Matilda's last dance: death, gender, sexuality and Australian adolescent literature

This thesis examines representations of death in a selection of contemporary texts for Australian adolescent audiences. It demonstrates that, although death is a complex subject, a characteristically Australian 'way of death' is identifiable in these fictions and it is invariably associated with issues of sexuality, gender and power.

Sexuality, body esteem and physical disability

The thesis investigated sexuality and body esteem in people with physical disabilities and developed a psychometrically valid measure to assess these dimensions. Physical disability was associated with significant psychological challenges, sexual and body dissatisfaction and limited opportunities for sexual relationships. The thesis highlighted the importance of sexuality for physically disabled people.

Body image, media influences, sexual risk, and sexuality in men

This thesis examined the relationships between men's body image, different media influences, sexual orientation, and sexual risk taking. In comparison to heterosexuals, gay men were significantly less satisfied with their bodies. Media influences predicted men's body image, and gay men demonstrated greater internalisation of media messages compared to heterosexual men. Based on four case studies the portfolio demonstrates that motivational interviewing might be a useful approach to manage ambivalence and resistance to clients presenting with an anxiety disorder or a parent-child relational issue.

Sociology of cancer in men and women : sexuality, identity and body changes

Prostate and breast cancers are a common group of gender specific diseases that affect men and women respectively. This study explores the impact of the cancer and the social processes involved in re-establishing the self in the aftermath of cancer. The study's premise is that the self is an embodied social agent and that the body is the medium where illness is expresses and experienced by the embodied self.

Psychological factors and the sexuality of pregnant and postpartum women

This longitudinal research found that women reported significant decreases in sexual desire, frequency of intercourse, and sexual satisfaction during pregnancy and at three and six months after childbirth. The psychological factors examined (role quality, relationship satisfaction, fatigue, life satisfaction, and depression) influenced women's changing sexuality over the perinatal period.

I haven't changed bigots but … : reflections on the impact of teacher professional learning in sexuality education

This paper reports on aspects of an Australian study into the factors and conditions that make it possible for secondary school health education teachers to include and affirm gender and sexual diversity in their teaching. The study examined the impact of a two-day intervention designed to prepare teachers to use a major new government-funded teaching and learning resource called Talking Sexual Health. The study found that whilst there was a range of personal and structural barriers inhibiting change, professional development and access to teaching and learning resources could indeed impact positively on teachers' willingness and ability to include and affirm diverse sexualities in their health education programs.

Self-assessed sexuality in young adults with High-Functioning Autism

The literature has revealed that autistic persons of all ages show an interest in sexuality and relationships, but the poor social and communication skills found among those with autism hinders the experience of this. Unfortunately, most research to date in this domain has relied exclusively upon parental or caregiver reports. Thus there remains a need for research to be undertaken in this area based on direct reports from autistic individuals. We hypothesised that compared to Typically Developing (TD) persons, persons with High-Functioning Autism (HFA) would reveal lesser levels of sexual experience, lower levels of sexual and social behaviour, and less understanding of privacy on various subscales of the Sexualised Behaviour Scale. The results of this present study supported the hypothesis on all scales except Privacy and Sexualised Behaviour. Overall, compared to TD individuals, HFA individuals engaged in fewer social behaviours, had less sex education and fewer sexual experiences, had more pronounced concerns for the future, and showed similar levels of privacy knowledge and public sexualised behaviour. These findings suggest a need for specialised sex education programs for autistic populations; further, since social behaviour was significantly lower for autistic individuals and future concerns were higher, this suggests that sex education programs need to incorporate education about social rules to enhance social communication and understanding.

Doing what your big sister does : sex, postfeminism and the YA chick lit series

Mass-marketed teen chick lit has become a publishing phenomenon and has begun to attract critical interest among children’s literature scholars. Much of this critical work, however, has shied away from robust critical assessment of the postfeminist conditions informing the production and reception of young adult series like Private, Gossip Girl and Choose Your Own Destiny. Existing analyses may nod to the origins of the genre in women’s chick lit, but do not investigate how the postfeminist construction of ‘empowered’ female (hetero) sexuality translates into chick lit for young adults. Paying particular attention to these issues, this paper draws on feminist critiques of postfeminism to interrogate the implications of the way these novels position readers to understand their sexuality. In doing so, it poses postfeminist criticism as an unconsidered yet significant framework to evaluate novels for teenage girls.

Supergirl scorned : lessons about young femininity in an Australian television satire

In this paper I explore the popular Australian television character of Ja’mie King – a teenage private school girl created and performed by male comedian Chris Lilley. I conceptualise Lilley’s satire as a public pedagogy of young femininity. My reading of his satire responds to recent feminist scholarship around young femininities and ‘girl power’, which explores representations of young femininity in popular culture in Western nations. Drawing primarily on the 2005 television mockumentary We can be heroes, I explore how King can be read in terms of exaggerated ‘girl power’ subjectivity. I examine the relationships, fashioned through the character of King, between ‘sexuality’ and global citizenship activity. I consider the extent to which King’s character teaches that young women can ‘have it all’. I explore the extent to which her character teaches that they can be ‘beautiful’ and ‘brainy’, ‘self-determined’ and ‘sexy’ at the same time.

Erotic capital, popular pedagogy, and healthy adolescent female sexuality

The sexualization of the female body in contemporary media has created considerable anxiety about its impact on girls. Much of the resulting research focuses on the influence of visual media on body image and the flow-on effects for girls' health. Rather less attention is paid to the pedagogical role of popular romance fiction in teaching girls about their sexuality. Given the pronounced increase in eroticized fiction for girls over the past decade, this is a significant oversight. This article applies Hakim's (2010) concept of erotic capital to two chick lit novels for girls. The elements of erotic capital—assets additional to economic, cultural and social capital—are used to explore the lessons these novels teach about girl sexual subjectivities and sociality in a sexualized culture.