Sex and Common-Sense: Maude Royden, Religion, and Modern Sexuality

2013 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 153-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sue Morgan

AbstractThis article explores the relationship between religion, sexuality, and modernity through a study of the important yet neglected text Sex and Common-Sense (1921) by the celebrated Anglican feminist preacher, pacifist, and campaigner for women's ordination, Maude Royden (1876–1956). It argues for the ongoing vitality of religious constructions of sexual identity in interwar Britain and the deeply symbiotic rather than oppositional relationship between Christian and secular (scientific) discourses during this period. Royden's engagement with the new sexological and psychological approaches to the self and sexuality is examined, as are her efforts to modernize religious understandings of sexuality through a more compassionate, progressive reading of women's capacity for sexual pleasure, marriage reform, divorce, birth control, and homosexuality. The centrality of her High Church incarnational theology to an understanding of sex as sacramental is also assessed. The article proposes that histories of sexuality and histories of religion have hitherto worked with differing chronologies of secularization that have had interesting implications not only for the recognition of religion's continued influence in shaping mainstream British sexual morality but also for the uneven and multifarious readings of modernity itself.

2020 ◽  
pp. 1097184X2098078
Author(s):  
Max Stick ◽  
Tina Fetner

Men’s identification with and support for feminism has attracted the interest of masculinity scholars. This study explores an under-researched dimension of this phenomenon, investigating the relationship between feminist identification and sexual behavior. In heterosexual encounters, do feminist men report having sex more recently than those who do not call themselves feminists? During sexual encounters, do feminist men behave differently than non-feminists? In particular, do feminist men organize their sexual behavior in a way that prioritizes their partners’ sexual pleasure to a greater extent than non-feminists? Using representative survey data of Canadian adults, we examine the self-reported sexual behavior of heterosexual Canadian men. We find that self-identifying feminist men report having sex more recently and are more likely to report engaging in breast stimulation and performing oral sex on their partners than non-feminists. We discuss the implications of these findings on the sociological literature on gender and sexuality.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Max Stick ◽  
Tina Fetner

Men’s identification with and support for feminism has attracted the interest of masculinity scholars. This study explores an under-researched dimension of this phenomenon, investigating the relationship between feminist identification and sexual behavior. In heterosexual encounters, do feminist men report having sex more recently than those who do not call themselves feminists? During sexual encounters, do feminist men behave differently than non-feminists? In particular, do feminist men organize their sexual behavior in a way that prioritizes their partners’ sexual pleasure to a greater extent than non-feminists? Using representative survey data of Canadian adults, we examine the self-reported sexual behavior of heterosexual Canadian men. We find that self-identifying feminist men report having sex more recently and are more likely to report engaging in breast stimulation and performing oral sex on their partners than non-feminists. We discuss the implications of these findings on the sociological literature on gender and sexuality.


2019 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-285
Author(s):  
Alycia W. LaGuardia-LoBianco ◽  

Common-sense morality tells us we should help our loved ones who suffer. Self-saboteurs complicate this intuition: ought we help someone who wants to suffer? In this paper, I discuss mechanisms of and motivations for self-sabotaging behavior. I then turn to the ethical complications of these cases: the risk of becoming complicit in another’s self-sabotage; the acceptable limits of caring for a self-saboteur; and the permissibility of paternalistic interference. I argue that while there is some permissible leeway involved in meeting another’s needs—including submitting to their low-stakes manipulation—doing so risks damaging the relationship. While paternalistic interference may seem justified, I argue that this approach is a morally problematic denial of the self-saboteur’s agency. Instead, I offer an alternative route between complicity and interference: carers ought to try to maintain a relationship built on the honest recognition of each other’s reasons, which may include the self-saboteur’s legitimate reasons to suffer.


2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamara Feldman

This paper is a contribution to the growing literature on the role of projective identification in understanding couples' dynamics. Projective identification as a defence is well suited to couples, as intimate partners provide an ideal location to deposit unwanted parts of the self. This paper illustrates how projective identification functions differently depending on the psychological health of the couple. It elucidates how healthier couples use projective identification more as a form of communication, whereas disturbed couples are inclined to employ it to invade and control the other, as captured by Meltzer's concept of "intrusive identification". These different uses of projective identification affect couples' capacities to provide what Bion called "containment". In disturbed couples, partners serve as what Meltzer termed "claustrums" whereby projections are not contained, but imprisoned or entombed in the other. Applying the concept of claustrum helps illuminate common feelings these couples express, such as feeling suffocated, stifled, trapped, held hostage, or feeling as if the relationship is killing them. Finally, this paper presents treatment challenges in working with more disturbed couples.


