“Love is spiritual, only passion sexual” In this week’s readings on the emotional intimacy between women in the 19th century, I was surprised at the intensity these bonds held, though it was understandable given the sexual segregation of the time. I think it was surprising to read about because it differs so strongly, in my […]
Intellectual or Moral (But Never Both) William Alcott’s suggestions for young women to avoid nymphomania seemed to emphasize cooling – not surprising, since both sexual desire or passion and the Devil are associated with heat and fire. But he also quoted a writer who said “the reading of lascivious and impassioned works, viewing voluptuous painting, […]
Essentialism vs. Social Constructivism (This picture isn’t mine, credit and rights belong to Green Eyed Grin. Just stumbled upon this.)
Identity and Sexuality in the Anglo-American Colonies In this week’s Peiss readings we get some concrete facts and history to support what Foucault had mentioned in The History of Sexuality – the fact that sexual abnormality was often tolerated by villagers/townspeople during the Puritan era, even though legal codes created by the religious and political […]
Depressing to Optimistic Parts Four and Five of Foucault’s The History of Sexuality were quite an emotional rollercoaster. Foucault beings by discussing the “juridico-discursive” idea of power, and then criticizing it and explaining his own theory of power – though I found both ideas quite depressing. Foucault claims that the “juridico-discursive” idea of power underlies […]
A Note on History As a potential history major, I loved the definition of history in Peiss’ preface, which ended with “History is the relationship between the present and the past. Thus the history of sexuality also illuminates ourselves and contributes a significant perspective to contemporary debates about sexual matters” (xvii).
Truth and Sexuality The central question of Weeks and Norton’s essays is: Is sexuality socially constructed? (This is similar to a topic we were discussing in class last week, the social construction of the “inner self”). “Essentialism” was used to describe the idea that Norton supported, that there is a “transhistorical core of desire” as […]
Discourse on Sex and Sexuality In Part One of The History of Sexuality, Michael Foucault poses the question: “Did the critical discourse that addresses itself to repression come to act as a roadblock to a power mechanism that had operated unchallenged up to that point, or is it not in fact part of the same […]
