This preliminary study reviews the promotion of healthy body image to young Australian women, following the 2009 introduction of the voluntary Industry Code of Conduct on Body Image. The Code includes using diverse sized models in magazines. A qualitative content analysis of the 2010 annual 'swimsuit issues' was conducted on 10 Australian young women's magazines. Pictorial and/or textual editorial evidence of promoting diverse body shapes and sizes was regarded as indicative of the magazines' upholding aspects of the voluntary Code of Conduct for Body Image. Diverse sized models were incorporated in four of the seven magazines with swimsuit features sampled. Body size differentials were presented as part of the swimsuit features in three of the magazines sampled. Tips for diverse body type enhancement were included in four of the magazines. All magazines met at least one criterion. One magazine displayed evidence of all three criteria. Preliminary examination suggests that more than half of young women's magazines are upholding elements of the voluntary Code of Conduct for Body Image, through representation of diverse-sized women in their swimsuit issues.

Romancing the Fantasy: #Booklove TikTok has been credited with encouraging young readers to #booklove through its BookTok community. However, the BookTok “trend for ‘spicy’ (i.e. sexy) books has led to fears children may be reading titles with adult content” (Knight). To ascertain the tenor of the adult content in these sexy books, we analyse a popular BookTok novel known for its spicy sex scenes: A Court of Mist and Fury (ACOMAF), a novel by Sarah J. Maas, the “reigning queen of romantasy” (Grady) and “mortal queen of faerie smut” (VanArendonk). Positively, Maas’s novel includes extended erotic scenes that both represent and invite female arousal and desire. By depicting the female protagonist's body responding enthusiastically to her lover's touch, these scenes counter concerns about problematic gender ideologies contained in mainstream pornography and challenge how female sexual desire and agency have been minimised historically. Problematically, however, the novel reinforces a heterosexual romance script that says once a woman finds her soul mate, she has no need to tell her lover how she wants to be touched because he knows exactly how to please her sexually. We argue that while the female protagonist expresses her desire and experiences sexual pleasure without shame, the articulation of this desire occurs as internal narration rather than external articulation to her lover in the storyworld, which weakens the potential for the novel to model a love literacy that highlights self-agency as part of self-love and sexual desire. Love literacy includes learning how to make distinctions between eros, romance, and pornography. Akin to sexologists who advocate for porn literacy for young people (Woodley et al.), our concept of love literacy is part of a much-needed expansion of our understandings of what has often been assumed or implicit: a view of love and sexual relationships as being natural, rather than socially constructed (we’ll know the right person / the right time / they’ll know what I want and need, and so on). Making such distinctions lies in understanding that our moral imaginations create and are created by the texts we read (Boyd). This understanding includes, rather than excludes, a recognition of the felt sense that is unique to every individual, a reading through the body that includes the awakening and recognition of desire. The distinction between art and porn can be fine (Bray, The Question). One distinction that has long been drawn is between visual art and pornography – currently contested in manifestations of #MeToo protests, with millennial feminist activists at the Louvre covering female nudes with #MeToo graffiti (France24). Another distinction lies in definitions of what is erotica and/or what is pornography, and their connection to writings about love. The origin of the word pornography stems from writing about prostitution, while the word erotica comes from eros/love. Romance refers historically to stories written in the romanz language originally connected to fairy tales, also called wonder tales and often told by women; it now denotes love and/or erotic stories. The word fantasy comes from the Greek phantasia – an image or perception that includes picturing oneself. Euphemisms like “sensual”, “steamy”, “hot”, and “spicy” have long been used in the romance genre. Today, lines are even more blurred by the emergence of a new genre, a hybrid of romance-focussed fantasy novels and a new word that appears to have emerged via TikTok hashtags: romantasy. Female Sexual Desire: Mixed Messages In her book Come as You Are, Emily Nagoski proposes that while young people think they know a lot about sex, what they know a lot about is what their culture believes about sex, rather than sex itself. Despite the deconstruction of sexual interactions that has taken place in the last decades, messages concerning sexual desire remain outdated and most adults and teenagers still absorb their content. Nagoski suggests three powerful messages, all exhibiting double standards for men and women: 1) the moral message; 2) the medical message; and 3) the media message. The moral message, still the most powerful for women, depicts the paradox between treasuring virginity (safe keeping your body for the man who will love you) yet being desirable, an impossible standard because “if you are sexually desirable, you are, by definition, unlovable” (Nagoski 159). Texts depicting this so-called “ideal” position of female desire have influenced Western thought since at least the Victorian period and may be summarised in William Acton's infamous words: “women, if ‘well brought up,’ are, and should be, absolutely ignorant of all matters concerning [sex] … ‘the majority of women (happily for society) are not very much troubled with sexual feeling of any kind’” (Acton in Everaerd et al. 103). A more recent medical message – that women's desire, arousal, and orgasm are biologically analogous to men’s – derives from the work of researchers in sexuality in the last century, many of whom want to recognise and offer parity between the sexual man and woman. However, if a woman’s sexual response or quantifiable sexual desire does not follow men’s, then she is seen as dysfunctional, leading women into another double bind. Enter message number three to the rescue: the newer, media message, which presents sexuality for all genders as unlimited. If one is not engaged in multiple orgasms, uncountable sexual positions, volatile and explosive sexual responses, engrossed in pornography, or sexually interacting with gendered and non-gendered others, then one is atypical or is missing out! Representing Female Sexual Pleasure Mixed messages internalised by society vis-à-vis female sexual...

