Reading Sex in the Eighteenth Century: Bodies and Gender in English Erotic Culture

Two sections - Chapter 3 on "Female Bodies" and Chapter 5 on "Space" challenge conventional wisdom that there was a shift toward imagining women as passionless and sex as increasingly phallocentric during the eighteenth century. Insisting instead on diversity in past ideas about...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Scriblerian and the Kit-Cats 2006, Vol.38 (2), p.331
Main Author: Breashears, Caroline
Format: Review
Language:English
Subjects:
English
Language history
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Two sections - Chapter 3 on "Female Bodies" and Chapter 5 on "Space" challenge conventional wisdom that there was a shift toward imagining women as passionless and sex as increasingly phallocentric during the eighteenth century. Insisting instead on diversity in past ideas about bodies, Ms. Harvey also shows that in erotica, women are thoroughly sexualized, sex is "drenched in femininity," and female bodies are associated with a sexualized space that men visit. Incisive, persuasive, and refreshingly lucid, Reading Sex in the Eighteenth Century will be essential reading for anyone interested in erotica, masculinity, and women's history in the eighteenth century.
ISSN:0190-731X