Jane Austen, sexual tension or just pornography.
September 30th 2006 05:42
Naughty Jane
Pornography may have made its official appearance in 1857 but sexual tension and graphic depictions of sexual acts came first by a long chalk. Pornography is ubiquitous in every culture, the mosaics in Pompeii, the sculptures of India It seems that sexual arousal manifests itself differently in males and females but what is so little appreciated is that, whereas males “like to watch”, the female is just as sexually aroused by the “sexual tension” of the romantic novel. The term is attributed to Freud but a clear citation is missing.. For women sexual tension is sex.
"The Divine Marquis"
I realized this when I was talking to a man who owned an outback service station. Poised over the pump, the owner told me of his sexual frustration and the fact that it had been years since his wife had consented to have sex with him. Sex seemed to be taking place but perhaps without an element of consent. He told me how he had discovered that she became so sexually aroused when reading romantic novels that she produced copious quantities of fluid and he had even caught her masturbating to a Barbara Cartland equivalent.
Jane Austen not only shared contemporary space with de Sade but the Pride and Prejudice of female England was the Justine of male France. It is not appreciated today how much the works of men like de Sade were read in Revolutionary France but the enthusiasm with which his works were received led to him being described as the “divine marquis”. He continues to inspire awe and even movies, though of a poor quality. One awaits with interest a decent treatment of this strange man. Perhaps Murat/Sade comes close.
For those who have the stomach for it, the writings of de Sade must say something about something, though beyond the scope of this current offering. Priests sodomise young penitents, babies are torn or aborted from pregnant abdomens and used as marionette backdrops to orgies of an almost incidental kind. To describe de Sade as mere pornography may be to demean pornography. Perhaps all it shared with this genre in the 19th Century was exceptional popularity, sold under street stalls while lurid details of Marie Antoinette’s alleged lesbian affair with the Princess de Lambelles was sold on the top. It also says something about the French Revolution.
It is also little appreciated that the little secretary clutching her banal novel and the at home mother counting the hours until the appearance of a favourite soap are no less depraved than the office Johnny sneaking a little free voyeuristic sex on the office computer . Were a suitable diagnostic device to be attached to the genitals of these parties, vascular readings would be equivalent. What is permitted and encouraged in one is prohibited in another though this may not be fair.
For the male to understand the breathless response of his female acquaintances to certain sentimental television shows, he should think from a perspective a little closer to his groin. So while men may wait to see what eventually happens between Liz and Darcy in the bedroom, the ladies already have got their rocks off.
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Comment by K.L. Almeroth
Motherhood
To Juan,
Look, I can't help but read this post and feel you are attacking romance novels...
Which means I must comment, since they centre in my world!
I don't feel a woman reading a romance novel is in anyway the equivalent to a man checking out pornography on his computer...I think sexual tension, found in a romance novel, and naked images of women, are two totally different things...
A woman falls in love with words, yes, and a man, well, you know...if we're going to be sexist here!
A book is not pornography in my view, particularly not a romance book.
K.L.
Oh, and I'm a house mother, and I do not count down the hours till the next soap...maybe to 'Bones,' on Thursday nights, but not to day time tv.
Comment by spain01
Juan Carlos
spain again
While your'e about it
Viva l'difference
Fire News Blog
Cities dying of thirst.
Comment by K.L. Almeroth
Motherhood
To Juan,
I can see what you're saying...and, funnily enough, I don't have a problem with men looking up pornography if that's what toots their horn.
I just don't feel its in the same vein as reading a romance novel....there is a place in the reading world for romance....a big place! And, in my view, there' s nothing wrong with reading them....
And I like my Western world...I cannot understand the notion that my watching 'Bones' is depraved...that women wanting romance is depraved.
I live in my own little world, where judgemental views just don't exist...at least, not in the same way as you're saying some people would regard my reading and tv viewing...
K.L.