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Pubic Veilings and Public Surveillance: Obscenity Laws and Obscene Fantasies in Japan

Anne Allison

in Permitted and Prohibited Desires: Mothers, Comics, and Censorship in Japan

This chapter concludes the hook and is a multilayered analysis of Article 175, the law against obscenity that has remained basically consistent since its inception during Japan's period of ... More

This chapter concludes the hook and is a multilayered analysis of Article 175, the law against obscenity that has remained basically consistent since its inception during Japan's period of modernization. Its injunction against the realistic depiction of genitalia (including pubic hair) seems mysterious given that, under the same law, almost every other sexual or bodily depiction, including sadomasochism and analism, is permitted. The chapter questions the notion of “obscenity” here, tracing how it allows for a very real policing of mass media at the national and public borders of Japan, as well as how it produces pubic fantasies in very particular forms. It concludes that these sexual fantasies which circulate as mass culture wind up protecting and, in some sense, reinscribing a “real” center to the home. Mothers, of course, are the ones occupying this center.Less

“Why do you leave? Fight for us!”

Parvis Ghassem-Fachandi

in Pogrom in Gujarat: Hindu Nationalism and Anti-Muslim Violence in India

This chapter demonstrates how the Godhra incident became the occasion to declare a bandh (general strike) that was supported by all the main institutions of civil society and by political parties. ... More

This chapter demonstrates how the Godhra incident became the occasion to declare a bandh (general strike) that was supported by all the main institutions of civil society and by political parties. The bandh call allowed a large part of a poor and despondent city population, who work as daily wage earners and cannot afford to skip income, to engage in street activities. Some of the themes present in these interactions include: a carnivalesque atmosphere of fun on the street in relation to a purported sense of anger, a cultivated and aloof distancing from the unfolding events by the middle class, the abdication of civic order and the visible passivity of the state police, invocations of sacrifice as idiom for killing, the discernment of an uncanny presence in sensitive city space, and imaginative material that mainly concerned sexual fantasies about women.Less

) Kinky Vampires and Action Heroines

Jeffrey A. Brown

in Dangerous Curves: Action Heroines, Gender, Fetishism, and Popular Culture

This chapter focuses on some of the most influential predecessors of the modern action heroine: the strong female heroes of horror films described by Carol Clover as “Final Girls.” It looks at the ... More

This chapter focuses on some of the most influential predecessors of the modern action heroine: the strong female heroes of horror films described by Carol Clover as “Final Girls.” It looks at the vampire as a common enemy of action heroines, or as in the case of the Underworld and Bloodrayne films, the heroine as a vampire herself. Drawing on the association between vampires and action heroines, it explores how each character type functions as a symbol of alternative sexual fantasies. It argues that both the vampire and the action heroine are easily co-opted symbols of polymorphous sexuality that facilitates a range of erotic fantasies such as lesbian and sadomasochistic desires. It analyzes such iconic heroine series as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Xena: Warrior Princess to demonstrate how the narratives depict both conventional and alternative sexual relations and how fans embrace them in alternative ways.Less

Dressed to Kill (1980)

Douglas Keesey

in Brian De Palma's Split-Screen: A Life in Film

This chapter argues that key scenes that display female sexuality and its associated guilt and violence in Dressed to Kill (1980) are searing, coherent, and personal explorations by De Palma of ... More

This chapter argues that key scenes that display female sexuality and its associated guilt and violence in Dressed to Kill (1980) are searing, coherent, and personal explorations by De Palma of women's sexual fantasies and fears. They are not simply there for visceral excitement or necrophiliac titillation, despite popular conceptions of the film as misogynistic. Certain moments in De Palma's life have as a matter of fact been direct inspirations for the scenes in question. Thereafter, this chapter also discusses the film's connections with Psycho, asserting that there are deep, significant linkages between the two movies, such as the parallels between both films' iconic shower scenes as well as the “split” natures of both films' transvestites.Less

§ Sexuality, Gender, and National Identities in Twentieth-century Franco-American Exchanges

in Internationalism, National Identities, and Study Abroad: France and the United States, 1890-1970

This chapter examines the role of sexuality in national imaginaries of France and United States throughout the twentieth century, and how students dealt with sexual fantasies and constructed social ... More

This chapter examines the role of sexuality in national imaginaries of France and United States throughout the twentieth century, and how students dealt with sexual fantasies and constructed social as well as sexual experiences on both sides of the Atlantic. Based on images derived from movies, travelers' accounts, veterans' stories, and French and American literature, Americans viewed France as a land of sexual liberation and French men as inveterate seducers. For their part, the United States was often portrayed by French authors as puritanical and averse to all kinds of sensuous pleasures. In particular, the French viewed American women as assertive, immoral, and even sexually promiscuous. Both the power and the limitations of these stereotypes were shaped and transformed by students' encounters with daily life. The chapter demonstrates how gender and sexuality influence international cultural relations, both in discourse and practice.Less

Synopsis

Darren Arnold

in Devil’s Advocates

This chapter details the synopsis of Ken Russell's The Devils (1973). Set in seventeenth-century France, the film tells the story of influential secular priest Urbain Grandier, who holds interim ... More

