Coleman Julie
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199567256
- eISBN:
- 9780191595073
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199567256.003.0010
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Sociolinguistics / Anthropological Linguistics, Lexicography
The earliest glossaries of gay slang were produced by psychiatrists trying to improve communication with their patients or to develop a diagnostic tool. Later glossaries offer keys to the secret ...
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The earliest glossaries of gay slang were produced by psychiatrists trying to improve communication with their patients or to develop a diagnostic tool. Later glossaries offer keys to the secret world of homosexuality and defy convention in celebrating gay love. Demonized by Cold War associations with communism, users of gay slang are also depicted as agents of the anti-Christ by right-wing Christian fundamentalists.Less
The earliest glossaries of gay slang were produced by psychiatrists trying to improve communication with their patients or to develop a diagnostic tool. Later glossaries offer keys to the secret world of homosexuality and defy convention in celebrating gay love. Demonized by Cold War associations with communism, users of gay slang are also depicted as agents of the anti-Christ by right-wing Christian fundamentalists.
Peter Robinson
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199273256
- eISBN:
- 9780191706370
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199273256.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
This chapter explores loss in Elizabeth Bishop's poetry and asks how her art may have helped her manage loss. The poet's orphaned childhood, her lesbianism, alcoholism, and her life in Brazil are ...
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This chapter explores loss in Elizabeth Bishop's poetry and asks how her art may have helped her manage loss. The poet's orphaned childhood, her lesbianism, alcoholism, and her life in Brazil are considered as they impact on her poetry, her memoirs, and letters. The chapter's key section is a reading of the villanelle One Art, in which she jokingly considered the chapter's theme by announcing that ‘The art of losing isn't hard to master’. The conclusion is that in this poem she is able to transform loss into art precisely by accepting the lost as gone.Less
This chapter explores loss in Elizabeth Bishop's poetry and asks how her art may have helped her manage loss. The poet's orphaned childhood, her lesbianism, alcoholism, and her life in Brazil are considered as they impact on her poetry, her memoirs, and letters. The chapter's key section is a reading of the villanelle One Art, in which she jokingly considered the chapter's theme by announcing that ‘The art of losing isn't hard to master’. The conclusion is that in this poem she is able to transform loss into art precisely by accepting the lost as gone.
Christina Simmons
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195064117
- eISBN:
- 9780199869565
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195064117.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century, Social History
White and African American sex radicals in the 1910s, mostly leftists, feminists, and bohemians, rejected Victorian mores, proclaimed the goodness of sex, and labeled sexual repression damaging. They ...
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White and African American sex radicals in the 1910s, mostly leftists, feminists, and bohemians, rejected Victorian mores, proclaimed the goodness of sex, and labeled sexual repression damaging. They reconceived women's sexuality as more similar to men's and demanded greater freedom for both men and women from social surveillance and control. They promoted birth control, free love, nonmonogamy, interracial relations, and lesbianism, but men and women, whites and African Americans, differentially favored these practices. White men supported free love and nonmonogamy and black men supported interracial sex more than their female peers. Both white and African American women supported women's claim to a sexual life and to birth control. By the 1930s a few lesbians articulated their desire. But many women resisted the individualistic practices of interracial sex, free unions, and nonmonogamy.Less
White and African American sex radicals in the 1910s, mostly leftists, feminists, and bohemians, rejected Victorian mores, proclaimed the goodness of sex, and labeled sexual repression damaging. They reconceived women's sexuality as more similar to men's and demanded greater freedom for both men and women from social surveillance and control. They promoted birth control, free love, nonmonogamy, interracial relations, and lesbianism, but men and women, whites and African Americans, differentially favored these practices. White men supported free love and nonmonogamy and black men supported interracial sex more than their female peers. Both white and African American women supported women's claim to a sexual life and to birth control. By the 1930s a few lesbians articulated their desire. But many women resisted the individualistic practices of interracial sex, free unions, and nonmonogamy.
LINDA ANDERSON
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198182894
- eISBN:
- 9780191673917
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198182894.003.0012
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Elizabeth Bishop displayed little enthusiasm for attempts to connect the writer's work to his or her life. She could well have feared and resented the possibility that sexual revelations (lesbianism) ...
