'Odd Women' Comments

I was most surprised by the claim that women could be 'asexual' as women are the ones who give birth to all that are living now (maybe that will change in the future...) . Sex leads to pregnancy, which leads to babies. Thus, sex is necessary and women are of course sexual (as are men). But then the question comes up, what is 'sexual'? On wikipedia, Human sexual behavior or human sexual practices or human sexual activities refers to the manner in which humans experience and express their sexuality. It encompass a wide range of activities such as strategies to find or attract partners (mating and display behaviour), interactions between individuals, physical or emotional intimacy, and sexual contact. According to this definition, gender of the parties is not important. However, I would imagine that prior definitions were just male-female interactions.

So yes, we have progressed. In Elaine Showalter's "Odd Women" chapter, masturbation is never discussed as a sexual alternative to marriage or celibacy. I tried to find when masturbation became publically talked about, but first found this:
London had a Masturbate-a-thon in 2006, where there was an exhibition of public masturbation
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/1328
ha! It is even acceptable to respond 'yes' to questions about whether you masturbate (81% of guys said they started masturbating between ages 10-15, and 55% of gals said so). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masturbation
But based on that data, one can see that it is still not totally acceptable for women to be 'sexual' beings. I thought the ultimate feminist would be having lots of sex (not being celibate, but doing what guys can do and women 'can't'), but the class seemed to have a different opinion. I thought the class' opinion might have been something along the lines of having a moderate amount of sex with one partner (of their choosing, so male/female) and being independent in terms of finances, thought, decisions, and feeling of self worth. The next step could be making it acceptable to have multiple committed sexual relationships (potentially male and female), which can be called polyamory.

The text also mentioned The Labouchere Amendment, which I looked up. It was passed in England in 1885, and it does not mention lesbianism. I was interested to see what the law was which convicted Wilde, since we talked about that in class when we read his book.

The section read: "Any male person who, in public or private, commits, or is a party to the commission of, or procures, or attempts to procure the commission by any male person of, any act of gross indecency shall be guilty of a misdemeanour, and being convicted shall be liable at the discretion of the Court to be imprisoned for any term not exceeding two years, with or without hard labour."

As a result of the vagueness of the term "gross indecency," this law allowed juries, judges and lawyers to prosecute virtually any male homosexual behaviour. Compared to older sodomy laws that prescribed death or life imprisonment, the law was lenient, possibly due to the wide range of acts covered. Dubbed the "blackmailer's charter," it was famously invoked to convict Oscar Wilde in 1895. Wilde was given the most severe sentence possible under the act, which the judge described as "totally inadequate for a case such as this"^[2]. The law was repealed in part by the Sexual Offences Act 1967 when homosexuality was decriminalized in England and Wales, with remaining provisions being deleted later.

Postmodernism, Psychoanalysis

It seems like we are still in a phase of postmodernism, especially when considering the third stage of Baudrillard's achievement of emptiness. This seems to be very similar to what is shown in the "Dove Evolution" video, which shows the severe manipulation of a woman into what is considered 'beautiful.' She is made up by professionals, then altered by a computer so that there is no way that any human would ever look like she did; there is no way that anyone could be beautiful. Thus, we are striving for an unreachable ideal and feeling inadequate for no reason. Also, I was super impressed by the work that cooks like Bulli are doing with 'molecular gastrology,' in a sense blending art and science and demonstrating the high position of living we have attained in many places, such that we can do ridiculous experiments with food. However, it also shows the disregard we have for our neighbors because it seems like our resources could be better used to get basic needs met for those without than to experiment with food. We are efficient, compartmentalized, and postmodern.
Psychoanalysis by Lacan interests me because I have never heard of it before. Freud seems to take up the light, but Lacan takes Freud's works further. Lacan connects the structure of language, in essence our structure of thinking, into the unconscious. It is true that we are programmed to think in many respects based on language. If there is not some word used to describe how we are feeling, we have a hard time describing it.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

As I finished The Picture of Dorian Gray, I noticed that the last few chapters had a lot of short phrases of dialogue between characters. The structure built up a sort of tension, a urgency that kept the reader on their toes, as Dorian was becoming more and more troubled. There was a certain understanding that the story had to end in death as it became a more central topic and the short phrases ensued. Harry's acceptance of the terrible world ended up contrasting with Dorian who could no longer accept the world in which he was living and the person he had become. Overall, I enjoyed reading the book very much even though it had far too many witty phrases to remember. The obsession with youth and beauty was carried out well throughout the book, and the last scene brought a beautiful end when Dorian was now old in appearance because his soul was gone, which had been what had been sold to the devil and keeping him young looking. It was interesting to note that it was said that Dorian stabbed the picture with the knife, but ended up dying himself, meaning that he had become the picture in his mind or switched places with the picture.

Structuralism v. Liberal Humanism

Liberal humanism's idea of studying only the words on the page is an impossible way to study literature. How can one just look at words and achieve meaning? The meaning given to words is what makes them useful. Words have many contexts in which they are interpreted, which is unavoidable and necessary. In order to gain a general idea of the meaning of a piece, all possible interpretations should be considered.

Structuralism is the opposite extreme of liberal humanism, where everything is contextual and relational. I do not believe that one needs to compare opposites to achieve meaning, although it can make it easier for the reader to understand exactly what kind of relationship or specific aspect is important in the context.