Mediated intimacy: Sex advice in media culture

Abstract

The bold argument of Mediated Intimacy is that media of various kinds play an increasingly important role in shaping people's knowledge, desires, practices and expectations about intimate relationships. While arguments rage about the nature and content of sex and relationship education in schools, it is becoming clear that more and more of usyoung and old look not to formal education, or even to our friends, for information about sex, but the media (Attwood et al., 2015; Albury, 2016). This is not simply a matter of media 'advice' in the form of self-help books, magazine problem pages, or online 'agony' columnsthough these are all proliferating and are discussed at length in the book. It is also about the wider cultural habitat of images, ideas and discourses about intimacy that circulate through and across media: the 'happy endings' of romantic comedies; the 'money shots' of pornography; the celebrity gossip about who is seeing whom, who is 'cheating', and who is looking 'hot'; the lifestyle TV about 'embarrassing bodies' or being 'undateable'; the newspaper features on how to have a 'good' divorce or 'ten things never to say on a first date'; or the new apps that incite us to quantify and rate our sex lives, etc. These constitute the 'taken for granted' of everyday understandings of intimacy, and they are at the heart of Mediated Intimacy. Here we present a brief summary of the book and its conclusions: Normativity and inclusivity Sex advice-and media more widely-is largely heteronormative: presenting 'normal' sex and relationships as primarily happening between one cisgender man and one cisgender woman. This is embedded within the representation of men and women as 'opposite' and 'complementary' exemplified in the bestselling Mars and Venus self-help books (Potts, 2002), men's and women's magazines, romantic comedies, and chick lit (Gill, 2007). Sex remains centred around men's pleasure with the omnipresent male sexual drive discourse (Hollway, 1984) and assumption that men are focused on sex and women on love. Recent shifts from objectification to subjectification mean there is now an onus on women to be 'up for' sex, to demonstrate enjoyment, and to find it empowering, whilst still navigating the sexual double standard to be sexual enough, but not too sexual. This plays out in many sex advice advice materials which-implicitly or explicitly-emphasise the vital importance of women providing regular sex to male partners so as not to lose the relationship. However, TV shows like Girls and Fleabag begin to open up the possibility of a more messy, complex female sexuality as their characters navigate this territory.

The gendered nature of self-help

“…Their work comes from analysis of a range of media texts that call on (particularly middle-class) women to be resilient, use positive thinking, and 'bounce back' (Gill & Orgad 2017). In the context of austerity and growing social inequalities, the authors argue that this psychological focus directs attention away from social critique and delegitimizes demands for social transformation (Barker, Gill & Harvey 2018).…”

“…Gupta and Cacchioni's (2013) analysis of 17 American sex manuals shows the various ways these texts employ a medical discourse to construct women as needing to do extra work (for example, pretending to enjoy or want sex, or undertaking mental and physical preparation for sex because they are 'less responsive' than men and/or more tied to emotion). Such extra work often requires economic capital, so that the 'norms of sexual practice articulated in these manuals can thus serve to undermine their readers, with the potential to create a sense of failure or exclusion for those who do not have the resources to participate or who do not see themselves represented' (Riley, Evans & Robson, 2018, p. 82; see also Barker, Gill & Harvey, 2018). Crawford's (2004) analysis of the best-seller Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus (1992) and associated spin-off reality TV program following six heterosexual couples putting author John Gray's advice into action highlights the need for analysis that The gendered nature of self-help 19 engages with complexity.…”

Mediated Superficiality and Misogyny Through Cool on Tinder

“…This "new way of imagining the self vis-à-vis one's past in the language of psychology" became the common way of seeing in modern society (Illouz, 2007, p. 7). In this vein, modern intimacy has served as a site where a person can discover one's essence that is stable and unique enough to define "who I am" and distinguish the self from others by interrogating one's psyche and reformulating relationships (Barker, Gill, & Harvey, 2018;Illouz, 2007). Intimate relationships came to be understood as two persons engaging with each one's psychological self-the ontological entity formed with core psychological properties (Barker et al, 2018;Illouz, 2007).…”

“…In this vein, modern intimacy has served as a site where a person can discover one's essence that is stable and unique enough to define "who I am" and distinguish the self from others by interrogating one's psyche and reformulating relationships (Barker, Gill, & Harvey, 2018;Illouz, 2007). Intimate relationships came to be understood as two persons engaging with each one's psychological self-the ontological entity formed with core psychological properties (Barker et al, 2018;Illouz, 2007). Illouz (2007) argues that traditional online dating services have materialized a way of building intimacy through the finding of the psychological self.…”

Caiu na rede: mulheres, tecnologias e direitos entre nudes e (possíveis) vazamentos

“…O print é um dos maiores exemplos da ambivalência da internet: rápido, fugidio, instantâneo, pessoal, mas paradoxalmente duradouro e potencialmente público. 87 Barker, Gill & Harvey (2018) afirmam que novas tecnologias permitem novas formas de construir e fazer a manutenção de vínculos íntimos e privados, como o relacionamento e sexo à distância. 88 Não se deve presumir, também, um sentido único para os termos intimidade e privacidade.…”