Spiritual Capital seeks to re-focus discussion on core social values, on individuals' value systems and the internal dynamics that impel human beings to live by truth, goodness and love. This book defines, refines and disseminates the concept of spiritual capital. Contributions by practitioner-scholars in applied spirituality, who have practical experience of spiritual capital at work in diverse human situations, provide accounts of concrete expressions of spiritual capital and create an interdisciplinary discussion between spirituality practitioners, artists, ecologists, sociologists and others on the frontiers of change in contemporary culture.

The internet has changed us all, creating a new layer of perfectionist pressure in every aspect of our lives, but equally enabling us to share resources, opinions, help and information more quickly than ever before. Are we supposed to love it, or leave it? Is it ever possible to do both? Like all of their generation, Naomi Shimada and Sarah Raphael have grown up on the internet, and now work closely with it every day. Sarah's work as a journalist brings her into contact with the outer reaches of the internet as well as its inner workings; graph upon graph revealing to her what people most want to read today (hint: its usually a story about a relationship car crash). In her work as a model and positivity advocate, Naomi talks to people all over the world through her sunny, colourful Instagram account; people who rely on her cheerfulness to help them. In Mixed Feelings, they explore what the internet might be doing to our minds, bodies and hearts, through wide-ranging essays and discussions featuring a range of perspectives and voices. A bible for those who refuse to fit into any box, this is a celebration of difference and a challenge to the status quo – a bulwark against the onslaught of images of perfectionism and aspiration we are bombarded with on a daily basis.

"The Constitution is America's moral sail, and we must hold to the courage of the conviction that fills it, a conviction that we can all be equal citizens of a moral republic. That is a noble faith, and only optimism can redeem it." So writes Ronald Dworkin in the introduction to this characteristically robust and provocative new book in which Dworkin argues the fidelity to the constitution and to law demands that judges make contemporary judgements backed on political morality, and why it encourages, or ought to encourage, an open display of the true grounds of judgement. The book discusses almost all of the great constitutional issues of the last two decades including abortion, affirmative action, pornography, race, homosexuality, euthanasia and free-speech and in doing so consistently offers a liberal view of the American Constitution. Dworkin's "moral reading" proposes that we all, judges, lawyers, citizens - interpret and apply the abstract language of the Constitution on the understanding that they invoke moral principles about political decency and justice. The "moral reading" therefore brings political morality into the heart of constitutional law. This book is intended for

Should you read your teenager's diary? Would you return the extra change? What are the ethics of social media? Is buying organic food and products a more ethical choice? Tired of small talk? Often a single question can spark a meaningful, fun exchange - like, 'Would you apply for a job you know your friend is applying for?' Or 'Should voting be compulsory?' Or what about police using facial recognition technology? Questions like these spur us to consider: What have I done? Is there one correct answer? And ultimately: How can ethics help us navigate these situations to find the best outcome for ourselves and others? An ethicist who advises leaders and organisations worldwide, Susan Liautaud asks intriguing questions that encourage lively discussion across a range of subjects, from family and friends to health and technology, to politics, work and consumer choices. The Little Book of Big Ethical Questions presents some of today's most thought-provoking ethical questions in an easy-to-discuss Q&A format, walking you through how you might approach each situation to find the best answer for you.

In this provocative book, retired porn star Scott O Hara (known as "Spunk" by many of his fans from an early punk photospread) gives a backstage look at the world of pornography, revealing why he loved it, what he got out of it, and why he left it. In an autobiographical style, he considers and poses answers to some fascinating questions: What is sex? What makes a porn star? And why does pornography really upset people? You ll really get to know this noted gay porn star as you get a firsthand look at his life experiences and sexual journeys from his boyhood days of locker room fantasies and sexual experimentation to his years as a porn star and then to his experiences as an individual facing the realities of being HIV-positive. As O Hara puts it in his Introduction: "This book was written as a last-ditch effort: a way to open up all my closets, let you in on all the dark corners of my life, and give you a better picture of what goes into the making of a porn star. Because if there 's one profession that arouses people 's curiosity, it 's that one." As you read through the pages of Autopornography, you ll see how O Hara 's personality reflects his sexuality, that is, how they have melded into one. His vivid descriptions of personal relationships (with family, friends, lovers, and casual acquaintances) and his many sexual encounters as he traveled the world reveal his love of sex and his desire to live without inhibitions, secrets, or sexual constraints. Reading Autopornography may cause you to reexamine your own sexual boundaries, realize new sexual potential, and discover sexual desires not previously aroused.Listed #14 on Books Bought Mainly by Men 1997 Top 100 Bestsellers as rated by A Different Light Bookstore

