Doctoral Dissertation Research: "The Sexual Hush:" Medical Representations of Late-life Sexuality, 1850-1930

因此，这一时期关于老年性行为的科学论述暗示了衰老和疾病之间的联系，对老年人性格的高度性别化的先入之见，强有力的生物功能主义性行为模型，以及从社会达尔文主义的角度对老年人角色的不确定性，所有这些都使晚年性行为成为当代人的一个有问题的话题。这种观念网络的一个产物是对老年性犯罪者的刻板印象，或“肮脏的老男人”，研究人员计划深入研究这一发展。她认为，邪恶、淫荡的老人形象部分是世纪之交广泛传播的性改革和社会卫生运动的产物，部分是当时大众媒体所表现的大众想象的产物。对老年性犯罪者的形象以及不同国家的历史背景如何变化（或没有变化）的进一步研究需要更多的研究。研究员正在申请资金，以便在巴黎和伦敦进行研究，她将在这两个地方审查法庭记录和大众报刊，特别是报道法律的诉讼和性改革运动的报纸。

Scientific discourses about sexuality in old age from this period thus implies associations between aging and disease, highly gendered preconceptions about the character of the elderly, powerful biological-functionalist models for sexual behavior, and uncertainty about the role of the elderly from a social-Darwinist perspective, all of which served to render late-life sexuality a problematic topic for contemporaries. One product of this network of ideas was the stereotype of the senile sex offender, or the "dirty old man," a development the researcher plans to treat in depth. She argues that the image of the villainous, lascivious elder was partly a product of wide spread sex reform and social hygiene campaigns at the turn of the twentieth century, and partly a product of the popular imagination as manifest in the popular press of the time. Further examination of the image of the aged sex offender and how the different national historical contexts varied (or didn't) requires additional research. The researcher is requesting funds for research in Paris and London where she will examine both court records and the popular press, in particular newspapers, which covered legal proceedings and sex reform movements.