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Elizabeth Bishop displayed little enthusiasm for attempts to connect the writer's work to his or her life. She could well have feared and resented the possibility that sexual revelations (lesbianism) would overwhelm the singular and manifold achievement of her own creative work, or that the appearance of actively choosing within her own life — her capacity for growth and redirection — would be lost beneath the single determinant of sexual choice. She was an ardent and careful autobiographer in both her poetry and her prose. In addition, she is a writer who has frequently been praised for her powers of observation — for her ‘eye’ — but what is apparent is that her images are frequently layered, calling attention to an anterior relation to sound.Less
Elizabeth Bishop displayed little enthusiasm for attempts to connect the writer's work to his or her life. She could well have feared and resented the possibility that sexual revelations (lesbianism) would overwhelm the singular and manifold achievement of her own creative work, or that the appearance of actively choosing within her own life — her capacity for growth and redirection — would be lost beneath the single determinant of sexual choice. She was an ardent and careful autobiographer in both her poetry and her prose. In addition, she is a writer who has frequently been praised for her powers of observation — for her ‘eye’ — but what is apparent is that her images are frequently layered, calling attention to an anterior relation to sound.
Nicola Luckhurst
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198160021
- eISBN:
- 9780191673740
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198160021.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This chapter begins by considering the asymmetry of knowledge which characterizes the opposition between Sodom and Gomorrah. This analysis of the Proustian discourses on male and female sexuality in ...
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This chapter begins by considering the asymmetry of knowledge which characterizes the opposition between Sodom and Gomorrah. This analysis of the Proustian discourses on male and female sexuality in terms of both the rhetoric and cultural context is then developed by a consideration of their hermeneutic unraveling in an attempt to answer what kind of story is being told and the role of knowledge in it. This chapter describes the most spectacular modes of knowing in A la recherche: knowledge as revolution and revelation. Nobody's sexuality is straightforward in A la recherche. The text alternately speculates about ‘who will come out next’ and shocks by revelations of homosexuality.Less
This chapter begins by considering the asymmetry of knowledge which characterizes the opposition between Sodom and Gomorrah. This analysis of the Proustian discourses on male and female sexuality in terms of both the rhetoric and cultural context is then developed by a consideration of their hermeneutic unraveling in an attempt to answer what kind of story is being told and the role of knowledge in it. This chapter describes the most spectacular modes of knowing in A la recherche: knowledge as revolution and revelation. Nobody's sexuality is straightforward in A la recherche. The text alternately speculates about ‘who will come out next’ and shocks by revelations of homosexuality.
Elizabeth Colwill
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195093032
- eISBN:
- 9780199854493
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195093032.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This chapter examines the representation of Marie-Antoinette, Queen of France, as tribade in pornography during the French Revolution. Pornographic pamphlets depicted the queen with an unusual range ...
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This chapter examines the representation of Marie-Antoinette, Queen of France, as tribade in pornography during the French Revolution. Pornographic pamphlets depicted the queen with an unusual range of sexual partners and in an imaginative array of sexual postures. This chapter analyses the political significance of the queen's alleged taste for women and the shifting meanings of the tribade during the 18th century in the context of the history of lesbianism.Less
This chapter examines the representation of Marie-Antoinette, Queen of France, as tribade in pornography during the French Revolution. Pornographic pamphlets depicted the queen with an unusual range of sexual partners and in an imaginative array of sexual postures. This chapter analyses the political significance of the queen's alleged taste for women and the shifting meanings of the tribade during the 18th century in the context of the history of lesbianism.
Todd W. Reeser
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226307008
- eISBN:
- 9780226307145
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226307145.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter historicizes queer theory’s insight that lesbianism is often linked to a problem of representation by focusing on links between questions of reading and Platonic-inflected female-female ...