First published in 1980, Pornography, Psychedelics And Technology: Essays on the Limits to Freedom focuses on the crucial connections between technological growth and the more salient features of social malaise in the latter part of the twentieth century. Professor Mishan is one of the few economists absorbed by the larger social questions, and does not believe that the growth in state intervention and the decline of social liberty are simply the result of intellectual confusion and bureaucratic momentum. He sees them as unavoidable consequences of scientific and technical progress. While agreeing with many of his fellow economists in acknowledging the virtues of a competitive market economy, Professor Mishan is acutely aware of its limitations. Following the growth of self-styled liberation movements, seen as manifestations of a move towards a world of greater individual emancipation and fulfilment, the author nevertheless groups such movements together with the rising indices of violence, suicide, family breakdown and hooliganism, which have become indicative of a growing disorientation and social disintegration. These developments and the hazards they entail, however, are bound up with the rapid scientific and technological progress of the post-war world.

China, Sex and Prostitution is a topical and important critique of recent scholarship in China studies concerning sexuality, prostitution and policing. Jeffrey's arguments are constructed in the form of detailed analysis of a wide range of primary texts, including documents, press reports, police report, and policy and legal pronouncements, and secondary literature in both English and Chinese. The work engages with some key debates in the fields of cultural and gender studies and will be welcomed by scholars in these areas as well as by China specialists, sociologists and anthropologists.

Over the last decade there has been dramatically increased interest in the ways that technology has been used in the abuse and exploitation of children, due in part to increasing numbers of convictions for child pornography-related offenses. Opinion swings between those who feel that there is a danger of distorting the threat posed to children by technology, and those for whom it appears that the threat has been grossly underestimated. Current literature surrounding the debate at times seems to create more questions than answers and what quickly becomes apparent is that the data we have to inform our understanding is partial, potentially context specific, and at times seemingly contradictory. This book broadens our understanding of the complex nature of online sexual exploitation of children and considers the risk that those engaged in Internet-related offences pose to children in both the online and offline environments. It focuses on cutting-edge research and conceptual thinking that views perpetrators within context, examines those impacted by such offending, describes emerging legal and policy issues, and proposes innovative strategies for prevention within a dynamic global environment. Understanding and Preventing Online Sexual Exploitation of Children responds to the growing call for help across all practice areas, from judicial to therapeutic, and will provide an invaluable resource for practitioners and policy makers working in the field, as well as students and academics studying sexual exploitation and cyber crime.

This book goes beyond historical and psychological explanations of the Holocaust to directly address the moral responsibility of individuals involved in it. While defending the view that individuals caught up in large-scale historical events like the Holocaust are still responsible for their choices, he provides the philosophical tools needed to assess the responsibility, both negative and positive, of perpetrators, accomplices, bystanders, victims, helpers and rescuers. This book will be an important addition to courses on the Holocaust in social and political philosophy, history, religion, and applied ethics. Visit our website for sample chapters!

During the nineteenth century, the American temperance movement underwent a visible, gendered shift in its leadership as it evolved from a male-led movement to one dominated by the women. However, this transition of leadership masked the complexity and diversity of the temperance movement. Through an examination of the two icons of the movement -- the self-made man and the crusading woman -- Fletcher demonstrates the evolving meaning and context of temperance and gender. Temperance becomes a story of how the debate on racial and gender equality became submerged in service to a corporate, political enterprise and how men's and women's identities and functions were reconfigured in relationship to each other and within this shifting political and cultural landscape.

