Alyson K. Spurgas

Trinity College · Sociology

For twentieth-century feminists, it was a rallying cry for bodily autonomy and political power. For influencers and lifestyle brands, it’s buying fancy nutrition and body products at a premium. And it has now infiltrated nearly every food, leisure, and pop-culture space as a hugely lucrative industry. What is it? To quote a million memes: it’s cal...

In this essay, I reconceptualize feminized trauma by utilizing a queer crip feminist disability justice framework. This reconceptualizing allows for an intervention in both historical psychoanalytic and contemporary biomedical framings of the experience of gendered and sexual violence, pursuant or sequelic trauma, and associated symptoms. Both hist...

The newly released Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5; American Psychiatric Association, 20135. American Psychiatric Association . ( 2013 ). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders () , 5th ed. . Arlington , VA : Author . View all references) brings together “interest” and “arousal” and removes “desire” from...

Responding to Palestinian organizers' calls to use our voice, continue to engage in conversations, and to speak out, this statement articulates what we see as the abolitionist and anti-colonial way forward—the only way we can commit to a free Palestine. Imagining and building alternatives is the future, the horizon of possibility, that Lateral, as...

This issue marks the addition of a new co-editor and several special projects, including Lateral‘s first podcast, Positions. This issue presents two important sections of work, both building on conversations in the field and across publications: "The Black Shoals Dossier," curated by Beenash Jafri, and the second part of "Crip Pandemic Life," edite...

This is the Introduction chapter, "Diagnosing Gender through Desire: How You Know You’re in Bed with a Woman," from my recently released book, Diagnosing Desire: Biopolitics and Femininity into the Twenty-First Century (OSUP, October 2020): https://ohiostatepress.org/books/titles/9780814214510.html Use code "DIAGNOSING" (all caps) at checkout an...

The aim of this chapter is to provide a critical analysis of current female sexual dysfunctions, as defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) of the American Psychiatric Association (2013). We begin by situating these purported disorders within their historical context, as well as discussing the imp...

The recently released DSM-5 (2013) includes a new sexual dysfunction: female sexual interest/arousal disorder (FSIAD). For the first time, the low sexual desire disorders are split along gender lines, and lack of sexual ‘receptivity’ is offered as a criterion for diagnosis in women only. Although ‘severe relationship distress’ or other ‘significant...

In response to Angel's commentary on my essay, I elaborate on 3 primary points that she highlights. I extend her discussion of the convergence between feminist/antimedicalization critiques of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and clinical/experimental psychiatric research with regard to gender essentialism; I engage wi...

In the fall of 2011, Jesse was invited to teach an Occupy Wall Street-inspired course in the Political Science Department at Brooklyn College, a campus of The City University of New York (CUNY). In the spirit of Occupy’s horizontalism, self-organization, and de-centering of authority, Jesse reached out to people in his political-academic networks,...

https://socialtextjournal.org/periscope_article/where-is-my-subjectivity-techno-imagery-femininity-desire/

A quick glance in the Science and Health sections of any major newspaper reveals how enamored mainstream culture in the United States has become with evolutionary neuropsychology. Over the last two decades, this scientific paradigm has been popularized to justify “common sense” notions about human sociality and behavior, especially the idea that th...

First place winner of the 2004 Alpha Kappa Delta Graduate Student Paper CompetitionPoor body image affects women of all races, ethnicities, socioeconomic statuses, and cultural backgrounds. Researchers have found that body image can influence a woman's self-confidence, her assertiveness, and her attitudes regarding eating and exercise habits. Much...