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Pregnant bodies are often perceived to be sites of reproductive beauty in American popular culture; however, the intersection of pregnancy and sexuality elicits reactions ranging from cultural disgust to fetishization. Using Foucauldian discourse theory, I look at how cultural ambivalence about pregnant women who have sex manifests in varied popular culture texts. Ambivalence, I argue, appears through the medicalization of pregnant sexuality (asexualizing), compulsory heterosexuality and pregnancy pornography (hypersexualizing). I also include feminist responses that disrupt the asexual/hypersexual binary.

COVID-19 placed unprecedented strains on criminal court systems, necessitating moves to digital platforms with little preparation. To study the influence of virtual courtrooms on defendant rights (e.g. effective assistance of counsel, speedy and public trials, among others), we qualitatively analyzed the journals of 44 student court watchers, documenting their observations of online court proceedings in a single state in the Northeastern United States. We find that virtual courtrooms are highly disorganized and fraught with technical malfunctions, compromising defendants’ appearances online, and impeding their ability to confer with counsel and address the court. Defendants with less access to digital platforms and incarcerated individuals are disproportionately impacted. Further, court actors tend to treat virtual court in a casual manner and are often unprepared to litigate cases, resulting in undue delays, and extended periods of pre-trial detention. Policy recommendations to improve technologies and administrative procedures are discussed.

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