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Sundén, Jenny, ProfessorORCID iD iconorcid.org/0000-0002-6047-4369
Publications (10 of 53) Show all publications
Paasonen, S., Sundén, J., Tiidenberg, K. & Vihlman, M. (2023). About Sex, Open-Mindedness, and Cinnamon Buns: Exploring Sexual Social Media. Social Media + Society, 9(1), Article ID 20563051221147324.
Open this publication in new window or tab >>About Sex, Open-Mindedness, and Cinnamon Buns: Exploring Sexual Social Media
2023 (English)In: Social Media + Society, E-ISSN 2056-3051, Vol. 9, no 1, article id 20563051221147324Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

General purpose social media platforms—often incited by American legislation—increasingly exclude sex from acceptable forms of sociality in the abstract name of user safety. This article analyzes interview data (four developer interviews and 56 user interviews) from three North European sexual platforms (Darkside, Alastonsuomi, and Libertine.Center) to explore what follows from including sexual sites in definitions and analyses of social media and, by extension, in including sex in definitions of “the social” itself. We found that instead of context collapse, the users and developers of the studied sites operate with what we call context promiscuity, blending boundaries, but maintaining their structural integrity. This allows for a particular silosociality to emerge based on experiences of safety, risk, and consent. Building on this, we propose thinking of sexual expression as something not contained by, but put in motion across platforms, user cultures, content policies, and sexual norms. Rather than framing sexual social media exchanges in terms of their perceived risks and harms, we would do well to also inquire after the risks and harms involved in ousting sex from networked forms of sociality. Deplatforming of sex truncates our ways of understanding what interests, forces, and attachments drive our sociality. Yet, when analyzing social media as if the socio-sexual matters, platforms designed to support sexual displays and connections become vital nodal points in social media ecologies. 

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Sage Publications, 2023
Keywords
context promiscuity, deplatforming of sex, safety, silosociality, social media
National Category
Gender Studies
Research subject
Baltic and East European studies
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-51145 (URN)10.1177/20563051221147324 (DOI)000998755800001 ()2-s2.0-85148292667 (Scopus ID)1035-3.1.1-2019 (Local ID)1035-3.1.1-2019 (Archive number)1035-3.1.1-2019 (OAI)
Funder
The Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies, 10/2019
Available from: 2023-03-06 Created: 2023-03-06 Last updated: 2023-06-15Bibliographically approved
Sundén, J. (2023). Digital kink obscurity: A sexual politics beyond visibility and comprehension. Sexualities
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Digital kink obscurity: A sexual politics beyond visibility and comprehension
2023 (English)In: Sexualities, ISSN 1363-4607, E-ISSN 1461-7382Article in journal (Refereed) Epub ahead of print
Abstract [en]

