Hera Cook
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199252183
- eISBN:
- 9780191719240
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199252183.003.0017
- Subject:
- History, Social History
Immense positive change has taken place in English people's sexual and emotional lives. This is reflected in changing family forms and greater acceptance of sexual variation of all kinds. These ...
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Immense positive change has taken place in English people's sexual and emotional lives. This is reflected in changing family forms and greater acceptance of sexual variation of all kinds. These changes were propelled forward by the transformation of pregnancy from an uncontrollable risk to a freely chosen product of sexual activity. There are many women throughout the globe who do not have access to adequate maternity care and contraception, and neo-liberal economic measures are eroding the improvements in people lives made possible by the political and social agitation of earlier generations. Acknowledging positive change in the past should give confidence to those who seek change in the future.Less
Immense positive change has taken place in English people's sexual and emotional lives. This is reflected in changing family forms and greater acceptance of sexual variation of all kinds. These changes were propelled forward by the transformation of pregnancy from an uncontrollable risk to a freely chosen product of sexual activity. There are many women throughout the globe who do not have access to adequate maternity care and contraception, and neo-liberal economic measures are eroding the improvements in people lives made possible by the political and social agitation of earlier generations. Acknowledging positive change in the past should give confidence to those who seek change in the future.
Gary Alan Fine and Bill Ellis
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199736317
- eISBN:
- 9780199866458
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199736317.003.0004
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
Contemporary immigrants who enter the United States to work or settle are assumed to bring with them habits of crime, laziness, and lack of hygiene. This chapter puts these modern rumor cycles into ...
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Contemporary immigrants who enter the United States to work or settle are assumed to bring with them habits of crime, laziness, and lack of hygiene. This chapter puts these modern rumor cycles into historical perspective by examining ways in which these beliefs are based on earlier stereotypes generated by previous immigration waves. They often blamed foreigners for introducing diseases such as leprosy and typhoid fever to the country, just as Mexicans were blamed for the new swine flu epidemic. The literal illness, then as now, symbolized a more subtle threat to the body politic: a new population marked by immorality, sexual promiscuity, and political disloyalty. Particularly, foreigners serve as scapegoats after catastrophes such as fires or floods. Rumor contributed to the creation of an increasingly restrictive immigration policy in the United States, and continues to generate an atmosphere of distrust against newcomers.Less
Contemporary immigrants who enter the United States to work or settle are assumed to bring with them habits of crime, laziness, and lack of hygiene. This chapter puts these modern rumor cycles into historical perspective by examining ways in which these beliefs are based on earlier stereotypes generated by previous immigration waves. They often blamed foreigners for introducing diseases such as leprosy and typhoid fever to the country, just as Mexicans were blamed for the new swine flu epidemic. The literal illness, then as now, symbolized a more subtle threat to the body politic: a new population marked by immorality, sexual promiscuity, and political disloyalty. Particularly, foreigners serve as scapegoats after catastrophes such as fires or floods. Rumor contributed to the creation of an increasingly restrictive immigration policy in the United States, and continues to generate an atmosphere of distrust against newcomers.
Keith Gandal
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195338911
- eISBN:
- 9780199867127
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195338911.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory, American, 20th Century Literature
This chapter discusses methodology and places the book in the context of related scholarship on the subject. In particular, it takes issue with literary scholarship whose approach is based on a ...
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This chapter discusses methodology and places the book in the context of related scholarship on the subject. In particular, it takes issue with literary scholarship whose approach is based on a history of ideas or discourses and thus eschews attention to authors' biographies, or experiences of authors — and thus ultimately ignores historical experiences.(It addresses Walter Michaels' Our America, which is an influential example of such scholarship that addresses modernist novels and their relationship to 1920s nativism.) The chapter also argues with studies of the relationship between modernist style and politics that give attention to stylistics per se, apart from plot and character. It discusses the common plot that unifies the 1920s novels at issue, discusses why critics have missed this plot, and offers an alternative argument about modernist style in the context of modernist plots and characters, as well as the historical context of the mobilization. In so doing, it traces the deconstruction of the sentimental novel of seduction by Progressive Era realist writers and the rise of the modernist, racist promiscuity plot, which the three 1920s novels at issue here share with each other, and with Djuna Barnes' Nightwood and Nathanael West's The Day of the Locust.Less
This chapter discusses methodology and places the book in the context of related scholarship on the subject. In particular, it takes issue with literary scholarship whose approach is based on a history of ideas or discourses and thus eschews attention to authors' biographies, or experiences of authors — and thus ultimately ignores historical experiences.(It addresses Walter Michaels' Our America, which is an influential example of such scholarship that addresses modernist novels and their relationship to 1920s nativism.) The chapter also argues with studies of the relationship between modernist style and politics that give attention to stylistics per se, apart from plot and character. It discusses the common plot that unifies the 1920s novels at issue, discusses why critics have missed this plot, and offers an alternative argument about modernist style in the context of modernist plots and characters, as well as the historical context of the mobilization. In so doing, it traces the deconstruction of the sentimental novel of seduction by Progressive Era realist writers and the rise of the modernist, racist promiscuity plot, which the three 1920s novels at issue here share with each other, and with Djuna Barnes' Nightwood and Nathanael West's The Day of the Locust.
