Vanilla normies and fellow pervs: Boundary work on sexual platforms
2025 (English)In: Sexualities, ISSN 1363-4607, E-ISSN 1461-7382, Vol. 28, no 5-6, p. 1794-1810Article in journal (Refereed) Published
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, 2025. Vol. 28, no 5-6, p. 1794-1810
Keywords [en]
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: urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-52797DOI: 10.1177/13634607231215763ISI: 001102022600001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85176965204OAI: oai:DiVA.org:sh-52797DiVA, id: diva2:1815546
Part of project
Rethinking sexuality: A geopolitics of digital sexual cultures in Estonia, Sweden and Finland, The Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies
Funder
The Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies, 10/2019Academy of Finland, 3273912023-11-292023-11-292025-11-06Bibliographically approved