Raffaella Ferrero camoletto

• MA in Philosophy, PhD in Sociology
• Professor (Associate) at University of Turin

Relying on empirical data from two research projects on CrossFit and parkour, and adopting mixed methods (enactive ethnography, participant observation, online survey and social media analysis), this article aims at evidencing the role of apparel and gear in some processes engendering a transformation of the two practices. We investigate the making...

The present study addresses a neglected research question: does female masturbation moderate the association between pornography consumption during adolescence and sexual attitudes and behavior in later life? We adopt a theoretical perspective derived from the sexual script approach: since masturbation triggers the activation of sexual scripts acqu...

The advent of Viagra and its competitors has triggered a proliferation of discourses on male sexual lifestyles and life courses and endorsed their adjustment through medical treatments and pharmaceutical devices. This chapter explores how Italian general practitioners (GPs) position themselves within this scenario, showing how they, while accountin...

This article explores the transformation of rock climbing in a North-Western Italian region, paying attention to the need for 'keeping it natural' in the process of authentication of the practice among a sample of climbers. Like other nature sports such as rafting, skydiving and surfing, rock climbing has been affected by processes of indoorization...

Whereas studies on subcultural styles have mainly focused on objects, actions, attitudes and language, this chapter explores how the use of urban space represents a constitutive and distinctive dimension of some youth cultures. The main interpretive perspective is that a shift is potentially occurring from a “spatialisation of styles” to a “stylisa...

Drawing the boundaries around sex as a purchase is an everyday accomplishment for men, a core aspect in the scripting - in particular - of heterosexual masculinity. We argue that exploring these scripting practices is a fruitful perspective to address the meanings of sex for sale within changing configurations of gender and sexuality, and to overco...

In the last decades, parkour as a urban bodily practice has gained an extraordinary visibility in the global sportscape, thanks to its precocious mediatization in blockbuster movies and documentaries, in internet video channels like Youtube, in websites and in social networks (Gilchrist and Wheaton 2011, 2012; Stapleton, Terrio 2010). In Italy too,...

Whilst being the world’s fastest growing informal sport, parkour is also undergoing a gradual institutionalisation which is shaped differently by each national context’s specific sport system. We investigate this glocalised process by examining the subcultural tensions and power struggles it generates within the Italian parkour community. Whereas i...

Nella società individualizzata, il «diventare se stessi» ha assunto la valenza di un nuovo imperativo sociale, al tempo stesso un diritto e un dovere per ogni soggetto (Beck 2000; Bauman 2001; Beck e Beck-Ger-nsheim 2002). Se la cura del proprio corpo è una delle modalità attraverso cui espletare tale dovere, tra i molti discorsi che veicolano ques...

Il paper si propone di indagare l'intreccio dei processi di costruzione del genere e della sessualità attraverso l'analisi dei risultati di una recente indagine sugli atteggiamenti e i comportamenti sessuali dei giovani in una regione del Nord-Italia. La ricerca, condotta tra febbraio e ottobre 2006, prevedeva una survey (Indagine sulla Sessualità...

Nell’epoca contemporanea il corpo sembra aver acquistato una centralità mai posseduta in precedenza: infatti, se indubbiamente tutte le società hanno incessantemente ‘lavorato’ sui corpi, a livello sia simbolico che materiale, tuttavia è importante rilevare come oggi il corpo abbia assunto una natura sempre più malleabile, per cui esso viene percep...

Come si configura oggi una decisione cruciale per gli individui e per la società come quella di avere figli? Tre sono le grandi trasformazioni osservabili. Innanzitutto si diventa genitori per la prima volta più tardi; per le donne avere figli e lavorare sono diventate due esperienze di vita da tenere strettamente insieme; infine, seppure mai come...

The " Viagra phenomenon " is the most visible, and studied, expression of a broader global process of medicalization of male sexuality. Associating male health with self-control and the expression of sexual potency, this process is giving shape to a new public discourse on masculinity, taking the form of a medicalized virilism: legitimized by scien...

POLISπóλις ς ς ς, XXIV, 3, dicembre 2010, pp. 359-388 DALLA RISPETTABILITÀ ALL'AUTENTICITÀ? LA RIDEFINIZIONE DEL SIGNIFICATO DELLA VERGINITÀ TRA I GIOVANI 1. Introduzione È assai diffusa l'idea che il XX secolo sia stato per tutte le nazioni occidentali un periodo di grandi cambiamenti anche nel campo della sessualità 1. All'interno di questo scena...

POLISπóλις ς ς ς, XXV, 3, dicembre 2011, pp. 363-392 SESSUALITÀ FEMMINILE TRA NUOVI DESIDERI E NUOVI CONFINI 1. Introduzione A guardarli dal punto di vista delle donne, i mutamenti avvenuti negli ultimi cinquant'anni nei modi di vivere e di rappresentare la sessualità in Italia appaiono radicali. In questo articolo, li ripercor-riamo seguendo un do...

Le Breton, David La pelle e la traccia. Le ferite del sé Roma, Meltemi, 2005, 168 pp.

Book reviews Amy T. Schalet, Not Under My Roof. Parents, Teens and the Culture of Sex. Chicago-London: The University of Chicago Press, 2011, 312 pp.

Book reviews Jenny Hockey, Angela Meah and Victoria Robinson, Mundane Heterosexualities. From Theory to Practices. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007, 206 pp.

Quite widespread today is the perception that we live in the age of the sexualization of culture, in which the topic of sex becomes ever more visible and legitimate. There are some who understand this tendency in positive and emancipatory terms; nevertheless, the prevailing common opinion seems to be that we live in an anymore immodest society, voi...