Are there ladies and gentlemen in the 21st century? Do we need them? In the 20th century, lady became particularly unpopular with second wave feminists, who preferred ‘woman’. Gentleman was seen as similarly politically incorrect: class, race and culture bound. Following previous research on the word lady, we explore here some current evocations and debates around these words. We consider how the more casual, etymologically gendered term ‘guy’ has been utilized for men and women, and how it functions to reflect and obscure gender. While the return of the lady might be considered a consumer fad, a neo-conservative post-feminist backlash, or nostalgia for an elite ‘polite society’, it also offers an opportunity for a deeper discussion about civility as part of a broader conversation that is gaining impetus in the Western world. Politeness is personal and political. Whilst evidence for a comeback of the gentleman is limited, we critically consider the re-emergence of the lady as reflecting a deeper desire for applied sexual and social ethics. Such gender ethics have global, social and cultural ramifications that we ought not to underestimate. The desire for a culture of civility is gaining momentum as we are increasingly confronted with the violent consequences of a culture without it.

INTRODUCTION: This article examines the cultural meaning of control, coercion, and violence among married Pakistani women in Western Australia. There is a dearth of literature on Pakistani migrant populations in Australia despite their growing number and this study provides significant insight into migrant women’s perspectives on marriage, and how it relates to familial patriarchy and culturally acquired values and norms that impact on their behaviour. The article builds on the core argument of cultural wedding scripts (CWS, henceforth) explored in this research that emphasises marriage as a social institution founded on culturally prescribed norms, traditions and values demanding individuals’ conformity and instilling understanding informed by such scripts among the groups that shape how they respond to social realities. METHODS: This qualitative study involved face-to-face, semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 21 married Pakistani women who migrated to Western Australia (WA). Thematic analysis suggested by Braun and Clarke (2023) was employed for data analysis. Pseudonyms have been used for anonymity. FINDINGS: Our findings suggest that the more women conform to familial patriarchy, the less likely they are to face control, coercion, and violence in their marriages both in the home and host countries. CONCLUSIONS: A deeper understanding of familial patriarchy and cultural constructions of marital institutions among migrant communities can provide social workers and human service workers with knowledge of the cultural contexts of abuse, particularly the influence of internalised patriarchal norms, values and women’s submission and resistance.

This article is an enquiry between two educators, one from social science and the other from counselling psychology, exploring how Positive Autoethnography can be applied in both teaching and therapeutic contexts. An exploration by co-founders of #Love@ECU, a research initiative at Edith Cowan University (ECU) in Western Australia, the piece investigates the intersection of emotional learning and educational practice through the emerging framework of Heart Skills, an original format currently used in teaching interpersonal skills at ECU. It integrates personal narrative, embodied experience and emotional insight to consider how student growth and resilience can be cultivated. Central to this exploration is the concept of the heart as a bridge between body and mind, offering a holistic perspective that connects cognitive and somatic awareness. As part of ongoing work, we present here a series of reflective writing exercises, such as composing 'love letters to the dear heart', designed to foster self-love, emotional insight and healing through narrative. These exercises are intended to be shaped into autoethnographic artefacts that trace the development of the 10 core Heart Skills, that include empathy, assertiveness, compassion and leadership. Our aim is to create practical applications of Positive Autoethnography (PosAE) that support both pedagogical and therapeutic outcomes. This exploration lays the groundwork for future empirical research using Positive Autoethnography. By expanding the Heart Skills model through experiential, creative and reflective practices into a Heart Skills PosAE Toolkit, we hope to offer a transformative framework for heartful learning and emotional development across disciplines.