Diane Mason
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719077142
- eISBN:
- 9781781701089
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719077142.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
This book considers the construction and presentation of the masturbator in nineteenth-century fiction and medical writing, and the implication of him or her in a paradoxically ‘secret’ vice, made ...
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This book considers the construction and presentation of the masturbator in nineteenth-century fiction and medical writing, and the implication of him or her in a paradoxically ‘secret’ vice, made visible to the Victorians through a range of bodily signifiers yet invisible when perceiving the bodies of the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It demonstrates how the symptoms of solitary self-abuse may be seen to disclose other textual vices and pathologies. The ongoing debate on Victorian sexuality encloses the related issue of autoerotic behaviour, a field which is both problematic in terms of extent and implication, and dogged by a certain humorous mode of discourse.Less
This book considers the construction and presentation of the masturbator in nineteenth-century fiction and medical writing, and the implication of him or her in a paradoxically ‘secret’ vice, made visible to the Victorians through a range of bodily signifiers yet invisible when perceiving the bodies of the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It demonstrates how the symptoms of solitary self-abuse may be seen to disclose other textual vices and pathologies. The ongoing debate on Victorian sexuality encloses the related issue of autoerotic behaviour, a field which is both problematic in terms of extent and implication, and dogged by a certain humorous mode of discourse.
Y. Yvon Wang
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- September 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781501752971
- eISBN:
- 9781501752995
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501752971.003.0004
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
This chapter builds on the material and technological transformations described in the previous chapter to discuss changing ideas about sexual representations. The chapter begins to directly talk ...
More
This chapter builds on the material and technological transformations described in the previous chapter to discuss changing ideas about sexual representations. The chapter begins to directly talk about the desires of the implied masturbator. From the late Qing into the early twentieth century, mass media conquered the Chinese cultural world. Ambitious intellectuals at the turn of the twentieth century increasingly put their ideas onto a print market that was more open than ever before. The chapter analyses how literary professionalization remained a deviation from the orthodox path of officialdom. It also elaborates the five aspects of ideological change around sex and sexual representations at the turn of the twentieth century. Many of these ideological transformations were led by political and cultural reformers, including proponents of a “New Culture.” These self-declared iconoclasts argued for revising the boundaries of legitimacy around desire itself. Ultimately, the chapter introduces the downfall of Zhang Jingsheng, a leading member of the New Culture group. The chapter addresses how Zhang's open discussion of his personal desires made him vulnerable to becoming seen as no better than an implied masturbator.Less
This chapter builds on the material and technological transformations described in the previous chapter to discuss changing ideas about sexual representations. The chapter begins to directly talk about the desires of the implied masturbator. From the late Qing into the early twentieth century, mass media conquered the Chinese cultural world. Ambitious intellectuals at the turn of the twentieth century increasingly put their ideas onto a print market that was more open than ever before. The chapter analyses how literary professionalization remained a deviation from the orthodox path of officialdom. It also elaborates the five aspects of ideological change around sex and sexual representations at the turn of the twentieth century. Many of these ideological transformations were led by political and cultural reformers, including proponents of a “New Culture.” These self-declared iconoclasts argued for revising the boundaries of legitimacy around desire itself. Ultimately, the chapter introduces the downfall of Zhang Jingsheng, a leading member of the New Culture group. The chapter addresses how Zhang's open discussion of his personal desires made him vulnerable to becoming seen as no better than an implied masturbator.