I Workshop on Bioethics and Sexual Medicine Atti congressuali Roma, 7–8 novembre 2014 Evento congiunto SIA LAMS e APRA Società Italiana di Andrologia Macroregione Lazio Abruzzo Molise Sardegna e Facoltà di Bioetica dell’Ateneo Pontificio Regina Apostolorum

This chapter aims at exploring the intersections of gender, sexuality and ageing in the Viagra era, by investigating medical expert discourses and social representations of men’s sexual health problems. I will focus is on the transformation of the social representation and cultural norms concerning ageing at the intersection of two cultural phenome...

La storia recente è stata segnata da cambiamenti radicali nei modi di vivere la sessualità. Soprattutto se la si guarda dal punto di vista delle donne. Per contro, la sessualità maschile, soprattutto quella banale, quotidiana, del marito e padre di famiglia, è rimasta un universo ampiamente inesplorato, oscurato dall’apparire biologicamente determi...

This contribution has a double aim: to state the relevance of male homosociality as a research object, and to illustrate the heuristic fruitfulness of looking at the situational specificities of homosocial interactions, as suggested by our research experiences. A review of research on male homosociality shows a move from viewing it as a context of...

This article explores the encounter between parkour as an unstructured and culturally innovative practice, challenging both physical as well as organisational spaces, and UISP (Unione Italiana Sport per Tutti/Italian Union of Sport for All) as a sport-promotion body open to organisational and cultural experimentation. Drawing on a multi-method qual...

The "Viagra phenomenon" is the most visible expression of a global process of construction of masculinity through medicalized practices, led by an alliance of specialized physicians' expert discourses and multinational pharmaceutical companies' marketing strategies. In Italy, since direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs is not allowed...

The paper aims at exploring the processes by which men perform their masculinities while accounting for their heterosexual biographies and making sense of their sexual experiences. Based on the analysis of 30 in depth interviews, carried out in 2007-08, with a sample of men aged 18 to 35 living in Piedmont, Northern Italy, the paper focuses on a pe...

Recent years have witnessed new processes of visibilisation of adult heterosexual men's sexuality in the public arena in Italy, culminating in discussions on sexual scandals. The authors explore here one of these processes: the current mediatisation of a medicalised male sexuality, which appears as a more socially legitimate and scientifically grou...

Based on survey data of 1000 young people aged 18–29 and semi-structured interviews with 51 young people aged 18–34 living in a north-western Italian region, the article explores how they account for their first heterosexual intercourse. Young people describe and make sense of their experiences by referring to sexual scripts; narrative sequences th...

A gendered perspective, with considerations on male sexuality in particular, is fundamental when it comes to understanding the long-term and recent changes in the meanings and experiences of sexuality in Italy. In support, of this argument, the article points to the limited attention devoted to intersections between sexuality and gender in the cons...

Little research has challenged a naturalized conception of male (hetero) sexuality by looking at the multiple ways in which heterosexual men experience and make sense of sexuality in their everyday lives. In this article, after outlining the forms that such a conception has taken in recent Italian history, we explore how men and women deal with the...

The processes of reproduction and change of adult masculinities through everyday sexual practices remain largely invisible to research. Our attempt is to shed light upon these processes by investigating middle-aged Italian men's accounts of their heterosexual, sexual biographies on the basis of 36 in-depth interviews. These cohorts of men have expe...

The article is based on quantitative and qualitative data from a study carried out in 2006, entailing a survey on a sample in quotas of 1000 young people representative of a population aged between 18-29 and resident in Piedmont, and 51 biographical interviews with young people between the ages of 18 and 34. The article shows how the exploration of...

129 5. Like a sex machine? La naturalizzazione della sessualità maschile di Raffaella Ferrero Camoletto e Chiara Bertone* 5.1. Introduzione «La prima volta che sono andato con una puttana è perché ero uscito con una don-na. Ero andato fuori a cena e tutto quanto… Cioè, è un percorso che andava molto all'epoca… Per ottenere quello che volevi e andar...

Arnaldo Spallacci, Maschi, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2012, pp. 198.

Ormai superate le logiche autoritarie del tipo "i figli devono obbedire ai padri" o "i giovani devono conformarsi agli adulti", che cosa orienta nella cultura occidentale i processi di socializzazione, per quanto riguarda le modalità di trasmissione dei valori significativi alle generazione successive? Per molti adulti un'attenzione critica ma non...

In high-modern society, the shift from production to consumption and from selling goods to selling services has given a greater importance to the experiencial dimension of commodities: what matters is not only the material nature of commodities, but also the way they are consumed. In the loisir sector, there is an increasing market of experiential...

Il concetto di capitale sociale ha ormai conquistato un posto di rilievo nel lessico delle scienze politico-sociali, suscitando plausi entusiastici da parte di alcuni e reazioni critiche e scettiche da parte di altri. L’introduzione di tale concetto si lega certamente ad una tradizione teorica e di ricerca precedente, alimentata da concetti affini...

Qual e la ragione di questo slancio verso il piu estraneo dei continenti perche il piu ovvio, il piu sacro, il piu pericoloso: il continente del proprio se? Che cosa spiega questo movimento apparentemente del tutto individuale e tuttavia addirittura schematico, questo ardore, quasi possessione, questa prontezza al dolore, mancanza di riguardo e pia...

In contemporary society, described as `consumption society' as well as `risk society', the body got again a central social role, as it is considered a place for the election of lifestyles in the former one and for monitoring everyday practices menaced by new emerging dangers in the latter one. In spite of this apparent contradiction, these two tren...