“Don’t fake the big O”: Portrayals of faking orgasm among women in Cosmo and Glamour

Many women report faking orgasm, at least on occasion, during heterosex (i.e., heterosexual sexual activities). The reasons for the practice include validating the skill of a male lover, a way of ending sexual encounters, and to avoid pathologization that is often associated with orgasmic absence. Constructions of heterosex, female sexuality, and sexual pleasure are influenced by multiple sources including the media. However, there is a lack of systematic research on how faking orgasm is presented in the media. This gap in research provided an opportunity to investigate women’s magazines’ portrayals of the practice. Using constructionist thematic analysis, 69 online articles, published by two popular women’s magazines, Cosmopolitan and Glamour, were analyzed. From the examined articles, two major themes emerged: faking as a common practice (especially via women’s first-hand accounts) and instructing the reader not to fake. It is our contention that together the two themes create a distinctly postfeminist portrayal of faking orgasm. On the one hand, the magazines included and highlighted women’s own experiences and reasons for faking orgasm. On the other hand, female readers were instructed to avoid faking in the name of personal responsibility and empowerment. Notably, the magazines omitted any discussion of gender power relations in their appeals for choice and sexual agency. Overall, this study expands our understanding of women magazines’ contradictory portrayals of women’s sexuality, sexual pleasure, and navigation of its absence.

"How much desire should I have?": a qualitative study of low libido in postmenopausal women

We conducted 15 interviews and 3 focus groups (total N = 36) among women 60 and older with low libido to better understand the role that it plays in their lives. Interviews and focus groups were led by facilitators using open-ended questions. A codebook was developed, then codes were assigned to all data. We identified three themes. First, women reported that sex was an important aspect of their lives. Second, women desired to know what was "normal" with regards to sexuality and aging. Third, women were distressed by low libido, concerned that it could have negative effects on romantic relationships and self-image.

[Gender meanings of the risk of sexually transmitted infections/HIV transmission among young people]

Objetivo

Establecer vínculos entre las representaciones sociales que usan los jóvenes para construir su identidad de género, sexualidad y el manejo del riesgo de infecciones de transmisión sexual.

Emplazamiento

Diferentes ámbitos de Atención Primaria de Girona.

Participantes

Jóvenes de 16 a 21años (32 en total) residentes en Girona.

Método

Estudio cualitativo socioconstrucionista, con muestreo intencional estratificado. Como técnicas de recogida de información se utilizaron grupos triangulares y entrevistas individuales. Los datos fueron analizados usando el análisis sociológico del discurso.

Resultados

Entre las chicas, la ideología del amor romántico va asociada a la dependencia de su pareja, resultando en una pérdida de la autonomía en la negociación del uso del preservativo. Los chicos representan su deseo sexual como un instinto que no pueden controlar debido a un hecho biológico como son las hormonas, lo que parece que justifica su despreocupación por el uso del preservativo. Estas creencias explican por qué las chicas son objeto de prejuicios sexistas cuando tienen relaciones sin afecto, mientras que los chicos en estas mismas situaciones aumentan su identidad masculina. El discurso sobre la confianza en la pareja frecuentemente resulta en el rechazo del preservativo, ya que este se asocia a significados no compatibles con la fidelidad.

Conclusiones

Estos resultados muestran la necesidad de que los profesionales de la Atención Primaria conozcan la influencia de los procesos psicosociales, especialmente aquellos relacionados con la construcción de las identidades de género y de la sexualidad masculina y femenina, en el manejo de los riesgos asociados con la actividad sexual.

Negotiating Discourses of Shame, Secrecy, and Silence: Migrant and Refugee Women's Experiences of Sexual Embodiment

