'When Difference Gets in the Way': Young People, Whiteness and Sexualisation.

Scholars of young people and sexualisation have noted an omission of studies that attend to race and whiteness. In the main, a white-Anglo middle-class child is placed at the centre of media, policy and academic debates about the effects, production and consumption of sexualised media. In light of t...

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Published in:Sexuality & Culture Vol. 21; no. 2; pp. 593 - 613
Main Author: Mulholland, Monique
Format: Article
Published: Springer Nature Jun2017
Subjects:
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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        atl: 'When Difference Gets in the Way': Young People, Whiteness and Sexualisation.
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        au: Mulholland, Monique
        affil: Flinders University , Adelaide Australia
      su:
        Young adults
        Cross-cultural differences
        Gender
        LGBTQ+ people
        Sexual minorities
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          Young adults
          Cross-cultural differences
          Gender
          LGBTQ+ people
          Sexual minorities
      keyword:
        Cultural difference
        Difference
        Race
        Sexualisation
        Whiteness
        Young people
      ab: Scholars of young people and sexualisation have noted an omission of studies that attend to race and whiteness. In the main, a white-Anglo middle-class child is placed at the centre of media, policy and academic debates about the effects, production and consumption of sexualised media. In light of this, it is important to ask: how can research in this area disrupt the tendency to place normative white subjects at the centre of debates, and position 'raced others' at the sidelines? Drawing on postcolonial and critical race and whiteness theory, this paper presents the findings from a study undertaken in South Australia with young people and young adults from a broad variety of cultural backgrounds. Through a series of focus groups designed to explore participant views of sexualised media, a powerful set of resistant narratives emerged. Firstly, participants discussed how their views on sex and sexuality are often read 'through difference'. They revealed how 'difference gets in the way', frustrating conversations they want to have about sexy media, along with moments when they felt stereo-typed and type-cased. Secondly, by presenting perspectives of sexualised media on their own terms, participant narratives were not constrained or bounded by fixed cultural viewpoints. Through a series of 'transitional moves', participants employed notions of freedom, individual choice and rights, expressing an urgent desire to speak 'outside of difference'.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
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    language: English
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      custom: Sexuality & Culture is a copyright of Springer, 2017. All Rights Reserved.
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