This book explores eugenics in its wider social context and in literary representations in post-war Britain. Drawing on a wide range of sources in medicine, social and educational policy, genetics, popular science, science fiction, and literary texts, Hanson tracks the dynamic interactions between eugenic ideas across diverse cultural fields, demonstrating the strength of the eugenic imagination. Challenging assumptions that eugenics was fatally compromised by its association with Nazi atrocities, or that it petered out in the context of changed social attitudes in an egalitarian post-war society, the book demonstrates that eugenic thought not only persisted after 1945, but became more prominent. Throughout, eugenics is defined as a cultural movement, rather than more narrowly as a science, and the study is focused on its border-crossing capacity as a 'style of thought.' By tracing the expression of eugenic ideas across disciplinary boundaries and in both high and low culture, this book demonstrates the powerful and pervasive influence of eugenics in the post-war years. Authors visited include Raymond Williams, John Braine, Agatha Christie, Muriel Spark, Anthony Burgess, Doris Lessing, and J.G. Ballard.

Drawing on sources as diverse as Supreme Court decisions, nightclub comedy, congressional records, and cultural theory, Obscene Gestures explores the many contradictory vectors of twentieth-century moralist controversies surrounding literary and artistic works from Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer to those of Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Kathy Acker, Robert Mapplethorpe, 2 Live Crew, Tony Kushner, and others. Patrick S. Lawrence dives into notorious obscenity debates to reconsider the divergent afterlives of artworks that were challenged or banned over their taboo sexual content to reveal how these controversies affected their critical reception and commercial success in ways that were often determined at least in part by racial, gender, or sexual stereotypes and pernicious ethnographic reading practices. Starting with early postwar touchstone cases and continuing through the civil rights, feminist, and LGBTQ+ movements, Lawrence demonstrates on one level that breaking sexual taboos in literary and cultural works often comes with cultural cachet and increased sales. At the same time, these benefits are distributed unequally, leading to the persistence of exclusive hierarchies and inequalities. Obscene Gestures takes its bearings from recent studies of the role of obscenity in literary history and canon formation during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, extending their insights into the postwar period when broad legal latitude for obscenity was established but when charges of obscenity still carried immense symbolic and political weight. Moreover, the rise of social justice movements around this time provides necessary context for understanding the application of legal precedents, changes in the publishing industry, and the diversification of the canon of American letters. Obscene Gestures, therefore, advances the study of obscenity to include recent developments in the understanding of race, gender, and sexuality while refining our understanding of late-twentieth-century American literature and political culture.

Ashkenazi Jews have the highest known population risk of carrying specific mutations in the high-risk breast cancer genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2. So what does it mean to be told you have an increased risk of genetic breast cancer because you are of Ashkenazi Jewish origin? In a time of ever-increasing knowledge about variations in genetic disease risk among different populations, there is a pressing need for research regarding the implications of such information for members of high-risk populations. Risky Genes provides first-hand intimate descriptions of women's experiences of being Jewish and of being at increased risk of genetic breast cancer. It explores the impact this knowledge has on their identity and understanding of belonging to a collective. Using qualitative data from high-risk Ashkenazi women in the UK, this book elucidates the importance of biological discourses in forging Jewish self-identity and reveals the complex ways in which biological and social understandings of Jewish belonging intersect. In Risky Genes, Jessica Mozersky reflects upon and offers new insight into the ongoing debates regarding the implications of genetic research for populations, and of new genetic knowledge for individual and collective identity. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of sociology, anthropology, Jewish studies, medical genetics, medical ethics, religious studies, and race and ethnic studies.

This collection focuses attention on an important but academically neglected area of contemporary operational policing: the regulation of consensual sexual practices. Despite the high-level public visibility of, and debate about, policing in relation to violent and abusive sexual crimes (from child sexual abuse to adult rape) very little public or scholarly attention is paid to the policing of consensual sexual practices in contemporary societies. Whilst sexual life is commonly understood to be a matter of private life that is beyond formal social control, this book shows that policing is implicated in the regulation of a wide range of consensual sexual practices. This book brings together a well known and respected group of academics, from a range of disciplines, to explore the role of the police in shaping the boundaries of that aspect of our lives that we imagine to be most intimate and most our own. The volume presents a snap shot of policing in respect of a number of diverse areas such as public sex, pornography, and sex work and considers how sexual orientation structures police responses to them. The authors critically examine how policing is implicated in the social, moral and political landscape of sex and, contrary to the established rhetoric of politicians and criminal justice practitioners, continues to intervene in the private lives of citizens.

It is essential supplementary reading for courses in criminology, law, policing, sociology of deviance, gender and sexuality, and cultural studies.