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This chapter historicizes queer theory’s insight that lesbianism is often linked to a problem of representation by focusing on links between questions of reading and Platonic-inflected female-female erotic love. It first establishes the complicated discursive context of this larger hermeneutic question through the reception of Sapphic sexuality and, especially, of the female-female being who makes a brief appearance in Aristophanes’s myth of the origin of love from the Symposium. The chapter then turns to one of the very few Neoplatonic representations of female-female eros in the Renaissance, a series of poems by male poets written in the voice of a woman in love with another woman. Embedded within the poems by Jodelle, Tyard, and Ronsard are Neoplatonic commonplaces as well as references to male-male love. The poems are not so much inscribing same-sex female sexuality in the Neoplatonic tradition as much as they are writing it out by decorporealizing love between women. But also, the poets who write about female-female love are also inherently evoking male-male homoeroticism as a way to experience it vicariously, and for this reason, the “lesbian” poems can be taken as a newly-developed and rather sophisticated way to set Plato straight by detour.Less
This chapter historicizes queer theory’s insight that lesbianism is often linked to a problem of representation by focusing on links between questions of reading and Platonic-inflected female-female erotic love. It first establishes the complicated discursive context of this larger hermeneutic question through the reception of Sapphic sexuality and, especially, of the female-female being who makes a brief appearance in Aristophanes’s myth of the origin of love from the Symposium. The chapter then turns to one of the very few Neoplatonic representations of female-female eros in the Renaissance, a series of poems by male poets written in the voice of a woman in love with another woman. Embedded within the poems by Jodelle, Tyard, and Ronsard are Neoplatonic commonplaces as well as references to male-male love. The poems are not so much inscribing same-sex female sexuality in the Neoplatonic tradition as much as they are writing it out by decorporealizing love between women. But also, the poets who write about female-female love are also inherently evoking male-male homoeroticism as a way to experience it vicariously, and for this reason, the “lesbian” poems can be taken as a newly-developed and rather sophisticated way to set Plato straight by detour.
Annabel Robinson
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199242337
- eISBN:
- 9780191714108
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199242337.003.0014
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter recounts the last twelve years of Harrison's life: the demoralizing return to Cambridge at the end of the war; the Cambridge campaign to confer degrees on women (and the resulting ...
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This chapter recounts the last twelve years of Harrison's life: the demoralizing return to Cambridge at the end of the war; the Cambridge campaign to confer degrees on women (and the resulting compromise); and her decision to leave Newnham. It covers her life in Paris with Hope Mirrlees, a visit to Spain, participation in two of Desjardins' décades at Pontigny, a visit from Leonard and Virginia Woolf, and return to London. Her relationship with Mirrlees is discussed and the rumour of lesbianism refuted. It touches on her Epilegomena, in which she gathers together her final thoughts on Greek religion and other short books she wrote during this period. The book closes where it began, with the memorial lecture at Newnham, and the link between Harrison and Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own.Less
This chapter recounts the last twelve years of Harrison's life: the demoralizing return to Cambridge at the end of the war; the Cambridge campaign to confer degrees on women (and the resulting compromise); and her decision to leave Newnham. It covers her life in Paris with Hope Mirrlees, a visit to Spain, participation in two of Desjardins' décades at Pontigny, a visit from Leonard and Virginia Woolf, and return to London. Her relationship with Mirrlees is discussed and the rumour of lesbianism refuted. It touches on her Epilegomena, in which she gathers together her final thoughts on Greek religion and other short books she wrote during this period. The book closes where it began, with the memorial lecture at Newnham, and the link between Harrison and Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own.
Amy Sim
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789622099876
- eISBN:
- 9789882206625
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789622099876.003.0003
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
This chapter deals with lesbianism among Indonesian migrant women in Hong Kong. It explores the nexus of sexuality shaped through practices and ideologies embedded in nationalistic and patriarchal ...
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This chapter deals with lesbianism among Indonesian migrant women in Hong Kong. It explores the nexus of sexuality shaped through practices and ideologies embedded in nationalistic and patriarchal constructions of women, and the opportunities and constraints presented by labour migration within which migrant women move. It then reports the issues and conditions in migrant women's lives, linking the micro-politics of individual lives to the impact of existing powers on individuals' social lives, and explores the repercussions of the cultural regime in Indonesia that affect women migrant workers, with regard to their sexuality, in terms of materiality, processes, strategies, and embedded ideologies. Next, it looks beyond the fragmented differences among individual women to examine the sources of power that pervade their lives in and beyond labour migration. Despite massive efforts by the State, religion, and cultural mores, there are still cracks in heteronormativity that allow the light through and it is interesting that it is in the processes of labour migration that young Indonesian women are able to lift the lid on the gendered exploitation of women through cultural and political ideologies, and better still, to give voice to it and act on it.Less
This chapter deals with lesbianism among Indonesian migrant women in Hong Kong. It explores the nexus of sexuality shaped through practices and ideologies embedded in nationalistic and patriarchal constructions of women, and the opportunities and constraints presented by labour migration within which migrant women move. It then reports the issues and conditions in migrant women's lives, linking the micro-politics of individual lives to the impact of existing powers on individuals' social lives, and explores the repercussions of the cultural regime in Indonesia that affect women migrant workers, with regard to their sexuality, in terms of materiality, processes, strategies, and embedded ideologies. Next, it looks beyond the fragmented differences among individual women to examine the sources of power that pervade their lives in and beyond labour migration. Despite massive efforts by the State, religion, and cultural mores, there are still cracks in heteronormativity that allow the light through and it is interesting that it is in the processes of labour migration that young Indonesian women are able to lift the lid on the gendered exploitation of women through cultural and political ideologies, and better still, to give voice to it and act on it.