Keith Gandal
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195338911
- eISBN:
- 9780199867127
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195338911.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory, American, 20th Century Literature
By the 1930s, the postmobilization tale of Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and Hemingway (the racist promiscuity plot) was already being subverted, while still being utilized. In Tropic of Cancer by Henry ...
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By the 1930s, the postmobilization tale of Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and Hemingway (the racist promiscuity plot) was already being subverted, while still being utilized. In Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller, Nightwood by Djuna Barnes, and The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West, there is still a central promiscuous Anglo woman; there are love relationships with ethnic Americans, and often with Jews; there are obsessed romantics; there are sometimes mentally deficient characters, and there are lovers who have special relationships with a promiscuous woman. But now the ethnic character is not scapegoated; the masculine soldierly ideal comes under attack; the figure of the charity girl is parodied, and the military is openly criticized, its concern over venereal disease mocked. The postmobilization novels of the thirties are no longer haunted by sexual liaisons between military figures and women — as were the twenties novels, as well as the 1917-1918 military authorities; rather, the figures of the prostitute and the charity girl are now fetishized, not romanticized or problematized.Less
By the 1930s, the postmobilization tale of Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and Hemingway (the racist promiscuity plot) was already being subverted, while still being utilized. In Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller, Nightwood by Djuna Barnes, and The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West, there is still a central promiscuous Anglo woman; there are love relationships with ethnic Americans, and often with Jews; there are obsessed romantics; there are sometimes mentally deficient characters, and there are lovers who have special relationships with a promiscuous woman. But now the ethnic character is not scapegoated; the masculine soldierly ideal comes under attack; the figure of the charity girl is parodied, and the military is openly criticized, its concern over venereal disease mocked. The postmobilization novels of the thirties are no longer haunted by sexual liaisons between military figures and women — as were the twenties novels, as well as the 1917-1918 military authorities; rather, the figures of the prostitute and the charity girl are now fetishized, not romanticized or problematized.
Paul B. Duff
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195138351
- eISBN:
- 9780199834150
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019513835X.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
John uses the issues of food and sex to continue his indirect denunciation of “Jezebel.” He focuses on these issues in the passages that feature female characters in order to connect the activities ...
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John uses the issues of food and sex to continue his indirect denunciation of “Jezebel.” He focuses on these issues in the passages that feature female characters in order to connect the activities of “Jezebel” (ɛιδωλόθυτα and πορνɛία) to “Babylon's” heinous acts focused on eating (cannibalism) and sex (promiscuity). John also uses gender stereotypes (specifically that women are weak, undisciplined, emotional, and ultimately dangerous) to suggest that his rival, a woman, is unfit to lead the churches.Less
John uses the issues of food and sex to continue his indirect denunciation of “Jezebel.” He focuses on these issues in the passages that feature female characters in order to connect the activities of “Jezebel” (ɛιδωλόθυτα and πορνɛία) to “Babylon's” heinous acts focused on eating (cannibalism) and sex (promiscuity). John also uses gender stereotypes (specifically that women are weak, undisciplined, emotional, and ultimately dangerous) to suggest that his rival, a woman, is unfit to lead the churches.
Hera Cook
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199252183
- eISBN:
- 9780191719240
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199252183.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, Social History
This chapter provides a summary of changing sexual behaviour and attitudes in the first two thirds of the 20th century. It shows that English sexual mores were shaped by ignorance of physical ...
