Sexuality and American Culture 2012

Since I go to Brooklyn College and intend (ha!) to graduate from Brooklyn College, I have to complete what is known as the “Core Curriculum,” a set of courses intended to give every undergrad a liberal arts and sciences education in a nutshell. One of these courses I am currently taking is “ The Shaping of the Modern World,” or in other words, a Euro-centric history course beginning at the 1500. Some of the first questions my professor proposed on that course’s blog are “What does the word, ‘modern,’ even mean? What does it mean to say a society or a nation is not modern (i.e. “backwards”)? Who determines what is and what is not modern? Is the idea of ‘modernity’ distinctively ‘Western’?” Most of the responses to that post touched upon (physical) things produced and/or relevant in the present or near present, technological advances, and industrialization. There were more abstract answers like the concepts of nations, capitalism, and of government, especially democracy. Now at the midway of the semester, the idea of sexuality ideology as an indication of “modernity” has been ruminating in my mind for some time.

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Hey everyone,

I mentioned this episode of South Park in class yesterday. It’s pretty funny to think about the way clothing/media create spheres of identity especially when you think about it in terms of a group of cartoon fourth graders.

Check it out if you have some free time:

http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s07e08-south-park-is-gay

A few points we mentioned today may be reiterated.

Back to my reference about Abraham Lincoln. During the Victorian Era, the actions and syntax of male companionship had much higher thresholds in order to cross into homosexual territory. This ideology even draws comparisons with the homoerotic relationship between Chillingworth and Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter. With these in mind, I still think Walt Whitman crossed the line with his “Poetic Embrace of Comrades and Lovers.” It could be me having trouble putting on a better pair of objective lenses, but with expressing “standards not yet published,” wanting to tell a secret, and hitting the climax with a “new husband’s kiss,” I can’t accept the assumption that the majority of men during this time would not find this alarming. Read the rest of this entry »

My notion of the Victorian lifestyle has been shattered. Gone are the images of couples cold to one another in bed, and a society as tight as the petticoats the women wore. Replace it with sexually charged men and women who were not abashed to share their feelings with one another, and radical thinkers espousing subjects I thought belonged in the 1960s. A big thank you to Kathy Peiss for illustrating aspects of 19^th century sexuality that I never knew existed. Read the rest of this entry »

After reading all the historical documents and essays, what struck me the most was that I never learned about or heard of the Postal Act/Comstock Act or Anthony Comstock in any American history class let alone anything about the Free Lovers and other prominent figures and ideologies in this particular historical moment. A quick skim of a review book for the U.S. History regents from way back (high school) yielded no dice or any references to this topic. If I make parallels, I have learned about laws that directly regulated citizens’ actions on the basis of morality (ex. Temperance movement/ amendment) or times when the ideologies of citizens are bought on trial (ex. Red Scare and McCarthyism) or political issues relating to sexual health (ex. Roe v. Wade) or violations of Bill of Rights (ex. Jim Crow laws). So, it is puzzling I learned nothing about the Postal Act in the past.

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This weeks reading was really fascinating and the topics discussed in Peiss’ book sparked a lot of thought for me. In particular two things really struck me, both from chapter 6. First I was interested in Document 5 because it reminded me of our discussion last week about the notion of science and Scienta Sexualis in the Victorian period. I was also interested in Rosenberg’s article, primarily because I found it so incredibly frustrating. I’d like to discuss my reactions to each mentioned section, but I’m most interested in hearing what others thought about the same portions, or these portions in relation to other sections from the reading. Read the rest of this entry »

Hi,

Here is a review of a new book on the cultural history of masturbation that might be of interest:
http://chronicle.com/blogs/pageview/a-taboo-that-doesn%E2%80%99t-take-two/30111?p=30111?sid=pm&utm_source=pm&utm_medium=en

Hi everyone,

Your insights this week are ablaze, abloom, and astute! Forgive my A addiction, but perhaps it will inspire you to think of all the many meanings that accrue (there we go again) to Hester’s A as in shifts from adultery to more apt (oops) descriptions of her as she changes in character throughout the novel. For class, come in with what you think is the most accurate (can’t help myself) meaning of her Scarlet Letter. There are some pertinent points of disagreement in your amazing (zing!) comments that should make for lively debate and I am excited to hear more from each of you.

Surprise! Ok, on to the post…

Would the members of the Boston Female Moral Reformers perceive Hester Prynne as the victim of a licentious man? Maybe, maybe not. These members, however, would look upon Hester with disgust, because she protected the man that caused her to bear the burden of the scarlet letter. Members of the BFMR would also undoubtedly find much of the fault in the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale for the sole purpose of courting a married woman,  “[Woman] has undertaken to banish licentious men from all virtuous society.” (page 113)

I failed to find anything along the lines of an exception clause that began, “However if the woman proceeds to fall in love with the licentious man…”

The tone of “Licentious Men” is one of a feminist manifesto, urging all victims of the perverse nature of men to rise up and take action against such wrongs. But the contrast between this and the following document by William Alcott is so extreme that I found the documents written by Alcott as well as Graham, humorous quite often. Read the rest of this entry »

After this past class, in which we discussed Victorian Hawthorne writing about Puritans, I noticed new layers in The Scarlet Letter. In regards to the documents in Major Problems in the History of American Sexuality, the deployment of sexuality, and power-relations, were evident.

Hawthorne’s Victorian influence is seen in “Another View of Hester.” He speculates, “With reference to the whole race of womanhood… [w]as existence worth accepting…?” (113). I am fairly confident that this is not a question a Puritan woman would ponder; however, it is a topic that women in Hawthorne’s time (especially the women he was surrounded by) might have debated. In addition, Hawthorne’s Romantic approach was illustrated in the second half of the book. In the same chapter in which the existence of womanhood is mulled over, the reader is also informed of the lack of “Love,” “Affection,” and “Passion” in Hester Prynne (112). Read the rest of this entry »