Graduation Year
Spring 2014
Document Type
Campus Only Senior Thesis
Department
Anthropology
Reader 1
Seo Young Park
Reader 2
Pardis Mahdavi
Reader 3
Susan Castagnetto
Terms of Use & License Information
Rights Information
© 2014 Laura R. Jeddeloh
Abstract
This thesis explores the multiple sexual discourses at the Claremont Colleges and the ways in which they create understanding of normative sexual behavior. It situates Claremont in the rising national consciousness and research on college student’s sexual behavior. It examines the dual discourses of sex and sexual violence, arguing that discussions of sexual violence have started to inform the every-day student discourses of sex. The data is drawn from Claremont media publications, and interviews with campus activist groups and individual students themselves. This thesis asserts that the dual narratives of sexual “pleasure and danger” in the national and Claremonts media sources are complicated by the discourses of Claremont students. The voices of individual students challenge the essentialized mainstream assumptions about the “hookup culture” and reveal that talking about sex plays a far more diverse and significant factor in the social fabric of student lives.
Recommended Citation
Jeddeloh, Laura R., "Let’s Talk about Sex: An Examination of Sexual Discourses at the Claremont Colleges" (2014). Scripps Senior Theses. 468.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/468
This thesis is restricted to the Claremont Colleges current faculty, students, and staff.
