Sex and Pleasure in Western Culture

Sex and Pleasure in Western Culture PDF Author: Gail Hawkes
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 9780745616711
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Sex and Pleasure in Western Culture provides the first comprehensive overview of desire and pleasure in western sexual culture. It argues that both have always been seen as socially disruptive and morally dangerous and offers an entertaining account of the methods by which these attributes of sex were managed across the centuries from Classical Antiquity to the present day. The book develops the hypothesis that, while expressed in very different social contexts, sexual pleasure has evoked very similar anxieties. The text draws on historical, cultural, sociological and contemporary sources and is easily accessible for both the general reader and students of gender and sexual culture. In addition to telling a story of its own, Sex and Pleasure in Western Culture examines lesser-known aspects of sexual history that invite further exploration by the interested reader. These range from sexual aestheticism in the 4th century AD and the sexual meaning of medieval church gargoyles, through to sexual training in the 1950s and 21st century sex holidays. The book will provide a compelling read for both students of sexuality and lay readers who find the complexities of human sexuality a source of fascination.

Sex and Pleasure in Western Culture

Sex and Pleasure in Western Culture PDF Author: Gail Hawkes
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 9780745616711
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book

Book Description
Sex and Pleasure in Western Culture provides the first comprehensive overview of desire and pleasure in western sexual culture. It argues that both have always been seen as socially disruptive and morally dangerous and offers an entertaining account of the methods by which these attributes of sex were managed across the centuries from Classical Antiquity to the present day. The book develops the hypothesis that, while expressed in very different social contexts, sexual pleasure has evoked very similar anxieties. The text draws on historical, cultural, sociological and contemporary sources and is easily accessible for both the general reader and students of gender and sexual culture. In addition to telling a story of its own, Sex and Pleasure in Western Culture examines lesser-known aspects of sexual history that invite further exploration by the interested reader. These range from sexual aestheticism in the 4th century AD and the sexual meaning of medieval church gargoyles, through to sexual training in the 1950s and 21st century sex holidays. The book will provide a compelling read for both students of sexuality and lay readers who find the complexities of human sexuality a source of fascination.

Sexuality and Modern Western Culture

Sexuality and Modern Western Culture PDF Author: Carolyn Janice Dean
Publisher: Macmillan Reference USA
ISBN:
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description
In this study, Carolyn J. Dean focuses on the transformation of sexuality and its changing role in gender relations, politics, and culture. In Dean's view, a history of sexuality, by necessity, is a history of the changing relationship between sex and gender - that is, between our anatomy and our cultural expectations of what it means to be a man or woman. Dean examines how turn-of-the-century concerns about deviant sexual behavior and the changing role of women in society led to a radical restructuring of sex-gender connections in the early part of the 20th century. Her review of debates on pornography, obscenity, homosexuality, and the role of women demonstrates how many of the pressing issues from the beginning of this century continue to haunt us at its end. Sexuality and Modern Western Culture makes a significant contribution to the nascent field of sexuality studies, bringing an innovative feminist approach to the current discussion of the body and the modern self. Dean's study is clear, concise, and comprehensive. It combines empirical research, theoretical sophistication, and historiographical contextualization, showing how cultural and intellectual history can be combined to illuminate an important and complex topic of pressing moral, political, and aesthetic concern.

Mainstreaming Sex

Mainstreaming Sex PDF Author: Feona Attwood
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 085771452X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
From cyber porn to striptease culture, this trailblaising book uncovers the shockingly fascinating new ways that western society is being sexualized. We don't realise how far the 'pornogrification' of culture has reached - this book does and discusses it graphically but responsibly. Media interest in this subject is huge."Mainstreaming Sex" uncovers the significant impact, hitherto only half glimpsed, that striptease culture is having on our media, relationships, educational and working lives. It is a welcome and much needed book.Western culture is exhibiting its fascination with sex in new, often surprising ways. Pole dancing is a form of keep fit, porn stars find work as agony aunts, pornography itself is just 'a mouse click away', and phone sex, email affairs and cybersex are now part of our everyday lives. This sexualization of modern culture is the subject widely discussed here.In original chapters, the contributors confront the reality that in all aspects of social and cultural life, sex is being 'mainstreamed'. They explore film, print and online pornographies; representations of masturbation in film and television, supersexualized advertising, and problem page sex. They also examine young people's views of sex in mainstream media; women's use of sexual media in the home; and, pole dancing as exercise and performance and third wave feminism and the sexualization debate.

