N Gavey
Biographic Data
| ID | 1265 |
|---|---|
| NAME | N Gavey |
| GIVEN NAMES | N |
| FAMILY NAME | Gavey |
| SIGNATURE | GAVEY N |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Auckland |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4184-589X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 58 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 869 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 58 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1989 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 17 |
Is “Rough Sex” a Thing? A Survey of Meaning
The term "rough sex" is widely used, but it is not always clear what it means. Through exploring people's working definitions of "rough sex," we asked what they revealed about the underlying phenomenon it is applied to, and whether it is actually a thing. Our online survey of 567 New Zealand respondents (73.7% women, 21% men, 5.3% gender diverse; mean age, 35.6 years, SD = 10.8) identified various behaviors that many considered to be part of "rou…
Preventing image-based sexual coercion, harassment and abuse among teenagers
This paper explores teenage girls’ responses to general advice, and formal prevention messages, designed to reduce sexting-related risk and prevent harm. We conducted workshops with seven groups of girls (28 in total), aged 16–17 years, in a New Zealand city. Each group participated in a series of three workshop sessions. Drawing on a Freirean ‘problem-posing’ approach, we designed the workshops as spaces in which girls were invited to observe an…
The failed promise of consent in women's experiences of coercive and unwanted anal sex with men
In this article, we critically interrogate the concept of consent in relation to women's experiences of coerced and unwanted heterosexual anal sex. Among the 18 women we interviewed (all living in New Zealand), some clearly labelled their experiences of unwanted anal sex with men as nonconsensual. Many others, however, suggested that they had, in some way, consented. We identified two main discursive patterns in the ways that women discussed cons…
Deconstructing ‘Rough Sex’ in a New Zealand Murder Trial
I analyse the way ‘rough sex’, including ‘choking’, was normalised during the 2019 trial of Jesse Kempson for the murder of Grace Millane – and portrayed as a modern form of mutual and egalitarian sexual exploration, particularly for young people. While the so-called ‘rough sex defence’ has been widely critiqued for the way it operates in the criminal justice system to minimise violence against women and blame victims for their own murder or assa…
Devastating, like it broke me’
The non-consensual taking or sharing of intimate images, also known as ‘image-based sexual abuse’, has become a widespread problem. While there has been growing attention to this phenomenon, little empirical research has investigated victim-survivor experiences. Drawing on interviews with 25 victim-survivors, this article focusses on the different responses to image-based sexual abuse in Aotearoa New Zealand. We found that victim-survivors had di…
Image-Based Sexual Abuse as a Means of Coercive Control
Scholars and practitioners increasingly acknowledge the ways that abusive partners create, distribute, or threaten to distribute intimate images without consent, yet little empirical research has comprehensively explored image-based sexual abuse within intimate partner contexts. This article responds to this gap and reports on the findings of a study involving interviews with 29 women and one gender-diverse person who experienced image-based sexu…
You Feel Like Normal Sex is not Enough Anymore”
In this article, we explore the gendered dynamics of coercion described by 18 women we interviewed about their experiences of unwanted and nonconsensual heterosexual anal sex. Several women referred to what they believed to be the normative status of heterosexual anal sex. In many cases, the socially coercive effects of perceived norms intertwined with threads of interpersonal coercion, leaving women feeling pressured to agree to, or little room …
Seeking Justice and Redress for Victim-Survivors of Image-Based Sexual Abuse
Despite apparent political concern and action—often fuelled by high-profile cases and campaigns—legislative and institutional responses to image-based sexual abuse in the UK have been ad hoc, piecemeal and inconsistent. In practice, victim-survivors are being consistently failed: by the law, by the police and criminal justice system, by traditional and social media, website operators, and by their employers, universities and schools. Drawing on d…
Celebrating 30 years of Feminism & Psychology
Feminism & Psychology ( F&P) was launched in 1991 with a sense of possibility, enthusiasm and excitement as well as a sense of urgent need – to critique and reconstruct mainstream psychology (theory, research methods, and clinical practice). Thirty years have now passed since the first issue was produced. Thirty volumes with three or four issues have been published each year, thanks to the efforts of many. On the occasion of F&P’s 30th anniversar…
To send or not to send nudes
It’s Torture for the Soul’
