Representation Of Female Sexuality Research Articles

Could Fleabag be a Parisienne? Camille Cottin’s Star Image and a New French Femininity

This article discusses Camille Cottin’s star image, considering more specifically what was at stake in her 2019 performance in Mouche, the French remake of British tragicomedy TV series Fleabag created by Phoebe Waller-Bridge. The framework of this remake and the transposition of Cottin in the character played by Waller-Bridge offers a discussion on the representation of female sexuality and gender through the main character of Mouche and Fleabag. It argues that the nexus of Cottin’s gendered stardom both meets and transgresses the ideals of the cinematic type of the Parisienne, which may lead to think that Cottin was the perfect fit to be the French version of Fleabag. However, as Mouche, her persona gestures toward the projection of a female subjectivity that escapes inscription into the French cultural imagination and social practices. Drawing from theories of the abject and the female grotesque as a subversive strategy to challenge gendered expectations in Fleabag, this article sheds light on how effectively this is transposed to Cottin’s version of the character. It also considers how the strategy of breaking the fourth wall, which creates a personalised connection with the character of Fleabag, mimics the personalised and intimate connection to celebrities that social media now offers. The article suggests that Cottin’s on-screen persona competes with her star image, threatening to eradicate the space of spectatorial jouissance necessary for the processes of cinematic identification and intimate connection.

Raucous feminisms in neoliberal times

There is no shortage of media representations that reinforce the neoliberal order, emphasise individual freedom and self-regulation and downplay structural inequities and systemic oppression. The current paper analyses an alternative representation that works to dismantle the dominant social order. I interrogate the disruptive potential of the ‘unruly woman’ on Broad City by exploring two discursive themes that present robust alternatives to a neoliberal feminist agenda: transgressive representations of female sexuality and desire and the visibility and normalisation of ‘unfeminine’ behaviours. Multimodal critical discourse analysis reveals how these themes highlight the tension between women’s will to act freely and the structural binds that keep groups oppressed beyond any freedom individuals may enjoy. As white women, Ilana and Abbi’s racial privilege is central in scaffolding their gendered freedom; however, self-reflexive critiques and inclusion of diverse, non-tokenised representations show a path forward towards a collective and liberatory intersectional feminism.

Representation of Female Sexuality and Freedom: Kate Chopins Selected Short Stories

The writer Kate Chopin has written about female sexuality and the restrictions put by marriage as an institution upon the lives of women. Her writings delineate the lives of female characters who are burdened by the relationships they have in society. They are self-assertive and courageous women of the nineteenth century. They are thought to be ahead of their time. They have refused to accept the traditional roles and conventions of the society and have shown the deepest drives of their hearts. Chopin has explored these female souls as a woman writer. Her first attempt is to highlight the sense of female freedom and a true understanding of their nature in her writings. The purpose of this article is to analyze the representation of female sexuality and freedom in Kate Chopin’s selected short stories entitled “The Story of an Hour,” “The Storm,”and “A Pair of Silk Stockings”.

Because you can(‘t) have it all: representations of female sexuality in South Korean Casa Amor

ABSTRACTThis article examines the recent 2014 South Korean sex comedy Casa Amor: Exclusive for Ladies, in an attempt to contextualize representations of female sexuality within the socio-geographic discourse. At the same time, it aims to demonstrate the ways in which ideals of the third wave feminist thought are employed in order to first seemingly promote, but ultimately trivialize and discount the experience of female sexuality. Despite South Korea’s status as a technologically fast developing state, societal topics of gender and sexuality continue to be sensitive and difficult to portray in the media. This article brings to the readers’ attention the Neo-Confucian roots of this patriarchal legacy, as well as its current situation in the context of cultural and legislative taboos that are sex and pornography. In the latter part, the essay focuses on the analyses of on-screen femininity presented in Casa Amor, employing feminist concepts such as ‘girlfriend culture’ and ‘womance’. It also provides a comparative reading of the Korean feature to its original predecessor, Brazilian De Pernas Pro Ar, emphasizing the former’s transnational values and critiquing its failure to reclaim ‘the women’s gaze’.

Writing Progeny: Elisa Albert and Philip Roth

In this article, we argue for Elisa Albert’s place in the Jewish-American literary canon, not only as a result of her self-proclaimed connection to Philip Roth, but also as a result of her feminist sensibility updating the classic writing-as-procreating trope. We call for a re-valuation of Albert as a self-referential master in the tradition of Roth that has so far included all of her male peers while leaving her out—perhaps because of, or despite, her uncanny representation of female sexuality and motherhood.

