Margaret Mead Japan China Religie en seks Moral panics Seks en robots De seksuele ontwikkeling van jongeren Seksualisering Leeftijdverschillen Geweld en misbruik Consent Sexting Sex trafficking Prostitutie PornografieIncididunt nisi non nisi incididunt velit cillum magna commodo proident officia enim.
Alison BARTLETT / Kyra CLARKE / Rob COVER[Je merkt meteen de ontzettend abstracte wetenschappelijk verantwoorde aanpak van dit boek.]
"In the wake of #MeToo, flirting has become entangled with stories of harassment and abuse that generate both outrage and confusion. Embedded in historical critiques of sexual/gender relations and related to the ways current popular culture narrates these relations, flirting is in need of some critical analysis. This book aims to provide a contemporary review of social practices and representations of flirting and its cultural politics. "(1)
"Our book therefore analyses contemporary flirting practices as they emerge across a range of media forms like public scandal, reality television, and teen film, with reference to digital media spaces. These media events are read as complex intersections and negotiations of commerce, spectacle, media practice, shifting social relations and negotiations of gender and sexuality including romance and marriage, heightened technological immersion and local impact."(2)
"Facing this task of enormous structural disadvantage, there is little evidence of thinking about flirting in early second-wave feminist writing when it was focused on the big picture of social change. "(3)
"The two positions of critiquing oppressive sexual structures and reclaiming women’s sexual agency were both necessary to shift dominant cultural values."(4)
"The #MeToo campaign then continues this historical tension between critiquing and championing sexual practices and intimacy.(...) There is particular concern to recognise the structural and systemic basis of the issues raised by #MeToo, issues which have concerned feminism for generations."(5)
"Overall then, academic feminist engagement with #MeToo is marked by ambivalence."(6)
[Ik denk dan dat de conclusie moet zijn dat 'het' feminisme niet bestaat en dus ook niets te zeggen heeft over de problematiek van het flirten.]
"In this book we understand flirting to be a social practice that is neither definable nor definite in its shape or meaning, but necessarily ambiguous, maybe awkward, and almost arbitrary in how it might be read and received. "(6)
"The gendering of flirting as feminine is an interesting historical turn given the current cultural debates."(8)
[Vind ik ook. Want waarom zouden alleen vrouwen flirten en mannen niet? Gevaarlijk, want dan kun je gemakkelijk vrouwen de schuld geven. Zie je wel, ze wilden het zelf etc.]
"Such differing viewpoints indicate the struggle to define flirting in terms of gender and power, as an ongoing preoccupation. "(8)
"The relationship between flirtation and seduction is an important part of the literature on flirting."(11)
[Volgen een paar voorbeelden van gedrag die volgens mij weinig met flirten te maken hebben en die ik eerder 'opdringerig' zou noemen. Dat woord is eigenlijk een mooi woord, omdat het de machtsverhoudingen meeneemt. Flirten als op een speelse manier je belangstelling voor iemand tonen rekening houdend met context en de onzichtbare lichaamsgrenzen.]
"In this sense, perhaps the behaviours being named by #MeToo should not be understood as flirting, as to do so can seem to validate harassing behaviour that has been perpetuated for years."(13)
"Another key idea we frequently refer to is the idea of intimacy."(14)
"The unpredictability of flirting is sometimes approached as a dilemma between the serious and the playful or inauthentic.(...) This slipperiness and doubling of meaning frequently feature in current scholarship on flirting." [mijn nadruk] (15)
Hierna volgt een weergave van de inhoud van het boek.
"Scandals related to sex, sexuality, relationships, and interpersonal interactions in the workplace are very often about acts that we consider flirting. These might be cases where flirting between two persons in a workplace may be considered by one party to have been inappropriate, where a fail- ure to return sexualised attention has been implicated in a conflict of interest, or where flirting has led to a relationship or sexual activity that is deemed by others to have been ‘inappropriate’." [mijn nadruk] (23)
[Dat laatste is natuurlijk een totaal ander verhaal. Wat anderen vinden is als leidraad gevaarlijk, ook al zijn die meningen verankerd in maatschappelijke wetten. ]
"Unsurprisingly, the complex, difficult distinction between flirting and harassment and the complications that arise when one attempts to assert the clarity of a rule or norm are often at the core of scandals related to relationships, sex, and bodies, both in reportage about celebrities and high-profile public figures and in the framework of everyday ways of relating. "(24)
"Flirting, in this sense, is something which involves negotiation. What is at stake in contemporary culture in the #MeToo era is the extent to which such negotiation needs to be clearer without destabilising the non-clarity that is part of flirting as a form of communicative engagement. "(26)
[Misschien is het belangrijker dat nagedacht wordt over de waarden en normen op de achtergrond van 'flirten' resp. dat 'onderhandelen bij flirten'. Als acteur Henri Cavill zich beklaagd omdat mannen nu bang moeten zijn voor de gevolgen van flirten en daarbij zegt - p.25 - "There’s something wonderful about a man chasing a woman.", tja, dan zit je al op zo'n verkeerd spoor vind ik. Als flirten dáár uit voortkomt ... Jagen op vrouwen, wat een masculiene waarde, alsof we nog in het Stenen Tijdperk leven. Flirten zie ik als subtiel je interesse in iemand tonen totdat iemand even subtiel aangeeft dat de interresse niet wederzijds is. Jagen roept iets bij me op van 'je opdringen', iemand tegen haar zin in blijven achtervolgen met avances, niet stoppen als iemand niet wil en doorgaan tot 'the kill'. Wat rijmt en Cavills slagzin zou kunnen zijn. Het is allemaal erg normatief.]
