Awkward Sex: Revisiting Rosalind Gill’s Sex Advice Repertoires in the Context of New Media Listicles

Abstract

This thesis revisits Rosalind Gill’s 2009 influential study of sex-advice columns in Glamour (UK) magazine in order to test her arguments about mediated intimacy within the new media genre of the listicle. This is achieved through employing a discourse and content analysis of a sample of 12 ‘awkward sex’ listicles. While the three interpretive repertoires that Gill identifies at work in Glamour do not appear to be as actively employed in my sample, I propose that the listicles still employ ‘postfeminist sensibilities’ predominately through the classifier of ‘awkward.’ While these listicles resemble Gill’s sample insofar as they remain centred on male sexual pleasure and the regulation of women’s bodies, I highlight the manner in which mediated intimacy is now secured through peer-to-peer discourse rather than the expert discourse that was the focus of Gill’s original study.