In Australia and Canada, the sexual health needs of migrant and refugee women have been of increasing concern, because of their underutilization of sexual health services and higher rate of sexual health problems. Previous research on migrant women's sexual health has focused on their higher risk of difficulties, or barriers to service use, rather than their construction or understanding of sexuality and sexual health, which may influence service use and outcomes. Further, few studies of migrant and refugee women pay attention to the overlapping role of culture, gender, class, and ethnicity in women's understanding of sexual health. This qualitative study used an intersectional framework to explore experiences and constructions of sexual embodiment among 169 migrant and refugee women recently resettled in Sydney, Australia and Vancouver, Canada, from Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Sri Lanka, India, and South America, utilizing a combination of individual interviews and focus groups. Across all of the cultural groups, participants described a discourse of shame, associated with silence and secrecy, as the dominant cultural and religious construction of women's sexual embodiment. This was evident in constructions of menarche and menstruation, the embodied experience that signifies the transformation of a girl into a sexual woman; constructions of sexuality, including sexual knowledge and communication, premarital virginity, sexual pain, desire, and consent; and absence of agency in fertility control and sexual health. Women were not passive in relation to a discourse of sexual shame; a number demonstrated active resistance and negotiation in order to achieve a degree of sexual agency, yet also maintain cultural and religious identity. Identifying migrant and refugee women's experiences and constructions of sexual embodiment are essential for understanding sexual subjectivity, and provision of culturally safe sexual health information in order to improve well-being and facilitate sexual agency.

Negotiating Discourses of Shame, Secrecy, and Silence: Migrant and Refugee Women's Experiences of Sexual Embodiment

In Australia and Canada, the sexual health needs of migrant and refugee women have been of increasing concern, because of their underutilization of sexual health services and higher rate of sexual health problems. Previous research on migrant women's sexual health has focused on their higher risk of difficulties, or barriers to service use, rather than their construction or understanding of sexuality and sexual health, which may influence service use and outcomes. Further, few studies of migrant and refugee women pay attention to the overlapping role of culture, gender, class, and ethnicity in women's understanding of sexual health. This qualitative study used an intersectional framework to explore experiences and constructions of sexual embodiment among 169 migrant and refugee women recently resettled in Sydney, Australia and Vancouver, Canada, from Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Sri Lanka, India, and South America, utilizing a combination of individual interviews and focus groups. Across all of the cultural groups, participants described a discourse of shame, associated with silence and secrecy, as the dominant cultural and religious construction of women's sexual embodiment. This was evident in constructions of menarche and menstruation, the embodied experience that signifies the transformation of a girl into a sexual woman; constructions of sexuality, including sexual knowledge and communication, premarital virginity, sexual pain, desire, and consent; and absence of agency in fertility control and sexual health. Women were not passive in relation to a discourse of sexual shame; a number demonstrated active resistance and negotiation in order to achieve a degree of sexual agency, yet also maintain cultural and religious identity. Identifying migrant and refugee women's experiences and constructions of sexual embodiment are essential for understanding sexual subjectivity, and provision of culturally safe sexual health information in order to improve well-being and facilitate sexual agency.

“The Ball was Always in His Court”: An Exploratory Analysis of Relationship Scripts, Sexual Scripts, and Condom Use among African American Women

This qualitative study explored the association between African American women's interpersonal relationship and sexual scripts and condom use with primary partners. Participants were 14 lower to middle-income women between the ages of 22 and 39 involved in emotionally and sexually intimate heterosexual relationships. Relationship types included those that were: stable, emotionally committed; casual, primarily sexual; and unstable, emotionally imbalanced and/or conflict-ridden. Respondents completed a semi-structured interview and a questionnaire about their relationships, sexual, and condom use behaviors. Data analyses identified 3 interpersonal relationship scripts (i.e., men control relationships, women sustain relationships, infidelity is normative) and 2 interpersonal sexual scripts (i.e., men control sexual activity; women want to use condoms, but men control condom use) that may indirectly or directly decrease African American women's condom use with primary partners, and in turn increase their HIV risk. We discuss these interpersonal scripts within the context of sociocultural factors relevant to African American women, heterosexual relationships, and communities.

Feminism Between the Sheets: Sexual Attitudes Among Feminists, Nonfeminists, and Egalitarians

To better understand the relation of feminist identification to sexuality, we compared the attitudes of feminist, egalitarian, and nonfeminist undergraduate women ( N = 342) in five domains: (a) erotophilia (one's positive affective or evaluative responses to sexual stimuli), (b) sexual assertiveness, (c) perceived self-efficacy for safer sex, (d) sexual satisfaction, and (e) support of the sexual double standard. Significant results of ANOVA analyses included: Feminists were more erotophilic than egalitarians and nonfeminists, egalitarians were the most confident in their ability to be assertive with a partner regarding condom use, and egalitarians and nonfeminists were more supportive of a traditional sexual double standard than feminists. Consistent with Zucker (2004) , we argue that a distinctive characteristic of egalitarians is that their acceptance of feminist values with regard to their own sexual lives does not translate into a critique of gendered sexual norms for other women.