Stepping Out: Representations of Female Sexuality in the Canadian Television Series Bomb Girls

This paper analyzes representations of female sexuality in the Canadian prime-time television series Bomb Girls (2012-2013), which depicts the lives of women working at a munitions factory in Toronto during the Second World War. The historical drama takes place in a period of simultaneous restraint and liberation around female gender and sexuality. This paper contends that Bomb Girls (re)constructs a narrative about female sexuality that breaks from a traditionally gendered and heteronormative story. Bomb Girls challenges dominant discourse on representations of gender in media, instead capturing the complexities around female sexual relationships and sexual orientation during the war. These threads coalesce into a narrative that paints the ‘bomb girls’ themselves as progressive symbols of female sexuality. This paper, like the series, contributes to a feminist counter-discourse focusing on the plurality of female voices and experiences and, in doing so, it pays tribute to working women on the Canadian home front during the war.

‘Taming untamed pests’: Representing female sexualities in Tiyambe Zeleza’s <i>Smouldering Charcoal</i> and James Ng’ombe’s <i>Sugarcane with Salt</i>

In this article, I explore a range of intersections between the ideological-material legacies of a dictatorial regime and representations of female sexuality in Malawian fiction. I am particularly interested in using literary narratives to examine how fiction writers explore the congruencies and disjunctures amongst outright political dictatorship and the impact on bodies and behaviours of state-inflected institutions such as ‘the family’, along with discourses such as gender, culture and religion that are commonly mobilised in the service of national identity. Focusing on Tiyambe Zeleza’s Smouldering Charcoal and James Ng’ombe’s Sugarcane with Salt, I investigate how the authors’ portrayal of female sexuality contest at the same time as they reproduce received, normative ‘truths’ about female sexualities. By focusing on female sexual agency, desire and pleasure, this article also examines class-inflected intergenerational differences between women’s conceptualisations of female sexualities as a construct that can be negotiated.

Female corporeality in the Thirdspace music videos of FKA twigs

Abstract As a technology of gender, the music video genre has consistently acted to represent women as sexually available. Patriarchal discourses have been inscribed onto the bodies of women, in an industry predominantly controlled by white, male record executives. Gendered representations are constructed by the music video technology, but are also absorbed by viewers. British singer, songwriter and dancer FKA twigs’ self-directed music videos challenge the sexualization of women. The artist offers viewers an intense bodily experience of femininity, devoid of Mulvey’s ‘male gaze’. This article argues the complex representation of the artist’s body using corporeal feminist theory and posthuman notions of the cyborg. FKA twigs’ representations of female sexuality and the cyborg are considered in three music videos. The article explores the texts as a Thirdspace, resisting and encompassing dichotomized discourses such as masculine–feminine, inside–outside, intellect–emotion, organic– artificial. The strong, permeable, cyborg body of FKA twigs occupies a Thirdspace of corporeal subjectivity resisting patriarchal discourses that suggest the female body exists to be looked at.

Women and Sexuality: Representations of Female Sexuality in Selected Zimbabwean Newspaper Stories

Women and Sexuality: Representations of Female Sexuality in Selected Zimbabwean Newspaper Stories

Angela Carter's ‘The Sadeian Woman’ and Female Desire in England 1960–1975

In The Sadeian Woman (1979) Angela Carter suggested that the visions of free female sexuality created by the Marquis de Sade in his violent pornographic novels provided insight into existing female sexualities in her own—British—society. In this article the representation of female sexuality in novels set in contemporary British society, written by women, and published between 1960 and 1975, is examined in relation to Carter's exegesis of the good, virtuous Justine and the meretricious, sexually desirous Juliette, two contrasting characters from Sade's work. The limitations of the three other alternatives present in the novels are described; containment within long-term marriage, good-hearted promiscuity; and the rejection of emotional repression. Then Carter's own solution to women's sexual inequality is placed in the context of feminism in the late 1970s, and the role of the novels in contributing to change is acknowledged.

THE COURTESAN AND THE BED: SUCCESSFUL TRICKING IN MIDDLETON'S <em>A MAD WORLD, MY MASTERS</em>

This paper argues that the courtesan and her bed are central to Middleton’s consideration of theatricality in A Mad World My Masters. The play achieves a radical representation of female sexuality through a combination of theatrical and generic innovations: in MIddleton’s attention to space and stage properties (exemplified through the bed as stage property) and through meta-theatrical playing with anti-theatrical discourses. This article thus participates in the material and spatial “turn” of recent criticism of early modern drama. Middleton’s courtesan celebrates theatrical and sexual autonomy, where both body and stage are metonymised through the physical stage property of the bed.

