Abstract: Recently, there has been an increase in the number of studies on minority stress among sexual minorities. Few of these studies have explored the ways in which regional or spatial factors influenced the amount of minority stress that lesbians, gay men and bisexuals (LGBs) endure. To see if living in rural and small towns creates stressful social environments for LGBs in the United States, this study analysed the associations between location and three distal minority stress outcomes, as well as feelings of connectedness to the LGB community. In a sample of self-identified LGBs (N = 285), this study found that rural contexts and small towns often presented harsher social climates for sexual minorities compared with urban locales. LGBs who resided in rural areas tended to feel less connected to LGB communities and experienced higher levels of felt stigma and enacted discrimination. Small town inhabitants displayed some similar patterns, but also reported lower levels of enacted discrimination than expected. ...

Abstract: The purpose of this article is to traverse the fields of psychology, human sexuality and religion to find themes of commonality that can be used to shed light on how faith forms the unique life journeys of intersex and transgender people. The specific aims of this article are twofold: (1) to begin to explore the role that religion and spirituality may play in the lives of transgender and intersex individuals and (2) to provide a roadmap for psychologists and other social scientists to conduct future research in this area. We began by conducting a literature review of intersex and transgender religiosity and spirituality. After summarising the articles uncovered, we then offer suggestions on how current psychological methods and theories – including spiritual journeys, empowerment, positive psychology and stress-related growth – can be used to advance research on the role that religious and spiritual beliefs play in intersex and transgender lives. Our hope is that this article will expand the psychological...

Abstract: The aim of the current study is to conduct a simultaneous cross-cultural assessment of modern and old-fashioned prejudice towards gay men and lesbian women. Data collected in the Republic of Ireland, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States were compared to assess whether any notable differences in prejudice occurred and whether specific predictors of homonegativity (i.e. age of participants, gender, level of self-reported religiosity, level of education and contact with either a gay man or a lesbian woman) demonstrate the same predictive utility across all samples. The findings obtained by the current study highlight specific discrepancies in the prevalence of old-fashioned and modern homonegativity and suggest that the demographic variables assessed failed to account for comparable levels of variance across all samples. Implications of these findings, limitations of the current study and directions for future research are explored.

Abstract: In Western culture sexual fidelity is widely regarded as a prime source of relationship stability and personal happiness and thus a worthy practice. This article is an empirical and critical account of monogamous coupledom as a privileged relational experience. Data is drawn from fourteen in-depth interviews with Australian men and women who self-identified their cross or same-sex partnerships as sexually and emotionally monogamous. Monogamy, as participants construct it, is critiqued as an action and policy that produces an exclusive and contained essence of relationships and that guards against a perceived chaotic excess that is set up in opposition to it. Such action is seen to impel a sense of mastery in relationships and selves that are properly enclosed, channelled and thereby ordered. The socio-historic binary arrangement of an ordered inside and chaotic outside is focussed on as enabling a superior monogamous order while also underpinning its precariousness and psychological frailty. Drawing on Deleuzian ideas about a non-privileged and non-hierarchical system of relating, an alternative way of intimately connecting with others is brought into theoretical view, one that does not favour contained and fixed essences as foundations for relationships, intimate connections and life.

Abstract: This article presents the reflections of two academics on the blog Bitchy Jones's Diary (2006–2010), particularly its considerations of dominant femininity within the UK kink communities. Weaving together excerpts from the blog with our own dialogues, we consider the potentials of such a voice from within the communities in relation to more academic explorations. Specifically, we focus on the relationship between Bitchy Jones's arguments and our own understandings of limited sexualised femininities available within wider culture, the place of agency within these and the potentials for mutual recognition within both kinky and non-kinky relationships.

Abstract: Bitchy Jones's Diary (2006–2010) was the pseudonymous blog of a female British blogger, who wrote about her life as a sexually dominant female, and criticised aspects of both mainstream and BDSM culture. 1 The blog's title and the author's nom de plume were both deliberately adapted from Bridget Jones's Diary, a popular novel from 1996 which was later followed by a sequel and two films. The views of female sexuality expressed in the blog are to be understood as the antithesis of those presented in the novel. In this article, I take seriously the suggested connection between Bitchy and Bridget Jones, suggesting that these two female diarists have more in common than Bitchy might wish to acknowledge. Both use a variety of rhetorical strategies to create the impression that they are giving an authentic account of a marginalised subject position, and use this ‘authentic’ voice to denounce mainstream and subcultural attempts to exclude as worthless or irrelevant aspects of their sexual tastes, practices and ex...