2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-332
Author(s):  
Kate Zebiri

This article aims to explore the Shaykh-mur?d (disciple) or teacher-pupil relationship as portrayed in Western Sufi life writing in recent decades, observing elements of continuity and discontinuity with classical Sufism. Additionally, it traces the influence on the texts of certain developments in religiosity in contemporary Western societies, especially New Age understandings of religious authority. Studying these works will provide an insight into the diversity of expressions of contemporary Sufism, while shedding light on a phenomenon which seems to fly in the face of contemporary social and religious trends which deemphasize external authority and promote the authority of the self or individual autonomy.


2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ritu ◽  
Madhu Anand

Parental Modernity is an important aspect for the psycho-social development of the child. The present study aims to study the effect of parental modernity on rejection sensitivity and self-esteem of adolescents and the relationship between rejection sensitivity and self-esteem. The research is carried out on a sample of 240 parents (including 120 fathers and 120 mothers) and their 120 children. For observing the impact of modernity of parents on their children, Individual Modernity Scale was used and administered on father and mother. Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire and Self-Esteem Inventory were used to measure the rejection sensitivity and self-esteem of children (age ranges from 14 to 19 years). The results suggest that parental modernity has an effect on the rejection sensitivity and personally perceived self of the self – esteem of adolescents. Furthermore, the rejection sensitivity has been found negatively associated with self-esteem.


Author(s):  
Vasiliy Dvortsov ◽  
Alexander Efimenko

В статье предпринята попытка теоретического анализа и изучения научной литературы по организации и становлению воспитательной работы с осужденными в местах лишения свободы, продемонстрирована взаимосвязь между политико-воспитательной работой, ресоциализацией и исправлением осужденных в пенитенциарных учреждениях. Проведенное исследование позволяет предполагать, что воспитательная работа является основополагающим средством исправления различных категорий осужденных (регламентировано ст. 9 УИК РФ). На этой основе критерием исправления будет становиться устойчивое правопослушное поведение человека. В связи с этим возникает необходимость использования психолого-педагогической программы по перестройке и самооценке осужденных, позволяющей формировать их готовность к самореализации, когда осознание совершенных преступлений становится внутренне неприемлемым. Авторами отмечается, что, самоисправление человека зависит от ряда направлений воспитательной работы: нравственного, правового, физического воспитания, получения основного общего образования, получения профессии. Очевидно, что для закрепления положительного результата процесс ресоциализации в пенитенциарных учреждениях должен проводиться сотрудниками всех отделов и служб на основе комплексных программ, разработанных с учетом специфики и возраста осужденных.The article attempts a theoretical analysis and study of scientific literature on the organization and formation of educational work with convicts in prisons, demonstrates the relationship between «political and educational work», re-socialization and correction of convicts in prisons. The study suggests that educational work is a fundamental means of correcting various categories of convicts (regulated by article 9 of the criminal code). Based on this criterion fixes will become sustainable human behavior, demonstrating a conscious rejection of the violation of legal norms with the aim of securing sustainable patterns of law-abiding behavior. There is a need to use the psychological and pedagogical Program for restructuring and self-assessment of convicts, which allows to form on this basis their readiness for self-realization, when the awareness of the crimes committed becomes internally unacceptable. In this regard, the self-correction of a person depends on a number of areas, namely, moral, legal, physical education, basic General education, profession, forming the basis of educational work. It is obvious that in order to consolidate a positive result in penitentiary institutions, the activities of all departments and services should be carried out a process of re-socialization on the basis of comprehensive Programs developed taking into account the specifics and different ages of convicts.


Author(s):  
Hubert J. M Hermans

In the field of tension between globalization and localization, a set of new phenomena is emerging showing that society is not simply a social environment of self and identity but works in their deepest regions: self-radicalization, self-government, self-cure, self-nationalization, self-internationalization, and even self-marriage. The consequence is that the self is faced with an unprecedented density of self-parts, called I-positions in this theory. In the field of tension between boundary-crossing developments in the world and the search for an identity in a local niche, a self emerges that is characterized by a great variety of contradicting and heterogeneous I-positions and by large and unexpected jumps between different positions as the result of rapid and unexpected changes in the world. The chapter argues that such developments require a new vision of the relationship between self and society.


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