Gender Relationships and Sexual Affection between Young People: Reflections from the Argentine Case

Abstract

This work examines how young people envisage and experience relationships of affection, eroticism and sexual pleasure within the context of the political, cultural and technological reference points of the time, characterized as they are by neoliberal governmentality. The focus is on Argentine youth, but without disregarding the regional backdrop. Data, arguments and ethnographic evidence from my own investigations and other local and regional studies are considered. The analysis focuses on two key areas, strongly interconnected in the everyday life of these youths. Firstly, the meanings and forms assumed by love, friendship, seduction and other expressions of inter and intra gender emotionality resulting from the growing feminist claims for gender equality, the mass participation of female youth in this struggle and the present challenges to the model of male hegemony in this context. Secondly, the transformation of individual subjectivity and the establishment of bonds that is produced by the technological mediations of social networks and smartphone applications, within which both male and female youths construct an important part of their ‘world of experience’.