James-Hawkins, Laurie and Jozkowski, Kristen (2023) “I just wasn’t thinking”: Strategic Ambiguity and women’s accounts of unprotected sex. Journal of Sex Research, 61 (5). pp. 695-708. DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2023.2201252
James-Hawkins, Laurie and Jozkowski, Kristen (2023) “I just wasn’t thinking”: Strategic Ambiguity and women’s accounts of unprotected sex. Journal of Sex Research, 61 (5). pp. 695-708. DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2023.2201252
James-Hawkins, Laurie and Jozkowski, Kristen (2023) “I just wasn’t thinking”: Strategic Ambiguity and women’s accounts of unprotected sex. Journal of Sex Research, 61 (5). pp. 695-708. DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2023.2201252
Abstract
Heterosexual university students continue to endorse sexual scripts that preference men’s desire and sustain gendered power imbalances in sexual relationships and encounters, leading women to risk pregnancy by engaging in unprotected sex. Because young women also endorse norms encouraging them to protect themselves and their partners from unintended pregnancy, women are caught in a bind between two often competing norms. We conducted semi-structured individual interviews with university women (n=45) to examine how they navigate these competing norms. We found that women explained risky contraceptive decisions by saying they “just weren’t thinking”, thus employing strategic ambiguity, or vague language used to maintain social status, to navigate between competing norms. Our findings suggest that women were actually thinking about risks and making calculated decisions in the moment which often privileged men, putting themselves at risk and sometimes causing distress. To save face, women presented the idea that they “just weren’t thinking” in different ways that conformed to traditional notions of romance and sexuality: being in the moment, love and trust for their partner, and deferring to the perceived or actual wishes of men. We conclude that there is a need to promote and achieve affirmative sexuality which includes women feeling empowered to express their own sexual needs --whether that be consent or refusal, contraception, pleasure, or all of these.
Item Type: | Article |
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Uncontrolled Keywords: | Humans; Unsafe Sex; Qualitative Research; Students; Universities; Adolescent; Adult; Female; Young Adult |
Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences Faculty of Social Sciences > Sociology and Criminology, Department of |
SWORD Depositor: | Unnamed user with email elements@essex.ac.uk |
Depositing User: | Unnamed user with email elements@essex.ac.uk |
Date Deposited: | 28 Apr 2023 14:13 |
Last Modified: | 07 Aug 2024 20:14 |
URI: | http://repository.essex.ac.uk/id/eprint/35357 |
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Filename: I Just Wasn t Thinking Strategic Ambiguity and Women s Accounts of Unprotected Sex.pdf
Licence: Creative Commons: Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0