The proliferation of sexual health: Diverse social problems and the legitimation of sexuality

Epstein, Steven; Mamo, Laura

doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.06.033

Cited by 43 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…Research is not carried out in a vacuum and in this final section we locate our work within current debates about media, sexuality and health, and about pornography in particular. In the early 21st century, sexual health has become a buzzword (see Epstein and Mamo, 2017). It is increasingly understood not only as a matter of the body but, as the World Health Organization (WHO, 2002) has defined it – as ‘a state of physical, emotional, mental and social well-being’.…”

Section: Porn Sex Health Mediamentioning

confidence: 99%

‘I’m just curious and still exploring myself’: Young people and pornography

Attwood

Smith

Barker

2018

New Media & Society

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Young people's encounters with sexual media are the subject of intense concern, but the research underpinning policy debate and public discussion rarely pays attention to the complexity of these. In this article, we show how encounters with pornography are increasingly presented as matters of health and well-being, but often from a standpoint of 'exposure and effects' that offers little in the way of understanding the significance of pornography in people's lives. We consider what our recent research on porn consumption suggests about young people's encounters and engagements with pornography -focusing on porn as an 'outlet', the development of porn tastes and the relation of porn to young people's developing sex lives and imaginations. We argue that it is productive to understand pornography as a site for developing sexual identities and relationships, as a form of sexual leisure and play, and in relation to the broader emergence of mediated intimacies.

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Section: Porn Sex Health Mediamentioning

confidence: 99%

‘I’m just curious and still exploring myself’: Young people and pornography

Attwood

Smith

Barker

2018

New Media & Society

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“…Understanding these tensions fully requires consideration of the legacy of relationships between GMSM communities and health bodies throughout the era of AIDS activism (Myrick, 2016). There has been an over-simplification of risk and responsibility discourses, a history of GMSM being denied access to the most effective HIV treatments and other health and care interventions (Epstein, 1996), a wider reification of 'healthism' in sexual health (Epstein & Mamo, 2017) and a continued under-appreciation by public health agencies of the complexities of the roles of desire, stigma, intimacy and romance in understanding GMSM sexual relationships (Flowers et al, 1997;Race, 2010). Indeed, some GMSM view government-driven public health initiatives as 'colonial oppression' (Cairns et al, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘There’s this glorious pill’: gay and bisexual men in the English midlands navigate risk responsibility and pre-exposure prophylaxis

Williamson

Papaloukas

Jaspal

et al. 2018

Critical Public Health

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Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is currently being trialed for seronegative gay and other men who have sex with men (GMSM) at risk of HIV infection in England. However, research from other countries where PrEP is available shows limited literacy and uptake by GMSM at risk of HIV. We collected focus group data from 18 GMSM (13 HIV− and 5 HIV+) from Leicester, an ethnically diverse city in the English Midlands. Data were analysed using thematic analysis and three themes are presented. The first theme 'I can't get my head around people like that': Representations of PrEP users within and beyond gay communities explores how PrEP users are vilified by some GMSM and the wider media. The second theme, 'There's a culture of anti-trust': PrEP, stigma and the interpersonal politics of HIV disclosure discusses how PrEP influences HIV disclosure and sexual decision-making in casual sero-discordant sexual encounters in a context where seropositive men experienced pervasive HIV stigma and HIV− men were suspicious of HIV+ sexual partners. In the final theme, 'I'm still suspicious': Discourses of doubt and distrust participants voiced concern over the safety of PrEP and the motives of drug companies, healthcare agencies and PrEP activists. We consider these findings through a critical lens of wider theorising around the relationship between public health agencies and GMSM communities and consider the impact of these perspectives on likely engagement with PrEP in an English context. We call for more critically informed and nuanced ways of promoting health and well-being amongst men from these communities.

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“…Unlike the tactic of appropriating Ellison’s frame to potentially align perspectives in discourse, Bradshaw maintains a distinct frame for responsibility that indirectly implies that the Government is potentially responsible for negative events. Specifically, his language choices seemingly indicate a recognition of how stigmatizing sexual behavior is often used to question the “legitimacy” of sexual minorities as recipients of care (e.g., Berger, Ferrans, & Lashley, 2001; Earnshaw & Chaudoir, 2009; Epstein & Mamo, 2017; Prior, Wood, Lewis, & Pill, 2003; Race, 2012). However, in raising the possible danger of stigma in public policy, Bradshaw uses passive voice in ways that shift the syntactic focus and ascription of agency.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Moving Metaphors: Shifting Institutional Responsibilities and Evidentiary Boundaries in the Commissioning of Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis for HIV

2019

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In this article, we investigate how speakers in the U.K.’s House of Commons cited the same legislative context and medical research to arrive at contradictory conclusions regarding the Government’s responsibility to fund pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) as an HIV intervention. Because the Government had expressed that it would not comment on institutional responsibilities directly, given the likelihood of a legal challenge in response to the National Health Service withdrawing PrEP from the drug commissioning process, the Government’s support of this decision could not be explicitly detailed. Our discourse analytic approach reveals how members of parliament adopted positions in the debate by using distinct metaphorical frames and lexical choices to linguistically encode assumptions that imply contrary interpretations of mutually agreed upon facts. This suggests that the concrete discursive practices used to cite evidence in policy-making discussions, regardless of the quality of the evidence, may have material consequences for evidence-based policy.

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The proliferation of sexual health: Diverse social problems and the legitimation of sexuality

Cited by 43 publications

References 51 publications

‘I’m just curious and still exploring myself’: Young people and pornography

‘I’m just curious and still exploring myself’: Young people and pornography

‘There’s this glorious pill’: gay and bisexual men in the English midlands navigate risk responsibility and pre-exposure prophylaxis

Moving Metaphors: Shifting Institutional Responsibilities and Evidentiary Boundaries in the Commissioning of Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis for HIV

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