Based on an interview-driven ethnographic study of the Swedish digital BDSM, fetish and kink platform Darkside, this article explores digital kink expressions at a moment when kink communities are both marginalized and seemingly mainstream, navigating a tricky balance between visibility and invisibility, intelligibility and unintelligibility. Across queer, postcolonial, and digital media theorizing, "opacity" provides a way of rethinking these tensions, challenging the idea of public visibility and identification as that which legitimizes sexual otherness. Building on this work, I suggest the term "kink obscurity" as a way of conceptualizing a set of tactics for sexually marginalized groups to exist, resist, and transgress without becoming fully visible or graspable. To these ends, I foreground a "closet positive" analysis of Darkside, not primarily of shame, secrecy, and isolation, but of shared spaces of vulnerability and intensity, a temporary safe house which partly protects against normative regulation. Although the platform activist ethos speaks to the value of openness and outness for the sake of sexual justice, the users are quite invested in anonymous and pseudonymous online presence and sexual expression. Opacity implies a lack of clarity; something opaque may be both difficult to see clearly as well as to understand. Drawing on edouard Glissant's idea of opacity as a form resistance to surveillance and imperial domination, a digital sexual politics of obscurity could help provide recognition without a demand to fully understand sexual otherness, opening up for new modes of obscure and pleasurable sexual expressions and transgressions.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Sage Publications, 2023
Keywords
BDSM, digital kink communities, edouard Glissant, kink obscurity, queer opacity
National Category
Gender Studies
Research subject
Baltic and East European studies
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-50999 (URN)10.1177/13634607221124401 (DOI)000910676400001 ()
Funder
The Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies, 10/2019
Available from: 2023-02-14 Created: 2023-02-14 Last updated: 2023-02-17Bibliographically approved
Sundén, J. (2023). Play, secrecy and consent: Theorizing privacy breaches and sensitive data in the world of networked sex toys. Sexualities, 26(8), 926-940
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Play, secrecy and consent: Theorizing privacy breaches and sensitive data in the world of networked sex toys
2023 (English)In: Sexualities, ISSN 1363-4607, E-ISSN 1461-7382, Vol. 26, no 8, p. 926-940Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Based on a new materialist analysis of “vibrant matter” to understand the liveliness of sexual objects in toy-based sexual play, in this article I investigate the politics of thinking digital technologies as operating partly beyond human forms of agency and control. I use as my core examples privacy breaches and data leaks in the world of networked sex toys – such as a vibrator which allegedly audio recorded its clients’ play sessions without express permission – to engage with questions of intimacy and privacy in digital networks of humans and nonhumans. In particular, the discussion focuses on the consequences of new forms of publicness for how we can understand sexual intimacy and sexual play. What does it mean to have an intimate moment when connected to a device, a medium and a network that is by definition public, corporate and leaky? And how could we imagine other ways of being sexually intimate and exposed – yet safe – in public digital networks? Drawing on discussions of queer intimacy, sexual consent and queer BDSM, I suggest that current understandings of privacy and sensitive data (as per GDPR) may need unconventional sources to further ways of knowing what consent might mean, and how it feels. © The Author(s) 2020.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Sage Publications, 2023
Keywords
data consent and sexual consent, Digital intimacy, new materialism, public sex, sex toys, article, BDSM, drawing, human, human experiment, intimacy, politics, privacy, thinking
National Category
Gender Studies
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-41999 (URN)10.1177/1363460720957578 (DOI)000571073900001 ()2-s2.0-85091149672 (Scopus ID)
Available from: 2020-10-01 Created: 2020-10-01 Last updated: 2023-11-24Bibliographically approved
Albury, K., Stardust, Z. & Sundén, J. (2023). Queer and feminist reflections on sextech. Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters, 31(4), Article ID 2246751.
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Queer and feminist reflections on sextech
2023 (English)In: Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters, E-ISSN 2641-0397, Vol. 31, no 4, article id 2246751Article in journal, Editorial material (Refereed) Published
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Taylor & Francis Group, 2023
National Category
Gender Studies
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-52361 (URN)10.1080/26410397.2023.2246751 (DOI)001068606000001 ()37712402 (PubMedID)2-s2.0-85171277946 (Scopus ID)
Funder
Australian Research Council, CE200100005Forte, Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare, 2021-01927Australian Research Council, FT210100085
Available from: 2023-09-19 Created: 2023-09-19 Last updated: 2023-10-05Bibliographically approved
Tiidenberg, K., Paasonen, S., Sundén, J. & Vihlman, M. (2023). Vanilla normies and fellow pervs: Boundary work on sexual platforms. Sexualities
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Vanilla normies and fellow pervs: Boundary work on sexual platforms
2023 (English)In: Sexualities, ISSN 1363-4607, E-ISSN 1461-7382Article in journal (Refereed) Epub ahead of print
Abstract [en]

Building on a study of three Nordic and Baltic digital sexual platforms, this article analyzes the perceptions of enjoyable sex and sexual belonging among 60 people, who self-identify as sexually liberal. In dialogue with Gayle Rubin’s formative work on sexual hierarchies and “good sex,” we explore our participants’ complex and often ambiguous sexual boundary work to delineate liberated sex. Independent of particular preferences (non-monogamy, BDSM, fetishism, and exhibitionism), liberated sex for our participants is definitionally enjoyable and articulated via an aspirational hierarchy based on willingness, diversity/variability, and self-reflexivity—partly set against national sexual imaginaries of vanilla normalcy, yet allowing vanilla some gradations and nuances.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Sage Publications, 2023
Keywords
Boundary work of “good sex”, digital sexual platforms, liberated sex, national sexual imaginaries, vanilla normalcy, article, BDSM, exhibitionism, female, human, male, monogamy, perception, sexual fetishism, Vanilla
National Category
Gender Studies
Research subject
Baltic and East European studies
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-52797 (URN)10.1177/13634607231215763 (DOI)001102022600001 ()2-s2.0-85176965204 (Scopus ID)
Funder
The Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies, 10/2019Academy of Finland, 327391
Available from: 2023-11-29 Created: 2023-11-29 Last updated: 2023-12-04Bibliographically approved
Sundén, J., Paasonen, S., Tiidenberg, K. & Vihlman, M. (2022). Locating sex: regional geographies of sexual social media. Gender, Place and Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Locating sex: regional geographies of sexual social media
2022 (English)In: Gender, Place and Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography, ISSN 0966-369X, E-ISSN 1360-0524Article in journal (Refereed) Epub ahead of print
Abstract [en]

