Positive Approaches to Sexuality and New Normative Frames: Strands of Research and Action in China and the USA

Y

14

Public Health; Sexuality; Sex Education; Educational Environment; Comparative Analysis; Intervention; Workshops; Nongovernmental Organizations; Course Content; Foreign Countries; Self Efficacy; Homosexuality; Case Studies; Comparative Education; Secondary School Students

China; United States

10.1080/14681811.2015.1091767

1468-1811

There used to be talk about pleasure being silenced in public health and international development discourses on sexuality, and the damage this silence caused. The exclusion of pleasure continues in some domains, for example, mainstream sexuality education programmes in schools in China and the USA. However, despite considerable challenges to talking about sex and pleasure in institutional research and educational environments, there are a number of initiatives that are starting to do so. Furthermore, normative frames are being developed to justify and shape the new discourses on young people's pleasure. This paper compares two interventions which create norms of pleasure in relation to young people's sexuality: an international research project in Shanghai, which draws on conceptual framings developed in the USA; and a sexuality education workshop series developed by a non-governmental organisation in Shenyang, North East China, which adopts a frame of "self-identification" from the Chinese LGBT movement. It identifies the opportunities and constraints created by the normative frames these interventions generate.

As Provided

26

2016

EJ1092053