Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Using data from a variety of sources, including court proceedings, Scout officials’ public statements, and a 90-year span of Boy Scout handbooks, I offer a new perspective on the Boy Scouts’ policy of sexuality discrimination. First, I suggest that official Scout culture advocates an approach to sexuality that I call chivalrous asexual manliness, in which the man controls and suppresses the danger that is sexuality. Second, I suggest that official Scout culture perceives same-sex sexuality as a wholly sexualized lifestyle, in which sexuality pervades and controls the man. I argue that a full understanding of the Boy Scouts’ discriminatory policy requires recognition of the inherent contradiction between these largely unexamined aspects of official Scout culture.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In this article we use data from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) to ascertain and analyze patterns of asexuality in the United States. We first discuss definitions of asexuality. The limited literature on asexuality presents three kinds of definitions dealing with sexuality, namely, definitions based on one’s behavior, desires, and self-identification. Given the several definitions, we use a social constructionist perspective in this analysis, as against an essentialist approach, and measure the phenomenon in several ways. We then present a review of the literature on asexuality. We know of only one truly nationally representative study of asexuality, a survey of 18,000 British residents undertaken in the early 1990s by Johnson and colleagues (1994) and analyzed later by Bogaert (2004). We discuss its major findings and conclusions. We turn next to the 2002 NSFG, discuss briefly its approach, conduct and data, and show the three NSFG questions we will use to measure asexuality; two provide imperfect data on asexuality, and one provides quite good data. We then use the NSFG respondent sampling weights to produce several sets of unbiased estimates of the percentages of persons in the U.S. population, aged 15-44, who are asexual. Each set of estimates is based on one of the three definitions of asexuality. Finally, we use the three definitions of asexuality and develop seven groups or categories of asexuals, depending on their answers to the three questions. We compare and contrast the characteristics of asexuals in each group with those of sexuals.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This manuscript is a critical discourse analysis of Heeb Magazine. It attempts to explain how Heeb, marketed as the voice of young, secular Jewish America, constructs this identity. This paper examines how Jewish stereotypes are operated within and reified, and what is being said about the divide between secular and religious Jews. Constructing Heeb Magazine as a discursive genre, it is demonstrated how the magazine reflects the struggle between identity affirmation and assimilation.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The goal of the study was to present a general causal model of asexuality as related to other elements of sexuality (homosexual, bisexual, and heterosexual) and belief structures. We used Belief Systems Theory (Hamilton & Mineo, 1996, 1999) and the Contact Hypothesis (Allport, 1954) to explain the impact of homophobia, religiosity, female gender, and positive relationships with gay male, lesbian, and bisexual individuals on homosexual, bisexual, and heterosexual elements of sexuality, and, ultimately, on asexuality. A predominantly self-categorized heterosexual sample of college undergraduates (N = 244) was used in the study. Six elements of sexuality emerged: bisexuality, gay fantasy, gay convergence, gay act, straight fantasy, and asexuality. Homophobia and the gay act element of sexuality had a positive effect on asexuality. Female gender and positive relationships with gay male, lesbian, and bisexual individuals decreased homophobia, whereas religiosity increased it. Female gender also increased one’s likelihood of becoming bisexual, whereas religiosity decreased it. Finally, straight fantasies had a negative effect on asexuality.