"In its earliest form, a movement was begun by Tarana Burke on Myspace in 2006, intending to use the solidarity signifier of #MeToo ‘to “let other survivors know they are not alone” and create solidarity with ... victims’ (Zarkov and Davis 2018, 3). Subsequently and broadly, the #MeToo signifier has been about recognising and acknowledging sexual violence, harassment, power, and privilege. In its 2017–2018 mode, however, what became the #MeToo movement emerges within the growth of a particular kind of populism that disavows the role of older institutions such as courts and policing to ‘decide’ on what constitutes a violation of gender and sexual relationality. " [mijn nadruk] (27)
[En dat is een groot probleem, vind ik, want dan gaan alle kenmerken van 'moral panics' een rol spelen.]
"The #MeToo movement rightly and respectfully raises a number of very important questions about the ways in which the cliché of workplace flirting too often results in sexual harassment, sexual assault, coercion, or sexual activities that operate in a space outside of clear consent frameworks operating as a critical condition of sexual engagement. However, a number of public commentaries have also raised concerns that the longer-term effect of #MeToo will be to curtail the everyday human communicative form of flirting, particularly in workplaces."(27-28)
[En dat is op zich een groot goed. Maar als het een plaats krijgt in populistische 'moral panics' slaat het door.]
"Discomfort, indeed, is an aspect of flirting precisely because being vulnerable is discomforting and becoming vulnerable is the communicative kernel in the relational act of flirting (Gilson 2011, 319), and that vulnerability is affectively felt through cultural frameworks of both shame and excitement (Munt 2007, 203). In that context, it is perhaps not only problematic but highly dangerous to attempt to separate flirting and harassment by assigning discomfort only to the latter concept, for the very idea of flirting is one that cannot be produced in the context of a genuinely ‘safe space’: flirting has ambiguous effects."(28)
"While flirting has always been marked by expressions of uncertainty and perhaps worry, fear is arguably a new element in the practice of flirting in the current era in relation to the uneasiness of dealing with uncertain boundaries. In flirting, fear and playfulness co-exist, although it may be without confidence and knowability, clear bounds, and transparent rules of engagement. In this way, flirting’s unknowability, uncertainty, and lack of assured outcome that are produced by its very liminal ‘will-we-won’t-we?’ are indelibly linked with not only vulnerability, but an affective sense of fear which, again, is productive rather than restrictive. To argue that #MeToo has stymied the potentialities of flirting through a culture of fear is, then, not quite correct." [mijn nadruk] (29)
"Across all of these, emotive engagement in relational communication is made complex by #MeToo, and these add to the genre of discussion that disavows #MeToo by referring to it as something which has had a negative impact on flirting.(...) Rather than understanding #MeToo as that which regulates an under-regulated communicative phenomenon, we argue that there may be greater value in considering how #MeToo might operate as an instance of both recognition and critique of the complexity of flirting. This leads to three key, critical questions: firstly, in what ways is flirting a communicative form that appears under-regulated and what role does the very liminality of its communication play here? Secondly, how does #MeToo address the figure of ‘new masculinity’ which has arguably taken advantage of flirting’s liminality through a particular performance of sensitivity in order to create uncertainties around what constitutes harassment rather than what constitutes flirting? Finally, have aspects of #MeToo’s approach to ‘calling out’ instances of flirting as assault arisen through a kind of populism that risks producing narrow definitions of flirting?"(30)
Over de 'liminality' van flirten:
"In Turner’s conceptualisation, liminality is a point of being between phases — the term is derived literally from the Latin referring to a threshold or a doorway. To be in a liminal position, then, one is neither on one side nor on another: ‘Liminal entities are neither here nor there; they are betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention, and ceremonial’ (1969, 95). Flirting, likewise, is betwixt and between different possibilities: that this communication ends in a sexual or romantic liaison, or that it simply ends; that the flirt leads somewhere or it does not; that we will get together or we will not. Its very excitement is in the discomfort of not knowing whether a door has been stepped through or not, or if both parties wish to step through that door or not. The lack of clarity of the intentions of the other party is what allows the flirt to be interesting, engaging, and erotic. "(31)
[Een mooie uitwerking.]