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This chapter provides a summary of changing sexual behaviour and attitudes in the first two thirds of the 20th century. It shows that English sexual mores were shaped by ignorance of physical sexuality and reproduction, the estrangement of the genders, and deep-seated reticence. The contribution of highly sexually active (previously described as promiscuous) heterosexual and homosexual men and women to sexual change was important, but such people remained a minority and the majority of the population limited their sexual activity severely in the interwar period and continued to be sexually conservative well into the post-war period.Less
This chapter provides a summary of changing sexual behaviour and attitudes in the first two thirds of the 20th century. It shows that English sexual mores were shaped by ignorance of physical sexuality and reproduction, the estrangement of the genders, and deep-seated reticence. The contribution of highly sexually active (previously described as promiscuous) heterosexual and homosexual men and women to sexual change was important, but such people remained a minority and the majority of the population limited their sexual activity severely in the interwar period and continued to be sexually conservative well into the post-war period.
Larry A. Witham
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195315936
- eISBN:
- 9780199851089
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195315936.003.0010
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter examines the sexual behavior of pastors, priests, and ministers in the United States. Every church requires exemplary behavior and most of them require clergy to vow compliance at ...
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This chapter examines the sexual behavior of pastors, priests, and ministers in the United States. Every church requires exemplary behavior and most of them require clergy to vow compliance at ordination. However, secret worlds were being opened and liberalized ethics were being espoused and some clergy declared a God-given right of “justice-love”, which means consensual sexual relationship outside of heterosexual marriage. This chapter discusses the many fractures of the ministry fault line over human sexuality including sexual abuse, promiscuity, and ordination of homosexuals.Less
This chapter examines the sexual behavior of pastors, priests, and ministers in the United States. Every church requires exemplary behavior and most of them require clergy to vow compliance at ordination. However, secret worlds were being opened and liberalized ethics were being espoused and some clergy declared a God-given right of “justice-love”, which means consensual sexual relationship outside of heterosexual marriage. This chapter discusses the many fractures of the ministry fault line over human sexuality including sexual abuse, promiscuity, and ordination of homosexuals.
Bimal Krishna Matilal
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198239765
- eISBN:
- 9780191680014
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198239765.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Metaphysics/Epistemology
Sensory (perceptual) illusion is said to be ‘promiscuous’ in Nyāya. Promiscuity of awareness here means that it deals with two ‘objects’ at the same time. ‘Illusion’ is used for cases where something ...
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Sensory (perceptual) illusion is said to be ‘promiscuous’ in Nyāya. Promiscuity of awareness here means that it deals with two ‘objects’ at the same time. ‘Illusion’ is used for cases where something is seen but looks to be other than it is or is ‘taken’ to be. The first section of this chapter describes seeing and seeing-as. The second section considers two Buddhist analyses of illusion. The third section explores the Advaita view of the inexplicability of the appearance. The fourth section considers the Prābhākara view of no-illusion. The fifth section expounds the Nyāya analysis of illusion, which is called the ‘misplacement’ theory. The sixth section explains fictions and fantasies. The last section compares sense-datum and direct realism.Less
Sensory (perceptual) illusion is said to be ‘promiscuous’ in Nyāya. Promiscuity of awareness here means that it deals with two ‘objects’ at the same time. ‘Illusion’ is used for cases where something is seen but looks to be other than it is or is ‘taken’ to be. The first section of this chapter describes seeing and seeing-as. The second section considers two Buddhist analyses of illusion. The third section explores the Advaita view of the inexplicability of the appearance. The fourth section considers the Prābhākara view of no-illusion. The fifth section expounds the Nyāya analysis of illusion, which is called the ‘misplacement’ theory. The sixth section explains fictions and fantasies. The last section compares sense-datum and direct realism.
M.K. Raghavendra
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780198071587
- eISBN:
- 9780199080793
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198071587.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
This chapter examines Kannada films from the 1990s. It discusses how from the late 1980s onwards, Kannada cinema becomes depleted because of a lack of signifiers — the cinema does not ‘mean’ in the ...