Eating Like an Ox: Femininity and Dualistic Constructions of Bulimia and Anorexia

Using a feminist discursive analytic approach this article investigates descriptions of anorexia and bulimia for the purposes of deconstructing some of the hierarchies implicit in them. Data includes interview accounts of women who practise bulimia and of health professionals, and items from popular culture and psychological literature. Analysis demonstrates how a binary logic and discourses of femininity are involved in the inscription of value to the category of, and practices associated with, anorexia. The practices and category of bulimia are therefore often constituted as the eating disordered ‘other’ to anorexia. Potential implications for women who practise bulimia are examined, as is the destabilizing potential of other ways of describing eating disorders.

A Feminist Discourse Analysis of Sex `Work'

The present research investigates how explanations for sex `work', and constructions of it as a market exchange just like any other, function to reinforce and perpetuate the current shape of the sex industry in New Zealand. It also examines how key themes in feminist theories of sex work are used by participants to account for their experiences in the job. The data were from semi-structured interviews with 19 people who were working, or who had worked, in the sex industry. The sample was diverse in terms of gender and sexuality identifications. There was also diversity in the areas of sex work that had been experienced. The analysis takes a feminist discursive psychology approach that investigates the contradictions and dilemmas raised by different constructions of social objects. Insights that emerged from the analysis include that the construction of sex work as a service industry relies, in part, on the notion of an uncontrollable male sex drive; that the idea of sex work as an ordinary market exchange both highlights and hides important features of the sex industry; and that participants could account for both the violent and liberatory aspects of sex work that feature in feminist explanations.

‘I’m 15 and Desperate for Sex’: ‘Doing’ and ‘Undoing’ Desire in Letters to a Teenage Magazine

In a social climate that largely problematizes young women’s sexuality, voices of sexual desire and pleasure may struggle to be heard. Teenage magazines, in actively marketing young women’s (hetero)sexuality, offer ‘permission’ to talk about sex through their problem pages. This article examines letters written to the advice pages of an Australasian teen magazine in which writers articulated or alluded to sexual desire. Using a feminist, poststructuralist analytical approach, the article looks at the ways in which sexual desire is constructed by writers and by agony aunts, how sexual subjectivities are constituted in the text, and the identification of cultural resources drawn on in these constructions. Analyses suggest that attempts to ‘do’ desire in young women’s letters were often undermined or ‘undone’ in the agony aunt’s responses, particularly desire for someone of the same gender. The article argues that erasure of desire is deeply ironic, given the magazine’s sexual content, and misses an important opportunity to encourage talk about desire.

‘Healthy Weight’ at What Cost? ‘Bulimia’ and a Discourse of Weight Control

Public health messages emphasizing ‘healthy weight’ link good health to a narrow range of body weights and stress energy regulation to achieve this. We examined whether women who practise bulimia deploy notions of ‘healthy weight’ in their talk about body management activities. Analysis is based on interviews with 15 women who practise bulimia and on material collected from cultural locations containing ‘health promotion’ advice. Poststructuralist discourse analysis revealed that slenderness was constituted as healthy in both sites and that the careful regulation of energy intake and output was similarly reified as a healthy practice. We conclude that a discourse of ‘healthy weight’ cannot be unhinged from a cultural imperative of slenderness for women, and that paradoxically ‘health’ practices provide a rationality that supports the practices of binge eating and compensating.

“If I Really Loved Him Enough, He Would Be Okay”

Interviews with 20 women point to the significance of culturally endorsed constructions of the perfect-love in maintaining women in relationships with men who use violence against them and in silencing them from talking about the violence. Using a form of discourse analysis based on feminist poststructuralism, we identified some of the contradictory portrayals of love that point to discourses of the perfect-love. It is argued that women may be regulated by the positions created for them by perfect-love discourses to remain silent about their partners' violence. These findings have significance for early intervention and prevention strategies.

Innovative Methods

A selection of innovative methods congenial to research in feminist psychology is reviewed. The methods described include collaborations, discourse analysis, ethnography, existential-phenomenological inquiry, focus groups, interviews, narrative investigations, performative methods, and the Q-sort. A brief description of undergraduate and graduate courses that emphasize these methods in their curricula follows. A bibliography of over 300 entries organized by type of innovative method is included. Journals recommended as publishing outlets for research using these innovative methods are listed with their Web sites.