This collection focuses attention on an important but academically neglected area of contemporary operational policing: the regulation of consensual sexual practices. Despite the high-level public visibility of, and debate about, policing in relation to violent and abusive sexual crimes (from child sexual abuse to adult rape) very little public or scholarly attention is paid to the policing of consensual sexual practices in contemporary societies. Whilst sexual life is commonly understood to be a matter of private life that is beyond formal social control, this book shows that policing is implicated in the regulation of a wide range of consensual sexual practices. This book brings together a well known and respected group of academics, from a range of disciplines, to explore the role of the police in shaping the boundaries of that aspect of our lives that we imagine to be most intimate and most our own. The volume presents a snap shot of policing in respect of a number of diverse areas such as public sex, pornography, and sex work and considers how sexual orientation structures police responses to them. The authors critically examine how policing is implicated in the social, moral and political landscape of sex and, contrary to the established rhetoric of politicians and criminal justice practitioners, continues to intervene in the private lives of citizens.

It is essential supplementary reading for courses in criminology, law, policing, sociology of deviance, gender and sexuality, and cultural studies.

Is God a Vegetarian? is one of the most complete explorations of vegetarianism in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Young, a linguistics and New Testament scholar, attempts to answer the question being asked with greater and greater frequency: "Are Christians morally obligated to be vegetarians?"

Many people are confused about the apparent mixed messages within the Bible. On the one hand, God prescribes a vegetarian diet in the Garden of Eden and the apocalyptic visions of Isaiah and John imply the restoration of a vegetarian diet. However, it is also clear that God permits, Jesus partakes in, and Paul sanctions the eating of flesh. Does the Bible give any clear guidance?

Close readings of key biblical texts pertaining to dietary customs, vegetarianism, and animal rights make up the substance of the book. Rather than ignoring or offering a literal, twentieth-century interpretation of the passages, the author analyzes the voices of these conflicting dietary motifs within their own social contexts. Interwoven throughout these readings are discussions of contemporary issues, such as animal testing and experimentation, the fur industry, raising animals in factories, and the effects of meat-eating on human health.

Thirteen chapters cover such topics as
-- the vegetarian diet in the Garden of Eden
-- the clothing of the first humans in animal skins
-- God's permitting humans to eat meat
-- animal sacrifice
-- the dietary habits of Jesus and the early apostles
-- Paul's condemnation of vegetarianism as heresy
-- the dietary views of the early church fathers
-- the peaceable kingdom.

The author provides two vegetarian recipes at the end of each chapter. An epilogueincludes guidelines for becoming a vegetarian and a recommended reading list.

Insightful and challenging, Is God a Vegetarian? poses provocative questions for vegetarians, Christians, and anyone reflecting upon her personal choices and ethical role in our world today.

There is almost unanimous agreement that civilians should be protected from the direct effects of violent conflict, and that the distinction between combatant and non-combatant should be respected. But what are the fundamental ethical questions about civilian immunity? Are new styles of conflict making this distinction redundant? Eloquently combining theory and practice, leading scholars from the fields of political science, law and philosophy have been brought together to provide an essential overview of some of the major ethical, legal and political issues with regard to protecting civilians caught up in modern inter- and intra-state conflicts. In doing so, they examine what is being done, and what can be done, to make soldiers more aware of their responsibilities in this area under international law and the ethics of war, and more able to respond appropriately to the challenges that will confront them in the field. 'Protecting Civilians During Violent Conflict' presents a clear-eyed look at the dilemmas facing regular combatants as they confront enemies in the modern battlespace, and especially the complications arising from the new styles of conflict where enemy and civilian populations merge.

India has one of the highest numbers of HIV carriers in the world. HIV has remained associated with sex work, and large sums of money provided to fund public health interventions have come from global institutions such as UNAIDS, the World Bank and USAID. In the midst of these processes, however, sex workers and their everyday lives have been hidden behind the rhetorics of control and prevention.