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This chapter examines Kannada films from the 1990s. It discusses how from the late 1980s onwards, Kannada cinema becomes depleted because of a lack of signifiers — the cinema does not ‘mean’ in the way it had done hitherto. The region is absent as an imagined community in these Kannada films and this perhaps accounts for them being unable to ‘mean’. It considers one aspect of Kannada cinema that has distressed its avid followers — the vulgarity that appears to overwhelm it in the early 1990s. It also looks at the treatment of women in these films, specifically the notion of feminine promiscuity. It discusses the attitude of Kannada cinema towards Bangalore and how a large number of films are either ‘framed’ as stories being related by filmmakers or involve the process of filmmaking in some way.Less
This chapter examines Kannada films from the 1990s. It discusses how from the late 1980s onwards, Kannada cinema becomes depleted because of a lack of signifiers — the cinema does not ‘mean’ in the way it had done hitherto. The region is absent as an imagined community in these Kannada films and this perhaps accounts for them being unable to ‘mean’. It considers one aspect of Kannada cinema that has distressed its avid followers — the vulgarity that appears to overwhelm it in the early 1990s. It also looks at the treatment of women in these films, specifically the notion of feminine promiscuity. It discusses the attitude of Kannada cinema towards Bangalore and how a large number of films are either ‘framed’ as stories being related by filmmakers or involve the process of filmmaking in some way.
Lawrence Stone
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198202547
- eISBN:
- 9780191675393
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198202547.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History
There is a peculiarly brutal and exploitative quality about gender relations in the period 1680 to 1720, which is amply reflected in the case illustrated in this chapter. Violence, perjury, rape, and ...
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There is a peculiarly brutal and exploitative quality about gender relations in the period 1680 to 1720, which is amply reflected in the case illustrated in this chapter. Violence, perjury, rape, and obsessive promiscuous sexuality are the hallmark of this age, when gender relations were on the turn, when women were at last beginning to assert themselves, and when contractual theories were starting to spread even into domestic relations, modifying the patriarchal power of parents and friends and raising the aspirations for the happiness of children. For a while, however, this period of conflicting values led to extremes of behaviour patterns, all of which are exhibited in rich detail in the unedifying story of the Calverts, Beau Feilding, and the Duchess of Cleveland.Less
There is a peculiarly brutal and exploitative quality about gender relations in the period 1680 to 1720, which is amply reflected in the case illustrated in this chapter. Violence, perjury, rape, and obsessive promiscuous sexuality are the hallmark of this age, when gender relations were on the turn, when women were at last beginning to assert themselves, and when contractual theories were starting to spread even into domestic relations, modifying the patriarchal power of parents and friends and raising the aspirations for the happiness of children. For a while, however, this period of conflicting values led to extremes of behaviour patterns, all of which are exhibited in rich detail in the unedifying story of the Calverts, Beau Feilding, and the Duchess of Cleveland.
Christine J. Gardner
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780520267275
- eISBN:
- 9780520950559
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520267275.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter examines how evangelical abstinence educators in Africa rhetorically construct the condom. It argues that they construct the condom as (1) a tool for marital fidelity; (2) a tool for ...
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This chapter examines how evangelical abstinence educators in Africa rhetorically construct the condom. It argues that they construct the condom as (1) a tool for marital fidelity; (2) a tool for saving lives; (3) part of holistic community-based development; and (4) a tool for female empowerment. After demonstrating the prevalence of these four themes, it turns to an analysis of an evangelical statement of conscience on the AIDS crisis as an example of how these constructions of the condom affect public discourse about AIDS prevention. Although evangelicals tend to view the condom as a tool for promiscuity, in Africa the potential to save lives trumps the potential for increased promiscuity. The perceived lack of choices presented by the dire health situation in Africa provides rhetorical space for a positive construction of the condom as lifesaving. This medical focus echoes U.S. evangelicals' construction of abstinence as the healthy choice.Less
This chapter examines how evangelical abstinence educators in Africa rhetorically construct the condom. It argues that they construct the condom as (1) a tool for marital fidelity; (2) a tool for saving lives; (3) part of holistic community-based development; and (4) a tool for female empowerment. After demonstrating the prevalence of these four themes, it turns to an analysis of an evangelical statement of conscience on the AIDS crisis as an example of how these constructions of the condom affect public discourse about AIDS prevention. Although evangelicals tend to view the condom as a tool for promiscuity, in Africa the potential to save lives trumps the potential for increased promiscuity. The perceived lack of choices presented by the dire health situation in Africa provides rhetorical space for a positive construction of the condom as lifesaving. This medical focus echoes U.S. evangelicals' construction of abstinence as the healthy choice.