Dilemmatic Negotiations: The (UN)Tenability of Feminist Identity

We explored how women talk about feminism and feminists and position themselves in relation to a feminist identity within a conversational setting. Nine pairs of female graduate and senior undergraduate students talked about feminism in sessions lasting 60 minutes. Sessions were analyzed using discourse analysis. Participants positioned themselves in multiple ways in relation to feminism. Notably, a feminist subject position was both difficult to take up and difficult to reject. In resolving the dilemma, to be or not to be feminist, participants drew on three interpretative repertoires: a liberal version emphasizing equality and rights, an extremist version emphasizing undesirable extremism, and a lifestyle feminist version entailing being feminist by virtue of how one lives. We discuss the implications of this multiplicity for conceptualizing feminist identity and for feminism as a political project.

Everyday exposure to benevolent sexism and condom use among college women

Understanding factors related to condom use is critical in reducing the spread of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), especially for women, who are disproportionately affected by many STIs. Extant work has shown that perceived sexism is one such factor associated with lower levels of condom use among women, but has yet to explore whether benevolent sexism in particular-a subtle form of sexism that often goes unnoticed and increases cognitions and behaviors consistent with traditional female gender roles (e.g., sexual submissiveness)-relates negatively to this safer-sex practice. The present research tested this possibility and, in addition, examined whether relational sex motives, which reflect a desire to engage in sex as a means to foster partners' sexual satisfaction, mediated the relation between benevolent sexism and condom use. During the spring of 2011, female college students (N = 158) reported how often they experienced benevolent sexism in their daily lives and, 2 weeks later, their relational sex motives and condom use. Supporting hypotheses results indicated that greater exposure to benevolent sexism was associated significantly with lower condom use, and that relational sex motives mediated this relationship. We discuss implications for women's well-being, including ways to promote safer sex in the face of sexism.

Gender Differences in HIV-Related Sexual Behavior among College Students from Spain and Portugal

Under the perspective of the Theory of Planned Behavior, the objective of this study was to know the gender differences in the variables involved in the use of effective preventive measures in sexual relations against HIV in a sample of university students from Spain and Portugal. Furthermore, it is examined whether these factors produce different predictions concerning the adoption of safe sexual behaviour for young man and women in each country. The sample consisted of 683 university students, 319 Portuguese (64% female and 36% male) from the University of Algarve and 364 Spanish students (51% female and 49% male) from the University of Huelva. Data were obtained by means of a questionnaire. The data revealed that there are gender differences which apply in both countries, highlighting that the young women have more positive attitudes, greater perceived behavioural control and intention of condom use than young men. However, they protect themselves less that their male counterparts: the percentage of females who say using condoms as a contraceptive method is less than the percentage of males, and especially with their steady partners. The results are discussed in relation to gender role norms, to have a steady partner or not, gender relations, the associated meaning to sexual relations for men and women and their implications for the design of sexual educational programmes for them.

Sexual stereotypes and practices of university students in Turkey

This article is based on a study of young people and sexuality in Turkey. The focus of this study included messages about sexuality, sexual beliefs, sexual experiences with a view to consent and resistance, religiosity, and certain interrelations therein. A total of 471 students (273 women, M age=20.5 years, and 198 men, M age=21 years) from four different universities in Turkey participated in a survey with measures of restrictive and permissive messages about sexuality received from various sources, beliefs about sexual roles of men and women in relationships, and questions about a range of sexual experiences, including coital and non-coital. The incidence and characteristics of ideal sexual partnership and incidence and dynamics of experiences involving "token resistance" and "consent to unwanted sex" were specifically investigated. The results provided a snapshot of the sexual lives of students in this country at the crossroads of secularism and traditional Muslim mores. Both commonalities and differences were found across gender. Both men and women received more restrictive than permissive messages. The most important message source was same-sex friends for men and parents for women. Men had more dating and sexual partners than women. The correlations of religiosity and messages with sexual experiences and attitudes were mostly in the expected direction. Women were more likely to have a token resistance incidence and both genders were equally unlikely to consent to unwanted sex. The results were discussed in relation to the cultural context and the relevant literature, and recommendations are offered for future research.

