Angelaki, Volume 17, Issue 1, Page 99-113, March 2012.

Historically, male sexual fitness was framed by a patriarchal politics of life centred on regeneration, population and nation. In the later 20th century, as successful ageing became promoted by the lifestyle practices of an idealized healthy and active senior citizenry, traditional gerontocratic power over the sexual risks of youth gave way to a medical sexology concerned with sexual functionality across the lifecourse; in particular, erectility. Recently, erectile dysfunction has expanded to become a population-wide health problem with increasingly refined diagnoses based (...) on `phases', `early warning signs' and preventative regimes, especially as Viagra has become so widely available. This article explores a new bodily configuration in the making; arising, on the one hand, from the pharmacological and scientific technologization of male sexuality, and, on the other, from a contemporary politics of life that both contests the late-life ageism of the past and fosters a mid-life ageism in the present. (shrink)

This article explores the issue of girls’ concerns about sexual activity in a liberal Nordic context. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork among young people in Denmark, the article identifies three types of concerns girls can have about sexual activity: social expectations, relational expectations and dignity. Whilst contemporary research has tended to focus on the influence different sexual morality discourses have in shaping different expectations and concerns about these, little attention seems to be paid to girls’ normative concerns about sex related to (...) well-being. This article sheds light on how these normative concerns are related to girls’ sense of dignity based on Andrew Sayer’s work on dignity and moral sentiments. Finally, the article argues that tension between sexual morality discourses and moral sentiments may be the source of resistance that girls practise with a new ‘fuckboy’ discourse. (shrink)

Rituals in dying and mourning have a social and a psychic aspect: they have the twin function of diminishing the danger of succumbing to intense emotions (fear, despair, powerlessness and grief) by evoking a feeling of solidarity, and of enhancing the sense of being connected to a larger community, on which basis these emotions are acknowledged as well as dimmed and kept under control. As the changes in mourning ritual of the last half of the 20th century demonstrate, the relation (...) or balance between these social and psychic functions of mourning rituals has been changing. From the 1960s onward, many traditional rituals came under suspicion and were pushed aside. Since the 1980s, a quest for new rituals has emerged. The article will address the question of what has changed in the social and individual regulation of these feelings by comparing old, mostly religious rituals, to more recent ones. The latter will be interpreted as part of a highly individualized quest for societal recognition and solidarity, demonstrating how processes of individualization, `solidarization' and globalization are interconnected. (shrink)

On the basis of extensive research on the relationship between physical activity, exercise and health, as well as strong support from policymakers and practitioners, the “Exercise is Medicine” initiative has become something of a linchpin in the agenda for modern healthcare reform and reflects a broader acceptance that the philosophy of health politics must shift from social engineering to performativity. However, in spite of the avowed commitment to encouraging individuals to take on a more reflexive relation to their health, it (...) remains unclear as to whether an initiative such as this is, unambiguously, a good thing. In this paper, a number of cautionary remarks are made with respect to “Exercise is Medicine” in principle as well as in practice. Firstly, it is argued that equating exercise with medicine is to equate it with a definition of and relation to the body to which it is not entirely akin. And secondly, it is argued that any proposed alignment of the fitness and healthcare industries needs further critical examination, a realigning of interests, and a thorough reconsideration of their suitability of fit. (shrink)

Closely based on the dramatist’s personal experience, Christina Reid’s The Belle of the Belfast City offers a commentary on the life of the Protestant working class in the capital of Northern Ireland in the 1980s from a woman’s perspective. It shows the way eroticism is successfully used by the female characters as a source of emancipation as well as a means not only to secure their strong position in the private domain of the household, but also to challenge the patriarchal (...) structures that prevail in the Irish public sphere. The analysis of the play proposed in this essay focuses on the contrast between the presentation of its male and female characters. I will demonstrate that, while the former group desperately cling to the idea of preserving the social status quo, the latter display a more progressive outlook on the social and sexual politics of the country. In particular, I will investigate how the tensions between the representatives of the two sexes reveal themselves in the corporal sphere. I will argue that, as opposed to the erotically-inhibited and physically-inarticulate male characters, the female dramatis personae take advantage of being more connected to their bodies and use their physicality in an erotic fashion to subvert the rules of the patriarchal system and its strict moral code that limits their social roles to those of respectful mothers, obedient sisters or virtuous wives. (shrink)