‘Scene’ as a critical framing device: Extending analysis of chemsex cultures

The term ‘chemsex’ references an identifiable set of circumstances and behaviours ascribed to gay male culture at the same time as operating as a politically salient category capable of spurring policy and programmatic responses. Increasingly, the word ‘scene’ is used in association with ‘chemsex’ in media reporting, expert commentary and research on the phenomenon. Rather than dismissing the coupling of chemsex and scene as mere vernacular, ‘scene’ offers a fruitful entry point for exploring how the combination of sex and drugs achieves cultural salience over time. In this article, I read chemsex cultures through the material and representational elements characteristic of ‘scene’. By emphasizing scenes’ temporal logics, I speculate on the value of this alternative approach in generating new understandings of chemsex cultures.

Torchwood’s Supermen

Focusing on the spin-off series Torchwood, lauded by academics and popular media for its liberating and frank representations of fluid sexuality, this chapter discusses audience research using focus groups exploring Torchwood’s representations of queer masculinity, analyzing respondents’ responses to the masculinity of the leading character, Captain Jack Harkness, and the recurring character, Captain John Hart. While not ostensibly superheroes or supervillains in the comic book sense, research participants positioned them as super-human or god-like. Using the notion of homonormativity, the pressure on queer people to conform to heteronormativity, this chapter highlights how, despite foregrounding the leading man as fluidly sexual, Torchwood suggests a homonormative hypermasculinity dominating much of Western gay male culture, which deradicalizes queer identity and renders it safe for heteronormativity and, by association, hypermasculinity.

The Male Culture Tradition Babali Among Pariaman Emigrants (Reinterpretation Study on Pariaman Emigrants in Bandung City)

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Bodies of Texts: Women Calligraphers and the Elite Vernacular Culture in Late Chosŏn Korea (1392–1910)

Men's references to women's writing in vernacular Korean script never term this practice “calligraphy,” and yet articles of women's intricate brushwork reveal that in late Chosŏn Korea (1392–1910) this was a highly aestheticized practice with recognized social importance and a meticulous training process. This article captures the moment when vernacular Korean scriptural practices ascended the elite canon, which resulted in the emergence of high vernacular culture. It historicizes the gendered logic of representation in a male-authored historical archive to uncover the contours of a women-centered vernacular aesthetic canon that assumed a status of prestige alongside male culture in literary Chinese. The article unravels the meaning of the term “calligraphy” when it is applied to women's vernacular handwriting and ponders the connection between women's bodily discipline, productive work, and exquisite vernacular brushwork. This opens an alternative perspective not only on the gender politics of the Chosŏn society but also on the culture of the time, which is hitherto seen as dominated by a male-centered literary Chinese canon.