Female condom skill and attitude: results from a NIDA Clinical Trials Network gender-specific HIV risk reduction study

The female condom is effective in reducing unprotected sexual acts; however, it remains underutilized in the United States. This study examined whether a five-session HIV prevention intervention (Safer Sex Skills Building [SSB]), including presentation, discussion, and practice with female condoms, improved female condom skills and attitude among women in outpatient substance abuse treatment. Mixed-effects modeling was used to test the effect of SSB on skills and attitude over 3- and 6-month posttreatment among 515 randomized women. SSB was significantly associated with increases in skills and attitude, and the female condom demonstration session was primarily responsible for skills improvement. Attitude was a partial mediator of the intervention effect in reducing unprotected sex. Findings emphasize the utility of integrating female condom messages targeting proximal behavioral outcomes into HIV prevention. The study supports the use of female condom skill instruction via brief, hands-on exercises, as well as further research to enhance attitudinal change to reduce sexual risk.

Narratives of development, experiences of risk: Adult women's perspectives on relationships and safer sex

Mid-life women are increasingly at risk for HIV/AIDS, yet relatively few studies have targeted this age group. In this study, we explored views of relationships and safer sex practices among eight well-educated, single, heterosexual adult women through in-depth interviews and supplemental questionnaires. The women viewed themselves as competent, responsible, and mature in terms of their relationship and sexual choices. However, their actual sexual practices, and reasons given for these practices, were similar to those of adolescents and of inner-city women living in high-risk environments. Findings are significant in highlighting the power and importance of relationship factors, especially trust, as these relate to safer sex practices and prevention initiatives.

The (Im)possibilities of Feminist School Based Sexuality Education

A feminist school based sexuality education needs to be both gender-focused and critical. In this paper, we investigate the (im)possibilities of feminist sexuality education by exploring instances of its practice in New Zealand. Using a poststructuralist discursive framework, we use the theoretical concepts of ‘doing’ and ‘undoing’ gender to examine how students (aged 13—16) responded to progressive and liberal ideas presented by sexuality educators. Our findings paint a complicated picture. On some occasions, participants used traditional discourses of sexuality to counter educators’ use of progressive notions. At other times liberal and feminist ideas were embraced by participants and resourced awareness of possibilities for positive female sexuality. Our work shows traditional sexuality discourses are a continuing limitation to incorporating a discourse of pleasure in sexuality education even in the presence of feminist content. Nevertheless feminist discourses were present and enabled students to think about female sexuality in new and encouraging ways.

Sexual activity during menstruation: a qualitative study

This study utilized a grounded theory method to analyze qualitative narratives about sexuality and menstruation from 108 young women (ages 18-23; M = 19.8, SD = 1.07) and 12 young men (ages 18-24; M = 20.4, SD = 1.46). Five patterns were found: Sixteen women identified themselves as virgins and had not faced the issue of negotiating sex during menstruation. Among the 92 women who said they were sexually active, 37 women said they would never have intercourse during menstruation, eight women said they tried it once but never would again, and seven women said they rarely would and only under certain conditions. The largest group, 40 women, said they do have menstrual sex. Compared to the other groups, more of the women who do have sex during menstruation were in committed relationships, and none espoused a discourse of disgust. Considering the 12 men, three were virgins. Among the nine sexually experienced men, seven said they did have sex with a menstruating partner. Young adults who were comfortable with menstrual sex saw it as just another part of a committed intimate relationship.

Effects of relationship motivation, partner familiarity, and alcohol on women's risky sexual decision making

This experiment examined the effects of women's relationship motivation, partner familiarity, and alcohol consumption on sexual decision making. Women completed an individual difference measure of relationship motivation and then were randomly assigned to partner familiarity condition (low, high) and to alcohol consumption condition (high dose, low dose, no alcohol, placebo). Then women read and projected themselves into a scenario of a sexual encounter. Relationship motivation and partner familiarity interacted with intoxication to influence primary appraisals of relationship potential. Participants' primary and secondary relationship appraisals mediated the effects of women's relationship motivation, partner familiarity, and intoxication on condom negotiation, sexual decision abdication, and unprotected sex intentions. These findings support a cognitive mediation model of women's sexual decision making and identify how individual and situational factors interact to shape alcohol's influences on cognitive appraisals that lead to risky sexual decisions. This knowledge can inform empirically based risky sex interventions.