Abstract: This special issue of Psychology & Sexuality is the result of the happy coincidence of two separate projects First, Lisa Downing was putting together a collection of academic articles responding t

Abstract: The influence of peers on adolescent sexual behaviours is an important but understudied phenomenon. Past studies have predominantly concentrated on the potential negative influences of peer norms on risky sexual behaviours, but they have seldom investigated the underlying processes behind such influences. This study explored the direct associations between adolescent sexual activity and friends' support, levels of disagreement with friends and friends' modelling for sexual activity. We also investigated the potential mediating role of the perception of peer influence for sexual activity and of the perception of being too young to have initiated sexual activity among these associations. This study was conducted among 328 Italian adolescents (56% female; 30% sexually active; aged 15–19 years; mean age = 16.23 years) using a two-wave longitudinal design. Linear and logistic regression analyses revealed that level of disagreement with friends and sex activity modelling by friends were both positively associat...

Abstract: The history of contraception, like the history of every other cultural phenomenon and institution, does not follow a historically linear, progressive path from ignorance and superstition towards en...

Abstract: This article reproduces and discusses a series of blog posts posted by academics in anticipation of the report on commercialisation, sexualisation and childhood, ‘Letting Children Be Children’ by Reg Bailey for the UK Department of Education in June 2011. The article discusses the difficulty of ‘translating’ scholarly work for the public in a context where ‘impact’ is increasingly important and the challenges that academics face in finding new ways of speaking about sex in public.

Abstract: This article reproduces and discusses a series of blog posts posted by academics in anticipation of the report on commercialisation, sexualisation and childhood, 'Letting Children Be Children' by Reg Bailey for the UK Department of Education in June 2011. The article discusses the difficulty of 'translating' scholarly work for the public in a context where 'impact' is increasingly important and the challenges that academics face in finding new ways of speaking about sex in public.

Abstract: Though sexual identity labels (e.g. straight, bisexual, gay/lesbian) are regularly used as a proxy for sexual behaviour and/or attraction, sexual identity is often imperfectly correlated with these aspects of sexual orientation. In this study, we examined whether individual differences would explain differences in the relationship between sexual identity label (i.e. exclusively straight, mostly straight, bisexual or mostly/exclusively gay) and self-reported sexual behaviour among a sample of 76 behaviourally bisexual college-aged women. We found that individual differences in sexual identity exploration, uncertainty, commitment and integration moderated the relationship between sexual identity label and sexual behaviour among exclusively and mostly straight women. Sexual identity uncertainty and integration moderated the relationship between sexual identity label and sexual behaviour among exclusively straight and bisexual women, and among exclusively straight and mostly/exclusively gay women. We discuss ...

Abstract: We introduce the special issue by providing an overview of the 2008 and 2010 International Summer Institutes in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) psychology at the University of Michigan Using the literature on stigmatization of LGBT peoples, minority stress, and the demonstrated under-representation of LGBT issues (including heterosexism) in psychology, we argue that the Institutes served a necessary and timely – if not overdue – intervention to establish an ‘invisible college’ that allowed emerging scholars to connect with eminent senior scholars This was the starting point for systematic and sustained collaborations among the scholars in attendance, and some of the fruits of those collaborations are included in this issue Post-institute participant surveys from both sessions revealed that the Institutes not only facilitated the formation of an ‘invisible college’, but that participants also reported individual shifts in perspective associated with an increased commitment to social change: the development of new networks, critical perspectives on the inclusion of LGBT people/and issues, shifts in identity, and new possibilities for reaching (and changing) other people through research and teaching We discuss these findings and their implications for the future directions of LGBT Psychology

Abstract: The global concern with gender and sexuality in the early twenty-first century cuts across as diverse fields as psychology, cultural criticism and social analysis. The collection Transgender Identi...

Abstract: The four articles in this section are united by their analyses of the links between three phenomena: female-authored web blogging; questions of sexual identity and community construction; and debat...

Abstract: Meg Barker and Darren Langdridge's Understanding non-monogamies, part of the ‘Routledge Research in Gender and Society’ series, is an ambitious and dynamic volume. It self-consciously contributes t...

