversation or imagery (...) even one minute before midnight on her 18th birthday she will be instantly and irreversibly ruined beyond any hope of redemption.
[...]
It’s time to stop being afraid of the activity to which every single one of us owes his existence, and to stop fighting a war whose casualties are far greater than any the “threat” itself has ever produced.
Finkelstein, Shari, & Schorn Daniel; The Science Of Sexual Orientation, Feb 11 2009
There are few issues as hotly contested — and as poorly understood — as the question of what makes a person gay or straight. It's not only a political, social, and religious question but also a scientific question, one that might someday have an actual, provable answer.

The handful of scientists who work in this under-funded and politically charged field will tell you: That answer is a long way off. But as Lesley Stahl reports, their efforts are already yielding tantalizing clues. One focus of their research is twins.
Rapold, Monika *1966– *; Schweigende Lämmer und reißende Wölfe, moralische Helden und coole Zyniker : zum öffentlichen Diskurs über „sexuellen Kindesmißbrauch“ in Deutschland; Pädagogik und Sozialwissenschaften; 12, 492 pp. 21 cm.
Using a sociology-of-knowledge approach, this book critically examines the German discourse on the ‘sexual abuse of children’ in the 1990s when it was already an emotionally highly charged subject. The author first identifies four concepts and illustrates each of them with a representative monograph: the ‘pedophile’ (Bernard, 1982); the feminist (Kavemann/Lohstöter, 1984); the incest theoretical (Hirsch, 1987); and the critical (Rutschky, 1992). A fifth variant, the child molester discourse, with its connotations of violence, death, and conspiracies, is found later to dominate the popular press to the near-exclusion of all others. On the basis of these concepts she then analyses both professional (articles and monographs) and popular (newspapers and weeklies) media. It was the feminist point of view that was found to be dominant, even penetrating the pedophile discourse, except in the popular press as previously mentioned.

The second part puts these results in wider contexts. The newer German feminism is examined first. It is shown how sexual abuse became the rallying point of this movement, how it served its interests, and how it transformed it. Only by adopting the child-saving rhetoric could feminism occupy its current influential position, ironically replacing in the process its original emancipatory, anti-patriarchal stance with a stout reliance on the state, the quintessential patriarchal power.

The discourse on children and childhood comes next. The connections between the child-saving and feminist movements, both in Germany and the USA, are discussed as well as the idealization of children in much of contemporary culture. The books by Ariès, de Mause, and Postman are cited as evidence for conflicting views currently held about childhood. Often childhood is elevated to a utopian ideal and associated with myths and felt to be endangered by reality and myths likewise.

The author next turns to the discourse on sexuality. Rousseau here has stressed the innocence of children, simultaneously seen as naturally given and extremely endangered. With the repudiation of Freud's insight into the essential psychic predisposition of trauma, the sexual life of children was also negated, and the aetiology of trauma became the subject of an extreme reductionism. The political right has had a field day here with the resurrection of sexual repression and censorship. The author turns to Foucault for insight into the historical interplay between politics and sexuality. If the person of the confessor has changed, she notes, the practice of (public) confession has regained prominence.

Violence and crime are the leading ideas of the discourse which is examined next. The almost universally negative appreciation of intergenerational sexuality (which, as she notes, ignores the voices of many children themselves) is not founded in reality or argument but grounded in a constant appeal to demagoguery and emotion. The law creates the very myth it defends.

The last discussion returns to the sociological vantage point and traces the career of intergenerational sexuality as a social problem. Like the deficient child or dangerous (male) sexuality, it is a myth (Barthes) which serves symbolic politics.
Schuster, Filip; Schuster, meta-analysis - some links to the references
Some Literature … from Schulte, Meta-analysis 2024, as far as easily to find on Ipce’s websites.
CanCon; Scary statistics?, Jun 13 2006
It would seem that acceptance of pedophilia in Canada is already far more mainstream than most Canadians would have thought possible.
If 81% of Canadians think pedophilia is immoral, then 19% of Canadians either refused to answer or believe that pedophilia is, in fact, a moral behaviour.
The Leger poll also offers up a statistic that suggests Canada's tolerance of pedophilia will slowly grow with time, noting that older Canadians are far more likely to see the practice as immoral versus those in the 18- to 24-year-old crowd, where only 74% agreed lusting after pre-pubescent kids is wrong.
Alberyan; The Sambia Tribe (of Papua New Guinea)
Description of the initiation rites for boys in the Samba tribe of Papua New Guinea. The child becomes a man, warrior and spouse.