Eller Cynthia
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520248595
- eISBN:
- 9780520948556
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520248595.003.0006
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
This chapter looks at the spread of the matriarchal myth in Europe, examining how the myth gained popularity in Europe, specifically in Germany, and explains the contributions of German ethnology to ...
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This chapter looks at the spread of the matriarchal myth in Europe, examining how the myth gained popularity in Europe, specifically in Germany, and explains the contributions of German ethnology to the myth and studying Julius Lippert's version of it. It then identifies the challenges made to Lippert's assertion that the earliest human societies were sexually promiscuous. The chapter also covers the notions of property in relation to sex and marriage, the notions of gender that can be found within the matriarchal myth, the concept of the Aryan mother, and the late participants in the matriarchal debate.Less
This chapter looks at the spread of the matriarchal myth in Europe, examining how the myth gained popularity in Europe, specifically in Germany, and explains the contributions of German ethnology to the myth and studying Julius Lippert's version of it. It then identifies the challenges made to Lippert's assertion that the earliest human societies were sexually promiscuous. The chapter also covers the notions of property in relation to sex and marriage, the notions of gender that can be found within the matriarchal myth, the concept of the Aryan mother, and the late participants in the matriarchal debate.
E. Patrick Johnson
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807872260
- eISBN:
- 9781469602677
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807882733_johnson.10
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Gay and Lesbian Studies
This chapter examines why many conservatives consider all gay people as promiscuous. Of course, some are promiscuous, and promiscuity is a legitimate expression of sexuality for all sexual beings. ...
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This chapter examines why many conservatives consider all gay people as promiscuous. Of course, some are promiscuous, and promiscuity is a legitimate expression of sexuality for all sexual beings. The rhetoric of gay promiscuity, however, has often been a tool used by a homophobic society to justify institutionalized discrimination. The irony is that when gays and lesbians have expressed a desire to be in “legally” binding committed relationships, they have usually been told that they are immoral for coveting and wanting to debase an institution that is designed solely for one man and one woman. This irony was quite poignant as the author sat in the homes of some of the men he interviewed, who had been in relationships for over 40 years, or as he listened to narrators who felt liberated by being single and promiscuous or by being single and celibate.Less
This chapter examines why many conservatives consider all gay people as promiscuous. Of course, some are promiscuous, and promiscuity is a legitimate expression of sexuality for all sexual beings. The rhetoric of gay promiscuity, however, has often been a tool used by a homophobic society to justify institutionalized discrimination. The irony is that when gays and lesbians have expressed a desire to be in “legally” binding committed relationships, they have usually been told that they are immoral for coveting and wanting to debase an institution that is designed solely for one man and one woman. This irony was quite poignant as the author sat in the homes of some of the men he interviewed, who had been in relationships for over 40 years, or as he listened to narrators who felt liberated by being single and promiscuous or by being single and celibate.
Melissa E. Sanchez
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781479871872
- eISBN:
- 9781479834044
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479871872.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
It is a common observation that dominant US secular culture retains the stamp of seventeenth-century Protestantism. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the veneration of monogamous coupledom, an ...
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It is a common observation that dominant US secular culture retains the stamp of seventeenth-century Protestantism. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the veneration of monogamous coupledom, an ideal that has been entrenched rather than challenged by the recent extension of marriage rights to LGBTQ couples. But what if this narrative of “history and tradition” turns out to suppress the queerness of its own foundational texts? Queer Faith reassesses key texts of the prehistory of monogamy—from Paul to Luther, Petrarch to Shakespeare—to show that writing assumed to promote fidelity in fact articulates the affordances of promiscuity, both in its sexual sense and in its larger designation of all that is impure and disorderly. At the same time, this book resists casting promiscuity as the ethical, queer alternative to monogamy, tracing instead how ideals of sexual liberation are themselves attached to nascent racial and economic hierarchies. Because discourses of erotic fidelity and freedom are also discourses on racial and sexual positionality, excavating the long and complex historical entanglement of concepts of faith, race, and secular love is urgent to contemporary debates about normativity, agency, and subjectivity. Queer Faith puts Christian theology and Renaissance lyric poetry in dialogue with contemporary theory and politics. Deliberately unfaithful to disciplinary norms and national boundaries, this book assembles new conceptual frameworks at the juncture of secular and religious thought, political and aesthetic form. It thereby enlarges the contexts, objects, and authorized genealogies of queer theory and scholarship.Less