Reliability and validity of the Sexual Pressure Scale for Women-Revised

Sexual pressure among young urban women represents adherence to gender stereotypical expectations to engage in sex. Revision of the original five-factor Sexual Pressure Scale was undertaken in two studies to improve reliabilities in two of the five factors. In Study 1 the reliability of the Sexual Pressure Scale for Women-Revised (SPSW-R) was tested, and principal components analysis was performed in a sample of 325 young, urban women. A parsimonious 18-item, four-factor model explained 61% of the variance. In Study 2 the theory underlying sexual pressure was supported by confirmatory factor analysis using structural equation modeling in a sample of 181 women. Reliabilities of the SPSW-R total and subscales were very satisfactory, suggesting it may be used in intervention research.

Safer, Better Sex Through Feminism: The Role of Feminist Ideology in Women's Sexual Well-Being

Feminists have argued that traditional gender norms can obstruct women's sexual well-being ( Amaro, 1995 ; Morokoff, 2000 ; Tolman, 2006 ; Walker, 1997 ). Therefore, we expected feminist ideology, by virtue of this critique, to be associated with women's sexual subjectivity and sexual well-being. To test this model, we analyzed data from a survey of college-age women ( N = 424) using structural equation modeling. As hypothesized, feminist ideology was indirectly related to condom-use self-efficacy and sexual satisfaction via sexual subjectivity, and sexual motivation was directly related to sexual satisfaction. In an alternative model, feminist ideology was directly related to sexual motivation. This research indicates that feminist ideology may play a role in the promotion of women's sexual well-being.

"If sex hurts, am I still a woman?" the subjective experience of vulvodynia in hetero-sexual women

Vulvodynia has recently been recognized as a significant health problem among women, with a considerable proportion experiencing psychological distress and sexual dysfunction for many years. This study used a material-discursive framework and a qualitative methodology to investigate women's subjective experience of vulvodynia within the context of a hetero-sexual relationship, and their negotiation of coitus, commonly associated with vulvar pain. Seven women, who had experienced vulvodynia between 2 and 10 years, took part in in-depth interviews. Thematic decomposition drawing on a Foucauldian framework for interpretation identified that six of the seven women took up subject positions of "inadequate woman" and "inadequate partner," positioning themselves as failures for experiencing pain during coitus, which they interpreted as affecting their ability to satisfy their partners sexually, resulting in feelings of shame, guilt, and a decreased desire for sexual contact. This was interpreted in relation to dominant discourses of femininity and hetero-sexuality, which conflate a woman's sexuality with her need to be romantically attached to a man, position men as having a driven need for sex, and uphold coitus as the organizing feature of hetero-sex. Only one woman positioned herself as an "adequate woman/partner," associated with having renegotiated the coital imperative and the male sex drive discourse within her relationship. These positions, along with women's agentic attempts to resist them, were discussed in relation to their impact on hetero-sexual women's negotiation of vulvodynia. Implications for future research and vulvodynia treatment regimes are also raised.

Sex scripts and power: a framework to explain urban women's HIV sexual risk with male partners

The risk of sexual transmission of HIV may be perceived to be real among young urban women; however, the risk of losing a male partner if one doesn't engage in unprotected sex may be perceived to be greater. Sex script theory, and Barrett's theory of power as knowing participation in change, are integrated into a framework to explain young adult urban women's sex scripted response of unprotected sex as a normative relationship-promoting behavior. It is proposed herein that by associating high-power sex scripts that involve health-promoting behaviors into the familiar sex scripts, new HIV risk-reducing behavior may be integrated into normative sex scripts because these are designed to fulfill familiar relationship needs.

Problematising depression: young people, mental health and suicidal behaviours

The published literature provides strong evidence for connections between mental health issues, such as depression, and suicidal behaviours. However, in spite of this, no investigations to date have explored young people's perceptions of the interconnections between depression, and suicidal behaviours. This article presents discussive analyses of discussions of the contributions of depression to their suicidal behaviours of young people in New Zealand. Two dominant discourses of depression emerged: a medicalised discourse, and a moral discourse. The medicalised discourse was accessible to the majority of participants, and constructed depression as a disease. This discourse prioritised the voices of health professionals and suggested that depression was difficult to resist. The moral discourse was an alternative to the medicalised discourse, and constructed young people who experienced depression and suicidal behaviours as failures. Both discourses were informed by a mechanistic cause-and-effect relationship between depression and suicidal behaviours: attempting suicide was seen as an inevitable outcome of experiencing depression, and suicidal behaviours were inevitably undertaken by young people who were depressed. Resistance to either of these dominant discourses was problematic, and was best articulated during discussions of the stigma associated with mental ill-health and depression.