James A. Steintrager
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780231151580
- eISBN:
- 9780231540872
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231151580.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Examines how libertines in eighteenth-century France took up the erotic tradition of the variety of coital positions and turned this tradition into both a social contract (based on pleasure rather ...
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Examines how libertines in eighteenth-century France took up the erotic tradition of the variety of coital positions and turned this tradition into both a social contract (based on pleasure rather than fear) and a systematic generator of variety to keep the pleasure system running.Less
Examines how libertines in eighteenth-century France took up the erotic tradition of the variety of coital positions and turned this tradition into both a social contract (based on pleasure rather than fear) and a systematic generator of variety to keep the pleasure system running.
Andrew Hock Soon Ng
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9789888083213
- eISBN:
- 9789882209831
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888083213.003.0005
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Sociolinguistics / Anthropological Linguistics
This chapter considers the shared ideologies embedded in Confucianism and Christianity, and how they are played out in the lives of the middle-class Straits Chinese characters that people the fiction ...
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This chapter considers the shared ideologies embedded in Confucianism and Christianity, and how they are played out in the lives of the middle-class Straits Chinese characters that people the fiction of Shirley Lim. Confucianism is viewed as a deeply patriarchal-inflected belief system, and when a Chinese (especially woman) trades this faith for Christianity, she often finds that her position in her new religion is not unlike that of her old one, thus perpetuating her sense of helplessness and inferiority. Lim's narratives persistently reveal the ideological entrapment experienced by Chinese women in either religion, and the difficulty they face when negotiating their increasing modern outlook with belief systems that reify traditional, patriarchal values. However, this chapter concludes with a criticism of these stories, and directly Lim herself by asking two related questions: how is Lim helping modern Chinese women escape their ideological positions if her stories continuously plot them as deeply embedded in these structures without offering any alternative perspectives? And is it always the case that religion necessarily circumscribes women by reifying their sexual/gendered position as inferior; is religion not also possibly a way in which women can escape such a position?Less
This chapter considers the shared ideologies embedded in Confucianism and Christianity, and how they are played out in the lives of the middle-class Straits Chinese characters that people the fiction of Shirley Lim. Confucianism is viewed as a deeply patriarchal-inflected belief system, and when a Chinese (especially woman) trades this faith for Christianity, she often finds that her position in her new religion is not unlike that of her old one, thus perpetuating her sense of helplessness and inferiority. Lim's narratives persistently reveal the ideological entrapment experienced by Chinese women in either religion, and the difficulty they face when negotiating their increasing modern outlook with belief systems that reify traditional, patriarchal values. However, this chapter concludes with a criticism of these stories, and directly Lim herself by asking two related questions: how is Lim helping modern Chinese women escape their ideological positions if her stories continuously plot them as deeply embedded in these structures without offering any alternative perspectives? And is it always the case that religion necessarily circumscribes women by reifying their sexual/gendered position as inferior; is religion not also possibly a way in which women can escape such a position?
Wendy Doniger
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199360079
- eISBN:
- 9780199377923
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199360079.003.0026
- Subject:
- Religion, Hinduism
The Kamasutra, the oldest extant Hindu textbook of erotic love, offers descriptions of the positions in sexual intercourse, the erotic counterpart to the ascetic asanas of yoga. Written by Vatsyayana ...
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The Kamasutra, the oldest extant Hindu textbook of erotic love, offers descriptions of the positions in sexual intercourse, the erotic counterpart to the ascetic asanas of yoga. Written by Vatsyayana Mallanaga in Sanskrit, probably sometime in the second half of the third century CE in North India, the text means “desire/love/pleasure/sex” (kama) and “a treatise” (sutra). However, the real Kamasutra is not only about sexual positions; it is also a book about the art of living, from finding a partner to maintaining power in a marriage, committing adultery, using drugs, or living as or with a courtesan. This chapter examines what the Kamasutra says about class and caste, as well as the man-about-town. It also looks at the intersection between sex and ancient India in the Kamasutra.Less
The Kamasutra, the oldest extant Hindu textbook of erotic love, offers descriptions of the positions in sexual intercourse, the erotic counterpart to the ascetic asanas of yoga. Written by Vatsyayana Mallanaga in Sanskrit, probably sometime in the second half of the third century CE in North India, the text means “desire/love/pleasure/sex” (kama) and “a treatise” (sutra). However, the real Kamasutra is not only about sexual positions; it is also a book about the art of living, from finding a partner to maintaining power in a marriage, committing adultery, using drugs, or living as or with a courtesan. This chapter examines what the Kamasutra says about class and caste, as well as the man-about-town. It also looks at the intersection between sex and ancient India in the Kamasutra.
