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Mobile Media &Communication, Ahead of Print.
Parental phubbing refers to parents being distracted by their phone during an interaction with their child. The present study investigated how parental phubbing relates to adolescents’ self-control through the mediators of parent–adolescent closeness and loneliness. The current study also compared the effects of maternal and paternal phubbing. Having a sibling may influence adolescent mental health and behaviors. Thus, this study also examined whether siblings attenuate the effects of parental phubbing on self-control. We recruited 670 adolescents to participate in our survey. Path analyses revealed that maternal phubbing had both direct and indirect effects on self-control through mother–adolescent closeness and loneliness. However, paternal phubbing had only a sequential indirect effect through father–adolescent closeness and loneliness. This shows that maternal and paternal phubbing have different effects on adolescents’ self-control. Multi-group comparisons revealed that the direct and indirect effects of maternal phubbing on self-control were non-significant for adolescents with siblings. Thus, siblings attenuated the adverse relationships between maternal phubbing and adolescent self-control.

Sexualities, Ahead of Print.
Open and long-term intimate partner relationships are missing from the landscape of the queer ethnic community in Aotearoa New Zealand. For young ethnic queers, this lack of visibility denies them knowledge of how ethnic queers form and develop intimate partner relationships in a society that marginalizes their ethnicity, and communities that stigmatize their queerness. Similarly, very little is known about the perceptions and experiences of intimate queer relationships among ethnic young people. Using data from a qualitative study of 43 young ethnic queers living in Aotearoa New Zealand, this paper aims to provide information on what young ethnic queers experience or expect from intimate partner relationships, and how family, community, and their own beliefs impact these relationships. The study showed that intimate partner relationships among queer ethnic young people were as diverse as the people and cultures, and young ethnic queers did not necessarily have prescribed ways for how these relationships took place. Importantly, despite the pressures and expectations from their communities for heterosexual relationships, young ethnic queers sought the intimacy and affirmation of intimate partner relationships.

Sexualities, Ahead of Print.
In 2001, the film Legally Blonde was released into a pop cultural landscape saturated with the Spice Girls’ brand of feminism-lite and postfeminist media texts like Sex and the City (1998–2004). With its firm hold on “girlie” feminism, Legally Blonde is postfeminist — but not post-femme. I extend the claim that femme theory can be located in low-cultural spaces and texts to understand the “chick flick” as another possible site of femme theory. I argue that Legally Blonde demonstrates that femme resistance can be located in the success of femininity, rather than only in its failure.

Sexualities, Ahead of Print.
“Reboot,” especially NoFap, promotes abstinence from masturbation and/or pornography to treat “pornography addiction,” an unrecognized diagnosis. While the intention of Reboot/NoFap is to decrease distress, qualitative studies have consistently suggested that “Reboots” paradoxically cause more distress. The distress appears to occur in response to (1) the abstinence goal, which recasts common sexual behaviors as personal “failures,” and (2) problematic and inaccurate Reboot/NoFap forum messaging regarding sexuality and addiction. This preregistered survey asked men about their experience with perceived “relapse” and NoFap forums. Participants reported that their most recent relapse was followed by feeling shameful, worthless, sad, a desire to commit suicide, and other negative emotions. A novel predictor of identifying as a pornography addict in this lower religiosity sample was higher narcissism. Participants reported that NoFap forums contained posts that were misogynist (73.7% of participants), bullying (49.1%), anti-LGBT (42.9%), antisemitic (32.0%), instructing followers to harm or kill themselves (23.5%), or threats to hurt someone else (21.1%). More engagement in NoFap online forums was associated with worse symptoms of erectile dysfunction, depression, anxiety, and more sex negativity. Results support and expand previously documented harms and problems with Reboot/NoFap claims of treating pornography addiction from qualitative research.

Current Sociology, Ahead of Print.
Using the case study of Canada’s private refugee sponsorship program, we show how neoliberalization heightens the power of non-immigrant civilians to broker immigrants’ transnationalism. Private sponsors respond differently to two common and interrelated forms of refugee transnationalism in which they are structurally empowered to intervene. They encourage family reunification while discouraging remittances, although the former often depends on the fulfillment of the latter. Reflecting on these power imbalances, we classify private refugee sponsorship as part of a North American trend to devolve the management of noncitizens from state actors to ordinary citizens. We conclude by encouraging scholars of transnationalism to look down and investigate how non-immigrant private civilians in receiving countries increasingly shape newcomers’ cross-border linkages. We also urge them to look up and attend to the broader neoliberal context empowering and structuring the behavior of citizen brokers.