Laura S. Brown
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780195082319
- eISBN:
- 9780199848577
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195082319.003.0001
- Subject:
- Psychology, Clinical Psychology
Over the years, various concepts of lesbianism have been studied, documented, and critiqued across cultures. However, the appointment of a universal definition is continually being contemplated by ...
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Over the years, various concepts of lesbianism have been studied, documented, and critiqued across cultures. However, the appointment of a universal definition is continually being contemplated by many scholars. This chapter provides an overview on how the definition of lesbian identity emerged given the issues and controversies it brings about and how it established a link between sexual orientation and sexual identity among human beings. Biological models are used to differentiate the lesbian identity from other sexual identities while traditional psychodynamic models attempt to delineate the development of lesbian identities among women. The dynamics of feminist psychodynamic models address identity development using a less subtle framework for sexual identity of women whereas stage models describe and expound the development of sexual self among lesbians.Less
Over the years, various concepts of lesbianism have been studied, documented, and critiqued across cultures. However, the appointment of a universal definition is continually being contemplated by many scholars. This chapter provides an overview on how the definition of lesbian identity emerged given the issues and controversies it brings about and how it established a link between sexual orientation and sexual identity among human beings. Biological models are used to differentiate the lesbian identity from other sexual identities while traditional psychodynamic models attempt to delineate the development of lesbian identities among women. The dynamics of feminist psychodynamic models address identity development using a less subtle framework for sexual identity of women whereas stage models describe and expound the development of sexual self among lesbians.
Sydney Janet Kaplan
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748641482
- eISBN:
- 9780748671595
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748641482.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
This chapter situates Murry's first novel, Still Life, within the frameworks of his friendship with D.H. and Frieda Lawrence and his intimate relationship with Katherine Mansfield. It discusses the ...
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This chapter situates Murry's first novel, Still Life, within the frameworks of his friendship with D.H. and Frieda Lawrence and his intimate relationship with Katherine Mansfield. It discusses the impact of Lawrence's ideas about sexuality on Murry's treatment of sex in Still Life, and also takes up the issues of repressed homosexuality and homosocial desire in his friendships with Lawrence, Gordon Campbell, and Gaudier-Brzeska. Mansfield's bisexuality is discussed in relation to Murry's treatment of lesbianism in his novel. The chapter analyses Murry's writing process and his difficulty in following nineteenth-century narrative conventions to write a modernist novel.Less
This chapter situates Murry's first novel, Still Life, within the frameworks of his friendship with D.H. and Frieda Lawrence and his intimate relationship with Katherine Mansfield. It discusses the impact of Lawrence's ideas about sexuality on Murry's treatment of sex in Still Life, and also takes up the issues of repressed homosexuality and homosocial desire in his friendships with Lawrence, Gordon Campbell, and Gaudier-Brzeska. Mansfield's bisexuality is discussed in relation to Murry's treatment of lesbianism in his novel. The chapter analyses Murry's writing process and his difficulty in following nineteenth-century narrative conventions to write a modernist novel.
Carolyn J. Dean
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520219953
- eISBN:
- 9780520923485
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520219953.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This chapter argues that although the paradoxical—indeed paranoid—structure of fantasies about pornography and male homosexuality also applied to interwar female homosexuality, it is necessary to ...
