Sexy Movies Since 1934 When considering Foucault in relation to this project, I thought about the deployment of sexuality and its relationship to movies, more specifically how depictions of sex in movies relate to actual sex and pleasure. The MPAA’s regulations were intended to prevent the general public from being titillated by things that society […]
Within the Bounds of the Heterosexual Imagination I thought that Serlin’s essay Christine Jorgensen and the Cold War Closet drew some interesting parallels with Middlesex. Interestingly, the essay makes the assertion that Jorgensen was rejected by the general public after it was discovered that she was not a physical “hermaphrodite” who made the choice between […]
Brother/Sister, Husband/Wife The story that I’ve found most compelling about the first half of Middlesex is that of the narrator’s grandparents, Lefty and Desdemona. The tale of how their incestuous relationship arose is easily sympathized, their actions rendered justifiable by the circumstances from which they arose. After all, they were two siblings, orphaned while they […]
Families with Fluid Boundaries The way power was used in Ronald Bayer’s essay, AIDS and the Bathhouse Controversy was quite interesting. Essentially, the question was whether the San Francisco government could control the private lives of gay individuals in the name of public health. As stated in the essay, the criminalization of homosexuality by the […]
Sula’s Sex Powers I thought that the pedagogization of sex that was present throughout the novel was an interesting contrast to the Stevenson essay in which women equated sex with principle. As a previous poster stated, Sula learned her sexual behaviors from her mother, Hannah. Hannah was described as sleeping with men easily and often. […]
Power and Coercion in Lolita Part 2 of Lolita was heavy on the power relations, particularly between HH and Lo. Throughout their cross-country travels and stay at Beardsley, HH is impossibly controlling. To keep her as subdued as he can, Humbert uses the adult-child power dynamic to threaten Lo and holds money and other material […]
Dirty Old Men Before I get into my reaction to Part I of Lolita, I must say that I really love the author’s writing. That said, I am thoroughly disturbed and disgusted by Humbert Humbert. I’ll cut here for spoilers.
Female Love and Myths of Passionlessness I found this week’s readings on the intimacies of 19th century female relationships to be very interesting. Carroll Smith-Rosenberg’s essay provided a very well-rounded look at the dynamics between women and how their close relationships were formed within societies. It makes sense that sexual-segregation would influence women to become […]
Are Vampires Incestuous? The lecture on vampires and sexuality brought up some interesting questions about kinship and family systems in the vampire world. I’ve watched and read a lot of different stuff pertaining to vampires. And after vampires are “made” or “sired,” they sometimes refer to their lineage in family terms such as “mother” or […]
Men and Women Both Think the Other is Evil, Society has Double Standards about Sex…. News at 11 Cott’s essay on Victorian sexual ideologies clarified some of the themes and terms presented by The Scarlet Letter. As we discussed in last week’s class, adultery was only committed if the woman involved in the sexual activity […]