Contributing to the field of the geographies of digital sexualities, this article explores the geosocial dimensions of digital sexual cultures by analyzing three regionally operating, linguistically specific social media platforms devoted to sexual expression. Drawing on case studies of an Estonian platform used primarily for group sex, a Swedish platform for kink and BDSM, and a Finnish platform for nude self-expression, we ask how these contribute to and shape sexual geographies in digital and physical registers. First, we focus on the platforms as tools for digital wayfinding and hooking up. Second, we consider how the platforms help to reimagine and sexualize physical locations as ones of play, and how this transforms the ways of inhabiting such spaces. Third, we analyze how the platforms operate as sexual places in their own right, designed to accommodate certain forms of display, relating, and belonging. We argue, in particular, that these platforms shape how users imagine and engage with location by negotiating notions of proximity and distance, risk and safety, making space for sexual sociability. We approach geographies of sexuality both through the regional and linguistic boundaries within which these platforms operate, as well as through our participants' sense of comfort and investment in local spaces of sexual play. As sexual content is increasingly pushed out of large, U.S.-owned social media platforms, we argue that locally operating platforms provide a critical counterpoint, allowing for a vital re-platforming of sex on a regional level.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Routledge, 2022
National Category
Gender Studies
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-49944 (URN)10.1080/0966369X.2022.2122410 (DOI)000854532500001 ()2-s2.0-85138282063 (Scopus ID)
Funder
The Foundation for Baltic and East European StudiesAcademy of Finland, 327391
Available from: 2022-09-23 Created: 2022-09-23 Last updated: 2022-10-10Bibliographically approved
Sundén, J. & Paasonen, S. (2021). Isso é um absurdo!: Sobre o humor feminista nas redes sociais. Fronteiras – estudos midiáticos, 23(1), 2-10
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Isso é um absurdo!: Sobre o humor feminista nas redes sociais
2021 (Portuguese)In: Fronteiras – estudos midiáticos, ISSN 1984-8226, Vol. 23, no 1, p. 2-10Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [pt]

Nas redes sociais, o humor feminista geralmente chama a atenção pela dinâmica com que aborda o gênero binário, do qual zomba, subverte e comenta. Com foco no Tumblr “Congrats, you have an all male panel”, no perfil “Man Who Has It All” no Twitter e do Facebook e no perfil do Twitter “Men Write Women”, este artigo observa como esses projetos reexecutam o poder assimétrico de gênero binário por meio da repetição e subversão, extraindo seu apelo da própria lógica que eles mesmos criticam para ter um efeito disruptivo. Além disso, o texto questiona como as diferentes dinâmicas de plataforma de mídias sociais ajudam a agrupar certa sociabilidade e como a crítica do riso em rede aborda a importância da diversidade afetiva ao fazer piada de coisas absurdas. Nosso argumento é de que, ao recusar e evitar a lógica que a maioria oferece, e ao focar em situações absurdas, ridículas e inadequadas, este tipo de humor gera zonas produtivas de ambiguidade e risos incontroláveis onde tensões e diferenças se recusam a ser resolvidas.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Unisinos, Brazil: Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos, 2021
Keywords
Absurdo, Humor feminista, Redes sociais
National Category
Media Studies
Research subject
Critical and Cultural Theory
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-46739 (URN)10.4013/fem.2021.231.01 (DOI)
Available from: 2021-11-15 Created: 2021-11-15 Last updated: 2021-11-16Bibliographically approved
Sundén, J. (2021). Networked intimacies: Pandemic dis/connections between anxiety, joy, and laughter. In: André Jansson; Paul Adams (Ed.), Disentangling: The Geographies of Digital Disconnection (pp. 273-294). Oxford: Oxford University Press
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Networked intimacies: Pandemic dis/connections between anxiety, joy, and laughter
2021 (English)In: Disentangling: The Geographies of Digital Disconnection / [ed] André Jansson; Paul Adams, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021, p. 273-294Chapter in book (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