It is a common observation that dominant US secular culture retains the stamp of seventeenth-century Protestantism. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the veneration of monogamous coupledom, an ideal that has been entrenched rather than challenged by the recent extension of marriage rights to LGBTQ couples. But what if this narrative of “history and tradition” turns out to suppress the queerness of its own foundational texts? Queer Faith reassesses key texts of the prehistory of monogamy—from Paul to Luther, Petrarch to Shakespeare—to show that writing assumed to promote fidelity in fact articulates the affordances of promiscuity, both in its sexual sense and in its larger designation of all that is impure and disorderly. At the same time, this book resists casting promiscuity as the ethical, queer alternative to monogamy, tracing instead how ideals of sexual liberation are themselves attached to nascent racial and economic hierarchies. Because discourses of erotic fidelity and freedom are also discourses on racial and sexual positionality, excavating the long and complex historical entanglement of concepts of faith, race, and secular love is urgent to contemporary debates about normativity, agency, and subjectivity. Queer Faith puts Christian theology and Renaissance lyric poetry in dialogue with contemporary theory and politics. Deliberately unfaithful to disciplinary norms and national boundaries, this book assembles new conceptual frameworks at the juncture of secular and religious thought, political and aesthetic form. It thereby enlarges the contexts, objects, and authorized genealogies of queer theory and scholarship.
Samantha Caslin
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781786941251
- eISBN:
- 9781789629309
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781786941251.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Social History
Save the Womanhood examines twentieth-century anxieties about promiscuity and prostitution, and the efforts of social purists to ‘save’ working-class women from themselves. Offering an historical ...
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Save the Womanhood examines twentieth-century anxieties about promiscuity and prostitution, and the efforts of social purists to ‘save’ working-class women from themselves. Offering an historical analysis of concerns about women’s interactions with urban space beyond London, the book notes that the pioneering work of women philanthropists and women police patrollers in Liverpool often ran counter to the ambitions and liberties of other women who travelled through the city in search of work and adventure. National debates about the efficacy of solicitation laws, fears about ‘white slavery’ and concerns about changing sexual practices and new consumer cultures gave women street patrollers in Liverpool greater opportunity to justify their own forms of ‘respectable’ public womanhood. For much of the twentieth century, these women patrollers networked with other agencies to enact a powerful form of moral surveillance on the streets. Yet the book also notes that the post-war decline of social purity organizations did not mean that their ideas about the need to monitor female morality went away. The book argues that when female-run, local organizations concerned about immorality went into decline in the post-war years, it was because official institutions and local law enforcement had increasingly taken up their cause. As such, this is a history that also speaks to contemporary debates about the criminalization of sex workers by showing how laws against solicitation have been historically intertwined with moral judgement of women’s sexual practices.Less
Save the Womanhood examines twentieth-century anxieties about promiscuity and prostitution, and the efforts of social purists to ‘save’ working-class women from themselves. Offering an historical analysis of concerns about women’s interactions with urban space beyond London, the book notes that the pioneering work of women philanthropists and women police patrollers in Liverpool often ran counter to the ambitions and liberties of other women who travelled through the city in search of work and adventure. National debates about the efficacy of solicitation laws, fears about ‘white slavery’ and concerns about changing sexual practices and new consumer cultures gave women street patrollers in Liverpool greater opportunity to justify their own forms of ‘respectable’ public womanhood. For much of the twentieth century, these women patrollers networked with other agencies to enact a powerful form of moral surveillance on the streets. Yet the book also notes that the post-war decline of social purity organizations did not mean that their ideas about the need to monitor female morality went away. The book argues that when female-run, local organizations concerned about immorality went into decline in the post-war years, it was because official institutions and local law enforcement had increasingly taken up their cause. As such, this is a history that also speaks to contemporary debates about the criminalization of sex workers by showing how laws against solicitation have been historically intertwined with moral judgement of women’s sexual practices.
Gil G. Rosenthal
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780691150673
- eISBN:
- 9781400885466
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691150673.003.0008
- Subject:
- Psychology, Social Psychology
This chapter introduces another important constraint on mate choice; namely, that choosers are the object of choice themselves. It focuses on the mechanisms underlying mutual mate choice, notably how ...
