Exploring the uncomfortable topic of women who engage in child sexual abuse material offenses: How are they represented in the media?

Sexualities, Ahead of Print.
The representation of women who engage in child sexual abuse material (CSAM) offenses in the media is important to understand because the misconstruction of offending may marginalize victims of these offenses and stymie the reporting by victims. The current study aimed to explore how women who perpetrate CSAM offenses are represented in the media. A search of all newspaper articles reporting CSAM offenses perpetrated by women published in English over a 6-month period (1 May 2020 to 31 October 2020) was conducted (N = 68 articles). A qualitative content analysis identified three themes: (1) newspaper headings do not suggest women, including mothers, engage in CSAM offending; (2) women who co-offend are actively involved in the CSAM offending; and (3) CSAM cases perpetrated by women are reported factually as opposed to emotively. Overall, the findings are positive, indicating advancements in the factual, as opposed to stereotypical, reporting of women who engage in CSAM offenses.

Love, Simon and failure: Challenging normative discourses and femmephobia in gay youth representations

Sexualities, Ahead of Print.
Contemporary and mainstream representations of gender and sexual minorities within pop culture provide an opportunity for marginalized narratives and stories to reach audiences otherwise excluded. As gay adolescent youth narratives become normalized within mainstream representations, ideas of coming out, the invisibilization of gay femininities, and the privileging of gender normativity within gay young adulthood percolate in film and media. This article presents an interpretive analysis of the regulation of femininity—femmephobia—within Love, Simon through depictions of Simon (the main gay adolescent character) and Ethan (Simon’s feminine gay peer). Using femme theory and “fag discourses,” this article problematizes femmephobic depictions of gay adolescence. Moreover, this article argues that Ethan's position as a “femme failure,” and thus an exemplar of femme resistance, offers opportunities for challenging femmephobic gender relations amongst gay adolescence in media and pop culture.