Beyond ‘scandals’ and the public testimonies of victim-survivors, surprisingly little is known about the nature and extent of the harms of ‘image-based sexual abuse’, a term that includes all non-consensual taking and/or sharing of nude or sexual images. Accordingly, this article examines the findings from the first cross-national qualitative study on this issue, drawing on interviews with 75 victim-survivors of image-based sexual abuse in the UK…
Feminism, Foucault, and Freire
Pornography addiction and the perimeters of acceptable pornography viewing
In this study, we investigate how pornography addiction is constructed by members of the New Zealand public by analysing six 2016 newspaper articles focusing on pornography addiction, and the 1430 Facebook comments posted in response to them. Utilizing a critical discursive approach, we identified five interpretative repertoires employed to construct both the viewing of pornography and pornography itself in multiple ways. Our analysis suggests th…
Just Sex?
Doing and denying sexism
In 2012 a New Zealand feminist group launched a campaign against a series of local beer advertisements they deemed “retro-sexist.” The campaign generated media coverage across a range of viewpoints, but drew a largely negative response from the online public. This article analyses a comprehensive corpus of 753 online comments responding to news of the campaign. We discuss the dominant discursive constructions of gender and of feminists, and the w…
Rape culture and social media
Social media sites, according to Carrie A. Rentschler, can become both “aggregators of online misogyny” as well as key spaces for feminist education and activism. They are spaces where “rape culture,” in particular, is both performed and resisted, and where a feminist counterpublic can be formed (Michael Salter 2013 Salter, Michael. 2013. “Justice and Revenge in Online Counter-Publics: Emerging Responses to Sexual Violence in the Age of Social Me…
Jekyll and Hyde revisited
It is a decade and a half since Nigel Edley and Margaret Wetherell's (2001) “Jekyll and Hyde: Men's constructions of feminism and feminists” called scholarly attention to men's discursive splitting of feminism and feminists into good and monstrous variants. In this article, we ask whether this double vision persists and how it operates in a cultural moment when feminism and feminist issues are (re)entering the mainstream. We draw from data collec…
Making sense of everyday sexism
Out of Sight and Out of Mind
It is generally accepted that pornography is widely consumed by young men and that mainstream heterosexual pornography is characterized by a dynamic of male sexual dominance and female submission. What is less agreed upon is whether such pornography is a source of 'sexist education' (Flood 2010) for men or whether men engage with it in an empathic and ethical manner. In this study, we discuss findings from interviews with twenty-one young men abo…
Just Sex?
Winner of the Association for Women In Psychology 2006 Distinguished Publication Award! The past two decades have witnessed a significant shift in how rape is understood in Western societies. This shift in perception has revealed the startling frequency of occurrences of date rape, obscuring the divide between rape and what was once just sex. Just Sex? combines an overview of the existing literature with an analysis of recent research to examine …
DSM-5 and beyond
The history of critical feminist engagement with psychiatry is a long one. It stretches at least to 1892, the year when Charlotte Perkins Gilman published her autobiographical novella, The Yellow Wallpaper. Gilman delivered a searing indictment of the ‘rest cure’ prescribed for her by Dr S Weir Mitchell. Some 70 years later, Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique (1963) blasted Freudian ideas about women and femininity, ideas that held sway among psychi…
The Gendered Dynamics of Power in Disputes Over the Postseparation Care of Children
A dichotomized picture of postseparation parents has emerged in family law that juxtaposes violent relationships with those that are "normal." Domestic violence scholars and advocates have played a role in reproducing this picture in their quest to secure protection for women and children. Although sympathetic, we argue this construction generates a number of problems: in particular, it obscures the gender power dynamics in relationships where wo…
He’s Just Swapped His Fists for the System” The Governance of Gender through Custody Law
In this article, we investigate the state’s role in the reproduction of relations of male dominance between separated parents through custody law. We argue that three “logics” shape the current operation of family law—durability, gender neutrality and present/future temporality—such that custody law is not simply a mechanism of dispute resolution between parents; it is also a vehicle for the differential production, positioning, and regulation of…
Trauma of Rape” Discourse
We map a discourse of the trauma of rape that was widely drawn upon by 29 “lay” New Zealand women and men in focus group discussions about the impact of rape. Using a discursiv e approach, we identify the key interlocking elements of this discourse. It centers on the contention that rape is traumatic, and depicts this trauma as unique, sev ere, long lasting, and in need of healing. We discuss the ways in which this ostensibly more enlightened and…
Just Sex?