Sita, Surpanakha and Kaikeyi as political bodies: representations of female sexuality in idealised culture

For 40 years, Amar Chitra Katha (ACK) comics have been synonymous with the Indian comic book industry, and as such have garnered critical attention, including three books and numerous articles. In contrast, other English comics, especially those published since ACK stopped releasing new books in 1990, are the subjects of significantly less discussion. New publishers are now continuing and expanding the ACK tradition in significant ways. One major contribution to the industry is new comics based on the Ramayana, which has spawned six series/graphic novels in the last 5 years. In this essay, I will focus on Liquid (previously Virgin) Comic’s series, Ramayan 3392 AD, as one of the heirs to the ACK tradition, specifically one which maintains a perspective sympathetic to Rama. I will discuss how 3392 AD perpetuates ACK’s use of the feminine Vedic ideal while expanding into diasporic and non-Indian audiences. This expansion allows the series to capitalise on the fear of cultural loss to proscribe gendered normative behaviour. 3392 AD creates a new female archetype, the prodigal woman, and uses this category along with existing archetypes to embody a strict feminine social code and to proscribe bodily consequences for women who reject or transgress this code.

Dark Continent - Representations of Female Sexuality in Patrick White’s The Eye of the Storm

Romancier homosexuel, Patrick White montre un grand interet pour la sexualite feminine, miroir de la sienne. La sexualite, dimension fondamentale de la nature humaine aux yeux de White, est tres presente dans The Eye of the Storm. Le desir, differencie de l’amour par son egoisme, est generalement presente sous un jour negatif, mais il apporte aussi du plaisir, et ne peut etre denie malgre ses cotes repugnants. La force de la sexualite tient plus a l’imagination qu’au corps lui-meme, source de deception. Pour des raisons sociales et autres, les personnages feminins de White ont peur de leur propre desir mais n’hesitent pas a se servir du sexe pour manipuler les hommes, amants comme maris. Les transgressions sexuelles sont inevitables car le sexe revele la vraie nature des personnages. The Eye of the Storm insiste plus sur le sexe que les romans precedents de White, et s’avere ainsi transitionnel, ouvrant la voie a une exploration plus explicite de la sensualite dans les romans ulterieurs. Bien que White presente la sexualite feminine de maniere conventionnelle a certains egards, il remet aussi en question certains stereotypes : sa vision est a la fois comprehensive et critique.

Intertextual Sexual Politics: Illness and Desire in Enrique Gómez Carrillo's Del amor, del dolor y del vicio and Aurora Cáceres's La rosa muerta

This study explores the intertextuality between Aurora Cáceres's La rosa muerta (1914) and the novel Del amor, del dolor y del vicio (1898) by her ex-husband, Enrique Gómez Carrillo. Cáceres strategically mentions Gómez Carrillo's novel in La rosa muerta to invite a reading of her work in dialogue with his. Both narratives follow the sexual awakening of an independently wealthy young widow, but exhibit important differences. Gómez Carrillo's sexually transgressive character closely follows the aesthetic and discursive norms of fin de siècle literature that pathologized female desire. His fictional women are a literary and aesthetic experiment in female decadentism, one that he ultimately puts aside by marrying the characters by the end of the novel. Cáceres's narrative revises Gómez Carrillo's representations of female sexuality and modernista representations of women more broadly. I analyze Cáceres's writing of the female body, illness, and desire to demonstrate the ways in which Cáceres simultaneously critiques misogynistic discourses of the turn of the century and presents positive and realistic images of women's sexuality for future generations of women. La rosa muerta is a modernista novel that anticipates the emboldened attitude toward female eroticism and the provocative writing style of women writers of the avant-garde and the boom.

Striving for Pleasure Without Fear

Contemporary women’s magazines are replete with scripts about sexual relationships and sexual roles for women. Our study used an experimental design to assess whether short-term exposure to a women’s magazine affected young women’s endorsement of sexual scripts commonly found in this genre, including scripts framing sexual intercourse as risky and portraying women’s sexual assertiveness as serving men’s sexual fantasies or women’s own sexual desires. Undergraduate women ( N = 160) were randomly assigned in groups to read articles either depicting scripts about sexual relationships in a popular women’s magazine (experimental) or containing no scripts about sexual relationships in a general entertainment magazine (control). Compared to women in the control group, women who were briefly exposed to a women’s magazine were less likely to believe that sexual intercourse is a risky activity and more likely to believe that women should be assertive in prioritizing their sexual desire for their own sake, but not for a male partner’s. Individual and cultural differences in women’s acceptance of magazines’ sexual scripts also emerged based on factors such as regular frequency of magazine reading, level of sexual experience, and ethnic background. Our results suggest that the complex and sometimes conflicting representations of female sexuality proliferating in the mass media and popular culture could potentially have both empowering and problematic effects on women’s developing sexual identities.