This book offers a detailed analysis of the experiences of sex workers in Chennai. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, it draws out themes of agency; notions of gender and sexuality; and the HIV prevention industry. While the women's experiences are closely knit into the medical discourse regarding sex workers, sex work emerges as a complicated knot of poverty, desire, women's oppression, love, co-option, and motherhood. The author examines how the sex workers actively negotiate the risks of their industry and suggests alternative discourses on women's sexuality, sexual behaviour and desire, arguing that unless the power imbalances affecting women are addressed, such policies and activities will have little impact. She brings attention to the problems of current policies, discourses and attitudes regarding HIV, sexuality and sex work, and shows how new policies could help to reduce vulnerabilities not only for sex workers, but perhaps for all women in India.

This book is a critical feminist analysis of sex trafficking. Arguing that trafficking in girls and women is a product of the social construction of gender and other dimensions of power and status within a particular culture and at a particular historical moment, this book offers the necessary locally grounded analysis. Focusing on the case of Nepal, from where 5,000 to 7,000 thousands of Nepali girls and women are trafficked each year primarily to India, Mary Crawford assesses how the social construction of trafficking - the concept and its representation in discourse - are influenced by the dynamics of gender, caste, and the development establishment. The defining figure is an innocent, naive young girl being lured or duped into leaving the safety of her village. The trafficking victim is portrayed as "backward"; however, she is "backward" in specific ways that resonate with Nepal's struggle to resist and yet encompass Western influence. This view may lead to paradoxical effects in which efforts to protect girls and women instead restrict their human rights. Rather than seeing women as universalized victims, Crawford assesses how the social construction of trafficking in a particular society affects girls and women who live in that society. In this book, the author's voice as a woman, a feminist, and a social scientist immersed in a "foreign" way of life, illuminates aspects of this process and highlights the subjectivity of urban women. It makes the connection between Nepali subjectivities and a problem of international significance, the trafficking of girls and women. The book provides a model for other locally grounded accounts of sex trafficking to counter the universalizing rhetoric of the mass media and some anti-trafficking activists, filling a niche in South Asian Studies and Women's Studies.

By examining the highly contested legal debate about the regulation of pornography through an epistemic lens, this book analyzes competing claims about the proper role of speech in our society, pornography's harm, the relationship between speech and equality, and whether law should regulate and, if so, upon what grounds. In maintaining that inegalitarian pornography generates discursive effects, the book contends that law cannot simply adopt a libertarian approach to free speech. While inegalitarian pornography may not be determinative of gender inequality, it does contribute, reinforce, reflect and help maintain such unfairness. As a result, we can place reasonable gender-based regulations on inegalitarian pornography while upholding our most treasured commitments to dissident speech just as other liberal democracies with strong free speech traditions have done.

Southeast Asian sex workers are stereotypically understood as passive victims of the political economy, and submissive to western men. The advent of HIV/AIDS only compounds this image. Sex Work in Southeast Asia is a cultural critique of HIV/AIDS prevention programmes targetting sex tourism industries in Southeast Asia.

Over the last decade there has been dramatically increased interest in the ways that technology has been used in the abuse and exploitation of children, due in part to increasing numbers of convictions for child pornography-related offenses. Opinion swings between those who feel that there is a danger of distorting the threat posed to children by technology, and those for whom it appears that the threat has been grossly underestimated. Current literature surrounding the debate at times seems to create more questions than answers and what quickly becomes apparent is that the data we have to inform our understanding is partial, potentially context specific, and at times seemingly contradictory. This book broadens our understanding of the complex nature of online sexual exploitation of children and considers the risk that those engaged in Internet-related offences pose to children in both the online and offline environments. It focuses on cutting-edge research and conceptual thinking that views perpetrators within context, examines those impacted by such offending, describes emerging legal and policy issues, and proposes innovative strategies for prevention within a dynamic global environment. Understanding and Preventing Online Sexual Exploitation of Children responds to the growing call for help across all practice areas, from judicial to therapeutic, and will provide an invaluable resource for practitioners and policy makers working in the field, as well as students and academics studying sexual exploitation and cyber crime.

Censorship in South Asia offers an expansive and comparative exploration of cultural regulation in contemporary and colonial South Asia. These provocative essays by leading scholars broaden our understanding of what censorship might mean beyond the simple restriction and silencing of public communication by considering censorship's productive potential and its intimate relation to its apparent opposite, "publicity." The contributors investigate a wide range of public cultural phenomena, from the cinema to advertising, from street politics to political communication, and from the adjudication of blasphemy to the management of obscenity."