Just Say No? The Youth Chastity Movement in Australia

Researchers:

Dr Abigail Bray
Dr Elizabeth Reid Boyd (Edith Cowan University)

This is a pilot study in the Australian youth chastity movement in order to discover how 'just say no' is reshaping discourse of sexuality, gender and youth culture. is chastity an attempt to escape the increased surveillance, control and commodification of sexuality which is so much a part of youth 'raunch' culture? How might such a resistance be caught up in the production of alternative sexual and cultural ethics? Does the emergence of a chastity movement here and in America signal a broader social nostalgia for the certainty of older moral systems?

Outcomes

Conference papers and presentations
(2006) 'Writing mental health intervention for the mainstream' (with Elizabeth Reid Boyd) Women, Health and Education. CASWE Institute 6th Bi-Annual Conference, May 30-June 1.

Community talks at PLC, St Mary's, and Gender Breakfast for Primary School Children in 2005.