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“We will show them our sexts!” Ever since Hélène Cixous's battle cry in “The Laugh of the Medusa” (1975), female writers and filmmakers have set about doing just that. Dealing with such subversive and sexually explicit topics as sadomasochistic practices, partner-swapping, prostitution, rape and incest, they have tended to emphasize first and foremost the importance of self-expression and the need to break the silence surrounding women's most diverse sexual experiences. Despite accusations of narcissism and exhibitionism which are sometimes levelled against them, these works are commonly hailed as bold signs of women's coming to voice and of their collective emancipation from heteronormative patriarchy. The works discussed in this article, Nelly Arcan's Putain and Anne F. Garréta's Pas un jour, take issue with these assumptions. Whilst initially masquerading as “confessional” works, these texts seek to challenge the premises of the confessional genre. Their position chimes with Michel Foucault's claim in The History of Sexuality, namely that sexuality in the modern age, rather than being subject to censorship and repression, has in fact produced a “veritable discursive explosion.” We are, it would seem, constantly compelled to speak about sex, the irony of such an imperative being that we conceive of it as a form of liberation. Arcan and Garréta call on us to question whether the current trend of confessional writing by women and its emphasis on disclosure does not constitute yet another form of coercion. Focusing here on two central motifs—scandalous repetition in Arcan, ironic detachment in Garréta—I examine some of the key strategies mobilized in their “anti-confessions.”

Bien que le rôle des femmes dans le recrutement de prostituées ne soit pas un phénomène nouveau, peu d’études se sont intéressées au sujet. L’intérêt de cette recherche repose d’ailleurs sur le manque de connaissances de cette problématique qui semble pourtant bien présente dans la société québécoise contemporaine. À l’aide d’entrevues auprès de 15 intervenants du milieu de la police, des organisations communautaires et des centres jeunesse, nous avons recensé de l’information sur 26 cas de femmes recruteuses. L’analyse de différents critères nous a permis de les classer en trois catégories, soit les partenaires, les entremetteuses et les tenancières. Contrairement aux entremetteuses et aux tenancières, les partenaires entretiennent une relation avec un homme complice. Les partenaires, tout comme les tenancières, ont toutes un passé dans …

How can a sexual act in exchange of money with an art collector be offered as a work of art? In 2003, performer and conceptual artist Andrea Fraser committed the unthinkable of sleeping with an art collector in order to critique the contemporary art milieu and market. The following article proposes a thematic analysis of sexual and ethical components of this work of art entitled Untitled. I will first discuss possible meanings of such a performance and its artistic considerations. I will then address more precisely the troubled position of the artist's subjectivity, which vacillates between a sexual object and an artist. Moreover, the article will highlight the innovative position presented by this work of art on ethical issues regarding sex work by deconstructing paternalistic claims generally used to support the criminalization of sex work. Finally, I will discuss how the sexual nature of this work of art comes to desecrate art, along with sexuality, thereby criticizing the idea that sexuality is the main site of subjectivity. Through this desecration of sexuality, I argue that Untitled offers the possibility to apprehend sex work in a more neutral way.

SummaryThe sexual revolution has had a limited success, and what can be said of the situation today? Sexuality seems to be blocked at the level of fantasies and practiced relatively little as pleasure. Some explanations of this failure in the liberalization of morals are discussed: inequality of men and women, the naturalization and privatization of sexuality, the combination sex/love and the ambiguity regarding sexual violence. Finally, a question is asked: how can different sexual expressions be unlocked and a multisexual society be envisaged?

Background: Crack cocaine use is increasing among Montréal street youth. This project aimed to estimate prevalence of crack cocaine use among these youths and to evaluate the association between crack cocaine use and risky behaviours that lead to sexually transmitted and blood-borne infections (STI).Methods: Analyses were realised on data collected during a cohort study conducted among Montréal street youth. Youths aged 14 to 23 years old (n=858) completed an interviewer-administered questionnaire. We estimated lifetime and recent (last six months before the study) proportions of use. We used multiple logistic regression to evaluate the association between crack cocaine use and concomitant sexual and psychoactive substances use behaviours.Results: Lifetime use prevalence was 66.6%, 95% confidence interval [63.4-69.8]; recent use prevalence was 38.0% [34.7-41.3]. Controlling for potential confounders, street youth using crack cocaine were more at risk of prostituting themselves (odds ratio (OR) 3.6 [2.4-5.5]), of having more than two sexual partners (OR 2.3 [1.7-3.1]), of having a sexual partner who had HIV (OR 8.4 [1.6-43.5]), who was a man prostituting himself (OR 6.4 [3.1-13.1]), who was a woman prostituting herself (OR 3.1 [2.0-4.9]) or who was a man having homosexual relations (OR 3.3 [1.9-4.8]). Youth using crack cocaine were also more at risk of having consumed alcohol during the last month (OR 2.0 [1.2-3.1]), of having injected drugs (OR 3.0 [2.1-4.1]) and of having used more than one drug (OR 10.3 [5.3-20.0]).Conclusions: Crack cocaine use is widespread among Montreal street youth. Those who use it have more STI risk behaviours. Future studies should investigate risk factors of initial use in order to ultimately identify appropriate prevention measures.

Keywords: Jeunes de la rue, crack, infections transmissibles sexuellement et par le sang, comportements à risque, substances psychoactives, conduites sexuelles, Street youth, crack cocaine, sexually transmitted and blood-borne infections, high-risk behaviours, psychoactive substances, sexual behaviours, Jóvenes de la calle, crack, infecciones de transmisión sexual y por la sangre, comportamientos a riesgo, sustancias psicoactivas, comportamientos sexuales

AbstractThis article focuses on the strategies pursued by Anglo-American translators in dealing with Dante's sexual imagery in the Comedy. The author attempts to explain why the original imagery — which condemns a corrupt Roman Catholic Church — has sexist connotations, and why it is reproduced in most translations in the corpus. “Fidelity” or adequacy with respect to sexual/sexist images seems striking in view of the fact that certa..n translators bowdlerize the source text or tone down the boldness of its vernacular style. It is suggested that the patriarchal nature of both the Italian and English languages explains why the use of sexist imagery is tolerated (or perhaps even encouraged) in literary texts. The findings of the analysis are then brought to bear on one important question: should the translation scholar aim to bring about “politically correct” changes in translation practice, that is, changes attenuating the offensiveness of the original language? The author advocates a descriptive approach, even though “gender and translation” seems more politicized than other areas of research within Translation Studies. The paper concludes that Translation Studies may benefit from the findings of gender studies, provided scholars in this area do not attempt to change actual translation practice and focus on the hermeneutics of translation. In fact, gender scholars can make an important contribution to Translation Studies by focusing on the ideological nature of the gendered construction of meaning.

Keywords: Dante, translation, gender studies, sexism, imagery, Dante, traduction, études sur les rôles masculins et féminins, sexisme, imagerie

AbstractAccording to one particular intellectual discourse, X film fairs are only an avatar of the fact of the pornographic genre. For the organizers, these fairs are an opportunity to present their legitimate conception of “X art” and the style of contemplation it imposes compared with rival conceptions. For the public, attending X film fairs implies a negotiation between the desire for sexual freedom the “hard” style represents and the realities of a “meeting together” where the visitor is no longer protected. Based on the results of a field study (minute questionnaires) carried out at the “Hot Video fair” in November 2000 in Paris, we would like to describe the various alternatives of a type of sexual representation initially conceived for individual consumption that are on offer in a collective space, and the various aporia reached by this exercise.