This chapter details the synopsis of Ken Russell's The Devils (1973). Set in seventeenth-century France, the film tells the story of influential secular priest Urbain Grandier, who holds interim powers in the city of Loudun following the death of Governor Sainte-Marthe. A chronic womaniser, the vainglorious Grandier begins a relationship with the daughter of a plague victim. The film also tells the story of Sister Jeanne, the abbess of the local Ursuline convent, who entertains wild sexual fantasies about Grandier and invites him to be the order's new confessor. After being disappointed when Father Mignon became the new confessor instead of Grandier, Sister Jeanne tells Mignon that Grandier is a servant of Satan who has placed her, and the rest of the convent, under a spell of lewd desire. A kangaroo court finds Grandier guilty of sorcery, and he's sentenced to death by burning.Less

The Evolution of BL as “Playing with Gender”: Viewing the Genesis and Development of BL from a Contemporary Perspective

Fujimoto Yukari and Joanne Quimby

in Boys Love Manga and Beyond: History, Culture, and Community in Japan

This chapter demonstrates how yaoi and Boys Love (BL) developed as an entertaining space where women can “play with gender,” and the constraints of oppressive female gender roles can be removed. A ... More

This chapter demonstrates how yaoi and Boys Love (BL) developed as an entertaining space where women can “play with gender,” and the constraints of oppressive female gender roles can be removed. A central feature of yaoi which affirms this is the seme–uke rule, that is, the norms whereby characters in a relationship are determined to be the seme—the “attacker,” that is, the dominant and insertive sexual partner—and the uke—the “receiver,” that is, the passive and receptive sexual partner. Yaoi and BL flourishes then as accumulations of experiments carried out in shōjo manga—experiments in transgressing every possible border of sexual difference and in creating worlds of diverse polymorphic perversion. Additionally, the chapter argues through yaoi and BL, the women's appropriation of male characters is an example of girls' agency in imagining sexual scenarios, including sadomasochism and rape, that have traditionally been considered the reserve of male sexual fantasy.Less

Introduction: “Where all Women Wear Spandex and Know Kung Fu”

Jeffrey A. Brown

in Dangerous Curves: Action Heroines, Gender, Fetishism, and Popular Culture

This book explores the various ways femininity is reconfigured through the language of action heroines such as Ripley from Aliens, Sarah Connor from Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and Maggie from Point ... More

This book explores the various ways femininity is reconfigured through the language of action heroines such as Ripley from Aliens, Sarah Connor from Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and Maggie from Point of No Return. It outlines some of the early theoretical work on modern action heroines that examined how the characters alternated between performing femininity and masculinity. It discusses the action heroine as a dominatrix who wields both physical and social power and challenges traditional cultural beliefs about gender and sexuality. It also considers how the action heroine is routinely costumed to cater to sexual fantasy, lends credence to the message of post-feminism chic through girlishness and consumerism, and reinforces the association of ass-kicking femininity with sexual fetishization. Finally, the book focuses on Wonder Woman as both a symbol of heroic feminism and a fetishized sex symbol.Less

Hard to Swallow: Deep Throat

Ellen Willis

in Beginning to See the Light: Sex, Hope, and Rock-and-Roll

This chapter presents the author’s reflections about the porn film Deep Throat. Throat was the first porn movie to become a cultural event. Besides being a huge money-maker, it was widely acclaimed ... More

This chapter presents the author’s reflections about the porn film Deep Throat. Throat was the first porn movie to become a cultural event. Besides being a huge money-maker, it was widely acclaimed as an artistic triumph. The film played at “legitimate” movie theaters across the US, and in New York, the Post reported that lots of women were going to see it, with other women —an unprecedented phenomenon. However, the author claims that films like Throat fail to achieve their main purpose, which is to turn her on. In fact, she finds them a sexual depressant, partly because they are so unimaginative, partly because they objectify women’s bodies and pay little attention to men’s, but mostly because they deliberately and perversely destroy any semblance of an atmosphere in which her sexual fantasies could flourish.Less

Gunther of Pairis’s Hystoria Constantinopolitana

George E. Demacopoulos

in Colonizing Christianity: Greek and Latin Religious Identity in the Era of the Fourth Crusade

This chapter looks at Gunther of Pairis's Hystoria Constantinopolitana, which is a hagiography celebrating the theft of Constantinopolitan religious treasure. Indeed, its primary source is to explain ... More

This chapter looks at Gunther of Pairis's Hystoria Constantinopolitana, which is a hagiography celebrating the theft of Constantinopolitan religious treasure. Indeed, its primary source is to explain and justify the means by which an otherwise undistinguished monastery in the Rhineland came to acquire religious treasure that had been looted during the early days of the pillage of Constantinople in 1204. A careful analysis of the Hystoria Constantinopolitana demonstrates that the implementation of its hagiographic topoi is overlaid with what can be best described as colonial or protocolonial discursive features. Following a brief summary of the text, the chapter then considers these elements of the work in order to gain greater access to the epistemic horizon within which Gunther and his monastic community made sense of the theft of religious treasures from the largest Christian city in the world. Specifically, it will examine the ways in which Gunther justifies the violence enabling colonial settlement as a moral good; defends the extraction of Eastern Christian religious treasure; employs effeminacy and homoerotic sexual fantasy as rhetorical instruments; and describes Eastern topography according to exotic and erotic registers.Less