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This chapter introduces another important constraint on mate choice; namely, that choosers are the object of choice themselves. It focuses on the mechanisms underlying mutual mate choice, notably how preferences are dynamically adjusted in light of the chooser being the chosen. It begins with the simplest form of mutual mate choice, when individuals reciprocally prefer each other's phenotypes. It then turns to the widespread phenomenon of mutual mate choice in systems that are socially promiscuous: both males and females mate multiple times, but both males and females express preferences for particular phenotypes in the opposite sex. Mutual mate choice becomes more constrained in social monogamy, where one can only be paired with a single partner at a given time. The chapter discusses how partners reach pairing decisions and how pair bonds are maintained and transgressed in both hetero-and homosexual couples. Finally, it briefly covers the interesting case of mate choice in hermaphroditic species.Less
This chapter introduces another important constraint on mate choice; namely, that choosers are the object of choice themselves. It focuses on the mechanisms underlying mutual mate choice, notably how preferences are dynamically adjusted in light of the chooser being the chosen. It begins with the simplest form of mutual mate choice, when individuals reciprocally prefer each other's phenotypes. It then turns to the widespread phenomenon of mutual mate choice in systems that are socially promiscuous: both males and females mate multiple times, but both males and females express preferences for particular phenotypes in the opposite sex. Mutual mate choice becomes more constrained in social monogamy, where one can only be paired with a single partner at a given time. The chapter discusses how partners reach pairing decisions and how pair bonds are maintained and transgressed in both hetero-and homosexual couples. Finally, it briefly covers the interesting case of mate choice in hermaphroditic species.
Mary-Jane Rubenstein
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780823277513
- eISBN:
- 9780823280483
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823277513.003.0015
- Subject:
- Sociology, Gender and Sexuality
This brief response catches glimpses within Karmen MacKendrick’s work, glimpses of what one might call a queer-incarnational apophasis. In her attention to mourning, melancholia, and haunting, ...
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This brief response catches glimpses within Karmen MacKendrick’s work, glimpses of what one might call a queer-incarnational apophasis. In her attention to mourning, melancholia, and haunting, MacKendrick attunes us to the queer temporality of a past that never quite was, for the sake of a future that might be genuinely new: such would be the structure of “the possible.” Reading MacKendrick through Laurel Schneider and José Muñoz, this essay attends to flashes of enfleshment—of livability and even justice—in the midst of an unbearable present. Here incarnation becomes promiscuous, ordinary, and spatio-temporally queer: not-quite, but not-quite-not; almost and all over the place.Less
This brief response catches glimpses within Karmen MacKendrick’s work, glimpses of what one might call a queer-incarnational apophasis. In her attention to mourning, melancholia, and haunting, MacKendrick attunes us to the queer temporality of a past that never quite was, for the sake of a future that might be genuinely new: such would be the structure of “the possible.” Reading MacKendrick through Laurel Schneider and José Muñoz, this essay attends to flashes of enfleshment—of livability and even justice—in the midst of an unbearable present. Here incarnation becomes promiscuous, ordinary, and spatio-temporally queer: not-quite, but not-quite-not; almost and all over the place.
Linda LeMoncheck
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195105568
- eISBN:
- 9780199852949
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195105568.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy
This book introduces a new way of thinking and talking about women's sexual pleasures, preferences, and desires. Using the tools of contemporary analytic philosophy, it discusses methods for ...
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This book introduces a new way of thinking and talking about women's sexual pleasures, preferences, and desires. Using the tools of contemporary analytic philosophy, it discusses methods for mediating the tensions among apparently irreconcilable feminist perspectives on women's sexuality and shows how a feminist epistemology and ethic can advance the dialogue in women's sexuality across a broad political spectrum. The book argues that in order to capture the diversity and complexity of women's sexual experience, women's sexuality must be examined from two equally compelling perspectives: that of women's sexual oppression under conditions of individual and institutional male dominance; and that of women's sexual liberation, both in terms of each woman's pursuit of sexual agency and self-definition, and in terms of women's sexual liberation as a class. This book sheds crucial new light on such much-debated topics as promiscuity, adultery, sexual deviance, prostitution, pornography, sexual harassment, and sexual violence against women. The book supports a dialogue that encourages both women and men to take up a feminist perspective in exploring the meaning and value of sexuality in their lives.Less
This book introduces a new way of thinking and talking about women's sexual pleasures, preferences, and desires. Using the tools of contemporary analytic philosophy, it discusses methods for mediating the tensions among apparently irreconcilable feminist perspectives on women's sexuality and shows how a feminist epistemology and ethic can advance the dialogue in women's sexuality across a broad political spectrum. The book argues that in order to capture the diversity and complexity of women's sexual experience, women's sexuality must be examined from two equally compelling perspectives: that of women's sexual oppression under conditions of individual and institutional male dominance; and that of women's sexual liberation, both in terms of each woman's pursuit of sexual agency and self-definition, and in terms of women's sexual liberation as a class. This book sheds crucial new light on such much-debated topics as promiscuity, adultery, sexual deviance, prostitution, pornography, sexual harassment, and sexual violence against women. The book supports a dialogue that encourages both women and men to take up a feminist perspective in exploring the meaning and value of sexuality in their lives.