Introduction. Part 1: Rape in a Different Light. Rape as a Social Problem. The Discovery of a Rape Epidemic. Part 2: Gender, Power and Sexuality - and the Limits of Individual Choice. The Social Construction of Sex, Subjectivity and the Body. Heterosexuality Under the Microscope. Unsexy Sex: Unwanted Sex, Sexual Coercion and Rape. Part 3: Going Too Far, Not Going Far Enough. Can a Woman be Raped and Not Know It? Turning the Tables? Women Raping M…
Feminist Poststructuralism and Discourse Analysis
In this article I suggest that feminist poststructuralism (Weedon, 1987) is of great potential value to feminist psychologists seeking more satisfactory ways of theorizing gender and subjectivity. Some key elements of this theoretical perspective are discussed, including an understanding of knowledge as socially produced and inherently unstable, an emphasis on the importance of language and discourse, and a decentering of the subject. Discourse a…
Defining (Hetero)Sex
Viagra stories
Beyond “Empowerment”? Sexuality in a Sexist World
Technologies and Effects of Heterosexual Coercion
I am concerned here with explicating some of the ways in which sexual coercion, including `unwanted sex', takes place within heterosexual relationships. It is suggested that dominant discourses on heterosexuality position women as relatively passive subjects who are encouraged to comply with sex with men, irrespective of their own sexual desire. Through the operation of disciplinary power, male dominance can be maintained in heterosexual practice…
New Versions of Victims
Memphis in Memphis, Tennessee.She has written in the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography about using a "layered account" to examine and understand child sexual abuse.She is currently in the process of conducting life-history interviews with adult female and male subjects who have experienced childhood sexual abuse
Healthy Weight' at What Cost? 'Bulimia' and a Discourse of Weight Control
Public health messages emphasizing 'healthy weight' link good health to a narrow range of body weights and stress energy regulation to achieve this. We examined whether women who practise bulimia deploy notions of 'healthy weight' in their talk about body management activities. Analysis is based on interviews with 15 women who practise bulimia and on material collected from cultural locations containing 'health promotion' advice. Poststructuralis…
Subject to Romance
Safer sex campaigns directed at heterosexuals have increasingly targeted women to encourage them to take responsibility for condom use. It appears, however, that many women are unable or unwilling to accept this role. In this article we report on one particular kind of obstacle that some women face in initiating condom use. We draw on data from interviews with 14 women, aged 22 to 43 years, about their experiences with, and views of, condoms. The…
Rape culture and social media
Social media sites, according to Carrie A. Rentschler, can become both “aggregators of online misogyny” as well as key spaces for feminist education and activism. They are spaces where “rape culture,” in particular, is both performed and resisted, and where a feminist counterpublic can be formed (Michael Salter 2013 Salter, Michael. 2013. “Justice and Revenge in Online Counter-Publics: Emerging Responses to Sexual Violence in the Age of Social Me…
Dominance and Entitlement
Academic interest in applications of rhetoric to social issues is undergoing a revival. This paper develops a rhetorical analysis of discourse generated by men who have been recently violent towards women. The texts have been drawn from transcribed interviews with 14 men who had recently begun or were about to attend stopping violence programmes. Each 90-minute interview prompted the men on their views towards women, violence and relationships. A…
Feminist Poststructuralism and Discourse Analysis Revisited
Trying to piece together the context in which I wrote “Feminist Poststructuralism and Discourse Analysis” (Gavey, 1989) has taken me back (almost) to childhood! Why did I go into psychology in the first place? And why was I then such a reluctant psychologist? The article grew out of my attempts to find a different way of doing psychology, after 8 or 9 years of studying and wrestling with the discipline. It is partly a personal story, but also a s…