Mainstreaming Sex

Mainstreaming Sex PDF Author: Feona Attwood
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0857731726
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
From cyber porn to striptease culture, this trailblaising book uncovers the shockingly fascinating new ways that western society is being sexualized. We don't realise how far the 'pornogrification' of culture has reached - this book does and discusses it graphically but responsibly. Media interest in this subject is huge."Mainstreaming Sex" uncovers the significant impact, hitherto only half glimpsed, that striptease culture is having on our media, relationships, educational and working lives. It is a welcome and much needed book.Western culture is exhibiting its fascination with sex in new, often surprising ways. Pole dancing is a form of keep fit, porn stars find work as agony aunts, pornography itself is just 'a mouse click away', and phone sex, email affairs and cybersex are now part of our everyday lives. This sexualization of modern culture is the subject widely discussed here.In original chapters, the contributors confront the reality that in all aspects of social and cultural life, sex is being 'mainstreamed'. They explore film, print and online pornographies; representations of masturbation in film and television, supersexualized advertising, and problem page sex. They also examine young people's views of sex in mainstream media; women's use of sexual media in the home; and, pole dancing as exercise and performance and third wave feminism and the sexualization debate.

The East, the West, and Sex

The East, the West, and Sex PDF Author: Richard Bernstein
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0375713891
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
In this wide-ranging history, Richard Bernstein explores the connection between sex and power as it has played out between Eastern cultures and the Western explorers, merchants, and conquerors who have visited them. This illuminating book describes the historical and ongoing encounter between these travelers and the morally ambiguous opportunities they found in foreign lands. Bernstein’s narrative teems with real figures, from Marco Polo and his investigation into the harem of Kublai Khan; the nineteenth-century American missionary Isabella Thoburn and her efforts to stamp out the “sinfulness” of the Mughal culture of India; Gustave Flaubert and his dalliances with Egyptian prostitutes; to modern-day sex tourists in Southeast Asia, as well as the women that they both exploit and enrich. Provocative and insightful, The East, The West, and Sex is a lucid look at a pervasive and yet mostly ignored subject.

Orgasmic Bodies

Orgasmic Bodies PDF Author: Hannah Frith
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137304375
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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Book Description
Orgasmic Bodies explores how bodily experiences of orgasm are worked up as present/absent, complicated/straightforward, too slow/too fast, fake or real, in the doing of masculinities and femininities. Engaging with both science and popular culture it examines the meanings given to orgasmic bodies in contemporary heterosex.

Orgasm and the West

Orgasm and the West PDF Author: Robert Muchembled
Publisher: Polity
ISBN: 0745638767
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description
Can the orgasm be explained in historical terms? Robert Muchembled's book unearths fascinating sources which suggest that we need to look with a fresh eye at the past and realize that the sublimation of the erotic impulse was far more than simple religious ascetism - it was the hidden driving force of the West until the 1960s.

Sex and Culture

Sex and Culture PDF Author: Joseph Daniel Unwin
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 700

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Book Description


The Cultural Context of Sexual Pleasure and Problems

The Cultural Context of Sexual Pleasure and Problems PDF Author: Cynthia A. Graham
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 041599845X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 414

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Book Description
Using case material presented by distinguished authorities in the fields of psychotherapy, sex therapy, couples therapy and family therapy, this edited book addresses issues in sexuality that are often raised in psychotherapy (individual, marital and family therapy) across diverse cultures.

Sex and Virtue

Sex and Virtue PDF Author: John S. Grabowski
Publisher: Catholic University of America Press + ORM
ISBN: 081322053X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
“Grabowski offers a compelling rationale for the virtue of chastity that takes into account the sensibilities and challenges of the contemporary world” (Raymond Dennehy, Professor Emeritus, University of San Francisco). “A welcome addition to an often contentious literature,” Sex and Virtue provides a theological foundation for consideration of the moral dimensions of human sexuality from a Roman Catholic perspective (Catholic Books Review). In the hope of contributing to the ongoing renewal of moral theology sparked by the Second Vatican Council, John S. Grabowski discusses the systemic application of biblical and virtue-based categories on the topic of sexuality. A number of issues are examined including: the historical setting regarding attitudes and practices concerning sexuality; key biblical, historical, and contemporary resources for articulating a virtue-based approach to sexual ethics; current issues with which such an approach must wrestle; and some description of how to foster growth in moral virtue, particularly chastity. Ultimately, Sex and Virtue offers a compelling vision of human sexuality in the light of Christian faith that can provide a viable alternative to dominant cultural ideologies that trivialize sex and concrete practices that can enable growth in moral freedom. “Sex and Virtue is a splendid result of Grabowski’s response to the call of Vatican II to find scriptural support for Catholic moral teaching. The ecumenical potential of this book is tremendous; Christians can only marvel at the resources in scripture for establishing sexual morality—a morality that puts sexuality in service of love, life, and salvation.” —Janet E. Smith, former professor of moral theology, Sacred Heart Major Seminary of Detroit