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This chapter argues that although the paradoxical—indeed paranoid—structure of fantasies about pornography and male homosexuality also applied to interwar female homosexuality, it is necessary to make an important distinction between men and women. Fantasies about the omnipresence of both male and female homosexuals surfaced for closely related reasons, including natalist anxieties, fears about national “emasculation,” and feminist questions about gender roles. Those fantasies accented gay men's visibility, and although critics also perceived lesbians everywhere, they were, it seems, never visible enough. Of course, both right-wing nationalists and Republicans in France denounced “mannish” women and often implicitly conflated feminism and lesbianism, using the latter “aberration” to discredit feminist ideas as well. The chapter contends that the important critical focus on self-identified lesbians, and on increasingly visible lesbian subcultures, bars, and clubs does not address the significant investment which interwar critics made in rendering lesbians literally or metaphorically invisible.Less
This chapter argues that although the paradoxical—indeed paranoid—structure of fantasies about pornography and male homosexuality also applied to interwar female homosexuality, it is necessary to make an important distinction between men and women. Fantasies about the omnipresence of both male and female homosexuals surfaced for closely related reasons, including natalist anxieties, fears about national “emasculation,” and feminist questions about gender roles. Those fantasies accented gay men's visibility, and although critics also perceived lesbians everywhere, they were, it seems, never visible enough. Of course, both right-wing nationalists and Republicans in France denounced “mannish” women and often implicitly conflated feminism and lesbianism, using the latter “aberration” to discredit feminist ideas as well. The chapter contends that the important critical focus on self-identified lesbians, and on increasingly visible lesbian subcultures, bars, and clubs does not address the significant investment which interwar critics made in rendering lesbians literally or metaphorically invisible.
Thomas Hubbard (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520223813
- eISBN:
- 9780520936508
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520223813.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Archaeology: Classical
The most important primary texts on homosexuality in ancient Greece and Rome have been translated into modern, explicit English and collected together in this sourcebook. Covering an extensive ...
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The most important primary texts on homosexuality in ancient Greece and Rome have been translated into modern, explicit English and collected together in this sourcebook. Covering an extensive period—from the earliest Greek texts in the late seventh century B.C.E. to Greco-Roman texts of the third and fourth centuries C.E.—the volume includes well-known writings by Plato, Sappho, Aeschines, Catullus, and Juvenal, as well as less well known but relevant and intriguing texts such as graffiti, comic fragments, magical papyri, medical treatises, and selected artistic evidence. These texts, together with introductions, clearly show that there was in fact no more consensus about homosexuality in ancient Greece and Rome than there is today. The material is organized by period and by genre, allowing readers to consider chronological developments in both Greece and Rome. Individual texts are presented with a short introduction contextualizing them by date and, where necessary, discussing their place within a larger work. Chapter introductions discuss questions of genre and the ideological significance of the texts, while the general introduction to the volume addresses issues such as sexual orientation in antiquity, moral judgments, class and ideology, and lesbianism.Less
The most important primary texts on homosexuality in ancient Greece and Rome have been translated into modern, explicit English and collected together in this sourcebook. Covering an extensive period—from the earliest Greek texts in the late seventh century B.C.E. to Greco-Roman texts of the third and fourth centuries C.E.—the volume includes well-known writings by Plato, Sappho, Aeschines, Catullus, and Juvenal, as well as less well known but relevant and intriguing texts such as graffiti, comic fragments, magical papyri, medical treatises, and selected artistic evidence. These texts, together with introductions, clearly show that there was in fact no more consensus about homosexuality in ancient Greece and Rome than there is today. The material is organized by period and by genre, allowing readers to consider chronological developments in both Greece and Rome. Individual texts are presented with a short introduction contextualizing them by date and, where necessary, discussing their place within a larger work. Chapter introductions discuss questions of genre and the ideological significance of the texts, while the general introduction to the volume addresses issues such as sexual orientation in antiquity, moral judgments, class and ideology, and lesbianism.
Lucille Cairns
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748621651
- eISBN:
- 9780748651108
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748621651.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This book investigates the traces and spaces of lesbian desire in a large corpus of films directed by both male and female directors, mainly from France. Spanning the period 1936–2002, the corpus ...