Abstract: Recent curricular developments emphasising coverage of sexuality resulted in the creation of psychology courses devoted to ‘lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender’ (LGBT) content that parallel diversity courses that focus on gender or race. However, an intersectional pedagogical approach may strengthen student understanding of not only the LGBT psychology but also the matrix of oppression as related to a multitude of social inequalities. This article presents instructors' reflections documenting the benefits and challenges of using critical liberatory feminist pedagogy and an intersectional framework in teaching two courses, Black Issues in LGBT Psychology and Psychology of Gender, Race, and Sexuality within the cultural contexts of a historically Black university and a Hispanic-serving university. Examples of assignments and student reactions are provided. Implications are drawn for diversity-themed courses that may focus exclusively on race/ethnicity, sexual orientation and/or gender identity without at...

Abstract: The hypothesis on the role of exposure to pornography during adolescence in predicting intimacy among young adults was tested using a sample of 544 Croatian college students (aged 18–25 years) who were surveyed online. Respondents provided information about pornography use at ages 14 and 17, perceived realism of pornographic depictions of sexual activities, attitudes towards recreational sex and relationship intimacy. Significant gender differences in pornography exposure, perceived realism of pornographic contents and attitudes towards recreational sex were found. No direct relationship was found between adolescent exposure to pornography and relationship intimacy in young adulthood. As hypothesised, the realism of pornography was related both to exposure and intimacy, but only among female participants. Furthermore, the association between the appraisal of pornographic realism and intimacy was shown to be mediated by attitudes towards recreational sex. In light of contemporary concerns over the normalis...

Abstract: This article analyses two contemporary erotic memoirs by women, Belle de Jour's (2005) Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl and Abby Lee's (2006) Girl with a One-Track Mind, both of which began life as blogs. Situating them, briefly, in relation to previous erotic memoirs and fiction by women, I examine their transition from blog to book and consider the impact of new digital technologies upon female sexual self-narration. I examine the texts in the light of recent popular feminist writings on the sexualisation of girls and young women, and analyse both the books and original blogs' engagement with feminism, and their treatment of romance, lesbianism and the regulations governing female sexual conduct. This article evaluates the extent to which the boom in women's erotic memoirs (in book or blog form) is symptomatic of a persisting belief in sexuality as the truth of identity. Sexuality, as it is figured here, is still being positioned as ‘the secret’, as the essence or core of subjectivity, which pe...

Abstract: This study examined the associations among three aspects of self-concept (self-esteem, self-concept clarity and sexual identity confusion), self-stigma and depressive symptoms. Two hundred and eighty eight participants (163 lesbians and 125 gay men) completed an anonymous, online survey. Results indicated that individuals with lower self-esteem, lower self-concept clarity and higher sexual identity confusion reported higher self-stigma. Furthermore, the negative association between self-concept clarity and self-stigma was significant for individuals with lower self-esteem, but not those with higher self-esteem. Finally, the positive association between self-stigma and depressive symptoms was significant for individuals with lower self-esteem, but not those with higher self-esteem, and it was stronger for those with lower sexual identity confusion. The current findings highlight the importance of self-concept in the internalisation of sexual stigma and its sequelae.

Abstract: The purpose of this research was to explore essentialist and constructionist accounts within BDSM (bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, and sadism and masochism) practitioners' stories about their first attraction to this sexuality. Whereas prior research has examined the ‘coming out stories’ of other sexual minorities (lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) individuals and polyamorous individuals), little scholarly attention has been paid to narratives of initial interest in BDSM. A total of 144 women and 128 men who self-identified as being involved in BDSM responded to a questionnaire that included the open-ended item ‘What first attracted you to BDSM? Please describe the reasons why you first became interested in BDSM as a sexual practice or orientation’. Using thematic analysis, we identified two mutually exclusive explanations for initial BDSM interests: (1) BDSM interests are an intrinsic part of the self and (2) BDSM interests developed because of external influences. Analyses revealed very ...

Abstract: This article constitutes a theoretical critique of the limits by which BDSM is policed by law and psychiatry from a feminist jurisprudential perspective. In particular, it discusses types of female masochism that disavow narratives of ‘safe, sane and consensual’ and BDSM's transformative potential and instead makes an argument for a feminist ethics of female masochism. Through an engagement with psychoanalysis and Jacques Lacan's notion of jouissance, the essay makes a claim that criminal law in this context functions as a kind of ‘pleasure principle’ and that the notion of ‘harmful’ consensual sexual experiences relies upon a normative tendency to relate feminine masochism with compliance, not only to the will of another, but with the social order of ‘reproductive futurity’.