sexuality | ZETEO

Distancing / Awareness

November 4, 2014 by William Eaton

How scholarly work could be more informative and integrated, and what a challenge this is! By William Eaton {Note: The following text was prepared to be delivered at the 2014 annual conference of the Association of Graduate Liberal Studies Programs, the theme of which was “Revolutions: Past, Present, and Future.” It has been revised for print publication. It is also one in Zeteo‘s Fall 2014 series of pieces related to borders.} The Personal, The Political, and The Intellectual Zeteo takes a […]

Categories: Essay, Fall 2014 Issue • Tags: Alfred Kinsey, homosexuality, Jean-Luc Godard, male gaze, movies, revolution, science, sexuality

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At least — ’tis Mutual — Risk —

July 13, 2014 by William Eaton

[print_link] [email_link] With marriage women and men had to—or have to—adjust to life with a person who is, in essence, a member of an alien group? My interest in Emily Dickinson has led me to another classic academic paper, Carroll Smith-Rosenberg’s “The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations between Women in Nineteenth-Century,” originally published in the journal Signs in 1975. Reproduced below are two of the concluding paragraphs of the piece, which is based on the correspondence and diaries of women and men […]

Categories: William Eaton, ZiR • Tags: Emily Dickinson, marriage, nineteenth century, sexual difference, sexuality, twentieth century

Changing the plot: victims of incest

June 30, 2014 by Alexia Raynal

For those of us who grew up with the Disney characters, artist Saint Hoax’s “Princest Diaries” series might be extremely off-putting. In an effort to create sexual assault awareness (or else, to re-write history based on visual lies), the Middle Eastern artist shows Disney’s princesses being forced to kiss their fathers. The disturbing images use the corruption of a somewhat common childhood fantasy—being a princess—to bring light to the true horror of domestic sexual abuse: a majority of child victims are assaulted by family […]

Categories: Alexia Raynal, ZiR • Tags: art, childhood, children, rape, sexuality

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On Nakedness and Awkwardness

June 29, 2014 by William Eaton

Toward the end of his seminal chapter on the objectification of women in European painting, in Ways of Seeing (1972), John Berger discusses an exception to the rule: Rubens portrait of his second wife, Hélène Fourment: We see her in the act of turning, her fur about to slip off her shoulders. Clearly she will not remain as she is for more than a second. In a superficial sense her image is as instantaneous as a photograph’s. But, in a more […]

Categories: William Eaton, ZiR • Tags: art, male gaze, narrative, Rubens, sexuality, women

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Revisiting the problem with protecting the innocent

June 23, 2014 by Alexia Raynal

Last winter I quoted, inspired by the sexual undertone in Balthus’s paintings of children at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, an article about the negative consequences of equating childhood with innocence. In “Who Are You Kidding? Children, Power, and the Struggle Against Sex Abuse,” Jenny Kitzinger criticizes people’s tendency to describe childhood as an innocent time and space for at least two reasons: [1] If defiling the pure and deflowering the virgin is supposed to be erotic, then focusing […]

Categories: Alexia Raynal, ZiR • Tags: Balthus, child prostitution, childhood, children, immigrant children, innocence, sexuality

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Esthéthique de l’éjaculation

June 15, 2014 by William Eaton

A trip down memory lane, we could call this post. On an impulse-buy counter in a French bookstore I see a little yellow book with this title in neon pink letters: Esthéthique de l’éjaculation (the aesthetics of ejaculation). Fifty pages, used copy, on sale for less than four euros, hard to resist (though some might say of a book with such a title, Better not to buy secondhand). It turned out to be quite a good book, by one Antonio […]

Categories: William Eaton, ZiR • Tags: advertising, Aquinas, Catholic Church, masturbation, Middle Ages, pornography, sexuality, sin

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Tips for Sex Therapy?

March 1, 2014 by William Eaton

Since I’ve made my living slinging drinks at a bar for years now, I have found the most interesting ways to slip commentary about gender and sexuality, topics I enjoy discussing, into an evening of martinis and well whiskey. Despite the many taboos associated with these topics, most bar patrons are surprisingly eager to share their opinions, whether on the ethics of pornography, or perspectives on monogamy. After the year that it took me to write my thesis, all of […]

Categories: Caterina Gironda, ZiR • Tags: sexuality

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The “P” Word: Final Reflections (V)

February 24, 2014 by Alexia Raynal

Mediated Pornography: Final Reflections (V) You don’t get to read much about Margaret Grebowicz’s personal stand on pornography in her book Why Internet Porn Matters. A committed philosopher herself, Grebowicz prefers to sit at the margins of the discussion and bring different perspectives into conflict. Her last chapter, “Pornography, Norms, and Sex Education,” is perhaps the only one to feature a strong personal and political view. In it, Grebowicz asks whether Internet pornography might, in fact, have a didactic impact: One significant […]

Categories: Alexia Raynal, ZiR • Tags: education, gender, law, philosophy, pornography, sexuality, technology

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Bystander Intervention

February 22, 2014 by William Eaton

Changing the Culture Around Sex and Alcohol Michael Winerip’s article “Stepping Up to Stop Sexual Assault” was featured in the New York Times Education Life insert on February 9. It should come as no surprise to hear talk of rape and sexual assault on college campuses, as they have been abuzz with such talk for the past year, and it has been on the tongues of many a politician recently. I personally, at the nudging of a colleague, have been […]

Categories: Caterina Gironda, ZiR • Tags: drinking, New York Times, rape, sexuality, youth