"Indeed, each flirtation does so within the context of the micro-power relations at play — the possibility of a relationship, an encounter, a non-encounter, a shift in the relationship itself. " [mijn nadruk] (32)
"Nevertheless, in the context of such a power relationship in which flirting is improper and contra policy, it is not just the imbalance but the unknowability where excitement, discomfort, vulnerability, and eros are collectively located, forcing blurred lines. We will come back to the question of how particular relationships take advantage of this blurredness in ways which are rightly addressed by #MeToo in the next section"(32)
[Dat is natuurlijk een belangrijk onderwerp: flirten binnen machtsverhoudingen: regisseur - acteur, docent - student, etc. Wat hier 'improper' heet wordt natuurlijk sterk normatief bepaald.]
"In several ways, the #MeToo movement can be understood to be underwritten by an anti-carnivale perspective that, at times, shifts its target from the vulnerabilities that might arise from certain kinds of flirting to arguing against the legitimacy of flirting as a liminal practice in itself. Yet carnivale itself becomes an interesting way of making sense of some of the genuine perpetrations that have come under the #MeToo banner, particularly those that occur in Hollywood settings."(33)
[Ja, dat ligt bij elke 'moral panic' op de loer: dat een bepaald gedrag bestreden wordt vanuit bijzonder conservatieve waarden met betrekking tot seksualiteit. ]
"Flirting is play, and so it is bounded into a kind of rule-based harmlessness such that we assume it will be recognised for what it is. However, at the same time, because it is liminal, in occurs not in the space and time of play, but always at its thresholds, promising to spill out into serious repercussions, wavering between the contained and the uncontrolled. So in this context, flirting is always both play and beyond play. "(33)
"All play is governed by rules whether explicit or tacit, and so too is flirting. To break the rule of reciprocity and seek to gain from flirting is an instance in which flirting has gone wrong. However, as we will discuss in the next section, the occasions of flirting to which #MeToo has objected include those instances in which a gender power imbalance has resulted in one member of a flirting party seeking to gain something (such as gratification or other material gain) in ways that are exploitative. In this sense, rather than relying on some of those public attempts to differentiate flirting from harassment by virtue of assigning discomfort, fear, or vulnerability only to the latter, it is when the codes of reciprocal play are broken — even in the context of flirting’s endless liminality — that harassment is signified." [mijn nadruk] (34)
[Ik vat dat 'However' niet? Iedereen wil ik toch iets bereiken met een flirt, iets halen uit een flirt? ]
"Unfortunately, the public focus on hypermasculinities as ‘risk’ has, for the greater part of the twenty- first century, obscured or offset the risk of public scrutiny over sexual harassment and assault that may occur in other non-hypermasculine spaces, such as the worlds of film-making, acting, theatre, and television. "(34)
[Ik begrijp niet helemaal wat er bedoeld wordt met hypermasculien. O, maar dat wordt in het vervolg uitgelegd.]
"That is, the #MeToo movement is an expression of outrage that such new masculinities are not necessarily good at dealing with gender relationality or responsibly respecting the rights and equities of women and other minorities, but prove often to be no better than the kinds of hypermasculinities represented typically — albeit not necessarily correctly — in lower- class performativities of masculine gender or in highly homosocial institutional settings of hypermasculinity such as sporting teams (Waterhouse-Watson 2011; Cover 2015), the military (Flood 2007), and fraternities (Anderson 2008; Martin and Hummer 1989). It is a misapprehension to assume masculinity represents a singularity rather than a multiplicity of performativities, expectations, practices, and ways of being (Connell 2005, 106–108), and types of masculinities that assert dominance or sexual rights over women and minors result automatically in scandal rather than acceptance (Cover 2015).