Noelle Gallagher
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780300217056
- eISBN:
- 9780300240764
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300217056.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter asks what imaginative representations of venereal disease say about Restoration and eighteenth-century attitudes toward gender and sexuality. It does so by considering the portrayal of ...
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This chapter asks what imaginative representations of venereal disease say about Restoration and eighteenth-century attitudes toward gender and sexuality. It does so by considering the portrayal of venereal infections in men. It is no coincidence that many of the positive representations of the disease focus on male rather than female subjects. It has been suggested that the sexual double standard (whereby men were applauded for sexual promiscuity and women punished for it) played some role in shaping imaginative representations of the infection. However, so too did a culture that linked infection to manliness and male power. While historians working with medical texts from the early modern period have tended to conclude that the disease was seen as originating with, and spread by, women, many eighteenth-century literary and artistic works imagine venereal disease as male—as a condition predominantly experienced by men, caused by male sexual indiscretion, and passed on by philandering husbands to their faithful wives and innocent children.Less
This chapter asks what imaginative representations of venereal disease say about Restoration and eighteenth-century attitudes toward gender and sexuality. It does so by considering the portrayal of venereal infections in men. It is no coincidence that many of the positive representations of the disease focus on male rather than female subjects. It has been suggested that the sexual double standard (whereby men were applauded for sexual promiscuity and women punished for it) played some role in shaping imaginative representations of the infection. However, so too did a culture that linked infection to manliness and male power. While historians working with medical texts from the early modern period have tended to conclude that the disease was seen as originating with, and spread by, women, many eighteenth-century literary and artistic works imagine venereal disease as male—as a condition predominantly experienced by men, caused by male sexual indiscretion, and passed on by philandering husbands to their faithful wives and innocent children.
Linda LeMoncheck
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195105568
- eISBN:
- 9780199852949
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195105568.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy
Promiscuous sex evokes visions of sex with many different partners, and sex with many different partners in an era of AIDS is believed to be incautious at best, morally reprehensible at worst. ...
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Promiscuous sex evokes visions of sex with many different partners, and sex with many different partners in an era of AIDS is believed to be incautious at best, morally reprehensible at worst. However, to tell a woman that she cannot or should not be promiscuous seems to run counter to the feminist effort to secure sexual agency and self-definition for all women. Many feminists regard the sexual liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s, as well as it contemporary vestiges, as serving primarily the interests of men. This chapter explores the variety of meanings that are given to the terms “promiscuous” and “promiscuity” and shows how a patriarchy that has an investment in women's sexual monogamy also has an investment in convincing women that monogamy is the only safe haven for intimate and satisfying sex. From the “view from somewhere different”, promiscuous sex can bring sexual satisfaction, sexual growth, and sexual empowerment to women who would otherwise feel physically and emotionally trapped by the constraints of monogamy.Less
Promiscuous sex evokes visions of sex with many different partners, and sex with many different partners in an era of AIDS is believed to be incautious at best, morally reprehensible at worst. However, to tell a woman that she cannot or should not be promiscuous seems to run counter to the feminist effort to secure sexual agency and self-definition for all women. Many feminists regard the sexual liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s, as well as it contemporary vestiges, as serving primarily the interests of men. This chapter explores the variety of meanings that are given to the terms “promiscuous” and “promiscuity” and shows how a patriarchy that has an investment in women's sexual monogamy also has an investment in convincing women that monogamy is the only safe haven for intimate and satisfying sex. From the “view from somewhere different”, promiscuous sex can bring sexual satisfaction, sexual growth, and sexual empowerment to women who would otherwise feel physically and emotionally trapped by the constraints of monogamy.
