Cuthbert, K. (2023) Neither ‘incel’ nor ‘volcel’: Relational accounts of UK women's sexual abstinence. Womens Studies International Forum, 101, 102835. (doi: 10.1016/j.wsif.2023.102835)
![[img]](https://eprints.gla.ac.uk/style/images/fileicons/text.png) |
Text
307428.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. 522kB |
Abstract
Amidst a proliferation of popular and academic interest in the celibacy and abstinence practices of men, women's sexual abstinence has not received the same attention. This paper is one of the only papers to empirically address women's sexual abstinence, and the first in almost thirty years. I provide a context of how, in early feminist thought, women's sexual abstinence had been theorised - and practiced - as liberatory, which is frequently left out of feminist histories of sexuality. However, my findings highlight how for the women in this research, sexual abstinence was seen as a necessity borne from surviving an aggressive and violent hetero-patriarchal milieu. Understanding gender as inherently relational, I also juxtapose the women's accounts with the accounts of men who took part in my research, and discuss their very differences experiences of abstinence, including how ‘control’ was conceptualised, and the gendered ways in which sexual abstinence was encountered and negotiated interpersonally. I argue that the women's accounts also show us how we must problematise the distinction too easily made between ‘involuntary’ and ‘voluntary’ celibacy, and that focusing on women's accounts of their sexual abstinence starkly illuminate the workings of hetero-patriarchy in a way that must remain urgent to feminist thought.
| Item Type: | Articles |
|---|---|
| Additional Information: | This work was supported by an Economic and Social Research Council +3 doctoral studentship (ES/ J500136/1) held at the University of Glasgow. |
| Status: | Published |
| Refereed: | Yes |
| Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: | Cuthbert, Dr Karen |
| Authors: | Cuthbert, K. |
| College/School: | College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Sociology Anthropology and Applied Social Sciences |
| Journal Name: | Womens Studies International Forum |
| Publisher: | Elsevier |
| ISSN: | 0277-5395 |
| ISSN (Online): | 1879-243X |
| Published Online: | 27 September 2023 |
| Copyright Holders: | Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). |
| First Published: | First published in Womens Studies International Forum 101:102835 |
| Publisher Policy: | Reproduced under a Creative Commons license |
University Staff: Request a correction | Enlighten Editors: Update this record
Funder and Project Information
Funder and Project Information