Patriarchal hypermasculinity is an outdated ‘model’ of masculinity that no longer presents itself as masculinity’s norm in everyday settings. Hypermasculinity persists in certain institutional settings such as elite sporting teams which have been regularly implicated in sexual scandals, particularly group sexual assault and gang rape (Cover 2013). Hypermasculine machismo is a particular framework of the performativity of gender relations (Buchbinder 1994, 1). It is best understood to be symbolically represented and fetishised through attempts at dominance via competitiveness and heroism (Mohr 1992, 163–164), muscled bodies, roughness and ruggedness (Clarkson 2006, 187), and testosterone-driven sexuality (Cover 2004, 87), potentially (but not always) lacking in sexual self-control and capable of becoming violent (Lunny 2003, 316). These are no longer the visual, performative, or intelligible markers of the kind of masculinity that is at stake in the #MeToo sexual assault and harassment articulations. Hypermasculinity serves as a ‘lightning rod’ to distract from the potentialities of new masculinities as based on gender dominance in public discourse, resulting in a form of ‘forgetting’ and hence surprise, anger, and scandal when they are indeed revealed as problematic.
Both anti-feminist and #MeToo claims assume that highly patriarchal
forms of masculine identity are timeless and ahistorical — the former seeing
them as ‘right’ and the latter as problematic (Buchbinder 1997, 30, 46) —
rather than one formation of masculinity among many kinds." [mijn nadruk] (35-36)
[OK, duidelijk. ]
"What #MeToo reveals, of course, is that new masculinities may not have shaken off misogyny and sexual exploitation either. "37
[Dat is wel zeker. De buitenkantjes mogen anders zijn, maar de innerlijke overtuigingen en emotionaliteit zijn niet zo veel anders.]
"New masculinity, then, appears not as the solution to older cultures of rape, assault, and objectification but as highly duplicitous and as having obscured the motive and goal in flirting, especially in workplace scenarios. The #MeToo phenomenon is thus a production of cultural anger in the ‘discovery’ that sexual violence has been continuous despite the surface-level shift from the theatrics of hypermasculine dominance to the transnational ‘new masculinity’."(38-39)
"#MeToo can be seen as such a penal populism, drawing together a community of persons who seek reparation for sexual assault and harassment which is often excused by powerful people (and the media) as ‘just’ flirtation. "(40)
"What this penal populism produces is a disavowal of the courts to decide on what constitutes flirting and what constitutes harassment or assault; to decide on whether or not there is a case to be heard, and to consider the rationality of setting precedents in those decisions. Thus, while #MeToo is correct to be suspicious of legal systems and internal corporate complaints procedures, it problematically shifts the culture of flirting by articulating what constitutes flirting via a public opinion engaged with by voices in social networking and online opinion, which can be just as exclusive as more traditional decision-making frameworks in relation to crime and law." [mijn nadruk] (41-42)
"What remains, however, is that in the context of this emergence, the #MeToo movement, its expression through ‘calling-out’ acts which might be deemed flirting, and its appeal to the production of workplace protections are something which can be read as attempting to undo the liminality of flirting. Thus while it powerfully argues against the scandalous behaviour of the contemporary transnational hegemonic figure who wrongfully assumes sexual ownership of women and younger men work colleagues, it rallies against the communicative productivity of liminality as a means of attempting to achieve an important ethical goal. Populisms are built on the articulation of simple solutions and the policing of categorical boundaries — in attempting to police the bounds of sexual mores by reframing what is acceptable, it risks marginalising flirting."(43)
[Ik vind de auteurs wat te veel begrip opbrengen voor dat populistische in de #MeToo-beweging en de 'call-out'-benadering die er mee samengaat. Iemand in het openbaar via allerlei media beschuldigen en zwartmaken, iemands reputatie beschadigen, zonder dat er ook maar een kans is voor de betrokkenen om dingen uit te leggen of om zich te verdedigen, dat is ronduit verkeerd. Iedereen kan wel alles roepen, maar niemand weet of wat geroepen wordt ook echt waar is en iedereen die zo solidair is met het 'slachtoffer' zou zich eerst eens achter de oren moeten krabben alvorens te reageren. Ik zou als overheid dat soort mensen meteen in verzekerde bewaring stellen vanwege eigen rechtertje spelen. Het is jammer dat de auteurs geen gebruik hebben gemaakt van het hele morele paniekidee. Dat zou veel verhelderen. Ze blijven te graag in abstracties hangen waardoor praktische gevolgen niet zwaar genoeg gewogen worden.]
"We would like to end this chapter with some remarks on alternative approaches to #MeToo, addressing flirting as a communicative practice and cultural phenomenon in ways that do not rely on sex-negative thinking or in the shutting down of flirting’s liminality. This involves thinking through an ethics of mutual- ity, vulnerability, and care in a way which prompts alternative understand- ings of flirting that are grounded in non-violence, including the non-violence of preventing the objectification of either party in the act of a flirt. "(44)
Een en ander in lijn met het denken van Judith Butler.
