Top

Sexuality Research and Social Policy

Published in:

01-03-2011

The Enigmatic Messages of Sexuality Education: Julie Gustafson’s Desire

Published in: Sexuality Research and Social Policy | Issue 1/2011

Activate our intelligent search to find suitable subject content or patents.

search-config

AI-assisted search

Off

Abstract

This paper draws upon the psychoanalytic concepts of enigma and aesthetic conflict to frame an inquiry into the emotional situation of sex education conversations between adults and youth. What would it mean to see the developmental conflicts of sexuality and desire as opening the possibility of sex education? How does the uncertainty of adult knowledge become a resource to the adolescent? Through a close reading of a documentary film about adolescent female sexuality and desire, the paper considers the ambiguous ways in which knowledge of sexuality is conveyed by adults and received by youth. It argues that attention to the aesthetic structures of film can make room for understanding how youth engage an education in sexuality and return this education to the adults in their world.

previous article Improving Low-Income Teen Health Behaviors with Internet-Linked Clinic Interventions

next article New Media and Research: Considering Next Steps

Dont have a licence yet? Then find out more about our products and how to get one now:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 102.000 Bücher
über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Automobil + Motoren
Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 67.000 Bücher
über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

Desire follows the stories of Cassandra, Kimeca, Peggy, Tracy, and Tiffanie. Peggy and Tracy, two girls from middle-class neighborhoods, attend Isidore Newman High, one of the city’s most prestigious private schools in uptown New Orleans. While Peggy has plans to attend college, Tracy spends her time smoking, drinking, and resisting her parents’ desire to send their daughter to an ivy-league school. Tiffanie, a new wife and mother, lives in a trailer park in Belle Chase, a suburb of New Orleans; she is finishing her high school credits and plans to attend college. For a rich discussion of Tiffanie’s story, please see Casemore, B. 2010. Free Association in Sex Education: Understanding Sexuality as the Flow of Thought in Conversation and Curriculum. Sex Education: Sexuality, Society, and Learning. (August) 10:3, 309–324.

Fields (2008), in her study of sex education programs in three middle schools in the United States, turns our attention to the racialization of sexual health education. Whereas educators in disadvantaged, urban schools are more likely to predict futures of disease and early pregnancy for their students, the more affluent, middle-class schools tend to favor more open-ended curricula in which sexuality is tied to broader experiences of human development and self-actualization. By reducing sexual health curricula to the successful management of bodies and reproductive capacities, educators fail to acknowledge how social inequalities—including racism, classism, ableism, and homophobia—are perpetuated through the regulation of “other” bodies and sexualities.

Britzman, D. (2000). Precocious education. In S. Talburt & S. R. Steinberg (Eds.), Thinking queer: sexuality, culture, and education (pp. 33–59). New York: Peter Lang.

Desire. (2005) Documentary film, Directed by J. Gustafson. New York: Women Make Movies.

Fields, J. (2008). Risky lessons: sex education and social inequality. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

Fine, M. (1988). Sexuality, schooling and adolescent females: the missing discourse of desire. Harvard Educational Review, 58(1), 29–51.

Fine, M., & McClelland, S. (2006). Sexuality education and desire: still missing after all these years. Harvard Educational Review, 76(3), 297–338.

Freud, S. (1905). Three essays on the theory of sexuality. The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 7. Edited and translated by James Strachey, in collaboration with Anna Freud, assisted by Alix Strachey and Alan Tyson. 24 vols. London: Hogarth Press and Institute for Psychoanalysis, 125–243.

Gilbert, J. (2007). Risking a relation: sex education and adolescent development. Sex Education, 7(1), 47–61.CrossRef

Laplanche, J. (1999). Essays on otherness. New York: Routledge.

Lear, J. (2005). Freud. New York: Routledge.

Lesko, N. (2010). Feeling abstinent? Feeling comprehensive? Touching the affects of sexuality curricula. Sex Education: Sexuality, Society, and Learning, 10(3), 281–297.

Meltzer, D. (2005 [1984]). The aesthetic object. In S. Gosso (Ed.), Psychoanalysis and art: Kleinian perspectives (pp. 148–151). London: Karnac.

Meltzer, D. (2005 [1988]). Aesthetic conflict. In S. Gosso (Ed.), Psychoanalysis and art: Kleinian perspectives (pp. 201–214). London: Karnac.

Meltzer, D. (2005 [1990]). New considerations on the concept of the aesthetic conflict. In S. Gosso (Ed.), Psychoanalysis and art: Kleinian perspectives (pp. 211–222). London: Karnac.

Stein, R. (2007). Moments in Laplanche’s theory of sexuality. Studies in Gender and Sexuality, 8(2), 177–200.CrossRef

Stein, R. (1998). The poignant, the excessive, and the enigmatic in sexuality. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 79, 253–268.

Title: The Enigmatic Messages of Sexuality Education: Julie Gustafson’s Desire
Publication date: 01-03-2011
Published in: Sexuality Research and Social Policy / Issue 1/2011
Print ISSN: 1868-9884
Electronic ISSN: 1553-6610
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-011-0041-6

Springer Professional

Abstract

Please log in to get access to your license.

Dont have a licence yet? Then find out more about our products and how to get one now:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Other articles of this Issue 1/2011

Improving Low-Income Teen Health Behaviors with Internet-Linked Clinic Interventions

Virtual Sex Ed: Youth, Race, Sex, and New Media

Finding Teens in TheirSpace: Using Social Networking Sites to Connect Youth to Sexual Health Services

Resource and Risk: Youth Sexuality and New Media Use

New Media and Research: Considering Next Steps

Afterword: Virtual Sex Ed