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Start date: 2022Subject: search.filters.subject.Sex (Psychology)

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    Examining the discursive landscape of women's sexual desire and implications for sexual subjectivity : a dissertation presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology at Massey University, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2025-10-28) Tappin, Jessica
    Sexual desire and pleasure can be an “awkward” subject to bring up in conversation, many choosing to ignore it completely, or relegate it to the private realm. Yet, our media landscape is filled with various representation of sex that fundamentally shape the way we can think about, speak about, and enact expressions of sexual desire. A substantial corpus of feminist research suggests that discursive representations of sexual desire are highly gendered and heteronormative. These researchers have mapped cultural and social constructions of women’s sexual desire, tracing its portrayal as, for example, absent, relational, and aligned with postfeminist discourses of sexual agency. Previous scholarship has considered how these discourses are circulated within talk, and through mainstream media. A research gap remains in considering alternative feminist media, and psychological literature as sites that circulate discourses of sexual desire. The central aim of this thesis is to determine how women’s sexual desire is constructed across three sites of discourse circulation: (a) mainstream media, (b) alternative media, and (c) psychological literature, how prevalent discourses are supported, transformed, and resisted, as well as the implications for women’s sexual subjectivity and sexual agency. Foucauldian-informed discourse analysis was conducted with each set of textual data collected from those sites. Specifically, 75 advice columns or articles from mainstream media websites, 55 articles from alternative feminist publications, and 12 published articles from psychological and therapeutic journals. Key findings from these analyses indicate that (i) an essentialist biological discourse of desire is prevalent, shaping women’s sexual subjectivity in relation to men, (ii) many discourses and sexual subjectivities on offer within the texts are highly heteronormative and restrict agency outside of a narrow prescription of appropriate desire, (iii) a neoliberal incitement for women to reflect on and work on themselves in various ways underscored much of the data, and (iiii) alternative media texts provided opportunities for resistance of heterosexual norms, along with a broadening understanding of what desire is and can be for women.
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    Power, partnership, and pussy : women's experiences of sex and consent in abusive relationships : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Clinical Psychology at Massey University, Whanganui-a-tara/Wellington, Aotearoa/New Zealand / Jasmine Gillespie-Gray.
    (Massey University, 2022) Gillespie-Gray, Jasmine
    This thesis draws on feminist post-structural theory, and the work of Nicola Gavey and Evan Stark, to bring to light the ways gendered sexpectations and coercive control work together within women’s stories to shape them towards catering for his (sexual) pleasure, rendering the women’s ability to say yes, no, or maybe to consensual sex, and meaningfully shape their sexual experiences, (virtually) non-existent. These gendered power relations produced women who were desperately, compliantly, and/or fearfully sexual within abusive heterosexual relationships. My thesis has sought to resist neoliberal postfeminist individualisation of women’s abuse in favour of the feminist mantra the personal is (STILL) political. From this feminist activist stance and in the spirit of conscientisation, I have creatively resisted institutional expectations of a doctoral thesis in favour of accessibility and the engagement of women (and our allies) outside the ivory tower of academia. If you are an academic reader this may be challenging to your hegemonic understanding of what a thesis “should” be like, especially in terms of content, style, language, and structure – ok basically everything! But I have taken this approach because I think it embodies the social justice aspirations of critical feminist psychology. In this sense, the presentation of this thesis is a form of academic activism, consistent with the theory and politics I have been immersed in over the last five years as I journeyed into the depths of our (sexual and relational) abuse. Finally, I have undertaken my own healing and conscientisation because of this research, which has led to a transformation of self and the reimagining of (my) relating and fucking towards safety, equity, and pleasure for all involved. I offer my reflections on this journey at the end of my thesis as resistance to the dominant expectations of women and OUR sexuality, and as hope that things can be different. In love and rage Jasmine