On the aesthetic difficulties of research on sex education: toward a methodology of affect

Abstract

This paper emerges from an ongoing, three-year qualitative study of how adolescents, teachers, and peer sexual health educators interpret the language of abstinence and represent the emotional meanings that enliven sexuality and sexual health. The paper demonstrates how conflicts of thinking and relationality emerge from aesthetic narratives about adolescent sexuality found in a short film. Aesthetic problems of representing sexuality, subjectivity, and emotional significance found in focus group data are brought to a discussion of some methodological dilemmas of conducting research on the emotional contexts of sexual health education. Drawing on psychoanalytic theories of thinking and symbolization, this paper considers how aesthetic encounters with film may enable researchers and educators to explore the hidden investments and evasive maneuvers that structure conversations about sexuality and emotional life.

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