Sexual Coercion Among Gay and Bisexual Men in Aotearoa/New Zealand
Until recently, sexual coercion among gay men has been regarded as virtually oxymoronic. Discourses of male sexuality as ever-present and driven, and discourses of masculinity that portray men as in control and invulnerable, converge to almost disavow the possibilities that sex could be unwanted by men, or that men could be vulnerable to being pressured into sex against their will. This article reports on interviews with 19 gay and bisexual men a…
The downside of Viagra
While much is known about the efficacy and safety of sexuopharmaceuticals used by men for the treatment of erectile difficulties, there remains a dearth of knowledge on the perspectives and experiences of their sexual partners. In particular, few studies have focused on the possible detrimental effects for women of Viagra use within a heterosexual relationship. In this paper we report on a qualitative study based in New Zealand, which involved in…
Women's Bodybuilding
It’s Torture for the Soul’
Beyond ‘scandals’ and the public testimonies of victim-survivors, surprisingly little is known about the nature and extent of the harms of ‘image-based sexual abuse’, a term that includes all non-consensual taking and/or sharing of nude or sexual images. Accordingly, this article examines the findings from the first cross-national qualitative study on this issue, drawing on interviews with 75 victim-survivors of image-based sexual abuse in the UK…
Sex for life'? Men's counter-stories on 'erectile dysfunction', male sexuality and ageing
Discourse on male sexuality in mid-to-later life has exploded in recent years (Gullette 1998). Attention to this topic has been spurred by the advent of (highly profitable) sexuopharmaceutical 'solutions' to erectile changes affecting older men. 'Success' stories abound in the media and in medical literature related to the restoration of faulty erections and ailing sex lives through drugs such as Viagra (sildenafil citrate), Uprima (apomorphine) …
Trauma of Rape” Discourse
We map a discourse of the trauma of rape that was widely drawn upon by 29 “lay” New Zealand women and men in focus group discussions about the impact of rape. Using a discursiv e approach, we identify the key interlocking elements of this discourse. It centers on the contention that rape is traumatic, and depicts this trauma as unique, sev ere, long lasting, and in need of healing. We discuss the ways in which this ostensibly more enlightened and…
Making sense of everyday sexism
DSM-5 and beyond
The history of critical feminist engagement with psychiatry is a long one. It stretches at least to 1892, the year when Charlotte Perkins Gilman published her autobiographical novella, The Yellow Wallpaper. Gilman delivered a searing indictment of the ‘rest cure’ prescribed for her by Dr S Weir Mitchell. Some 70 years later, Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique (1963) blasted Freudian ideas about women and femininity, ideas that held sway among psychi…
If It's Not On, It's Not On'-or Is It
Safer sex campaigns for heterosexuals have sometimes targeted women in particular to take responsibility for condom use. In this article, the authors question some of the assumptions underlying this strategy, for instance, the assumptions of women's relatively unproblematic relationship with condoms and women's control over condom use. The authors interviewed 14 women about their experiences and views of condoms and of heterosexual relationships …
Out of Sight and Out of Mind
It is generally accepted that pornography is widely consumed by young men and that mainstream heterosexual pornography is characterized by a dynamic of male sexual dominance and female submission. What is less agreed upon is whether such pornography is a source of 'sexist education' (Flood 2010) for men or whether men engage with it in an empathic and ethical manner. In this study, we discuss findings from interviews with twenty-one young men abo…
Cry Wolf', Cried the Wolf
In this article we analyse New Zealand media texts about so-called false rape allegations from 1995 to 1999, in relation to legislative and social change towards rape. In particular, we focus on a critical reading of a magazine article that stands out as being (the only) relatively balanced investigation into false rape'. We argue that despite the surface neutrality of this text, it privileges an interpretation of the issue in which it is taken f…