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This book investigates the traces and spaces of lesbian desire in a large corpus of films directed by both male and female directors, mainly from France. Spanning the period 1936–2002, the corpus numbers eighty-nine texts. A fair number of these are mainstream films that have achieved high critical acclaim and/or high viewing figures. As such, they have contributed to hegemonic constructions of (female) homosexuality in an episteme wherein sexed and gendered identity, including sexual orientation, has become a pre-eminent factor in the constitution of subjectivity. First, the book explores what is meant by ‘lesbian spectatorship’. Second, it considers why visual pleasure should be based on voyeurism or fetishism. Third, the book examines the two most predominant lesbian paradigms immanent in the corpus: criminality and pathology. Fourth, it considers borderline inscriptions of lesbianism: lesbian liminality. Fifth, the book discusses more apparently lesbo-affirmative mises en scènes of lesbian desire, but not without problematising them where necessary. Finally, it looks at shifts in French-language cinematic mediations of lesbianism over the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.Less
This book investigates the traces and spaces of lesbian desire in a large corpus of films directed by both male and female directors, mainly from France. Spanning the period 1936–2002, the corpus numbers eighty-nine texts. A fair number of these are mainstream films that have achieved high critical acclaim and/or high viewing figures. As such, they have contributed to hegemonic constructions of (female) homosexuality in an episteme wherein sexed and gendered identity, including sexual orientation, has become a pre-eminent factor in the constitution of subjectivity. First, the book explores what is meant by ‘lesbian spectatorship’. Second, it considers why visual pleasure should be based on voyeurism or fetishism. Third, the book examines the two most predominant lesbian paradigms immanent in the corpus: criminality and pathology. Fourth, it considers borderline inscriptions of lesbianism: lesbian liminality. Fifth, the book discusses more apparently lesbo-affirmative mises en scènes of lesbian desire, but not without problematising them where necessary. Finally, it looks at shifts in French-language cinematic mediations of lesbianism over the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
Lucille Cairns
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748621651
- eISBN:
- 9780748651108
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748621651.003.0003
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter examines pathology, or lesbianism, as sickness. The discursive shift from condemning lesbians as sinful to certifying them as ill was largely prompted by the birth of sexology in the ...
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This chapter examines pathology, or lesbianism, as sickness. The discursive shift from condemning lesbians as sinful to certifying them as ill was largely prompted by the birth of sexology in the second half of the nineteenth century, then of psychoanalysis at the start of the twentieth. In the twenty-first century, psychoanalytic dogma still holds astonishing sway in critical practices, and it is certainly at the origin of most contemporary models – be they clinical or more widely cultural – of lesbianism outside those affirmative models elaborated by lesbians themselves in the post-1968 period. The chief avatar of this pathologising paradigm in French and francophone films is narcissistic fusion. All of these models intersect to some extent with the second most prominent variant of the pathologising paradigm of lesbianism: the mother–daughter model. The chapter also looks at films that have sado-masochism as a common theme, including Luis Buñuel's Belle de Jour (1967), Guy Casaril's Le Rempart des Béguines (1972) and Claude Chabrol's Les Biches (1968).Less
This chapter examines pathology, or lesbianism, as sickness. The discursive shift from condemning lesbians as sinful to certifying them as ill was largely prompted by the birth of sexology in the second half of the nineteenth century, then of psychoanalysis at the start of the twentieth. In the twenty-first century, psychoanalytic dogma still holds astonishing sway in critical practices, and it is certainly at the origin of most contemporary models – be they clinical or more widely cultural – of lesbianism outside those affirmative models elaborated by lesbians themselves in the post-1968 period. The chief avatar of this pathologising paradigm in French and francophone films is narcissistic fusion. All of these models intersect to some extent with the second most prominent variant of the pathologising paradigm of lesbianism: the mother–daughter model. The chapter also looks at films that have sado-masochism as a common theme, including Luis Buñuel's Belle de Jour (1967), Guy Casaril's Le Rempart des Béguines (1972) and Claude Chabrol's Les Biches (1968).
Lucille Cairns
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748621651
- eISBN:
- 9780748651108
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748621651.003.0005
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter focuses on certain filmic moments that may provide less limiting perspectives on inter-female desire – or may, indeed, herald a new ‘science’ of lesbianism – what is termed sapphology. ...
