Confessing Sex in Online Student Communities

• In Event: 527 - Regular Session. Sociology of Sexuality: Producing, Policing, and Contesting Sexual Normativity

Abstract

Facebook “Confessions” sites associated with two large universities (one North American and one South African) are examined to investigate the ways in which students engage in discussions of sexual behavior. The research is grounded in a Foucauldian framework that emphasizes the centrality of sex and sexuality in society and in individuals’ constructions of themselves and others. This framework also emphasizes the salience of sex and sexuality as objects of scientific study. Within the Foucauldian tradition, sexuality is both an instrument and effect of the rise of the human sciences. Our findings focus on two interrelated aspects of the data. The first concerns the features of the initial (anonymous) posts, and the second relates to the unfolding interactions in the comments following the post. Close examination of the design of initial posts offer insights into participants’ orientations to the kinds of acts, experiences, and beliefs that are thereby treated as either normative or potentially deviant with respect to sex and sexuality. By adding to this an examination of the subsequent comments in the thread, we consider some ways in which other participants align with or challenge the “confessable” character of the content of the initial post, thereby revealing areas of consensus and contestation with respect to the normative boundaries to which the initial poster was oriented. Thus, by examining these features of the exchanges we demonstrate both how particular aspects of sex and sexuality are (re)produced as normatively taken-for-granted, as well as how what is taken-for-granted can be resisted or transgressed.

Authors

• Brett Bowman, University of the Witwatersrand

• Kevin A. Whitehead, University of the Witwatersrand

• Yasmine Dominguez-Whitehead, University of the Witwatersrand