Jekyll and Hyde revisited
It is a decade and a half since Nigel Edley and Margaret Wetherell's (2001) “Jekyll and Hyde: Men's constructions of feminism and feminists” called scholarly attention to men's discursive splitting of feminism and feminists into good and monstrous variants. In this article, we ask whether this double vision persists and how it operates in a cultural moment when feminism and feminist issues are (re)entering the mainstream. We draw from data collec…
Reconceptualizing cultural narratives of mature women's sexuality in the Viagra era
Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Feminist Poststructuralism and Discourse Analysis
In this article I suggest that feminist poststructuralism (Weedon, 1987) is of great potential value to feminist psychologists seeking more satisfactory ways of theorizing gender and subjectivity. Some key elements of this theoretical perspective are discussed, including an understanding of knowledge as socially produced and inherently unstable, an emphasis on the importance of language and discourse, and a decentering of the subject. Discourse a…
Mother-Blaming, the Perfect Alibi
Mothers of incest survivors have traditionally been blamed for their collusion in the incest and their failure to protect their daughters. In this paper illustrations of mother-blaming in the family therapy literature are presented. It is discussed how family systems approaches implicitly, if not explicitly, continue this traditlon unless the wider socio-political and historical contexts of the family are integrated into the analysis. Specificall…
Technologies and Effects of Heterosexual Coercion
I am concerned here with explicating some of the ways in which sexual coercion, including `unwanted sex', takes place within heterosexual relationships. It is suggested that dominant discourses on heterosexuality position women as relatively passive subjects who are encouraged to comply with sex with men, irrespective of their own sexual desire. Through the operation of disciplinary power, male dominance can be maintained in heterosexual practice…
Dominance and Entitlement
Academic interest in applications of rhetoric to social issues is undergoing a revival. This paper develops a rhetorical analysis of discourse generated by men who have been recently violent towards women. The texts have been drawn from transcribed interviews with 14 men who had recently begun or were about to attend stopping violence programmes. Each 90-minute interview prompted the men on their views towards women, violence and relationships. A…
Women's Bodybuilding
Chapter Three “I Wasn’t Raped, but . . . ” Revisiting Definitional Problems in Sexual Victimization
Interruptus Coitus
Intercourse remains the definitive heterosexual act, implied by terms such as `having sex', `making love', or even just `doing it'. However, the particular bodily mechanics of intercourse mean it carries considerably higher risks (of disease and unwanted conception for example) than other forms of sex. Because of this, we suggest a need to question the taken-for-grantedness of intercourse in heterosex. Drawing on data from interviews with 15 wome…
Subject to Romance
Safer sex campaigns directed at heterosexuals have increasingly targeted women to encourage them to take responsibility for condom use. It appears, however, that many women are unable or unwilling to accept this role. In this article we report on one particular kind of obstacle that some women face in initiating condom use. We draw on data from interviews with 14 women, aged 22 to 43 years, about their experiences with, and views of, condoms. The…
Bad girls” And “Good girls”? sexuality and cervical cancer
New Versions of Victims
Memphis in Memphis, Tennessee.She has written in the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography about using a "layered account" to examine and understand child sexual abuse.She is currently in the process of conducting life-history interviews with adult female and male subjects who have experienced childhood sexual abuse
Cry Wolf', Cried the Wolf