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This chapter focuses on certain filmic moments that may provide less limiting perspectives on inter-female desire – or may, indeed, herald a new ‘science’ of lesbianism – what is termed sapphology. First, it discusses scenarios that emphasise the problem not of lesbian desire, but of the socio-discursive barriers its subjects face, and usually surmount (including, prominently, the challenge of coming out to family members). Second, the chapter describes scenes of erotic arousal and jouissance (albeit not always problem free) between women. Third, moving from the inveterate, whether homo- or heteroinstantiated, ephemera of desire, it turns to love between women and its possible issue, such as creation and procreation, focusing on art as mediator of (lesboerotic) desire in the first case. Self-evidently, a lesbian couple cannot jointly conceive a child biologically, but one of the two (or indeed, both, following separate medical procedures) may now have recourse to artificial insemination within a joint commitment to lesbian parenting, with the non-biological mother assuming the role of the ‘social parent’.Less
This chapter focuses on certain filmic moments that may provide less limiting perspectives on inter-female desire – or may, indeed, herald a new ‘science’ of lesbianism – what is termed sapphology. First, it discusses scenarios that emphasise the problem not of lesbian desire, but of the socio-discursive barriers its subjects face, and usually surmount (including, prominently, the challenge of coming out to family members). Second, the chapter describes scenes of erotic arousal and jouissance (albeit not always problem free) between women. Third, moving from the inveterate, whether homo- or heteroinstantiated, ephemera of desire, it turns to love between women and its possible issue, such as creation and procreation, focusing on art as mediator of (lesboerotic) desire in the first case. Self-evidently, a lesbian couple cannot jointly conceive a child biologically, but one of the two (or indeed, both, following separate medical procedures) may now have recourse to artificial insemination within a joint commitment to lesbian parenting, with the non-biological mother assuming the role of the ‘social parent’.
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804756877
- eISBN:
- 9780804768375
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804756877.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Women's Literature
People in Somalia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan, Sierra Leone, and other parts of Africa believe that an oversized or an unexcised clitoris is an obstruction to coitus, while masturbation is an avoidance ...
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People in Somalia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan, Sierra Leone, and other parts of Africa believe that an oversized or an unexcised clitoris is an obstruction to coitus, while masturbation is an avoidance of coitus. Both are thus considered inimical to fertility. This chapter provides two “sexual pre-texts,” one African and the other European, the latter of which relies on African genital practices. To a certain degree, one or the other or both, directly or subliminally, informed women's contemporary self-writing on excision. The chapter considers a tribade (from the Greek tribein which means “to rub”), which refers to a woman who finds sexual pleasure with other women, often by rubbing an enlarged clitoris, a practice that is similar to lesbianism. It shows that women's experiential texts show the clitoris as instrumental in shaping female gender identity. Thus, the clitoris is a core element of African women's writings.Less
People in Somalia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan, Sierra Leone, and other parts of Africa believe that an oversized or an unexcised clitoris is an obstruction to coitus, while masturbation is an avoidance of coitus. Both are thus considered inimical to fertility. This chapter provides two “sexual pre-texts,” one African and the other European, the latter of which relies on African genital practices. To a certain degree, one or the other or both, directly or subliminally, informed women's contemporary self-writing on excision. The chapter considers a tribade (from the Greek tribein which means “to rub”), which refers to a woman who finds sexual pleasure with other women, often by rubbing an enlarged clitoris, a practice that is similar to lesbianism. It shows that women's experiential texts show the clitoris as instrumental in shaping female gender identity. Thus, the clitoris is a core element of African women's writings.
Chrysanthi Nigianni
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748634040
- eISBN:
- 9780748652563
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748634040.003.0010
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This chapter examines lesbianism through a schizoanalytic framework. It explains the schizoanalytic thinking that conceives of lesbianism as becoming-lesbian, a schizophrenic process which ...
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This chapter examines lesbianism through a schizoanalytic framework. It explains the schizoanalytic thinking that conceives of lesbianism as becoming-lesbian, a schizophrenic process which constitutes a rupture and break-through that shatters the continuity of personality and takes it on a kind of trip through ‘more reality’. The chapter argues for a schizophrenic lesbian desire that violates strict definitions and exceeds linguistic meaning and signifiers, and discusses the views of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari concerning schizophrenia and the relation between science and philosophy.Less
This chapter examines lesbianism through a schizoanalytic framework. It explains the schizoanalytic thinking that conceives of lesbianism as becoming-lesbian, a schizophrenic process which constitutes a rupture and break-through that shatters the continuity of personality and takes it on a kind of trip through ‘more reality’. The chapter argues for a schizophrenic lesbian desire that violates strict definitions and exceeds linguistic meaning and signifiers, and discusses the views of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari concerning schizophrenia and the relation between science and philosophy.