Sexuality, Marriage and Women’s Life Narratives in Teresa Deevy’s: A Disciple (1931), The King of Spain’s Daughter (1935) and Katie Roche (1936)

Teresa Deevy (1894-1963) is an Irish playwright who has received increased critical attention in recent years. Deevy wrote some twenty-five plays between 1930 and 1958, and she can be positioned within the post-revolutionary trend of disillusionment articulated by Irish writers such as Frank O’Connor and Liam O’Flaherty. However, Deevy’s work deviates from these writers with her striking emphasis on women’s oppression within Irish society. This essay examines three of Deevy’s plays: A Disciple (1931), The King of Spain’s Daughter (1935) and Katie Roche (1936). These plays were challenging at a time when the state was rolling back on much of the emancipatory promise of the revolutionary period and when successive Pastoral Letters castigated the immodest behaviour of young Irish women. Of particular interest and note are Deevy’s stage directions, her use of naturalism and her representations of female sexuality. Through her plays, Teresa Deevy was highlighting the shadow side of state nationalism’s rural idylls and Arcadian visions.

Veiled Representations

This article argues that the political divide between Islamists and secularists is what shapes and manipulates the representation of female sexuality in Turkish media. As manifested in the 2007 post-election debate surrounding veiled women and the g-string, Turkish media have been incapable of reconciling a traditionally western signifier (the g-string) with a quintessential Islamic sartorial symbol (the veil). This alleged irreconcilability of the two symbols in Turkish print media thus indicates, on the one hand, the already existing ideological rift in Turkish society between secularists versus Islamists, but more problematically, it is what alienates the female body from itself, denying it an autoerotic sexuality, and making it the site of bio-political battle.

La transmission du VIH / sida : Risques et sentiments parmi des bisexuelles de Montréal

Denise Medico, Joseph J. Lévy & Joanne Otis Transmitting HIV / AIDS : risks and feelings among the bisexual community in Montréal This article off ers a description of differential representations of risk in the face of HIV in a sample of bisexual women living in Montréal. In-depth interviews were carried out with 18 women aged 18 to 40 with bisexual behaviours and/or identifying themselves with such behaviour. The analysis of the data indicates that the perception of risk and protection practices depend mainly on the gender of the partners. In relations between women, an absence of perceived risk and safety behaviour is observed. These practices are centred on two representations. The first refers to the social function of sexuality and how it is controlled in relationships between women where HIV is perceived as being external to the group and where the sexuality of other women is controlled. Secondly, representations of female sexuality which are specific, external and self-merging, and which contribute to creating a feeling of immunity in sexual relationships between women. In the context of sexuality with men, the risk of transmission is generally referred to. However, the use of protection seems to depend mainly on aff ective, symbolic and relational referents. The results indicate that the build-up of risks does not only follow cognitive referents but calls into play aff ective and erotic dimensions which must be taken into account more fully in interventions.

Sound Clash: Jamaican Dancehall Culture at Large

Introduction: Word, Sound & Power Border Clash: Sites of Contestation Slackness Personified: Representations of Female Sexuality in the Lyrics of Bob Marley and Shabba Ranks Lady Saw Cuts Loose: Female Fertility Rituals in the Dancehall 'Mama, is That You?': Erotic Disguise in the Films Dancehall Queen and Babymother 'Lyrical Gun': Metaphor and Role-Play in Dancehall Culture 'More Fire': Chanting Down Babylon from Bob Marley to Capleton 'Vile Vocals': Exporting Jamaican Dancehall Lyrics to Barbados Hip-Hopping Across Cultures: Reggae to Rap and Back Mix up the Indian with all the Patwa: Rajamuffin Sounds in Cool Britannia The Dancehall Transnation: Language, Literature and Global Jamaica

Representation of Female Sexuality in the Ayurvedic Discourse of the Early Medieval Period

This article explores the representation of female sexuality as depicted in the ayurvedic discourse of the early medieval period, and shows how this representation was a gendered one. Within this discourse, women were marginalized, if not altogether excluded. The woman's body, in health and pleasure, had no autonomy of expression and was dependent on the male guardian/physician for its manifestation. The only depiction of the female body framed within this male discourse is what was of significance to men. Thus, the only occasion when women's diseases are discussed is in the context of the uterus (grabhavyāpata) and genital tract (yonivyāpata), and the men's concern for it is not because of women's health per se, but because a healthy uterus was crucial for child-birth. This asymmetry between the concerns for men's and women's health is also reflected in dealing with the old age of the two sexes. The virilification therapy (vājikaraṇa) as discussed in ayurvedic texts focuses solely on men; in contrast, the woman's menopausal stage is completely ignored. An analysis of the ayurvedic discourse, thus, leads us to draw the conclusion that under patriarchy expropriation of female sexuality for the use of others defined the ‘sex woman’.