In this article we analyse New Zealand media texts about so-called false rape allegations from 1995 to 1999, in relation to legislative and social change towards rape. In particular, we focus on a critical reading of a magazine article that stands out as being (the only) relatively balanced investigation into false rape'. We argue that despite the surface neutrality of this text, it privileges an interpretation of the issue in which it is taken f…
Defining (Hetero)Sex
If It's Not On, It's Not On'-or Is It
Safer sex campaigns for heterosexuals have sometimes targeted women in particular to take responsibility for condom use. In this article, the authors question some of the assumptions underlying this strategy, for instance, the assumptions of women's relatively unproblematic relationship with condoms and women's control over condom use. The authors interviewed 14 women about their experiences and views of condoms and of heterosexual relationships …
I. To and Beyond the Discursive Constitution of Subjectivity
So Whose Words are they Anyway
Silencing talk of men’s violence towards women
The `Fair Deal'? Unpacking Accounts of Reciprocity in Heterosex
Reciprocity is a basic premise of egalitarian relationships, and is typically depicted as a `good thing' within heterosexual sex and relationships. Here we examine a discourse of reciprocity - articulated as orgasm for both partners - evident in accounts of heterosex collected from 15 heterosexual women and 15 men. We argue that notions of reciprocity are not necessarily as liberatory as they might seem, as they do not occur in a social or sexual…
Girls Will be Girls
Hard Sell, Soft Sell
Viagra (known generically as sildenafil citrate) was released in New Zealand in 1998. Direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertisements represented Viagra as a panacea for men's sexual difficulties. The Research Medicines Industry Association of New Zealand (2000) claims that the Viagra DTC campaign removed the stigma associated with erectile dysfunction. However, in this paper we analyse participants' views that the advertisements also transform cultural …
The downside of Viagra
While much is known about the efficacy and safety of sexuopharmaceuticals used by men for the treatment of erectile difficulties, there remains a dearth of knowledge on the perspectives and experiences of their sexual partners. In particular, few studies have focused on the possible detrimental effects for women of Viagra use within a heterosexual relationship. In this paper we report on a qualitative study based in New Zealand, which involved in…
Healthy Weight' at What Cost? 'Bulimia' and a Discourse of Weight Control
Public health messages emphasizing 'healthy weight' link good health to a narrow range of body weights and stress energy regulation to achieve this. We examined whether women who practise bulimia deploy notions of 'healthy weight' in their talk about body management activities. Analysis is based on interviews with 15 women who practise bulimia and on material collected from cultural locations containing 'health promotion' advice. Poststructuralis…
Viagra stories
The Discursive Condition of Viagra
This research investigates the socio-cultural implications of Viagra as a biomedical solution to a medically defined problem. This New Zealand-based research involved interviews with 33 men, to examine how they discursively constituted meanings around masculinity, erections, and the role of Viagra. It is argued that the relationship between discourses of mechanistic functionality of erections, the primacy of the male as performer, and the partner…
Sex for life'? Men's counter-stories on 'erectile dysfunction', male sexuality and ageing
Discourse on male sexuality in mid-to-later life has exploded in recent years (Gullette 1998). Attention to this topic has been spurred by the advent of (highly profitable) sexuopharmaceutical 'solutions' to erectile changes affecting older men. 'Success' stories abound in the media and in medical literature related to the restoration of faulty erections and ailing sex lives through drugs such as Viagra (sildenafil citrate), Uprima (apomorphine) …
Reconceptualizing cultural narratives of mature women's sexuality in the Viagra era
Psychology (52 works) · Sociology (48 works) · Gender Studies (35 works) · Social Psychology (31 works) · Gender Studies (27 works) · Social Psychology (24 works) · Medicine (23 works) · Gender, Feminism, and Media (21 works) · Political science (21 works) · Poison control (15 works)