Lisa Purse
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748638178
- eISBN:
- 9780748670857
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748638178.003.0008
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Using Bad Boys II, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, Alexander, Spider-Man 3 and 300 as illustrative case studies, this chapter maps out homosexuality's status as both structuring presence and structuring ...
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Using Bad Boys II, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, Alexander, Spider-Man 3 and 300 as illustrative case studies, this chapter maps out homosexuality's status as both structuring presence and structuring absence in contemporary action cinema, as well as documenting how action movies speak to this presence/absence. After a brief history of homosexual screen representations, the chapter argues that the imposition or regulation of a straight-gay binary remains readable in contemporary action cinema, and that as a violent, risk-filled homosocial space the action ?lm provides a fertile ground for the anxieties about losing one's proper gender that Judith Butler has described. Representation of and performance of homosexuality, current practices of presenting and policing homosocial space, and patterns of knowing avaowal and disavowal, are historicized and analysed. The chapter explores how homosexuality operates as metaphor in the superhero action cycle, and as an indicator of villainy in films like Gamer, 300 and Watchmen, and also points up the persistent invisibility of female homosexuality in contemporary action cinema.Less
Using Bad Boys II, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, Alexander, Spider-Man 3 and 300 as illustrative case studies, this chapter maps out homosexuality's status as both structuring presence and structuring absence in contemporary action cinema, as well as documenting how action movies speak to this presence/absence. After a brief history of homosexual screen representations, the chapter argues that the imposition or regulation of a straight-gay binary remains readable in contemporary action cinema, and that as a violent, risk-filled homosocial space the action ?lm provides a fertile ground for the anxieties about losing one's proper gender that Judith Butler has described. Representation of and performance of homosexuality, current practices of presenting and policing homosocial space, and patterns of knowing avaowal and disavowal, are historicized and analysed. The chapter explores how homosexuality operates as metaphor in the superhero action cycle, and as an indicator of villainy in films like Gamer, 300 and Watchmen, and also points up the persistent invisibility of female homosexuality in contemporary action cinema.
Richard I. Cohen (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- August 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780190912628
- eISBN:
- 9780190912659
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190912628.003.0056
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism, Religion and Society
This chapter reviews the book Sexuality and the Body in New Religious Zionist Discourse (2015), by Yakir Englander and Avi Sagi, translated by Batya Stein. Sexuality and the Body in New Religious ...
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This chapter reviews the book Sexuality and the Body in New Religious Zionist Discourse (2015), by Yakir Englander and Avi Sagi, translated by Batya Stein. Sexuality and the Body in New Religious Zionist Discourse examines the positions and debates about “sexuality” in one area of the Jewish public sphere in Israel—religious Jewry—and specifically that of the Israeli religious Zionists who, following the notion of “Torah ’im Derech Eretz” first formulated by Samson Raphael Hirsch as an answer to the Enlightenment, are now struggling in a Jewish state to combine halakhic commitment with the values of modernity. Englander and Sagi focus on questions of sexuality as defined by rabbinic notions of gender attraction and bodily integrity/autonomy: those dealing with homosexuality, lesbianism, masturbation, and the relationships between the sexes.Less
This chapter reviews the book Sexuality and the Body in New Religious Zionist Discourse (2015), by Yakir Englander and Avi Sagi, translated by Batya Stein. Sexuality and the Body in New Religious Zionist Discourse examines the positions and debates about “sexuality” in one area of the Jewish public sphere in Israel—religious Jewry—and specifically that of the Israeli religious Zionists who, following the notion of “Torah ’im Derech Eretz” first formulated by Samson Raphael Hirsch as an answer to the Enlightenment, are now struggling in a Jewish state to combine halakhic commitment with the values of modernity. Englander and Sagi focus on questions of sexuality as defined by rabbinic notions of gender attraction and bodily integrity/autonomy: those dealing with homosexuality, lesbianism, masturbation, and the relationships between the sexes.
