Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 06:15:13 -0400
From: radhika gajjala <radhika-AT-cyberdiva.org>
Subject: CFP


CFP: Safe Sex?
Feminist Media Studies 3(1) Criticism and Commentary Section

Deadline:       13 September 2002

Length: 1,000-1,500 words (5-6 pages typed, double-spaced)

We live in an era when deaths from HIV/AIDS threaten to decimate large 
parts of the African sub-continent as well as blight many other parts of 
the globe, so that casual and unprotected sex has become a much more 
dangerous game than 'simply' risking a visit to the STD clinic or an 
unwanted pregnancy, as much as these outcomes are devastating for the 
people involved.  Now, in many first world spaces at least, the risk of 
contracting a fatal disease for which there continues to be no curative 
seems to be provoking a much more circumspect attitude towards sex, 
especially amongst adults who are beyond obeying the teenage peer pressure 
to 'just do it'. Of course, such circumspection is made possible for first 
worlders because of the many and varied alternatives available, not to 
mention the morbid lesson of serendipity provided by 'celebrity' deaths. So 
what are we doing instead, if we want to do something sexually 'risky' but 
where we want the risk to be entirely vicarious?  One answer can be found 
in the reinvigoration of the 'safe' sex industry with a proliferation of 
lap-dancing clubs, often opening in the most unlikely places. In one of 
England's major cities, Birmingham, the world-renowned Ronnie Scott's jazz 
club was closed in 2001 and the premises renamed and reopened in 2002 as a 
lap-dancing club which is doing great business.

The 'look-but-don't-touch' version of female sexualised behavior has a long 
and important history, beginning, arguably, with the daring Isadora Duncan 
and her silken scarves and the altogether more sensual and seductive 
Josephine Baker, and brought up-to-date by the less inhibited striptease 
artists celebrated in Moulin Rouge and Striptease, not to mention the more 
sizeable numbers of lap dancers, escorts and hostesses who work in clubs 
around the world and who are supposed to be off-limits to the customers who 
cop a feel for a price, but nothing more. But who is really kept safe in 
these second-hand sexual encounters?  Are media representations of safe sex 
supposed to reference post-feminist ideas of empowerment and agency or is 
it just business as usual with a cynical nod to sexual liberation?

This CFP, then, invites short (1000-1500) essays on the broad topic of 
media and 'safe' sex as we have described it above, where the sex in 
question is of the allegedly look-don't-touch variety.  We are interested 
in any aspect of that 'media-sex' relation, be it the portrayal of lap or 
other exotic dancers, striptease artists or escorts in factual or fictional 
media, or women's bodies used as sexualised commodities in advertising, or 
the representation of the 'entertainment' sex industry or historical 
analyses of any of the above. We are also interested in contributions which 
consider arguments about the 'harmless' (ie 'safe') nature of portraying 
women's semi-naked bodies in mainstream media and the broader issues 
relating to the political economy of selling the idea rather than the 
reality, of sex. The focus we are interested in here is the sense of 
look-don't-touch, sex-as-tease rather than more conventional debates around 
prostitution.

The deadline for this call is 13 September 2002  please submit your 
contributions by email attachment to both of us.  If you would like to 
discuss submitting a contribution to this volume, please email us at:

k.ross-AT-coventry.ac.uk
smoorti-AT-odu.edu

We look forward to receiving your essays in September.  Please pass on this 
CFP to anyone you think might be interested in contributing.  As always, 
please feel free to submit book or film reviews which you think would be of 
interest to the FMS readership.  The following website contains the style 
guideline for Feminist Media Studies:
http://tandf.co.uk/journals/authors/r-authors/fmsauth.pdf