"In the context described here, a sexual ethics based on recognising the mutual vulnerability of all subjects requires re-conceptualisation for those in dominant positions to recognise their own vulnerability rather than, in more simplistic terms, seeing their women co-workers on the Hollywood set or in the theatre as victims. "(46)
"Abstract This chapter is premised on the idea that gender and sexuality are performative, that is, that there are a set of codified and regulated scripts that are socially designated appropriate or inappropriate when it comes to flirting, intimacy, and sexual relations. As a dominant form of entertainment, screen media chart these codifications and their transgressions, and we show this through the romance reality television show Married at First Sight. This is a show that skips flirting and starts with marriage; that is, flirting is latent, or deferred, as an experiment with social scripts. We propose that the show flirts with science as a field of expertise that teaches us techniques of intimacy and negotiation, and its viewing pleasures are manifested through the medium, the spectacle, and the awkwardness of intimacy on screen. "(51)
[Nou nou ... Alleen het taalgebruik al ... Dat wordt scannen ... ]
"The idea of scripts as social models is a widely accepted metaphor for thinking about social relations and practices. The philosopher Judith Butler earned her reputation using the language of the stage and theatre to suggest that gender and sexuality can be understood as a socially con- structed performance, albeit one that we barely think about."(54)
[Judith Butler again ... ]
"The symbolism of the white wedding as a celebration of innocence, inexperience, and purity might have been lost long ago in practice, but still offers a model of desire that is actively produced through the social order. "(60)
[Nee, echt?]
"Perhaps surprisingly, sexuality is often a halting part of MAFS. Even though they are married and on television performing marriage, couples are often reluctant to have sexual relations. The expectation that sexual relations are a vital part of intimacy is constantly reiterated on MAFS, and much of the collective conversations and the therapeutic alliance are about whether the couples have had sex yet."(70)
[Ja, alles is nep en gespeeld in die reality tv-serie, seks is dan wel erg intiem, hè ... Waarschijnlijk zien we er ook geen bloot ... Mag niet, hè ...]
"Abstract Teen film presents a variety of intimacies between characters, sometimes in constructive ways, other times in ways that demonstrate a lack of care for the self or others. As a popular, accessible textual form, teen film can provide a space to explore ethical practices of relating through flirting. In order to appeal to the largest possible audience, flirting, innuendo, touching, glancing, and talking often replace the representation of sex in teen film, playing a part in testing the waters and learning how to relate to other people. In this way, film has the potential to provide an environment to discuss aspects of relationships and relating that some- times fall to the wayside. This chapter considers how teen films present pedagogical moments which might be valuable for starting conversations or discussions regarding the negotiation of intimacy, rather than resorting to scandal. "(77)
[Wat een opmerking ... ]
"Looking can be intimate and pleasurable, provided the parties enjoy looking and being looked at (Tomkins 1995), but there can be a fine line between looking, flirtation, and objectification." [mijn nadruk] (78)
"In considering teen film, we have no desire to moralise; rather, we are interested in exploring ways that people can show concern for themselves and others rather than prescribing ‘appropriate’ behaviours (Carmody 2015, 108)." [mijn nadruk] (79-80)
[Jammer. Een stuk normatieve kritiek op wat die Amerikaanse jongerenfilms inhoudelijk laten zien zou geen kwaad kunnen. ]
"Thinking about sometimes fleeting flirtatious moments in film can provide us with an opportunity to think about how to take care of ourselves and other people. Such moments can help us recognise the complexity and confusion that can surround sexual intimacy and might be valuable for starting conversations or discussions regarding the negotiation of intimacy more generally. "(82)
"Abstract In the current political moment of uncertainty, this chapter concludes the book by thinking particularly about time in regard to flirting as a critical concept. It positions flirting within a political and legislative framework, considers trajectories of success and failure, and the uncertain time that flirting constitutes. The contingency of this historical and political point in time is addressed in the context of the media and cultural framings discussed in this book, and the ways these provide both normative and potentially transformative pedagogies for intimacy as a negotiated form of interpersonal relationality. "(105)
[Weer dat hogelijk abstracte taalgebruik. Veel moeilijke woorden voor 'we weten het niet'. Ik vind het maar pretentieus. Het enige stuk dat wel aardig wat oplevert voor de alledaagse praktijk is het stuk over #MeToo. Maar ook dat is veel te abstract. Ik geloof dat ik hier ben gestuit op onderzoekers die werken vanuit Foucault, Butler, en vervallen in poststructuralistisch taalgebruik. Brrr.]