Gender dichotomy in discourses of sexual pleasure Cover Image

Gender dichotómia a szexuális öröm diskurzusaiban
Gender dichotomy in discourses of sexual pleasure

Author(s): Dorottya Rédai
Contributor(s): Judit Takács (Editor)
Subject(s): Social Sciences
Published by: MTA TK Szociológiai Intézet
Keywords: sexuality; sexual pleasure; discourse; gender

Summary/Abstract: In the discourses of sexuality in school-based sex education and adolescents’ talk we can find various elements and topics which are implicated in the discursive constitution of gendered, ethnic and classed subjectivities. In this paper I inquire into how discourses of sexual pleasure are deployed when the school health worker who teaches sex education and the students talk about sex, and how these discourses constitute gender differences. I examine three such discourses: the gender dichotomy of sexual pleasure as “natural” vs. “learnt”; the gendered differences in discourses about sexual activities and ways of pleasuring; and the gendered double standards of access to sexual partners. These three discourses are significant elements of adolescents’ relations to sexuality and of the construction and reproduction of gendered dichotomies. I apply qualitative discourse analysis on research material I collected in a secondary school in Budapest between 2009 and 2011: transcripts of group interviews with 3–4 students each, the transcript of the interview with the school health worker, and my recordings and fieldnotes written during sex education lessons.

  • Issue Year: 5/2015
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 188-216
  • Page Count: 29
  • Language: Hungarian