This chapter zooms in on transformations of intimacy and relational spaces in a time of a viral, global crisis. Set against the backdrop of “social distancing” practices, the chapter opens with a discussion of digital intimacy, focusing on the layering of anxiety and anticipation within networked connectivity. Secondly, it moves on to discuss how such anticipatory anxiety may become punctuated by pleasure and joy. Considering the dynamics between physical disconnection and digital intensity within pandemic hookup practices, it explores in particular instances of quarantine humor in queer hookup cultures. This humor stems from impossibly contradictory spaces of self-isolation, desire, and longing, in relation to which the swiftness of the swipe is transformed into a disconnect in the shape of a delay. The chapter ends with an example of Swedish, queer quarantine humor and a discussion of partial disconnections, or selective connectivity in difficult times in the interest of self-care.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021
Keywords
anxiety, anticipation, COVID-19, digital intimacy, networked connectivity, pandemic hookup cultures, pleasure, queer quarantine humor
National Category
Media Studies
Research subject
Critical and Cultural Theory
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-46742 (URN)10.1093/oso/9780197571873.003.0012 (DOI)2-s2.0-85133099402 (Scopus ID)9780197571873 (ISBN)
Available from: 2021-11-15 Created: 2021-11-15 Last updated: 2022-11-03Bibliographically approved
Paasonen, S. & Sundén, J. (2021). Shameless dicks: On male privilege, dick pic scandals, and public exposure. First Monday, 6(4-5)
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Shameless dicks: On male privilege, dick pic scandals, and public exposure
2021 (English)In: First Monday, E-ISSN 1396-0466, Vol. 6, no 4-5Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Academic debates on shame and the involuntary networked circulation of naked pictures have largely focused on instances of hacked accounts of female celebrities, on revenge porn, and interconnected forms of slut-shaming. Meanwhile, dick pics have been predominantly examined as vehicles of sexual harassment within heterosexual contexts. Taking a somewhat different approach, this article examines leaked or otherwise involuntarily exposed dick pics of men of notable social privilege, asking what kinds of media events such leaked data assemble, how penises become sites of public interest and attention, and how these bodies may be able to escape circuits of public shaming. By focusing on high-profile incidents on an international scale during the past decade, this article moves from the leaked shots of male politicians as governance through shaming to body-shaming targeted at Harvey Weinstein, to Jeff Bezos’s refusal to be shamed through his hacked dick pic, and to an accidentally self-published shaft shot of Lars Ohly, a Swedish politician, we examine the agency afforded by social privilege to slide through shame rather than be stuck in it. By building on feminist media studies and affect inquiry, we attend to the specificities of these attempts to shame, their connections to and disconnections from slut-shaming, and the possibilities and spaces offered for laughter within this all.

