Littles

Affects and Aesthetics in Sexual Age-Play

Bibliographic Data

ID12466657
AuthorsK Tiidenberg (0000-0002-7895-7617, Tallinn University), Paasonen (0000-0002-6319-9155, University of Turku, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume23
Issue2
Pages375-393
Publication date2018-12-11
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSexuality & Culture (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1095-5143 • E-ISSN: 1936-4822
PublisherSpringer Science+Business Media (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1007/s12119-018-09580-5
OpenAlexW2904271354
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited32

This article explores the experiences and practices of self-identifying female sexual age-players. Based on interviews and observation of the age players’ blogged content, the article suggests that, rather than being fixed in one single position, our study participants move between a range of roles varying across their different scenes. In examining accounts of sexual play, we argue that the notion of play characterizes not only their specific routines of sexual “scening” but also sexual routines, experimentations, and experiences more expansively. Further, we argue that a focus on play as exploration of corporeal possibilities allows for conceptualizing sexual preferences and practices, such as age-play, as irreducible to distinct categories of sexual identity. The notion of play makes it possible to consider sexuality in terms of transformations in affective intensities and attachments, without pigeonholing various preferences, or acts, within a taxonomy of sexual identities. In doing so, it offers an alternative to the still prevalent categorical conceptualizations of sexuality that stigmatize people’s lived experiences and diminish the explanatory power of scholarly and therapeutic narratives about human sexuality

Aesthetics · Art · Human sexuality · Identity (music · Narrative · Power (physics · Sociology · Gender Roles and Identity Studies · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Psychology · Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology · Social Psychology

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Open DOISci-HubOpen Access