Online Resistance to Sexual Shaming: Can Internet Conversations Change Society?

• In Event: 380 - Section on Sociology of Sexualities Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 03. Space and Interactions

Abstract

This paper examines the potential for online conversations to change meanings surrounding female sexuality, specifically through interactions around sexual shaming. Using social listening and qualitative analysis software, I examine the ways in which internet users resist online sexual shaming on the internet sites Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter. While previous analyses have revealed that online shaming serves mostly to regulate female sexuality, a sizable portion of online interactions can be characterized as resistance to normative constructions of female sexuality. Drawing from theories of agency and the social construction of sexuality, this paper considers the internet’s democratic and public platform to allow users to resist and transform norms surrounding female sexuality through hashtags, forums, blogs, and websites. I argue that the internet offers room for multiple voices and perspectives, asking whether these actions can change larger gender and sexual relations and structures. Findings reveal that the phrase “slut-shaming” has entered the public vernacular, and terms such as “slut” and “whore” are being used in new ways on social media, but only some of these ways directly challenge the sexual double standard and attacks on women’s sexual agency. I conclude with a discussion of the potential for online conversations to transform social relations and social structures at a time when women’s basic bodily rights are being threatened politically.

Author

• Tania G. Levey, York College, CUNY