National Category
Gender Studies
Research subject
Critical and Cultural Theory
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-46740 (URN)10.5210/fm.v26i4.11654 (DOI)
Funder
Academy of Finland
Available from: 2021-11-15 Created: 2021-11-15 Last updated: 2022-05-10Bibliographically approved
Sundén, J. & Paasonen, S. (2021). “We have tiny purses in our vaginas!!! #thanksforthat”: absurdity as a feminist method of intervention. Qualitative Research Journal, 21(3), 233-243
Open this publication in new window or tab >>“We have tiny purses in our vaginas!!! #thanksforthat”: absurdity as a feminist method of intervention
2021 (English)In: Qualitative Research Journal, ISSN 1443-9883, E-ISSN 1448-0980, Vol. 21, no 3, p. 233-243Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Purpose: According to thesaurus definitions, the absurd translates as “ridiculously unreasonable, unsound, or incongruous”; “extremely silly; not logical and sensible”. As further indicated in the Latin root absurdus, “out of tune, uncouth, inappropriate, ridiculous,” humor in absurd registers plays with that which is out of harmony with both reason and decency. In this article, the authors make an argument for the absurd as a feminist method for tackling heterosexism. Design/methodology/approach: By focusing on the Twitter account “Men Write Women” (est. 2019), the rationale of which is to share literary excerpts from male authors describing women's experiences, thoughts and appearances, and which regularly broadens into social theater in the user reactions, the study explores the critical value of absurdity in feminist social media tactics. Findings: The study proposes the absurd as a means of not merely turning things around, or inside out, but disrupting and eschewing the hegemonic logic on offer. While both absurd humor and feminist activism may begin from a site of reactivity and negative evaluation, it need not remain confined to it. Rather, by turning things preposterous, ludicrous and inappropriate, absurd laughter ends up somewhere different. The feminist value of absurd humor has to do with both its critical edge and with the affective lifts and spaces of ambiguity that it allows for. Originality/value: Research on digital feminist activism has largely focused on the affective dynamics of anger. As there are multiple affective responses to sexism, our article foregrounds laughter and ambivalence as a means of claiming space differently in online cultures rife with hate, sexism and misogyny. 

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2021
Keywords
Absurdity, Affect, Feminist, Humor, Laughter, Twitter
National Category
Gender Studies
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-44656 (URN)10.1108/QRJ-09-2020-0108 (DOI)000630440400001 ()2-s2.0-85102689113 (Scopus ID)
Available from: 2021-03-30 Created: 2021-03-30 Last updated: 2021-08-20Bibliographically approved
Projects
Clockwork, Corsets, and Brass: The Politics and Dreams of Steampunk Cultures [P11-0091:1_RJ]; Södertörn University; Publications
Sundén, J. (2016). Glitch, genus, tillfälligt avbrott: Femininitet som trasighetens teknologi. Lambda Nordica (1-2), 23-45Sundén, J. (2015). Clockwork Corsets: Pressed Against the Past. International journal of cultural studies, 18(3), 379-383Sundén, J. (2015). On trans-, glitch and gender as machinery of failure. First Monday, 20(4), Article ID 5895. Sundén, J. (2015). Technologies of Feeling: Affect between the Analog and the Digital. In: Ken Hillis, Susanna Paasonen, and Michael Petit (Ed.), Networked Affect: (pp. 135-150). Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT PressSundén, J. (2015). Temporalities of Transition: Trans- temporal Femininity in a Human Musical Automaton. Somatechnics, 5(2), 197-216Sundén, J. (2014). Steampunk Practices: Time, Tactility, and a Racial Politics of Touch. Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology (5)Sundén, J. (2013). Corporeal Anachronisms: Notes on Affect, Relationality, and Power in Steampunk. Somatechnics, 3(2), 369-386Dahl, U. & Sundén, J. (2013). Guest Editors’ Introduction: Somatechnical Figurations. Somatechnics, 3(2), 225-232Sundén, J. (2012). Ångpunkens politik. In: Erling Bjurström, Martin Fredriksson, Ulf OIsson och Ann Werner (Ed.), Senmoderna reflexioner: Festskrift till Johan Fornäs (pp. 91-99). Linköping: Linköping University Electronic Press
Rethinking sexuality: A geopolitics of digital sexual cultures in Estonia, Sweden and Finland [10/2019_OSS]; Södertörn University; Publications
Paasonen, S., Sundén, J., Tiidenberg, K. & Vihlman, M. (2023). About Sex, Open-Mindedness, and Cinnamon Buns: Exploring Sexual Social Media. Social Media + Society, 9(1), Article ID 20563051221147324. Sundén, J. (2023). Digital kink obscurity: A sexual politics beyond visibility and comprehension. SexualitiesTiidenberg, K., Paasonen, S., Sundén, J. & Vihlman, M. (2023). Vanilla normies and fellow pervs: Boundary work on sexual platforms. Sexualities
Digital sexual health: Designing for safety, pleasure and wellbeing in LGBTQ+ communities [2021-01927_Forte]; Södertörn University; Publications
Albury, K., Stardust, Z. & Sundén, J. (2023). Queer and feminist reflections on sextech. Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters, 31(4), Article ID 2246751.
Organisations
Identifiers
ORCID iD: ORCID iD iconorcid.org/0000-0002-6047-4369

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