'Monsters are they in Nature': Female Masturbation and Constructions of Femininity in the Early Eighteenth Century England.
Serious alarm about female masturbation first emerged during a transitional period for beliefs on female sexuality. This article examines the gender history of masturbation through the shifting constructions of femininity at work in early anti‐masturbation discourse. While the founding work of the a...
| Publicado en: | Gender & History Vol. 35; no. 2; pp. 452 - 472 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Wiley-Blackwell
Jul2023
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=164701499&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 164701499 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 09535233 BPJ jtl: Gender & History issn: 09535233 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Jul2023 vid: 35 iid: 2 pid: 480 pub: Wiley-Blackwell artinfo: ui: 164701499 10.1111/1468-0424.12594 ppf: 452 ppct: 20 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 205KB tig: atl: 'Monsters are they in Nature': Female Masturbation and Constructions of Femininity in the Early Eighteenth Century England. aug: au: Schlappa, Elizabeth affil: History, Classics and Archaeology, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, su: Female masturbation Femininity British history, 1714-1837 Social conditions of women Social conditions in Great Britain Human sexuality & society sug: subj: Female masturbation Femininity British history, 1714-1837 Social conditions of women Social conditions in Great Britain Human sexuality & society ab: Serious alarm about female masturbation first emerged during a transitional period for beliefs on female sexuality. This article examines the gender history of masturbation through the shifting constructions of femininity at work in early anti‐masturbation discourse. While the founding work of the anti‐masturbation campaign (Onania, 1716) portrayed female autoeroticism as a significant concern, existing scholarship pays limited attention to how anti‐masturbation sentiment interacted with early modern femininities. This article explores this conflicted relationship in the early years of the movement, with a comparative analysis of how Onania and one of its most vocal critics portrayed female masturbation. Onania, which stemmed from a traditional paradigm of negative femininity, regarded all women as innately lustful and likely to masturbate. Onania Examined, and Detected, a critical tract embracing the increasingly dominant paradigm of positive femininity, denounced these claims as an unacceptable slur on female virtue. Nevertheless, its characterisation of the female masturbator reveals the continuing influence of traditional misogyny, with negative femininity repurposed as a deviation from a naturalised virtuous norm. This close analysis of early anti‐masturbation discourse reveals the cultural process of navigating a transitional phase in the construction of gender, which addressed old anxieties by incorporating them into a new paradigm. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Gender & History is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Gender & History holder: Wiley-Blackwell dt: @attributes: year: 2023 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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