Rape Scripts and Rape Spaces: Constructions of Female Bodies in Adolescent Fiction

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aiyana Altrows
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Desire ◽  
State Control ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Female Sexual Desire ◽  
Adolescent Fiction ◽  
Subjective Agency ◽  
Female Bodies ◽  
Societal Problems

This article offers an analysis of the construction of female bodies in adolescent fiction about rape, arguing that the absence of a developed rapist character results in a focus on and pathologising of female characters. This positions female bodies as the cause of rape, rather than societal problems or rapists themselves, creating ‘rape spaces’. The positioning of female bodies as the cause of rape sanctions public and state control of those bodies, removing a female's subjective agency and right to manage her own body. I demonstrate how the depiction of psychological relationships to bodies as they develop sexually during puberty and attract unwanted male attention can function within the narrative to undermine a girl's ability to manage her own body, and how female sexual desire can either undermine or reinforce a girl's ability to manage her own body. I analyse how fraught relationships to clothing and food can be either accepted and interpolated to reinforce the construction of female bodies as rape spaces within these texts, or problematised to portray empowered female characters as they recognise and reject them as potential tools of patriarchal control.

scholarly journals The Shakespearean unscene: Sexual phantasies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorna Hutson
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Desire ◽  
Free Play ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
Legal Rhetoric ◽  
Sexual Crimes ◽  
Midsummer Night's Dream ◽  
Female Sexual Desire ◽  
A Midsummer Night's Dream ◽  
Forensic Rhetoric

Post-Freudian and post-Foucauldian readings of A Midsummer Night’s Dream assume that the play celebrates the freeing-up of female sexual desire from neurotic inhibitions or disciplinary norms. But this is incompatible with what we know historically about 16th-century society’s investment in female chastity. This paper addresses the problem of this incompatibility by turning to Shakespeare’s use of forensic or legal rhetoric. In the Roman forensic rhetoric underlying 16th-century poetics, probable arguments of guilt or innocence are ‘invented’ from topics of circumstance, such as the Time, Place or Manner of the deed. The mysterious Night, Wood and Moonlight of Shakespeare’s play can be seen as making sexual crimes (violence, stealth, infidelity) take on the form of probability and fairy agency. The play thus brilliantly represents the stories of Theseus’s notorious rapes, abandonments and perjuries as fearful ‘phantasies’ or imaginings experienced by Hermia and Helena. This explains how the Victorians could interpret the play as a chaste, childlike ballet, while moderns and postmoderns take it to be a play about psychological repressions working against the free play of sexual desire.

scholarly journals KONSTRUKSI SEKSUALITAS PEREMPUAN DALAM KEINDAHAN DAN KESEDIHAN KARYA YASUNARI KAWABATA

sarasvati ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 100
Author(s):  
Agung Pranoto ◽  
Rini Damayanti
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Sexual Desire ◽  
Female Body ◽  
Female Sexuality ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Female Sexual Desire ◽  
Sexual Desires ◽  
The Subject

This research examines the construction of female sexuality in the novel the beauty and sorrow of the works of Yasunari Kawabata. This research is qualitative research that does study of novel the beauty and sorrow of the works of Yasunari Kawabrata. The method used is the deskiptif method that is collecting data, clarification of data, manipulate data, and interpret the data in accordance with the theory that was used at the time the research was conducted. In the novel the beauty and sorrow of the works of Yasunari Kawabata, reflecting the construction of female sexuality. The construction of female sexuality that, first, the novel represents the female body through the figures. The representation of the female body in the text of the novel disegmentasikan by displaying the marker women sexy. Second, the representation of female sexual desire in the novel beauty and Sadness is presented through the desire character Otoko and Keiko to transmit sexual desires with her partner. Third, representations of female sexuality in the relation of beauty and sadness, by Yasunari Kawabata was still predominantly on the male as the subject.

Ovulatory Shifts in Female Sexual Desire

2004 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth G. Pillsworth ◽  
Martie G. Haselton ◽  
David M. Buss
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Desire ◽  
Female Sexual Desire

“Indeed, the King has a Cunt! What a Wonder!”: Sex, Eroticism and Language in One Thousand and One Nights

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Md Abu Shahid Abdullah ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Arabic Literature ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Male Characters ◽  
Patriarchal Society ◽  
The World ◽  
Female Bodies ◽  
Sexual Promiscuity

One Thousand and One Nights, which can be traced back to as early as the 9th century, is probably the greatest introduction to Arabic culture through literature. This colossal and diverse book has drawn the attention of scholars, researchers and students to classic Arabic literature as well as influenced many prominent authors and filmmakers. It is not just a book of careless and unconnected stories but rather a piece of esteemed literature which has been read and analysed in many countries all over the world. However, it is also true that this book has been criticised for its sexual promiscuity and degraded portrayal of women. The aim of the presentation is to prove that underneath the clumsy and seemingly funny structures of One Thousand and One Nights, there is a description of overflowing sexuality. Through the sexualised or erotic description of female bodies, the book gives agency to women but at the same time depicts them derogatively, and thus fulfils the naked desire of the then patriarchal society. The presentation will highlight how sexual promiscuity or fathomless female sexual craving is portrayed through figurative and grammatical language, which objectifies the female characters but at the same time enables them to be playful with the male characters, and thus motivates them to become more powerful than the males. Finally. the presentation will focus on language or narrative as an act of survival from the perspectives of the female characters, which is most evident in the case of Scheherazade who saved not only her life but also lives of countless maidens by her mesmerizing storytelling talent.

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