ZusammenfassungDieser Beitrag diskutiert „kulturelle Fragen“ in klinischer Ethik am Beispiel der Hymenrekonstruktion. Zunächst werden drei grundsätzliche Argumente genannt: 1) Wenn „kultur-sensitive“ Themen in klinischer Ethik explizit als solche diskutiert werden, kann das zu einem essentialistischen Verständnis von Kultur beitragen. Stattdessen wird in diesem Beitrag für ein dynamisches Verständnis von Kultur argumentiert und für eine grundsätzlich kontextsensitive, pluralistische klinische Ethik. 2) Klinische Ethik fokussiert häufig auf die individuelle Arzt-Patienten-Beziehung. Public Health Ethik und Globale Bioethik sind dagegen eher mit den strukturellen Bedingungen (...) von Gesundheit und Gesundheitsversorgung befasst. Der Beitrag argumentiert für eine systematischere Verknüpfung dieser verschiedenen Ebenen. 3) „Migration“ als bioethisches Thema wird häufig unter „Kultur“ subsumiert. Doch diese beiden Themen sind nicht koextensiv, stattdessen umfassen beide Bereiche jeweils unterschiedliche Fragestellungen. Insbesondere im Bereich von „Migration“ bestehen in der Bioethik noch Forschungslücken. Auf diesen Ausgangsüberlegungen aufbauend wird die Hymenrekonstruktion aus ethischer Sicht diskutiert und dafür argumentiert, sie nur als ultima ratio durchzuführen. Zugleich sollte über die Unmöglichkeit eines Jungfräulichkeitsnachweises aufgeklärt werden. Es bleibt eine Herausforderung, „kultursensitive“ Gesundheitsversorgung zu leisten, dabei jedoch ein essentialistisches Kulturverständnis und Stereotypisierung zu vermeiden. Dieser Beitrag argumentiert für eine grundsätzliche Kontextsensitivität in einer globalisierten, heterogenen Welt, in der die Verbindung zwischen individuellem Handeln und strukturellen Gegebenheiten bewusst wird. (shrink)

“Hooking up,” a popular type of sexual behavior among college students, has become a pathway to dating relationships. Based on open-ended narratives written by 273 undergraduates, we analyze how students interpreted a vignette describing a heterosexual hookup followed by a sexless first date. In contrast to the sexual script which holds that women want relationships more than sex and men care about sex more than relationships, students generally accorded women sexual agency and desire in the hookup and validated men’s post-hookup (...) relationship interest. However, in explaining the sexless date, students typically reasoned the woman was being chaste and withholding sex to redeem her reputation whereas they often characterized the man’s abstinence in terms of a pity date. The findings underscore the tenacity of gendered sexual scripts around heterosexual dates and hookups but also reveal fissures and contradictions that suggest some changes to the sexual double standard. (shrink)

Sociologists have identified many factors that mitigate the progressive effects of the legal mobilization to end sexual violence. Within this body of research, however, there is little interrogation about the social construction of sexual harm. I use the case of child sexual abuse to investigate how prosecutors make sense of sexual harm. Data are qualitative interviews with 43 prosecutors. Findings reveal that prosecutors use a framework of sexual identity to construct sexual injury on the child’s body. The perceived harm centers (...) on the anticipated loss of the child’s heterosexual potential. Girl victims are thought to grow into sexual promiscuity, and boy victims are thought to grow into sex offenders. Prosecutorial constructions of child sexual abuse cases are future-oriented, which increases their urgency, and these constructions also imagine the child as a person in formation, rather than a fully actualized person with intrinsic rights. In revealing how the state of sexual victimization is not only deeply gendered but also heteronormative, this research has theoretical implications for childhood studies, queer studies, and anti-violence advocacy. (shrink)

The suppression of sexuality is culturally widespread, and women’s sexual promiscuity, activity, and enjoyment are almost always judged and punished more harshly than men’s. It remains disputed, however, to what end people suppress sexuality, and who benefits from the suppression of female sexuality. Different theories predict that women in general, men in general, women’s intimate partners, or parents benefit most. Here we use the lies women and men tell—or imagine telling—about their sexual histories as an indirect measure of who is (...) most involved in the suppression of sexuality. We asked men and women what they would reply if asked questions by their mother, father, current partner, attractive confederate, and various same- or opposite-sex friends and colleagues about their number of previous sex partners, age at first romantic kiss, age at first consensual sex, and cheating on a previous partner or spouse. By comparing the size and direction of the lies that subjects told, we tested competing predictions of several cultural and evolutionary theories concerning why female sexuality is suppressed and who is driving its suppression. We found that men and women told larger and more frequent lies to their parents, with women telling the largest and most frequent lies of all to their fathers. Additionally, the majority of lies by both men and women were in sexually conservative directions. Our findings suggest that mothers, and especially fathers, restrict female sexuality. (shrink)